Walker88

Not sure how many fly yellow Lamborghini Aventadors there are in Thailand, but I often saw one in front of a hotel on Soi 24 near Emporium on the weekends. Maybe it was Lambo Joe, alias Joe Ferrari. As for when some supercars end up at auction, I think most folks know the scam: remove some critical and expensive parts, so that any other bidder would only go as high as Car minus the critical part cost. The scammer can thus pay slightly more, since he already has the 'missing' part. Amazing multitasking ability that Joe could do a full time cop job plus hunt down 398 illegally imported cars

Let's see.....Biden's job numbers are way better than 45, who had a net loss of jobs during his tenure. The economy is also better under Biden. 45 presided over almost 600,000 Covid deaths, despite "it's only 15 people and soon it will go down to zero" , or "magically go away", or "churches will be full by Easter (2020)". 45 even messed up the vaccine rollout, getting maybe 5000-10000 fo9lks a day vaxxed. ALmost immediately Biden's team was vaxxing 1,000,000 a day and on some days even hit 2,000,000. 45 likes to claim credit for the vaccine. Pfizer---the primary US vax---received no money nor help from 'warp speed'. They did it on their own. The current surge of Covid is primarily in places where 45-sycophants like desantis and abbott stand in the way of science. Plus, the anti-mask and anti-vax folks constantly quote their 'hero' 45. Also, poison control is getting inundated with folks taking horse de-worming pills, which were trumpeted by 45 along with hcq. At least folks have stopped drinking Lysol and sticking UV lights up their backside (no, that was NOT sarcasm by 45).

Twenty years ago a couple of folks named Greg Vogle and Richard Blee wrote a intel report trying to convince Bush II to hit the aQ camps then go home, because ANY departure from Afghanistan was going to result in deaths. What is happening now would have happened in 2002-2021. What made Biden's job so much more difficult was the mess 45 left for him. Perhaps you are unaware, but 45 did this: -Followed a Saudi Arabia/MbS request to release the co-founder of the Taliban. That man will soon be the new Afghan President -The Saudis also requested 45 force the release of 5000 Taliban warriors 'as a measure of good faith'. 45 did it, and those 5000 are now in Kabul fighting. -45 once agreed to meet the Taliban at Camp David, the date to be 9-11. His staff convinced him the 'optics' would be bad -45 and his racist advisor stephen miller made the SIV process extremely onerous, and that resulted in massive delays in processing visas for Afghans who aided the US during the 20 year war. THAT held up evacuations. Now perhaps you can explain how someone who undoubtedly couldn't find Afghanistan on a map would have done it differently and better. Biden has gotten almost 100,000 folks evacuated in a week.

In a very unscientific poll, I've asked restaurants from whom I've done take-out, plus drivers who have delivered to me how has business been since the lockdown. The average seems to be that business is down about 40%. Restaurants---like so many businesses---are hurting. That is why I guess as I did in my previous comment (Nobody is going to enforce the double vax rule.). I'm not sure why the decline is so severe, as folks still have to eat. Perhaps people are cooking at home much more. Perhaps people are short cash, having has their own business closed and their job lost, and are choosing cheaper street food over traditional restaurants. Perhaps many expats have gone home as Thailand has become less safe and not an easy place to get fully vaccinated.

So what vaccines will be acceptable to the UK govt? Sinovac? When---when----Thailand hits 70% fully vaxxed, half of those are likely to be 2 Sinovacs. Also, the quarantine isn't related to the vax level; it's related to unknown variants not yet in the UK. Since Thailand doesn't do as thorough of a job identifying the strain of Covid, the UK chooses not to take chances.. Delta is already in the UK. The UK's worry is new variants.

There are rules and there is reality, and in Thailand rarely do the twain meet. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess fewer than 1 restaurant in all of Bangkok is going to strictly enforce the 'fully vaccinated' rule.

I'm going to guess that the number of restaurants that will stick to 50% capacity if additional customers show up is.......0 I'm also going to guess that the number of restaurants that will strictly observe a two-jab only rule for customers is.......0

The famous Yogi Berra quip about predictions (Predictions are difficult, especially about the future) might not always hold true. Given the fact it looks as if boosters---at least one and perhaps yearly---will be necessary, Covid and Thailand are unlikely to have begun their final breakup. As it is, vaccine supplies on order to Thailand leave a gap from mid October until December, so a good portion of the population will remain un-vaxxed. Second, many of the vaxxes in Thailand are Sinovac, which research shows (another poster above put a very recent study) is the worst against Delta and breakthrough infections. Third, if boosters are necessary, Thailand will be standing in line again, as countries with lots of doses will take care of their own people before donating/selling to Thailand. Thus, I suspect even if there is a relaxation of Covid closure measures, they will be back again by year end, and likely next year, too, as the vaxxed Thais begin to lose their immunity as the effects of administered vaxxes wane, and boosters are not yet available.

