Walker88

Perhaps my logic is different, but I see a difference. An engagement ring is direct to the bride (and admittedly is often wildly overdone). A sinsod is buying the woman. To me---no doubt culturally insensitive---it's no different than barfining a woman from an agogo, except it's a payment for many schtuppings, rather than just one. As I noted in my earlier post, Tevye can sing TRADITION! until the sick buffaloes cows come home, but a sinsod is an admission that a woman is a commodity and you're paying for her companionship/sex. It's also a one-way street of cultural acceptance, demanding the groom see both the tradition of sinsod and the cultural peculiarity of 'face'.

What's the difference between paying 1 million baht for 300+ trysts with agogo women, or paying 1 million baht sinsod for a wife? Answer: (cue Tevye) TRADITION ! For me, this is an example of a cultural gap I would having trouble bridging. It makes the woman a product or a service provider, hardly different from barfining an agogo woman, despite the fact sinsod is a Thai tradition. It just doesn't sit well with me personally. I believe I'm culturally sensitive after having resided in many diverse countries, but I am always aware that the cultural gaps often present problems. I'm hardly poor, so the sum is no big deal, but I would suspect that 1 million baht is just the first payment on the way to 100 million or more, especially if every relative, close or distant, became aware of what I have. That would be irritating to me, and put unnecessary pressure on my spouse. I know many Thai-Foreigner marriages work. I would not be confident enough to ever enter into one, however, as I assume I would become the village or locale ATM. Yes, I might miss out on paradise. So be it.

Well, if you're in a natural STOL a/c like a Pilatus PC-6 Porter, your chances for survival are much greater, provided you avoid a ground loop. Wouldn't want to try that landing in a Mooney.

Move up to twins. It's a whole new kick, and will take you a while to lose the thrill...at which point you can move up to turboprop, pressurized cabins, flying above FL180. Start with something like a Seminole or Aztec, move up to a Seneca, then enjoy something special like a Diamond D-42.

I guess it's a function of one's personal experience. I enjoyed my work. Still do. It isn't a burden. My spouse was equally successful, so never needed financial support. I chose not to reproduce. (DINKs) Contrast that with PMS, monthly messes, getting bloated with wild hormone changes, morning sickness and stretch marks....and then hot flashes and the bizarre emotional swings of menopause....being a male is so easy in comparison. (An aside: in my experience from speaking with acquaintances or even overhearing conversations in coffee shops, stores, etc., the absolute most boring thing on Zeus' Green Earth is a new mother..."My baby rolled over on his own today!", as if 125 billion humans since Oldavai Gorge hadn't done that. The kid isn't Mozart or John von Neumann, so shut up!) I thank Zeus every day for my gender.

I think being a man is pretty easy, certainly relative to the biological irritations that come with being female. Women have two choices: bad and worse. They can endure the discomfort of monthly menstruation, or they can get pregnant and watch their body go out of control just to propagate their gene pool and be stuck caring for an ungrateful and demanding pile of pooping, peeing, vomiting, crying flesh that they 'love so much'. No thanks. There's a reason Freud, even if he was a weirdo, never even considered 'womb envy'. Few if any males would envy that baggage. My greatest treasure is my Y chromosome. I love women; I just would never want to be one. All we men have to do is work hard and stay fit, and life is a piece of cake. Yes, we can be 'success objects', but if we're discreet, no one knows our financial status unless we share the news with them, which would be a huge mistake. Only when a relationship reaches an advanced stage, might we share details of our stash...and even then, give it some thought. Or better, find a woman equally successful who doesn't need your money. That being said, being a kid nowadays seems a lot tougher than pre-social media. Kids are so needy today, because they've grown up in a world where one's life is measured in "Likes" (and maybe because both parents work, so kids are starved for affection). It's astonishing to me how public so many young people want/need to make their lives. Half their social media postings are an attempt to build a fantasy about how great their lives are, and in the other half they 'share' every woe-is-me moment of weakness, actually expecting anyone to care---and not feel schadenfreude---when they are 'sad' or 'lonely' or need to ask everyone 'why is my life so difficult'. Also, before social media we actually had genuine friends, even if there weren't 6,589 of them. We spoke to them face to face. When we went out together we actually chatted. We looked across the table, rather than down at our phones. (I use things like LINE and WhatsApp to communicate with my staff and with some women I've met here and there, so I see everyone's "posts". Though I think this craving for attention is bizarre, I tip my hat to a guy like Mark Zuckerberg who saw this Neo Narcissist trend and found a way to monetize it. On balance, however, I think social media is a negative and ultimately harmful.)

