CygnusX1

Congratulations to Thai police, I wish the police where I live in Australia would do the same.

Yes, I think people should treat each issue on its merits, rather than slavishly following an ideology, whether left or right. Just letting you know I wasn’t the one who downvoted your last post replying to mine!

OK, I’ll have a go, maybe you can define ‘right wing’ - you seem to think the term ‘far right’ has the same meaning. I’d say that people can be leftist economically, or socially and morally. Economic leftists think that we should place more emphasis on cooperation between people, and controlling unbridled capitalism, and there should be a very strong social welfare system. Taken to an extreme, this can lead to communism, which experience has shown is a very bad idea. Social and moral (non extreme) leftists maintain that there should be absolutely no discrimination between people based on race or sex, and that people should be left alone in respect to their private lives, especially in regards to their sexual behaviour. As a mild libertarian, I have no issues with that at all, sounds a lot like libertarianism. People on the centre and right would agree, with the rider that provided a behaviour doesn’t negatively affect other people. Taken to excess this results in ‘Wokery’, in which people are censored and punished for expressing dissenting views, and ‘Identity Politics’ which strives to permanently divide people into classes based on sex and race (see Australia’s recent referendum seeking to enshrine race into the country’s constitution, thankfully soundly defeated). It’s possible to be simultaneously an economic leftist and morally far right, as in Australia’s long defunct Democratic Labor Party. With transgenderism, I think the Woke have gone a bridge too far, and it’s very possibly the reason for Trump’s election. I’d agree that the Far Right, the Right, the Centre and the Centre Left have successfully used the word as a way of ridiculing extremists. I’m sure there are stupid and ignorant people who follow along, just as there are many highly intelligent people who use the word ‘Woke’. I’ve heard people WAY smarter than Trump use the word, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris come to mind.

Good summary of the word’s original use by progressive leftists. However, it’s been my experience that leftists now hate the word, as it’s now used very successfully as a term to ridicule leftists who’ve taken some originally good progressive ideas to ludicrous extremes, and those on the extremes, whether on the left or the right, hate being ridiculed. It’s a far better term than the awkward ‘politically correct’.

Exactly. There was freedom of speech in Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia, and the consequence was that you were executed or sent to a Gulag. Not as bad in the West at the moment, you might just lose your job (eg google ‘Israel Folau case’).

I had an epiretinal membrane in my right eye diagnosed a few years ago. Was relieved it wasn’t macular degeneration, as the symptoms seem similar - blurry vision and wavy lines. My optometrist also said it was up to me whether or not to have surgery. I elected not to, due to difficulty of operation. Risk I’m running of course is that if the same thing happens to my good eye, car driving’s over for me for good. Also, apparently the operation is less successful the longer you delay. My vision’s not deteriorated further, and I have an annual retinal scan. I can read a car number plate from over 20 paces with my good eye, about 5 paces with the bad one. Things look sharp with both eyes open, interesting how the brain manages to ignore input from the bad eye.

Don’t know if this gives you any more information than you already have from streetview, but from memory of a walk tonight, think it starts from around soi 7 or 8 and goes south, don’t know for how long, haven’t walked that far. North of that, such as at Dong Tan beach stretch, is unaffected. I’d say it’s going to be a fair while before it’s finished, hope by next high season. Beach road’s one way in south direction (except for some motorbikes!)

Sounds like you’re one of those fortunate people who can ‘pick up’ a language in a similar way to young children. I could try your way for 20 years and only acquire a few words. Any (very basic) ability I have in French and Thai is the result of a lot of hard grind.

Yes, that’s one reason why I think learning to read Thai, or any other language that uses an alphabet, is SO much easier than trying to understand speech. When reading, you have as much time as you like to figure things out.

From my experience with attempting to learn Thai, if I were to study the language intensively for the next 5 years, I doubt if I could get anywhere near your level of proficiency in speaking and understanding it. In comparison, I found learning the alphabet to be trivial, and I can read simple Thai, even without always understanding what I’m reading. To me, you’re as surprising as if someone were to tell me “I have a reasonable grasp of the mathematics behind the derivation of Einstein’s field equations of general relativity, but I’ve never been able to figure out how the odds on a horse race work.”

That’s far hotter than even the Sun’s core, but the Sun has the advantage of immense pressure.

