Walker88

I see the China figure of 5,102 in a country of 1.3 billion. Apparently EVERY ONE of them went to Italy. What are the odds!

The guy is obviously innocent. No way he could have done a 'runner'. Roller, maybe, but runner....no way. I will never understand how humans let this happen to themselves.

One has to wonder how much of China's recently relaxed Covid restrictions have to do with internal dissent and fears by Xi and the CP of a domestic uprising. What they have done makes zero sense relative to what they had been doing. They went in a matter of days from 'Zero Covid' policy to 'go enjoy Lunar Year outside China'. Anecdotal evidence suggests the Covid situation in China is at its worst level ever. Hospital ICUs are reportedly filled. Crematoriums are working 24/7 and in Guangzhou, inter alia, families are being told to postpone funeral services until some future date. One estimate reported in many Western media claims upwards of 250 million Chinese now test positive for Covid. That's a lot of chances for mutation, and mutation into a virulent form. Just because the trend has been toward variants of lesser severity does not mean the next variant will be similarly benign. Any mutation has the chance to be virulent. So with Covid at its worst in China right now what are they doing about it? 1) Failing---again---to share timely and accurate data with the WHO and world's health authorities 2) Allowing millions of Chinese to travel during Lunar New Year, the exact action that spread the virus globally back in 2020. So far the US, Italy, India, Japan, & South Korea have imposed restrictions on Chinese entering their nations. The EU is currently consulting internally as to whether to adopt a Union-wide policy regarding arrivals from China. Of course all of this will incur costs on nations around the world, as they have to prepare for testing/quarantine/treatment of Chinese visitors. Thailand has yet to do anything. So what might the odds be that Thailand's Covid numbers are going to soar in the next few months? I would guess 100%.

I have no idea what that means. I was 'told' little. I observed and came to conclusions, some of which were altered as I learned more. One thing I know for a fact, but which many people seem to believe: There is no grand cabal that cooperates to control or rule the world or keep so-called 'sheeple' in line. What there are are people who compete with each other and want to beat those they think are peers. For those who are not their peers, they couldn't care less about them. I have heard so many silly tales of things like Davos, Bilderberg, Bohemian Grove, the Trilateral Commission, Skull&Bones, the Council on Foreign Relations, QAnon, etc. QAnon, of course, is pure nonsense. Davos, for example, is where guys go to compare (nickname for Richard) length or show off the interiors of their new Gulfstream. In reality, if one uber wealthy guy says "up", there is another uber wealthy or powerful guy who says "down". Get to the top of the mountain, and there's a guy intent on knocking you off. Also, the world is so complex with so many variables, nobody is clever enough to manipulate much of anything, at least not for any length of time. People who hold conspiratorial views like to think someone cares they exist, and wants to manipulate them. In reality, the vast majority of humans are meaningless to all but their families and friends. That should be liberating, as nobody is out to fool anybody. Nobody really cares what you think or what you do, or even if you live tomorrow or die. I have been fortunate enough to both be in the halls of power and become rather wealthy. What I learned is that nobody really knows anything, nobody is anywhere near as competent as outsiders might think, and even the powerful tend to think 'others' know more than them. The truth is most everybody walks around blind, but some (myself included) just stumble into dumb luck and end up with a fun, interesting and comfortable life. As for curmudgeons, I suspect most old guys are simply disappointed with what they achieved or did not achieve in life, realize they're much nearer the end than the beginning, and they tend toward bitterness because of both of these things.

There are some false assumptions here. A mutation can be benign or malign. Just because Omicron was less virulent doesn't mean the next variant won't be worse than Delta. It all depends on the mutation and how it interacts with the host. The ideal variant is one which is easily caught but benign. It becomes dominant. We got a bit lucky in that while Delta was worse than the original, subsequent mutations have been less virulent. There is no scientific law that such luck continues. Because the virus is so prevalent across the globe, there are billions upon billions of hosts, and a malign variant could emerge at any time. One variant already in Thailand is one that causes fever, congestion, and vomiting. It's not only in the major cities, as a friend in rural Isaan developed it and was hospitalized for two weeks. She is a 22 year old female, in shape, not fat, not a diabetic, having none of the frailties that Covid often attacks or exploits. This variant still hit her hard. It seems her daughter brought it home from school. Her daughter was hospitalized for a few days. Best to take this thing seriously. That doesn't mean lockdown, just proper caution.