Damn ! trump and climate in one thread. If only you can work in religion and circumcision, this discussion could get really animated !

That's right, donny. We need more diesel ! More coal ! And those yearly car inspections that check for toxic emissions? Waste of money. We all need to be able to chew the air we breathe. No grit, no spit ! Put THAT on a hat made in China.

If the tyrannical govt was led by trump, then I would be on the front lines going after him and his goobers. I took the oath against "all enemies, foreign and domestic", and have lived it. trump is the fascist who claims he will jail his political opponents, and he did not caveat that statement with 'after a fair trial and a conviction'. Sounds like tyranny to me. Lock and load.

I guess you're referring to how trump said that the revolutionary army 'controlled the skies and secured the airports'. Of course, in 1776 the Brits weren't flying Spitfires, much less Typhoons or Harriers or F-35s, so securing airports (sic) must have been pretty easy. Even Orville and Wilbur were 127 years away.. Only in Call of Duty fantasy lives can a bunch of fat trumpers take on a SEAL Team or Apache attack helicopters.

No need to change the 2nd Amendment, even if that would be a good idea. What needs to be done is ban more weapons. You cannot keep "home nukes" or bazookas of RPG-7s or SAM-7s. It is hardly the stretch to add AR-15s, semi-auto AK-47s, etc. Yes, handguns can kill, but several things mitigate the damage one can do with a 9mm Glock or a shotgun or hunting rifle. ---AR-15 type weapons have large, easily replaced mags, even upwards of 100-rd mags are readily available ---It's easier to hit a target with an AR-15 than a handgun ---Handguns are generally max'd out at 15-17 rounds, shotguns maybe 7 shells, most hunting rifles 5 rds ---Handguns muzzle velocity is a fraction of an AR-15 ~800 fps for a .45ACP, maybe 1200 fps for a 9mm, vs 3200 fps for an AR-15. Since E=mc^2, that "c" has much more impact on hitting power It's no surprise AR-15s have become the weapon of choice in most mass shootings, and certainly in the mass shootings that result in death. They holds lots of rounds, are easy to aim and hit a target, mag replacement takes a second, victims struck by a round are unlikely to be able to attack the gunman, and the weapon itself is intimidating to law enforcement when they finally arrive. In the Uvalde school mass murder, the cops sat outside for 20 minutes when they knew the killer was armed with an AR-15. If it had been a 9mm, likely at least one cop would have had the courage to enter the school.

No, I'm not implying 'conspiracy'. I am implying poor prosecution. Imagine you see some kid who looks like Adam Lanza coming at you with an AR-15. You are going to assume he's just some concerned high school student coming to help the well-trained police keep a protest peaceful? You would think he's a lunatic out to kill, and unless your froze or could get away, you would try to save your own life and disarm him. Nobody knows what the intent of those he claimed attacked him was, because they're dead.

Some pimple-faced kid took his AR-15 and drove hundreds of miles to a scene of 1st Amendment protest. He ended up killing 3 people. He got off, when he should have gotten the electric chair. He claims he drove all that way to 'help the police', who were likely much better trained and equipped than that high school punk. He claimed 'self-defense' when he murdered 3 people. Now that is America, the regular scene of deadly gun violence. Had I been a peaceful protester there, and saw some punk coming at me with an AR-15, I would not have thought "he's just a concerned citizen here to help the police". I would have thought he's another lunatic out to kill. I would have attacked him, if I could not escape. Nobody knows if those he killed were violent protesters or just people exercising the right penned BEFORE the 2nd Amendment, who saw a crazed gunman threatening innocents. Nobody can ask them, because they're dead, all because some punk wanted to play act. By the way, if the punk was Black, the cops would have gunned him down.

