SatEng

While you may be right about the make up of the conservative party members, it is surprising that Penny Mordaunt - a centrist - is leading with the membership vote

The right wing like to classify everything as "woke" even where that is not appropriate - as in this story But of course they do not call out the right wing "woke-ism" - renaming slavery as "Involuntary Relocation" or lies as "alternate facts" Right-wing woke-ism at its worst

Yes, they were visa exempt by air and stopped at Suvarhnabhumi. I think I may have just got an over-zealous immigration officer but then had to argue the case with her superior who let me through but said "technically you are illegal, you need a proper visa" I point this out because I think the OP was using a combination of land and air entries and he may hit the same problems

Actually Dr Jack the answer is yes, they are now querying back-to back tourist visas. I did one extension and then two trips (for work) to Singapore for a few days at the end of May and June and they stopped me at immigration to say I have too many tourist trips and need a full visa. Took me about an hour to talk my way through this So you may be unlucky if you have a "vigilant" immigration officer - it seems the continuous border runs are not now allowed

The two satellites are for remote sensing - agriculture, forestry, urban planning, maritime etc. Not just for show these are working satellites

The original definition of the program was done in 2013 under the Yingluck government - it was agreed but the government fell shortly afterwards - it took another 5 years to get the military government to fully back the program and get through the processes and the contracts were signed in 2018 - so one of the few Thai programs that has been supported by "both sides"

there are in fact two satellites - one built by Airbus in France and one by SSTL (Surrey satellites) in the UK. As part of the conditions for the satellite contract a team of Thai engineers from GISTDA - in total around 60 people - have been in France and particularly in the UK to take part in the design, integration and testing of the satellites - they have been there for around 18 months and were trained in all aspects of the spacecraft development and manufacture as a "technology transfer" package. This is to prepare them to be able to make their own satellites in Thailand in the future. There are also 10 processing centres for the data from the satellites including agriculture, forestry, urban planning, water management, border and maritime security etc. Over 800 personnel from different government ministries and organisations have been trained in Thailand to use the processing centres and software - making this one of the largest training programs ever achieved in this industry anywhere in the world Many more will be trained during the 10-year lifetime of the satellites in-orbit

Total B**l<deleted> There are no Americans working on the THEOS-2 program - the two satellites are made by European companies (Airbus and SSTL) and the program was defined by a British falang working in Thailand. The contract for the satellites and the ground segments was definitely not corrupted, although some people on the Thai side did try some tricks. It was probably the cleanest contract that Thailand has ever signed for a high-tech investment. There are some other parts of the Thai space industry - mostly the Thai companies, that are less than honest but not on this program. You - or your fictitious informer - are making things up

For those not interested in indulging, you still have to be careful in Thailand. My wife ate some noodles yesterday bought by her brother - he did not say where he got them but turns out they were laced with cannabis - the heart palpitations really scared her. There will be a tendency to put it into a lot of products now that it is legalised but they should be clearly labelled and you have to check what is in there - just going into a local cafe could be an issue

Flew with them last week from Singapore. Business class is good food again, and drinks on demand, economy is back to the two choices of meal (fish curry or chicken/prawns with rice). Not sure what long-haul is like. Films are fairly recent but not that up to date ("new releases including No time to die and Spiderman- Homecoming) Hope that answers your question

In February coming back from Singapore I was asked for a return ticket by Thai airways checkin at Singapore and Thai immigration at Suvarnhabhumi - I convinced both that i was living in Thailand anyway and there was no problem in the end Coming back from Singapore again last week I bought a one-way ticket for end of June Bangkok-Singapore just in case they stopped me at check-in or at immigration in Thailand again and I did not want that hassle, but in the end no-one asked So there is no clear answer - depends on the staff you meet at checkin and immigration

A few years ago I was asked by a certain Thai government agency to attend a seminar in Chiang Mai. They said while I was there could I discuss with some representatives from Iran about possible collaboration on a satellite program Of course I refused The RTP would be better just asking other government departments what meetings have been arranged.

