ericbj

When will British politicians, of varying political stripes, stop sucking up to Washington? If they cannot tell the truth, at least they could remain silent instead of turning the truth on its head. International law applies to all nations. None are above the law. If you want "a rules-based order", international law is it.

For British retirees on a DWP pension, choose the Philippines, and make your stay there a little over half of each year. One of the very few countries where you can receive the annual increment. Personally no experience of the country, as yet, but medical facilities there are probably pretty good, as long a destination for many US retirees.

The U.S. has long had rule by a puppet of the plutocracy. The electorate was offered two bad choices, and the majority chose the candidate whose debatable competence for the job had not been fully disproven. Since, during his previous term in office, he had been constantly thwarted in his intentions. The system needs overhauling so people have better choices, and big money has less say. [And, by the by, the public needs real live journalism from MSM, in place of set-piece narratives]

Legal proceedings should be applied to enforce law. Not for political ends. Thailand is not the only country where legal proceedings are being used for inappropriate purposes. Her brother has massive amounts of blood on his hands. Yingluck does not. And her accusers have themselves a few things to answer for.

I ride a bicycle, hopefully responsibly. But it can at times be extremely dangerous. Not on account of my actions. But on account of the behaviour of a few, yet non-negligeable number, of truck drivers, car-drivers, motorcyclists, and even cyclists, who choose for example: to skim by within centimetres; to overtake and then turn immediately in front of one down a side-road,; etc.

Ghee is made by gently heating butter and then skimming off the milk protein. You can make it yourself. Consequently, I am guessing that "vegetable ghee" is hydrogenated polyunsaturated seed oil, similar to margerine but without the added colour and flavouring. Manufacturers like to hide the fact they are selling you junk food. Marketing and advertising. (Check out the life of Edward Bernays) (Protein in milk from North European dairy breeds is mainly casein type A1, to which many are intolerant, often falsely blaming lactose. Most animals, including the human species and South European breeds of cattle, produce type A2 casein) The healthiest vegetable oil for cooking (highest smoke-point) is said to be coconut oil. Olive oil and avocado oil second best. Polyunsaturated seed oils are said to be the worst. Note: the smoke-point is not identical to the flash-point, the temperature at which, in the presence of air, a substance ignites.

Whatever some may say, aluminium toxicity is widespread in the modern world: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8767391/ Generally the effects are long term, resulting from ingestion of traces of aluminium compounds originating almost exclusively from man-made aluminium. The body has difficulty in excreting it, hence its tendency to accumulate. Aluminium is one of the most widespread elements in the earth's crust and in its natural form, usually tightly bound to silicon, it is harmless. (or even potentially beneficial, as in bentonite clay) My solution is to place the rice in a handle-less stainless steel Indian cook-pot (if not fermented, the rice covered with water to the height of the second joint of a folded finger, if fermented barely covered). The lid is placed on the pot. A perforated stainless steel plate on four short legs (available commercially) is placed in the aluminium pot of the rice-cooker (this prevents bumping) and water added to just below the perforated plate. Place the Indian cook-pot in the rice-cooker, put the lid on, and switch on. I tend to put an upturned heavy stone mortar on the lid, but this is not essential. I favour Sharp rice-cookers, a bit heavier and more expensive than some, but with a decent life-span. A note for those with diabetes or pre-diabetes: freezing rice after it is cooked makes its starch more slowly digestible ("resistant starch") and therefore does not spike blood-glucose so much. Search the Internet for: resistant starch.

You are doubtlessly correct in what you write. But the source of the problem is much wider than just the size of the screen. I use a 17" screen, as anything larger is not readily portable in my back-pack. Many Internet search engines, beginning with the ubiquitous Google, are deliberately biassed. This began some years ago when they altered their search algorythms to reflect their and their associates financial interests. [They have deep pockets and widespread investment interests] The microwave frequencies used by mobile phones (and wifi etc) can have both short-term and long-term deleterious effects on living organisms. Whether sprouting seeds or developing brains. Children's brains are particularly vulnerable. The mobile phone industry will tell you otherwise: that research shows no harmful effects. That is because industry-sponsored 'independent' research concentrates on the thermal effects. Research that examines non-thermal effects of the radiation tells a different story. In Switzerland wifi has long been banned in schools, which are obliged to use cable connections. In France wifi was banned in crèches about six or seven years ago. Wireless baby-alarms should be banned. Young children should not be given mobile phones to play with, and older children should only be allowed to use them when deemed necessary. One might say that the problem is attributable to parental ignorance of the dangers. But it is really a societal issue: we live in a society controlled by mega-financiers. Another problem causing problems with children's (and adult) mental and physical health, e.g. hyperactivity in young children, is the regular consumption of drinks and snacks high in refined sugars (such as high-fructose corn syrup).

Look for potential causes of constipation, and they can be many. And they tend to worsen with age because of such things as: - digesting less well (and maybe eating less) ripe papaya flavoured with lime juice, or in a fruit salad, works well for me. It contains a digestive enzyme. In my carnivorous days in the bush, tough meat could be tenderised by leaving it wrapped in papaya. Pineapple is also said to contain a digestive enzyme. You can buy digestive enzymes as supplements, but they cost a fortune. - taking less exercise walking helps, but a bicycle is an easier way of getting around, and more practical for carrying groceries etc. At the height of the rainy season, standing for 10 minutes on a Vibrating Plate (available through on-line sources) can be a great help. Best just before taking one's morning shower. Other factors to consider: Lack of adequate water intake. Drink till satiated, especially in hotter weather when much is lost as sweat. And consider consuming slightly salty soups Using a high, western-style toilet-bowl of the type commonly attributed to Thomas Crapper. Useful if you wish to sit and read the morning's newspaper, a ritual now largely relegated to the past. The traditional Thai squat toilet is superior as regards voiding the colon, as squatting brings into play muscular activity. Maintaining tone of abdominal muscles is of course also indicated. Dysbiosis of the gut, caused mainly by unbalanced modern diets, preservatives and other chemicals in industrialised foods, and antibiotics in medicines and animal products. Can cause a gamut of problems, some potentially leading to premature death. Eat organic where possible. Avoid ultra-processed foods. Eat fermented foods such as yoghurts, sauerkraut, kimchi. Full of healthy bacteria if unpasteurised. Must be uncooked. Failing which take prepared probiotics of the kind containing a minimum of about 15 billion bacteria per dose. Expensive to produce, expensive to buy. Not what you will find in your local pharmacy. Avoid the consumption of sugars, except what is naturally present in foods. And restrict consumption of all carbohydrates (especially the fast-digesting ones), as they digest to glucose. Note there are ways to slow down their digestion. The slowest-digesting carbs are found in the bean family where they are a single long-chain molecule composed of glucose groups. Grain carbs are multi-branched, so can be digested (i.e. the glucose broken off) from multiple positions simultaneously. A colonic cleanse once a year constitutes a useful 'spring-clean', and it can be instructive to see what comes out. For years my colon was infested with unimaginable amounts of candida albicans, in its filarial fungal form. But it always re-grew. Nothing would deal with it. Then one year, none was present. Why? It may have been because I had incorporated cold-pressed coconut oil into my diet. It contains caprylic acid. Healthy bacteria need prebiotics to feed on. This is provided by the soluble fibre in fruit and vegetables, and oats. Excessive consumption of insoluble fibre found in most whole grains can, by its abrasive effect on the inner lining of the intestinal walls, cause damage to that lining which is only one cell thick. The 'tight junctions' of the lining control what passes into the blood. Its progressive destruction is a first step in overwhelming the body's immune system. Those born at a time of close conjunction Moon-Neptune are said to be naturally prone to chronic constipation. When I heard this, nearly fifty years ago, my ears pricked up. It helped to explain my need for constant vigilance in combatting the tendency.

Beware of Google search results. They changed their algorythms some years ago to produce information biassed towards 'orthodoxy'. Try searching on a site such as https://greenmedinfo.com/ for natural therapies based upon peer-reviewed scientific research. (Although I am a bit wary of them recently promoting specific commercial products; and the results of much "scientific research" has recently been shown to be impossible to replicate!) In the short term the body is highly adept at self-regulating imbalances. It is long term imbalances that can be highly detrimental, especially in certain cases, such as excess iron (too often included in "multivitamin" supplements. RDAs can be deceptive, like the norms for such things as haematocyte and leucocyte counts. With the steady deterioration of the health of populations (reflected in increasing rates of degeneracy diseases) norms are lowered to reflect population averages. So they say. Things like this give me cause for doubt: what is the RDA for boron? Apparently zero. Could be correct, but I doubt it. Plants do not grow well if deficient in boron which must be added to certain soils. Moreover one can ingest sufficient trace elements, either in diet or in supplements, without them being either absorbed or correctly utilised. Various reasons for this. Such as uptake sites on cell walls being squatted by heavy metal molecules. E.g. if you have mercury toxicity (originating, inter alia, from amalgam dental fillings) you may suffer from hypothyroidism from lack of iodine. Irrespective of how much you ingest. It is correct that modern diets and farming methods have resulted in many people being deficient in magnesium, needed to balance calcium. But too many people these days do not get enough sunshine to produce the required amounts of vitamin D to utilise adequate calcium + magnesium. They must either expose themselves more to the sun or take vitamin D supplements (preferably D3). And then again, to ensure that the calcium is deposited correcly in the bones they must not have high lead levels (lead displaces calcium). And to make sure it goes to the bones and is not deposited in the arteries the vitamin D needs to be accompanied by K2. And one has not yet touched upon the complex question of preserving - or more likely restoring (in these days of antibiotics and food preservatives) - a healthy microbiome. "Death begins in the gut." Of course it is best to live one's full lifespan upon a truly healthy natural diet and never deviate from it. But sometimes people need to correct imbalances. We do not live in a perfect world.

