John Drake

Yes, these numbers are good. I hope they hold up and are not revised downwards next month. A good economy, with people employed throughout its sectors, helps every American. Better to be in the American economy than than anywhere in Europe.

Hong Kong is now fully Communist. So no surprise. Communists want total control and want to know everything you spend your money own. Think social credit system, where there are, say, rewards on things like baby food (helping reverse the demographic decline) and penalties for wasting your money units on beer and other items that reduce productivity.

Absolutely! Plus enjoy paying cashless when there is a power outage (frequent in my area of Bangkok especially in rainy season). Several times I've been in 7 Eleven or similar store and when the power is out, staff is right there with a clipboard, recording purchases, cash received, and change made.

But both evils are really, really evil. What to do? Trump should have stayed on the sidelines in this hurricane disaster. But he never learns. However many votes he got for stepping in the middle of it, he probably lost for the same reason. He should just have let Harris prove herself the anti-American radical she is. Our choice in this election is between Stupid but cunning Trump and dumb as dirt Harris. This hurricane relief fiasco is showing both of them at their worst.

Why are you trying to deflect this topic about hurricane relief in North Carolina to people lying on their immigration forms in Thailand? Has nothing to do with the topic.

Yes, the self-serving press releases that authorities are releasing are designed to dodge and shift and avoid responsibility. But they are especially dandy for reporters. Can you just imagine: Beverly at CBS: Hello, FEMA? This is Beverly with CBS news here in NYC. Is it true that people aren't getting relief and being stranded without food, water, and medicine? I'm sure it's all just those lying populists. But I just wanna confirm with you. FEMA: You, bet, Beverly. All lies. I can confirm that from my big office here in Washington, DC. Beverly: Thanks. I knew I was right. We'll put out your press release and call it investigative journalism. That ought to get'em to shutup.

Authorities are turning away trucks, banning civilian helicopters, and confiscating goods meant for relief because of FEMA's Preferred Vendors List. FEMA tries to operate from that list. Getting on the vendor list is quite lucrative of course and subject to all the usual DEI and set asides afflicting other federal agencies. There is a lot of money to be had by keeping to the vendor list. That's why volunteers need to go around the government in order to save their fellow citizens.

There are many on university campuses, including faculty in the most censor likely disciplines, who oppose the Mao-like imposition of thought/speech control. But not only do those just joining faculty need to fear the effects of their true feelings and thoughts on tenure but also on academic promotion and, yes, salary increases. Not to mention, the lockdown that comes on restricted research and analyses in the area of academic publications. The latter is the most important of all. It's how you get hired, get tenure, and get promoted. And the gatekeepers (peer reviewers) at the top tier publications are exceptional at sniffing out unorthodoxy and keeping it off their pages.

You're right. I should. I used to make gallons of it back in the US. And homemade salsa is better. I should really motivate myself to go out and buy a blender for it.

The biggest ongoing failure is the absence of journalism to cover these events. The people on here who know nothing about the region simply take as true any FEMA press release, or comments from governors, the white house, congressmen, or other politicians. It seems that journalism these days amounts to calling up someone from the safety of your hotel room, asking for a self serving comment from the "authorities" in charge, and then putting it out for publication. Used to be that journalists didn't take the word of agencies and politicians. They went into the area on their own. Here that requires hiking through flood ravaged forests or following along with mule trains. Smartphone journalism doesn't bother with that.

They've been flying them in for several years. You know what is ironic about this? You're so ignorant about the area, you don't even realize that Asheville, where UNC-Ashville is, is a mini-Austin, a micro-San Francisco. It's a liberal Harris leaning hotbed. Have you ever even been to the US?

Completely true. George W. Bush was taken apart because of FEMA's failure on his watch. Deservedly so. This is where leaders are supposed to lead. You have one senile man in the White House who is inoperative and then Harris/Walz are nowhere to be found. Bottom line: housing from taxpayer money being poured in like Niagra Falls to pay for "migrants" housing, transportation, and medical care, while topping them off with $2700 debit cards, all while American citizens are left to rot and "prove" they're eligible for the $750 emergency one time payment.

Big <deleted> deal. Hundreds dead, starving, and dying and you come up with that utterly useless <deleted>.

Old El Paso Medium Salsa 260 baht at Tops. Up 35 baht recently Mission Wraps of all types 119 baht at Foodland, Tops. Up 18 baht recently Old El Paso Plain Tortilla Chips 169 baht at Foodland, Gourmet Market. Up 40 baht recently All the imported cheeses are now so high, I'm buying local cheese available at Foodland Phutthamonthon Sai 4 for 1/3 the price of imported. Thank God for that strong baht!!!

Fiasco. Clear failure on the part of the administration and FEMA. Redirecting FEMA funds to settling "paroled" migrants and so-called asylum seekers should result in people going to jail.

Brain transplants are tricky things. Just look at Walz, where the procedure obviously failed.

A penny stock. Literally.

Is it true that there is very little FEMA response because the agency was retrofitted to settle and service incoming migrants? Is it true the FEMA budget is busted because the money was given to non-profits to get priority housing for incoming migrants and loading up their credit cards with $13,000. Need to find out.

Becoming more like China and India every day.

It feels like this guy is being set up as the fall guy, and everybody else above him is going to walk.

Youth Mobility Scheme sounds like a way for France and Germany to unload their migrants on to the UK

Harris' fanatical supporters seem to hang on this point just as desperately as Trump's fanatical supporters do in the other direction. At this stage, however, it's a non-issue for the majority of the voters worried about illegal immigration, inflation, and housing shortages.

Obviously, that was Walz misspeaking. He isn't friends with them, and he does not have some subconscious desire to be their friends. OTOH it does display that Walz is a lumbering slow thinker, unprepared, and doubtlessly panicking in his response.

Obviously, there is a an IQ gap of somewhere around 30 points or more between Vance and Harris/Vance/Trump.

I am referring more broadly to Walz's so-called Chinese connections over the years. Unless we see evidence he is advancing CCP interests, I don't think he should be put on the rack for going there as a teacher or taking students there on study abroad trips. Look, Walz is a really, really stupid guy. He's inauthentic, likes to brag, and exaggerate his past. Between Harris and Walz, I don't know who is the more inauthentic. It is terrifying to think the US could be led by the pair next year. It's also terrifying that it could have Trump presiding over things. I just don't understand how things got to this level of bad.