Etaoin Shrdlu

Recently when flying back from the US, after the usual safety announcements including admonishment to wear a mask during the flight, a flight attendant quietly told me shortly after takeoff that it was not necessary to wear a mask in business class. Middle Eastern carrier.

This is correct. These regulations are to comply with international agreements intended to stop parental child abductions. We have always had to comply with these requirements when our children applied for Thai and US passports.

Very handy for money laundering. The bits about tourism and competing with illegal gambling are nonsense.

Griswold v. Connecticut established the right of a married couple to use birth control. This right was established via the 14th amendment and the "right to privacy" that you mention. Clarence Thomas has said that Griswold needs to be revisited, presumably with the intent to overturn. If Griswold were overturned, you can forget about birth control being being taught in schools in some states as they would likely move to restrict access to it, especially for unmarried people. Whatever one thinks about the morality of abortion, striking down Roe casts a shadow on many rights that Americans enjoy. Clarence Thomas should reflect on this as interracial marriage (Thomas is black, his wife white) was upheld as a constitutional right under Loving v Virginia only six years before Roe by virtue of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

I also have some gripes about BP's moderation policies. In my opinion, too often BP allows comments to descend into name-calling and ad-hominem attacks on those who post sentiments not in line with mainstream opinion. Some of the comments are distasteful and not on-topic. This isn't proper and BP needs to be stricter in controlling this. Besides, being civil lends weight to one's words. BP also publishes letters in Postbag that contain widely-debunked conspiracy theory nonsense, anti-vax cant and fact-free assertions about Covid and other issues. Since these seem to be genuinely-held opinions of those who post, especially if real names are used, I'm not sure what BP should do about it. But some posters submit this kind of stuff on an almost daily basis and that's perhaps a bit too much. Then there are posters whose opinions may be genuinely held, but are expressed with such consistency and frequency on certain subjects that many readers might come to the conclusion that they are operatives similar to China's wumao. I realize the difficulty in differentiating between genuine reader opinion and that of possible volunteer or even paid operatives and I have no idea if any of BP's posters are working at the direction of others. But some do seem exhibit such characteristics. At least Russia's ambassador, when making outrageous statements about his country's war against Ukraine, is identifiable as a government mouthpiece. It would be nice if such disclosure were forthcoming from others if they are also posting as part of a coordinated effort.

Many freedoms and rights that Americans enjoy are not expressly mentioned in the Constitution. The Constitution was intentionally written and has been consistently interpreted to provide a greater degree of liberty than that. The original Roe v Wade ruling is not an outlier in that it established the right to abortion as being provided by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment which establishes the right to privacy. Many other rights have been established in a similar manner under the 14th and other clauses. What is an outlier is the current Supreme Court's disregard for precedent and its personal religious and partisan political motivation for striking down Roe. If the current Supreme Court can strike down Roe in this manner, there are many other rights that Americans potentially stand to lose as a result. It seems that the sole determinants in deciding whether to scrap those rights are the personal religious beliefs and partisan political motivation of some of the justices. With the wife of one of the justices allegedly deeply involved in the January 6th coup attempt and others having either lied, misled or dissembled in their confirmation hearings, this court has no credibility left.

I pay Skype USD35 per year for unlimited calls to landlines and mobile phones in the US. For a bit more, you can get a VOIP US phone number so that people in the US can call you using a domestic number. I think these same offers are available for Canada. Some banks' 2FA will not work with a VOIP number, but for contacting family, friends and businesses using their US phone numbers, Skype works well.

A Thai doctor will never prescribe three meds when eight will do.

That, too.

Not surprising when one considers that six of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices are Catholic and another, Gorsuch, was raised Catholic. Next up will be erosion of the separation of church and state with taxpayer money being given to religious schools and prayer being re-introduced into public school classrooms. The West worked hard to extract itself from the morass of religion, but in the US it seems to be sinking back in. Perhaps the one good thing about overturning Roe v. Wade is that the fundamentalist types will stop supporting the Republican Party now that their main political demand has been met.

The font and graphics were instantly familiar, and sure enough American Motorcycling later became American Motorcyclist, the AMA's monthly publication that I would pore over back in the 1960s and early 1970s looking to see if my name and AMA number were published in the district points standings for sportsman motocross and scrambles. Brings back memories.

Social Security contributions are currently 6.2 percent of wages paid both by employee and employer for a total of 12.4 percent. Self-employed individuals pay the full 12.4. Currently, Social Security taxes are only levied on the first $147,000 of wage income. Compare this with Federal income tax rates that go up to 37 percent and there is no income cap and is not limited to wage income. Federal income taxes go towards discretionary spending items. Military and defense account for over fifty percent of discretionary spending, so basically over half of Americans' Federal income tax goes toward the military. Yet Republicans attack Social Security and other entitlement programs as being too expensive. Social Security, even if the rates increase a bit and the cap is raised, seems a bargain to me when compared with Federal income taxes. Then there's a separate discussion about where SS benefits go and where military spending goes, and why.

I suspect that the "annual immigration report" is more like the annual extension of stay that those on B, O or O-A visas are required to obtain each year and probably would require re-documentation of income, investments, etc. I doubt it would be as simple as filing the 90 day report of address.

Skyscanner and similar aggregators will charge a fee on top of any re-booking fees or higher fares charged by the airlines if you need to make changes to your flights. I prefer to book directly with the airlines.

During the worst of the Covid situation, Mrs. Shrdlu was not willing to let the maintenance company come to clean our aircons. As a result, in March last year the bedroom unit started to pee down the wall after the drainpipe clogged. We switched it off and it stayed off for almost all of the remainder of the year. We got by without problems with just a floor fan at the foot of the bed. In normal circumstances, depending upon the time of year, we either use just the fan (November through February) or aircon at 26 degrees with fan at foot of bed from about 11 pm until 6 am. The children blast the aircon at 21 degrees in their rooms when they're home.

What does the sale/purchase contract between you and the seller say? Does it specifically require payment to B and is payment to B considered payment to A? I would seek proper legal advice on this one.