I was in Thailand for the entire lockdown, as well as the reopening. I remember folks gathering on the sidewalks and in alcoves each night to sleep, all their worldly possessions next to them after having lost both their work and their home. On the plus side, many people---both Thai and foreigners---made the rounds each night delivering food to these unfortunate victims of the lockdown. I do not miss that, and I am happy many of them have found new work and gained the money to rent a place to stay. They have regained their dignity. Yes, we all play the cards we're dealt, and some of us are luckier. To some extent the quiet was welcome, but at what cost? Thus, no, I do not miss the lockdowns.

Bout isn't going to last long, as he has a few months left due to disease. Also, he has been usurped by putin's buddy (and former chef) who runs the Wagner Group of mercenaries and arms dealers. Maybe he can get a job as a greeter at GUM, but he won't be in the arms business anymore. Griner had residue from a substance now legal in Thailand, and at least claimed she used it for medical purposes. There are worse crimes...e.g., like trying to overthrow the US Govt or stealing highly classified documents. Sometimes trades are made that might seem one sided, but most people believe getting a citizen freed is worth it. The disgraced former POTUS---in case folks have forgotten---freed 5000 Taliban jihadi prisoners and received nothing in return. Those released prisoners helped in retaking the country, and many now serve in the Taliban govt...the one that closed girls' schools, demands women wear burkas, and has people stoned to death for such 'crimes' as apostasy, sex outside of marriage, general vice like a female going outside without a close male relative, getting raped, etc. If Pres Biden is a 'flaming joke', 45 is a supernova joke.

Lots of silliness here. A guy with a set square at the pyramids? And he could tell with that simple instrument nobody could build to those tolerances today? Did an alien make his set square that can measure those tolerances so precisely? 53 years ago man went to the moon using computers with about as much ooomph as a $50 mobile phone and the quality control in spacecraft construction not much better than a Yugo.. Humans have long been resourceful. The Romans constructed a long aqueduct to bring water to Nimes. The structure had to cross the Gard River. 2000 years ago they built a bridge to cross the Gard and carry the water. Since they had no electric pumps, gravity was their only 'power' to move the water along. The portion that crosses the Gard is several hundred meters long. The slope from one side to the other drops about 2 cm....just enough to keep the water flowing. Romans, not aliens, built that. Oh, and there is no mortar used in the construction. Roman masons cut the slabs so exact that one would be hard pressed to slip a razor blade between 10-ton slabs....which are dozens of meters above ground. As stated, humans have long been resourceful. The Mayans built exacting structures and even figured out the length of a year to within an hour or so, as well as establishing the orbit of planets. You see, when there was no Netflix or World Cup or Twitter or Facebook, the more clever humans had time to sit and look at the sky....day in and day out---and note the changes from one night to the next. That pyramid-like structures exist in many disparate places don't not imply aliens or cross fertilization; it merely says that such a structure is about as strong as then-technology could muster. Today, kids build houses of cards using a similar principle. No need for any aliens to teach kids how to do that, just as there was no need for aliens to teach humans how to pile rocks on top of each other. The pyramids required a few bright engineers, plus tens of thousands of very cheap workers, i.e., slaves. The Indians used the same technology to build the Taj Mahal 4000 years later......they built ramps a kilometer long with a gentle slope, and then had humans and elephants pull heavy rocks up the slope to move rocks into position. (Having visited both the pyramids and Taj, one thing I know is that there is plenty of sand to build the slopes). The Indians also sourced ebony from Sri Lanka, dug deep cylindrical holes in the ground, filled them with water, dropped the ebony beams (very slow rotting wood) into the holes, then built the Taj on top, the ebony serving as a clever cushion in the event of an earthquake. No aliens required. One would think if aliens were going to make a few billion mile trip to Earth, they would teach humans how to make something like the new Steinway Building on Central park in NYC, rather than just pile some rocks on top of each other. Even more astonishing than piles of rocks or ebony columns supporting a massive tomb, was what James Clerk Maxwell figured out 150 years ago...and without any assistance from aliens. Besides his equations regarding electromagnetism, do you know Maxwell---using only math---determined what made up the rings of Saturn? Humans have long been resourceful.

