Walker88

I don't think you should get your panties in a twist over this. I seriously doubt X Æ A-Xii Musk is going to be reading Asean Now.

From the DNA in that booger, one could possibly clone a person who cures cancer. From the DNA of the fat guy plopped in the chair behind the desk, nothing useful could ever come of it. Note already his mutant spawn.

Of course folks are free to adorn themselves with any and all the ink they want. Up to them. I also have a way I wish to make my body look, and undoubtedly many would take exception to it. I'm a 'natty' gym rat, and I enjoy having a six pack and definition, even though it's hidden from view under my garments. I guess getting tatted is less work and perhaps less painful than hours in the gym. Tatts are others' choices, fitness is mine. Folks are free to have an opinion about tatts or fitness. In fact, it is not possible to NOT have an opinion...whether about tatts or pink hair or Chang wifebeaters or the architecture of a new building. Even being totally indifferent is an opinion of sorts. Many state their opinion that they like tatts, while others---like me, as noted in my original post---think nobody looks better with a tatt and most bearing them look downright silly. I use the term "noisy", in the way I might use it to describe, say, Victorian interior design vs traditional Japanese interior design. That I think tatts look like crap means nothing to those who find them fetching. Those who might argue I should keep my opinion to myself fail to realize how ironic that is on a Forum, the purpose of which is to state opinions......about politics or circumcision or different beers or an expanded list of pronouns or whether it's wise to date a bargirl or if one should or shouldn't get vaxxed. Perhaps the site should provide a safe space and coloring books to those gentle snowflakes offended by an opinion to which they take exception. When something was a fringe practice for thousands of years, and then suddenly became mainstream, that screams FAD. When TV shows are made about it, with competitions leading to "voting off", similar to cooking shows or drag queen performances or seeking a job with a former Game Show host turned President, it screams FAD. When a celebrity known for his heavy use of ink decides to go through the pain of burning it all off, that suggests endgame. When tatt removal parlors begin to emerge in different parts of Bangkok, that, too, suggests endgame. When I get SPAM that offers me a chance to get rid of the tatts I don't have, that also suggests endgame. The tide seems to be changing. Cocktail party chat or beer bar chat might soon shift from showing off one's latest ink to regaling others with how much it hurt to burn the stuff off. Watch. I think it's coming. My Pete Davidson example is the canary in the coal mine. The truly trendy will try to be one of the First Removers. That is my opinion, too. I could well be wrong and might end up being the last holdout on the planet with unadorned skin, like a character in the movie "The Body Snatchers", yet to be assimilated by invading aliens. Won't I then be the freak! There is an oft tossed-around term to describe people who latch on to current trends and adopt something they never considered back before the fad: sheeple. Everybody knew tatts existed 20, 30, 50 years ago, but few chose to get them. Suddenly half the people decided they had to be a part of something they never previously considered. That is a fad, and the adopters could be reasonably called "sheeple". I don't like that term, and much prefer "lemmings", especially since just as lemmings suffer the consequences of their 'follow the crowd' behavior, studies showing ink can cause some to develop autoimmune diseases and those with colored ink can develop cancer, says ink might have a negative cost. Those who joined the crowd, enjoy! Just be honest about your lack of individuality and your need to 'fit in'. We all choose the way we either wish to stand out or fit in. Even if I absolutely loved mullets or powdered wigs, I wouldn't wear either, so I admit to lacking total individuality. I saw tatts as a young kid, as my grand dad had an anchor on his arm he got on a port call during the war. Had I found such things appealing, I could have added one, too, but didn't. Tatts weren't yet a fad. Few others added them at that time either. Then the fad hit, and in my view, society is a lot less aesthetically pleasing because of it. Still, those who did or want to join the crowd are welcome to knock themselves silly. As they say in Thailand, up to you. Now back to "other opinions" on this vehicle whose purpose is to state opinions.

