Watawattana

What? A British Judge with a political bias? Surely not? Wouldn't happen anywhere else in the world would it?

All proven liars or law breakers in any public role, financed by tax payers' money, should be fired and banned from taking any such role ever again. No matter what colour party they are from. Zero exceptions. Might mean there are none left of course...

I wonder how many 100kg+ folks have used these slides in Thailand and elsewhere, and how many people have come a cropper. I suspect a very tiny minority.

Absolutely spot on. I have zero issues with finding waste and unnecessary budgets and cutting them. What is 'waste' and what is 'uneccessary' in my opinion might be different to others of course. But. Finding waste and unnecessary budgets and cutting them costs money too. In Texas that's a 13-person DOGE team for example; that ain't cheap to set up and maintain. I strongly suspect the cost of DOGE (or COGE or whatever) would be much less than the savings that will be found in the first couple of years, but then I think the balance may tip the other way as savings become more difficult to find. And, someone needs to be sure that the savings are sensible when compared with what each State or Federal Agency is supposed to be doing. Someone needs to look over the shoulder of these DOGEs? And the costs mount up. A classic for me is the FAA. Yeah, find the DEI stuff and cull it. But don't automatically cut their budget to match. The FAA needs to modernise its systems and procedures, and it needs more front-line staff to do that, and then to deliver a better/safer air traffic control service. It needs the budget to do that. DOGE needs to use common sense, and not a testosterone-fuelled race to the bottom. But I'll reiterate, I'm glad this is being done.

If documents get redacted before their release then the conspiracy theories will continue. If they are not, then the conspiracy theories will continue as surely not all of the documents were released? Basically, no matter what, the conspiracy theories will continue. But maybe not if there are smoking guns in there, like it was an alien being held at Area 51 who done it?

Ah okay! No problem. 🙃

Wow. Great idea. Here's some examples of this happening elsewhere in the world for you to look at, so you fully realise what a fantastically brilliant idea you shared on this public group. https://bitterwinter.org/tag/re-education-camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54195325 https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights http://us.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zt_120777/dmxj/wjbxinjiang1/zaijiaoyu1/202106/t20210625_9039435.htm Think it's the first time I've ever read anything on AN where someone agrees with what China has been doing, and wants the same thing to happen in the USA. Brilliant!! 😂🤧🤩😹

Wow. Must have been an amazing round of cost-cutting to increase the EBITDA by this level. Is maybe why Trump is so keen on getting him looking at the US Government?

I clicked the 'agree' emoji as, well, I agree. I don't have a crystal ball but would hope that DOGE will get to the bits they have not got to as yet. It's only been a few weeks. In corporate-land such cost-cutting activities target what they call 'low hanging fruit' before they attempt the harder stuff. And that's maybe what they've done so far. I won't get into the rights and wrongs of what's happened (there are examples of both I think), but from my point of view the balance isn't too far wrong. I guess there are well-entrenched procurement behaviours in many Government departments, and it'll take time to weed those out. It'll take a big bulldozer to break some of those doors down, and I'm sure there'll be whining about Musk and his ulterior motives, being protectionist of his own contracts or being anti-left. Nothing wrong with that, just free speech and personal opinions, sometimes based on fact, sometimes not. But it's results that matter, not necessarily who gets upset on the way in my opinion. 4 years is more than enough to get the rampant procurement mismanagement (or maybe it's corruption) under control. 4 weeks isn't enough, I don't think that's reasonable. But I hope he is able to get that task done, including allowing an investigation into the contracts that he has.

Yeah, completely agree. Especially in that place in the background of the photo in the OP. Oral House. I'm sure that isn't banned today. Might have misread the name of the place of course...

Sato will go down in hiss-tory as the bravest 3-legged dog ever?

Great to see a Swiss guy getting some plaudits after the behaviour of some others. Can't quite believe the low level of 'wai' given by the other driver.

How do you generally find the air quality in Vietnam? Hanoi, Hot An, Ho Chi Min. I see that Thailand is struggling, example is one of today's AN articles. I'm sure I could find the raw data online, but wondering about the general feeling on this from people who live in Vietnam.

The media has reported many going back, and interviewed many who want to stay there and not leave to support what Trump is suggesting. I guess if they all went to Egypt then they may not want to go back as Egypt is such a paradise.

Yeah. Wiki has an article on this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip. Describes the reasoning for the closure in 2007, and a lot of what's happened since then in relation to that border. NPR has a recent article on that border, saying that if they let Palestinians in then Israel may not let them back. https://www.npr.org/2024/02/26/1232826942/rafah-gaza-palestinians-egypt-border

Here's an example of Israelis targeting Palestinians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settler_violence The article indicates that it's a tiny minority of Israelis carrying out this violence, but it is still happening. Agree there's no country called Palestine. Would be nice if all illegal activities stopped, but I can't see that happening. From all sides in this. I'm not going to apportion blame, no point, neither side is in the clear on this.

I just completed this quiz. My Score 40/100 My Time 129 seconds  

I just completed this quiz. My Score 30/100 My Time 120 seconds  

Would be a shorter show than a Wile E Coyote cartoon. 😂 Ooh... Just started wondering what cartoon best matches the UK Government...

I don't think that's the case, but happy for someone better qualified than me to pitch in. I don't believe parents pay for their children to attend such a school. I've read articles on schools that opted to become an academy to get themselves away from political interference or to provide more specialist education for their local area. In years gone by there was a feeling that the UK education system wanted all of the children to be academically smart, to become doctors, lawyers or financiers. All to the detriment of practical trades like building, plumbing, mechanics or electricians. There a big shortage of such skills in the UK, whilst there are thousands of young adults with university degrees that cannot get a job in their chosen area due to an over-supply of graduates. Academies can focus on practical trades rather than academics due to the demographics in their area. Sometimes a school is seen as a failing school as the pupils don't get high grades in traditional academic subjects like maths, sciences or English literature, but actually the children are clever in a different way (practical skills rather than academic). So the school can opt out of the local education authority, becomes an academy and provides better/more appropriate education for the children in their area. The French, for example, has a similar system that streams pupils down the best route for their abilities, rather than try to push all of their children down a single path. Wikipedia has some information on Acadamies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_(English_school) A bit of a ramble but hope this makes sense.

Such a cheesy reply...

I wonder if the AoT people responsible for the delays are being arrested for obstruction? Sounds like they must be in on the corruption if they are delaying the investigation, or are trying to cover up other illegal activities.

First time I've read about this. Upon first reading I thought about how would young children be supported, so might some payments be justified. But within about 10 milliseconds I thought the criminal should have thought about that before they did what they did. Seems good that this funding should get stopped.

The case for the prosecution has been written by the Daily Mail, wonder what the case for the defence is. If it's written by the Guardian I won't necessarily be believing that either.

I can't get my head round why USAID would be supporting anything in a country that's a member of the G7 or G20, let alone what's mentioned in the OP.