MicroB

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-hostage-release-thai-28c08783c4fc6113632470ed5a591299 "Fair" to "Fairly good health". They will travel when the doctors clear them to travel

The good people of the EU already fund the world's largest overseas humanitarian aid budget, about $50bn a year. The USAID provided about $27 billion. Total non-military aid was about $40bn. Per capita, the US was the lowest donor in the OECD, a bit behind France, but at least ahead of Turkey, a slightly backward near-Middle Eastern nation, so a win there. There is an interesting with Trumps views of NATO being a protection racket, with member states not ponying up "enough" (some arbitrary number), with the US not ponying up in Overseas aid. Defence and overseas aid are inextricably linked. If the US, and others, had spent a relatively small sum not letting Afghanistan descend into some sort of Mad Max hellhole, 911 and the GWOT might never have happened, and 10,000 Americans (WTC, Afghanistan and Iraq dead) might still have been alive, and the US would have about $6 trillion extra in the bank. There also would be less of a refugee crisis. Arguably, if Europe reduced its aid budget, the US might see its threat level rise. A correct balance needs to be sought. "Aid" through military spending is pretty expensive. All that kit is top end. I worked for many years as a defence contractor, and saw the sums frittered away by the US and UK, driven mainly in the belief that their militaries should never have anything off the shelf, with the defence departments of both countries pouring vast sums into private enterprise to fund programmes that mostly fall by the wayside because they failed to achieve the unrealistic fag packet requirements of years earlier. At its peak, military spending in the British Empire, ruling most of the globe at the time, was about 2.5% of GDP. The British Army was about 140,000, with 70,000 at home, 30,000 in India, and the rest around the rest of the Empire. Of course, they were supplemented by good value colonial troops, which barring the odd mutiny, could be assured of keeping the restless locals in check, and provide gainful employment, maintaining Pax Britannica. Remarkably,, estimates for the Roman Empire give about 2.5% of their GDP on spending on Legions etc. Like the British, there were not that many actual Roman legionnaires. Rome cultivated armies among their vanquished, no doubt with a mixture of carrot and stick, with the carrot being money pumped into the defeated state (call it overseas aid). The stick being decimation. If you go to Hadrians Wall in England, you will see the Dacian legacy. The Dacian Cohort largely built the Wall. Dacia had been conquered by Rome in AD100, but by AD200, they formed most of that northerly defence in Britannia. Dacia is on the shores of the Back Sea, where modern Romania is. The spends about 3.4% of GDP on defence, but some of that is not spent on Americans, but is things like 2000lb bombs for Israel. Trump wants to raise it to 5% and for Europe to match it. Trum is a p*ss poor student of history, because Pax Americana has been pretty shakey of late. USD go much further outside of the US than inside the US. He's giving away US made bombs to Israel, paying full price for them. Instead, he could have paid to have a bomb factory built in Israel, with lower wages etc Probably would have saved money, with the same result, maybe even better, because Israel has more jobs. Which might have helped a few Arab Israelis, which might have persuaded some of them not to go on a rampage. Who knows. Instead of giving the Afghan money for a surely Afghan Army, you go to Afghanistan, and you raise an American Army made up of Afghans, who will lord it over the locals. because the Americans pay well, but way cheaper than a GI. No need to persuade an Afghan to go fight for an Afghan government that never cared for them, because instead, he's fighting for Uncle Sam, who is benevolant, and does care. You just a US military full of Colonel Kurtzs, willing to go full native for years on end. The British used to call these Indian Old hands, colonial officers who had never really gone back home in decades. Anyhow, we are where we are.

