Atlantis

I think I saw the minibus in question last week driving down Sukhumvit in the Nakluea area. Thing is you're trying to go for cheap and time-specific when it's still dark outside. I don't think it's going to fly this time round.

Can I hazard a guess that you're in your 20s? There's full time and there's full time. Many 30k entry-level TEFL jobs are more akin to part-time jobs or paid internships than actual full-time jobs. Given the silly number of holidays you will get as a teacher (assuming you're employed directly at a government school), you have ample opportunity to increase your overall earnings. "I refuse to get a Master's degree for a job that pays less than minimum wage in my country" I never understand comments like this. What's the minimum wage in your country got to do with anything? There's a shopping plaza called Terminal 21 in the center of Bangkok. On the 5th floor food court, you can get lunch for as low as 1 USD. If you are willing to use the air-conditioned BTS skytrain for a 30-40 minute commute, you can get a decent condo for 200 USD a month, etc, etc, etc. Cost of living in the US should have no relevance whatsoever if that higher degree is going to help you get a job in Thailand.

Before you give up on Thailand completely, may I suggest you consider.... Taking that 30-35k a month starter job in a demonstration school, preferably their EP or IP programmes, on a couple of conditions: 1. It's a fully paid 12-month contract so you get paid for all the holidays 2. You have limited hours e.g. 20 or less a week. It really won't be a challenging workload (arguably only worth 35k) so that you have plenty of energy to top up your earnings with 500THB-an-hour part-time jobs at language schools. If your target location is BKK, then there's plenty of such PT jobs posted on a weekly basis. In this way, you can easily get to your target 45k a month base and still have plenty of time for a social life.

Your flight from North BKK is at 11:00, but you want to arrive at 08:00, travelling from Pattaya. Wow. And there's me feeling pleased with myself whenever I arrive within 60 minutes of my scheduled departure time. If you want to be a genuine Super Giga Chad Cheap Charlie, rather than a pretend one, you'd take the Suvarnabhumi bus from Jomtien that now runs from 07:00, arriving at the airport 08:30 - little traffic on the highway at that time. https://airportpattayabus.com/from-pattaya/ You would then take the shuttle bus from Suvarnabhumi to Don Mueang that costs 0 Baht, aiming to arrive before 10:00 AM. An hour before your flight. Plenty of time. https://thaiest.com/blog/shuttle-bus-between-bangkok-airports-suvarnabhumi-don-mueang Might you run into a bit of traffic, even on the expressway to DM, and miss your flight? Sure. But as a true Cheap Charlie, you must have faith brother. And all the adrenaline you feel while wondering "have I really <deleted> up everything to save a few Baht" means you can save a further 50B on your morning coffee. As for motorbike parking, why pay anything at the North Bus terminal! You can park for free in the unused bays behind Fraser's / Gian's. Sure it says "Parking for XYZ only" but XYZ has been closed for over a year! No one is going to steal your bike in full view of Thappraya traffic. Well, you hope not, but that's another free shot of caffeine-substitute for you. "Will my bike still be there upon my arrival!" Exciting stuff.

Yes, the parallels to slavery have been forcibly made by those you’d consider political opponents: Once upon a time it was legal to treat other human beings as if they were not human beings. They could be maltreated, and even lawfully killed. And then the (white male) Supreme Court went “nope, nothing in the constitution that lets you do that” - rightly so. Fast forward to 2022, it has been legal across the entire US to treat unborn human beings as “part of the woman’s body / a clump of cells / a-human-but-not-person yada yada” and SCOTUS said “nope, nothing in the constitution let’s you do that….If you want to do that, decide on how and with what restrictions at the state level.”

“Kept an open mind” ? This coming from you? Come on now, did he not on multiple occasions provide direct quotes from the local police force? - which was oddly ignored by those “open-minded” posters on here 100% sure the story had to be true despite then police statement…because it fit their political narrative? Only the most cocooned partisan living under a rock would not realise that the sensationalist US (and other) news media does not have a track record of jumping the gun, and then quietly “updating” their reporting when rumbled. Poor girl. Good thing she can still get an abortion in the US. It’s a shame the perpetrator won’t also be charged with manslaughter if/when the innocent unborn’s life is terminated.

Wow, some economic news relevant to nationals from dozens of countries. And this after a Germany-specific headline. World News is finally beginning to resemble world news! Bravo.

