realfunster

3 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

Yes of course you are, its ok for you to mention freedom of speech but anyone who mentions the clear censorship carried out by twitter on these vids is off topic. Give me a break

 

1) The videos from Cleo Patra are still available on Twitter.

2) The Cleo Patra account was deleted.

3) Other accounts, including Steve Goffman (from the linked article that you yourself shared), still have the videos up on Twitter.

4) Do you really think that Evil Elon has a cunning master plan to censor all copies of this video on Twitter from the 18,000 or so people with cameras that were at the Arena or are you simply suffering from confirmation bias against someone with a different political outlook to you and you are all too happy to jump on a spurious reason to attack him/Twitter ? 

I have no horse in this race but I really can't stand one-eyed and unreasonable argumentation, which unfortunately appears to to be the standard approach these days.

13 minutes ago, bob smith said:

yes, she can. she can write you in her will as the sole beneficiary of the estate. then you will have 365 days from the point you inherit the house to sell it to a thai national.

 

if you cannot sell it within that period i am unsure what will happen, maybe the thai government gets it or whoever is next in the familial line? might have to go to court at that point.

 

point is she must explicitly write you in her will by name as the sole beneficiary for you to stand any chance of inheriting the property.

I knew about the 365 days, I wasn't aware about a specific requirement to be named as the sole beneficiary.

Sounds like I need to have a chat with the wife about this. 

19 minutes ago, Homburg said:

Since when is 71 "elderly"?

Since forever ?

If you want a formal definition, a brief Google suggests that >65 is a typical benchmark.

Roll ?

I suppose a thank you from Biden would be the yeast he could do, I agree Thailand deserves butter although they are coming across as a bit kneady. 

1 hour ago, jacko45k said:

I find this far more acceptable than the beating up, and subsequent death of the cannabis pilferer.

Why's that then ?

In the linked article it says they had already run out of/away from the shop and were attempting to start their motorbikes to leave the scene when the shots were fired causing the injuries. Therefore, it would seem the imminent and realistic threat of personal injury to the shop-owner had receded. His final actions of "following up" with his shotgun attack would likely not meet the benchmark for reasonable self-defence of either person or property in most legal jurisdictions. 

12 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

The problem is workers can't win. Times are bad. No pay rise. Economy surges. No pay rise due to inflationary risk. Wages are one input into the cost so a rise in wages does not mean the same percentage increase in the cost of a service or good.  There has to be common sense but if you are looking at whether a country is successful, the ability for every day workers to live a happy and dignified life, is a key benchmark. 

Not sure what industry you are in but my Thai company typically gives 4-6% annual salary increases since time immemorial. Even more this year. This is consistent with what I read in the press when they launch their annual salary increase survey results for Thailand/ASEAN.

Thailand has bad and worsening demographics in terms of age and educational opportunities, meaning distinctly average workers (from manufacturing to professional) can get fairly well paid and regularly switch jobs/companies with little problem here due to manpower and skills demand/supply mismatches.

It’s a system which conflates market demand, due to a lack of resources, with employee quality, and many are deluded enough in the Thai bubble to believe their own hype. In theory, all good for the average employee but unfortunately many parts of the Thai economy operate beyond domestic borders, where they are being and will continue to get battered by more balanced economies, and I don’t just mean cheaper ones but also those that can provide value added knowledge-based services. Having had a relative growth spurt since the 80s on being a low cost manufacturing base, that window has closed and the economy needs to sharpen up. 

Ultimately, like the prevailing culture, it’s quite a sabai-sabai economy, which seems to have some robustness and steadily plows forwards but I think it could do so much better. 

Well done to the ever insightful Anutin for stigmatizing mental heath issues with connections to drug use. Way to go in not acknowledging and managing a problem that impacts a significant amount of non-drug users.

I think their first priority should be to build up capabilities to take severe sufferers into care. There are a lot of roaming folks with severe mental health issues who are currently “managed”within communities with mixed and sometimes very negative outcomes.

That, and getting the mental health issue discussed in a sensible way…

23 hours ago, garrya said:

No need to believe ordinary people. Better go with narratives. 

Well done mate 

My good friend in the UK is an oncology consultant with 25 years practice. Apart from a backlog of procedures/care and delayed diagnoses due to hospital services disruption with COVID, he tells me all is standard at the moment, apart from the fact he is working his <deleted> off.
 

So, what to do ?  We have 2 ordinary people involved in primary health care giving different opinions ? I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable to build a position based on the anecdotal evidence of 1 or 2 people, as that seems statistically unreasonable. I wonder how we can get to the bottom of it and establish the facts on cancer cases?

Or should we just follow your “anti mainstream narrative”, which ironically, by definition, is just a “narrative” in itself…

7 hours ago, garrya said:

Young people don't usually have cancer and never participate in cancer screenings. 

Cancer is almost unseen in the youth. 

The answer is fairly obvious. 

Do you have any credible statistics supporting this increase in cancer in kids or are we supposed to discuss this proposition based on anecdotes from your nurse friend ?

1 hour ago, BangkokHank said:

I just checked the price to go the six kilometers from my home to Mega Bang Na right now with Grab, and it is 201 baht, while Bolt is 126 baht. Maybe that's why Bolt is not on the approved list.

