Patong2021

It didn't take long for that type of comment.

For the same reason the USA doesn't stop the fentanyl and other contraband entering Canada. The fact is that Canada is intercepting the drugs, It stops them from entering the USA, but it also stops it from entering Canada from the USA. The USA is the security problem. - Identified almost 34,000 foreign nationals seeking to enter Canada at a port of entry along the land border with the U.S. whom our officers believed to be inadmissible. This has increased about 30% from 25,500 in 2023. - Removed over 14,000 foreign nationals from Canada for violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Of these, more than 4,100 inadmissible foreign nationals were returned to the U.S. and about 460 were U.S. nationals. In respect to weapons and drugs the Canadians reported; - 1,274 prohibited weapons and 750 firearms were seized coming from the U.S. - Seized over 25,600 kg of illegal drugs (both inbound and outbound). We also intercepted over 15,000 kg of cannabis and 547,000 kg of undeclared tobacco preventing millions of dollars in revenue evasion and combatting organized crime. Of our total illegal drug seizures, we stopped: - 4.9 kg of fentanyl, an increase of 775% from the same period in 2023, of which 4.1 kg was intercepted outbound before it could be smuggled towards the Netherlands. - 3,955 kg of cocaine, an increase of 168% from the same period in 2023 - 37 kg of heroin - 21,457 kg of other drugs, narcotics and precursor chemicals - 237 kg of other opioids (including opium, methadone, morphine and morphine base) Trump is untruthful and Americans are too intimidated and weak to question his veracity. https://www.canada.ca/en/border-services-agency/news/2024/12/2024-year-in-review-cbsa-protecting-canadians-and-supporting-our-economy.html

That may be true with some Thais, but it does not change the fact that it is a colonial mentality. Thailand does have a colonial mentality when it comes to its neighbors with many Thais believing that they are superior to them.

You do not understand the law and are reading a partial translation. Go read the full law. Better yet, read a proper legal interpretation. If the person is Thai, and meets the lineage requirement ,his citizenship cannot be removed as it would render him stateless. The law allows for revoking citizenship only in regard to naturalized Thais and specifically with respect to a person who has Thai nationality, by reason of his having been born within the Thai Kingdom of an alien father, his Thai nationality may be revoked when it meets the conditions listed. As I stated previously, if Thailand could revoke citizenship, it would have done that to the Thaksin clan. Here is a good explanation of the law, from Siam Legal. https://library.siam-legal.com/thai-law/nationality-act-loss-of-thai-nationality-sections-13-22/

It is you who is off topic. The article discusses Canada's response to the tariffs and Trudeaus request to support local businesses and the resulting national solidarity. You went off on a tangent that Trudeau was late and that Canadians loathe him, neither of which was relevant. The fact is that there was nothing Canada could have done to have avoided the tariffs as the reason for them is unfounded. There is little if any fentanyl entering the USA from Canada, and the number of unauthorized migrants entering the USA from Canada is manageable and rather small. On the contrary, the USA allows fentanyl to enter Canada from the USA, along with firearms and other contraband, and more unauthorized migrants enter Canada from the USA than they do from Canada into the USA. Canadians are rallying in support of the Canadian response, not because they like Trudeau. Rather, they believe that they have been wrongly accused by the USA and want to fight back. They are rallying to the defense of their national pride. I sense that they are deeply hurt, probably almost as bad as when they lose an international hockey series to the USA. The sad part of the tariff mess is that it will distract from some of the positive measures Trump has undertaken.

Canadians are not rallying to support him, but are rallying to defend their nation from a bully. If they had any smarts, they would have emergency maintenance that interrupts the electricity to the USA during a critical part of Superbowl. A loss of electricity in the US grid would blackout New England and key Republican swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan, and would then cause cascading shutdowns as the power grid overloaded and had to shutdown to prevent damage. It's going to be a KC 3 peat, so no real harm if people can't watch. 🙂

That is your perception of his agenda and is a different subject than that of giving one of the contesting political parties a parliamentary majority. that is your biased position. It is not what he said. He did not ask for a one party state. He asked that his political party be given a parliamentary majority. You call him senile only because you disagree with him. And if he was senile, then you would have nothing to fear as the main would not be able to coherently communicate or to function.

