MicroB

I will be very surprised if any of the rioters have "tried the democratic approach", ie, have voted. Did democracy fail in 1919, or did the rioters have a noble cause?

And probably all of the rioters didn't bother.

And sunk if he gets in. You lot are stuck it seems. Of course, you have 33 senatorial seats up for grabs. That also affcts the path the US takes. I can't explain Trump's behaviour at 1:23. During a little interlude when he's complaining about microphones, when the interviewer, whom his clearly disliked turns away, he grabs her bottle and clearly closes the top extra tight, forcefully, before replacing it, hoping no one noticed. Why would he do that? He had his own bottle of water on his right. Edit: The Germaphobe thought it was his water, and drank it.

Actually neither. The $35 cost was proposed by Eli Lilley who approached the CMS in 2019, after, on their own initiative, looked at setting the $35 per month fee. The government wanted it set a bit higher, by Eli Lilley had done the groundwork to determine the level it should be set at for best return; if it went higher than $35/month, they observed patients would abanoon their insulin. It was in the drug company's interest to sell as much insulin as possible. The study happened during the Trump Administration, but it wasn't their initiative. During that period, about 1.5 million accessed insulin at $35/month. During that period, the drug company covered patient costs, so overall it was revenue neutral. Some say the $35/month in the IRA was based on an average copay, but others state it was set based on the work done between Eli Lilley and Unitedhealth. Rand did the evaluation: https://www.cms.gov/priorities/innovation/data-and-reports/2024/pdss-second-eval-rpt Prior to the IRA, individual states were setting their own Copay caps, and they were all over the place. Illinois had it at $100 per month, New Mexico at $25. What the IRA did was make it mandatory for all insurance schemes to set a £35 cap. What the Trump government established was a voluntary, time-limited model under the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation known as the Part D Senior Savings Model. Under this model, participating Medicare Part D prescription drug plans covered at least one of each dosage form and type of insulin product at no more than $35 per month. The model was in effect from 2021 through 2023, and less than half of all Part D plans chose to participate in each year. Its been by no means certain that the scheme would have been extended beyond 2023. It only applied to the so-called Enhanced Plans, ie those without low-income subsidies. The Biden government ensured it was no longer voluntary. Controversially, the Heritage Foundation, who are making strong policy recommendations to Donald Trump, have suggested the IRA should be repealed. Some Republican Senators wanted to kill this copay cap part of the IRA. If it was Trump's idea, as he claimed, well, those Senators who voted against it, on the basis it kills market competition, could argue that Mr Trump was taking an anti-Capitalist stance. He wasn't because it wasn't his idea. Drug pricing is complex. Eli Lilley's motivation might have been in part due to a desire to take market share from Novo Nordisk. Its reminiscent of the scandal years earlier when it was found the major manufacturers of glucose monitoring devices effectively controled the pharmacies that sold these to patients. I recall the FDA collated data over many years. Deregulation meant most of the big players, like Abbott, existed the market, which is now diminated by much lower cost but effective devices from Taiwan and China. https://eu.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2022/08/11/indiana-senators-todd-young-mike-braun-voted-to-kill-insulin-price-cap/65397783007/

And Trump's grandfather was a pimp. Plus Fred Trump's shady association with the KKK.

Which Pogrom was this? I suspect you don't know the meaning of Pogrom, or have deliberately misused it for emotive reasons. What happened on October 7th was an incursion into Israel by an armed militia/terrorist group, aided by some expatriate workers, to attack military facilities and settlements, with the objective of causing civilian deaths, and taking prisoners, likely with the objective to mitigate an Isreali response (it didn't). Pogroms are riotous behaviour by the population, targeting a minority, often with the connivance of the local government. Its a Russian term, related to attacking Jewish minorities, but has been known since antiquity. Using it inappropriately is a gross insult to the victims of Pograms, much like being flippant with the term Holocaust.

