TallGuyJohninBKK

No doubt one of your heroes...sadly: "Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 3 September 1956[3][4][a]) is a British fraudster, anti-vaccine activist, and disgraced former physician. He was struck off the medical register for "serious professional misconduct"[7] due to his involvement in the fraudulent 1998 Lancet MMR autism study that falsely claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism." The publicity surrounding the study caused a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, leading to a number of outbreaks of measles around the world and many deaths therefrom. ... The Lancet fully retracted Wakefield's 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC's findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified and that the journal had been "deceived" by Wakefield.[19][20] Three months later, Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register, in part for his deliberate falsification of research published in The Lancet.[7][21] In a related legal decision, a British court held that "[t]here is now no respectable body of opinion which supports [Wakefield's] hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

Here's the Monday night government update (abbreviated EN version) on EQ recovery related matters: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1XkRyuEdLg/ Here's the longer Thai language version with the same EN version following at the end: In terms of details, things that were said, and weren't said in the EN update: Collapsed State Audit Building: What was said: as the critical 72-hours after mark passed for the building's collapse, the official death toll there rose by 1 more body, reaching a total of 12 thus far at the site. What wasn't said: no update in the EN briefing on the number of still unaccounted for persons/bodies at the site, which had been reported the day before as 76. Does that mean they recovered no additional bodies and made no living rescues in the past 24 hours period? Transportation: The government spokeswoman said the Pink Line overhead rail line finally reopened for service, and fallen crane debris was removed from a portion of the Din Daeng Expressway, meaning that area reopened to traffic. Building Inspections: The government spokeswoman said thus far, only TWO of some 350 building in BMA territory that had been inspected for EQ damage had been declared temporarily uninhabitable. In terms of inspections, she said the government had received more than 14,000 individual requests for EQ related building inspections, up about 2,000 from the prior day. As of Monday evening, she said only about 2,400 of those had not been "addressed." She also clarified that the requests for inspections counts don't equate to numbers of buildings. What she meant was, for example, you might have requests from 100 different residents of ONE condo building, and each of those would count as a separate request, even though they all related to the same building. The BMA also said they have launched a publicly available online platform for tracking inspections progress, as follows:

The BMA seems to be relying on some vaguely defined corps of volunteer "inspectors" to do their building structural surveying checks. I haven't seen any explanation or clarification of just what kind of qualifications, if any, they're requiring of those who are making those inspections and judgments about buildings. In the latest BMA public briefing provided tonight, the Thai government rep in English reported that only TWO residential buildings in BMA jurisdiction out of some 350 inspected thus far had been declared temporarily uninhabitable. ---------------------------- PS - I got a laugh out of your comment above, because in my neighborhood of BKK, the condo building handymen who do various repair and maintenance work often seem to be referred to as "engineers"! I certainly hope they're not the ones doing the structural building inspections, nor the BMA staff who do all kinds of other, unrelated "inspection" duties. Separately, the national government seems to be pushing extraordinarily hard right now to persuade everyone that everything is OK and nothing's really wrong in BKK... They've even launched a PR campaign for it, as follows: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16JLfMV2JM/

Then you can ignore this too... which comes as no surprise: Cleveland Clinic study didn’t find that taking more COVID-19 vaccine doses causes increased COVID-19 risk; association alone doesn’t imply causation "Association alone doesn’t indicate causation Health Feedback reached out to the lead author of the study, infectious disease physician Nabin Shrestha, who clarified in an email that “association is not causation”, and that “Any claim that our study shows a causal relationship between getting more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and higher risk of infection is false”. [emphasis added] https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/cleveland-clinic-study-didnt-find-more-covid-19-vaccine-doses-causes-increased-covid-19-risk-association-alone-doesnt-imply-causation/