Trump is bullying Canada, and it will most likely backfire, but he does have a point and to a certain degree, he is doing Canada a favour by forcing the issue. Canada's largest newspaper editorialists at the conservative Globe and Mail likened Canada to a 30 year old who has been living with his parents for too long and who needs to grow up. Trump is forcing Canadians to rethink their relationship with the USA and to take decisions on economic independence that should have been made decades ago. Immigration: Despite Trump's claim that Canada has allowed "millions and millions" of people to illegally enter the United States. US CBP data 2024 shows that the Border Patrol apprehended 23,721 people who illegally crossed the U.S.-Canada border, representing just 1.5% of nationwide Border Patrol apprehensions. In contrast, at the U.S.-Mexico border, Border Patrol reported more than 1.5 million apprehensions in the same year.* The insulting aspect of the claim is that MORE people have illegally crossed from the USA into Canada from the USA than the other way around. During the last Trump administration, US CBP was not impeding a flood of irregular migrants to Canada, particularly at the Roxham Rd crossing, which was inundated with hundreds on some weekends. Fentanyl: The data does not support the claim that Canada is a primary source of the drug entering the U.S. In Fiscal Year 2024, USCBP seized 21,148 pounds of fentanyl at the southwest border, mostly smuggled from Mexico. In contrast, only 43 pounds were intercepted at the northern border. This means that less than 1% of all fentanyl seizures occurred at the U.S.-Canada border. However, the US is a major source of the drug being smuggled into Canada. In 2024, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) seized approximately 10.8 pounds of fentanyl coming into Canada from the United States. It stopped 17.6 pounds of fentanyl being smuggled from Canada into the U.S. This suggests that the trafficking issue is not as one-sided as the administration claims.* Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andyjsemotiuk/2025/01/31/tariff-on-canada-not-justified-by-us-immigration-and-drug-claims/ https://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/statistics/Pages/Irregular-border-crosser-statistics.aspx Where Trump does have a point is on Canada' lax immigration visa and enforcement strategy. This is where many Canadians will be thanking Trump. For years there was a problem with Mexicans exploiting the visa free travel to Canada. They were not using it to enter the USA, but were going to Canada to claim refugee status by the thousands. Provinces were begging the federal government to stop it. Canada brought back stricter entry rules a year ago; Mexicans must - be eligible for an electronic travel authorization (eTA) - apply for a visitor visa (if they are not eligible for an eTA anymore) Canada has a big, big problem with foreigners who have exploited the immigration system and who have been enabled by greedy Canadians and the government itself. Until the government changed the rules, there were an estimated 2 million foreign students in Canada. They are supposed to come for an education and then leave, but they do not. Most are from India. They want to stay and file bogus refugee claims. Questionable educational institutions were recruiting the Indians and pocketing big profits. Added to this is the misused Temporary foreign worker program that technically had almost 800,000, but is estimated to really be closer to 1 million. And again added to this is the legal refugees and the illegal migrants estimated to add another 500,000 plus the annual legal immigration goal of 500,000. The end result has been a shortage in affordable housing, and an increased demand on an already taxed health care system. Quebec and Ontario are burdened with the refugees and have been diverting hundreds of millions of $ to their care and support: Money that has been diverted away from other social programs. And then there is national defense. The federal government has dragged its heels on spending on national defense. It had little choice as Canadians wanted dental care and day care before the country secured its air and northern borders, and ensured an ability to defend its waters from polluters and foreign fishing fleets. Vested interest groups would rather the country spend on foreign aid to despotic regimes than fund national defense. The country now only has 66 fixed wing fighter jets of which only 1/4 are believed operation ready to respond to an immediate threat. All this while Russia regularly flies nuclear armed borders to its northern airspace. And then there is Ukraine. Canada is going to reach $20 billion in aid to the country shortly. This amount is ignored by the USA, but it can be considered money spent for the benefit of US national interest. And as stupid as the US tariffs are, Canada is partly responsible. The federal government had 6+ years to fix the problem and ignored the warnings about its lax immigration and border policies. Now it is being forced to do something, but it will come at a cost to its economy. Yes, Trump may get a short term win, but I see from the international news that the Canadians have started booing the US national anthem at hockey games, and the anti american sentiment is growing. Americans forget that Canadians are nationalistic, proud and sensitive to insults from the USA. Canadians will respond and it won't be pretty. Maybe the US poking will be a good thing for Canada, but I expect it will end badly for the USA. Ask the Germans how it ended for them when they went to war with their cousins in Great Britain.

Note entirely, but it does have democratic institutions and the last election was a free vote. Thaksin was commenting on the need for one party to have a mandate from the people. What did he say then? I see the article reports that "former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called on voters to back the Pheu Thai Party exclusively. Thaksin argues that a single-party majority could fast-track government initiatives, suggesting that the current coalition governing structure is cumbersome and inefficient." This is quite different than what you think he said. What is wrong with asking for a mandate from the people? He is correct in his assessment of Thai coalition governments. They are typically formed after there are political tradeoffs. Some call that corruption. Every political party that participates in a parliamentary system seeks a majority government. No one ever has campaigned on forming a coalition government. Look at the political crisis in Belgium. Coalition related. Canada's parliament was crippled for the past year. Why? Minority government that had to placate another political party in order to get legislation passed. Israel has extremists in its cabinet. Why? Because the government is made up of a coalition of parties. The list of dysfunctional governments at the mercy of coalitions is long; France, Sweden, Nederlands, Germany and others. Coalitions look nice on paper, but they do not give long term stability and they just force important legislation to be delayed.