It’s all over but the burning. Say goodbye to the silliest fad of the last two decades: tattoos. Yes, tattoos have existed for thousands of years. In civilized society the bearers tended to be losers or sailors, which I guess is kind of redundant. Yes, certain ethnic minorities or faiths got tatted to reflect their culture or belief system, but tatts were still fringe in the wider world. Around 20 years ago tatts became a fad. Suddenly they appeared everywhere, as those who ‘wanted to be different’ began doing what everyone else was doing. The author Charles Mackay might have called it “Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”. Celebrities got tatted. Athletes got tatted. Beta Males got tatted. Regular Joes and Janes (or maybe Noahs and Chloes) got tatted. Society began to get so “noisy” that one couldn’t tell a Hell’s Angel from a librarian. Let’s be honest. NOBODY looks better with a tattoo. Now some folks swear their tatts have ‘special personal meaning’, but it’s difficult to guess what that might be when a geeky affluent kid growing up in Greenwich, CT and attending Choate or Phillips-Exeter sports a Maori Warrior tatt. In the old days, those of us who had events or experiences with ‘special meaning’ took a different approach, rather than getting stuck with a needle and injected with ink that can cause such autoimmune reactions as Lupus: we committed things to memory. I guess we assumed that if the memory ever failed, no tattoo would be able to remind us, as we’d forget what ‘special meaning’ that tatt commemorated. Some aficianados also like to argue it’s “art”. Well, if tatts are art, then the Louve should have “Tigers Painted on Black Velvet” and “Dogs Playing Poker”, as they are equivalent in terms of importance and uniqueness. To the best of my knowledge, the Louve does not carry such works, nor does the Met or Hermitage or The Prado. (Okay, some museums do carry stuff by Damien Hirst, so I guess even curators make mistakes.) In late stage fads, things get extra silly. TV shows sprang up that combined two then-current trends, such as competitions where losers are “voted off” the show, and with the competition being the application of tattoos. A second evidence of the tattoo apocalypse being upon us was when aging and beer-bellied expats in Thailand began getting tatted, assuming the ink might make them the babe magnet they found themselves not to be when they moved to the Kingdom to “live the dream”. They would have been better off spending the dosh on a gym membership, unless they could afford the historical and quintessential symbol of Mid Life Crisis: the Porsche. Nothing screams “I blew my life” louder than a guy with an enormous gut sporting a barbed wire tatt around flabby biceps or a flame tatt on wrinkled forearms. And what’s with the old man leg tatts? Nobody is going to confuse a pensioner with a Vory v Zakone. Enter a celebrity named Pete Davidson, apparently a graduate of the US TV show Saturday Night Live, and passed-around boyfriend to other celebrities like Kim Kardashian. He was everyone’s boyfriend just as Taylor Swift was everyone’s girlfriend and Olivia Culpo was every NFL Players’ squeeze. (sidenote: Swift got Travis Kelce, a definite first ballot Hall of Famer, while Culpo finally settled for the gifted, but oft-injured Christian McCaffrey.) This Davidson fellow was knee deep in the tatt fad and was walking cacophony in the helter skelter way he had chosen to get himself stuck. (Article with pics attached). Recently he came to his senses. He began a process of burning off his youthful indiscretions and trying to make his skin look peaceful again. One pic in the attached article allegedly shows what his tabula rosa looks like now, though in the age of both Photoshop and AI, one has to retain a little skepticism. Because Mr Davidson has a platform, his actions are likely to have consequences, perhaps setting a new trend toward unadorned and non-defaced skin. If so, upscale youth will adopt it, as I’m sure Mom and Dad will be happy to pay. At some later date, bargirls who pull in 200-300K baht a month might visit the ever-expanding number of tatt-removal clinics now seen in Bangkok. I fear a time when the only remaining tatted will be non-babe magnet expats on a pension, as they will be unable to afford the laser removal fee. Insult to injury. In tech, those early to adopt the newest trend are called “First Movers”. As the tatt fad comes to an end---and not before time---Pete Davidson will likely be called a “First Remover”. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/pete-davidson-revealed-body-looks-235614517.html

I can explain it. The areas in Blue represent 62% of US GDP. The areas in Red are a mere 38% of US GDP, and the areas most slurping at the Federal trough. The Blue areas carry the parasitic Red areas, as their inhabitants produce 9.25 times per capita the GDP output of inhabitants in the Red areas. Your numbers 312 and 226 are a reflection of Republican gerrymandering. The most glorious part of "American Democracy" is that the State of California has two Senators, while its population is greater than the combined population of ND, SD, IA, AL, AK, NV, WV, KS, TN, KY, UT, AR, NE, ID, MT, and OK, each of which have two Senators, the folks who get to approve Cabinet positions and judges. Funny those are all Red States, too. California is the world's 5th largest economy, but its Senators have less say than Senators from States who could almost fit all voters into the LA Coliseum. Absurdly, Wyoming has two Senators, but has a smaller population than Columbus, OH, a city ruled by a mayor whose name everyone outside of Columbus would have to Google.

President Musk would much rather cut the folks who do things like issue or renew passports, check food for e coli or salmonella, guard ports and inspect for drugs or dirty bombs, than stop the military industrial complex from selling $40,000 toilets or doing massive cost overruns in already-obsolete weapon systems. Why try to cut half the defense budget, or $400 billion (aka a Musk Unit), when he can fire a few thousand GS-10s who inspect food?

