mtraveler

On 3/31/2023 at 1:37 PM, dinsdale said:

Take a look at this fire map from a bit earlier today. Myanmar and Laos. It's about the wind direction. Not sure what other countries would be affected from Thailand's burning.

https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/

 

Please take a look at this wind map.  You might have to move the position and zoom in to see Thailand, Myanmar and Laos.  I looked at it today at 3:45AM.  I'm sorry I didn't realize to google this earlier to see wind direction.  But from what I see at 3:45 AM, all the wind is moving from west to east.  Absolutely no wind from the north (northern Myanmar) and nothing from the east (Laos).  

Again, I'm not looking to pick a fight or win, what I'm looking for is the truth.  Yes, there is a lot of burning in the region of Myanmar west of Thailand.  Is that where the smoke is coming from?  Let's assume that's the source.  So, if I count all the fires in the wind path from Myanmar to Chiang Mai, and compare the number of red dots (fires) in Myanmar to the number of red dots in Thailand, it seems to be about the same amount.  What am I getting wrong here?  Isn't half our smoke home-made?

My biggest peeve about all of this is calling this a "transboundary haze" crisis.  That's an easy way to point the finger at someone else, while there are more than enough red dots on this side of the boundary.  Even if 50% of the smoke is coming from over the border, if we had none here, the PM 2.5 would be half or less, right? 

https://windy.app/forecast2/spot/203236/Asia

29 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

You assume wrong. The idea of posting the map was to show where the major concentration of fires are i.e. Myanmar, Laos AND Northern Thailand. This is a cross border situation. Fairly sure that if there were no fires at all in Thailand and Myanmar and Laos continue to burn the situation in the North of Thailand would still be very bad due to the predominant wind direction at this time of year. 

Sorry if it sounded like an attack on you.  It wasn't my intention.  I've just heard so many people point the finger at our neighboring countries, blaming them for our pollution problem, and I'm sensitive to that.  So again sorry.  

But that said, would it be really that bad if Thailand didn't burn?  What data do we have about that? 

Here's a chart of hotspots in Southeast Asia from January thru April (not sure what year it was).  When I look at the number of hotspots in Thailand per month, I think it tracks pretty closely with the PM2.5 levels that are seen in each of those months relative to the other months.  More fires, higher PM2.5.  So, again, I wonder what percent of our PM2.5 is a gift from other countries.  Any data you can share with me to prove how much smoke is actually coming from other countries would be much appreciated.  I'm happy to change my beliefs if there's some data to back it up.  For now, the data tells me: more fires in Thailand, more PM2.5.  (And again, this is not an attack; it's an attempt to seek out the truth.)

19 hours ago, dinsdale said:

The bigger picture....

https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2023-03-30..2023-03-31,2023-03-30;@102.8,20.3,6z

 

I assume that by posting this you are making the argument that the pollution Northern Thailand is experiencing is coming from Northern Laos and Northern Myanmar.  Yes, there is higher concentration in Laos and Myanmar.  But is there data showing that all that bad air is coming to Thailand?  What percentage actually gets to Chiang Mai?   And, doesn't pointing the finger at our neighbors try to make the Thai people/government innocent, when you can clearly see on the map that there's more than enough red within our borders?   How about we clean up our house first, and then we can put pressure on our neighbors to do the same?

This is my 5th smoke season here, and by far the worst. And I promise, for the health of my lungs and my body, my last.  This is awful, depressing, and scary.   

2 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I am not whining. 

I work with lots of people in lots of companies with any color, age, gender, whatever. I have no problem with any of them.

The USA has a history of suppression of black people. Many other countries don't have that problem.

 

Especially your last sentence is revealing. Do you want fairness? Or do think that is is payback time for women and black people and maybe others because some people didn't treat them as equal in the past?
Payback does absolutely not sound fair and it does not make the situation any better. In fact payback is the kind of behavior which makes the situation worse. But maybe that is what some activists want so they can be activists forever.

 

I have no interest in being an activist forever.   I would be happy to see the day when there was equality in the world.  I know it will never be perfect, but it's got a long way to go before it's even close.  

When I say payback, I mean balancing the scales. No, I don't want disequal favoritism.  But what I do want is an acknowledgment that the scales are still not even.  And a rebalancing.  Does it seem fair to get employment percentages by race/gender/whatever to match population distributions?

An experiment was done recently where 83,000 fictitious job applications were sent out with either Black sounding names or White sounding names.  The fictitious applicants had equal qualifications.   Applicants with Black sounding names got 10% less callbacks than the applicants with White sounding names.  I hope that fact disturbs you.  That's where we're at, right now, in this world.  And so, if we need to compel companies to create a fair balance, then that's what we need to do.  That's my idea of payback.  Let's make things fair. 

Thank you for acknowledging that the USA has a history of suppressing Blacks.  But to say that the rest of the world is immune to this problem is naive.  Apartheid ended in South Africa in the 1990's.  Turn on any Premier League match, and you'll see it starts with players taking a knee, to acknowledge the continuing problems of racism in the game and in the world.  And just a few weeks ago we heard that Ukrainians were refusing Blacks entry on buses to escape cities. 