I totally agree. Excellent service over the years I have been using them. I once heard an interviewed nutritionist say that, to his knowledge, they are the only supplier which has independent analysis done on products before they offer them for sale. Not for efficacy, which can vary from individual to individual, but to see that the quantities of active ingredients are as stated by the manufacturer. Quite a few products lacked the stated quantities. A few were wholly devoid of them.

Excellent ! Thank you.

A "Life Certificate" is sent out, and if not filled in and witnessed as required, your pension is stopped. You are assumed to be dead. It happened to me because although posted 'Priority' from the Netherlands it took months to arrive here in Thailand.

I am not sure whether or not a mailbox service would be acceptable to my bank. And even if it was, it might not be acceptable to yours. Best to enquire with your bank. My address in Thailand is fixed. I have been renting the same crummy property since December 2007, because the rent is affordable. Still. Despite the fact that property prices and rents in and around Mae Sot have gone through the roof of late. Special Development Area. Followed by an influx of refugees resulting from the savagery of Burma Army towards the civilian population, including this time those of Burman ethnicity. And then there are also the dalans and collabos whom the Resistance seeks to eliminate.

I sold my house in England in 1974, the year I bought a ramshackle farmhouse in the Périgord Noir. Moved to the Aude in 1988, and still own the property there, in a remote hamlet in the foothills of the Pyrenees. I believe you will be classified as residing in Thailand if you are there for more than half of the year, irrespective of the visa you have. But check it out with the relative U.K. authority. You MAY become eligible for Thai income tax if remaining in the country for more than half of one calendar year (the Thai tax year is not the same as that of the U.K.) If you lose U.K. residential status - irrespective of U.K. citizenship - I believe you will need to re-establish such status by three months residence before you are covered by the NHS. Check it out. I think almost impossible for me, but in your case you can return to your U.K. house and in three months you will be once again a U.K. resident. If my understanding is correct. If concerned about loss of the annual increment of pension, think of the Philippines. You will get it there. I came to Thailand not to retire but as an unpaid volunteer teacher of English to refugees seeking resettlement - and the ability to communicate with the outside world. And after about a dozen years of coming to teach, I continued coming because of relationships. And then got stuck here because of circumstances beyond my control.

I did not until early this year. In the past when moving to and fro between France and Thailand, would change my registered address to correspond with where I was at the time. I.e. changed it twice every twelve months. Then the bank refused to allow me to have a Thai address. This became a problem when they sent me a new credit card to France which I was unable to receive. And they refused to send it to Thailand. So I had it sent to a half-brother's address in London, and he sent it on to me. I subsequently went on-line and cancelled that address, leaving only the French one, which I still have. However when earlier this year I needed another card, I re-instated the London address. And did not subsequently delete it. My brother and family have now moved, so I am going to have to change the address. Incidentally, I made no secret when speaking to the bank of the fact that I was not residing in the U.K. I would mention in passing that recently the bank has made it virtually impossible to use my credit card on-line. Which is when I have used it most. For on-line purchases I now have to use my UK debit card. When speaking to them they are unable to provide any reason for the repeated failure of on-line credit card transactions. I hope this answers your question.

Cop this one : UN spin-offs are in large measure designed to further the interests of narcissistic global power-grabbers. There are laws for them, and others for us. Their programmes are tailored accordingly: to disguise hideous end-goals as something the average citizen sees as desirable. At least until the changes are virtually irreversible. To exemplify: study the "altruistic" non-governmental funding of the WHO. And the influence this has on that organisation's priorities.

An alternative perspective : Anyone not giving full support to Palestine following the appalling attacks that began with the Nakba, by Israelis on the Palestinian people, needs their head examining.

