onebir

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand's minister for tourism and sports Pipat Ratchakitprakan said that he expects no less than five million foreign tourists to visit the country this year.

 

This is half previous assessments from the TAT in recent weeks. Their chief Yutthasak Suphasorn suggested 10 million would come. 

10m is not less than 5...

Pump out enough sufficiently vague forecasts & eventually you'll be 'spot on' :D

If you can't find a suitably experienced doctor, it might be worth researching meditation (if only because courses are widely available in Thailand).

On 2/25/2021 at 7:59 AM, CharlieH said:

tried fyling under the radar.

Maybe they fynally fyled through the bars? ????

(Sorry!)

Pattaya, hub of hubs... one hub to rule them all!

2 hours ago, JeffersLos said:

Or is it a bit of a gimmick and purchasing protein powder would be a lot better?

$1 for 22g of whey protein. If it's as specified, the price seems similar to protein powder, eg this ($1 for 23g, if I crunched the numbers correctly).

On 2/25/2021 at 5:41 AM, internationalism said:

get MMR to boost your immune system. Also pneumonia prevnar 13 (for over 65 or with underlying, or tell them you are smoker), good to have it in case of co-infection.

MMR or BCG? There's actually some research suggesting BCG may protect from Covid-19; IDK about MMR...

EDIT: some evidence that MMR also protects from Covid-19; clinical trials for OPV have been registered, but apparently not yet concluded.

9 hours ago, webfact said:

41 percent of respondents said they disagreed with any form of quarantine at the destination country, while 52 percent said they would be happy to spend up to 5 days in quarantine.

...

However, 68 percent said they would cancel their travel plans if the 14 day quarantine was still mandatory. 26 percent of respondents said they would still travel, regardless of quarantine, and 13 percent said they wanted quarantine to be reduced to 10 days.

Sounds like pretty clear message that mass tourism isn't coming back with the current ASQ rules in force.

Quote

Another survey carried out in France revealed that Bangkok (25%) was the third most searched for destination, behind only Dubai (49%) and Marrakesh (27%).

Bangkok seizes the Bronze... but after Dubai and Marrakesh??? L'Hexagone crazy?

Entry for Pattaya Apology Basket Slogan Competition, 2021:

I went to Pattaya

and all I got was this stupid basket

(+ a broken nose)

(+ an STD)

11 hours ago, Trujillo said:

11 hours ago, spiekerjozef said:

Is walking street open?

Well, Face-kicking Street is. ....

Face-kicking before they can walk

13 hours ago, cdemundo said:

Disappointed.  I thought it was gonna be a Limerick.

I once met a man in Hanoi

Who claimed the Thai lasses were boys.

I asked "Don't you mind?"

To which he replied:

"Not much, I play with all toys."

7 minutes ago, Morch said:

1>I kinda doubt, what with surveillance in the region being what it is, that an explosion of such magnitude could be kept secret. And then not all stuff on the internet is what it seems to be....Of course, there could be secret weapons developed. I'm commenting on what's known.

 

2>As for the assassination, such technologies were demonstrated for several years now. More in the context of urban warfare, though. I'm pretty sure that there were operatives on site as well anyway.

1> This may be exactly why that weapons ended up being used in a live war. There were videos of the same event from several angles, much like the Beirut event; it seemed convincing to me (but my munitions expertise runs out around pea-shooter caliber).

2> True, but constructing and deploying such a weapon in a very hostile environment took some doing. About the operatives on site, didn't the Iranians retract that part of the story? (Not that that means much...)

1 minute ago, Morch said:

 

Yeah, auto spell checker fail.

Ok, np!

Quote

I don't think that there an conventional, effective, 2-in-1 solution available.

That we "know" about.

I saw liveleak video of a huge explosion in Syria a few years ago. I wasn't able to find it just now, but IIRC the light-vs-sound delay indicated it was ~2km from the camera, and the shockwave still did significant damage. I think that's close to 100 kiloton yield. So it seems like very high yield non-nuclear bombs are out there.