Or Biden accedes to GOP demands that he steps down as President. Which could really backfire. Most new Presidents get a bit of a bounce at the start. Plus there are mountains of merch that become worthless overnight. Some Tippex could turn 7 into 8 I suppose.

Potentially the next thing we might have to pay for. The US government might decide to levy a fee to access the systems needed to fire Trident, or state Europe, including the UK, needs to pony up to pay their fair share of the US nuclear shield, transforming NATO from an Alliance to a protection racket.

My wife is not a refugee. She is coming for a holiday. I don't understand your illogical linkage of refugee policy with tourism, unless you have a medical condition, more of which later. If your response is driven by a medical condition, you have my sympathy. On this forum, I see frequent reports of criminals, including sex offenders, openly living in the expatriate community, with members of this forum openly admitting they had befriended them, including sex offenders. I take great offence at your crude attempts to insult, as I have done with others, who's accounts I have blocked because I couldn't be bothered to indulge their trollbaiting fantasies that make up for weak characters. But I will bite with you, and see how your version of a troll goes. I can always hit that Ignore button that the owners of this site have implemented for good reason. Maybe they will make that a two way ignore like other social media sites; I can't see your posts, and you can't see mine. The Home Office manual written by the previous regime gives instructions to IOs. It has not been revised, despite your implied allegation that they have changed it in a matter of a few days. For visitor visas, all applications where there is a custodial sentence of 12 months or less completed less than 12 months before the application, must be denied. For Partner visas, the same manual indicates all applications where there was a 12 month sentence completed less than 5 years before application, must be denied. There is a sliding scale for other offences up to 4 years sentence, after which there is no prospect of being granted a visa. You also have to consider that apparently on July 5th, there was about 1500 prison places left, and that since October, the previous government had granted early release to convicts, on an ad hoc basis (ie. without any real regard for the nature of their crimes, except in the case of the most violent and heinous), in order to free up spaces. As a kid (army brat) in Hong Kong in 74-77, I remember another group labeled at the time as "illegal boat people"; those fleeing former South Vietnam. This wasn't just for a few months as members of the South Vietnam government and ARVN members fled, it went on for 25 years. 100,000 arrived in Hong Kong, in various ramshackle vessals, by 1980, and they were incarcerated in camps behind barbed wire. But they still continued to flow. In the end, the issue was fixed by granting some refugee status in various countries, but ultimately about 50% were returned, largely through the major powers securing an agreement from the Vietnamese government that there would not be retribution against the returnees; in other words, the root causes were tackled (in this case, fear of the Hanoi government taking punitive action against members and supporters of the old regime). One of the reasons successive UK governments have gotten into a pickle is a 2010 interview between Andrew Marr and David Cameron, following the Archbishop of Canterbury's call for immigration to be cut. In the interview, Cameron let slip the term "net migration" and a target of cutting that from 100's of thousands to 10s of thousands. In one slip, the immigration debate shifted to a position that all future governments would be doomed to fail on. Its doomed to failure as the government has no control of emigration, short of imposing Russian style restrictions of not issuing passports (the original reason modern passports were introduced was as a mechanism to stop selected people from leaving the country during WW1, for instance Britain needed to stop engineers from leaving the UK, and weaken Britain's capabilities, or worse, pass such capabilities to the enemy. Germany thought much the same and so forth. Today, passports are seen as a way to facilitate entry not exit, and are generally seen as an expensive right). Short of fixing the issues that drive people to board leaking boats for a 25-30 mile cross, the only solution to "illegal boat people" would be the complete militarisation of the British coastline; maybe not a wall on the beaches, but laying millions of miles of barbed wire, and various offshore traps, of the sort last seen in 1940, combined with active patrols on our beaches. That seems grim to me, but its what the Nat-Cs and others seem to want. In some ways, the scenes portrayed in the dystopian film "The Children of Men" (based on PD James' excellent novel of the same name, describing a world in the grip of a global pandemic that has resulted in mass incurable infertility) represent their fantasy. Not such a fantasy; the British administered refugee camps in Hong Kong became so overcrowded, they had a cholera outbreak during the 1980s. Some of the first camps used were abandoned Japanese POW camps, which themselves were repurposed pre-WW2 refugee camps. In the meantime, why did you conflate a tourist with a refugee? Or are you proposing that the UK imposes a ban on tourists entering the UK. Trying to understand your deliberately provocative response to a fairly ordinary post. Is it how you brain is wired, that you feel the need to react like this, and that you can't help it? That you, and some others who have posted on this thread, feel the need to upset anonymous strangers. I know some people on the Autistic spectrum have this lack of control, and if you have had a diagnosis, I feel pity for you, as it must be difficult to get through life and establish normal relationships. If on the other hand, you obtain some sort of sexual thrill from such postings, you have my scorn.

