TallGuyJohninBKK

No, it's about keeping people alive, and NOT ending up in the hospital or the morgue.

Because it's misleading to say without qualification that some particular option is the best ("generate[s] the highest level of immune response"), if you're only including a limited set of options, and excluding others that exist. The report misleadingly makes it sound like two Sinovac doses followed by a Pfizer vaccine is the best vaccination package a person can get, period -- which of course, isn't even remotely true. They did NOT say.... the two Sinovac and one Pfizer dose set generates the best immune response among the limited and somewhat inferior range of vaccine options originally available to most Thais. They simply claimed, 2S+1P is the best, which it simply isn't. Also, at least among expats and some Thais too probably, there are folks who've gone abroad to get their initial two doses of Pfizer and Moderna (because they weren't originally available in Thailand) and now are in need of boosters. So there are 2P and 2M folks about, including ones posting here.

Here's an interesting article and chart from Harvard Health that looks at the nutrition / health issues for two of the most popular brands of these kinds of products. The sodium levels are a real issue for the Impossible Burger ande Beyond Burger products. The Impossible burger products are soy based. The Beyond Burger products are pea protein based. Impossible and Beyond: How healthy are these meatless burgers? The protein content of these newer plant-based burgers has been created to compete with beef and poultry gram for gram. Both the Impossible Burger and Beyond Burger have comparable amounts, the former deriving protein mainly from soy and the later from peas and mung beans. ... Along with the ambition to replicate hamburgers comes a comparable amount of saturated fat. Since diets higher in saturated fat are associated with increased rates of both heart disease and premature death, they may not be the type to opt for if your ambitions are purely health-related. They are also a significant source of sodium, particularly for those on salt-restricted diets. The bottom line: Meatless burgers are good for the planet, but not always good for our health If you love the taste of a burger, but find the sustainability of raising cattle hard to stomach, beefless alternatives that mimic the real thing are worth a try. Producing the newer, plant-based burgers requires considerably less water and generates substantially less greenhouse gas emissions compared with traditional beef burgers. This is certainly an important consideration for the well-being of our planet, but they may not be the best option for the health of our bodies."

From their website:

The other thing medical experts would say about these kinds of government-issued reports and the news coverage of them is that while antibody levels as measured in the blood are ONE indicator of a person's resistance to a virus, they're not the only physiological factor that influences such things. There's also B cell and T cell levels and various other stuff. Suffice to say, you can't really measure how effective a vaccine or booster is in preventing infection in the real world just by measuring blood antibody levels. That's why they do the cohort studies that actually measure the shares of vaccinated people who do and don't get infected post-vaccination.

Except, their little comparison list above seems to have entirely avoided any mention of what happens when you use the Moderna vaccine as the third booster dose. And likewise, no mention of what produces the best results when people have had two initial doses of Moderna or two initial doses of Pfizer followed by a booster dose of one or the other. The comparisons they're doing are a pretty blinkered look.

By comparison, here's what you get with a single serving the Impossible Burger, 40% of recommended daily amount of saturated fat, and all the following luscious ingredients, in order as listed on the ingredients label: water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, etc etc.... https://www.walmart.com/ip/Impossible-Burger-12-oz/377356856?athbdg=L1600

Back in the home country, before I decamped to Thailand, I was at times eating so-called veggie burgers that generally didn't contain any soy or mystery ingredients as above. Instead, they were made from mixtures of regular vegan ingredients like black beans, rice, lentils, nuts and seeds, quinoa, mushrooms, carrots, etc etc. You wouldn't mistake them for actual ground beef, but they were reasonably tasty and healthful on their own. Sadly, I'm not seeing much of those kind of products here. https://thebeet.com/the-6-best-veggie-burgers-to-buy-that-are-actually-healthy/ "Everyone has a favorite plant-based burger by now, whether it's Beyond, or Impossible, or another brand, but none of these are particularly healthy, according to doctors, since they contain a variety of ingredients not grown in the ground. By contrast, the good old-fashioned veggie burger is based on whole foods like lentils, mushrooms, carrots, beets, peas, and whole grains such as quinoa and brown rice. For the most part, these veggie burgers are healthier and contain less fat and more fiber per ounce, but the beef with them is that they were not as delicious. A lot has changed and now companies have reformulated their veggie burgers to be satisfying and tasty, as well as juicy and robust, all from ingredients you could grow in your garden. We taste-tested the whole crop of healthy plant-based veggie burgers to consider which ones to buy from the lineup of those loaded with clean ingredients..." (more) One example of that genre:

It's kind of interesting... If you look at the EN homepage that CP has created for its MeatZero brand, you'll find an explanation that they acquired the technology that they're using from Japan, specifically, from a company named "Fuji Oil." Somehow, that particular knowledge I don't find especially reassuring. PLANT-TEC Innovation "It took us more than 2 years to produce the fantastic “plant-based meat” that tastes like real meat. To do this, we have conducted more than 2,000 experiments with hundreds of researchers and staff from CPF Food Research and Development Center. The team also partnered with a world-class plant-based products company called Fuji Oil from Japan. And that’s how MEAT ZERO has obtained the intellectual property right to the “Plant-Tec” innovation or “technique to make plant-based ingredients taste like meat”." https://www.meatzerobrand.com/en/

I can understand the interest in military title minutia... But to me, the more significant element of this report is -- the Thai guy out drinking/drunk got stabbed in the back four times and was killed, for pretty much nothing and no reason. "A red plastic chair was kicked and damaged by the colonel that enraged the man who would soon kill him."

Thanks for posting a link to that YT video above. For me, it answered one of the key questions I've been wondering about, and that is, yes, the BMA appears to have a plan to connect the elevated walkways section of the expanded Benjakitti Park areas with the existing elevated bike path connecting Benjakitti and Lumpini parks. The video shows the stub of the future connection off the existing elevated bike path at about the 2:23 minute point.... But it's clearly a long way from being completed. Though one issue about that, at least as things stand right now, is that the elevated walkways in the current Benjakitti Park wetlands expansion are DO NOT allow bicycles...only pedestrian traffic. So I'm not sure what value that future connection to the elevated bike path is going to have, except for walkers and runners.

Frankly, apart from the new expanded park areas there, I'm more dismayed at the state at which the BMA has left the ORIGINAL Benjakitti Park areas around the lake. That original park area right now, to me, is in worse shape than it was prior to the long drainage construction project that the BMA undertook there. And thus far, the contractors and BMA haven't really restored it to the very nice place it was before (as I tried to to illustrate with the photos I posted above). The new expansion park areas are nice, but how about fixing/restoring the original Benjakitti Park areas that you ravaged via construction.

I see see a number of different trash bin receptacles in the newly opened park area... If I'm not mistaken, even sets of them with different colored bins for different types of refuse. Whether they're enough for the park, that I couldn't say. The park expansion area to me really is divided into two entirely different types of park areas... --The original previously opened expansion area, near the main parking lot, is a mostly flat, grass and trees area where people could sit around and lounge on the grass. --The recently opened wetlands area, except for the grass Amphitheatre area, doesn't have much open grassy space and instead is varying versions of wetlands space that are more for observing and enjoying, but not really places people could sit down to lounge and enjoy a picnic.

There is a companion network of paved ground walkways that traverse the wetlands areas of the newly opened park addition. So, people have their choice of walking elevated or at ground level. Thus far, the elevated walkways appear to be more used/popular, especially for picture taking! ???? Also, the elevated walkways are not, to me, particularly narrow. They're wide enough to accommodate probably at least 4 people walking side by side together.

To be fair, the various meat replacement products do have the advantage of typically having less fat and cholesterol that red meat, and frequent consumption of red meat has been found by the medical establishment to contribute to heart disease and various other maladies. However, it seems that a common feature of many of the various meat replacement products (apart from the soy and wheat potential allergy issues) is an abundance of SALT, which can contribute to high blood pressure and other problems. So, pick your risk.... "THURSDAY, June 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- More and more Americans are seeking out healthier, greener and more ethical alternatives to meat, but are plant-based alternatives like the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat truly nutritious substitutes? The answer is yes, according to new research funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. It found the imitation meats to be a good source of fiber, folate and iron while containing less saturated fat than ground beef. But the researchers said they also have less protein, zinc and vitamin B12 — and lots of salt. ... For example, if you're limiting sodium to control high blood pressure, steer clear of products that are high in salt, Harnack said. "If you're watching saturated fat intake for heart health, read the label to make sure you're choosing a product that is low in saturated fat," she said. "A few products contain as much or nearly as much saturated fat as ground beef." https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20210617/how-healthy-are-the-new-plant-based-fake-meats#1