I would say the dead aren't even cold, but the Potomac is cold at this time of year. If he sincerely believes the crash was caused by a dwarf half wit ATC, and the FAA (45,000 employees ranging from ATCs, runners and janitors) is full of them, then, as Commander in Chief,, he has no choice but to instigate an immediate shutdown of US airspace, in the interest of public safety, until the FAA is purged of dwarfs. Given his fixation at the press conference about disabled people, I expect the conversation he had with his nephew, Fred, when he suggested he should let his disabled son die, will re-emerge. Among many other tics, the man has a problem with disabled people, particularly disabled children. Probably remembers being mocked for his own disability, the deformed feet that prevented him from winning the MOH in 'Nam. An extreme leftwing organisation made up of suckers and losers has responded. 4 years of this to go. https://pva.org/news-and-media-center/recent-news/paralyzed-veterans-of-america-releases-statement-following-remarks-made-by-president-donald-trump-addressing-tragic-plane-crash-in-nations-capital/ Mmm

Johnnie Walker is an Un-American drink. Some would say drinking a foreign drink at the expense of American whiskey makers is unpatriotic

Aw, so we can't discuss Trump Cards?

Her mum thinks he did it. Said he was an abusive man and that her daughter was naive. https://www.nationthailand.com/news/general/40045592

Under Thai law, if the victim is a Thai national, they can charge. Similarly, English Law allows for the British authorities charge miscreants for crimes against British nationals outside of the UK.

https://www.thesun.co.uk./news/33045000/husband-lady-of-the-hills-return-to-britain/ His son and current girlfriend have apparently persuaded him. His daughter was killed in recent years, and he is now carer for his granddaughter. The article confirms he has reired. It seems he moved to Thailand 2006-2007.

I don't think they even had a phone. She called a neighbour who had one. They raised a lot of money, for them, to pay someone to find their daughter, but that person promptly stole the lot. I feel very sorry for them.

Neither did Ronnie Biggs. or Kenneth Noye. If he is a murderer who ran off to Thailand with two kids in tow, then he is of a different mindset to everyone on this forum (I could be wrong, some forum members might be criminals on the run). There is arrogance, a belief that no one will ever solve it, that the British police don't care about a dead Thai lady, that Thais don't care about dead Thai ladies, that the Thai police don't care, that the Thai police are too stupid. I'm no murderer, I don't think I would ever be a murderer, but I'd imagine a murderer doesn't think like me. If a murderer thought like me, they would have handed themselves in or topped themselves. If I killed someone, I think I could never live with myself. Living openly is neither proof of innocence or guilt. Circumstantially, the man seems a bit of a falure. He returned to the UK, after a bit of post-Uni TEFL teaching, and got himself a job as a "lecturer" or teacher in the UK in the early 90s, in Portsmouth, on what was then, a pretty standard starting salary. I suspect he was in vocational training, not actually in academia. A move to Rugby. where his wife got a part time job which helped pay the bills. Things were tight, but he managed to buy a small house. She fell ill, and they lost the house, moving into rented accomodation in Rugby. Then they end up at his parents' house, a man approaching 40, with 3 kids, and an unhappy wife. Normally jobs in education, while not terrifically well paid, are safe jobs, and you can expect to retire on an ok pension. When living with his parents, did he have a job, or was he an unemployed teacher. His wife then disappears, and his reaction is to leave her son (his stepson) with his parents, and take the two younger children with him to Thailand of all places, and get a job, on a meagre salary, teaching English again, to college students in a remote part. His step son, by all accounts, has carved out his own life in the UK. As a father, isn't his priority the welfare of his children? As someone who works in education, he's probably aware of the effects of disruption on children. Their mother disappears, for whatever reason he states to them, so he takes them away from their schools and schoolfriends. His financial situation was such when his wife lost her £3000 a year job due to miscarriages, he couldn't pay the mortgage. One of the curious released details of the body was that the police noted she had recently put on weight.

The family are quoted as saying they are just a poor family, he was a teacher, and therefore a person of authority, and so they would not be believed.

Possibly. It fits in with a number of scenarios. Would wearing light clothing in September, and no shoes also be consistant with walking in the dales?

If there is 3rd person DNA, its not about the mere presence of DNA on a person, but if that DNA is found in a place it shouldn't normally be found. ie is suspicious.

Under Thai law, if the victim is a Thai national, they can charge. Similarly, English Law allows for the British authorities charge miscreants for crimes against British nationals outside of the UK.

If it was found under her nails, unusual. She had a broken finger consistant with a struggle.