So not only are they labels (noun), they are used childishly to label (verb) anything and everything that does not automatically conform to far-left* Wokeism. *a very real term that actually exists (to the shock of some posters) and recently used by those rabid rightwingers at the British Broadcasting Corporation and arch conservative personality Bill Maher. There is nothing wrong with the title of this thread, not matter how hard BMs try to distract, deflect and pretend neutral online dictionaries don’t exist.

Oh dear lord, the group think is strong amongst some. Let’s randomly choose an online dictionary: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/label -a short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual movement, etc. -a word or phrase indicating that what follows belongs in a particular category or classification -to put in a certain class; classify.

Funny I never see you or some other posters above ever complain about the compulsive labeling of everything as: "right-wing!" "far right!" "Fox News!" "MAGA" etc, etc. Double standards much?

As discussed in a previous thread, not only do I feel the right should be given to rape victims, I clearly believe that rights should be much more in line with European countries that allow termination upto 20+ weeks. I will state again: this is nothing to celebrate, it is merely the lesser of two evils given the current state of technology and social capability / willingness to care for unwanted children.

@stoner It should be far far higher than 99 percent This 5% is not related. It is the percentage of rape victims within a certain age group who supposed become pregnant. The numerator would be pregnancies in this subgroup, the denominator would be the number of rape victims. That is not the same thing as the number of abortions due to rape across all age groups divided by the total number of abortions.

There's nothing remotely ridiculously about the fact that it is certain states that are now restricting abortion. Roe V Wade was a mistaken aberration that should have been obvious to highschoolers on first reading back in 1970s. The publicly available draft ruling was as clear as day https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21835435-scotus-initial-draft

A legally ridiculous ruling that has caused decades of proper debate and legislation to be lost. The mistake has finally been rectified, and the rest is on the states. BASIC FACT.

Because they finally correctly applied the US Constitution?!!!! You do know Amendments are a thing right?! You know, there's a mechanism to actually put expansive abortion rights in. Oh wait, but you can't just do that by getting 51% of the vote and then yelling 'fascist!' "Fascism" isn't defined as properly following a constitution. I think that's called 'hyperbole' or alternatively 'throwing your toys out of the pram / stroller'

"It" doesn't take away anything. "It" merely says 'this is not a federal issue / this is not in the constitution, it is up to the states. Your issue is with certain red states. Those states would have had decades to respond to their voting public had it not been for Roe V Wade. It won't sort itself out overnight. It might even take many more years to find some kind of equilibrium resembling many other civilized western nations. And I'm talking about both red and blue states, some of which have far more lax abortion regulations than Europe / the UK.

One of the seats was obtained by a disgraceful (but not entirely unprecedented) power grab by McConnell, but the nominee is neither unqualified nor "far right".

You knew what my position is when I called you out for your extreme position on terminating a pregnancy a day prior to the due date - on the Gay People in Thailand Thread before the World News Forum was reactivated. People can have a range of personal views on abortion rights and still be informed enough to know that all the fault lies with the initial ruling that was based on a load of nothing.

If some nutcase legislators in red states want to pass and keep truly draconian laws, they will suffer for it in due time. Yes it might take time. Like the very long time that passed since the stupid Roe V Wade ruling was unexpectedly made. American states would have had decades to "get it right" and evolve their laws according to changing cultural norms. "Poor women" can, and will, still get abortions. Including sickening late-term abortions in a bunch of blue states.

Does your question imply that you would be okay with a total ban on abortion if only the exception for rape and incest is made?! No I didn't think so.

Try and actually understand what Roe vs Wade actually is first before claiming any future "bans" unrelated to the non-existent constitutional right to end human life.

What an egregious claim - and highly predictable talking point. The US still has unrestricted internal movement. It is still a country, made up of states. In the very small number of cases that "poor" women are so poor that they cannot afford to travel to a state like New Jersey (that still allows late 3rd trimester abortions), you can bet an unborn child's life on an outside pro-abortion organization coming in to finance the trip - and a TON of media coverage to boot.

And what about the millions of little women (a.k.a. girls, now commonly a.k.a. "womb-carriers") who would have loved to LIVE.

12 years of screwing workers is coming to the predictable result. What on earth are you talking about? ....screwing of workers by whom? And how?! Do elaborate!