And what I got from your contribution was another account to block. Thanks.

My Thai wife got a visitor visa first time of trying. Nothing remarkable in that. She has a prison record, serving 4 weeks in Malaysia in 2019 for working with no permit; she had no money to pay the fine, so it was 4 weeks plus the 6 weeks on remand. She has had 3 different names She got as far as Passport control in Korea, after immigration couldn't understant why her passport name was completely different from her ID card (divorced, changed to maiden name, changed first name for luck) One agency, with a UK office, suggested we lie on the application, because she had far too difficult an immigration history. I gave them short shrift. Appalling advice. We did use an agent, who seemed pretty doubtful given her history. I submitted documents, including English translation of marriage certificate, Mortgage statement, 1 months bank statement, P60 and invitation letter. I didn't go into detail about how much I give my wife, because basically, its none of their business. Just a broad statement that I support her. No submission of emails, messenger transcripts etc, again, none of their business. The agent tried to get me to use a letter from one of his clients as a template. It was a nonsense; the guy had gone into all sorts of detail about all the visits he had done, how he met her family, and performed duties. What his business was about and his position in the community. It ran to 3 sides of A4. I threw that out, and just kept it to the necessary; she is my wife, and she will be visiting me, staying at these addresses for these purposes. I have the means to pay her costs in the UK. Any further questions, you know where to find me. half page of A4. She did her bit; she has a massage shop, got it properly registered as a business, unlike 90% of them, with the public health inspection and sticker of approval. She doesn't have invoices from suppliers; she gets her supplies from the market, Tescos and some shop on Facebook that does massage shop gear. She actually lives in the shop she rents. She has a couple of motorbikes on tic, one of which she rents back to a motorbike rental place to rent out to foreigners. She has a 10 year old Fiesta, that she's paying back, on an informal basis to a friend. She put 100,000 into her bank, and showed the deposits from her shop (admittedly not a lot) and from me (and I just send her Moneygram cash pickups). Her parents are dead, her daughter is in her 20s, she doesn't own a house or land. She sent through all the details on Malaysia, including her old passport showing the blacklisting stamps. In return, she got her 6 month, multi entry visa, and she is over the moon. So I must assume the straightforward applications who get turned down, must have made some howling error on the application, rather than anything being "wrong" about their circumstances. Or they wrote reams and reams, and, like selecting CVs, no one has time to read them. In the end, super easy, barely an inconvenience.

Finland has joined NATO. What was this reaction to an apparent miitary threat to their borders? They withdrew units from along the Finnish border to throw into the meat grinder in occupied Ukraine. ie. Putin knows NATO is not a threat to him. Its a convenient cover for his other objectives which rest on internal politics and demographics. Since you decline to blame Dugin in this, I assume you are, if not an acolyte of his, at least broadly supportive of his views.

Maybe he just had a bad day. At a campaign rally today. Some people love a crowd. The other individual certainly does. https://twitter.com/RedTRaccoon/status/1806782688885346761/video/2 You don't understand the 25th Amendment. its not a stick. Its been used 6 times since it was passed in the late 60s. Speaking of car keys, when was the last time the other individual drove anything byn a Golf Cart?

