TallGuyJohninBKK

Indeed, it's a whole different story if the scenario is a Thai WIFE and a U.S. HUSBAND living in Thailand. Assuming they've been married together for some years and the U.S. husband has a long-term history of living in Thailand, the U.S. Consulate folks seem to be much more accommodating in granting the wives tourist visas for short-term travel to the U.S. with their U.S. husbands. GFs, on the other hand, are a whole different matter, as has been explained above. Unless they're one of the "don't you know who I am" crowd. ????

I think they specialized in "undercover" assignments.... as in.... so undercover that you'd never actually see or find them! ????

Here's a good illustration of what Hotez has been fighting against, and what the anti-vaxers managed to accomplish in the U.S. -- hundreds of thousands of needlessly dead Americans. Vaccines Could Have Prevented At Least 318,000 Deaths, Study Suggests "A minimum of 318,000 Covid-19 related deaths spanning from January 2021 to April 2022 would have been avoided with readily available vaccines, based on research spearheaded by Brown University and Microsoft AI Health, suggesting vaccine skepticism or lack of vaccine availability led to preventable fatalities. If states had maintained the momentum of their peak vaccine demand, the 641,000 deaths that came after vaccines were available could’ve been slashed by over half." https://www.forbes.com/sites/kaliedrago/2022/05/13/vaccines-could-have-prevented-at-least-318000-deaths-study-suggests/ "Many of the nearly 1 million COVID deaths took place in 2020 before the vaccines were available. But of the more than 641,000 people who died after vaccines were available, half of those deaths could have been averted – 318,981 – had every eligible adult gotten vaccinated." And look at the political leanings in the darker colored states in the graphic below that had the highest rates of COVID deaths that could have been prevented by full vaccination: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/13/1098071284/this-is-how-many-lives-could-have-been-saved-with-covid-vaccinations-in-each-sta Lots of Republican controlled states with sizable anti-vax constituencies -- Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, and others on the list.

Agreed... But you only have to worry about ones who are pushing suitcases that have dismembered body parts inside! ????

Wow... with an expert like that, you've certainly won me over... "Preface This work is based on research done during my tenure as a Cropwood Short Term Fellow at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge during the winter of 1970-71." He's really up to date on his stuff! All those charts and tables topping out in the late 1960s were quite enlightening for today's world.

Fauci and Hotez have become favorite targets of the far-right and now overlapping anti-vax groups because they stood up for protecting the health of Americans during the COVID pandemic, and helped push forward COVID vaccines that have saved many millions of lives. The award cited above is from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a community of 12,000+ physicians, scientists & public health experts who specialize in the field and were on the front lines of the medical fight against COVID... They're the experts in the field, and they well knew who was deserving of the award for standing up against COVID misinformation peddlers and anti-science political bullying.

If folks look at the 2020-2023 AQI graphic I posted above for BKK, they'll see that for last couple years, October was really the month that the number of "good" air quality days for the month began declining markedly, giving way to more "moderate" and "unhealthy for sensitive" folks days... And that continuing thru the end of the year... And then in 2020, 2021 and 2023, the early months of the new year, January through March, got even worse, with a lot of red unhealthy and dark orange day readings.

Here's a good website from the U.S. EPA that easily converts from AQI to particles or from particles to AQI. https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-calculator-concentration/ Your level right now is in the mid-range for "moderate" / yellow pollution -- not as good as good "green," but not yet as bad as orange "unhealthy for sensitive" folks... But don't worry, your time will be coming soon! This is BKK after all. ????

I think a lot of the pollution back in the pre-Skytrain days in Bangkok had to do with diesel vehicle pollution, whereas these days it's more of a seasonal thing related to agricultural burning. I well remember lots of originally white exterior buildings around BKK having their surfaces turned black by the pollution at the time.

1. Lately has been the off/rainy season for smog in Thailand, so levels have been comparatively low... Wait till Dec., Jan. and onward arrive. It also depends on whether the up to 50 value you're mentioning is actually an AQI reading that you call it, or is instead a 50 reading of micrograms per cubic meter of PM2.5 pollution, which is probably a more common reading used by more air purifiers, since AQI standards can and do vary some by country. But either way, your lungs will be begging for your air purifier by the end of the year and into next year if you're still in central Bangkok then. Here's the various AQI readings for Bangkok as of Sunday night -- almost all of them well above the 50 AQI level: http://aqicn.org/station/bangkok And, here's what Bangkok's pollution levels by AQI have looked like over the past several years by month, with the red levels being unhealthy, the orange levels being unhealthy for sensitive groups, the yellow moderate, and the green good.

The latter are exempt!

1. Hope the accuser has already decamped to outside of Thailand, for his own safety and well-being. And I see that he has.... 2. This episode is yet another reminder that Thailand doesn't have a functional, widely used escrow system for would-be buyer's funds, to ensure that the funds only go to the developer when project milestones have actually been completed. With all the years of countless property scamming under the bridge here, I can only come to one conclusion as to why the circumstances remain as they are... and that's that the authorities in power want it that way.

I thought the question here was about NEWS sources, not propaganda sources: Newsmax "We rate Newsmax Right Biased and Questionable based on the promotion of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience as well as numerous failed fact checks. ... In general, Newsmax is not a credible source with a strong right-leaning editorial bias. They violate all basic journalistic standards for credibility and reliability." https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/newsmax-bias-credibilty-reliability/

I don't think the lady who lost part of her leg in the escalator mishap at Don Mueang Airport lately had any issue with dangling shoelaces....

yep, just your ordinary, peace-loving, amiable farang expat "businessman" in Thailand! Now, "fitness businesses" aside, I wonder what his REAL business is here in LOS?

And apparently, all the other monks at this particular place condoned the guy's activities... since there doesn't seem to have been much of a secret about it.

And you think Thailand would suddenly become un-neutral then???

Thailand, aspiring to be the new Switzerland of Southeast Asia!!! ????

As the old song title used to go... "One is the Loneliest Number..." ????

I was going to ask... what the heck has become of that icon of Thai policing? Thanks for the update! I feel less "secure" already! ????

I believe BJ got yanked from that particular case at one point in the follow-up... though the reasons for that remain characteristically unclear.

They're all the SAME force..... But I believe Thong Lor was the station most specializing in that particular activity.

"Your hair's looking a bit long there, Mister... Tighten that up or else!!!" ???? "By the way, are you looking for a good deal on a rental house in Bangkok?"

And one would have to wonder, as some kind of police officer, just who would this guy's likely circle of acquaintances be??? I wonder if the wife is in any position to pick out faces or perhaps even name names.

Wow.... yet another sign the police establishment here is living in some kind of past century alternate reality to today's world: "The authorities firmly denied allegations of police negligence. According to their statement, the woman initially filed a complaint detailing the physical abuse she had endured from her husband. Law enforcement officials, upon review, classified this as a “normal domestic conflict” and chose not to pursue further investigation into her complaints."