zig

4 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Now Sen is denying the leak. He is a pig, and cannot be trusted. Ever.

 

He is denying leaking it but he admitted that he recorded the conversation and shared the conversation with 80!!! top officials. In my mind this is as good as intentional leaking,

I recall that some years ago there was a similar story in Thailand with someone finding a money bag and keeping it at home. The police found the person within a day or two. The person claimed that he/she was planning to go with the bag to police later when he/she had free time.

He/She was still charged with the theft by police. So much for finders/keepers law in Thailand. 

All these drug seizure statistics are publicly available. The curious fact though is that the fentanyl border seizures started reducing significantly since November 2024, i.e. few months before Trump took office 😄

You can filter the data in the below site by the type of drug and the region and see the graph.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/drug-seizure-statistics

I did it there last year. It was organized well enough although it still took like 4 hours (including lunch time in between) to finish all the tests and receive the results. I thought the review by doctor was quite good. She explained in detail all results that were out of the optimal range and suggested the follow ups too.

17 hours ago, Quentin Zen said:

There is ALMOST a ZERO percent chance you will get in trouble.   Just go to work.  Why?  Well, first of all, the school has tons of political weight in the community.  The police will not beat down a school, embarrass a school, or fine a school.   It's a lose-lose.  I've been at many schools, this is common practice. 

I would take this with a grain of salt. I just recently heard of one school where some teachers without work permits got caught and deported. I have no idea though if it happens often or was just an unfortunate coincidence.

4 hours ago, Thingamabob said:

I remember a report some years ago saying that a red light should never last for more than one minute in any location in any city, anywhere.

Indeed. I often have this suspicion that many of the traffic jams in Bangkok are caused by terribly ineffective traffic lights management. On occasion cars are forced to wait few minutes at every traffic light which can easily add 15-20 minutes even for short trips.

2 hours ago, ChipButty said:

There is a hotel on the road from Chalong to Central it's only about 4 or 5 years old, they catered for the Chinese tour companies always a few buses parked up there, Closed Down for a while now,

 

I often drive along the beach road in Rawai early morning about half way a long there is a boat company and usually hoardes of Chinese waiting there to go on boat trips, hardly see anyone now, I saw a couple in Starbucks yesterday, all these buffet restaurants that only catered for Chinese will be closed down, Im sure, 

It is noticeable when out shopping and in Central the lack of Chinese, 

It might have to do with the government led campaign AGAINST zero-dollar tours and low cost Chinese tour companies in Thailand. This has been going on for years and the claim has been that such companies have unfair advantage against Thai-owned tour companies and do not contribute much to Thai economy anyway. I recall that some years ago a number of such Chinese companies were forcibly shut down and their assets sold without even a court decision reached yet. 

So, I guess this might be another reason for much less Chinese tourists nowadays. You reap what you sow.

57 minutes ago, JustinT said:

 

You have fallen for the orange lunatic's lie that the tariff rate Thailand charges the US is 72%.  They have now admitted that is false, and the tariffs Trump is imposing have nothing to do with the tariff rate Thailand charges the US.

 

Indeed, there was some statistics quoted in Thai media that the actual average tariff rate that Thailand charges on US goods is just 9%. It does not leave much room for negotiation. However, for example, for wine they have many different fees and additional taxes that are applied on top of the the initial tariff. It might mean that the actual average tariff rate is much higher.

On 2/8/2025 at 10:29 AM, connda said:

That's coming to an end. Considering the 2028 Olympics are in LA, expect the Trump administration to have already shut-down the transgender males in women's sports regardless of what the Olympic Committee wants.  I don't ever want to see another man beating the snot out of women in an Olympic boxing ring - ever.

Curiously this has been proven to be another lie promoted by Fox News and Trump. Imane Khelif has been born a woman and has always been a woman. She has never changed her gender and there is nothing that would qualify her as a man. She might be masculine looking but that is true about many women in sports.