WOW! That really is one of the original movie posters for the film "Soylent Green," which I saw and enjoyed many years ago as a "yoot".... But had no recollection, when I mentioned it above, that the movie was foretelling a future 2022. Happy New Year!!! See the Washington Post's exploration of this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/01/09/soylent-green-2022-predictions/ "The general public is forced to live off products from the Soylent corporation, whose wares contain “high-energy vegetable concentrate” — and are dismissed by one elderly customer as “tasteless, odorless crud.” Its latest artificial meal is Soylent Green, a “miracle food of high-energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world.” It proves popular enough to be rationed to a single day of sale per week, but as Thorn discovers, it’s not what it seems to be." -------------------------- "Det. Thorn: You tell everybody. Listen to me Hatcher! You've gotta tell 'em! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! We gotta stop them! Somehow! Note: the bolded line is ranked #77 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

Ha! I too was wondering what the heck that term is supposed to mean.... Don't think I've ever seen that one before.... I always get a bit nervous at eating something with ingredients that I don't know and don't understand.

Well, it is the AFRICAN Swine Fever, not the THAI Swine Fever.... ????

The ones they're ordering, at least initially, appear to be the nasal type ones that have been shown to be late/slow in detecting Omicron infections -- regardless of what country they've been manufactured in. See Danderman123's post and link above to the pertinent Reuters news report on the issue of Omicron and nasal vs saliva-based ATK kits.

And as I discovered today, this whole area shown below in light blue along the north edge of the park between the Soi 4 and Soi 10 intersections is currently under construction and more or less impassable, unless you want to hike over dirt piles and construction debris. And the adjoining brown colored area designated as a future Sports Building remains, for now, just the shells of several old Tobacco Monopoly buildings.

Some views today of the state of the original Benjakitti Park area, after the apparent completion of a long drainage-related reconstruction project there that had parts of the original park closed for many months, while work was ongoing across the road on the adjoining new park expansion areas. The lake boats are gone: The bicycle rental shop is gone (since currently no bicycle riding is allowed on the former bike track around the lake): The former wooden decking along most of the western edge of the lake is gone and been replaced by ugly and apparently unfinished concrete surfaces, with the former lakeside areas closed off to the public, and the former benches there left in decay. The former street enclave of old Thai style wooden houses and retail shops between the north edge of the park and the adjoining khlong near the Soi 10 entrance have been removed/demolished, and that area adjoining the parking entrance off Ratchadaphisek Road is supposed to become some kind of nature area. And as usual, after the private contractors finished all their construction work that had areas of the original park closed for many months, they took great care to put everything back to rights ???? But at least, they did manage to take care of a couple of the essentials: Yet despite all of the above, it remains a pretty nice place to walk and/or jog around the lake and the original park area:

And further, from Reuters today: U.S. reports 1.35 million COVID-19 cases in a day, shattering global record January 11, 2022 Jan 11 (Reuters) – The United States reported 1.35 million new coronavirus infections on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, the highest daily total for any country in the world as the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant showed no signs of slowing. The previous record was 1.03 million cases on Jan. 3. A large number of cases are reported each Monday due to many states not reporting over the weekend. The seven-day average for new cases has tripled in two weeks to over 700,000 new infections a day. The record in new cases came the same day as the nation saw the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients also hit an all-time high, having doubled in three weeks, according to a Reuters tally. (more) https://www.thaipbsworld.com/u-s-reports-1-35-million-covid-19-cases-in-a-day-shattering-global-record/ And for all the Omicron "it's just the flu" folks posting here, note the last paragraph of the article excerpt above: "The record in new cases came the same day as the nation saw the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients also hit an all-time high, having doubled in three weeks, according to a Reuters tally." In the U.S., they're not putting/admitting COVID patients into hospital just because they've tested positive and are asymptomatic.

From yesterday: https://coconuts.co/bangkok/news/thailand-denies-hiding-african-swine-flu-as-pork-prices-skyrocket/ Thailand denies hiding African swine flu as pork prices skyrocket ... "Government spokesperson Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana yesterday rejected opposition claims that the disease – harmless to humans but fatal to pigs – is being kept secret after the pork supply fell by nearly a third. ... Some livestock and veterinary experts have speculated that the African swine flu is responsible for the pork supply issues. However, agricultural authorities last week repeatedly denied swine flu was to blame, saying many pigs were killed by another disease, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome."

"People could buy ATKs via www.gpoplanet.com or at GPO’s drug stores, he said. (TNA)" And going to the gpoplanet.com website right now, you'll get the following: http://www.gpoplanet.com/en

Pretty sure we had the Thai government spokesman claiming, in news reports posted here just in the past couple days, that the rumors of an ASF outbreak in Thailand were unfounded. How's that old ditty go.... ".................., pants on fire!" ????