herfiehandbag

I have a number of friends amongst the Burmese refugee community in Chiang Rai. They tell me that the Burmese military are losing badly. In Tachilech (border town with Mae Sai) I was told, the Government forces have lost control of even the town centre after dark. In the countryside they stay in their camps, ringed by barbed wire and mines, controlling at best only the major roads, and then by day. Their main tactic is to stay behind their defences and fire mortars at anywhere they know or suspect (or imagine) rebels might be.

A first rate summary in less than thirty words!

The aims are absolutely crystal clear. His (only) hope in legal terms is to delay any and all proceedings until after November. Then if he is elected he will dismiss all Federal charges and dismantle any part of the justice department which is involved in them. That will be day one! State cases will face massive pressure to do the same. If he loses the election he will try to unleash such chaos that any trials will be almost impossible to conduct. Open jury intimidation would be certain, I suspect he would encourage open widespread civil and paramilitary disobedience, verging on civil war; he will acknowledge no limits.

Ah, the William Tell Overture! Did you know that if you can listen to this without thinking of The Lone Ranger you can count yourself an intellectual. For me Opera, particularly Italian, Verdi and Puccini. All time favourites the Grand March from Aida ( to open my funeral!) and the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves! https://youtu.be/pLxBgAQBhQ8?si=k0UL-ImLrv75u_6_

Well, if I might quote the last hope for 'Murica: “Think of President Xi. Central casting, brilliant guy. You know, when I say he’s brilliant, everyone says, ‘Oh that’s terrible',” said Trump. Trump added: “Well, he runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect. There’s nobody in Hollywood like this guy.” "Nobody in Hollywood like this guy" - what greater accolade could one ask for? One assumes therefore that Mr Trump, unbothered obviously by any concept of human rights or personal freedoms, is quite happy to have his tat produced by some of those 1.4 billion people controlled with an iron fist! Cut to images of a fat old man, with an improbable comb over and a violent orange permatan shuffling around waving his fists in an approximation of a dance to Village People YMCA. Ye Gods!

There is an election coming. GB News must be silenced. How dare they challenge the media concensus. Ofcom, do what you have to do.

and gold sneakers!

However the manufacturers of red baseball caps, and now gold plated sneakers, think that he is the absolute bee's knees!

And the Thai flight was a code share. New Emirates B777 London Gatwick to Dubai. Tatty old Thai Airbus Dubai to Bangkok. Mind you, I was taking my mother to see her new granddaughter. She was horrified by the almost biblical scenes of wives covered head to toe following behind husbands in Dubai airport. She thought the Thai cabin crew in their traditional "welcome aboard" long silk skirts were gorgeous!

The current push a far from being a fair representation of the electorates will, as expressed in the General Election, but to deem them even less so than their predecessors is quite bizarre!

Governments perhaps see this through a different lens. A declining birthrate and ageing population are a major problem for western societies. Especially with that ageing population becoming increasingly dependent upon social spending. It is virtually politically impossible to make meaningful reductions to that level of social spending. The only real option ( short of large scale tax increases - political suicide) is to increase your population. "Breeding your own" (cynical but accurate description) takes far too long. The solution is to import people, thus increasing the "tax base". Business (which is very influential) likes this, it is a source of cheap labour, basically untainted (as they see it) by associated with organised labour. Certain political groups also approve it - if they consider immigrants more likely to vote for them; although that may be a double edged weapon! Public opinion is often opposed, but to be honest that only matters depending upon where the country is in its election cycle - the UK is in election year so the subject is exercising political minds. They note that the Netherlands ignored it and their political establishment came unstuck last year - not that so far, does that seem to be reflected in a change of government!

So the Eritreans, having totally destroyed their own country, society and economy by medieval inter clan fighting over the last thirty years are determined to continue to do so within those countries which have been kind enough (if misguided) to try and help them!

Almost certainly their task is to recover various bits of kit which they may regard as sensitive should/when the Chinese get to crawl all over it.