6 hours ago, Gandtee said:

Not only Rome. Anywhere where there are religious leaders assaulting children.

In some religions priests are allowed to get married. It happens much less then.

1 hour ago, herfiehandbag said:

The Soviet Union had a vast store of chemical weapons - in particular nerve agents ,persistent, to deny the use of facilities such as airfields and logistics facilities on a long term basis, and non persistent nerve and blood agents to kill large numbers of unprotected troops and civilians quickly.

 

[...]

 

It is no stretch at all to imagine, in fact I would say that it is almost certain, that they retain the munitions, and would be prepared to use them.

There have been numerous reports that Russia has used such weapons in Ukraine already on multiple occasions.

1 hour ago, lordgrinz said:

 

Well, the trains run 50 feet off the ground, so they should be still running after the city sinks 🤪

This is MRT line so they will be running underground 

On 11/2/2024 at 1:31 AM, Espanol said:

I have already received the incredible response from Bolt:

In the Bolt -> Taxi service, regardless of the rate offered, and despite having already paid for it, the taxi driver will turn on the taximeter and at the end of the service the payment made will be cancelled and I will be billed for what the taximeter shows. 😳

I have never truly understood how this Bolt Taxi fee calculation works. I have booked Bolt Taxi option a number of times and it usually shows some fee range, e.g. 190-290 baht. Then taxis actually never switch on the meter and every single time I have ended up paying the highest quoted fee, i.e. 290 Baht in the example. Does not seem to matter if there is more or less traffic and there is no explanation on how the calculation is supposed to work in the app itself.

About three years ago my Samsung TV stopped working after 8 years of service. Their technician said that it would cost 10,000 Baht to replace the board. Bought a new Android TCL instead. For TCL the problem now is that the response seems to be getting slower and slower, and it needs restarting occasionally. Seems to be some Android problem. Will have to do some research on this soon as this is getting annoying.

2 hours ago, Hamma said:

Carabao, the best tasting Thai Beer. was only available at Big C and Lotus a few months. It’s off the shelfes now.

I agree. It is quite good and have also Dunkel and IPA varieties. You can still buy it at Villa Market.

14 hours ago, daveAustin said:

They should take heed because many feel the same. Duty free here used to be okay but is now borderline extortionate. They are just glitzy shops with high prices, and the arrivals are/were a waste of time. This is why they are closing, because people don’t fall for it. If you want good prices, get duty free when leaving your home countries. For Brits, pre-booking Heathrow has great prices and all sealed. 

Indeed, some years ago it used to be possible to buy booze at 30% cheaper than in the city so I sometimes bought while waiting for luggage. Nowadays, the prices are about the same in duty free and the city.  They have also stopped selling the cigarette brands that I liked and which I could not find in Bangkok. There is no point for them to exist anymore.

Same here. I am about the same size and it seems impossible to find long chinos in Bangkok, not even in online shops. I just ordered ones from US Amazon. 

I wonder what punishment is then allowed for staff being late? It is clear that corporal punishment is not and should not be the way, but monetary punishment also does not seem to be allowed. It would seem that the only way then is sacking the staff but then again you might be left without any staff soon. 

Somehow it reminded me of story a while ago that Thai police was forcing errant drivers to do sit-ups and pushups instead of monetary fines and explained that many drivers preferred that to paying the fines.

They managed to do this in Georgia back in 2004. It was deemed that the entire police force was too corrupt to reorganize. They fired most of the existing police force, hired new recruits and reduced the police force size by half. At the same time they started offering much higher salaries for police, thus attracting more qualified candidates. It was largely deemed as the most successful police reorganization exercise worldwide and police corruption decreased tenfold. 

On 3/10/2024 at 8:37 AM, freeworld said:

Have 4 samsonite and 1 carlton (3 suitcases and 2 hand luggage) bought them circa 1996 and after extensive travels all over the planet the exterior shows some small scars but they are overall still in good condition.

I have a Carlton too. Around 25 years old and still in good shape.