I know this started as an article about trans discrimination.  I used discrimination about Black people to make the point that unfairness is, well, unfair.  I didn't mean to take it off topic, if that's how it appeared.   

I'm sorry if you feel that certain people are getting an unfair advantage at this time.  They probably felt the same way about us for a long time. And justifiably so, as they watched themselves be passed over for Whites either equal to their qualifications, or perhaps even beneath.   

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

As far as I am concerned at least small companies should be able to decide what they want for whatever reason including race, gender, age, whatever. Nobody has the right to be employed anywhere he/she/it wants.

With large companies there might be rules. I never liked working in a large company and I don't know or care about the details.

 

You write "What if the reason was because you were black?" and you are right I am white. Let me ask: "What if the reason was because you were white and/or male?" Because it seems that is what is happening more and more. Some companies don't want white males anymore. They want women, blacks, Muslims, I guess best case is a transgender black Muslim or something similar. It happens now more and more that companies and organizations select their new employees not according to job related knowledge but because of other reasons to show that they (the company) is somehow politically correct.

 

I am all for equal opportunities but I am not for equal outcome. I.e. women and men and black, white, whatever can apply to be nurses and pilots. But a hospital does not need the same amount of male nurses than female, etc.

 

People are different in many ways. I will never get a job at hooters. Should I sue them for discrimination?

All I can say about this is:  I'm sure you weren't whining about the unfairness of it all when Blacks, women, and other minorities were discriminated against while trying to get a job (not to mention other things denied them).  But now that some white males are receiving a bit of resistance because the pendulum is now swinging back to find equality (because companies wouldn't do it on their own .... and exactly because they think like you, ie, that they should be allowed to discriminate against groups of people according to their personal preferences), you're caterwauling about the unfairness of it all.  

I was 9 years old when the Voting Rights Act was finally passed, 10 years old when there were protests in Birmingham, that woke the country to the mistreatment of Black people.  13 years old when Blacks and Whites could actually marry in the USA.  The Equal Rights Amendment is still in limbo, giving both sexes equal rights.  And it took until last week for a law to be passed to make lynching a hate crime.  Discrimination is not ancient history.  It happened in our lifetimes, and the battle still continues.  

You can't cry about the unfairness of inequality to White Males after they held the upper hand for hundreds of years.  Payback is, as they say, a female dog.  

57 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Why should companies not be allowed to choose who they employ?

Obviously there are job qualifications but if one person is better qualified does not mean automatically this person will be the better choice.

People in companies should work together and there are many factors which help or hurt.

If I apply for a job and the boss or HR guy doesn't like me for whatever reason why should they employ me?

And if they had to employ me for whatever legal reason would that be a fundament for working efficiently and happy together? I don't think so.

What if the reason was because you were black?  That certainly was the case with discrimination in the US in the past, not only in employment but in accommodations of all sorts.  Read what you wrote, and consider the situation, if the applicant was a black person.  Maybe the company thinks it would be better that everyone was white.  Maybe the boss doesn't like the applicant for "whatever reason", as you say... and maybe that reason is because he/she is black.  Do you think that would be fair?

I think when you haven't had that shoe on and haven't walked in that shoe before, the notion of being denied employment for a reason that's not acceptable is an alien concept.  I assume that you're a white male, a person who has probably never experienced this sort of discrimination before.  I'm not judging you, just pointing out a reality.  It's hard if you haven't felt it or experienced it to appreciate the issue.  

3 hours ago, Thunglom said:

You just completely missed the whole point. Unless you take a racist point of view that Thai people are incapable of driving.

Making an objective observation of the driving skills of Thai people in general is not a racist point of view.  It is an observable evaluation of the facts in front of me.  

Having lived in the US for many years, and driven there for more than 45, I can tell you that when I was there, I never saw someone drive a motorbike the wrong direction on a highway.  Ok, maybe I saw it once or twice, but it's not something I would see 50 times a day.   How is that NOT an objective observation of the way Thai people drive?   I've also never seen an 18-wheeler make a U-turn on a highway.  I could go on, but you get the point.  

I don't think Thai people are incapable of driving. I simply think this is what they've observed other people do, and what they've learned, and consequently drive this way.  

15 hours ago, Thunglom said:

This is precisely the blinkered attitude that supports the continuation of Thailand's poor road safety record and the reason it hasn't changed. Unless you understand te problem it will never change.

Just take a moment to consider how people who say things like this see themselves and other road users. They have pre-set ideas about how others should or do drive and when they see a mistake of any kind it just serves to confirm this, but they are oblivious to any evidence to the contrary – this is a combination of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance combined with a Dunning Kruger effect appreciation of their own driving skills.