As usual, COVID misinformation spreaders here doing what they do... spreading misinformation that has long been debunked elsewhere... But of course they ignore all that. Cleveland Clinic Study Did Not Show Vaccines Increase COVID-19 Risk Posted on June 16, 2023 "SciCheck Digest Numerous studies have found that additional COVID-19 shots are generally associated with extra protection against the coronavirus. Many people on social media, however, have shared a preliminary finding from a Cleveland Clinic study and misrepresented it as proving that getting more doses increases a person’s risk of infection. Full Story COVID-19 vaccines and boosters reduce the risk of severe disease and death. They also offer some protection against infections, although the effectiveness wanes in the months after getting vaccinated, and such effectiveness is lower against the omicron variant, compared with earlier variants of the coronavirus. ... The researchers also noticed that people who got more vaccine doses prior to Sept. 12, 2022 — the day the bivalent booster became available at the Cleveland Clinic — had a higher rate of testing positive in the following months than people who had gotten fewer prior vaccine doses. But the researchers didn’t find that more doses caused a higher risk of infection. Rather, this finding was an association that could be due to multiple other factors. And studies have generally found that each additional vaccine dose reduces COVID-19 risk." [emphasis added] https://www.factcheck.org/2023/06/scicheck-cleveland-clinic-study-did-not-show-vaccines-increase-covid-19-risk/ There's a much longer elaboration in the linked Fact Check report (which forum rules prevent me from quoting any more than the excerpts above) explaining why claims such as those made by the poster here are not factually supported, included not factually supported by the Cleveland Clinic study.

Yep, that's pretty much the story here... Or to put in another way, what's called GIGO -- garbage in (RFK Jr.) and garbage out (fellow anti-vaccine crackpot David Geier). The Trump Admin and its anti-public health crusade is just getting started. Stand by for much much much more of the same nonsense. It's going to be a very LONG four years coming.

Ya, that's certainly what it looked like, in terms of the manner in which they were removing stuff... Hmm...maybe not!!!

They were busy trying to scrub the construction site of relevant project documents.... until they got caught and arrested for doing so....

It seems, they (the Chinese involved) were very proud of their work.... before it collapsed in spectacular and deadly fashion: https://www.facebook.com/glange3/posts/pfbid02qeDSXcYMVDh9DVAoaYaJByhNv23RrxMWNkNZ1QjaubUMRUJT71Q1K69gWrAxp2tal "Ironically, promotional posts about Thailand's new Audit Office building are still visible online, celebrating its completion of structural work and final concrete pour. Built by the China Railway Tenth Bureau Urban Construction Company, it was hailed as Thailand’s first international-class high-rise. Now, after Friday’s earthquake, there's painful irony in those words." Link: https://news.goalfore.cn/topstories/detail/63177.html Google Translation of the Chinese text: The main structure of the new Audit Bureau office building in Thailand has been successfully capped China Railway 10th Bureau Group 2024-04-03 10:59:03 "With the last concrete poured successfully The project was built by China Railway 10th Bureau Urban Construction Company. The world's first overseas super high-rise building Thailand's new Audit Bureau office building The main structure was successfully capped Fully entered the decoration and renovation construction stage." ... After completion, it will mainly serve the National Audit Bureau of Thailand and other relevant government functional departments, and will be a business card for China Railway 10th Bureau's development in Thailand. [emphasis added] "The main building of the new Audit Bureau office building is 137 meters high, with a structural form of "core tube + beamless floor". The core tube adopts the slipform construction technology, the beamless floor adopts the lifting form installation process, and the external frame adopts the climbing frame construction process. ... Daily inspections are strengthened to urge the project to strengthen safety and quality standardization management, strictly implement local, national and industry regulations, and ensure that safety and quality control measures are in place." Short version of the above - the building was structurally COMPLETE when it collapsed. The remaining finishing and fitting work to be done had nothing to do with the structural integrity of the building. And that's a scary but important thing to understand.

