John Drake

It was just 12 years ago when I first got here. You could walk into the embassy any time, without an appointment. Make a mistake and you could dash outside to get whatever you needed and come back a bit later. Also preferred to submit documents for a new passport in person and pick up the passport in person. Won't go into the income letter for retirement and how we were contemptuously discarded.

By late August everyone will be going ape shxt.

Looks like a young fogey. He already has jowls.

Both parties have backed themselves into a corner. Pelosi/Biden looks weak if she doesn't go. And, now, Xi looks even weaker if he doesn't significantly respond.

She is going. Word out of Taiwan.

When I taught at Mahidol, I met a taxi driver who had two daughters graduate from MU. One was a teacher and the other an engineer. Right now, my housekeeper is working three jobs to help prepare and put her grandson through college.

Only two of the original bridge crew left (Chekov came a season into the show) and they both hate each other.

Taking Taiwan off the public itinerary is a bad enough sign of weakness. To then turn around and try to sneak in and sneak out, because you're afraid of China, would be even worse. And of course to cancel Taiwan entirely would be surrender.

Valdez is coming.

Biden numbers could crater even more if this press release from Pelosi is reflective of canceling the trip to Taiwan, which is now not mentioned as part of the itinerary. It would be perceived as a Suez moment, where China told the US to get out of Asia and Biden, Pelosi, and the congress tipped their cap and said, "yes, sir," to Xi.

People are complaining everywhere about foreigners buying property or moving in and driving up prices, while destroying the existing communities. Here, in this story, funny enough, are Mexicans complaining about Americans moving into Mexico City. Thailand will be no different at all. Same forces at work. Personally, I don't want Thailand to turn into some freak version of millennial hipsters' doing their digital nomad thing with their view of an American paradise transplanted to Asia. Do not allow foreigners to own property.

By now, this guy could be on vacation in Thailand.

Gue$$.

Criminal culture.

It's the microplastics in the water.

Go out 8 times for $1000 in the US seems like peanuts these days. Unless they were eating burritos, dinner alone is going to range from $60 to $100 per person. This is why Thailand is better.

Tens of thousands of digital potheads? I prefer the Chinese.

Waikiki not on the list, Venice Beach and Panama Beach are?

Venice Beach: Squalor by the Sea. https://www.city-journal.org/homelessness-and-rv-fires-have-overrun-venice-beach-california

You're a little too sensitive about these things. To put you at ease, I was referring to the committee. I don't make personal attacks. Or at least I try to avoid them.

Pathetic.

Depends on the state. In Texas, for example, they cannot.

No. The committee just wants to order them from China instead.

I just want my social security check and retirement annuity. Other than that, I don't care what they do.

And you pay them for those privileges.