One can make plans after 80 if one started making those plans at 30. Get medical insurance at a young age. Save some money. Most important, exercise, eat right, and don't smoke. The Billionaire Boomers have been funding all sorts of longevity research in the last few years. Apparently they want to live long enough to enjoy much of their wealth. Occasionally they fund a doctor or researcher who 'goal seeks' and produces 'research' that fails to pass Peer Review. A few years ago, the Longevity Guru was Dr David Sinclair, who recommended intermittent fasting, exercise, and taking supplements such as resveratrol, NMN, Metformin, and Rapamycin. Some of that has been challenged, even discredited. Sinclair's reputation is fading. For example, the most recent research finds no benefit to non-Type II diabetics taking Metformin. It does benefit the diabetics, but there is no statistical data backing up any benefit to non-diabetics. Intermittent fasting, if it has benefit, comes from overall calorie reduction---and thus less chance of developing Type II diabetes---than what its original benefit was thought to be (autophagy---the body's removal of senescent cells). There was some research suggesting a lower protein diet might help because proteins land amino acids ike BCAAs, specifically leucine, turn on mTOR. Keeping mTOR turned off, at least sometimes, seems to slow cell aging. The drug rapamycin, which comes from the soil on Easter Island, and was used primarily to limit organ rejection in transplant patients, turns off or limits mTOR (whose initials stand for mammalian target of rapamycin) is a protein kinase that regulates mitochondrial activity). It is believed that excess activity of mTOR leads to production of too many free radicals that harm mitochondrial proteins, limit autophagy, and enhance cell aging. There is some dispute as to whether protein intake is a negative, since during sleep, when no food is consumed, that may limit mTOR as much as required. If mTOR is turned on too much, that is a negative, but if turned off too much, cells die. Thus, there is a middle ground. Too little protein, however, prohibits muscle maintenance, and weakness is a contributor to all cause mortality. Thus the 'limit protein' mantra of Sinclair and Dr Valter Longo is taking a back seat, removing the "correlation=causation" conclusion those two reached. New research suggests older people (over age 40) consume extra---even excessive protein---so that sarcopenia, the atrophy and deterioration of muscles with aging, is limited. A few doctors and researchers have moved into the forefront of longevity research because they are more consistent in following the data, rather than hyping things for personal gain (as David Sinclair seems to do). Don Layman, Peter Attia and Andrew Huberman are now ascendant in the longevity field. Their advice: Exercise, diet and sleep. No surprise there. More specifically, exercise should involve resistance training. As noted, weakness is a major factor in all cause mortality, so working with weights is a plus. Weight training also helps strengthen bones, aids in cognition due to increased blood flow, and when using heavy weights (heavy relative to one's strength level), the body produces more testosterone and HGH, even in older people. Cardio is good, but weight training has more benefits. Peter Attia and Don Layman recommend older people consume up to 2g/kg body weight of protein per day, as the body's ability to process and utilize protein declines after about age 25. Research has shown that by giving the body more protein, more can be utilized by older people. The protein should also not just be plant based, because the body requires leucine to turn on mTOR and gain its benefits related to energy production. Supplements have some use, but exercise, diet and sleep are key. Supplements have maybe a 5% benefit, while the previous three are 95% of what helps maintain one's healthspan. The supplements that show promise are creatine monohydrate (cell metabolism and possible cognition), and collagen peptides (maintain tendon and ligament strength, plus slow wrinkling). One can add D3 and K2 (in MK7 form), magnesium (minimizes muscle cramping and aids in about 200 metabolic processes), hyaluronic acid (tendons and ligaments), Ashwaganda (reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, and may enhance cognitive function), and a combination of N-acetyl-cysteine and glycine (which enhances glutathione production, increasing energy levels and helping detoxify the liver).