The 'right to bear arms' is not unlimited. It would be well within the power and authority of Congress to ban the sale and possession of AR-15s and the like. Though I can afford it, I cannot own an A-10 Warthog with a GAU-8 nosegun that fires depleted U-238 bullets, despite how effective it would be at 'home security'. Neither Jeff Bezos nor Elon Musk, despite being able to afford it, could not commission and control their own Carrier Group, or have a Trident Sub with missiles firing multiple nuke warheads. Nobody can own a drone firing the modified Hellfire "Flying Ginsu" that turned Ayman al-Zawahiri into mince meat. The 2nd Amendment was penned under entirely different circumstances than today. Standing armies---like the Brits---were hardly superior to a 'well-armed militia'. That is not the case today. A bunch of chubby trumpers with AR-15s would be no match to the 101st Airborne, so the 'battle against tyranny' has an obvious winner. The Founders could not conceive of a readily available weapon like the AR-15. With its typical 30-rd mag, it fires (usually) a 55 grain round with a muzzle velocity of 3200 feet per second. A user can likely run through 3-4 mags in under two minutes, provided the barrel doesn't heat up too much. A shooter like Stephen Paddock, understanding the 'problem' of an over-heated barrel, toted 14 AR-15s into his hotel room in Las Vegas, so that he could keep killing. An AR-15 has no possible use except killing and killing quickly. It is effectively a weapon of war. While not fully automatic, it is still as effective as the weapons soldiers used in Iraq and Afghanistan, since soldiers do not usually have their weapons set on full auto. An American can buy as many AR-15s as his wealth or credit allows. He can walk into a gun show and leave with 100 or more AR-15s and tens of thousands of rounds of ammo. An American can even buy a .50 cal sniper rifle, like a Barrett M82A1, whose hitting power from 2000 yards is greater than Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum from point blank range. Home security? Even an AR-15 has more hitting power than a 9mm or a .45ACP handgun, despite those handguns having a much heavier round (anywhere from 124 grain to 230 grain), because the muzzle velocity is so much higher, and E=mc^2 (so velocity is squared).

To some extent I know what you mean...all those fascist trumpers who want to overthrow the democracy and suspend the Constitution to which I took an oath. All those racists and Neo Nazis gunning down Blacks, Jews and Hispanics. The list of crazy, violent and/or gun-toting trumpers goes on and on. Michael Estes, Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright, Patrick Stein, Adam Purinton, Jeremy Christian, Wade Page, Edgar Welch, Sam Woodward, James Fields, Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers, Ian David Long, Cesar Sayoc, Gregory Bush, Stephen Paddock, Christopher Hansson, Joseph Biggs, Patrick Crusius, Enrique Tarrio, Stewart Rhodes, Ryan Palmer, etc. By the way, you do know the Federal Govt has weapons that can take on these small (nickname for Richard) trumpers with AR-15s. Sadly, nobody can get to the cultists fast enough to prevent innocent deaths.

Just for using a phone or laptop and wifi....making your thoughts appear somewhere else far away the moment you hit "SEND"....would have branded you a witch by the very folks whose superstitions you believe. You would have been burned at the stake. "He's a witch !" "Common sense" would have dictated that without any visible connection, no way you could make your words appear so far away from where you sit. Obviously witchcraft and the Devil's Work. The zealots who would have killed you, sent you to eternal damnation, would have done so knowing their god would approve, because nobody could possibly conceive of radio waves, wifi, microwave towers.....even electricity. Because of SCIENCE, you get to control this devil's tool, or to put it another way, your deity has lost his powers, because science explained and exploited what superstition used to grant to the made-up deity. Today, you make the same mistake, using the same words. You are totally incapable of understanding the science related to subatomic particles, so you still subscribe to the superstition. You cannot burn us at the stake, but instead---as you have done with your comments---threatened us with eternal damnation, whether we are more moral people than you or your god, if we don't subscribe to your superstition. And you cannot see that you are just a 21st Century Dark Age cultist.

How about when you die and find out you backed the wrong horse, and Jesus was a fraud but Mohamed or John Smith or the Vikings or ancient Greeks nailed it? Pascal's Wager, which you sort of tried to plagiarize, ignored the fact that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of supreme deities manufactured by humans since Oldavai Gorge. It's almost like buying a lottery ticket, as you have many chances of not winning an invitation to the 'true paradise'. You also seem to assume that a non-believer (don't call anyone an atheist, as that is a disparaging term made up by the superstitious. To borrow from Sam Harris, YOU are an atheist with respect to the vast majority of deities, while non-believer just eliminate the last one. Also, why is there no term for those who don't believe in astrology? Maybe THAT superstition has finally died, so no need.) cannot be moral, and thus not be allowed into anybody's paradise. Deities are totally unnecessary for morality, and nobody's deity or prophet was particularly moral anyway. Do you think Moses came down with the stone tablets he chipped out and said, "Guys, I've got some bad news. No murder, no stealing" Morality emerges when humans decide to co-exist. Humans make rules so that we can be 'civilized'. No god rulebook needed. Also, it was HUMANS who decided slavery was wrong, that owning other human beings was wrong. Your Jesus had no problem with slavery. Really immoral guy, and totally undeserving of any paradise.

