TallGuyJohninBKK

Go to Republican source for biased polling: "Rasmussen Reports /ˈræsˌmʌsən/[4] is an American conservative polling company founded in 2003." "After Trump lost the election, he and his allies made false and disproven claims of fraud and attempted to overturn the results, with Rasmussen itself suggesting that Vice President Mike Pence should overturn the election results." "Rasmussen has received criticism over the wording in its polls.[104][105] Asking a polling question with different wording can affect the results of the poll;[106] the commentators in question allege that the questions Rasmussen ask in polls are skewed in order to favor a specific response." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmussen_Reports

That would, appropriately, be the U.S. attorney and the Justice Department -- not political revenge seeking Republicans in the House.

“This Republican obsession with Hunter Biden is a Fox News talking point,” said a Democratic aide who works on investigations and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. “Unlike former president Trump and his family, who used their senior White House positions to advance their own financial interests — and whom Republicans have blindly defended — Hunter Biden is a private citizen who is not a member of the administration. Republicans’ hypocrisy is not lost on the American people.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/16/afghanistan-hunter-biden-gop-readies-its-investigations/

And the same survey also noted: "Today some studies on the effect of circumcision on sexual function are available. However they vary widely in outcome."

FWIW: "The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines state that the health benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks, but these benefits are not enough to recommend universal newborn circumcision. Therefore, it is the guardians’ decision to circumcise their son." AND "An estimated 58.3% of male newborns and 80.5% of males aged 14-59 years in the United States are circumcised [3,4]. ... Male newborns who undergo circumcision benefit from significant reductions in the risk of urinary tract infections in the first year of life and penile cancer and risk of transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections later in life. The task force found that the benefits of circumcision were enough to justify access to all families and warrant third-party payment [1,5,6]. However, the AAP found that the health benefits were not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all male newborns and that circumcision remains at the discretion of the guardian." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8654051/

Thai nursery: CNN journalists apologise for entering site of deadly attack Two journalists from US news outlet CNN have apologised for their coverage of last week's attack on a childcare centre in Thailand that left 37 people, including 23 children, dead. They entered the building where the attack occurred and filmed on site. They were accused of trespassing and filming a crime scene without permission. Both of them were later cleared of the charges, but fined for working as journalists while on tourist visas. (more) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63196932 ---------------------------- A convenient local kerfuffle to deflect attention from the individual responsible for this terrible massacre and how it occurred, which should be everyone's main focus of attention so more of the same doesn't occur in the future. Not to mention, all the institutional wrongs, chiefly by the police, that allowed that responsible individual for years to escape the consequences of his prior wrongdoing. That said, yes, the CNN crew were wrong to have been working as journalists in Thailand on tourist visas instead of the normal news media visa, a requirement that should have been well-known to their organization. As for reporting on a massacre or a mass deaths situation, that's something that journalists sadly have to do all too often these days. And it's always a balancing act between needing to report the story accurately and fairly to the public (which is their job), without crossing the line of going too far, which can be a hard balance to strike in these kinds of situations. I'm not hearing the Thais complaining that the CNN crew's actual reporting was bad, but instead, the more bureacratic issues of their visa status and whether they had or hadn't been given permission to film where they did. From the above BBC report on that: "CNN has issued two statements. In the first response, it said their crew were told by three public health officials that they could film inside. They said the premises had been cordoned off while they were inside, and they needed to climb over the fence to leave. Police later found that village health volunteers had granted the team entry despite having no authority to do so, according to local news outlet The Nation." The above BBC report also says CNN has stopped broadcasting the report at issue and removed the video from its website.

So does he mean.... unlike all the prior supposed crackdowns when their big pronouncements were really just for show, and their real institutional corruption and misdeeds continued unchecked -- save for a few transfers to inactive posts here and there....

So you're saying, they no longer have all the tables at the entrance to the Immigration building where people had long been required to fill out a COVID questionnaire before entering? They were still doing that in late September when I was last there.

FWIW, refreshingly, I don't recall any Thai gogo bars or bar girls surfacing in any shape or form in this particular episode. There was a relatively brief segment during the opening part of the episode that had a street scene in Bangkok where the L.A. and Thai police were training together (no bars or girls). And then most of the rest of the Thailand portions of the episode were out in the boonies.