So there is an immediate freeze, no exceptions, on all federal grants and loans. Over the last 12 months, grants worth about $20bn have been awarded, not just to research institutes, but also small businesses, of the sort Mr Trumpf would like to encourage. These companies are at the very cutting edge of science, and the more cutting edge it is, the riskier. About 60% of new medtech never makes it to the market, mostly due to the companies running out of cash. And after a few years of some record private investment in medtech, that money has dried up in the last year. What does this have to do with AI. Well, about 70% of products in development as a result of these loans are in the areas of digital health, in vitro diagnostics and diagnostic imaging. The supporters of Stargate say the initiative will transform healthcare, by finding a cure for cancer, and allowing country doctors to better treat patients (ie telehealth). Digital Health; AI used in clinician support Apps (eg. better diagnose cancers), or increasingly, for disease treatment (FDA Appls used to improve mental health). IVD; AI is now being used to better interrogate genetic test results, to identify cancer markets, and thus cancer risk, as well as markers of inherited disease. Digital Imaging; AI is transforming image analysis. Without AI, 50% of mammograms are read incorrectly, resulting in women going without a cancer diagnosis, or, women undergoing unnecessary surgery when there is no cancer. With AI, one system improved accuracy to 70%. AI is going to improve diagnosis of colorectal and prostate cancer, which will likely affect the majority or readers here. Also going to be essential to identify new drug targets to treat Dementia, given nearly everything in the pipeline has failed so far. There is an obvious contradiction between a President saying he wants AI to succeed, and a President actively encouraging business failure and avoidance of risk. Of course private investment will continue to go into Medtech, but its increasingly risk averse, avoiding the most innovative technologies, preventing transfoormation of healthcare, which is needed as Western populations age. China though is positively encouraging medical innovation. 10 years ago, Chinese medtech was basically Western transplant factories. Top tier hospitals had the same gear as any Western hospital, lower tier hospitals, not so. Now its transformed. The Chinese government accelerates approvals of Chinese medical technologies (same way the FDA acceleratate De Novo approvals for US companies). And there is some guinely cool and innovative stuff coming out of that country, once a fresh set of eyes looks at a problem. The effect of suspending grants means these little companies will quickly run out of cash (the grants and loans are usually stage payments, so anyone getting a grant in the last year or so is directly affected). First they can't pay their suppliers, then they have to let go of staff. Finally, they shutter the company, and the banks try and sell the IP to whoever wants it, usually not in the US. Even if Trumpf gets his arse into gear in a few weeks, it'll be too late for some of these companies. The effects will spread in the economy, to the suppliers, to the CROs running clinical trials, to the regulatory companies handling the paperwork for FDA approvals etc. Its strange, because didn't he run for President on the basis he was a briliant businessman looking out for the little guy? The suspension of payments like this is something I normally associate with socialist governments, who tend to be suspicious of small business and rather have money going into public services.

Someone is importing about $3bn of something from Russia to the US. And the tariffs aren't paid by Russia, but paid by the importers, with the cost passed on to their customers. Russia was still selling enriched uranium to the US in October 2024. And gas turbines. Massive decline from 2022 to 2023, as expected. I suspect what is being exported now is "inelastic"; despite higher shipping costs, there are no alternatives. So slapping on a tariff now will make no difference.

It seems that some of the Z apologists have not read the article. The article describes alleged delivery of: 120x Koksan Self Propelled Howitzers: 170mm system, first entered service in 1978. 65km range, it was deployed to counteract the US deployment of tactical weapons. The range enables it to hit Ukrainian positions with relative impunity. While Ukraine does have effective long range weapons, these are in limited supply, and Ukraine is preferring to reserve these for strategic targets, such as refineries, gunpowder factories, troop marshalling areas etc, to wear down Russia's ability to sustain its war of aggression. 120x 240mm MLRS systems: These will be the mostly the M1985 systems, built around an Isuzu truck chassis, but also updated M1991 pieces. 60km range. Unguided, so not that accurate. But thats not their purpose. These willb e area denial systems. If its is 120 pieces, this is over half of DPRK's fleet. 150 KN-23 Short Range SSM: Broadly comparable to the Iskander-M, and first introduced in 2018. 500-600km range. With the Internal Navigation System, accurate to within 200m, but the Russians will be using this with satellite guidance, with accuracy 100m or better. Some apologists want to downplay these weapons, and portray them as backward. While they might not be cutting edge, they still go bang and kill people. They also outrange the pieces that Ukraine has.