The # of tourists arriving has surprised me. In some quarters business is booming. While I do see more families and young couples, the vast majority of the folks I see are single males and groups of single males. I wonder why.....NOT ! There was pent up demand for travel because of Covid, as well as pent up demand to engage in the biological imperative. Despite trying to pretend it doesn't exist, or being ashamed, Thailand still benefits from its reputation as a place where a man can come into his own, so to speak. Try to get a table at a restaurant in the Soi Cowboy to Soi 4 corridor most nights before 9, and one is hard pressed. Hotels in that corridor are also doing well, and they run the gamut of budget to upscale. Rooms are not easy to get. This does not translate across the entire Thai economy, but the boost from re-opening is clear to see, and bodes well for 2023 (if a business caters to the right demographic and market). I'm waiting for the world to tumble into Recession, but it may not happen. I'm a perpetual Economic Cassandra---having made the vast majority of my wealth anticipating and trading bear markets---but I find myself slightly less pessimistic than normal. There seems to be a 'live for now, because another pandemic is sure to come' attitude that is keeping economies chugging along. At some point savings will be gone, or people will feel poorer become their major asset (home) may fall by 30-50%, but for now people are forgetting about tomorrow and living for today. For my pessimism, I will fade China. The cat is out of the bag. The Covid restrictions have 1.3 billion people fed up. xi is going to have to deal both with a upset populace (protests now even not topics such as 'freedom of speech' and 'democracy'), as well as factions within the CP who want to dump xi. Thailand should not factor in much Chinese tourism, though it isn't that much of a per capita benefit anyway. On the other hand, if there is social unrest in China, Thai production/exports might pick up some of the slack if China production falls. Thailand (or Vietnam) could also capture foreign investment that would be scared off by Chinese unrest. May you live in interesting times is the old Chinese curse. So be it.

Okay, but he was involved in the first interracial kiss on US TV, with Nichelle Nichols. Of course that's not funny, but it must have been fun rehearsal, as she was a gorgeous woman.

I believe Shatner was the one who originated the phrase, "Get a life". He said that to a group of Trekkies who seemed obsessed with Star Trek to the exclusion of everything else.

But some of those posters have watched hospital drama shows on TV, so that makes them almost as expert as guys with PhDs in biochemistry and molecular biology.

The law requires the IRS to provide both bodies of Congress with any taxpayers filing if requested. 45 tried to halt execution of that law, which is decades old. It isn't up to 45 to decide. One of the powers of both the House and Senate is to request from the IRS the tax returns of anyone who files. Now the guy who appointed 3 justices to the Supreme Court is barking about the court being 'political', because the court followed the law There is absolutely nothing 45 will not whine like a baby about and cry "UNFAIR!", like he always used to Tweet. It seems 45 has been quite the burden on the US Taxpayer. He declared losses for most years (squandering the upwards of $500 million he got from his father via allowance and inheritance, plus all the loans banks forced his father to co-sign), and his 6 bankruptcies become a direct burden on the Taxpayer, because stiffed banks and bondholders get to write off the loss, forcing others to pay to run the govt.

How fitting that a guy who ran up $7,000,000,000,000 more National Debt under his watch would be a guy who never paid any taxes. Also, he will lambast the IRS, yet when he was playing POTUS he used the IRS as a weapon against critics like Comey and McCabe. Karma, baby!

Another exchange---Genesis---is talking about bankruptcy due to the fallout from FTX. Genesis is owned by Digital Currency Group, which also owns Greyscale Investments (which owns Greyscale Bitcoin Trust). Genesis was a big loaner to Three Arrows Capital (already bankrupt) and FTX (bankrupt last week). What seemed apparent in the manner in which all these coins traded now looks as if it is being exposed: They all propped up each other's coins via exchange subsidiaries and trading subsidiaries, and they all seem to have taken advantage of zero regulation and did not segregate customers coins stored on their exchange. They all borrowed money, pledging their coins and customer coins as collateral. Thus, when any coin that is the major holding of any exchange starts to go, the daisy chain of "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" is collapsing. Cold storage isn't going to save anyone when the coin itself is collapsing. Holders will just have access to their falling knife, vs those who held on exchanges and will have their coins locked in the bankruptcy court for years. While retail 'get rich quick' types helped some insiders cash out, the meteoric rises in coins in 2021 looks to have been the result of cross holdings and cross ramping. Can Michael Saylor be far behind? I suspect after Genesis blows up, Binance will be next. Microstrategy will come later. All the money that could be made in crypto has been made. Now it's just finding out where the bodies are buried. Sam Bankman-Fried was either the #1 or #2 "most respected" name in crypto, and he was a fraud all along besides being incompetent. I wonder what the financial press will be saying about Saylor in another few months?