I'm wondering if someone is going to file a suit against China in the World Court or some other body to hold the country to account for Covid and its spread. The suit could argue that China blocked and censored news of the virus, plus---since it began to hit hard at the start of Lunar New Year---China allowed it virus-carrying people to spread Covid around the world. Perhaps no major country with $billions in investments in China would be willing to file such a suit, but countries with no Chinese investment but whose people and economies have been wracked by the virus could bring such a suit. Certainly it is time China be held accountable for its abject failure to tell the world, when deaths and economic destruction might have been mitigated, that a serious virus was on the loose and out of control. Instead, China censored even the doctors and lab techs who discovered it. That is inexcusable.

It's odd, or oddly 'funny', or perhaps just very human the things to which we all get inured. Infection rates are running a major multiple of the levels that led to three previous closures/restrictions, and deaths are---in a single day---about 4-5 times the number of deaths in the entire first year of Covid, yet not only are some praising the 'declining trend', but these folks, along with the govt, are talking about relaxation of restrictions. We, collectively, have come to accept massive infection and hundreds of deaths each day, when 16 months ago the country closed down and a curfew was imposed due to one or two deaths per day...if even that. I am not arguing that Thailand should stay closed forever, just pointing out that what once scared the bejesus out of the Thai population is now part of the proverbial 'new normal'. I understand the economic necessity of some sort of relaxation, and I've seen the pain that closures have brought into the streets and sidewalks of Bangkok. It's that this is just one of those very 'human' moments where we come to accept things that a few years ago would have been unthinkable. In a weird way this reminds me of one of Stalin's famous statements: "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." In Thailand, the 'statistic' is now 10,000, yet we're 'seeing light at the end of the tunnel'.

The govt is going to goal-seek. It's clear in their statements that they are intent on creating what they want folks to believe, whether it's real or not. They will limit testing so as to limit 'new infections', and send more people home as 'cured' when they're not quite cured. Two things are likely driving this: -the constant daily protests calling for the PM to go away -economic pain even beginning to hit the hi-so 'donor' class They seem hellbent on giving 'relaxation of restrictions' a go. They will do it and hope to get lucky. They tried this once (or twice or thrice?) and then had to put restrictions back on. Third (fourth?) time's a charm. Maybe they will get lucky. One has to think it's personal interest, not the public good, driving this nascent trend toward re-opening. I do hope they get lucky, but with vaccines still quite limited and supplies coming in only slowly over the next 4 months, they are going to need a lot of luck. As in the previous re-openings, they will move in stages...from public parks 1st to last (someday in the distant future) bars.

A guess on the first 'relaxation measures'.... -open public parks -open IT stores in malls -open hair salons with every-hour-cleansing requirement (which none will do) -change curfew from 2100-0400 to 2200-0400 (I think similar to last year April) -allow restaurants to deliver until 2100 Next round: -allow sit-in dining, but no alcohol with meal (unless in a coffee cup) -open 'foot massage' (which means EVERY massage parlor in Thailand re-opens, and few feet get any treatment) -open other mall shops for limited hours and 'strict' customer limits (which will be ignored) -open swimming pools In other words, we'll go back to June and see what happens I suspect it will be a while before gyms re-open and restaurants can serve alcohol. It will be a loooooong time before bars re-open.

I don't see anyone disparaging the efforts of the healthcare community. The post to which you reacted seems to have been taking exception to the govt, which failed to get sufficient vaccines in a timely manner, and thus cannot supply those performing the 'vaccination efforts' with enough medicine. Do the math on what's on hand and what is coming when. A shortage develops next month, unless some the PM can play Jesus with the loaves of bread and fish. Nobody is going to blame healthcare workers for the govt's failures. As for not appreciating healthcare workers, articles have appeared in various Thai media reporting that healthcare workers showing up for the donated Pfizer jabs were told they would get AZ instead. Who got the Pfizer? Seems the govt doesn't respect the efforts and risk being faced in the healthcare community.

When the rules are changed so that: -You need not report actual NPLs, as there is a 'debt moratorium'. -Imputed interest (interest customers should have paid, but did not) can be run through the P&L Everything is coming up roses.

