Chomper Higgot

I probably need to do another post on Dolf Ryks.

At least we have the memories

While I still have an apartment near Pattaya, I no longer live in the city full time. My visits of late are a couple of months around April and May. It wasn’t always so, for the better part of thirty years starting in the late 80s Pattaya was my home. Those amongst us who remember the late 80s / early 90s will recall there was at that time nowhere near the number and choice of restaurants as there is now. Some places that come to mind are Prom Par Song 1 and 2 at the Sukhumvit end of North Road and South Road respectively. Street Kitchen on Soi 6/1, Fern Farm on Narklua Road, Wandee at Wongamat and Ruam Thai on 2nd Road. Oh and the burger stall alongside the ‘Buddha tree’ on walking street. Some old names still remain, Leng Khee, The Green Tree (used to be in Soi 4), Pan Pan, Nang Nuan. I called at the Green Tree earlier this week for a ‘sundowner’, something that for years was my Friday evening habit, straight from work to the Green Tree for a couple of G&Ts before starting the weekend fun. I’m pleased to say it remains a place where a guy can get a relaxing drink without being bothered by girls looking for other business. In the 80’s and early 90s such places were rare finds. Having finished my ‘sundowners’ at the Green Tree I walked up Soi 1 to discover a piece of the history of Pattaya’s restaurants was no longer in business. Somsak’s is closed. Somsak opened his first restaurant in the early 70s at the entrance to walking street together with a man who became his life long friend ‘Dolf Ryks’. Together they had spotted the market for a ‘real restaurant’ to serve US military on R&R. As Somsak would say, ‘we opened Pattaya’s first restaurant that had table cloths, real crockery and knives and forks that weren’t bent out of shape’. His restaurants were all decorated with pale yellow walls and artwork, paintings by Dolf Ryks. He set the ambience with classical European music, itself unusual anywhere in Thailand at the time. I once asked him about the music, why classical? Somsak replied ‘Over the years he’s tried lots of music, he learned if he plays rock music he gets fights in his restaurant, if he plays classical everything is chilled’. Well Somsak(dee)’s is gone, another chapter of Pattaya history gone too.

A wonderful idea for rich people who can afford to get the best lawyers and take the risk of losing. Not such a good idea for the rest of us.

Yes they can.

I’m chilled, it’s all good news so far.

And the Jury is permitted to come to their own conclusions as to why Trump does not wish to take the stand.

I know your precise meaning. You wish to impugn the system of trial by jury, that has been the foundation of common law justice for centuries. And all because your boy faces Justice.

As I pointed out above, Trump will be given the opportunity to take the stand and give his version of events, under oath.

Yes it’s wonderful don’t you agree, this opportunity to be dragged screaming and kicking back into the fact based universe where truth matters?! It’s an opportunity not to be wasted, make the best of it.

We know Republicans agree, they are enacting legislation across multiple Republican controlled states that reduces voter participation in elections.

Putting aside use of pejorative, does maximizing voter turn out improve or diminish democratic representation?

This lost appeal was by Trump. Pence’s original appeal was almost certainly only a means to remove the cause accusations of being ‘anti-Trump’ Both appeals serve to protect testimony by Spence from later appeal, the marginally delay the investigation but protect the testimony given. This folks is what winning actually looks like.

Perhaps, having joined in commenting on the issue, you might first inform yourself of the issue you chose to discuss. It is not incumbent on other members to fill gaps in your understanding of the subjects you choose to discuss.

From the linked article: “Rest of the World has reported. The tech outlet makes those assertions based on data submitted by Twitter itself to the Lumens database”

The only sure way to eliminate the possibility of voter fraud is to ban all voting. A bit drastic given the rarity of voter fraud: https://fortune.com/2021/12/14/trump-voter-fraud-investigation-biden-battleground-states-only-475-potential-voter-fraud-cases/

There is no evidence of any significant voter fraud. Fair representation is achieved by maximizing voter participation. The restrictions put in place by the Republicans create obstacles to voter participation.

Follow the money.

I’ll make a prediction. President Biden won’t ever resort to presenting any claims of mental incapacity or cognitive decline in order to avoid standing trial, avoid criminal sentencing or secure early release from criminal incarceration. He certainly can’t refer back to any incidents of being rushed into the Walter Reed in the middle of the night to be administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test. I don’t rule out such claims, though not from President Biden.

He’ll sneak out to the Walter Reed Hospital in the middle of the night to undergo the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test and then hide the reason why it was necessary from the American people.

On the upside, it’s highly unlikely they fleeced any Democrats.

Trump will be given the opportunity to take the stand and present his version of events. The jury will decide. That’s how trials work.

Here’s a known fact. FOX habitually tells lies. Here’s a conclusion. We can’t take the reasons FOX gives for firing Carlson as necessarily being the truth. I maintain we don’t yet know why he was fired and that for FOX to fire their biggest audience attraction the reasons must be a very real threat to the survival of FOX.

Bannon is set to appear before a NY court for this scam. Good luck Steve, two of your coconspirators are already convicted in Federal Court and are sentenced to serious prison time. ’All this winning’, ‘Making Liberals cry’. ‘Do the crime, do the time’.

I have no idea how many extremists there are in the military and police, but there is recurrent evidence of their existence. This needs dragging out into the cleansing light if day.