Your Jesus guy, if he did rise from the dead, missed his second chance to say owning other human beings is wrong. He certainly didn't say anything about it in his first 33 year iteration. I would call that pretty immoral, since theoretically his dad made everybody and loves everybody. I have no need for any deity, especially an immoral one like your Christian god. I always wonder what your deity was doing from quadrillions of years ago until he decided he needed some little creatures to tell it how special it was? Why bother with 200 billion galaxies, when a fish bowl would do as well? Get the fish to applaud and say, Great job, god ! Thanks for the plankton ! I question your spurious statement that 'half the scientists believe in god'. What constitutes a 'scientist' in your mind? You just made that number up, didn't you? Can you break it down to give the % for cosmologists and particle physicists? If your god---with absolutely zero proof of its existence and tales of simple parlor tricks written hundreds of years after your messiah died, then edited and selected from among many (plagiarized) 'spiritual texts' that others had written---could always exist, or come from nothing into existence, why can't the Universe, which DEFINITELY exists, be the same? I'll repeat something that seems to escape you. You toss out 'common sense' to suggest something could not come from 'nothing'. Common sense a thousand years ago said the Earth could not possibly be round, because we'd fall off. Common sense could not imagine a force that works on particles with mass, or even particles without mass under the right conditions (like photons). Your 'common sense' cannot imagine muons and quarks and bosons and all the other subatomic particles, and how some of them move in and out of existence. That reality is as far above your ability to understand as it was for a sheep herder in Frankia to understand gravity or electromagnetism, much less the strong and weak nuclear forces. Since the sheepherder couldn't understand gravity, he decided a god must be responsible for him not falling off the Earth, just as you need a god to explain what you are incapable of understanding. You also had plenty of choices (other than science), but chose the belief system most common in the land of your birth. Had you been born in Mecca, you'd likely be just as adamant about Allah and Mohamed, and if born in Salt Lake City you'd be wearing magic underwear and listening to the Greatest Hits of Donny and Marie. By the way, if you 'fully understand gravity' as you say, you are the only human who does, and plenty of physicists would like to have a chat with you.

The Earth is flat. Be careful, or you might fall off. Your inability to understand quantum field theory and gravity is the equivalent of people who 'knew' the Earth had to be flat, as they could not possibly conceive of the theory of gravity. You are merely the 21st Century example of a Dark Ages person, unable to understand reality, so you replace it with fantasy. There is zero evidence of any god from Zeus to Yahweh, yet you believe it always was and always will be. The Universe absolutely does exist, but you cannot accept it may have always existed in some form. There's something inconsistent there.

If you go to the US, you will find that somewhere between 20 to 25% of Americans believe Tom Hanks and Hillary Clinton run an international cabal where they kidnap, rape, roast and eat babies. QAnon. Logical it is not. Half the people in the world believe in fantasies where some deity or group of deities created a Universe of 200 billion galaxies, each with an average of a trillion stars, and in one average galaxy, around one nondescript star, put sentient beings to praise said deity or deities, and added a few rules like not eating pork or dressing females like giant eggplants or knocking up an Earthgirl, playing deadbeat dad, then letting the kid get nailed....all so some of the sentient beings could go to some celestial country club. Really odd initiation ceremony. Also seems a terribly inefficient way to get a little "You're so great" praise and thanks (which are very human needs and wants, hardly the needs of anything omnipotent and eternal). Plenty of people---even those who have watched someone disappear via dementia or Alzheimers---think that the instant the now-vegetative person dies, all of their memories, personality, etc. come back as they drift into some afterlife thing. There are even still people who think that stars and planets---which are never in the same position more than once in all of eternity---somehow dictate a person's life and fate, ostensibly due to 'forces', despite the lightbulb over the bed where they were whelped hits them with more electromagnetic energy than all the stars and galaxies in the Universe, and the gravitational attraction of the doctor or midwife delivering exceeds the gravitational forces of every other star or galaxy. Rather than anyone saying they're a Scorpio, it makes more sense to say you were born under a GE 100 watt and a Dr. Jones. All of these silly beliefs are driven by ignorance or hope. Ghosts are hardly any less logical. ALl were made up when ignorance reigned supreme, yet many are still carried today, despite zero evidence of their existence. All that being said, no way I would invest a satang with anyone who believed in fortune tellers or ghosts, and I even have a bit of trouble investing with anyone who believes in gods. I prefer folks who accept personal responsibility and make decisions based on an analysis of all the facts that can be known.