I believe it's "due to the gloriously fantastic vaccination efforts, we are now moving at twice the speed light towards 300% of population....." When one is auditioning for a spot on the North Korean Govt Media Team, no hyperbole is too much.

The quote is the most misused piece of verbiage coming out of Einstein's mouth. He was a non believer. He also would not be so goal-seeking as to think---even if he thought some entity created the Universe (which he did not)---that any deduction as to good or bad entity, one or many entities, purpose or no purpose of home sapiens, or any of the other things those with 'faith' have decided must be true simply because the Universe is here was logical. The height of non-logic is: the Universe is here, therefore there is only one god, he loves me, he is pure love, and his rules say no lying, cheating, stealing, killing, cussing, missing Sunday service, coveting neighbors goods and wives, and dishonoring your birth mother and sperm donor....and follow all those rules you get a seat in some celestial country club because the deity knocked up an Earthgirl and let the kid get nailed.

Nobody is going to convince anyone else of anything. Nor is anyone ever going to 'know' who was right, because dead is dead, and we're all heading that way. We'll go full circle and become part of another star similar to the one that once had our end-of-life atoms as part of it. (Since the body is always replacing structures and cells, save perhaps for some neurons, the atoms we contain at death are quite different from the ones we contained at birth. It's possible an atom or two that is 'me' was once part of Shakespeare. All that is kind of cool and much more interesting than virgin births.) Even as science continues to reveal the reality of existence, many choose to hold onto Bronze Age myth, because the idea that existence on an individual level has no actual meaning save for what each of us makes of it, is too unsettling for many. So be it. A child with an imaginary friend either needs to grow out of it or get counseling. An adult with an imaginary friend is 'spiritual'. An adult with an imaginary friend who isn't on the list of accepted Imaginary Friends is considered psychotic or schizophrenic. That's kind of funny. If I fight a paternity suit by claiming some deity made my woman pregnant, I would get hammered in a court of law. If some Bronze Age guy says that, or if an adulterous woman uses that as an excuse to her husband or boyfriend, great cathedrals are built celebrating those lies or delusions. Mary is lucky neither Nazareth nor Bethlehem had DNA testing. That, too, is kind of funny. If I have a problem with faith, it is that it so easily breeds ignorance that causes harm, and harm to others than the 'believer'. Whether the harm comes in the form of a fanatical terrorist or one who scorns masks and vaccines during a pandemic because their opportunist charlatan preacher pretends he got a message from some deity, it is still harm to innocents. Also, 'faith' leads to people discounting science, and gives the upper hand to societies who move science forward rather than continue to embrace silly superstition. That can be economically damaging. This thread is for entertainment purposes only.....kind of like a Sunday Sermon....entertainment purposes only. Are you not entertained! (Gladiator) To paraphrase my long post, some of us choose modern medicine, some still prefer leeches.

What you are incapable of understanding, or what interferes with a belief system based on myth and superstition manufactured by Bronze Age guys, is termed 'pseudoscience'. Okay. Up to you.

