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Everything posted by Walker88
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Orson Welles entrance in The Third Man
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When the folks in Rick's sing La Marseillaise in Casablanca. The war was actually being fought at the time, The tears in the actors eyes are real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeFhSzoTuc
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Just after the invasion began, I sat next to a russian in a restaurant. We struck up a conversation. He left russia and cleared his bank account the day after putin launched his aggression. He estimated---who am I to argue---that (in his words) 20% of russians are against the war and 80% are idiots and will feel proud that russia is attacking. He said many would gladly accept the sanctions in return for a larger russia that might rebuild its soviet era lands. He was draft age. He was also a scientist, an researcher in the filed of biochemistry. He said he would try to remain outside russia until putin was dead.
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This is a tradition rife with abuse, whatever positive elements it might have. I suspect we've all known Thais who live in penury, and often do work they would prefer not to do, because a mother unloads buckets of guilt on them. "I need a new iPhone! I'm so embarrassed to still be using an iPhone 10 when some in the village have 13s and 14s. Why did I take such good care of you? This is how you repay?" I know women who resent their mother or grandmother for inflicting this guilt trip on them. The daughters obey, but it is not out of love. What's the percent who get abused like this, vs those who gladly follow this tradition? I don't know, but if I had to give an over/under, I might guess 80% resent the practice. The system also perpetuates itself, because the child can never save, so must inflict the same guilt trip on her own daughter. The agogos of Pattaya and Bangkok are filled with women who are victims of this 'cultural tradition'. Whatever the system might have once been in the West, there are plenty of examples Thailand could follow to free children from this overbearing obligation. Thailand still has the normal pyramid-shape age demographic profile, so more young could contribute to a system where the fewer aged folks benefit. Thailand isn't yet Japan or Italy. Best take advantage while they still can. As Thais are so wont to say, however, "Up to them".
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If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
putin and some of his soldiers have no problem shooting Ukrainian civilians or bombing schools, hospitals and shopping malls. Seem the blood has grown a little thin. -
If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
putin was not dictator in 1982. He was a first tour KGB case officer. Things changed as he consolidated his power. -
If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
A low yield nuke wouldn't affect russia. Something Hiroshima sized....it would destroy Kyiv but not spread radioactivity very far. -
CNN Reporters get visa revoked, face possible prosecution
Walker88 replied to KhunBENQ's topic in General Topics
There is getting a scoop, and then there is discretion. It served no purpose to go inside the kill zone. Nothing to be gained and no need to know. Also, it would hamper any investigation, though there seems little to investigate. This shows bad judgement and tastelessness. Deport or charge the two, and CNN should fire anyone who was involved in any decision to go there. Let people grieve in private. Don't sensationalize madness and horror. -
If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
russia is not the US. putin has absolute authority to launch. The only safe guard is if someone puts a bullet in his head. There is a time to be a Pollyanna and a time to be a Cassandra. This is the later. The US would not escalate, but any use of a nuke would put everyone on edge. Mistakes happen. russians could view a wayward aircraft as an incoming attack, then launch their ICBMs. Obviously the US would respond in kind. The key points that put this as a 15% chance of an extinction level event is that 1) putin is crazy, 2) he has absolute authority, and 3) any use of a nuke would make mistakes much more likely. In 1982 russia almost launched their ICBMs because of a misread on a rocket test. One mid-level russian commander stopped it. Otherwise we'd already be extinct. -
If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
Most people would say there is less than 1% chance putin uses nukes. The intel community, who has done assessments of putin's character and stability, likely puts that at 25%. putin is a psychopathic, insecure, vindictive, paranoid coward. That makes him unstable. If he uses nukes, there's about an 80% chance it starts Armageddon, both as a response or via an error resulting from itchy trigger fingers. When tensions are high, mistakes are much more likely. So that means about a 15% chance we are on the verge of nuclear annihilation and the extinction of our species. Nobody will survive, not in Thailand, not anywhere. This is more serious than the Cuban missile crisis. Khrushchev had been a front line soldier, in a leadership role. He had seen war up close and death up close. He was more attuned to the horrors, and also more rational and personally secure than putin. 15% still leaves 85% chance we live to see 2023 and beyond, but there is genuine cause for concern. -
If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
Over time, perhaps 6 months, Thailand ceases to exist. People in NZ will last slightly longer, but to what end? The latest models indicate nobody gets out alive. Perhaps we start a GoFundMe campaign to pay the person who double taps putin. It should---if people truly understand the risk---quickly hit $1 billion. Frankly, it's worth more than that. Guessing there's now perhaps a 15% chance this all ends in nuclear winter, we can figure a value by discounting the future at current rates and come up with about $1 trillion. -