Interesting. The possible closure of my UK account has worried me since the govt gave the banks the go-ahead to do this without justification. But so far, all is well. While in Thailand, five years non-stop now, I have had to make regular transfers from UK account to my Thai account. Not only of my UK pension (98 GBP/week: many years abroad of which 20 paying voluntary contributions) but also proceeds from savings/assets. Also have a minuscule French pension, but have been denied access to that since 1st January 2021, when the French Post Office Bank utilised a new EU regulation and stipulated that to change my mobile number (for security code) I must present myself in person at the Post Office of my home town!!! [With my UK bank I have always done that over the phone, after answering "security questions"]

Can you assure us - on authority - that the DWP will not make routine check-ups as to whether pensioners are regularly transferring funds to an overseas destination? (Would have no repercussion on myself, as they have already deemed me a resident of Thailand. Contrary to my desire to return to France; thwarted firstly by Covid scare-mongering, followed by government lockdowns, followed by ill-health) The death-penalty was in force in the U.K. for centuries, for quite a variety of crimes, some of them quite minor by today's standards. Perhaps it should never have been abolished?

It may be helpful to compare diverse sources for economic information. If you want misinformation you cannot beat Ukrainian sources, much relied upon by NATO governments and MSM. Examine their record of disproven stories. And British Intelligence is eloquently unreliable. Certainly, Russian sources do not tell the whole truth. But they come closer. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/economic-growth-forecasts-for-g7-and-brics-countries-in-2024/

Quote from "Doug Casey's International Man"; 13th Nov.2024 : ------------------ INTERNATIONAL MAN: Trump has promised to end citizenship-based taxation for American expats. What would be the broader implications of this change, and do you think he’ll deliver on this promise? DOUG CASEY: It’s a wonderful idea because the US is the only country in the world, other than Eritrea, that taxes its expats. If Americans leave the country, they’re still taxed as residents for as long as they live. It’s an insane policy. Of course, he should try to change it. Will he be able to change it? I’d say the chances of that are slim and none, and Slim’s out of town. With the US government on the way to bankruptcy, Congress won’t want to cut off that source of revenue. If it does, scores of thousands of rich Americans would leave the country to escape its onerous tax and regulatory burdens. In addition to that, the entire world is going the other direction. Among other places, France and Canada are talking seriously about taxing their expat citizens. I hope it happens, but don’t count on it. A US passport will remain a huge liability for anyone with assets.

Not sure whether these forthcoming changes to UK State Pensions will apply to expatriates: But they do indicate a desire on the part of the UK Government to limit payments to O.A.P.s, using as a justification the suppression of fraud etc. (A pity the Government cannot be more careful with the money the politicians and bureaucrats throw at their pet causes) Funding of pensions, public and private, is of course known to be at risk. Because of lower returns on 'safe' investments, which in turn forces pension funds to invest in riskier assets. And 'safe' investments such as gilts and commercial bonds are becoming riskier because of currency devaluation and economic slow-down. To which must be added, in the case of expatriates, that the much slower economic growth-rates of the G7 countries relative to those of many of the countries whither they have moved, will, if the trend continues, lead to increasingly unfavourable exchange rates. We are living in turbulent times, and the relative stability 'the west' has known in the recent past is not necessarily a good guide to the near future.

In the late 1970s, myself and others were involved in a heated debate in the local press in Hertfordshire, UK, opposing the proposed introduction of sodium fluoride into the local mains water supply (the sole source of drinking water in those days). We were virulently opposed and verbally attacked by a Dr Parsons, whom we all supposed to be an M.D. (In the UK the term "doctor" is - or was - generally reserved for those who had qualified for a doctorate in medicine). Someone looked into the background of this Dr Parsons. And revealed that he had in fact a PhD in pharmacology and was employed by an aluminium smelting company (whose name I forget) that sought a commercial use for its toxic by-product, sodium fluoride. After that exposure, we heard no more from Dr Parsons. But unfortunately the local (unelected) health committee decided upon the introduction of fluoride to the municipal water, in defiance of public opinion. Fluoride, according to information we had all those years ago, does not prevent tooth decay. It can delay it for several years in adolescents. But with no improvement in their dental health several years later. Even natural fluoride, the calcium salt, when present in excess as in some parts of India, can cause skeletal deformation. How can the quantity of any substance ingested be controlled if present in drinking water? Unless one controls the quantity of water drunk. And if you are a tea-drinker, you are likely getting all the natural fluoride you need.