TallGuyJohninBKK

In recap: What we know about the GOP's big, vague claims about Biden "bribery" What we know: House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Wednesday subpoenaed the FBI for a June 2020 form called an FD-1023, which is used to memorialize interviews with sources and often includes unverified information. ... "Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) released a report in September 2020 alleging that Hunter Biden had "cashed in" on his father's name to secure foreign business deals. But the investigation uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing by the future president. The bottom line: Republicans have been searching for a Biden bribery bombshell since 2019. So far, nothing has stuck." https://www.axios.com/2023/05/04/biden-bribery-fbi-subpoena-republicans

But but but... there's HUNTER...... ????

Ya, I'm hanging on every word from one of the most prolific liars in American political history. In Trump's case above, he's the darkest pot of criminality that could possibly be imagined, already the subject of multiple documented federal and state criminal investigations. And he's not much better when it comes to credibility: Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years "This astonishing jump in falsehoods is the story of Trump’s tumultuous reign. By the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day. What is especially striking is how the tsunami of untruths kept rising the longer he served as president and became increasingly unmoored from the truth." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/

That's the difference between a lot of Biden supporters vs a lot of Trump supporters... Most Biden supporters here take the shared view that IF Hunter Biden (or Joe Biden for that matter) committed any actual crimes and those are proven, then they should be held to account for those under the law. In the case of Hunter Biden, of course, he was never an elected official nor U.S. government employee. Whereas Trump and most of his supporters seem to think that nothing he's never done or ever could do anything that possibly is a crime. And even if it was, Trump seems to think that somehow he's above it all and accountable to no one except himself. Hey, it's only an attempted insurrection incited by a sitting U.S. president. Last I heard, no one's accusing Hunter Biden or Joe Biden of fomenting a violent insurrection against their own country.

Remembered reading this from Bloomberg late last year -- a good reminder that even recycling in Thailand has its own risks and hazards: Thailand Is Tired of the Noxious Fumes From Recycling Your Trash The plastic industry says recycling is the solution to reducing waste. But in Thailand, where much of the world’s trash ends up, it’s created a new set of problems. ... " In its general outlines the process sounds harmless, even virtuous, putting plastic waste to good use instead of sending it to one of Thailand’s many landfills. Beginning in late 2020, Jiaramankong learned that the truth was more complicated. He and his wife noticed an acrid smell that drifted across their front yard and into the house, infiltrating every room. They started to get headaches and felt their skin getting irritated, with Jiaramankong developing a red, itchy patch just below his nostrils. In the mornings, he would sometimes find pigeons lying immobile outside, dead or obviously very ill." (more) https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-thailand-plastic-waste-recycling-import-ban/

Thailand needs some trash solutions for the future... Their preliminary efforts at environmentally safe garbage incineration haven't gone very well, just like they have problems maintaining and running sophisticated sewage treatment plans without ending up a mess. According to some past studies on the topic, much of the garbage disposal in Thailand simply involves dumping it into huge open pits at locales throughout the country without any environmental controls or safeguards.

box of 6 assorted fancy doughnuts from Hippodough for 405b. On Foodpanda, could be a little less, or a lot more, depending on the particular doughnuts chosen/provided. This is probably the closest comparison to what I got, 605b regular price: So I believe I achieved some decent savings. I didn't get a box of six of their least expensive "classic" doughnuts, which are currently sold for about 390b, as opposed to their fancier "deluxe" or "signature" items.

The BMA has a population of about 11 million and at 8,000 tons per day, that would mean about 29 million tons of garbage per year. So 2.6 tons per person per year on average. New York City, with a population of 8.8 million, says it generates about 14 million tons of garbage per year. So about 1.7 tons per person per year on average. https://www.nyc.gov/site/sustainability/codes/waste.page But a lot of that waste isn't only generated from households, but instead, also comes from commercial and industrial sources, including things like the rubble created when demolishing old buildings to develop new ones. I'm not sure if there's a good, accurate way of measuring strictly household waste production from one place to another.

That's one way of enforcing the rule! ???? But I don't think Thai culture is inclined to go down that road....

One separate bag for all those various recyclables? Or separate bags for each different type?

That's probably one reason why the BMA hasn't utilized that approach on any kind of broad basis. That the average Thai probably won't follow the gameplan.... Unless of course, as with the example Steven mentioned above, the trash collection authority were to start getting tough and refusing to collect garbage from those breaking the rules... Which, unfortunately, would create a whole separate set of problems. Back in the U.S. where I used to live, I think it also took some time and a lot of effort to get the general public to begin following a trash separation scheme. Where I lived, in the end, the city issued the separate colored containers and had separate trucks come along to collect each... And it was all automated, with the new garbage trucks having an automated arm that reached out, grabbed and dumped the container, and then lowered it back to the curb.

I don't see folks in our area leaving out separate small bags (maybe that's because they end up getting taken first). But I have seen the BMA trucks with the big bags hanging off the sides of the trucks.... And late at night when the BMA trucks come, I oftentimes can hear the workers klanking around with the glass bottles they've retrieved.

BMA claims to do a pretty good job of collecting most of the garbage generated here.... I'm guessing, a far greater percentage than most other provinces...

I've seen both... The kind I used to get from Villa before they did away with them (at least for home delivery) did degrade fairly quickly. The ones I get from Tops these days for home delivery show no signs of degrading. And of course, all the plastic bags and cartons that get used by most Thai food outlets here appear to be the standard, non-degradeable kind. Though I have noticed various farang oriented food outlets in recent times beginning to use more non-plastic packing materials.