As Bokonon asks us to sing along in one of his Calypsos Tiger got to hunt Bird got to fly Man got to sit and wonder, why, why, why Tiger got to sleep Bird got to land Man got to tell himself he understand Oh, and because a negative cannot be disproven, Bokononism is as real and legitimate as any faith. It’s certainly as legit as a Universe created by a deity---One, incidentally, not two or ten or a hundred million or a team, or competing teams of deities who take turns creating Universes to see which team can make a better one----for reasons that seem all too human: a need to be praised for its greatness. (Note: while most major superstitions are mono-Skydaddy-ish, Hinduism has at least 3 million deities....and that gives us endless festivals because, on average, 10,000 of them have a birthday on any given day.) From time immemorial to 13.8 billion years ago, this deity apparently did nothing. Then for reasons unexplained by any of its followers (Boredom? Need to be praised?), it decided to create a Universe of a few trillion galaxies, each with trillions of stars, most with orbiting planets…..and in one pedestrian galaxy, in one obscure corner, around one very average star, on one planet, ‘created’ a species ostensibly in its image, whose sole functions are to follow a set of rules some guy claims to have been handed on top of a mountain when nobody else was looking, and praise the entity that dictated those rules. Along the way---in a Universe of ever exploding stars, and on a planet rife with natural disasters and plagues and wanton purposeful destruction---said deity knocks up an Earthgirl, plays deadbeat dad, then sits back and watches as the now-adult kid gets nailed to a cross---all so other members of the species on this obscure planet in some meaningless place in a massive Universe, who follow the rules the guy who will one day be played by Charlton Heston claims were handed him on a mountaintop, can get into some country club in the sky that the deity created---so that it can be praised incessantly until time itself ends. There seems to be precious little difference between these praise-needing deities and North Korean dictators. All of that silliness somehow seems to be deduced from the mere fact that the Universe exists and some folks cannot explain how it could materialize from ‘nothing’, while their deity had absolutely no problem performing that magic act of materializing from nothing by claiming it always was and always will be. Oh, and because the Universe does exist, those rules are not to be violated lest one risk the wrath of this vessel of Pure Love ©, the one whose Master Plan involves such loving features as tsunamis and earthquakes, childhood cancer and other ‘mysterious ways’ of demonstrating ‘greater love no man has’. Really, one might think an entity that had all the time in the world----from time immemorial until 13.8 billion years ago---could have come up with a better Master Plan. Not having the need to believe in anything other than the individual randomness of my existence, it always puzzles me how so many---some of whom are otherwise intelligent---need to grasp on to such myths and superstitions, manufactured by people who didn’t even know the Earth was round. That’s like seeking out a doctor skilled in bloodletting rather than a modern hospital with fancy machines like MRIs and a pharmacy stock full of life-saving potions. “You want the antibiotics or the leeches, Sir?” “ I’ll go old school. Give me the leeches. Those guys knew.” So obvious were all of these deities created in man’s own image, that it is a constant amazement that people refuse to see that patently obvious reality. I also wonder why none of the “Try MY Brand of Faith” folks who claimed to have their deity on their LINE contact list never said anything that wasn’t already known. Not a thing came from anyone from Moses to Jesus to Mohd to John Smith to L Ron Hubbard that wasn’t known. Not a single one ever noted things like….there’s a continent out there where part of it will someday be called the US of A, or that Tom Brady would win at least 7 Superbowls. Certainly their deity could have built itself a ton more credibility by letting on a secret or two. Instead, just rehashing of the usual social constructs of “be nice”, and then maybe some rules that make absolutely no sense but must be followed by true believers (don’t be a practicing gay, women have to cover their faces, no pig eating, etc.) So since nobody, self-proclaimed prophet in touch with a deity or otherwise, ever revealed any information not yet known, that leaves the fallback term “faith” as the only thing between common sense reality and superstition. As for such spurious arguments as “Well, why not accept Pascal’s Wager?”, Pascal must have forgotten that there are many more belief systems than Christianity, so a proper wager would have to be a choice among five or six major faiths and dozens of smaller ones. Odds are just as good for an agnostic or atheist as one who latches on to Jesus, but finds out John Smith nailed the “One Truth”. Uh oh! Bad choice, you Christians. The really big joke is that since there can be at most only one “Truth”, all non,-truth faiths were created either by a liar or a maniac. There is no other possibility. Since at least 4 faiths have a billion or more followers, that means billions are living a life of delusion, and as science keeps revealing, likely all four of those major faiths. Each of us gets one shot at existence, yet billions choose to be deluded for the duration. Okay. Looking back on what I wrote, I submit Bokononism makes a heck of a lot more sense, even though like the crypto Dogecoin, it was made up as a joke. As Dogecoin shows us, even jokes can gain a rabid following.

And the Earth MUST be flat; otherwise we'd all fall off. Can't see any force that would keep me tethered to the dirt under my feet, while doing the exact same thing to a guy on the opposite side of the planet. I mean, our feet would be facing each other, sole to sole. Makes no sense, so it cannot exist.........unless.......it's a miracle created by my pure-loving Skydaddy so as to allow both me and the guy on the opposite side of the planet to get on with our duty of offering Skydaddy endless thanks and praise. Actually, physicists have an answer now to the old saw about 'how can something form from nothing?' It's difficult to understand, just as gravity (an acceleration of spacetime) was difficult to understand for dyed-in-the-wool Flat Earthers. Even consciousness is now becoming understood for what it actually is......a vast collection of sensory stimulations that are instantly backward looking in time, all carried on a brain architecture of neurons and mini-fibules that can carry impulses generated by charges on large molecules of neurotransmitters. Skydaddies are kind of like monarchs and other royalty in modern Parliamentary Democracies. Bit by bit their jobs and duties are being lost to elected officials, so that they are becoming mere vestiges of bygone era, anachronisms with no use nor value other than as silly symbols or caricatures in the gossip pages of tabloids.