Trolling from an unimportant political Putin stooge. He joins another stooge, the PM of Slovakia Robert Fico who was trying to cause a panic with his hysterical warnings of an energy crisis in Central Europe if Russian gas was cut off. There are no gas shortages and Slovakia’s reserves are more than three-quarters full, above the seasonal average, while EU member countries that previously depended on Russian pipeline gas, namely Austria and the Czechia, also have healthy volumes in storage. https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-fico-russian-gas-fears-fall-out-moscow-energy-slovakia-hungary/ Putin is still trying to manipulate and to interfere.

Refusing to allow some of the registered refugees to work may put a dent in the Thai foreign assistance budget. It is easier to demand funding from Japan, EU and EU if the refugees are destitute. The refugee camps are supported and funded by foreign entities. Thailand has a labour shortage and many businesses rely on the use of undocumented workers who are exploited by being paid less than minimum wage, and with no access to mandatory health and pension benefits. Why would the business interests want to give up their cheap labour?

What exactly is wrong with his request? It is called a majority government and is a common practice in democratic societies. He is asking for a mandate for one party because coalition governments are usually ineffective and typically start falling apart after a year. This has been demonstrated in the EU, Canada, and Israel. Thaksin's minions are having a problem enacting the policies that they campaigned on and this is the only option available to them - to win a majority at the ballot box. It will not happen and hopefully will not, but that is a different story.

How is it that such mass theft does not occur in Japan or Singapore? Is their culture superior?

There is no "Chapter 11" in Thailand. Thai bankruptcy rules and procedures are different than those of the USA. How do you know there was minimal maintenance? The airline would not be able to fly to EU, Taiwan,Singapore or Japanese airports without international standard certification. I would expect that other countries would require the certification too.

Yes you are correct and although some disabled people may be hired to work as ATC, to clarify, the hiring of disabled or disabled people is not necessarily for ATC positions. It can be for support positions. Many firms have hiring practices that intentionally hire people that would otherwise be excluded from the workplace. My previous employer specifically hired people with intellectual disabilities to work in the mail room. It was a simple job for workers who were punctual and who showed up every day. Considering the large number of mentally and physically challenged individuals in the USA, if they were excluded from the workplace, there would be a workers shortage and millions of Americans would be at home collecting Social Security instead of contributing as tax payers.

Which VIP. Since you know so much, who was the VIP? Jonathan Koziol, a retired Army chief warrant officer with more than 30 years of flight experience who now serves as Headquarters Department of the Army Aviation Directorate chief of staff, told reporters in a briefing Thursday afternoon that the Black Hawk crew was on a nighttime qualification flight with an instructor pilot evaluating an experienced pilot on the flight routes that their unit routinely flies day and night around the Potomac River. Koziol confirmed that the instructor pilot had more than 1,000 flight hours in a Black Hawk and that the pilot being evaluated had more than 500 hours in the aircraft. The evaluated pilot was in command of the flight but if an emergency were to occur the instructor would have taken control of the helicopter, Koziol said. The maximum altitude for the route the Black Hawk was flying is 200 feet, Koziol said. "Very serious crew, even the crew chief in the back has been in the unit for a very long time, very familiar with the area, very familiar with the routing structure," Koziol said. "So we don't see that at all as being any impact on what happened today or last night. And both pilots had flown this specific route before at night. This wasn't something new to either one of them." Koziol added, “These are our top pilots doing this mission in the National Capital Region." As reported by CNN

And you know that because? Who are the VIPS who are transported by US Army utility UH 60 rotary aircraft? There were no VIPs on this helicopter so the continued claims and references of the aircraft being used as a passenger aircraft is nonsense and injects your political bias. The Sikorsky UH-60 was an army helicopter on a training flight.