Emissions from all the private jets flying in the delegates to the World Economic Forum?

That’s true, and it isn’t pleasant to be strolling along Sukhumvit Road when an ancient bus spewing black smoke goes past, but there’s stalled traffic and street stalls frying meat the whole year, but we only seem to get consistently high levels of air pollution in entire large regions of the country, well outside Bangkok, at this time of year.

You could replace all the fossil fuel power plants with nuclear plants or wind turbines, and all of the cars with EVs, and it would do very little to reduce PM2.5, which is almost all from agricultural burning, it’s called the burning season for a reason. Outside the burning season, the air at least outside Bangkok is usually not too bad, it’s the ag burning that causes air pollution throughout the whole country.

Love the large number of ‘amused face’ emojis next to the original post, says it all about the justified cynicism of posters here. Today’s the worst it’s been so far at Jomtien, previous days the island of Koh Larn has begun to very hazily emerge from the murk by midday, but at 1245, it’s still completely invisible. Still going for my long morning swim and beach walks, at my age haven’t too many years left anyway, though I do worry about the developing lungs of the Russian kids on the beach. Mind you, some of them probably come from industrial towns with even worse air.

Thanks, just logged in with no problems, there’s an “‘Approved” next to my address, and, as on previous attempts, I can see the screen to add all this info. Don’t want to test it today though, as if it were to work this time, I’d be a couple of months late with my submission! I’ll have another opportunity to try next month, when I’ll be returning from a few days in Kuala Lumpur.

I’m a condo owner, and registered online with no problems, have a username and password, but have never been able to figure out the rest of the process. I have a go at it each time I return to Thailand. I always ensure that I stay less than 90 days, so never have any contact with immigration, and have a receipt for a TM30 I did years ago at the immigration office.

I’m sure you met many kind and generous Saudis, but for another perspective of a woman who’s lived in an Islamic country check out Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Well, you may be correct, but a reformed Islam 600 years in the future isn’t much consolation for its current victims, is it?

I think Harris knows a great deal more about Islam than the great majority of people. I’m sure he’d thoroughly agree with your statement on the evils perpetrated by Christianity in the Middle Ages but your last sentence is the salient point - Christianity was on the wrong path 600 years ago, but Islam is on the wrong path NOW.

I don’t think Sam Harris is a typical leftist. When I quoted his statement that “Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas” in an argument with my severely Woke sister, she was outraged, and called him the most evil man alive. She was then confused when I pointed out that Harris was also the harshest critic of Trump I had ever heard, and I’m sure she’d also thoroughly approve of this article on Musk. I disagree with lots that Harris says, including his over-the-top attacks on Trump and Musk, but recognise that unlike the typical Woke leftist, he doesn’t follow an ideology, and looks at each issue on its merits. Although he might not be as famous as a Musk, he’s very well known as one of the 4 most prominent of the “‘new atheists”.

I’m in VT5D. This high season, no real delays with elevators, if I have to wait a full minute I’d call that unusually long. I’m on the top floor, rare for elevator to stop at more than 2 or 3 floors on the way up or down. No lifts closed for maintenance that I recall in the last couple of months. Seems that there aren’t too many people here, despite high season, although the car parks are mostly full. My floor’s very quiet. No noisy maintenance allowed between 15 Nov and 15 Feb. Pool is big enough by my standards! Last few weeks I’ve just been swimming in the sea, as water in pool’s a bit cold, but when I’ve used the pool it’s never been too crowded to make swimming laps awkward, and usually only 2 or 3 others in the water, often it’s been my private pool. That’s early morning or late afternoon though, don’t like to swim in midday sun.

It’s crystal clear to me that the ‘bad rubbish’ he’s referring to is racist and anti meritocracy DEI practices, NOT the particular people who might be advantaged by DEI. You’re entitled to disagree with his position, but not to grossly and deliberately misrepresent what he’s saying.

I’m a lot more concerned about soi dogs cr****** on the beach.

But males aren’t the rate limiting sex in reproduction. If a woman wants a baby, it’s trivially easy for her to find a willing male, even if the number of males has been substantially reduced through war or accidents. In wealthy Western countries at least, the State will then ensure that her children are financially supported. In the same way, if 95% of male soi dogs in a town are neutered, but no females, it will make no difference to the future population of soi dogs.