Callmeishmael

Ethiopian food is amazingly good. I used to eat at the old Blue Nile in Berkeley whenever I was over there. I don't get to Pattaya very often, but if there was a good Ethiopian restaurant there I would definitely check it out!

Well, I have to say that the half-time show is not keeping my interest!

I must confess to doing something similar in the water off of Huahin many years ago. The girl was a real trooper - she carried on even after being stung by a jellyfish!

For me the early 2000s were the best!

It is thought that there are substantial natural gas reserves in the disputed offshore area. If Cambodia tried to drill a well out there the Thai Navy could quickly put an end to that project. Could the Cambodians do the same if the Thais started drilling? I suspect that they could not!

The Thai letters say "Green Party", which I didn't know was a thing in Thailand!

I grew up being fascinated by ancient history - Greeks, Romans, Persians, etc. Later I studied and taught the history of China, Japan and Korea, as well as the four early river valley civilizations.

The Tories were in power for 15 years, Labour has been in power for 1 year. Which party can really be blamed for 'breaking' Britain?

^ Or Greenland!

I don't see much mention of Maduro's successor & what is happening with the Venezuelan democracy movement. The candidate who opposed Maduro and who seems to have really won the last election is not being put in charge of the country. Instead Maduro's VP is now the nominal leader. We haven't heard much talk about restoring democracy and that doesn't seem to be the goal here. Instead, we have removed on authoritarian leader and replaced him with another, who is just more amenable to US economic goals. The US has a long history of supporting 'friendly' authoritarian leaders. This has frequently turned out to be a big mistake. It seems that Trump has not learned anything from history.

Except that he was given UK citizenship by the Tory government, not Labour.

So, a drone attack against some random soldiers is ok, but a drone attack against the man who give those soldiers orders is cause for outrage?

Brando!

It's interesting that the country with the highest confidence in Trump is Nigeria! Perhaps they could build a fake gold palace to lure him away from the US.

The states impacted by this are Virginia and the New England states. How did they vote in the 2024 election? Petty minded vengeance might be part of the reason for this decision.

Reagan's Alzheimers was suspected during his second term and was no surprise to anyone who followed politics when it was finally announced. A hundred years ago Wilson was struck down by a stroke and was unable to perform his duties for almost a year. So a president who in mentally unable to function is not new and his staff and cabinet will be able to keep things running behind his back... which they are probably already doing! Trump will continue being a figurehead president unless he is physically unable to continue in office.

A quick look at exchange rates over the past year shows the Euro has risen against the baht, the Yuan and the Pound are slightly down and the US Dollar is down by quite a bit. So the story shouldn't be about how strong the baht is, but rather how weak the dollar is!

I really don't think that the Epstein files will make any difference in the current political landscape. At this point people are totally polarized about Trump. As he said himself, he could shoot a man in broad daylight in the middle of the street and his followers would be ok with it. On the other hand, in the very unlikely case of his economic policies actually helping the US, his detractors would still think that he is a POS.

I usually don't agree with Harrisfan, but in this case he is absolutely correct. These two graphs help us see why the US Golden Age began in 1945 and ended about 1985: The top graph shows the level of income inequality in the US by year and the bottom graph shows the top marginal income tax rates over the same time period. They are almost exactly inverses of each other. Now I can't say that one causes the other, there are other factors that influence the Gini coefficient as well, but tax policy is one of the factors that ended the US Golden Age.

True, but he had plenty of time to decide to obey the Pentagon's own rules of engagement or not. He chose to commit a crime. Now the only question is whether this is a war crime or a simple murder.

I suppose that I am easily amused, but I do find this error message to be singularly apt:

I realize that I should post opinions here, and not facts, but here are the official figures for prescription drug prices in the US from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics: The official increase for 2025 so far is 1.91%.

So, after years of massive numbers of immigrants under Tory governments, Labour shows a decrease. The AN right wingers are danger of spraining their brains doing mental gymnastics to try to explain THIS away!

Laos and Burma are both on the list, but Thailand is not.

Burying your ashes after cremation would probably be ok. I think me wife's grandfather's ashes were buried in the yard after he passed.