AFAIK, IT also is a main contractor on the Rama II Road project, which has been plagued by a long series of problems, including collapses of parts of their elevated roadway structures there. Great team together! Five killed, 22 injured in beam collapse on Rama II Road 15 Mar 2025 At least five people were killed and 22 others injured when a concrete beam of an under-construction expressway bridge near Rama II Road in Chom Thong district of Bangkok fell early on Saturday. ... Local media quoted Exat governor Surachet Laophulsuk as saying the agency would pursue legal action against the ITD-VCB joint venture, which was awarded the third contract for the Rama III-Dao Khanong-Western Outer Ring Road expressway project. The joint venture consists of Italian-Thai Development Plc and Vijitphan Construction. ... Previous construction accidents on Rama II Road have resulted in fatalities. One of the accidents took place on Nov 29 last year when a sling broke, resulting in six deaths and eight injuries. Another accident took place on Jan 18 last year when a sling snapped, killing a worker and causing the crane’s lifting basket to fall. In May 2023, a worker was killed by a falling concrete slab. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2980458/five-killed-22-injured-in-beam-collapse-on-rama-ii-road But hey, the gravy train just keeps on rolling!

If you DON'T want to find the actual answers as to WHY, then, I'd say that's exactly the way you'd do it.

And yet the project was one commissioned by the Thai government, and the construction contract was awarded and funded by the Thai government... So presumably they have / had some oversight role in how their money was being spent and how their project (that spectacularly collapsed) was being built. At least, one would hope.... There's LOTS of possibilities, including: --substandard site prep / foundation work. --substandard building design. --substandard building materials being used. --substandard construction methods/work by the contractor. Is the Thai government really going to come to legitimate, factual conclusions on whether and how those various factors played a role in the collapse within the 7-day inquiry timeline laid out by Dep. PM Anutin? Me thinks not. Instead, at some point, there may be a government public statement offering some assessment for why the building collapsed that probably won't delve too deep into what actually may have occurred and why.

And the one involved in the Rama II expressway fiasco...

More on the above: First there was this little-reported detail re the collapsed State Audit building: "the 30-storey building slated to be the new headquarters of the State Audit Office in Chatuchak district of Bangkok. The State Audit Office contracted a consortium of Italian-Thai Development Plc and China Railway No.10 Engineering Group to construct the 2.1-billion-baht building. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2991159/7-day-deadline-for-probe-into-chinese-built-high-rise-collapse And now there is this: BMA acts against 4 Chinese for removing documents from SAO building Police to charge Chinese nationals for removing 32 documents from collapsed SAO building, Jatujak district files complaint. SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 2025 Pol Maj Gen Nopasin Poolswat, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, disclosed that on Saturday, March 29, 2025, four Chinese nationals were apprehended for illegally removing 32 files of documents from the rear of the collapsed State Audit Office (SAO) building, without permission. ... On Sunday, March 30, at 3pm, a lawyer from the Chatuchak District Office filed a complaint against the five Chinese nationals for violating the public announcement by entering the building site and removing blueprints and other documents from the collapsed SAO building. ... The four individuals were subcontractors working for a contractor under Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited. https://www.nationthailand.com/news/general/40048090 And further from the Bangkok Post on this: "Thailand's interior minister has demanded findings from a probe into the collapse of the Chinese-constructed State Audit Office building within seven days as four Chinese workers were questioned for snatching documents from the area. ... The four men had work permits and worked for a company that was a part of the consortium of Italian-Thai Development, he said. According to the deputy Bangkok police chief, the files contained various documents including information about contractors and sub-contractors. Police seized the documents and released the Chinese men after their interrogation. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2991159/7-day-deadline-for-probe-into-chinese-built-high-rise-collapse

First there was this little reported detail re the collapsed State Audit building: "the 30-storey building slated to be the new headquarters of the State Audit Office in Chatuchak district of Bangkok. The State Audit Office contracted a consortium of Italian-Thai Development Plc and China Railway No.10 Engineering Group to construct the 2.1-billion-baht building. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2991159/7-day-deadline-for-probe-into-chinese-built-high-rise-collapse And now there is this: BMA acts against 4 Chinese for removing documents from SAO building Police to charge Chinese nationals for removing 32 documents from collapsed SAO building, Jatujak district files complaint. SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 2025 Pol Maj Gen Nopasin Poolswat, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, disclosed that on Saturday, March 29, 2025, four Chinese nationals were apprehended for illegally removing 32 files of documents from the rear of the collapsed State Audit Office (SAO) building, without permission. ... On Sunday, March 30, at 3pm, a lawyer from the Chatuchak District Office filed a complaint against the five Chinese nationals for violating the public announcement by entering the building site and removing blueprints and other documents from the collapsed SAO building. ... The four individuals were subcontractors working for a contractor under Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited. https://www.nationthailand.com/news/general/40048090 And further from the Bangkok Post on this: "Thailand's interior minister has demanded findings from a probe into the collapse of the Chinese-constructed State Audit Office building within seven days as four Chinese workers were questioned for snatching documents from the area. ... The four men had work permits and worked for a company that was a part of the consortium of Italian-Thai Development, he said. According to the deputy Bangkok police chief, the files contained various documents including information about contractors and sub-contractors. Police seized the documents and released the Chinese men after their interrogation. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2991159/7-day-deadline-for-probe-into-chinese-built-high-rise-collapse There are photos of the episode circulating in Thai social media circles, such as the following:

Updates on Hospital Services in Bangkok, as of 30 March 2025 Resumed operations: --Ramathibodi Hospital --Vajira Hospital To resume service on 31 March 2025: --Siriraj Hospital --King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital & the Thai Red Cross Society (special clinics and operations still available) --Thammasat University Hospital Outpatient services suspended from 31 March to 2 April 2025 --Rajavithi Hospital https://www.facebook.com/thailandprd/posts/pfbid02zJuei2Jm6J9DeKMkPDtM1EQPAiuHWHp5oMiejJK2vTxnfE6Bq2BMrbz1b9NUg7sEl

Here's the video of Sunday night's government update re the State Audit building collapse and other EQ related issues -- first part in TH language, followed by a relentlessly rosy EN summary of the same starting at about the 19 minute time point. Stats presented re the State Audit Building collapse: --11 deaths (up 2 from the prior day), 76 persons still unaccounted for (down just 2 from the prior day). The spokeswoman said some signs of life were detected early Sunday in one area of the rubble pile. [Curiously, though, Thai PBS also on Sunday had it own report saying the State Audit building death toll had risen to 13 with the discovery of three more bodies.] https://world.thaipbs.or.th/detail/three-more-bodies-recovered-from-state-audit-office-rubble/57043 The BMA said the number of requests it had received for EQ-related building inspections had approx. doubled over the prior 24 hours, from about 6,000 as of Saturday to about 12,000 as of Sunday. But what to make of those numbers was left somewhat vague, as the EN summary said those requests involved 9,874 "cases addressed" (without explaining what that meant) involving more than 300 buildings across Bangkok. Regarding transportation, only the Pink Line monorail remained closed as of Sunday, and the update said workers elsewhere are hoping to clear debris from a fallen crane impacting an area of the Din Daeng expressway by 5 a.m. Monday morning. Regarding EQ assistance, the government said it has launched an emergency advance fund of 200 million baht to assist those who were injured and those whose accommodations were damaged, but the EN update didn't spell out the exact criteria to qualify for that aid or what the limits might be on an individual basis. The Thai PBS report linked above had the following on a related matter: "the Insurance Commission says that owners of condominium rooms or houses damaged by the earthquake on Friday can proceed with repairs, without having to be assessed by insurance companies first. They are, however, advised to take pictures of the damage first, as evidence to support compensation claims."

