CygnusX1

My understanding is that the proposed new legislation is not as clear cut as Thailand’s 180 days. If you genuinely maintain a domicile in Australia, and have certain long term links to Australia, you would still be a tax resident, while being present for less than 183 days, possibly need to be there minimum of 45 or maybe 90 days. Can’t see the Australian tax office declaring someone a non resident for tax purposes just because they had a 7 month round the world holiday post retirement. For some wealthy people, it’s a big advantage to be non resident for tax purposes, and the tax office wouldn’t want to make it as easy for them as just being out of the country for 183 days. Of course, things don’t look so good for someone who’s obviously not been living in Australia for several years.

Two sides of the same hateful coin. Christians are not better than any other Medieval pile of lies. They’re both equally ridiculous of course, and both equally dangerous if taken to the extreme. However, one of those religions is hugely more dangerous than the other at the present time, and I think we all know which one that is.

Already have reading glasses. Too much hassle to carry them around along with sunglasses. Don’t think there’s any advisable corrective eye surgery for the relatively mild deterioration in close vision most of us experience with advancing age.

I’m going to be one of the brainwashed idiotic sheep when I get back to Australia next week. The worldwide data e-sim in my ipad was fantastic on my recent trip through Europe for stays in Airbnbs with hopelessly slow internet, and I need a new phone that’s also e-sim capable to avoid the nightmare of having to sort out a new sim card for each new country I visit. The pro model’s 5x optical zoom’s a bonus. Would like the max version for my failing close vision, will have to see if it fits in a pocket. Agree that I’ll only be using 1% of the phone’s features.

My 2 shots of Shingrix a few months ago in Australia for free. Didn’t realise how much money I’d saved.

Having just returned from a 3 month holiday spent in several European countries, I don’t think so…

How on earth does someone’s views on morality have anything to do with playing rugby or any other sport? Why do you assume that Folau’s expression of his moral views would alienate rugby’s customer base? When I’m enjoying watching sport played at the highest level I couldn’t care less whether the participants are far left woke, far right, centre, religious fundamentalists, atheists, pro or anti abortion or pro or anti homosexuality. Why must Folau share the same moral views as his employer? Your analogy of a burger chain not being made to employ someone who’s a campaigner against eating meat fails because in that case there’s a direct link between that particular moral view and his or her employment.

The fact that Folau was made to sign a contract in which he had to agree not to state his views on morality in public makes this even worse! That’s an outrageous violation of the right to freedom of speech, and is a perfect example of where I said in my original post that if I were still employed, I’d be wary about making statements that could offend the woke. You state that he didn’t lose any fundamental right of free speech, but he lost his job, due to an outrageous contractual obligation. That’s like saying that someone living in Putin’s Russia has full freedom of speech, but shouldn’t complain if he’s thrown in prison for opposing Putin’s war, as although his speech might be free, what he says has consequences. On speaking in tongues, blaming bushfires on lack of morality, that just reinforces my opinion of Folau’s lack of sanity. I suspect our views on moral issues are similar, it’s just that my understanding of the meaning of free speech is more robust, to say the least! The out of court settlement was confidential, but I trust it cost Rugby Australia a very large sum of money as a result of their unforgivable conduct.

In my first post I already stated that’s there’s not an absolute right to say anything, giving the examples of defamatory and threatening speech. I’m certainly not confusing ‘hate speech’ with free speech, as I consider ‘hate speech’ to be one of the more dangerous and pernicious ideas propagated by the woke. Folau wasn’t “imposing” his religious dogma on anyone. He was warning homosexuals, atheists such as myself, and in fact just about everyone else, to repent to save us from hell. Crazy in my view, but as I said before, that’s the kind of speech that is most important to defend. I think anti-vaxxers are crazy, but would never, ever agree with censoring their opinions. You might disagree with someone who states that homosexuality is a sin, or that all religions are ridiculous, or that men who identify as women aren’t really women, but just men pretending to be women, or that men are over-represented in physics and engineering faculties because they’re naturally more interested in those fields, but you have no right to censor the opinions of such people. Speech which really is inciting violence against others is of course a different matter, but that’s definitely not what Folau’s crazy statements were. Actually, under your definition of ‘hate speech’, I’m guilty of inciting hatred against fundamentalist Christians, in calling Folau crazy.