Absolutely. Make it mandatory on 10Ks. Let's see how good CEOs are at bribery, as that will be a new required skill set. Also, full disclosure will make it more difficult to hide kickbacks, as folks can question the recipient of a bribe to ask him if he kicked back to the US CEO. Foreign tax revenue departments will also want to see these corporate 10Ks to make sure the bribery recipient accounts on his taxes. When the US has a convicted felon and civilly convicted sex offender at President, it has to be expected that morality goes out the window. Next move will be threats. When bribes don't work to secure foreign business, corporates can threaten the families of those standing in the way of business. That happens now, but US firms are left out of such 'modern business practices'. So UNFAIR! Climb aboard the toboggan, because the slope is quite slippery.

Since the OP took "embarrassing", I will go with shameful. But there is an answer. I'm in the process of relinquishing my US citizenship, as the nation of my birth and the land for which I served no longer exists. I will miss what it was, but not what it has become. And eff the "tax" on assets greater than $3 million. Come and get me, a-holes. Back a decade ago I planned for this eventuality. I bought property in several countries where it is allowed, and have my refuges. I've moved funds to a series of international banks, some of whom don't worry about FATCA. The US offers me nothing now except embarrassment, so it's time to leave. I also suspect lots of social upheaval in the not too distant future. If the California secession movement succeeds, I might return there at some future date. There are similar movements beginning in Oregon, Washington, and New England. The PINO might need Greenland, Canada, Gaza and Panama if he wants to keep 50 stars on the flag. The US won't miss me, but I have no interest in what it has become. I've lived in monarchies and totalitarian states before, and I do not want to do it again. I find it sad that only two Republicans had any balls, and one of those was a woman. The rest are cowards, afraid of a mean Tweet or getting primaried, so they ignore their oath to the Constitution and instead act as if they are North Koreans, clapping for the clownish autocrat like trained seals. If there is an afterlife, I am quite sure Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton are outraged. As Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers: "When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, despotic in his ordinary demeanor---known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty---when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity---to join in the cry of danger to liberty---to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government and bringing it under suspicion---to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day---it may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind’”

That's some funny stuff. I have to believe you wrote it in jest. The PINO is a weak man's idea of a strong man, a loser's idea of an Alpha Male. Yes, he can fool the goobers out there, but as George Carlin once said, "Imagine how dumb the average person is; now consider half the people are dumber than that. Churchill once said that democracy is a wonderful thing, until you realize who it allows to vote. And everyone knows the H.L. Mencken quote about a moron in the White House, presaged 100 years ago. The PINO is a whining crybaby, continually screaming "UNFAIR!" and living a victim mentality. I can't quite figure if he has the emotional age of a 5 year old or a barely teenage girl. It's always "woe is me" with that butterball. As for "not caring about trivial things", the bozo rage Tweets at 3am if some late night talk show host made a joke about him, usually adding "Nobody watches that talentless guy anymore" (except him, of course, otherwise he wouldn't know). . Last week he screamed about the cover of TIME magazine, because it had Musk behind the Resolute Desk....and of course then remarked, "I thought it went out of business". Nothing could be MORE trivial than the petty things that get into his Depends. Oh, and as for "high IQ Musk", intellect does not grant one expertise over every subject. Musk does hire well, at least engineers, who can take his random thoughts and turn them into reality by doing the heavy lifting. Musk seems to be a bit of a psychopath, however, with absolutely no empathy. Example: when he released the Beta version of his self-driving Tesla, and it ran some stops signs and red lights, causing accidents and some deaths, he spoke about how you have to break a few eggs making an omelette, or some similar uncaring coldness.

Apparently weed is some sort of sacrament, so is readily available when the draught taps are locked.

Please, MAGAs, keep wearing your colors. The Vikings/Danes, Panamanians, Canadians and Palestinians of Gaza need to know who to......well....be careful out there!

I think you know the term RINO (Republicans in Name Only). Well, the fat guy is President in Name Only, answering to Musk and Project25. All that's left for him is jinxing football teams and putting bigly signatures on meaningless documents, and then holding them up with the same pride a recently toilet trained kid shows when he begs mommy to come look what he dropped in the john.

I saw a guy the other day on Sukhumvit in BKK wearing one. Typical PINO cultist: short, fat, mid-70s, newly tatted...didn't look as if his life had been too rewarding, and if he came to Thailand thinking he was going to "Live the dream", he'd have better luck with Soi dogs than any woman. He didn't really need the hat to let others know where his political fantasies lie. Most of the PINO's supporters don't need the obvious indication, either. They stand out in a crowd, and not for any good reason. Like their love muffin, they pretend to be Alpha males, but couldn't pull it off in a million years. Bone spurs types, too. The whole world is laughing. Me, too.

Your background in finance and economics is what? Harvard or Stanford MBA? Perhaps rather than just try to disparage the writers at Yahoo, you might offer some facts that contradict what the OP posted. No, that would require work and thinking, something anathema to the PINO cult.