There is a constitutional element. President Biden could now announce he is no longer seeking re-election. He might say due to reasons of ill health. But then, how can he remain in office? He could resign, and Kamala Harris takes office, appointing a new VP. He might not want to resign, but that will trigger Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, that was brought in after JFK was murdered. But thats a process that takes a cabinet vote, or a vote by some other body determined by Congress; could the Republicans stop Biden from stepping down, if they feel his presence aids their cause, or more importantly, stop the elevation of a potential candidate (which could be Harris or a new VP) into a national role that threatens the vote for Trumpf. In addition, Section 4 allows for Biden to state to Congress that he's fine, he's recovered. There is no medical threshold. The key parts are when the President ceases to be President, the VP immediately becomes President, not Acting President. North Dakota, South Carolina and Georgia never ratified this. They might not recognise the holders of office. The VP has an important role during any transfer of power. There would be somewhat of a constitutional crisis, irrespective of Democrat Party candidate procedures, that would affect not just the US, but the broader Western world and alliances.

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Contributors to the thread might want to consider the following: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9654214/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5105210/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10025478/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33567524/ https://pathsocjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/path.2162 So, the Angiotensin system we know basically regulates blood pressure. It probably does a bunch of other things. We know over expression of part of the system, through Angiotensin II, can lead to myocarditis in young mals. There is deregulation of the same enzyme in AD patients. Incidently, most AD patients eventually go into heart failure, which is what happened to my father. ACEII is the receptor that down regulates Angiotensin II, breaking it down. So interferance in the receptor can lead to vascular events; increased blood pressure, stroke etc. But ACEII is everywhere in the body. Its full role is not fully understood, but its impact is far reaching. Coronaviruses including Sars-Cov-2, use the AceII receptor as a means to enter a cell, and infect it, through the spike protein. The spike protein likely structurally varies in different coronaviruses and coronavirus variants. This protein will compete with Angiotensin II to bind to the receptor. How well it competes depends on, among other things, its Affinity Constant. What that protein is stuck to impacts the Affinity Constant; its about charge. Now, most of the vaccines mimic the spike protein, to generate an immune response. Unlike the virus, the vaccine (or whatever you want to call it) induced spike protein isn't attached to a virus. Its going to have a lower affinity constant and is less likely to bind to the ceII receptor. The exception was that early Chinese vaccine that used inactivated virus that had been passaged through Chimpanzee cells (ie, so it wasn't exactly like the human form). But I can see a plausible mechanism how such a vaccine might induce side effects in patients. But I see a much stronger explanation why COVID-19 is such a complex diease; we thought originally it was a respiratory disease, and treated patients as if it was a respiratory disease, with unsurprising poor results, when in some patients, it became a vascular disease, a renal disease and possibly a neurological disease. To paraphrase Matt Damon's character in The Martian, they (the medical community) are going to "science the sh*t" out of this, probably for the next 20-30 years. Careers will be built on this, reputations made, and reputations ruined. They are going to get to the bottom of COVID-19, but that will be the least magnificent outcome. I can foresee an unlocking of this angiotensin system. How does it protect the obese? Why, when it goes wrong, does it affect young men and not young women. What on earth has to to do with dementia? And that will potentially unlock cures to illnesses that will affect a great many of us; our cardiovascular health, our mental health, how is this system affected by the environment (if a virus can screw it up, what else can). Every pandemic and major epidemic in history has lead to medical breakthroughs and advancement of our healthcare systems.

🤔 So much going on there. You accuse the Chinese of being universally racist, but to you, all Thai people look the same. You remark on Thai people visiting Chinese shrines, but not on Thai people visiting a temple dedicated to a man from Nepal, nor Churches where the congragation follows a carpenter from Nazareth. You also allegedly met a Chinese man who must live in the one place in Thailand with no ethnically Chinese people.

Don't forget to add they don't live in Wigwams like all other Americans.

