John Drake

The timing of Walz's retirement is debatable and conceivably defendable. What cannot be defended are: *He lied about his retired rank *He lied about carrying a rifle in war *For more than two decades he allowed his immediate friends and allies to lie about his service record without correcting them. He should have put out the facts straight from the horse's mouth.

I taught at a German university in the late 1980s. One of my students was an about to be middle aged woman, an English physician who had been in charge of a London hospital. I thought she was extremely nice and intelligent. Followed her husband to Germany and quickly became fluent in the language. Was back in school partly because not only did the Germans refuse to hire her as hospital staff, they wouldn't even let her practice. Both Germany and the UK I suppose are very different places these days. But back then at least the Germans were the biggest sticklers you could find for access to professional positions. The latter in particular may have changed. An old colleague some years ago told German universities were trying to reform the Habilitation, making professorships easier to acquire.

Might want to look around and determine if any small children or other people went missing around this guy.

My wife's old village only has a 7 Eleven that can be used. It will be similar elsewhere. This is going to be a huge money transfer from the Thai treasury to CP.

Is Thailand prepared for a US/EU trade embargo? Wonder what they would do with that $42 billion annual trade surplus with the US going pfffft?

This is pretty much the case. There aren't any more dominoes left to fall in the region. Philippines is the only reliable US ally in ASEAN. So I'd hope the US would redirect all its investments and developmental ties to a country that already speaks English and has existing cultural ties with the US.

All that abstaining on Ukraine and the South China Sea is about to come back and bite them in the butt.

I agree. It's all because of the baked beans.

What? That 3 percent is on top of what has already occurred. Inflation is not down. It's still going up. It was 5.8 percent, then 8 percent, then 3.4 percent. And each of those percentage increases also include the base total of the previous increase.

Snippets, yes. The younger ones don't have the patience to watch even a five minute video. Less than a minute or they're outta there.

I did see a post on Twitter that claimed the UK government was counting on the beginning of soccer season to kill the protests. I don't know. When does soccer begin? Seems to me it's hardly ever stopped.

I do wonder how much influence the cable news networks still have. The average age of their (Fox, MSNBC, CNN) viewers I have seen put up on Twitter/X is 69 or 70. Nobody that old changes their minds. That means the true influence is elsewhere. And their must be an extensive system to support, whether it's Tik Tok, Instagram, X, Telegram, others of that nature. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that most of us on AN aren't seeing much of it. I see a fair amount on X. But even X is a minor player compared to the likes of Tik Tok.

These two political campaigns, Harris and Trump, have no resemblance to the campaigns I experienced over my lifetime. The press not only cheerleads for its favorite candidate. It not only covers up for its favorite candidate. But it now invents stories and pushes outright lies to help its favorite candidate. Everything is orchestrated.

Will that include people as well as merchandise?

Prayuth did a first rate job with Covid. Those of us here had much more freedom than those living in the West or in China. Fewer deaths, here, and a population that worked with the government in order to secure a relative degree of safety for the population. Not to mention the Chinese vaccines, which I'm so very happy I received instead of the mRNA injections.

I would never vote for Vance because of his position on abortion. I favor pro abortion laws. That said, the timidity and outright fearfulness that Harris seems determined to rest with is disconcerting. She needs to take live questions from people where she doesn't have scripted answers. I haven't seen any spontaneity from her or her campaign. Only the rage machine that is Tim Walz.

Hmmm. Reminds me of someone.

I wonder why Obama selected Walz over Shapiro?

Don't know if he's destroyed. At least, not yet. But the picture emerging of a man who exaggerates his (non) war record, military rank, sits back while his state's cities burn, gives driver's licenses to illegal aliens, has a problem with alcohol, and cannot control his anger, all that is something that makes for an ugly portrait. The more I learn of him, the more I distrust him.

And subsequent stop after that is watching their largest trade surplus, which is with the US, disappear and the country trading chickens to Russia oil.

I predict if Trump gets elected he will pull a "Trump Goes to China" spectacle and reverse everything he supposedly stood for in his first term with China. He'll betray not only his base but the entire country in an attempt to gain diplomatic "legitimacy."

I think Trump is just an older version of the same guy who messed up the first time. I remember his campaign: Quantitative Tightening, balanced budget, reshoring American manufacturing, scrapping the DREAMer legislation the first day in office, facing down China, and of course the Wall that became a Fence in a few places. Not only did he fail to do what was promised, he actually took positions the exact opposite of what he had campaigned on. His two legislative milestones? Tax cuts for billionaires and letting felons out of jail.

Mnuchin, Jay Powell, Fay Wray, Lighthizer, Jared, Ivanka, . Those are his long termers. Everyone else was in and out too quick to judge.

Those are characteristics I associate more with RFKjr. Plus RFKjr wants a strong dollar. I've given up on both the Democrats and Republicans.

It seems his statement was a classic case of projection.