Math can be deceptive. It can also be abused. Reduce to the ridiculous: Day 1: 1 ICU. Day 2: a second ICU....Oh my! 100% increase! A week later 30 in ICU: Rate of growth, which is less than 100%, shows a decline. Moving averages do not smooth that. Any initial increase over a small number is a large percent, while once overall numbers are large, the percent change is obviously less than when the universe was small. Also, one performing such math gymnastics has to assume all data is accurate and reliable. Also has to assume an infinite number of ICUs and ventilators, as otherwise the rate of growth is capped by the facilities available. Thailand does not have infinite ICUs nor ventilators, thus nothing can be deduced from your math.

I'm not down on them (there's a double entendre there for the taking). They are a product of their culture. Even if they have faults, that doesn't mean they lack all socially redeeming qualities. Many are delightful people. The point I made is that they---and all of us---are honed and tempered by the culture within which we were raised. Tough to escape the qualities that culture inculcates in us.

You're a jaded cynic, but I can't find too much fault with your argument (which might make me a jaded cynic, too) Every country has corruption, but here it's ubiquitous. It's elected officials, petty bureaucrats....all the way down to taxi drivers and scheming bargirls. I don't necessarily fault any of the lower-strata corrupt types, because they have learned that in life one is either a fleecer or the fleeced, often both. There is no culture of earned achievement or lifting one's self up by his/her bootstraps; it's more he who scams first, scams best. Culture is difficult to overcome, as one is honed by its warm embrace. A place where some are semi-divine merely by virtue of birth, while others gain from a supposed previous existence nobody remembers (because it's silly superstition) tends to create an environment where hard work and honest effort can be viewed as pointless or for mugs and suckers. It's no wonder in such a culture, despite its claimed age, there is a sum total of zero additions to the body of human knowledge, nor a single invention or discovery of note. That is actually astonishing, as in terms of population, the country is something like #25 in the world. Bargirls are thus a product of the culture in which they grew up. Their looks or body is a gift for past life nobility, so they put those gifts to work trying to get ahead in the manner her society demands, which is finding someone to scam. It's not easy to be objective, see what traits one inherited by virtue of birth and rearing, and remove the ones that either are unattractive or immoral (by whose definition?), and developing a humanistic approach to life. Like corruption, most societies also have deeply held beliefs that are nothing more than silly superstition. EVERY indication is that the Universe is random at the personal level, that existence has no meaning whatsoever except it is, and yet most people need to manufacture a framework in which they can fool themselves into believing they have more control and relevance than they do. They do illogical things like thinking they 'make merit' by releasing birds or fish somebody else caught for the sole purpose of making money selling to such addled brain believers (apparently merit is neither created nor destroyed, but what is lost in capturing a bird is gained by its release....it's almost Newtonian!). People also need to believe there is some entity in charge...sometimes Earthly, sometimes celestial...and that entity need not be good, but just in charge. Deals can be made even with a malevolent entity; no deals can be made with a random Universe. So folks whose ostensible goal is to reach a point without want or need, pray for anything and everything they shouldn't want nor need, and then expect to get it because they let a bird go or gave tribute to someone with power.. It's all so befuddling that it is hardly any wonder that folks---bargirls---end up as they do. They are too deep in the weeds to escape their conditioning. Perhaps we Westerners are, too, caught up in our own cultural beliefs and peculiarities, but I think more of us are able to separate ourselves from our upbringing and take a more honest look at it. I think we owe folks like Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Desiderious and others some thanks for opening a door to objectivity. Here, few can do that (be objective), hence what you note in your post.

According to Johns Hopkins Medical, the worldwide mortality rate from Covid infection is 2.15%. Countries now suffering higher infection rates are moving toward that figure asymptotically.

I believe you meant 'fill a void', and indeed they are intended to do just that.......fill a void where a woman feels empty and un full filled, so to speak. No doubt this arrest was the climax of a long and multi-pronged investigation, a riveting case with many ins and outs. Kudos to the BiBs for penetrating this lascivious crime enterprise. We men can all sleep soundly now knowing we still have a job. That being said, like many things in Thailand, illegality is a fluid concept. Sidewalk vendors on Sukhumvit deal in such novelty items, along with bedroom pharmaceuticals, switchblade knives and brass knuckles, and I have been to a downtown market where dozens of vendors sell these carnal novelties, while the vendors next to them have table after table of e-cigarette machines and associated paraphernalia, which---to my understanding---are also illegal.