"provisional" province renegade province Vassal State Wholly-owned Subsiidiary A rose by any other name.... According to Henry Kissinger, Bo Xilai, the jailed competitor to xi's President-for-Life demand, had a map of his wall of Greater China that included Taiwan (obviously) but also included all of Myanmar. I suspect the cartographers, working hard to produce 'ancient' and 'recently discovered' maps, just hadn't yet gotten around to including Thailand.

What puzzles me is one day I went to deposit some cash in a bank whose name shall remain anonymous. My passport was at Immigration for a Visa stamp. The teller would not let me deposit, because I did not have the physical passport. A phone photo was no good. So what did she do? She led me over to the CDM machine, where I dropped in the cash, business done. Oddly, the machine asked no questions and required no documents.

All religions are silly, and how people practice at the retail level has almost no connection to the wholesale teachings, which are there to give false promises of happiness or peace or contentment...all with a silly and usually plagiarized tale of a made-up reality. People are going to be people...everywhere....no matter the country, no matter the predominant faith. The behavior noted in this thread happens everywhere. Nobody needed any religion to teach them how to live a decent life. If anyone reached adulthood and did not inherently know certain behaviors (e.g., murder, theft, rape, etc.) are bad and mess up a wannabe civilized society, then that person is wildly flawed, and no amount of preaching or proselytizing is going to straighten him out. Moses did not come down from the mountain after chiseling out his tablets and say, "Sorry guys, got some bad news...murder is a no no". Most religions are also just a thin coating of some charlatan's or crazy guy's philosophy over more deeply held superstitions. Note how little the teachings of the founder of this country's major faith have to do with how people here actually live. The old myths, rituals, superstitions, etc. are much stronger. Magic amulets, tattoos, making 'merit' by releasing fish somebody else caught, thinking donated money comes back 1000 fold.... Organized religion is just a way for those lacking any useful skill to have a job. Hence preachers, pastors, monks, rabbis, priests, shaman, etc. The scam is taken to its zenith by the "Prosperity Gospel" preachers in the US, or guys who 'need a Gulfstream so I can spread the lord's word faster'.

I think you know in 45 world, polls and elections are only fair when you win. I do think even Dems want him back, knowing he'll shoot himself in the foot, which is in his mouth, while his head is up his thoot.

I think it's great he's back. He is becoming more and more unhinged. One might use the 'technical' term is that he's batsh!t crazy. The more exposure he gets, the more anyone sane will move away from him. Sure, he'll keep the Incels, QAnon crowd, some fanatical christians and white supremacists, but they cannot carry an election. The bloated mendacious traitor is in a political death spiral right now, and letting his increasingly crazed mind spew nonsense on a public forum will hasten his decline. Molon labe! He's a spent force and a loser. He was always an embarrassment to rational people, but now his Party knows he's poison to their Party. He lost the House, Senate and White House to the Dems in 2020, and he nearly lost the House again, while losing the Senate again and several Governor slots and SecStates. If he barks about the GA Senate runoff, he'll lose that seat, too. Losing is what he does best, in business and in politics. Give him all the rope he needs to hang himself and get it over with. Then finish him off for good with an indictment, trial conviction, and execution for capital offenses.