If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
The old models of the fallout from a nuclear war were incomplete. Better data and better computer power has yielded a better answer to what the actual outcome would be. In a nutshell, we're all dead. Most will starve to death, as nuclear winter will make it impossible to grow enough crops to feed even 10% of humanity. You can be a Mormon and store a year's worth of food and water. Super, what do you do in Year 2? Year 5? Year 10? Those who have written dystopian novels that consider an epidemic or natural disaster or even a nuclear holocaust were optimists. Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" will seem like a comedy in comparison. We're closer to this scenario than ever, and largely the result of one damaged and dangerous man. Ideally, there is one person, somewhere in russia, who might turn out to be the most important person who ever lived. He or she is the one who will take out putin and stop the insanity. -
If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
Fanciful. What putin's war of aggression has shown is that the russian army is poorly trained, poorly led, poorly equipped and russian weapons are poorly made. It looks like all the funds siphoned off from the abject corruption that is that "Gas Station with Nukes" left their armed forces a Potemkin Military. The Ukrainians are infinitely superior as a fighting force and much more highly motivated. Little vladdy is losing face by the day. Those 4 inch lifters he has installed in all of his shoes make his height as fake as his military. He cannot even adequately supply the loser force he currently has. How is he going to supply these pressganged reserves? Anyone driving a tank into Ukraine is going to sell it, hoping to get enough for airfare as far from motherf**king russia as possible. Of course they'll be offered peanuts, because---like that line from the movie Casablanca---"T-90s are a glut on the market....ten bucks" Should little vladdy resort to tactical nukes, russians---no matter their support or lack thereof---will be targeted around the world. It will be open season on them. -
If the worse happens in the war, what happens in Thailand?
Walker88 replied to Jingthing's topic in ASEAN NOW Community Pub
Since no meteorologists, nuke scientists, weapons experts or physicians with expertise in radiation disease are going to show up, I will post an opinion from a former intel officer. putin: As many will guess, putin is a psychopath. He is also a coward, and he has a painful insecurity complex. He's a little man in the manly way, just like 45 in the US (remember what Stormy said: "Not freakishly small, but well below average"). It is the source of his insecurity. The two guys are the same, the only difference being that russia is more open to autocracy and an absolute dictator, which is what 45 would like for himself. putin is losing face now. The russian military and fighting men, once believed to be formidable, have been shown to be poorly trained, poorly equipped, disorganized, poorly led, with shoddy equipment, and simply weak. Calling up mobilized forces won't help. putin cannot even adequately supply the forces he has now, and recruits are not likely to be motivated. His mobilized forces will represent a Turkey Shoot for Ukrainian patriots. putin will thus lose more face. If up to putin he will use a tactical nuke, at least on Kyiv. It will be up to Naryshkin or a sane general or two to stop him. 50-50 they can succeed. If they succeed, putin is dead and the war ends. If they fail, Kyiv is dead. West Response: The US will move incredible amounts of weapons into NATO border nations as well as to the surviving military forces in Ukraine. Some of those Ukrainian forces will attack wherever they can reach in russia. They will start killing russian civilians en masse. Every conceivable sanction against russia and russians will be imposed. The UK govt will retake Mayfair and Kensington. Sports teams will be seized. The remaining non-seized yachts will be seized, and yachts in supposed safe havens will be destroyed by SEAL teams. All banks accounts owned by russians will be seized, even in Switzerland. putin's girlfriend in Switzerland will be assassinated. Around the world all russians will be fair game. They will be slaughtered en masse, whether they support the war or not. So many will be killed that law enforcement won't even bother to investigate; in fact, they will join in. Everywhere, including in Thailand, where there is ample stock of prey. Killing russians will become a fad. The threat of nuclear holocaust will have an effect on mass psychology, so while it might seem unthinkable that people will begin killing russians for sport, our worst instincts will come to the surface, driven by the prospect of total human annihilation. The pain inside russia will be so severe that even his protectors and bodyguards will turn against him. He will get something between the Mussolini Treatment and the Qaddafi Treatment. russian forces inside Ukraine, few of whom wanted to be there anyway, and who have been shown to be a paper tiger force wildly inferior to the highly motivated and organized Ukrainians, will abandon their weapons and try as best they can to get home before Ukrainians butcher them. The West will not have to respond with nukes, because one tactical nuke used by putin will set off this chain reaction that will lead to his execution by his own people. -
It's really immaterial what he was or what issues he dealt with. The plain and simple fact is that he took so many innocent lives and healing for the survivors is nigh on impossible. One cannot imagine the pain. From time to time we are reminded in ways we would rather forget how much harm evil can do. I use evil as an all encompassing term, which includes both psychopathy as well as the mental issues that can lead someone to inflict such horror. Just sad.