The drug kingpin character on the episode, Zaw Min, is played by actor Nay Myo Thant. I'm not sure exactly who that actor is... except.... one of the founders of the Thai rap group Thaitanium has the same name, so I'm wondering if it might not be the same person. Here's a YT clip of that part of the show, with the Zaw Min character showing up at about the 2 minute, 30 second mark of this clip:

Here's a teaser video on the episode and the actors/production staff talking about filming in Thailand: https://www.tvinsider.com/1063811/swat-season-6-premiere-shemar-moore-cast-filming-thailand-preview/

The other night on U.S. TV network CBS, one of their popular primetime drama series called "SWAT" -- about a police Special Weapons and Tactics team based in Los Angeles -- had its Season 6 premier.... And to my surprise, it happened to be filmed and set largely in Thailand (scenes in Bangkok and then somewhere in the North AFAICT), and included a lot of supporting Thai actors and one with a Myanmar type name. The episode is called "Thai Hard" and involves the head of the SWAT team (actor Shemar Moore) getting captured along with an ex-military buddy while on a police training trip to Thailand by a Myanmar drug kingpin. From the way the episode ended, it looks like the next week's episode #2 and maybe more likely also will be set in Thailand. -- which is something of a rarity for U.S. primetime TV series. Here's a list of some of the Thai actors who got guest credits on the episode: Pasakorn Hoyhon - Thet Nay Myo Thant - Zaw Min Kanticha Chumma - Chintana Nut Devahastin - Somchai Pattarasuda Anuman - May Sahajak Boonthanakit - Commander Niran https://swatcbs.fandom.com/wiki/Thai_Hard https://www.tvinsider.com/gallery/swat-season-6-premiere-photos-thai-hard/#11 A couple of things that struck me as being peculiar/funny about the episode.... though perhaps to be expected. --All the Asian characters guesting on the show -- including a Thai police SWAT commander and two younger officers under him, spoke excellent English, as did the Myanmar drug kingpin character out in the Thai-Myanmar border boonies... How often do you run into real Thai police here who speak English like natives (yes, I'm sure there are "some", somewhere)? --The Thai SWAT team commander talks early in the show about planning to come to Los Angeles soon because, he says, his older daughter will soon graduate from the private and pricey Pepperdine University in Malibu... And the school's website says its total annual expenses undergrad students should expect are between $70,000 and $85,000.... Perhaps the Thai SWAT commander character is just one of those "unusually wealthy" civil servant types... And then there's the younger female Thai SWAT officer who seems to have been assigned as a kind of local tour guide for the Los Angeles SWAT officers while in BKK. Her character, in perfect English, talks about having liked to read Sherlock Holmes stories when she was younger.... Dunno, but is Sherlock Holmes popular reading about the Thai female police officer corps??? Anyway, it was fun to see Thailand and Thai actors get some time/exposure on a U.S. network primetime TV series.... and not as hookers or exploited immigrant laborers....

My FB account log-in is set to just accept my email address as ID and then a good strong password for password. No two factor authentication. Works just fine all the time. I'm careful about my FB password, don't share it with anyone, and don't use the same PW for FB that I use anywhere else. Also, I don't have or do anything on my FB account that would be particularly sensitive or private information. PS - It helps to use a password manager like Last Pass or BitWarden as a browser extension, which will save and keep all your different passwords... locked behind a master password that only you should know... That way, you can have and use DIFFERENT passwords for your various accounts, without having to mentally remember them all, and/or, write them down on a cheat sheet somewhere that someone else might gain access to.

And, eerily similar to a prior episode about five years ago involving the Mae Hong Son child prostitution ring run by a policeman and having local government officials as clients. https://www.nationthailand.com/breaking-news/30315017 According to local news reports, about 8 people including the policeman were finally sentenced to long prison terms in 2018.

And this hard on the heels of the news report out of Pattaya this week of police there busting an under-age prostitution operation in a bar involving 12 to 16 year old girls.

Not sure what you're referring to. The forum did reorganize things recently, and the locations and links for some subforums did get moved around... But there's still an active COVID topics subforum here, at the following link: https://aseannow.com/forum/245-covid-19-coronavirus/ And of course, related topics also show up in the World News and Thailand News sections as warranted:

It's a VERY rare side effect of vaccination, usually only mild and short-term in duration, and when it does occur, usually is in teens and early 20s... Not an issue for older folks at all.... And beyond all that, myocarditis, not necessarily mild and short term, is far more common from COVID itself than from vaccinations.