It's no wonder that a convicted felon, who was even found guilty of running a fake charity, would have such little concern for those who did not inherit half a billion dollars from daddy. I mean that guy actually took donations to his charity and used the money to buy a portrait of himself (as came out in his trial). He and his mutant spawn were banned from starting any charity for the rest of their miserable lives. Oh, and in his 2016 campaign, he held a fund raiser ostensibly for "veterans", but then used the money in his Iowa primary campaign, and was fined by the Federal Election Commission. (I'm not sure if the women he just tried to fire from the FEC was one of the folks who caught his deceit in Iowa, but it would fit into his childish and vindictive nature.) Selfish and self-centered, all while claiming to be "self-made" is the hallmark of the guy. It seems his cult shares the same lack of compassion.

There are people born in places for which they had zero responsibility, and who suffer because the place of their birth does not offer them much of a chance to escape their circumstances. One never knows that the person saved by USAID might provide enormous value to the human condition, if only given the chance to live and prosper. On the other hand, there are people born in the easiest place and time in all of human history to succeed (post WWII USA), yet still found a way to fail and either become a burden to society or add so little value that the planet wouldn't miss them if they were never born. Many live off SSDI and live in Red States and support the PINO. I guarantee I've paid more taxes than anybody on this site, save for one former member who decided to leave, and I would much rather my tax dollars go to someone in another country who just needs a lift to escape the circumstances of their birth and who has a chance to add value to the world, than to some lazy, obese, willfully ignorant American who couldn't even succeed in the easiest place to succeed ever in all of human history, and who thinks pardoning scum who beat law enforcement is a positive thing.

The life of the loser fascists is one of obesity and mediocrity, adding a sum total of zero value to existence. I've heard of a loser who describes himself as gross and fat, old and chasing farmgirls so desperate they sell their bodies for a little dosh in Siem Reap and Thailand. That loser is a very typical fascist scum who worships the PINO, the kind of filth better left as a drip running down the legs of the beast that whelped him, rather than creating the zygote that developed into subhuman scum.

Such compassion! It isn't as if you have made any money in your cold-hearted life and paid taxes. The losers have taken over the US. There were jihadi prisoners in Syria being guarded by people working for USAID. When those guards were let go, the jihadis left. Perhaps they will do a terror attack and slaughter someone you love? Karma, loser. There are patients in Africa midway through treatments for diseases like cancer, under the care of USAID. Their treatments stopped. Perhaps you'll suffer cancer and your love muffin PINO or President Musk will cut funding for your care. karma.

I think PINO is good enough for him, so long as the adults in the room allow the really stable genius to float his ideas about nuking hurricanes or injecting disinfectant, or making Panama, Greenland, Gaza and Canada States 51-54. I mean, the guy's happy with KFC buckets, Mac's cheeseburgers and burnt steak....easy to please and control. So easy, even a guy suffering Asperger's can do it.

If 'end of the line' somehow equates to Hell, then my place would be Texas, Alabama, or anywhere in the UK. One shudders to think!

I think karma gives the UK two choices: Become a colony of the US, or become a colony of India. At the very least both would vastly improve the cuisine, and likely dental care, too. Oh, and maybe allow the inbred "royals" to keep one house, but sell off the other properties to Russian Oligarchs and help the National Debt.

What few expected 6 months ago is that the PINO would have to clear everything with a South African with Asperger's. We thought it would just be Project 2025 running things, letting the bloated one pretend he's a potentate, but the guy who hires 19-year old popcorn fortune heirs to restructure the USG was not on anyone's Bingo Card.

Just a little advice.... Anyone who uses the term "Deep State" is broadcasting lots of things about themselves, such as they are intellectually challenged, are unsuccessful financially, and have never even sniffed the corridors of power. Likely they are conspiracy theorists, are believers in such silliness as no moon landing, 9-11 was an inside job, and the Rothschilds control the world. Oh, and QAnon. There are far too many variables in the world for anyone or any group or cabal to control much of anything for very long. Also, once people get near or at the top, they don't cooperate, they compete. At the top, everybody hates everybody else and will do their damndest to knock down anyone they think can beat them. Grow up. There are no gods, no superheroes, no super villains, and no Deep State.

I'm not in favor of trans switching their gender in sports, but I don't think a President has the authority to order what leagues or universities can do. Smells like imperial overreach. That being said, it's rather unfair to allow a born male to compete in women's sports. My university time in the 100 and 200 meter would qualify me for the Olympics as a female, but if I ran with the males, the judges would be awarding the medals before I finished. Olympic males are more than a second faster than Olympic females, and in a 100 meter sprint at full throttle, that's 12 meters. I also read an article that in 2023, more than 2000 male high school students in the US ran 100 meter times faster than the Women's Olympic champion. This would sort itself out naturally when women simply stopped training and gave up. Sha'carri would be a model, not an athlete.