Myth and superstition are the preferred 'faith' worldwide, because they are simpler to understand. Reality is much more complicated, and often uncomfortable. Every religion, for example, is silly on the face of it, but because it fills a need, many buy into a brand, usually a function of where one was born. Bad events a result of being nasty in a 'previous life'? An act not wrong if the skydaddy doesn't instantly strike one down? A creator of 200 billion galaxies chooses an illiterate guy in the middle of nowhere to channel its 'last message'?. Another deity creates a country club in the sky with a bizarre initiation ceremony that involves setting up its kid to get killed? The need in Thailand is to believe in inherent Thai superiority, even if there's not a single discovery, invention or addition to the body of human knowledge to back it up. The indoctrination has to be all-encompassing in the face of a reality that tells a much different story. Sure, it's a bit over the top here, but the rest of the world isn't immune from the same kind of affliction. Perhaps somewhat related is the idea of willful ignorance, sometimes out of laziness and sometimes out of a desire to maintain and reinforce certain comforting beliefs. Many Thais need to think they are superior, especially when confronted with the achievements and successes of other societies. The equivalent thing in a place like the US is the need to believe in "my side" or "my tribe", and willful ignorance makes that easy. Think of the abject idiocy it takes to believe in the QAnon silliness---that a cabal of celebrities and Democrats not only rule the world, but kidnap, rape, roast and eat babies. How about the maga belief that Hugo Chavez, from the grave, and working somewhere in the EU, altered voting machines so that Biden would win in 2020, or that China was so clever producing fake ballots and getting them into States like Arizona, but they forgot US paper is not made with bamboo? Or that all major airlines worldwide, among both allies and enemies, help spread mind-controlling chemtrails to the 'sheeple'? Or that 12 men did not actually walk on the Moon? So it seems this sort of silliness is hardly limited to Thais, though perhaps the indoctrination covers more aspects of life in Thailand than most places, and there may well be a greater amount of xenophobia among Thais. I admit I also come from a society, or group of societies, with silly beliefs at their core. One major thing that has struck me as absurd since I was old enough to be aware of infidelity is that I suspect an entire major faith common in the West came to be as a result of an outrageous lie: "Joey, I swear, god did it !"

Perhaps you just haven't gotten an example yet. Not in Thailand, not in any country, does 'well educated and professional' prevent abject idiocy. Here's one.... College degree, travel to several countries, including EU nations. Professional, holding down a good job in marketing..... We're taking a walk at night. There's a full moon, and on this day and with the angle of view, it looks quite close. Just for laughs---and not expecting anything other than a laugh---I ask, "What do you think is farther away....the moon or Pattaya?" Her answer: Pattaya. "Why?", I ask. "Because I can see the moon from here, but I cannot see Pattaya." I decided to call a taxi and ask to be taken to the Pleiades Cluster, because I can see it in the night sky, and it's barely outside of the Milky Way galaxy. Ought to be less than 1500 baht to get there, as that's what Pattaya costs from Bangkok.

That's some funny stuff! Nobody with an IQ higher than a turnip thinks Biden is any sort of security risk, much less a 'massive' one. As for urgent work, indicting a POTUS who fomented an attempted coup, which qualifies as the capital crime of Sedition, is quite serious and urgent. That he thinks he can hide behind a declared candidacy is patently silly, as it would be the new defense for everyone from a rapist to a murderer to a thief to a serial killer: "I'm running for POTUS in 2024". Also, a departing loser POTUS who stole TS/SCI, HCS and Codeword documents, then lied about having them DOES represent a massive security risk. What possible purpose could he have for the theft? Certainly it suggests a desire to monetize them. When the loser was POTUS, he also represented a massive security risk...for a number of reasons...one of which was that he regularly discussed classified information on an un-secure phone. Among those who set up listening equiptment near the White House and Mar-a-Lago during his time were China, Russia, Iran, Israel and North Korea.

repubs don't seem to get it. A majority of voters support the 6 Jan investigation, because it was actually important: an attempt to overthrow democracy. 2 45 impeachments were based on actual crimes of an elected official, not a relation of an official. The majority do not care about Biden's son, and would have been opposed if the House had launched investigations into 45, jr and the toothy one, who spent 4 years influence peddling in Saudi, the UAE, India, etc.----AND at the US Taxpayer expense, as they brought along secret service on all of their 'business' travels. The son-in-law 'somehow' got $1.3 billion in financing (on a building with a market value of $700 million) from the govt of Qatar...and days after the funding was secured, sanctions were removed against Qatar. Still, Dems did not hold Hearings on that rather obvious illegality while 'serving' as a Snr Adviser to POTUS. repubs already had the worst showing in a midterm by an out-of-power Party since after 9-11. The reason is because they are obsessed with nonsense, like election denial. Please, repubs, start dozens of House investigations in January. Have alleged pedophile matt "pizza' gaetz, the pedo enabler and yapping chihuahua little gym jordan, non-highschool grad, QAnon believer, and spouse to a man convicted of exposing himself to young girls boebert scream at witnesses in Hearings. You will alienate more voters and GUARANTEE a Dem landslide in the House, Senate & White House in 2024. Molon labe, repubs. Dig your own graves.