I don't do it often but on the rare occasions when I take a laptop with me into Pattaya I have found that the Starbucks at the Bay on Pattaya beach and the Starbucks outside Central Marina on 2nd road both have nice upstairs area to work from You can probably tell I prefer Starbucks coffee

I think there is a great difference between having a militia or reserve to defend against an army (foreign or domestic) as opposed to allowing every citizen - crazy or not - to have a weapon and start shooting innocent people. You assume that the founding fathers intent was what you have read into it - that is not fact Many countries - Switzerland, some Nordic countries - have a reserve or armed militia in case of an attack on the country - but there are very stringent rules on who can have the guns, the training they have to have and the way in which the guns are stored Laws restricting the sale of guns to only trained personnel, police checks on all people before a gun license is issued, regular checks on how the weapons are kept (locked, ammunition and weapon in separate storage) etc. All of these restriction that you hate would be FULLY compliant with the second amendment

And to take your last line do you think it is "fair" that innocent people continue to be killed by crazy people legally buying guns or criminals who acquire guns that were originally legally bought? I don't think the Uvalde parents, grieving today, see how your "fairness" works

And another sad story that shows exactly where criminals get their guns and why all guns are a problem (CNN) Hundreds of mourners filled a baseball diamond about 30 miles south of downtown Houston Friday to remember Mark Collins and his four grandsons -- "bright, shinning stars" in the words of a family friend. Collins, 66, was visiting the family's weekend ranch in Leon County with four of his seven grandchildren -- brothers Waylon, 18, Carson, 16, and Hudson, 11, and their cousin, Bryson Collins, 11 -- when they were killed by a convicted murderer who had been the subject of one of the largest manhunts for an escaped inmate in Texas history. "He fired several rounds at officers and was armed with an AR-15 and a pistol," said Clark, adding the firearms were likely also stolen from the Collins' ranch. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/04/us/collins-family-killed-texas-gonzalo-lopez/index.html So this family were probably killed by a criminal with their own legally-purchased guns The takeaways are: 1) If they had not bought the guns they would not have been shot by them - maybe a slightly better chance of getting away or being injured rather than killed 2) The only way to keep guns out of criminal hands is to ban guns - if this family had not legally bought the guns the criminal could not have got hold of them But for the gun lobby this family - including two 11-year-olds - are just "collateral damage"

In February I flew to Singapore for a meeting - TG403 out and TG 410 back on both occasions In February it was still a travel lane system and only this flight per day - there were only 10 passengers on the lane there and back Same flight this week and the plane was completely full - also long queues at Singapore for the other flights It seems it is recovering quicker than people thought and catching out the airlines and airports with lack of staff

Best to print it out - it makes it easier at the airport check-in I thought I had yesterday but obviously not so I showed the electronic version from the e-mail and they scanned that on check-in at Singapore - also on arrival at Bangkok. Both times they just wanted to check the Thai pass - as this also contains the insurance details

And this is where the difference in mentality occurs I would have instances where I think hunting is justified - If you are part of a native background where hunting is the culture or where you are "off-grid" in Alaska or elsewhere and therefore the necessity is to hunt for food - or secondly if you were by necessity rather than choice in an area where you could be attacked by bears or mountain lions and then having a gun is maybe justifiable protection Where I cannot morally justify is hunting for pleasure or sport - my morals - I see no "pleasure" in shooting a defenceless animal such as a deer as in your example. The deer is not threatening your life and you do not need it for food when you probably live normally a 10-minute drive from a supermarket. The shooter, on the other hand. has even less moral limits than you, and sees no difference in taking pleasure from shooting a defenceless deer to shooting a defenceless child in a classroom - it is a big leap from one to the other but you can see the "gateway" that hunting for pleasure can provide

But as the CNN article states the shooter bought a gun online from a firearms manufacturer in Georgia - who you would have thought would be well embedded with the police and FBI databases - so obviously the background checks you are talking about did not work as he had been making threats on the social platform to girls for some weeks prior to the event