Was it so silly. Thus is the first Leader in history that the entire world knows what shape of penis he has. That beats any Presidental medical exam. Thought there is a Prime Minister who rogered a severed pigs head for a laugh. You better hope it wasn't a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories nearly always have an element of truth coupled around misunderstanding and outright mistruths. Eg there was concealed evidence about JFK's killing, COVID vaccines did cause harm. The Steele report claims to be based on 4 sources, none of whom knew who they were talking to. Of course, it might have been made up in Steele's kitchen, but unlikely. He runs a successful business based on corporate intelligence gathering, where there is an element of trust. Or Steele himself was a victim of a FSB misinformation campaign, which worked. A conspiracy theory would have been the whole world knowing for years that Trumpf was a collosal perve, but that wasn't the case. Of course I know that Trumpf is a collosal pervert from his own lips (Billy Bush tape). Everything else; the groping, the paying of a pornography actress for sex, is just the gravy.

I think there are some people who will support whatever nonsense he says. He might come out tomorrow and say he's taking on a husband for himself and that he now wants to be referred to as Donella, and they'll express what a jolly good idea that is, and that they supported transgenderism all along. There is a parallel with Vlad though. Putin is now looking at the world through the optics of the 1850s. This deranged lot want to do the same. The one chink of light from all this is, ironically James Vance. I reckon he's playing a waiting game to invoke the 25th Amendment, and get the old fart carted out, just letting him hang himself through increasingly deranged statements, such as the latest one to clear out Gaza. Electioneering aside, Vance does have an interesting background. I quite like the investments he's made into fetal stem cell research for instance, marrying a Hindoo, liking a good curry. Bet his fans don't realise that. But he needs to lose the beard. Makes it look like he's hiding a double chin.

We gave you a country, dolt. I don't hate America. I have many many friends there. They are Republicans, but not like you. Peop-;le like you have ruined America for many, including many Americans. Once, America was an admired country, so the extent that France sent you a mahoosive statue. Now your President wants your country to be only feared. Mexicans beat Texans and Americans at the Alamo.

I'm not worried about Trump. I'm discussing with an alleged American Neo-Nazi (you might be a Russian though) full of self loathing and too much time on his hands (you are a prodigious poster on this forum. You don;t have anything else in your life but a forum to gnash your loose dentures on). Your Leader, over many years, has repeatedly referred to Hannibal Lectar iat his political rallies. He recently clarified what he meant. Hannibal Lectar was a fictious cannibal. Trumpf pointed out, in an interview, that he knew individuals who were like Hannibal Lectar were coming to Amerika. Puerto Rico is mentioned because I wanted it to be mentioned. You have no right to dictate to me. Its a realted topic because its about Trumpf's desire for a 51st State to expand his territorial ambitions, and his acolytes lapping it all up. You don;t want to talk about Puerto Rico because you don't regard Puerto Ricans as real Americans. You are the madman who wants to pay every Greenlander $1 billion by 2028. I've had enough debating with your type.. Foxtrot Oscar and out.

How did Amerika do against a third world nation wearing old tyres for shoes? Amerika lost. You were there, probably. And remember the Alamo.

The stupidest idea of 2025 got stupider. 1916 US-Denmark Agreement https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1917/d881 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/26/greenland-denmark-keir-starmer-donald-trump-arctic-maga-us/ Under treaty agreement, if Denmark ever offered Greenland for sale, first refusal would go to the United Kingdom. This is the basis of the US recognition of Danish sovereignty. And people sayt Trump isn't a Putin plant. Putin couldn't have a better friend, ever since he had Trump filmed urinating on prostitutes in a Moscow hotel.

Trump is proposing to ethnically cleanse Gaza; everyone to leave, depopulate the entire area. Its ok if he pays each resident some compensation, maybe $1 billion each.