Research examines which children were most severely sickened by COVID-19 and finds vaccinations were significantly protective Oct. 7, 2022 ANAHEIM, CA-Children with a pre-existing illness were at highest risk of severe illness or death due to a COVID-19 infection, but those who were vaccinated had a significantly higher level of protection, according to research presented during the 2022 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition. The abstract, “Identifying Risk Factors for Severe Clinical Outcomes in Pediatric COVID-19 Patients In a National Electronic Health Record Repository,” examined the effect of vaccination, clinical and demographic factors on severe outcomes in children with COVID-19¬ from March 12, 2020, through January 20, 2022. ... The research found that, across all age groups, presence of pre-existing illness and residence in the Census-defined South region were most often associated with severe outcomes (including hospitalization, ICU admission, use of inpatient respiratory support, and death). In eligible age groups, vaccination was significantly associated with less severe outcomes. Infants had more severe illness than older children, the author found." (more) https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/966487 Also: "Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas analyzed the electronic health records of US COVID-19 patients aged 0 to 18 years from Mar 12, 2020, to Jan 20, 2022. Of 218,759 pediatric COVID-19 patients, 8,717 (4.0%) were hospitalized, admitted to an intensive care unit, needed ventilation, or died. The strongest risk factor for a severe outcome was a preexisting illness (odds ratios [ORs], 2.27, 4.21, and 5.33 for ages 0 to 2, 3 to 10, and 11 to 18 years, respectively). The OR of severe disease among recipients of at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose relative to no vaccination was 0.55 in the vaccine-eligible group, indicating 45% effectiveness." https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/10/news-scan-oct-07-2022

From the above cited MedPage article: "The agency must redact confidential business and trade secret information from Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as any private information on patients in the clinical trial. In its proposal for a 55-year timeline, the FDA noted that the branch that would handle the request has only 10 employees, and is currently processing around 400 other FOIA requests." AND "Zach Zalewski, PhD, JD, a regulatory strategy consultant at Avalere Health, said that many of the documents that will be released were submitted to the FDA up through the vaccine's emergency use authorization and full approval, and may not be material to an overall analysis of the vaccine's safety and efficacy. The FDA already published a drug approval package for Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, which consists of summaries of the FDA-reviewed data." Perhaps Republicans in Congress might want to think about putting up some additional funding and staff positions so the FDA can timely meet the demands that it's facing in a time of COVID.

No, it wasn't the CDC and it wasn't the Supreme Court. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/97544 FDA Begins Releasing Pfizer COVID Vax Documents Court-ordered release runs risk of "cherry picking and taking things out of context" March 7, 2022 "The FDA turned over thousands of documents related to its review of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine last week, marking the first of several releases mandated by a court in Texas earlier this year. The agency released 55,000 pages of COVID-19 vaccine review documents last Tuesday, following a loss in court months earlier that forced it to expedite its process to make the information available to the public. In a January court order, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas required the FDA to release around 12,000 documents immediately, and then 55,000 pages a month until all documents are released -- totaling more than 300,000 pages." https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/97544

The U.S. CDC says, officially, that nearly 1,500 U.S. youngsters (age 0-18) have died from COVID during the pandemic.... 1,484 to use their exact number. I'm guessing their parents and others would very much have wished they weren't among the victims of COVID.... Provisional COVID-19 deaths by age group, by sex https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Deaths-by-Sex-Ages-0-18-years/xa4b-4pzv

Less than 50 payments made for adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines September 18, 2022 ... Government Services Minister Bill Shorten seized upon the figures to criticise “fringe operators who spread misinformation” about COVID vaccines. As of September 7, Services Australia had paid just 46 claims under the vaccine claims scheme. This represents just 1.6 per cent of the 2833 claims received, or 0.00007 per cent of the vaccines administered in Australia. (more) https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/less-than-50-payments-made-for-adverse-reactions-to-covid-19-vaccines-20220915-p5bigu.html

And the other detail you could have added more clearly are the listed ages of the various supposed bar girls listed on the police chart: 16, 15, 14, 15, 15, 15, 15, 12

I've lived in Thailand a long time... I thought the above WAS an "English Breakfast"! ???? Especially the reconstituted ham part.... Mmmmmm.......

An update from the U.S. FDA regarding issues for Evusheld's lessened effectiveness against a newer, emerging COVID variant: October 04, 2022 FDA: Evusheld may lack efficacy against upcoming COVID-19 subvariants Evusheld demonstrates reduced protection against the omicron subvariant BA.4.6, resulting in an increased risk for infection in those exposed to that COVID-19 strain, according to an updated FDA fact sheet. ... Specifically, the fact sheet references the omicron subvariant BA.4.6, which, according to the FDA, has shown greater than 1,000-fold reduction in susceptibility to tixagevimab/cilgavimab, which is authorized for emergency use for pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 ... “Use of Evusheld is not a substitute for COVID-19 vaccination, and individuals for whom COVID-19 vaccination is recommended should get vaccinated,” the FDA statement said." https://www.healio.com/news/rheumatology/20221004/fda-evusheld-may-lack-efficacy-against-upcoming-covid19-subvariants