But as the others on the platform only reported this to the platform and not the authorities, and as the platform itself did not inform the authorities, then there would be no "red-flag" against the shooter at the time he bought the weapons - all of these things only come to light after the tragedy Similar with some of the recent convictions for Jan 6 (not wanting to divert from the topic but this is relevant), some of the armed people were either reported by their families or after arrest the authorities investigate their social media and find definite threats for which they have now been convicted. Pro-actively trying to put everyone on a red-flag list for online comments may be too difficult in the US - many people say things online just to troll and get a rise out of other users, and it takes time to trace the identities - also there would be a lot of pushback from the gun advocacy groups and right-wing politicians as to what constitutes a direct threat or incitement. The recent case against the insurrectionists threatening the Michigan governor is a case in point

The stalemate in gun-related issues in the US basically breaks down into 3 groups 1) NRA and hunting supporters - mostly older, white, rural communities - majority male but not predominantly - have an idealized and romanticized view of the US as the "greatest nation on earth" - Frontier spirit, John Wayne films and Louis L'amour books - do not accept that this is a myth created mostly in Hollywood and the truth of the "cowboys and indians" was really a state-sponsored genocide and land-grab. Hold the constitution including 2nd amendment as sacrosanct (1st amendment not so much), and the declaration of independence - dismiss the connections to slavery and genocide. 2) Politicians and right-wing populists - feed on the above as a core base - want to limit any discussions or education on "difficult" parts of US history (see above) - conflate 2nd amendment with anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, anti-immigration, anti-government to build core base - advocate for major donors such as NRA and fossil-fuel companies 3) Disaffected and criminals - Majority of school shootings by disaffected or sexually rebuffed young males with easy access to legal guns - either bought or borrowed from members of the family - disaffected "loners", groups or cults who use easily purchasable weapons for perceived grievances against local and national governments - criminals who exploit the easy and cheap availability of black market weapons which usually originate as legally bought guns - gang-wars etc. Criminal activity feeds fear into homeowners to also buy guns for protection - some of which end up with criminals and continues the vicious spiral What connects all three is the amount of guns in circulation - Group 1) puts the guns into circulation, Group 2) keeps them in circulation and Group 3) exploits the fact that they are in circulation to violent effect

Doesn't have to be anti-American to show the facts about where the root cause of this sickness is Despite strict laws on private gun ownership, U.K. officials are seeing a rise in illegal firearms entering the country. Nearly 900 illegal weapons seized over the past three years – including the three guns taken in the November operation – originated in the United States. "What we are seeing is an upward trend of guns coming out of gun stores in America and the parcel service is being used to ship them to the U.K. and into criminal hands," https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guns-us-stores-british-criminals-hands/

In the US there is not the willingness to even enforce basic measures such as assault weapons bans, large cartridges etc. Strict controls, such as in Japan, may weed out some of the people with mental illness but not all, and we have no cure for that. As you say, as a gun seller, it is not possible to tell whether a person has a mental illness when you sell them a gun in the states, but in other countries you have to have a medical certificate from a doctor first - there is no way the Republican politicians would agree to this. As a gun seller did you ever have any qualms about who you were selling to and what they would do with it? In other countries it has come down to a simple decision - do we want to restrict gun ownership or do we want to have recurring mass shootings of schoolchildren In both the UK (after Dunblane) and Australia (after Port Arthur) the politicians bit the proverbial bullet and decided that the lives of children were more important than the rights to own guns and they took the political flak with popular support. There is not the resolve within the US political establishment for such a step.

On the whole a sensible post but I have to pick you up on a couple of points 1) It is correct that it is usually disturbed individuals that perpetrate the mass shootings but they either obtain their guns legally (before the onset of any mental illness or do not have any record of mental illness at the time of purchase) or legally purchased by other members of the family - so none of the solutions outside of a gun ban would work in these cases 2) Yes, criminals still obtain guns but gun control laws make it much harder and much more expensive for your average person to obtain a weapon like this as they do not have access or the funds to go through the black market - in the UK for instance a black-market handgun sells for over $200 and just the possession of it is an offence with jail time, in the US by contract the same gun is available over the counter - with a cursory background check, for around $20 - and all legal The drop in firearms related offences - in both UK and AUS, can be directly correlated to the increased difficulty in obtaining weapons in the first place