I feel entirely free to speak my mind, but only because I’m retired. If I were still employed, I’d have real concerns about conceivably being dismissed from my job for saying the wrong thing. Look at the case of Israel Folau, a supremely talented Australian rugby star, who was sacked from the team for stating that atheists, homosexuals, fornicators etc were going to hell unless they repented of their evil ways. Now as a lifelong atheist, who’s also guilty of just about every other of the sins enumerated by Folau, with the sole exception of homosexuality, I think Folau’s an idiot who’s left 90% of his brain on the football field, but I also respect his right of freedom of speech. In fact, the most important speech to defend is that with which you profoundly disagree. Can’t get my woke sister, who has no problems with severely punishing people for stating views with which she disagrees, to understand that. Freedom of speech is a very complicated matter, with proper limits on defamatory and threatening speech that democratic governments and courts have figured out over many years. Woke leftists are doing their best to dismantle all of that, and are looking more like those from the furthest of the far right, with their censorship of views with which they disagree.

Maybe not the best name to give the proposed smokers’ booths, as according to many sources on the web, Hitler strongly disliked the practice of smoking, and the Nazis mounted a campaign against smoking.

In Montenegro last week. Around 3 euro or 110 baht a pack at supermarkets, no idea if premium though. Half the people at the beach were happily smoking.

For Australians on certain types of superannuation pensions, it’s catastrophic financially to not be a “resident for tax purposes” - instead of losing 2% of your pension as tax, you lose 30% of the whole pension. Makes the hassle of filing a tax return well worthwhile, and is the reason I had to give up my dream of living in Thailand full time.

I don’t really get the logic here. If someone is staying in Thailand most of the year and funding his life with a pension paid by his country of citizenship, then surely Thailand’s already benefiting from the direct transfer of wealth from that country into Thailand. Really no different from shorter term tourists. If your logic was correct, then a tourist industry would be a net drain of wealth from the host country, yet most countries greatly encourage tourism as they see it as an economic gain.

If I had known that I’d have bought an apartment in Monaco instead of a condo in Thailand.

Yes, certainly very different from Australia! No argument for us farang to get senior concession in Thailand though.

I’ve never understood the logic of discounts for old people. I pay crazily low rates for public transport in Australia, but like most people, have way more money than when I was young - and most Australians of my age have way more money than I do. Maybe in Thailand the elderly really are financially worse off than younger people, but in Australia there’s a lot of understandable resentment against all of the benefits given to wealthy baby boomers.

No wonder I needed the assistance of Google and Wikipedia to figure that one out. I’d never heard of J. Arthur Rank, and I doubt too many other people have!

I just completed this quiz. My Score 40/100 My Time 57 seconds  

Bit late for you now, but if you book online you can reserve a couple of weeks or more in advance from memory. Small surcharge. Just search for “Jomtien to airport bus”.

Anyone know what happened to VT5A and VT5B?

Compared with the colossal amount of work required in order to learn to speak Thai with just a basic level of competence that’s nowhere near fluency, learning less than a hundred symbols and a few tone rules is trivial.

Bora Bora’s not all 5 star plus luxury resorts, most of those are on the fringing islands. Parts of main island have a bit of a 3rd world feel. Certainly the most beautiful airport in the world though, and the only one I’ve experienced in the last 40 odd years with no security checks.

You’ve done an amazing job, highly professional, thanks! Will inspire me to brush up a bit on my extremely limited Thai. All seems to work fine on my iPad, including sounds and the FreeThai game.

Even in Australia, with all of its draconian road rules, nothing seems to be done about motorbikes with noise levels far, far above any reasonable limit, so I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for Thailand.