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JTXR

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Posts posted by JTXR

  1. Just now, mogandave said:

    Do you think people should have to show ID to vote? 

     

    Getting the Social Security rolls cleaned up is a big part of what DOGE is doing, and that is the first step in strengthening E-Verify. 

    I think people should have to show a valid ID to register to vote.  If the ID is in fact valid and good, not fake, the registration is enough.

    The notion that the Social Security rolls were in dire need of cleaning up is one of the many, many lies DOGE told about what it was doing, but that's another story.  🙂 

    • Thumbs Up 1
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  2. It appears to be true that the E-Verify system is too easy to game and needs to be strengthened.  This would have been a good thing for DOGE to do instead of the nonsense it did or pretended to do.  What the U.S. needs is a genuine national ID card, but the recent "Real ID" fiasco probably put paid to that....

    • Haha 1
  3. Using the method requiring 66K Thai Baht transferred each month, TI requires a year of bank statements, 12 credit advices (for the transfers), and a letter of account ownership and balance.  I use Bangkok Bank.  

    My question is about the letter. Because my appointment at Chaeng Watthana turns out to be later than I first thought, the letter I have from Bangkok Bank will be over a week old (9 days to be precise).  Will this be a problem?  Do I need to go back to the bank for a new letter?  

    (My wife insists that she checked in the past and thought the letter had to be within 7 days of TI appointment date.  Now though, she cannot find anything online that says that).

    Thanks for any help you can give.

  4. Yes, it was a mistake.  Like all dogs, soi dogs here are imprinted and habituated in the first few months of life.  Psychologically they can be a total mess, and they can't be trained out of it.  

    You might think of doing what Thais do:  take them to a temple and leave them.  Donate something to the temple for their upkeep.  The humane thing would be euthanasia, but you won't find a Thai vet who will do that.

  5. Hi.  I'm a native English speaker and have learned to speak French, Spanish and Italian over the years.  Thai, though, is proving very difficult.  I've taken courses and know a lot of expressions and words, but listening and speaking fluency (or even much ability) is not coming at all -- I think partly because of the tones, and partly because in Bangkok it's too easy to fall back on English.

     

    Based on past experience, both learning and teaching languages, I'm convinced what I need at this stage is a period of isolated total immersion.  In particular, a month-long home stay somewhere where there will be little or no opportunity to speak English.  Can anyone recommend a homestay they know of that would suit this purpose, or an ideal place to look?

     

    Please don't suggest other language-learning approaches (courses, watching movies or tv, non-English speaking gf, etc.).  I know what I want at this stage and for this thread I'm only interested in homestay suggestions.

     

    Thanks.

    • Like 1
  6. OP here.

    Well, I found a dentist.  Fellow who has his own one-man clinic in Bangkok, and also works at Phaya Thai Hospital.  Clean and modern clinic.  Most important, I found out he's done implants for members of my wife's family.  They like him very much as a person and like the work he's done.

    40K for Osstem implant (Korea) and 65K for Straumann (Switzerland).  What exactly is the difference between these two to justify the significant difference in price?  How exactly is the Straumann superior?  Or is it just that the Swiss product is assumed to be superior?

  7. 4 hours ago, CharlieH said:

    National polls

    Three websites that aggregate national and state surveys — the Silver BulletinFiveThirtyEight and the New York Times — currently have the national polling average as follows:

     

    ........

     

    All three show Harris with a narrow lead in the popular vote of one percentage point or less — well within the aggregated margins of error.

     

    All these polls are less than useless.  The popular vote means nothing.

     

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  8. 12 minutes ago, owl sees all said:

    This is so naive.

     

    When the paper money is no longer available, or is reduced to zero value, how are you gonna get your essentials? Fuel will be very difficult to come by. And if you were lucky enough to find some; how would you pay for it? Well I'll tell you what. If you have a little gold in yer pocket you might be able to do a trade.

    Nice living in an imaginary world, is it?

     

    • Haha 1
  9. For me, he has way too many interviews with MMA fighters, comedians, sports figures, etc., so these I just skip.  His interviews with people of some substance, though, can be ok.  He comes across as not super well-informed and not super intelligent but not dumb either. A regular, straight-forward guy who has genuine curiosity and enjoys talking to people.  Politically, he took what I consider an unfortunate turn during the pandemic and seems a bit audience-captured, but again, I just skip the interviews with politicians.

  10. On 10/28/2024 at 7:04 AM, zackxx said:

    Yes physical gold is money (also physical silver) whereas all those fiat currencies you mention (and all fiat currencies used in the world) are just that: 'fake money", currencies (not money).

    Yeah, try buying a car with gold.

    This thread is funny for a number of reasons, first in that it claims to be about the value of money (various currencies) but the chart illustrates the value of gold.  The price of gold in dollars, pounds, baht, etc., doesn't affect in any significant way the value of those currencies for purchasing everything  that is not gold (i.e., almost everything).

     

    Rotating the graph is cute but pointless.  And using the graph as a starting point for talking about "currencies with a value of zero) is especially funny.  It would only be true if gold were the only thing that could be purchased with currency AND if gold could conceivably become infinitely valuable -- the former is of course never true and the latter is impossible.

    • Like 1
  11. 1 minute ago, NowNow said:

     

    I suggested earlier that it was BHDC. How much did you pay for the extraction? 😊

    BH is known for it's generous pricing. But they have other hospitals in the same group that charge less...a lot less.

     

    The extraction itself was surprisingly cheap.  Less than 25% what my dentist in the US would have charged. I guess that's one reason why the price quoted for the implant was more than I expected.

  12. 23 hours ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

    Omg, leave it, no one sees it, you don't need it.

    What are you thinking?????? 

     

    A front tooth, yes, but not a molar.

    We have too many teeth in our head.

    OP here.  That is certainly an option.  It is in fact what my dentist in the U.S. told me a year or so ago, before the problem became acute. Right now I (a couple of weeks after the extraction) I'm just seeing if I can get used to the hole there. 

    As for having too many teeth.  I had teeth extracted when young an only have two molars on the lower left side now.  It is very weird, having a tooth above but nothing below.  That said, given the location, if I decide to do the implant it would make sense to go with the lowest cost option as far as material goes, since no one will see it.

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  13. OP here.  Sorry I wasn't more specific in my original post.  I said only "well-known international hospital in Bangkok."  It was in fact BHDC.  They did a great job with my extraction and I'd definitely and happily go back for dental work, but the sticker shock of their quote for the implant threw me for a loop.  I wanted to know what the options were in BKK and elsewhere in Thailand. (I live in Thailand.)

     

    One thing seems clear -- prices from a few years ago are hopelessly out of date.  Inflation has really made its mark.

     

    Thanks for the many informative follow-up posts.

  14. Had a back-most lower molar removed at a well-known international hospital in Bangkok.  It went well and suprisingly didn't cost much.  What they've quoted me as the cost of an implant, though, is outrageous -- 93,000 to 120,000 baht.  Almost the same as in the U.S.
     

    Any recommendations for a good place in BKK to get a molar implant at a reasonable price?  Preferably not at one of those factory-like clinics that specialize in up-selling to medical tourists.

     

    Thanks.

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