Lacessit

JHC, you really are nosey.

Now look at you. There's an EV added in as a chick magnet.

A 5 year Thai Elite Visa costs a minimum of 600,000 baht. Retirement extensions done normally would be less than 10,000 baht over the same 5 years. There would have to be one hell of a tax benefit to justify that expense, and an Elite visa conveys no more right to stay here than any other.

Wind in Chiang Rai is seldom any factor, although Hua Hin may be different. The Ocean Course at the National Golf Club in Melbourne no longer exists. A Peter Thomson course, it was redesigned by Tom Doak after the members voted it was just too difficult to play. On a windy day, of which there were plenty, anything above 50 km/hr had the golf balls rolling off the greens.

Today at the pharmacy...... I bought aspirin. It helps me when responding to vacuous posters. I usually buy a month's supply. When I bought it last month, 30 tablets were 100 baht. Today, same 30 tablets, same brand, identical strip. 45 baht. I give up.

IIRC you despise the Chinese. Who do you think is building or has built thousands of dams there?

Why not? Murdoch is a genius at dudding shareholders.

I thought you could not live without a bonk every day.

Perhaps you are not able to distinguish between free speech which is fact-based, and free hate speech, which is not. Musk reminds me of Einstein. Both geniuses in their field. Einstein tried to become a social scientist. Impossibly naive. See where I am going with this?

Would you kindly post a map which shows what happens to Australia, instead of cherry-picking a small island off the coast of Europe. I suppose every cloud has a silver lining, the Aussies and Kiwis won't need to feed the Brits anymore. Then post a map of what happens to Asia, when the water from the Tibetan Plateau becomes a trickle.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. IMO there are plenty of venomous posters who reinstate themselves after banning. I know how they do it, but I won't mention it here.

You think a lot. Mostly wishful.

Seems it's no longer Donald, Duck. It's Daffy Duck. https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/us-news/2024/08/13/musk-trump-interview?

So, you don't think those peaceful MAGA folks will be at polling booths and counting rooms, attempting to intimidate voters and electoral officials. Just how deluded are you?

I am fully aware of the concept of tipping points, having read a short story by Friedrich Schiller when I was a kid. The story introduced the concept of the butterfly effect, over 200 years ago. If I mention tipping points as part of climate change, I get drowned out by a wailing Goethian Dies Irae chorus of deniers, calling me an alarmist. To me, the tipping points are albedo and clathrates. What's yours?

Some billionaires get to thinking because they are a genius in one field, they can be a genius in others. There's no doubt Henry Ford was a genius, inventing the concept of mass production. He came unstuck with Fordlandia, a self-sufficient rubber plantation in Brazil. It was a colossal failure, abandoned in the early forties. History repeats itself.

He's p!ssed off because X has been losing money hand over fist ever since he bought it. He adopted Murdoch's dumbing down model. Catering to the lowest common denominator. Now, just like Trump, it's everyone else's fault.

Following your logic, Musk can sue me and millions of other for not coming on X, reading the garbage he allows others to post in the name of free speech. Please tell me who on earth looks at advertising on social media. It's like the Communist propaganda on Soviet Union TV, everyone just tunes them out.

Gaslighting, more likely.

IMO this is Musk's business model for X........

I can buy at least three things here I cannot buy in Australia. A bum gun, kratom, and a mosquito racquet. Nanny state regulations prohibit all three.

Your post really reminds me of the old classic, " I'm all right , Jack". You know damn well we will both be dead long before it gets really uncomfortable, for everyone except billionaires. Here you go, then.

Apparently the interview with Musk was a disaster, with some viewers calling Trump Daffy Duck, and wondering if he had forgotten his dentures. If that's his performance with a guy lobbing him soft-ball questions, how will he do when Harris comes after him with a scalpel?

You may be right. However, one has to take the good with the bad. I don't try to change any part of my GF's culture, even if some of it is objectionable to me.

The Russian economy is soaring because it is a war economy, and every ruble is being pumped into producing armaments. Its military spending is 5.9 % of GDP. The US is 3.4%, with an economy 11 times the size of Russia. The ordinary Russian is struggling with 8.6% inflation, if official figures can be believed. What does an interest rate of 16% on bank deposits tell you? True, Ukraine's spending is 37% of GDP. They are fighting for survival. No one seems to remember the Vietnam War almost bankrupted America. IMO history will be repeating itself with Russia. Slow learners, the lesson of Afghanistan did not sink in.