My Thai wife decided to surprise me by learning to drive on the QT, then buying a 2014 Fiesta from a friend. I tried to persuade her not to buy it, because of the Powershift issue, But she brought it anyhow...... When I tried it in January, it seemed ok; 80k kms, no real squeaks. In heavy traffic, I detected a little judder, like someone was riding the clutch. That's the danger sign. I figured if it doesn't guess worse than that, I could live with that. Went back to the UK for a while, and the invitable. The car wouldn't engage reverse at Tesco-Lotus. Towed to the island Ford dealer. Cost of a new clutch and labour was 80,000; what the car cost. Interestingly, part prices were exactly the same as the UK. 9 hours labour was super cheap. With the clutch gone, the car was worthless. I elected to repair. From what I understand, Ford has revised the replacement parts, so it should last the rest of the life of the car, which I guess is 4-5 years tops. In the Ford's favour, it does drive very nicely. The Powershift isn't the greatest but I'm the only one who gives it beans. The wife thinks it still looks modern. For her, perfect first car; its got a few dings and dents, so I won't be upset with the inevitable post tap. If you find one with recent clutch work, it will be all good. The rest of the car is robust. In general, Fiestas seem to be about half the price of a same aged Toyota and Honda. Of course, there is good reason for that. But if you find a car that's had the work, given that its an old car now, it will be a sound buy. However, don't trust a Thai "engineer" to give it the all clear in any pre-purchase check over. The engineer who told my wife it was all good clearly didn't see the front pads that were down to the backing plates.

Share the photos you saw. They will still be in your cache. Use Google image search to identify the original source, which, I guarantee you, is not wikipedia. Clearly, you took your belief about Bandera from Wikipedia. Clearly, you have no idea how Wikipedia is compiled. Clearly, you have no idea that Wikipedia should be taken with a pinch of salt. Clearly, you have no idea that you can go into the change logs on Wikipedia, and reproduce said photo and its source. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/BANDERA%2C STEFAN_0059.pdf When you referred to the Waffen SS "division", I knew you were talking cobblers. The Waffen SS consisted of many divisions, some all German, some non-German, some, increasingly to the end of WW2, a mixture. The Ukrainian division was SS Galicia. It was supported by Andriy Melnyk, as a counterweight to Bandera's UPA, which was outside of german control (and why Bandara found himself under arrest by the Germans). Maybe what you are confused about is the transfer of the 14th Division in April 1945, after Hitler killed himself, to Ukrainian National Committee, of which Bandara, and Melnyk, were members. As I stated before, the committee had the objective, at the end of the war, of extricating Ukrainians from German command, I suppose for the purposes of forming some sort fo resistance to Stalin post war, in the way the Baltic states organised armed resistance long after WW2. Bandera, disgusting individual he was, never took the SS oath that you believe he did, and never had rank in the German army. Its easy for one's brain to be turned to mush by Russian propaganda. I'm glad you recall that Russia invaded the Crimea in February 2014. Literally, they started it. They tried to kill the Ukrainian garrison troops there, and then they proceeded to humiliate some very brave men. Putin is a former KGB thug who's job in East Germany, which he apparently enjoyed, was to eliminate opposition to the East German Government. You apparently admire the fellow. He's raping Russia of its wealth, with his circle of cronies. Yeltsin was on to him. Russian TV is not free and fair journalism, and is full of stooges of Putin. You're a mug. People used to listen and believe Lord Haw Haw during WW2. You've understood what exactly? That Ukraine doesn't deserve to exist? That the Ukrainian language is made up? That NATO has been plotting for 30 years to destroy Russia? That Stalin was right in trying to starve Ukrainians to death? That there are no Nazis in Russia? That Turtle tanks are clear evidence of a sophisticated, winning military? You by now know the term Ho Hos, because you watch to Russian telly. Oh, wait, you don't actually watch Russian telly, because you don't understand Russian. Instead you watch a English language service, delivering a message they want you to suck up. Back in the days of the USSR, you could tune in and listen to Radio Moscow, where the announcer, usually female, would give the Soviet version of the world's news. Which was usually garbage, unless it was the football results.

