John Drake

Japan is one of the most hygienic societies in the world. If it can happen there . . . .

Here is a source for the video. It's really very funny. Trump has shafted his voters on the one issue he had a clear cut advantage over Biden with. What an absolute idiot.

Trump is going one better than Biden. He's offering green cards to every non-citizen who graduates from a college, including two year colleges. Any degree. Yep, Trump is not even waiting until elected to betray his own base. I took a look into the Trump sites and Trump influencers on Twitter/X. They're denying he said it, even though there is a video of the podcast, which I would post here, but I'm not sure it's allowed. Trump making Biden look like a piker when it comes to opening the immigration floodgates.

Once this is over and Putin is defeated, there need to be some repercussions for siding with the invaders.

Could there be another lock down, lock out in Thailand? I admit I liked living in Thailand during Covid. Fewer people, less air pollution, easier to get around. Anyway, I've still got masks, hand cleaner, and Fah Talai Jone in stock.

No, what I meant is what I wrote.

All I can do is make judgments based on my individual encounters. And they are uniformly and without exception negative. Unlike, I might add, formal and informal encounters with PRC Chinese, many of whom have been quite nice and engaging. With the Russians, it amounts to them blocking the escalators rather than stepping aside once they get off, pushing and shoving on the BTS, pounding on restaurant tables, breaking in line and shoving their friends in front of you, giving hostile stare downs to others when monopolizing a space, crowding on to elevators, pestering sales clerks, etc. I've not had or seen one single positive encounter with them. Of course, I don't give them questionnaires to discover what their attitude is towards political or social topics. Maybe underneath all the hostility and aggression they're all like Albert Schweitzer. But I doubt it. And I'm only interested in avoiding them, not saying hello how are you.

So two separate terminals miles apart? That's going to be like Kuala Lumpur where I've twice been dropped at the wrong terminal.

And just in case you're wondering if the US Embassy had a statement or a comment or something, no, the ambassador is too busy with a cheese lunch. And California cheese at that. Were I from Wisconsin, I might be wondering what the hell . . . https://x.com/USAmbThailand/status/1803600952974516607

How about marriage equality for foreign men married to Thai women? Make it the same as for foreign women married to Thai men. Are these gay marriages going to be treated like foreign women marrying Thai men or foreign men marrying Thai women? https://www.thaicitizenship.com/thai-citizenship-based-on-marriage-to-a-thai-husband/

In other words, Thailand is the tallest midget.

Well, yes, I think some of what you say is correct. I've said before on these forums that Vietnam has snookered the US. Vietnam was never, could never, replace China with the US. Ideologically, they are both still communist. And with the new Vietnamese hardliners who came to power on an anti-corruption campaign (just like Xi), it should be obvious which way they will go. If that is not enough, there is the simple fact that China controls the Mekong River and holds ultimate control over Vietnam. US foreign policy is delusional if it thinks it ever had a chance of bringing Vietnam over to its side.

It's not just China. It's also Vietnam. Putin is going there for a state visit this week. I've made mention in several topics of the slow moving coup in Vietnam that recently ousted the so-called reformers and put in place hardline, pro-China generals. Now, the wider effect is being seen. The US and Europe needs to withdraw from any agreements and investment in Vietnam. To maintain them, is to help China and Russia and damage the effort against Russia in Ukraine. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vietnam-host-putin-nod-old-ties-risking-ire-west-2024-06-19/

Why is the sign in English? Shouldn't it be in Chinese, since they're the Big Brother supposed to build up Thailand?

Either that, or don't have anything more complicated than US social security and maybe a simple annuity.

I do wonder if this guy might end up winning it all? I don't know much about the nuances of British politics, but I see a lot of postings on it on Twitter. The Conservatives look like they've already given up. The Labor people look like they are in an absolute panic. Got the media, whose Twitter/X accounts I see, desperately trying to destroy him.

How are the applicants going to prove they've been in the US for 10 years? Take their word for it? Create false documentation? That's what they did for the last amnesty. That, and the numbers were so much larger than expected that INS ended up barely giving any inspection to the application and just stamped through approvals.

If they are willing to go to these lengths to take this guy's 600 baht per month pension, imagine what Thai IRS will do to get their hands on the tax on expatriates' worldwide income.

It's been all over Twitter for more than a week.

Married as of June 17. That's a couple of days ago. Now eligible for the amnesty. And since this was known in advance, how many of those June 17 marriages are fake?

Married for a couple of days and immediately eligible for Biden's amnesty. How long are they required to stay married?

In your reply you deleted most of my comment and left in the specific segment about raising the retirement age for extensions to match the Thai retirement age. I've seen a lot of schadenfreude about how these changes would impact the above 60s or 65s. So I just thought I would put something out to show how easily the under 60s could be affected. Do I want that? No. Since right before the election, when so many people in this forum were celebrating Prayuth's defeat or upcoming defeat, I constantly remarked that he had been good for those of us on retirement visas and that the Shins had a history of going after us. Now, that's what is playing out. All I ever wanted, and kept posting to the forum, was for things at immigration not to change. But you don't need to go far back in these comments or in other topics to see people jumping on mandatory insurance as a good change. That despite the fact that some people will either be priced out of it or unable to be covered. Or there might be a requirement to buy what amounts to worthless Thai insurance. Or that excluding "pre-existing conditions" might make anybody's expensive policy near worthless and might, indeed, reduce their ability to pay for medical treatment, as costs they have in their bank now dedicated to treatment would be needed to pay for the worthless policies. And of course everyone who has consistently used the 800K in the bank method over many years (let's say until at least when Covid started, so 2020) should be allowed to continue to extend under the conditions they first used. After all, the 800K I put into the bank to cover my first retirement extension (after retiring from Mahidol) ten years ago was worth a lot more than 800K in today's inflated currency. That should be part of the consideration (along with the banks only insuring deposits to 1 million). So, no, I don't want you kicked off your extension. I just want them to leave us alone.

The prospect of one of them keeling over in a seizure should insure giant ratings.

Wait until the digital wallet finally gets going and then watch the waterfall in the baht exchange rate.

Keeping RFKjr off the air and out of the discussion of the race is simply because two ineffective, brain addled, old derelicts fear him. Rather than Trump and Biden talking over each other and behaving badly, I think there is a bigger likelihood they get brain cramps and freeze. Both of them. RFKjr is smart and well backgrounded in the subject of Big Pharma, Big Tech, and Big Corruption. Biden and Trump are owned by the very forces RFKjr has put in the forefront for scrutiny. Put RFKjr on the debate stage and I think he becomes the leading candidate overnight. People simply cannot be satisfied with two such inferior hunks of garbage like Biden and Trump.