I'm likely Nouveau Riche, but try to behave like Old Money. Discreet. Anonymous. Not loud or boisterous. No logos (to tie into one of your earlier posts). No tatts. No spare tires, no beer belly, no excess adipose tissue. No red Ferrari and no yellow Lamborghini, and certainly no pastel Rolls Royce. Refused the Black and Platinum Mastercard and AMEX, but accept the special section at banks, because the lines are shorter. I've been told by several expats that "You're the only 'normal' expat I've ever seen in Thailand", whatever that means, though I think it has something to do with my shape, demeanor, lack of daily public drunken-ness, and failure to subscribe to bizarre conspiracy theories. Oh, and I'm happy. To add to your Asian anecdotes, I once took a JAL flight from Tokyo to NYC, At that time, JAL's Business class seating was 2-3-2, which kind of obviates the 'upgraded status'. I specifically chose a "No Smoking" seat. Soon after take-off, the Japanese man sitting in the middle of the "3", lit up a cigarette. I called the flight attendant and noted to her that I was in a non-smoking seat. She agreed. I was. I then noted the obvious to her...that the guy next to me was smoking away. "Yes", she said. "He is in a smoking seat." Anyone who has lived In Japan understands her thinking, or rather why she would think both the smoker and I are totally in compliance with the rules.

I'm enjoying the brain addled excuses of trumpflakes who whine about 'weaponization', think trump could 'declassify in his mind', wasn't asking Raffensperger to cheat for him, didn't hope the terrorists would have taken over the Capitol, or who think Michael Cohen just wanted to top up Stormy's retirement account when he gave her $130,000 I forget adult human beings can be that dumb and naive.. Going to be joyous fun when trump is cuffed, jump-suited, and locked up for the rest of his miserable existence. trumpflake tears will make the Thai monsoon seem like drizzle.

I cannot think of it offhand, but the Thais have a word for discreet elite brands that have no logo and only the wearer knows. Two examples are Brioni and Stefano Ricci. Back before I became gainfully unemployed (okay, I own a business in Thailand, but just for fun and a Non-B Business Visa), I used to wear both, Brioni suits and the Stefano Ricci shirts, plus Ricci or Brioni ties. I still have a closet-full of both, as they last, never go out of fashion, and I've maintained my fighting weight. I wear the shirts occasionally, but have precious little need to wear suits now. The only clothing I have that is logo'd are gym shorts and gym shoes. I don't care for logos, as they seem noisy. Neither do I like the clothes with silly, bad grammar sayings that are so popular in Japan, like "Be the One who forever, Life can be, as you were, do now. Energy". I have seen some funny sayings on clothes here. There is a Thai guy who works out in the same gym who sometimes wears a t-short that says "Eat More Pussy". I was visiting a temple and saw a praying, young, well-endowed Thai woman with a t-shirt that said, "Stop Staring at My Tits". I thought that possibly inappropriate for a temple, but what do I know?

I was remarking about who they would invite as part of the elite 100. Perhaps you've forgotten that Thailand is the center of the known Universe and it is assumed everybody would prefer to be here than anywhere else. Once vladdy turns them down they'll go after Nigerian Princes and Bollywood celebrities.

I suspect they will still do okay on the 5 year at 900,000 baht, albeit only to those who want to reside full time. Otherwise, snowbirds are better off just getting a Tourists visa and extending once, maybe making a visit to Malaysia or somewhere to go back to square one. Then Western winter ends and they go back home. Rinse and repeat. The "100 by invitation only" will go after Chinese seeking 'status' and maybe russians like putin or lavrov or oligarchs. Japanese are not that stupid nor status-seeking to be interested, plus the yen has tumbled to 146/$ (though for the wealthy that's no big deal). I think this could overlap and be cannibalized by the new LTV, provided somebody wants a $250K+ condo in Thailand, as one not only gets the visa, but has an asset they can live in. Not sure the Super Double Happiness Golden Fortune Beverly Hills Shores Elite Card will retain enough value to be considered an 'asset', and one certainly cannot live in it. Buy an upscale condo, get the LTV, and there's no reason to fiddle with any of the Elite Cards. A person could also toss some chump change at a small coffee shop, get a Non-B Business Visa, and be as free to come and go as the Uber Elite, paying a mere 1900 baht a year (plus tribute to an IO).