It is not being anti USA to point out who is already funding aid and who is hosting the refugees, and two of the countries you criticize are already carrying much of the refugee burden. You are dismissive of my factual statements without even knowing where the funding originates. You assume there is an anti US bias when there isn't and you have made incredibly ignorant statements. You also ignore the fact that western governments have indirectly supported the rebels because they are a thorn in the side of mainland China. As long as Myanmar's junta is a friend of North Korea, China and Russia, western governments will tacitly support the rebels who wish to depose the junta. As a result, the refugee crisis is a byproduct in part of western foreign policy, i.e. the USA China containment strategy. As per the UNHCR; Thailand hosts less than 95,000 refugees. 90,000 are Myanmar urban refugees and 5,000 from other countries. Malaysia hosts 192,000 refugees . 170,530 of them are from Myanmar. Malaysia is a smaller than Thailand , has less than 1/2 its population and has a smaller GDP than Thailand, and yet handles almost 2X as many refugees. Unlike Thailand, it doesn't hold them in refugee camps, Malaysia also has a greater burden than Thailand because nearly 1/3 of the refugees (55,000) are children. So don't wag your finger and say Malaysia should do more when the country is already doing more than Thailand and the USA. You have no idea how much of a presence Japan has in Thailand do you? Look around. The Bangkok subway system is due in large part to Japanese development aid. The Malaria research facilities and eradication activity in places like Chiang Mai was initially the result of Japanese aid. As per OECD (for the total amount of aid that is sent to Thailand); Japan is the largest bilateral donor, with a share of more than 50%. U.S. and Germany account for about 10% each.....(of the foreign aid) The major multilateral donors to Thailand are the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) and the EU. The Global Fund supports the Thai government’s goal of eliminating three major infectious diseases (malaria by 2024, AIDS by 2030, and tuberculosis by 2035) Its initiatives also include migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos , and Cambodia. So don't start huffing and puffing about Japan doing more when it is the largest foreign aid donor by far. Singapore is a small city state and has never been particularly charitable. It will not engage in activities that annoy the PRC because of its dependence upon the PRC for economic interests. In plain language, Singapore won't risk losing its services revenues for a few thousand refugees in an area of no importance to it. That is not the Singaporean mentality.

That is the worst approach to training a dog. The animal has no idea what you are doing.

It is not about pity, but practicality, and reality. Think it through. If it is the typical subsistence Thai driving a financed motorbike, the driver most likely needs the motorbike to make a living. For many, that income is the difference between feeding the family or paying for a roof over their head. Nor does it make much of a long term difference. That's the reality. You can't get blood out of a rock and stepping on the impoverished is what gives rise to revolutions in countries where the people have few rights or electoral influence. Y

They can if they respect the distance requirements. You do know that this happens everyday at BKK and at other large airports? In this case, it appears that the helicopter distance requirement was not respected. There would have bene multiple warnings in both the Helicopter and commercial aircraft, so there may have been a mechanical or avionics issue wi.th the helicopter. How about letting the investigators do their job first?

Why post such nonsense? Who are the DC VIPS who use these private and chartered jets that cause the problems? If it is government business and employees, then they would most likely be flying on aircraft located at Andrews AFB or Dulles.. If it is international or long haul, it will most likely be Dulles. The issue with Reagan National is the large number of domestic flights in a small airspace. There are large parts of the area that are closed to commercial air traffic. The flight paths are further restricted between 10 PM and 7 AM for noise abatement. There are military, and homeland security airbases that have traffic. Every time, there is talk of reducing the number of flights at Reagan the locals protest. They don't want the longer drive to Dulles. Reagan is convenient. This incident has nothing to do with DC VIPS. Your comment is so clueless. A private aircraft cannot just show up to land at Reagan National. The aircraft requires a TSA waiver or enrollment in the TSA’s DC Access Standard Security Program (DASSP). This requires that only the registered pilots and aircraft can fly into the airport. That is why the lobbyists fly commercial. You obviously have never flown into Washington DC.

Because there is a military airbase adjacent to the airport and this is congested airspace. Every year there are multiple near misses. The closed airspace of a large part of DC compounds the congestion issue.

The constant references to "Visa free policy" as being the reason for some incidents is both illogical and foolish. There is no visa free panic policy. Visitors are still subject to visa requirements. You are shifting personal responsibility from the wrongdoers to a convenient third party, "government". The liberalization of the length of stay aspect of the visa has made it much easier for the western winter refugees, and has had no impact on the long term visa holders. The Russians have qualified for Visa on Arrival since 2002. Prior to 2022, we never heard of any problems with the Russians. They were the model visitors, well behaved and low profile. There have always been disorderly incidents. When I was in Patong, it was the shoplifting and opportunistic theft. And before that were the drunken yobs of the UK and Australia. And before that were the thieving Europeans at the BKK duty free shops. And let's not forget the jumpers of Pattaya and at the BKK airport. The person in this picture is most likely traveling on a UK, or EU passport and a reversion to the 30 day visa would not have changed anything. What we are seeing now is result of the affordability of air travel and accommodations. It is also a direct result of the erosion of social constraints around the world. The world post Covid is a very impolite and nasty place. The Russians flock to Thailand because, aside from Egypt, Cuba and Turkey, they are unwelcome elsewhere. If you want to clear the troublemakers out, increase the cost of visiting Thailand by 20%. It will also clear out many of the people complaining about their fellow foreigners. In any case the situation may correct itself shortly if the war in Ukraine ends, and if the world plunges into a worldwide recession courtesy of the looming tariff issues.

Pretend that they are Palestinians and you can greet them with hugs and kisses.