I am not sure that it was an unnecessary referendum - I suspect that the majority of the electorate wanted one, many had wanted one for some time, and when it was held the majority voted, on a large turnout, against the established "political concensus", and chose to leave. The fiascos that marked the process of leaving the EU were largely the result of that " established political consensus" variously freezing in horror, attempting to ignore, attempting to amend, naysaying, proposing to continue asking the question again until they got the answer they wanted, and various other moves to make it as difficult as possible. I cant really say that I have that much sympathy for Sunak. I don't bear him any personal animus, but he was installed (and engineered his own installation) as Prime Minister by the Tory section of the "established political concensus" following their defenestration of the Prime Minister (Johnson) selected as the Tory Candidate by the party membership (to their dismay) and then endorsed by the electorate in an overwhelming General Election victory. They didn't like him, (Johnson) forced him out and then engineered the installation of Truss (disaster) and then Sunak. The resulting internal party turmoil having taken the governments eye of the economic ball at an important time, and wasted the political opportunity granted by 5 years with such a significant majority, and leaves them in election year flailing around, still with their eye off the ball. Bottom line, perhaps, that although the UK has slipped into recession, so have several other major European economies (Germany?) In the case of the UK I would argue as a result of ineffectual government rather than Brexit. The trouble is of course now that unlike Germany we don't have Greece, Italy and Portugal to bail us out!😃 Personally and politically , I am a cynical liberal conservative ( small "c"), not a member of the Conservative Party ( I doubt if they would have me)!. I voted Tory at the last election and feel betrayed by the parties subsequent antics, and failure to govern.

Oh up here in Chiang Rai we see them quite a lot. You see up here along the border region with Myanmar ("The Golden Triangle", no longer heroin driven but still an important driver for the alternative economy) we get many VIPs who need to attend various meetings to settle issues - therefore regular motorcades from the airport, escort cars, motorbikes and closing junctions and guarding footbridges. If the VIP is VIP enough they open the "Kraken dressing up box" and all sorts of SWAT teams and black clad balaclava helmeted Ninjas take to the streets, touting various rifles, SMGs and Gucci pistols. Saw a couple with cool flashlights attached to the barrels the other week - must have been watching "Rookies" on "Netflix"! Must be a quartermasters nightmare ensuring that the various calibres of ammunition are with the right people! Once the motorcade passes they manage to disappear as if by manage.

If you are intending to conduct a discussion on Trumps financial travails, let alone how he intends to conduct affairs if he is re-elected, it is probably a good idea to read and listen to Maddow. Whilst you may choose to disagree with her conclusions, and yes you may not agree with her personal political views, she is by far the best researched and authoritative source on mainstream media. You certainly will need to be able to counter the ideas her written and broadcast work throws up.

Doesn't Mar a Lago have a condition that it cannot be used as a private residence, but must function as a club. Admittedly a condition which Trump flouts openly!

Unfortunately there appear to be a great many who are so enthused by red baseball caps and the inchoate rhetoric of the orange buffoon that they are fooled over and over again!

Perhaps the scale of the penalty is somehow linked to the scale of the fraud; the fact that he and the organisation he heads - and controls, is something of a repeat offender! Anyway, it will require an awful lot of good ol' boys to forego new gun racks in their pick up trucks to raise the donations for either paying the fine or the appeal bond. I doubt any bank or bail bond company is going to touch this one! Bit of a shame really! Any news of a verdict on the paying off the porn stars cases - you know, the one where all the "great legal scholars said no crime was committed!" I'd say USD35k USD for a leg over with a silicone enhanced blonde was criminal, especially as she then takes the piss by going public and describing him running around the bedroom in his underpants.

I can't say that I blame him, eyeing that is, she is quite noticeable after all. Maybe time to take down the Olivia Newton John poster and replace it with a Swiftie poster?

I looked at the OP photograph. Those of us from the UK may recall a chocolate bar called "Fry's Five Boys". It had 5 segments, each segment portrayed a face on it, labelled "anticipation", "enjoyment", "satisfaction" and so on. They used to put long posters on the side of the double deck buses! I looked at the OP photograph. I saw: " so what", "blank denial", "you know what's going on mate" and "what the hell am I doing here, I came for a meeting about unpaid parking tickets!"

I am quite surprised that they let horses use the toilet!

Yes, there is always one unhinged crazy who starts shrieking something along those lines!

If that is the case, then Joe Bloggs paying an agent 18000 Baht to acquire a retirement extension for 1 year, is really small business. As others have observed, this was a reaction to what must have been a big infraction of informal internal accounting procedures. Not quite concrete boots and splash into the river from a tugboat, but along the same lines! And again, if what you say is true then it is highly unlikely that the sort of " show me your papers, into the back of the truck, you can only take a toothbrush and a change of underwear" sweeps and roundups which have some salivating are not going to happen! If seeing that really floats your boat perhaps you should book a holiday in the USA for next January! Perhaps not, a passport full of Thai stamps is unlikely to go down well with Billy-Bob-Joe from the Federal Border Agency, let alone his vigilante cousins who will probably be deputised to provide the troops!

How could you stoop so low, you must feel soiled by playing such a noble game with such downright scum. You should burn your golf bats immediately. By the way, I can act as your "agent", I think that I know where I can get you a fine replacement set for a jolly reasonable price!