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National Archives says it still doesn’t have all Trump White House records
Walker88 replied to Scott's topic in World News
45 stole nearly 12,000 documents, none of which he had any right to keep. While his Kim Jong-un love letters might have comforted him in his declining years, there is absolutely no reason why he should have stolen highly classified documents. The ONLY reason he might have done that is to use them for his benefit, either by selling them to the highest bidder or as a bargaining chip---threatening to publish them---if he is indicted for any of the myriad criminal activities in which he engaged. There are no other possible explanations. That any repub supports him is as clear an indication as there is that that Party is corrupt and un-American, even treasonous. Right now DoJ is prevented from studying the 11,000+ documents that should be with NARA. As for the several hundred classified documents he stole, 45 is now trying to appeal to what he hopes is a corrupt Supreme Court and prevent DoJ and the intel community from studying the classified, non-NARA docs in order to assess what damage may have been done and what threats to US national security or clandestine assets and programs exist. To try to block that, as 45 is doing with his appeal to the Supreme Court, is further proof that he couldn't care less about the US or national security, and that everything is always and only about him. What an absolutely vile and revolting pile of rancid excrement that bloated bozo is ! -
National Archives says it still doesn’t have all Trump White House records
Walker88 replied to Scott's topic in World News
Not a tough call at all. If 45's goobers riot, slaughter them. The terrorists on 6 Jan should have been napalmed. They were trying to overthrow the government. They are far more dangerous to the US than some al Qaeda jiihadi in the tribal regions of Pakistan, but we regularly send Hellfire missiles at those guys. We should do something similar to those who try to destroy the country. Rule of law and democracy are the foundation of the experiment that is the US. NOBODY is above the law. -
National Archives says it still doesn’t have all Trump White House records
Walker88 replied to Scott's topic in World News
There is a bit of confusion here re NARA and 45's theft of documents. The NARA issue involved the Presidential Records Act, which requires documents involving programs, activities, messages, policy papers, correspondence with foreign leaders, etc. that were part of a POTUS's Administration to be kept by NARA. Anyone can access the docs NARA holds, but NARA always retains them. The classified docs are a different story. Nobody without a clearance has access to those, and they are kept in SCIFs, mostly at ODNI, CIA and NSA, but also at State, the White House, DoD, Treasury, Energy and a few other places, depending on the nature of the doc. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for 45 to steal them, and since he had no right to them, it is theft. The one question even sycophant repubs and 45's enablers and fanboys have failed to answer: What possible use could 45 have for TS/SCI, Codeword and HCS docs? There is no possible explanation that makes any sense, except that he intended to use them for personal gain. That constitutes 'conspiracy to commit espionage', a capital offense carrying the death penalty. What he did is reckless, irresponsible, dangerous, a threat to national security, a threat to many people's lives, and absolutely 100% criminal. He is guilty merely by the presence of those docs, and anyone who aided him in stealing them is also subject to prosecution. Try him and fry him. -
National Archives says it still doesn’t have all Trump White House records
Walker88 replied to Scott's topic in World News
I have the answer: Only 1. You are confused about "30 million". That came out of 45's bloated backside and has zero basis in fact. No other ex-POTUS was so self-serving and irresponsible. Certainly no ex-POTUS would jeopardize national security to the extent 45 has. repubs barked incessantly about HRC's server, when what was on it---it should not have been---were a few cables classified as CONFIDENTIAL (the lowest classification) and which were subsequently declassified using the official procedure. Also, a thorough cyber check was done and there was zero indication her server had been hacked. 45 had TS/SCI docs, Codeword docs and HCS docs. Unbelievable. HCS are Human Clandestine Sources, meaning they reveal the identities of assets working with US Intel. Those people would be killed, and perhaps their families, too, if their identities were exposed. What possible reason would 45 have had for stealing and keeping those docs? Current and potential clandestine assets in places like russia, china, north korea, iran, or in groups like al Qaeda or ISIS will think twice about aiding US intel, knowing that some clown like 45 could get them exposed and killed. The US is less safe now because of 45. -
National Archives says it still doesn’t have all Trump White House records
Walker88 replied to Scott's topic in World News