And Steve Kirsch is a COVID nutter! There's a reason this poster's unending stream of nonsense is typically sourced to Substack columns written by a whole grab bag of non-credible Covid nutters... Because no credible news outlet believes them as credible sources, considering their long and sad histories of spreading proven false misinformation. Here's a laundry list of various columns by a respected medical professional addressing Kirsch's repeated nonsense. https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/tag/Steve-Kirsch/ An excerpt of one of the Kirsch debunking columns linked above: "So, when someone like Steve Kirsch, an aging tech bro turned one of the most rabid and ridiculous antivaxxers I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot of antivaxxers over the last two decades), suffers a serious health problem, like a subretinal hemorrhage that causes a serious hit to his vision in one eye, unlike someone like Alexander, I don’t gloat or view it as some sort of deserved retribution. I simply wish him well strictly from the standpoint of his health, hoping that he recovers all or most of the vision in that eye, even as I don’t wish him success from the standpoint of spreading his antivaccine disinformation. [emphasis added] ... Here’s my prediction. The only way Kirsch’s analysis will be published in the “peer-reviewed literature” is if it’s in one of the most bottom-feeding crap journals in the peer-reviewed literature. There’s no way he gets it published in a reputable journal of epidemiology, vaccinology, infectious disease, or other relevant specialty. ... as an advocate of science-based medicine who has long combatted antivax misinformation, disinformation, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories, I can still keep pointing out how Kirsch, whether with blindness in one eye or with two good eyes, mangles science, medicine, epidemiology, statistics, and facts." [emphasis added] https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2024/07/27/steve-kirsch-had-a-subretinal-hemmorhage-no-it-wasnt-vaccines/ The above columns re Kirsch written by the following: DAVID H. GORSKI, MD, PhD, FACS is Professor of Surgery and Oncology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, and faculty in the WSU Graduate Program in Cancer Biology. ... Dr. Gorski first became interested in pseudoscience and “alternative” medicine around 2000, when quite by accident he wandered into the Usenet newsgroup misc.health.alternative and began critically examining the claims there. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/editorial-staff/david-h-gorski-md-phd-managing-editor/

There's supposed to be another televised EQ briefing tonight. Will be interesting to see how much change (or not) from last night's 1st full 24 hours after deaths and rescued counts. How those tallies change for the 2nd daily update may signal where the outcome of this is going.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-32485586 How long can survivors last under rubble? The UN usually decides to call off search and rescue attempts between five and seven days after a disaster, once no-one has been found alive for a day or two. However, people have been known to be rescued alive beyond this point. In May 2013 a woman was pulled from the ruins of a factory building in Bangladesh, 17 days after it collapsed. Workers heard her crying out "please save me" and used video and audio detection equipment to locate her exact position. From the World Trade Center towers collapse on 9/11: Genelle Guzman-McMillan was the last person rescued alive from the rubble of the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001, attacks, having been trapped for 27 hours. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genelle_Guzman-McMillan#:~:text=Genelle Guzman-McMillan is a,New York and New Jersey

Obviously, they're dealing with a literal mountain (30+ stories worth) of concrete and steel rubble out there. And the longer the poor souls trapped there remain trapped, and not freed, the worse their odds get for surviving, assuming any of those unaccounted for might still actually be alive. I wanna say, from past building collapses elsewhere, there have been cases where people actually were alive and rescued like a week later (but that assumed they had managed to somehow survive the original collapse and weren't crushed to death at the outset. Tonight, one rescue team member said in TH on TV that they've only been able to assess, thus far, the top 4 meters of the rubble pile, which appears a whole lot higher/deeper than that. At some point, it's going to become less of a rescue mission and more of a recovery one.

The national govt and the BMA provided an EQ briefing on TV tonight at 7 pm in TH and EN language. Sounds like they're planning another tomorrow night same time. Update on the collapsed State Audit Building as of tonight -- 9 people confirmed dead, 42 injured and rescued, and 78 still unaccounted for. BKK rail lines -- all running as of Sat EXCEPT the Pink and Yellow Lines, with those expected to have service restored by Monday. The Sat briefing didnt specifically mention the EQ damage to BKK hospitals, but reports earlier in the day talked about damage to Lerdsin, Rajivithi and I believe one other. Not sure of their operational status at present. The BMA also said there have been some 6,000 requests for inspections of buildings in BKK to assess potential EQ damage Owners who want to request an inspection were asked to call the BMA on phone 1555. Also, at least in the EN version, no mention of the roadway damage/buckling that occurred on Rama II road (the route from BKK to Hua Hin.)

I suspect the ruling junta there is just a bit preoccupied at the moment...

That's a curious restriction. In your contacts with Schwab, did you get any info on how, for their intl accounts, they would handle a situation where the accountholder has passed away, and there's no beneficiary allowed to be listed on the account?

So, were those new accounts for you and your wife Schwab International accounts reporting your Thai addresses, OR, Schwab U.S. accounts with the added restriction against being able to purchase any U.S. mutual funds?