Some other background regarding Bangkok garbage from back in 2020:

A couple of graphics I had saved from a BMA report back in 2020: Here's where the the garbage from Bangkok goes, at least as of 2020 (back then, they were claiming 10,000 tons per day). Nakhon Pathom seems to get the bulk of BKK's trash: And here's the color key code to the different types of garbage containers and what's supposed to go in them:

Thailand seems to have a pretty short attention span when it comes to environmental issues.....one related example: A couple years back, there was a big push at the government level to reduce/eliminate the profligate use of non-biodegradeable plastic bags at the supermarkets and elsewhere... And for a time, the big retailers stopped using them, switched to paper bags or boxes and began encouraging people to bring/use their own reuseable cloth bags.... But these days, when I order home delivery groceries from Tops, I get about 10 of the typical small plastic grocery bags every time, each containing just a couple of items. And those and other mountains of plastics used here end up clogging up the landfills. On the flip side, to their credit, when I order home delivery groceries from Villa Market, for some time now, everything comes packed in cardboard boxes that they've reused from products delivered to the store. And then get recycled further by me once I'm done with them.

I'd say there's some truth to that! ???? And believe me, it doesn't get any better when the loads of hundreds and hundreds of those all end up getting trucked to and dumped in huge landfills in some adjoining provinces.

I already separate out all our glass bottles, recyclable plastics and clean cardboard and hand them over to a neighbor who sells them to a recycler... But that's just something I do as a personal choice... The BMA has really never done anything to encourage or facilitate that kind of separation by residents here AFAIK -- which was the point of my post.

BTW, to get a meaningful analysis, you can't just count how many people in hospital are vaccinated vs unvaccinated.... because the available populations of each of the various groups (boosted, vaccinated, unvaccinated) are not the same in numbers. To have a meaningful analysis, you have to look at the RATES at which people in each of the various groups are dying from or being hospitalized due to COVID. In Thailand, for example, I believe the share of the population that has received some vaccination is somewhere in the 70-80% range, whereas the unvaccinated population is closer to the 20% range..... That's why it's meaningless to just count raw hospitalization numbers of one group vs the other, because the population of vaccinated folks is about 4 times larger. And that's been a common misinformation approach used by anti-vax folks during the pandemic.

None... though a couple weeks ago, one MoPH person said most of the new COVID deaths that week were either unvaccinated or long out of date vaccinated, as best as I can recall. Elsewhere, the data clearly shows that unvaccinated people die from COVID even during the Omicron phase at much higher rates than the vaccinated, especially those who have been boosted. Per the U.S. CDC: All vaccinated groups had overall lower risk of dying from COVID-19 and testing positive for COVID-19 compared with people who were unvaccinated. People who were vaccinated with an updated (bivalent) booster dose had lower rates of dying from COVID-19 and slightly lower rates of testing positive for COVID-19 compared with people who were vaccinated but had not received an updated booster dose. " Source link:

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has just put out a new video on Facebook saying Bangkok generates more than 8,000 tons per day of garbage/waste! (AFAIK, much of that gets shipped to several very large landfills away from Bangkok.) https://www.facebook.com/prbangkok/videos/1252606072291118/ But the equally interesting part is, much of the video is about encouraging people to begin separating out their household waste into different categories, such as keeping food waste in a separate bag. The video has a nice image showing three different colored garbage receptacles for different types of waste.... The only problem is, I've never actually seen those kinds of containers used in residential neighborhoods here, and only have ever seen them in shopping malls and such. So I wanted to ask, does anyone living in Bangkok either in homes, condos or apartments actually have these kinds of containers in which they can separate out their household waste? And if so, do they actually get used in the intended manner? I know my central BKK residential neighborhood does not. Heck, residents on my soi don't even have any Bangkok-government provided trash containers. Everyone seems to use their own provided baskets, garbage bins, or just leaving out plastic bags filled with garbage along the soi. No separation of garbage that I can see whatsoever! The BMA trucks just come along every couple days, and AFAICT, just dump everything together into the same garbage truck -- although the workers do seem to separate out some things themselves that can provide a source of income, such as trying to separate out recyclable glass bottles and cans. I think I remember reading at some point that the BMA was supposedly going to begin a trial somewhere in some very limited areas to do the three-bins separation approach. But I never saw anything more about that or what became of it. Thailand seems somewhat far behind other places in terms of trying to limit the amount of waste going into landfills, perhaps because it has a lot of still undeveloped areas where the mountains of trash can be deposited away from big population centers. But even so, those kinds of sites then have problems with methane gas fires, groundwater pollution and other ecological issues.

COVID vaccines update from the government today in English listing two Bangkok locations! Good news it seems the Institute of Dermatology near Victory Monument is back in the COVID vaxes business: "Officials have reiterated that locals and foreigners in Thailand can still receive free vaccinations against COVID-19 at several health centers and hospitals nationwide. One such center is the Institute of Dermatology, which provides free vaccination services every weekday, Mondays through Fridays, from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. AstraZeneca, older versions of the Pfizer jab, and new versions of Moderna vaccines are available, along with walk-in vaccination services. At the Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health, parents can bring their children aged 6 months and older to receive Pfizer vaccinations. (more) https://www.facebook.com/nbtworld/posts/pfbid0p6iAWJi1ZaHqLpw4n8i556DiS7iDJg3r8NZoQMTTwzB8rE6gMYEE82MEmiYeczVJl

I ordered a box of fancy doughnuts yesterday about 5 pm... They were delivered to my home about a half hour later, and promptly went into the refrig. No difference whatsoever compared to if I had bought the same doughnuts in person at the mall shop at the same time and then carried them back home -- except, I paid about 25% less than the regular price.

Latest update for the most recent week: