TallGuyJohninBKK

One of my longtime go-to sources for BKK bus route info is the following website: https://www.transitbangkok.com/bangkok_buses.html But the website doesn't appear to be regularly updated, and I see no sign that they've incorporated any of these recent numbering changes. https://www.transitbangkok.com/lines/bangkok-bus-line/150 And the BMTA's current website, at least in English, appears to NOT show either a 150 or a 115 line: http://www.bmta.co.th/en/bus-lines?page=1

The source BKK Post report explains that some routes will have the "E" letter added to designate "express" routes. No mention in their report of what a "B" letter is supposed to designate.... Bull****???

What a bunch of nonsense from these bureaucrats... Even if their re-numbering scheme was a good idea (which is up for debate), there's no debate that they've utterly failed to meaningfully give the public clear advance notice of these changes. It's already hard enough to use the bus system in Bangkok, with routes that often follow no logical path or necessarily travel the length of major streets without diverting off in various places. But now they're making the route numbering system even more unfamiliar and complicated. As an example, there was this additional clarification of how their renumbering scheme is supposed to work with what was originally bus route #150: The route number first was gonna be changed to #1-15. And now it's going to be changed to a double route number of 115 (150) [with the first number reflecting the new route number and the second number reflecting the old/original route number]. Perfectly clear now??? Yeesh!!!!

Regarding the local aspect here with Nok.... According to the wiki page for Nok Air, their fleet as of December 2023 did NOT include any of the MAX aircraft -- only 737-800s, which is an older, prior version of the 737 family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nok_Air#Current_fleet The OP article here says air carrier has plans to acquire Max 8s, but not for delivery until 2025.

Seems as though they're talking about the empty parking lot that sits in front of / alongside Central Chidlom... I always had just assumed Central owned it, but wondered why it remained a vacant and mostly unused parking lot for many years... I guess the OP article explains why, since Central didn't actually own the parcel until now.

Best I can say is many thousands of Americans here in those kinds of situations. Apart from government/military pensions, Social Security alone is a standard retirement benefit for most older Americans. Data from a 2019 news report re Thai retirement extensions, which wouldn't count older Americans here on marriage visas/extensions: A 12% U.S. share back then of almost 80,000 retirement visas/extensions in 2018 would have been almost 10,000 Americans. Broader data from a 2018 Immigration report:

"Senator Jon Tester told CNN on April 24 [2018] that Jackson was known as "the candy man" at the White House, according to around 20 people who brought these concerns to the Veterans' Affairs Senate Committee, because he allegedly handed out Ambien, Provigil, and other prescription drugs "like they were candy".[36][37]" https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/24/politics/tester-va-ronny-jackson/index.html

Lots of Americans in Thailand who are on government and/or military pensions and/or receiving U.S. Social Security payments. Can't speak to the terms of other countries' DTAs with Thailand.

Physician to the President In office July 25, 2013 – March 28, 2018 President Barack Obama Donald Trump Worth mentioning that the former Trump (and prior Obama) White House physician mentioned above (Ronny Jackson) has gone on to become a Trumpy right-wing, 2020 election denying Republican congressman from Texas since January 2021. Re the prior 2021 IG report: Rep. Ronny Jackson made sexual comments, drank alcohol and took Ambien while working as White House physician, Pentagon watchdog finds March 3, 2021 (CNN) — The Department of Defense inspector general has issued a scathing review of Rep. Ronny Jackson during his time serving as the top White House physician, concluding that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy for drinking alcohol while on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted concerns from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper care. ... Trump re-nominated Jackson to receive a second star – a bump in his military rank – in February 2019, though that promotion was not approved by the Senate. This came less than a year after Jackson withdrew from consideration as Trump’s nominee for secretary of Veterans Affairs over allegations that he was “abusive” toward colleagues, loosely handled prescription pain medications and was periodically intoxicated." https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/politics/ronny-jackson-dod-inspector-general-report/index.html Re election denying: "Jackson attended the January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally at the White House Ellipse.[57] During the January 6 attack, he was inside the Capitol when members of the Oath Keepers militia allegedly exchanged text messages about protecting Jackson who had "critical data." ... Later on January 6, 2021, during the certification of the 2020 election, Jackson objected to certifying Arizona's and Pennsylvania's electoral votes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronny_Jackson#Tenure

I think the prior poster's comments were correct in terms of what is possible. For example, in my case, I've had a standing 800K retirement extension account in a Thai bank for many years, long prior to the current debacle. Never withdraw any funds from it, have never added any funds to it. It's a static, pre-existing account balance that's not going to be subject to the new rules. And then, for my living expense, I draw funds monthly from abroad that all are my government pension, which is exempt from Thai taxation under the US-Thai double taxation treaty. Thus, as long as I continue in that framework, I should not have any Thai tax obligation from the new regime... And that's without even getting into the ability to draw down on pre 2024 accrued savings that also would be exempt from the new tax rules.

So from that Thai article, translated by Google, the cases seem to involve Don Mueang Airport and at least one immigration officer there, who according to the translation got a end result sentence of; "According to Section 78 of the Criminal Code, imprisonment for each count will be 3 years and 4 months, a total of 14 counts, for a total of 42 years and 56 months in prison." That seems to be just one example among multiple defendants but not clear from the article the identity of all the defendants involved. "which reported the results of the legal action against the police and 15 people." "And this is considered an example case. The former commander of the Immigration Bureau "Big Joke" has taken strict action against all officials who neglect to perform their duties by demanding benefits. And there are still many cases in progress where immigration officials neglect to perform their duties, especially cases where illegal foundations are being used to certify extension of stay."

You're hardly alone in facing that kind of quandary... and no clear guidance at present that I'm aware of on how to handle those kinds of situations. All I can say is, one thing I'm doing now is keeping a documents snapshot of all my home country financial account balances as of 12-31-23... so I'll have clear future evidence of just how much accrued savings I had on hand prior to the start of the new Thai taxation rules.

As I previously posted in response to the Belgium advice: 2. the advice above doesn't reflect the recent clarification by the RD that income saved prior to Jan. 1 2024 is not going to be subject to Thai taxation under this new regime, no matter when it's brought into Thailand. "On 20 November 2023, the Revenue Department issued Departmental Instruction no. Paw.162 ("DI Paw. 162"), which provides further guidance that the interpretation under the Departmental Instruction Paw.161/2566 ("DI Paw.161") shall not apply to any foreign-sourced income earned by Thai tax residents before 1 January 2024. By virtue of this DI Paw. 162, Thai tax residents will not be required to include their foreign-sourced income earned before 1 January 2024 in their personal income tax returns, even if such income will be brought into Thailand from 1 January 2024 onwards." https://www.mazars.co.th/Home/Insights/Doing-Business-in-Thailand/Tax/Further-guidance-on-Foreign-Sourced-Income

Not necessarily... In the Thai treaty with the U.S., for example, certain kinds of U.S. source income are flatly excluded from Thai taxation in their entirety, including government pensions and Social Security. In those instances, doesn't matter at all what the relative tax rates might be between Thailand and the U.S. for those sources.

From Katie Phang of MSNBC earlier this month on a prior Trump claim:

Maybe we can get an opinion from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the recusal issue for judges, assuming there's any truth to the claim in the Post article: Justice Thomas Ruled on Election Cases. Should His Wife’s Texts Have Stopped Him? The nature of the text messages was enough to require recusal, legal experts said. But the Supreme Court has traditionally left such decisions to the discretion of the justice in question. https://web.archive.org/web/20220326000031/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/us/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-recusal.html

That reporting was at the time of the civil verdict in May 2023. And then the judge in the case later, in August 2023, ruling on a motion by Trump's attorneys, added the following legal context: "Dismissing the counterclaim, a judge in New York, Lewis A Kaplan, said that when Carroll repeated her allegation that Trump raped her, her words were “substantially true”. Kaplan also set out in detail why it may be said that Trump raped Carroll." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/donald-trump-rape-language-e-jean-carroll

Contrary to your claim above, I don't see anything in your cited report saying Carroll or her attorneys or her civil case had anything to do with the passage of the law. Hoffman isn't even mentioned by name in the article. Though it's clear that passage of the law was helpful to Carroll's ability to file a new civil case. "Within hours of the law going into effect in late November, Carroll filed a battery and defamation civil suit against Trump. (She filed a separate defamation suit in 2019 that has been postponed.)"

While correct in the most general sense, that above is still a pretty gross oversimplification of what's likely to be the case, because: 1. the RD hasn't really clarified yet how this new tax regime is going to work in all its details, and 2. the advice above doesn't reflect the recent clarification by the RD that income saved prior to Jan. 1 2024 is not going to be subject to Thai taxation under this new regime, no matter when it's brought into Thailand, and 3. the above advice fails to recognize that many western countries have double taxation treaties with Thailand that, in many cases, limit or entirely exclude from Thai taxation certain kinds of income/revenues earned by those nationalities, and 4. Holders of the Thai LTR visas are exempt from this entire tax scheme, etc etc. Lots of details that come into play here.

Judge in E. Jean Carroll Case: Yes, Donald Trump Is a Rapist "Trump’s team had requested a new trial in the case, arguing that the $5 million in damages he was ordered to pay Carroll was excessive, because he was only charged with sexual abuse. The jury had not found that Trump “raped” Carroll, a talking point Trump’s team often parroted. But Judge Lewis Kaplan called Trump’s semantic argument “entirely unpersuasive.” He clarified that the jury found that the former president did indeed “rape” Carroll based on the common definition of the word." https://newrepublic.com/post/174448/judge-e-jean-carroll-case-yes-donald-trump-rapist Judge says E Jean Carroll allegation Trump raped her is ‘substantially true’ in court dismissal Ex-president claimed that writer defamed him when saying he raped her, but judge said term is commonly ‘used and understood’ in context "Dismissing the counterclaim, a judge in New York, Lewis A Kaplan, said that when Carroll repeated her allegation that Trump raped her, her words were “substantially true”. Kaplan also set out in detail why it may be said that Trump raped Carroll." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/donald-trump-rape-language-e-jean-carroll

Ahh, Rasmussen, the king of right-wing leaning, robo-call polling: Pollster: Rasmussen Research has a pro-GOP bias https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/405965-pollster-rasmussen-research-has-a-pro-gop-bias/ Why the ‘stunning’ poll being pushed by Republicans isn’t that stunning August 19, 2021 "Let’s start with the pollster: Rasmussen Research. CNN doesn’t report results from Rasmussen because they conduct automated polls incorporating interactive voice response (IVR) that don’t meet our polling standards. (IVR just means an automated voice conducts the poll rather than a human being.)" https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/19/politics/rasmussen-poll-donald-trump-joe-biden-2020/index.html The Rasmussen Difference In addition to being the nation's most prolific pollster, Rasmussen gets a lot of attention, especially from conservative media outlets and pundits, because its polls consistently produce results more favorable to Republican candidates than the overall averages https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-rasmussen-difference_b_2030330

For starters, nothing in the above cited case has proved there was any actual voter machine tampering that occurred in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election -- contrary to Trump and his right wing media's repeated Big Lie claims, for which they have begun paying dearly. And then, if you read the entire article you linked above, you'd see that a significant reason for the POTENTIAL vulnerabilities to the Georgia election system is because of the illegal physical incursion and data copying/stealing that occurred there at a county elections office by Trump's local allies (now the subject of criminal charges), as the article recounts: The Trump angle "As the voting machine case has unfolded, one of the plaintiffs, the Coalition for Good Governance, uncovered efforts by Trump allies in early 2021–right after the hotly contested presidential election–to download the Georgia voting system’s software and other data from rural Coffee County’s elections office. The software and other information remains in the hands of an unknown number of persons, which elevates the risk of hacks to Georgia’s system, plaintiffs’ experts testified this week. ... That incursion was likely “the largest elections systems breach in U.S. history,” said plaintiffs’ witness Kevin Skoglund, the president of Citizens for Better Elections, in court this week. Skoglund, who serves on a cybersecurity advisory group to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, testified that Georgia’s Dominion elections software was now “spread out around the country” in the hands of “close to a dozen people.” https://atlantaciviccircle.org/2024/01/25/state-doesnt-understand-the-technology-plaintiffs-rest-their-case-in-trial-over-georgias-voting-machines/ As for the paying dearly part: Fox, Dominion reach $787M settlement over election claims April 19, 2023 WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Fox News agreed Tuesday to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election. ... Outside of the $787.5 million promised to Colorado-based Dominion, it was unclear what other consequences Fox would face. Fox acknowledged in a statement “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” but no apology was offered. ... Coupled with other lawsuits in the pipeline, the agreement shows there is a real financial risk for conservative media that traffic in conspiracy theories. https://apnews.com/article/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trial-trump-2020-0ac71f75acfacc52ea80b3e747fb0afe

The GOAT of NFL QBs, also known as Patrick Mahomes, will be playing for the Chiefs in the Super Bowl! :-) And I say that as a 49ers fan....

And that's pretty much in name only, considering that the team relocated out of San Francisco and built a new stadium some years back an hour or so south in the suburb of Santa Clara.

1. MD, any update on how your alternate setup above is or isn't working since your prior post on this? 2. Anyone else with a 3BB fiber setup manage to replicate MD's experience with this?