Lacessit

Agree 100%. It was two years before I moved from casual to committed.

Yellowtail is a mass-produced irrigated wine from Yenda, near Griffith. IIRC, made by the Casella family. The truly great wines in Australia are those that are sold from the cellar door or selected outlets, they will never see a supermarket shelf. They will never make it to Thailand either, the duty would be crippling.

Wolf Blass is a blender of vintages from small wineries, selling into the budget section of Australia supermarkets. A wine snob would turn their nose up. Having said that, they do make some very drinkable reds.

Australian wines that would be classed as barely drinkable there are priced outrageously here, so I don't bother. Jacob's Creek for 700 - 800 baht a bottle, spare me. Thai wine is dreck, for two good reasons. The first is air pollution. Smoke taint on grapes ruins a vintage quicker than anything, as Australian vintners find out every time there is a bushfire season. The second is technical knowledge. Wine analysis is a very specialized and niche industry, and dedicated laboratories are few and far between. There are only two such facilities in Australia, I doubt there would be any in Thailand. If a wine-maker here has a stuck ferment or smoke taint, I doubt they have the knowledge or tools to measure them accurately. If you don't measure it, you can't control it. I've tasted Thai wines a few times, they invariably are out of balance on acidity, tannins, residual sugars and fruit. Yet to encounter one I would call drinkable, let alone supernacular.

Beautiful, and probably harder than diamond.

An inverter is quieter, Daikin should win out because they have been making them longer than the other brands. Personally, I have found Mitsubishi to be ultra-reliable. AC noise doesn't bother me, it drowns out the dogs, cats and roosters. I have a Haier at the condo, a Samsung and two Panasonics at the house. None are the inverter type. The Samsung and Haier have not given any problems, the Haier is probably the noisiest. The Panasonics have some kind of circuit board problem, had an aircon technician called out several times.

Your post reminds me of a situation I had. A couple of years ago, my GF and I had a clash of beliefs. Our dog developed terminal cancer, it was pitiful to see him trying to drag himself around. I wanted to have him euthanased, she didn't. Buddhist belief. After a day or so of arguing, I said, OK, I am going back to my condo. I will not come back to the house until he is euthanased. If he dies without euthanasia, don't expect to see me for a long time, if ever. Do not come to the condo either. After a week, she phoned me to say he was gone. She had a vet put him down. She was very upset, saying she had done a bad thing. I think I managed to convince her what she did was merciful.

Are you OK? Your post is one of the shortest I have ever seen from you.

A thread that is a magnet for bitter Westerners. I suppose they reap what they sow. I believe my GF is grateful for what I have given her. If she is not, she's a pretty good actress. I get respect from her and the family, if I did not I would be gone. IMO the key to a good relationship here is setting boundaries. Thais live in the present. It's a strength in one way, because they don't hark back to the past like we do. OTOH, it also limits their capacity to plan for the future.

The corruption in Thailand does not affect me in any way, I would not know if the same in Australia does because I am not there very often. IMO corruption in Australia is just more subtle and more difficult to detect. No-one can tell me a Prime Minister's Department that is staffed 90% by consultants with links to coal, gas, and oil interests would be impartial, and not corrupt. The result is predictable, domestic consumers paying through the nose for electricity, while said entities make record profits.

If you want to talk about bogus claims, I suggest you start a new thread. See how many posters you attract. I would not deny there are bogus claims. Having said that, your post is classic look over there. You've been given the evidence of bad faith acts by insurance companies you asked for by two posters, and I fail to see how being an Employer Director of a super fund assists your understanding of the insurance industry. Perhaps it's an attempt at argument ad vericundiam.

I must admit I had forgotten about the Royal Commission. But then, there's so many of them it's hard to keep track. Fat chance of that kind of inquiry getting any traction in Thailand.

I used an agent for a few years, until I understood I was assembling the paperwork for them, all they were doing was speeding up the process at Chiang Mai Immigration. Which could be a real bunfight back in the day. I dispensed with the agent's services, which saved me 7000 baht. Waiting 3 hours instead of 1 hour, my time was worth 3500 baht/hr, at least that's the way I thought about it. When I moved to Chiang Rai, the time spent in attending Immigration shrank significantly - I am usually finished inside an hour. IMO the poster you are responding to misses the point - it does not matter whether one is employing an agent or not, AFAIK all foreigners have to attend Immigration to apply for their annual extension. I put said poster on ignore quite some time ago.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/insurance/what-to-do-if-your-insurance-claim-is-rejected https://www.dougterrylaw.com/types-damage-bad-faith-claims/ Insurance claims may be denied for good reason. They can also be denied because the insurer is acting in bad faith. An example of bad faith was in the Black Saturday fires in Victoria of 2009. Insurance companies were refusing claims for total loss because house chimneys were still standing. The CFA fixed that by taking fire trucks to destroyed houses, and knocking the chimneys down. My son was a CFA crew member at the time. I was told by an insurance executive ( not a guy at a bar ) that claims departments have incentives for employees to deny claims, I assume that meant performance bonuses. Make of that what you will. Those big buildings insurance companies live in and own - they didn't get to be that big by making a loss. You may be having a good run on claims because you are dealing with a reputable company. Permit me to doubt they all are.

Speaking for myself, no. While I am tolerant of other people's preferences, I am solid hetero. I don't even pack fudge. The OP should be aware if he does succeed in his quest, he should glove up. Preferably twice. The prevalence of HIV in katoeys is significantly higher than with women, due to several factors.

They might stand a faint chance if they spoke to me in English, if it's in Thai they are wasting their time.

A bit? Try 40 kg extra.

I don't think I would want to consume pot outside my condo, I'd be too worried about impaired judgment and reflexes. Consume, not smoke. I am ingesting 25 mg, for arthritic pain. It does alleviate that, but the main effect for me is as a sedative, an hour after eating it I am asleep for 5 or 6 hours. Very relaxing. I don't know how other people react to pot. It seems to me far less harmful than alcohol, on several counts.

Exchanging love letters with the nuclear-wielding fat boy and kissing Putin's butt in Helsinki did not look like hard ball to me. You don't think Biden is playing hard ball with Russia in Ukraine? IMO Putin would disagree with you.

Other posters have answered your post, much better than I could because they have knowledge of the mail-in process. I'm just going by the statement in Wikipedia no-one has ever found mail-in ballots to be a source of election fraud. Trump and his lawyers were trying their absolute best to find evidence otherwise, and they got thrown out by every court in the land, some with Republican judges. I do understand conspiracy theorists will clutch at the flimsiest straw if it supports their irrational beliefs.

A statistical sample of one or two proves nothing. Explain to me why insurance companies have entire departments that process claims, with the performance bonuses going to the employees that can deny the most claims.

Under-reporting is most probably the result of the adverse event being too insignificant to be considered worthwhile. It's a pretty good bet anything really significant, such as a seizure or death, would be there front and centre. The VAERS system is a reporting system, not a diagnostic system. I'd suggest other sources for the crusade, although it may be difficult to find anything with peer-reviewed credibility.

Every time you purchase a firearm? How many do you think you need?

I can buy or sell a stock in a few seconds with the click of a mouse, how is that not control?

Unemployment statistics in the US ring any bells?