Whether they're amenable to bunker busting duty IDK, but certain parties have a huge interest in developing that capability, are no sluggards when it comes to weapons design, and have no interest in leaking details of that capability. A year ago, who would have guessed a nuclear scientist would get assassinated by a remote controlled machine gun?

1 hour ago, Sheryl said:

Al the corn and wart removers here generally contain salicyclic acid but strengths can wary. Compoud W is the strongest.

Elsewhere there are also fluorouracil based ones. I used one once, despite the doc advising me to get a much more expensive liquid nitrogen treatment, and it worked fine.

1 minute ago, Morch said:

For a non-perpetrator weapon to do his "thing", another needs to punch a whole through first.

Penetrator??

Donald's Theme:

A's for Accuser - they're all false you know

B's for BS that makes their gardens grow

C's for convictions I want to avoid

D's for defendant (a pending jail-boid!)

...

Chorus:

One of these women is not like the others

Of 26 just spot out one in a fib

First prize six square feet in swanky ... Towers

The jumpsuits are orange; a great place to live.

...

Y is for felony and just like Z

It LIES at the END. Now the letters are said

Let's go to the numbers, and count 26

The women by whom I was FINALLY licked.

5 hours ago, Morch said:

1> It was used against people (and other soft targets) within. It's  not a perpetrator weapon. Plus Iran's sites are much better fortified than the ISIS stronghold was.

2>The Russian bomb was delivered by a Russian bomber, not sure what was the point?

1> Regardless of the designation ('perpetrator') it seems to have worked.

2> You didn't notice it had much bigger yield?

1 + 2 => similar weapons might be effective against better fortified (Iranian) sites.

(I didn't think this needed to be spelled out like this...)

1 hour ago, Morch said:

The second part is irrelevant as far as destroying some of Iran's major nuclear sites (read the link provided), was not sold to other countries, and requires a rather tricky delivery.

The link (obviously) wasn't intended to be exhaustive.

"MOAB was recently used in Afghanistan against a series of cave complexes used by ISIS forces"; the Iranian nuclear facilities seem, in essence to be artificial cave complexes. & Russia developed a larger thermobaric bomb which was reportedly used in Syria in 2017. I guess the stork delivered that?.

10 hours ago, Morch said:

There's no finger on no button. No one's going to 'destroy' Iran. As far as negative consequences go there are basically only two scenarios, both unlikely to actually materialize - sanctions or a limited strike. Nothing more severe than that on the cards, actually making it a good time for Iran to play chicken. The Biden administration may not be a pushover, but is committed to diplomacy and negotiations, so wouldn't take steps to fan flames or such that are irrevocable.

Or more covert action: more fires, explosions etc &/ assassinations of nuclear scientists, IRGC honchos, or even politicians. Good idea? IDK...

There may also be an intermediate stage between a 'conventional limited' and 'nuclear' these days: multiple large thermobaric weapons like "MAOB". (IIRC there was a conventional blast in Syria that may have been a larger version of one of these.)

6 hours ago, webfact said:

TAT targets China, Japan and Korea, confident 10 million tourists will visit Thailand this year

Actually, much as I enjoy mocking authority, unless I'm missing something, this seems kind of doable, assuming they mean total arrivals, not just from Asia. 2019 tourism arrivals:

Oct 3.1m

Nov 3.4m

Dec 3.9m

Total for last 3m of 2019: 10.4m = TAT

They 'just' need things to go 'back to normal' by Q4/ improve a bit earlier and largely recover by Q4/ some combination...

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand's tourism authorities are putting their faith in celebrities, reality TV stars, net idols and influencers to get millennials flooding into Thailand, reported the Thai media.

Put your faith in fake. Always works out...

1 minute ago, from the home of CC said:

In this age of the internet, if you can't educate yourself you have a bigger problem than covid..

Q!

6 hours ago, khunjeff said:

Yes, their brutally unfair depictions of Swedish chefs are very hurtful to those in the Scandinavian culinary community 

Meetbolz is murda!

41 minutes ago, DeepSea said:

I tried them myself, its a bit disconcerting at first, being able to hear everything in the room, plus the sound from the earphones

Just add industrial strength earplugs, et voila ????