Oh my! The captured are captured. There is no escape from the Rabbit Hole dug by 45. There's a whole gaggle of loons out there sniffing the vapors of 45's mental flatulating and getting high off of it. 45 has even joined the QAnon crazies now. The search was unprecedented because no ex-POTUS was so blatantly criminal and irresponsible to steal classified docs and store them in a non-SCIF location, then lie about 'declassifying by thought' and also lie about having returned everything. The longer this goes without an indictment the more likely the eventual indictment is going to be massive. DoJ must be building quite the case. The boy is going to be tried, and he has zero defense. The mere presence of the docs is proof of guilt. The lying about having returned everything shows intent to deceive. Even a first year student out of Harvard could probably get the guy convicted of 'conspiracy to commit espionage', a capital offense. His only shot at avoid jail or worse is to use the insanity defense. His Hannity interview could be submitted as proof, because the guy was clearly out of his <deleted> mind talking about declassifying by mere thought and his astonishing absurd quip about 'maybe they were looking for HRC's emails". Try him, convict him, but don't lock him up. Execute the criminal and traitor and be done with him forever. -
From a business point of view, I think opening a weed shop is a bad idea. I walked from Soi 4 to Soi 8 and counted 7 weed shops in that five minute walk. A lot of money had been spent sprucing up whatever the place was before, so with so much competition within smoking distance, ROI looks to be pretty bad and the payback period way too long. As for using it, I'm not a fan. I don't find people buzzed on ganja to be any less boring than people buzzed on booze. I like a beer or two or a few glasses of wine, but because I like the flavor, not the buzz. I do not grab a beer or a glass of wine with the intent of getting a buzz, and if I feel one coming on, I switch to water. There are those who claim ganja enhances creativity, but one has to have the ability to be creative in order for that ability to be enhanced. Most people are incapable of creativity, so under the influence they just become turbo banal. For those who enjoy ganja, knock yourselves silly. To each his own. If I were to predict where this goes, I would say that the liberalization is going to be pulled back, and all the current dispensaries turned back into 7-11s, massage parlors, or Indian Tailors. I don't think the powers that be knew what they were unleashing. Already many in higher levels of govt or society are embarrassed that Thailand has a reputation as the World's Brothel. I don't think they will be any happier if Thailand becomes East Stoner-istan.
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Danish inmate has died in Klong Prem prison in Bangkok
Walker88 replied to webfact's topic in Thailand News
Yea, before you know it, they'll legalize alcohol and cigarettes. Can you imagine if they legalize those vices how many people will die from cirrhosis or hit by a drunk driver or beaten to death by an abusive drunk husband or from lung cancer or COPD or heart disease or stroke? I might guess that upwards of 500,000 people per year would die of smoking related illnesses and ailments in the USA alone ! (true stat) Society has a very funny calculus in how it selects its legal vices. The alcohol and tobacco industry have many lobbyists, but little else to differentiate them from whatever evils heroin and cocaine might unload (that they don't already while remaining illegal). Maybe the drug cartels have their own kind of lobbyists (kind of sarcasm)? The war on drugs has cost the US over a $trillion dollars, and victory was closer in Vietnam and Afghanistan than the Drug War. Maybe it's time for Plan B. How many additional users would there be if h and c were legal? Are there millions of folks who will say, "Now that it's legal I think I'm going to give that heroin thing a try". Legalize it and thousands of innocents in South America will not die, and the US will save $billiions per year, money which might go toward caring for the folks suffering from already legal vices like tobacco and booze.- 69 replies
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What do you expect? Insurance companies are not charities. If one is old and has something like COPD, the insurance actuaries have a pretty good idea what the hopeful policy holder is going to cost them, so they will charge accordingly. What you are suggesting is a freebie. That others' will pay for you. In what universe does that make economic sense? Anyone young and healthy reading this: NOW is the time to book a policy. You don't try to get fire insurance when your house is already burning. Oh, and don't take up smoking. You are not immortal. Chances are it will kill you, and it will also make your last years not only come faster than they would otherwise, those last year will likely suck. Yes, your grandad smoked since he was 12 and lived to 98. One person also won the $1.4 billion Megamillions lottery. It's never too early to accept responsibility for your own life and well being.