JAG

Deep sigh - vaccination does not guarantee that you will not contract the disease - but, as with the COVID vaccine, it 1) reduces significantly the possibility of getting the disease, 2) reduces the severity of the disease.

Since you are a resident of Japan, who only visited Thailand for a wedding a couple of weeks ago, why are you bothered? Or are you asking on behalf of friends - Bob Smith and Lewie London perhaps?

Freudian slip there?

Producing the electricity does. Here in Chiang Rai EVs have significantly increased demand for electricity. This is being met by importing electricity from Laos, electricity generated by burning lignite (brown coal), probably the most polluting of fossil fuels. Lots of CO2!

I don't think that they use "telegraph", "Signal" seems to be the favoured platform for spreading war plans!

Just as well that you are receiving treatment - without it you could end up like those fellows Bob Smith or Lewis London!

Unfortunately intelligent analysis is certainly not one of the hallmarks of Mr Trump's administration!

Of course he is, their cash helped put him in office.

If they can get their grubby paws on the "rare earths" they need to build their AI infrastructure. Perhaps that is where Canada, Greenland and Ukraine come into the mix?

All very true. Might I also add, his gutting of the Internal Revenue Service, in the name of "government efficiency" will leave his administration ever more reliant on tariffs to fund itself.

Yes, an almost inescapable conclusion. Perhaps not Trump himself (although he will not go unrewarded), but those closely associated with him. Look no further than those in the front two rows at his inauguration!

I say, @simon43, you must take into account that there is no such thing as American English; there is English and there are mistakes!

You are an American are you not? And you are posting complaining about people who are diluting, warping, and perverting the English language! How extraordinary! "Singlish is an accepted "creole" derivative patois of the language widely if informally used in Singapore. Similar dialects are found in many Asian countries, Malaysia, the Philippines and even Thailand! They don't replace "standard English". Having spent time in Singapore, their formal English is way ahead of America. There understanding and appreciation of culture, both Chinese and "English" is also impressive. Singapore is probably the one country I have visited which makes the motto "one country, many cultures" a reality. Some gorgeous women too!

Well, there is something in that argument - he has not exactly break own for stellar business practices - sure he created a real estate business, on inherited wealth, which is now heavily indebted. Other ventures, casinos, steaks, airlines etc have left a trail of bankruptcy. He was a successful reality TV host, but unlike his political and economic efforts, when the script was closed and the studio lights went off, there was no real comeback. You are right, he has created a cult. They invariably end badly

Well of course I am not an American - so unlikely to be persued. That said if I attempted to enter America ( I have no intention of so doing) then I am sure that I would be refused or detained. As for "pursue perceived dissidents living abroad", well it would only be a small relatively simple step. Some countries have a record of allowing America to apprehend and detain their "enemies" on their soil, all one has to do is to define and identify such enemies.

But in general it would be better to be able to prove that they are gang members, rather than just picking them up because they are brown, speak Spanish and have a Real Madrid football team tattoo; oh, and have a legal right to live in the US, are married to a US citizen and have a (handicapped) child who is a US citizen. Now I am sure that as the "woghunter general" Honan and his goons would claim you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs (actually let's not get onto the price of eggs!) but it's not a very good image, not when you are the land of the free, leader in democracy and human rights etcetera!

"Trump tells Americans ‘it won’t be easy’"! What was the slogan back along? "Guns before butter"!

It's a bit of a conundrum really, isn't it? Who to believe "invented the internet"? I mean Berners-Lee who is widely thought, and well documented, internationally recognised as the man who started it, or some bloke who goes under a pseudonym on an expatriate forum in Thailand?

As so often, you seize the wrong end of the stick and gallop off into the distance. I make no criticism of Shirer, I have read much of his work, including "The Rise and Fall" I am pointing out the remarkable parallels between the events he documented so vividly ( whose authors boasted amounted to the creation of a new "World Order") and what is happening today. It was you who raised the spectre of creating and reshaping "World Orders".

He would, but the phone battery is flat! Isn't that so Bob?

Aha, I see an opening for a domestic (US) brand of "sneakers". Perhaps some really glitzy gold ones with a presidential endorsement? Ah, hang on, aren't they made in China?

The American people elected him. FAFO.

Ah - ownership of "Global Orders"! Yes, it was one of the great American journalists, William Shirer, who wrote the great book which documented the last big attempt to create own and manipulate the "Global Order", in the third and fourth decades of the last century. I think it is fair to say that didn't end all that well, particularly for the country which laid claim to the "Global Order"! Mind you, he ended up on Senator McCarthy's little list, so he was probably a liberal, a Democrat even a commie. In fact if he was alive now he would probably be leading the drive to boycott Teslas!

Because the mathematics is flawed. It is not based on tariffs but on trade balances - so if the USA buys more from another country than it sells to another country then it is raising a tariff on them. It is the USA which decides to buy the product not the other country, so the process is inherently unfair. Essentially what is happening is that the Trump administration has decided to raise revenue by applying wide raging taxes on imported goods, taxes which will be paid by it's own citizens, and is cynically and dishonestly justifying it by using a nonsensical mathematical model which attempts to divert the blame to other countries.

Is that the same chap who several years ago threatened to set off a nuclear mine in the Atlantic which would cause a tsunami which would drown Ireland, Great Britain and our "moss covered Queen". Quite an imagination.