He actually spent most of WW2 first in a concentration camp, Sachsenhausen in 1942, then house arrest by 1944. Early in the war, he was certainly a collaborator, but the Germans arrested him as they feared revolt. Right at the end, he was part of the Ukrainian National Committee, that was trying to extricate Ukrainian units from German command; presumably he thought the Nazis were finished, and he wanted to contunue the fight in Ukraine. He was a Right Wing Nationalist, and a bit of a thug, but never served in any of the SS Divisions (the SS consisted of many Divisions, most of which were little different by War's end from regular army) with any kind of rank, let alone a "senior officer". On the otherhand, Putin is very interested in rehabilitating Stalin, and this started long before Russia's seizures of Ukrainian territory. Nazi sympathies seem to be common in that part of the world, not just confined to Ukraine. The Russian army is full of them, judging from tattoos (which the Russians were using as a measure to identify so-called Ukrainian Nazis). I would put that down to people of Putin's generation who taught their youth a twisted history of WW2. leading to political immaturity. Putin might think in his head he's another Peter the great (though it seems his real hero is Czar Nicholas 1), but in reality, he's a racist, homophobic thug , with views that are indistinguishable from German Nazis, with the added touch that he's out to financially rape Russia. He doesn't have a political ideology that genuinely seeks to better the lot of the Russian people, hence he's quite happy to depopulate the Russian far east of its menfolk in his mincemeat tactics. He holds the average Russian in contempt, a serf, in the same way the Czars did. Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are politically immature. The idea of political opposition that doesn't involve thumping each other over a disagreement hasn't yet take root. A good article: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2023/01/ukraine-stepan-bandera-nationalist Thanks to people with mindsets like Putin, the non-Russian former Soviet States are denied a legitimate history. In wartime, people do look to historic heroes, even anti-heroes. Many countries do this; some of the leaders of the Irish uprising had some shady views. Subhas Chandra Bose is venerated as a hero of India, even though he chose to actively side with Nazi Germany and Japan, and recruited Indian soldiers into his army to fight other Indian soldiers, who had taken a different oath. Indian National Army veterans received a pension but WW2 Indian Army veterans did not https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGJpbTDW0AAyt33.jpg:large

When submitting supporting evidence for a UK visitor visa application, is there a need to disclose banking details. I'm happy enough to submit a P60, and a redacted front page of a bank statement (obscuring the account number), showing savings balance, because I don't really trust someone at VFS to safeguard that data. They don't need to know my bank account number, do they?

Likely high, but probably not as high as that https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18477756/ H5N1 infection is probably under reported. A Thai study in a village population suggested seropositivity at about 9%. Thailand has reported about 20 deaths, with 12 from 17 identified cases in 2004 (CFR 70.6%). But deaths are likely grossly underestimated as well. Infection in cattle might take this virus into a new direction, for better or worse. It might become more or less infectious to humans, or the virulence might be worse orless. Influenza originated in birds, and seems to have made the jump into humans about 2000-2500 years ago in Greece, about when Greeks started raising pigs in stys. Flu then stayed relatively benign until the 19th Century, first with Russian flu. H5N1 going from birds into cattle doesn't make it more likely that birds can infect humans, but that the virus has another route of transmission. Cattle possess both human-like and bird-like sialic acid receptors, so, on the face of it, this ought to result in a virus more likely to infect humans. So its important to eradicate this virus in cattle before it gets any further. The virus to date has been found in dairy cattle, infecting the teats. You are going to hear a lot more about FLI Riems in Germany, as they work to study infection in cattle.

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Your comments mean nothing without sources, and so will be disregarded. Your comment on prices in (presumably) California is irrelevant. Your comment on the 2019 Canntrust incident is irrelevant in 2024. Please cite more recent examples to support your supposition that US publicly traded companies are routinely involved in the evasion of Thai customs law to place cheap product on the market. Name these companies.