jaywalker2

They sent me an SMS six-month promotion. I just visited the AIS shop to renew it.

I'm on a plan with AIS that gives me 1 mbs of unlimited internet for 60 baht a month. With that I can access Line, send emails and pictures, and stream music so it's good enough for me.

They're main focus is on maximizing their profits, let's put it that way

Okay, let's get it out in the open, did the wife slit his throat or the boyfriend?

if he's a samurai

As I mentioned, references to any source that is not linked to the government or the corporate media is not permitted on this forum. But there are several metaanalyses of the dozens of RCT's and observational studies on Ivermectin if you choose to make an effort. There is also an excellent webpage that provides real time data on all of the therapuetics being used to treat covid. The Oxford-Mahidol study was published in elife. Ever heard of it? I didn't think so. The Ivermectin study was launched at Oxford in 2021. The results, I believe, have been delayed at least twice. No indication of when they will finally be released. The same thing happened with the Together trial. The release of the Ivermectin trial was delayed 8 months without explanation. When the results were finally released, the methodological lapses were so bad, over 100 doctors petitioned the New England Journal of Medicine to retract the study (which none of the major seemed to have reported on) I would have a lot more confidence in Oxford if after having pledged to donate the rights to its vaccine to drugmakers all over the world it actually sold exclusive rights to Astrazeneca in a deal brokered by the Gates Foundation. It receives enormous funding from big pharma and has a clear conflict of interest. I have no idea if Ivermectin is the wonder drug for covid that its proponents have claimed. But I do find the censorship, government interferance in the doctor/patient relationship , the failure of organizations like the CDC and the NAID to offer any guidance on treatment of covid other than the flawed vaccines, the threats made against doctors by hospital administrations, proposed legislation to discipline any medical professional who contradicts the government narrative, to be inexcusable. To understand how absurd the situation is, Satoshi Omura, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on Ivermectin along with William Campbell, mentioned in a conversation on youtube that Ivermectin does have antiviral properties and he believed it was effective in treating Covid (which led the Japanese government toa approve the drug for covid treatment). The video was of course deleted by youtube for spreading misinformation. The saddest aspect of this fiasco is the demonization of Ivermectin which is probably the greatest wonder drug since penicillian. It has now villified as "dewormer" and only fit for animals.

How would you know what's valid if you're not even allowed to see the evidence? The corporate media, social media, all of these sources have put a blanket restriction on any positive news about Ivermectin. On the other hand, the worst studies that put it in a negative light (such as the infamous Together trial which was funded by Pfizer and the Gates Foundation) are given uncritical support. No wonder so many people are suspicious. And the study in quesition had four different components. The Ivermectin component was based on 46 participants and wasn't set up to assess Ivermectin's effect on Covid, just the viral load. And for some reason the major media has decided to ignore this story. Oddly, Oxford University announced back in 2021 that it was launching a major RCT for Ivermectin. It was supposed to be completed by now but after being postponed several times, it appears it has been dropped. I suggest you look into who is funding these negative Ivermectin studies.

Interesting that positive articles about Ivermectin are immediately deleted but not the negative articles. I would point out though that the trial involved only 46 people for the Ivermectin arm.

I never said they were useless. Obviously, they have a place. You're missing the whole point. Covid has devolved to a mild respitory disease much like the flu. Moreover, many if not most people have already had covid. So continuing to mask makes no logical sense at all.

The Fauchi comment was about respitory viruses in general and not specific to Covid. His later comment that he lied in order to prevent a run of available masks is more than a little far fetched. In general, masks have never been recommended for influenza-like diseases because the consensus is that they have little effect other than making people feel more secure perhaps or take greater precautions. As another poster mentioned, a case might be made for strategic use of surgical or N95 masks in specific situations such as closed and crowded rooms with poor ventilation. But broad mandates for continuous mask wearing for extended periods of time lead inevitably to poor compliance and negative secondary effects. Plus, N95 masks are relatively expensive so most people would probably revert to cheap cloth masks anyway.

What's interesting though is no major RCT's have been done about masking. In particular, the CDC made its masking recommendations without bothering to do any trials even though Fauchi himself had said at the beginning of the pandemic that masks weren't effective. You would think that by now they would have financed a major random controlled trial to settle the issue once and for all.

The problem with the studies though was the issue of complance. Obviously if people aren't wearing the masks correctly it becomes impossible to tell how effective they really are. But on a practical level, it's probably irrelevant because most people wear cheap 1 or 2 play cloth masks that are imperfectly sealed and then they constantly touch their face or take the masks off for various reasons. So even if the masks did have some theoretical effect, it wouldn't make any difference.

That might be true but it's a different issue.

I guess you didn't bother reading the newspapers either. It was major news.

The political control aspect comes in on the basis of asking (or mandating) that people do things because they're told rather than on the basis of any kind of evidence. Most of the mask studies show that masks do little good (See the latest Cochrane Review). Nevertheless, organizations like the CDC continue to insist on them -- even for 2 year olds!

Or maybe the truth? I go to the park every day. People would wear masks even when jogging until the government came out and said they were no longer necessary outdoors. Then they suddenly disappeared except for the diehards.

So does this mean the Thais will finally be told to stop masking because they're obviously not going to stop until someone tells them to.

I'm on my way!

So many thai women get these tattoo eyebrows and invariably they looked horrible. I don't know why they do it.

I guess you didn't notice Thaksin's efforts to shut down the entertainment areas aimed at foreigners in Bangkok. The first proposal was to limit the bars to 3 designated entertainment zones, which stirred up street protests on the part of the working girls. That proposal was dropped and then the financial requirement for retirement visas was doubled and visa regulations tightened. Finally, Thaksin's interior minister came out with a serious proposal to have all bars close at 10 p,m. His reasoning? Real tourists didn't go to the bars, they only went sight-seeing at the temples. The presumption was that most of the long-term foreigners were sex fiends who needed to be suppressed. The situation has only gotten worse since the military took over.

Immigration used to be much friendlier. I think it took me about 20 minutes to get my non-O visa and I was the only one in the office -- which was a tiny office upstairs at Suan Plu. They didn't ask for any documents either, just the passport and the application. The anti-foreigner attitude began underThaksin when they launched that pseudo-war against so-called sex tourists.

The issue is how a genuine tourist is supposed to know about the TM30 or why he or she should be held responsible for it (and if it's not filed, does the tourist get fined?). He goes to a hotel, checks in, needs to extends his visa, spends half a day going to immigration, only to be told that he needs a letter fromo his hotel? You think that is justifiable?

I was on several tourist visas after first coming to Thailand. Never asked to prove where I was staying or anything else. None of my friends who visit Thailand have ever been asked either the many times they've extended visas. So I would say your experience was not typical. Oh, and I remember once when I was applying for an extension, the IO smiled and said, "Sure, how long would you like?" Of course, that was 15 years ago. Things have certainly changed.

What's new is they are putting the onus on the tourist. Tourists shouldn't have to worry about things like TM30's. It's none of their business. Extensions used to be automatic because Thailand wanted tourists to stay longer.

Yes, he won't make any money from it