 

How people form their opinions on driving can be quite tenuous. Yet they then talk as if they are authorities on the subject without any logic, reason or evidence. Why is this? When it comes to some subjects, people quite unreasonably consider themselves to be “experts” 

 

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[1] Dunning-Kruger effect: - a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general.  - https://www.britannica.com/science/Dunning-Kruger-effect

 

It's a great theoretical argument.  But I think you're missing the point. 

A person driving his/her motorbike the wrong way on the highway or a local street is a menace to all others on the road.  Perhaps they will get killed, though really no fault of the other person driving in the correct direction.  Perhaps they will kill some innocent person going the right way.  Or perhaps they will just add chaos to the road.  I don't think my thinking is "Dunning Kruger Effect" at all.  I think it's just plain simple logic.  Otherwise, why do we have 2 different sides of the street on which to drive?  

I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that too many Thai people take too many chances when they drive.  

I bicycle extensively here in Thailand, and I experience close calls on every ride, whether from motorbikes going the wrong way and forcing me out into traffic, or oncoming cars not staying in their own lane, sometimes causing me to bail off the road to not get killed. 

I might suck as a driver sometimes, but I sure suck MUCH LESS than the average Thai driver.  

I keep hearing this argument about smog, that it comes from other countries.  I'm sure that it's true, to some extent, but it's not the only smog that people are suffering with in this country.  

I just wish the government would focus on the pollution problems that exist on this side of the border.  Perhaps if they set the example in the region, others would follow their lead.  And if not, if nothing else, the air would be at least 50% better.  

5 hours ago, Olmate said:

And just what did the sewer water say? Any link Perhaps? 

It's so sad that you have to throw out sarcastic comments, as others try to share information in an intelligent and respectful way.  I don't care if you disagree.  Come to the table politely with facts and data, and I'll be happy to listen and even change my opinions, based on that data.  But the sniping really doesn't add to the conversation at all.  

You can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.  

2 hours ago, Kadilo said:

No, that’s not what was said written, that’s part of it, so as so many others constantly point out on here, you should quote the full post and not take it out of context. 
 

Strange when someone does it, surprise surprise they “like” the post. Hypocrites. 
 

Anyhow, as I said to the previous poster, move on, it’s been done to death. 

Unfortunately, I didn't know how to grab two different quotes, and I knew when I did that I'd get the "taking out of context" defense.  But I posted nonetheless.  Should have known better.   

So, for the record, below is the original complete post, which you responded to.  Please tell me now what is in this particular quote that changes anything.  

Here's the quote:

"My school has pushed back the Nov 15 openning to Nov 22 so remains online. P6-M3 or grades 6-9. Been here before. Pushed back then pushed back again then again, then ....... . I wonder about other schools not openning tomorrow as was so joyously announced by the empty heads. Low primary grade 5 and below and kindergatern I suspect will not be back until the new school year next year."

And here is your response, again in full:

"Should move up North. Schools open since the 1st. November Older children 4 days/week, younger children  5 days, all teachers jabbed, all required students jabbed. 
 

Albeit after months of closure. 
 

Happy days." 

Full quote, right to the last period. 

Maybe you did have different intentions from how it read.  But, to be honest, from reading your many posts on this forum, one would infer that it was more than likely a smarmy response, which is exactly what you have offered to me both times in response to what I have written.  

You've inferred that I post for likes and popularity, and that I'm a hypocrite.  And that I should just move on.   All things that are not very civil.  

And no, I'm not posting this for likes either.  I'm responding to show you that you're not being honest about my quoting out of context. Nothing in the post changes anything.  

And now I'm happy to move on.  

3 hours ago, Kadilo said:

Not as silly as someone purposely taking things out of context for likes and popularity.
 

Do you really  think I was suggesting he move so he can teach for a few weeks before all the schools open in his area?  

 

It was being positive and insightful post to highlight how other areas are able to move on. 
 

 

Perhaps the way it sounded in your head when you wrote it, and the way it read was very different.  I didn't take anything out of context purposely, nor was I looking for popularity points.  Here's what was written:

The original poster said: "My school has pushed back the November 15th opening to November 22..." 

And you reply:  "Should move up north".  

How else should I take that?  It sounds like you're telling someone who is lamenting the situation that schools are still closed where he lives to solve the problem by moving up north.  If you had written "It's a shame you don't live up north...", well, then that would have sounded very different.  I think most people would read your response and come to the same conclusion I did, without "purposely taking things out of context for likes and popularity" (which honestly is not a nice thing to say). 

20 minutes ago, Kadilo said:

Should move up North. Schools open since the 1st. November Older children 4 days/week, younger children  5 days, all teachers jabbed, all required students jabbed. 
 

Albeit after months of closure. 
 

Happy days. 

Perhaps should move to Mars.  No Covid there.   

Ok, I'm being facetious, but suggesting someone move to another area is a bit silly.  

And, for the record, as I understand Chiang Mai (in the North) currently has an on-site learning ban.  I honestly don't know which schools are affected by this.  Chiang Mai Province is having a pretty serious problem with Covid at this time; the last report I saw put the province at 3rd for total daily Covid cases in the country.