The market has certainly changed in both positive and negative ways.

I think Grab, in particular, has been driving this.

The app gives you main options for Car (higher fixed rate), Taxi (Meter + 20 baht) or JustGrab (car or taxi at higher fixed rate,)

Drivers have figured out, especially taxis, that accepting the JustGrab option is a lot better for them. In my experience as a customer, JustGrab is around 2x the fare for flagging a taxi off the street for the same trip. 

The topic is quite timely, tonight I was out in central Bangkok and when heading home at 10pm, I was finally accepted by my 6th taxi of the street. Despite a long legacy of Bangkok drivers refusing fares, I do wonder if this will increase when they get used to ‘grab’ level fare rates.

Problems remain in this industry…

1 hour ago, ConnectionNotGuaranteed said:

We (parents) have just found out that the maths teacher in my daughters school is trying to persuade the pupils that the world is flat.

 

Before we (parents) complain to the school, I thought I would seek advise from the teachers in this forum.

 

Do you think this teacher is trying to push their boundaries of thinking? Is he using a mathematical theory or is he just a nutter?

 

I'm really not keen with someone believing the earth is flat, teaching my daughter anything.

I think you should take this initial report with a pinch of salt at first before escalating , not sure how old your kid is (which may determine the confidence levels in the report accuracy) but it may be a simple misunderstanding or, as you mention, they are trying to stimulate debate/critical thinking or maybe it's just an attempt a humour. 

If your kid comes back with similar reports again consistently over a few weeks or so, then I would suggest talking to the teacher directly.

For "Pattaya" - you could try Jomtien Beach which is more relaxed and lacking the in your face nightlife for the most part.

Ko Samet (4 hours, ferry involved)

Hua Hin (2.5 hours drive)

Pranburi/Sam Roi Yot Beach (3 hours drive)

I can't really recommend Bang Saen to be honest, I used to go there as an easy beach day-trip from BKK but got bored of the dirty water.

8 hours ago, webfact said:

With initiatives like the ‘Amazing New Chapters: Discover Luxperience in Thailand’ travel deal, TAT is targeting the luxury, long-stay golf, honeymoon/couples, millennials and other such FIT market segments, as well as the family and group tour segments including incentives.

Isn’t this more simply stated in common English as “Everyman and his dog ?”

This made me laugh from the linked article…couldn’t happen to a nicer lady.

“Atthaphon, who leads the activist group “That’s Enough”, said the court found Pareena guilty of two counts of defamation by advertising, because she had posted the same message twice”

Note to all for future reference : take anything from NNT with an extremely large pinch of salt, it is just a government propaganda mouthpiece. In this case trying to milk some positive spin from the APEC conference, including the much coveted foreign approval from the IMF MD.

Note the obsequious nature of the commentary regarding government policy contribution to this rebound.

Of course, the story doesn’t mention that the rebound (already contradicted by NNT on their own website) is mostly due to the low baseline of a Thai economy that, due to government policy, underperformed global and regional peers during the 2020-2022 period.

10 hours ago, webfact said:

that Chai had 37 years of experience and knowledge in the Thai aviation industry.

That's great.

How many of those were what might be described as 'successful' years ?

3 hours ago, IAMHERE said:

FIFA team is closest geographically to Bangkok?  I'd like to cheer for a local team, as close as local as we have anyway. I'm thinking Australia is the closest, then Mexico or Uraguay ?

FYI- Mexico is around 15,000 km away and Uruguay is pretty much the country farthest away from Thailand at 17,000km. Europe is only 7-9,000km. 

3 hours ago, IAMHERE said:

FIFA team is closest geographically to Bangkok?  I'd like to cheer for a local team, as close as local as we have anyway. I'm thinking Australia is the closest, then Mexico or Uraguay ?

South Korea.

As dog owner myself who likes to travel in Thailand, I have seen a big shift over the last 10 years with resorts accepting dogs. I sense dog ownership and travelling with dogs has clearly become more common with Thais, and resorts are responding to that. 

Admittedly, my experience is in a certain range from Bangkok (2-3 hours drive) but many resorts are wising up that a lot of people travel with pooches. Some accept dogs with no issue, some will refuse and some accept with a minor cleaning surcharge, say THB 100 per pooch.

So, in short, I wouldn't worry about it...you can find somewhere.

If you encounter an "emergency" you can always head to the nearest "24 hour love" hotel at 300-500 night (basic but clean) and just try to keep the dog(s) quiet during the check-in process !

For sure, you have to be on your guard back in the UK (especially London, as a tourist hub) and not only for 'soft' crimes.

I attended a seminar in London around 10 years or so back with some Thai colleagues, on their first day out sight-seeing, they got spotted as easy targets and were mugged, with some minor violence thrown in...

Apart from the dangers of walking down Pattaya Beach Road with a gold chain, it is generally much safer on the streets here in Thailand, with more people out and about late at night and the police effectively acting as a local mafia and keen to avoid negative incidents with tourists/foreigners. 

2 hours ago, Willy Wombat said:

Xi shook the hand of the Canadian cuck Trudeau too.

 

Thai Government spokesman just trying to save face and anyone who believes his words is a moron.

That’s the kind of informed and balanced insight we love on TV.

Why do you think Xi snubbed Prayuth’s handshake offer ?