orosee

 The arguments of healing the sick or feeding the hungry are so generically "good" as to strangle any counter-argument, so I'd say they're invalid. A better argument from your side would've been "why fund this space mission when we could've funded 5 other space missions that could yield more important results?"

No sense in mixing apples and oranges, these issues you list are unrelated.

A cynical person would even say that not spending millions on ebola clinics will save billions of dollars on the famine front, given some patience.

  
Not apples and oranges.  Guns and butter.  Totally unrelated, yet very intertwined.
 
We've got a "house" where the roof leaks, the kids need shoes and jabs, the lawn is dying and the driveway washed away in the last storm.  Yet we're spending $$$ billions on more (metaphoric) cable channels.
 
And anyone believing that letting Ebola get away from us will be of benefit on the famine front, doesn't belong to the same human race I do.  Any more than the guys that hoped AIDS would solve "the gay problem".

That analogy is not very good.

First of all, it's not our house that's in disrepair. We do regularly donate to the neighbour's family, but their father decides it's better to use the money for booze and man toys.

Now our own house is not perfect. We spend too much on the alarm system, say 40% of our income. Occasionally we buy a book for learning and knowledge. Now tell me, why should I save on the few dollars spent on the books? There's no difference in the budget.

But what I really want to know is: how would a world without hunger and disease look like? How stable will it be? How do you keep populations at sustainable levels?

Me, 24 and with a rich dad? I'd live like Monaco royalty and maybe... Just maybe... Got for a couple of kids 20 years later.

That guy is a Yakuza facility manager, not a young man yearning to be loved by his kin.

 

Great technological achievement but.....  I think there are far better ways humanity could be served with the money spent on this mission.

Such as... bigger and better bombs for another war? Bigger and better CO2-spewing factories? Build a highway through the Amazon? Give more money to the homeless so they can buy more drugs?

This project is fantastic. Our destiny is space and the more money spent on it the better. The current budget is pathetic and minuscule.

 
How about Ebola hospitals in Africa?  To head off the epidemic that could wipe us out in our lifetime.  How about feeding the billions of hungry?  How about water desalination plants in places where they don't have clean water?
 
My destiny isn't in space.  Your destiny isn't in space.  Nobody either of us knows has their destiny in space.  In our lifetimes, a few dozen highly qualified and selected people may establish a colony on Mars.  You won't be related to any of them, and neither will I.  I'd prefer they spend my tax dollars on us, on today's problems,  in the here and now.
 
As long as we believe we have another place to go when we have thrashed the earth, we'll continue to thrash the earth, forgetting geometric math where if we overpopulate the earth, going to Mars only gets us another couple of decades, because that's how fast the population doubles to overpopulate 2 planets.
 
This mission may bring us closer to the technology we need to mine the body.  Then some mining companies (probably Chinese ones) will send a craft up to privatize the benefits, while we, the public, sponsor the heavy $$$ lifting.

I wonder if taking 0.1% of the military budget wouldn't be more effective than taking 90% of the science budget. I never heard a doctor complain that governments spend too much on science and education.

The arguments of healing the sick or feeding the hungry are so generically "good" as to strangle any counter-argument, so I'd say they're invalid. A better argument from your side would've been "why fund this space mission when we could've funded 5 other space missions that could yield more important results?"

No sense in mixing apples and oranges, these issues you list are unrelated.

A cynical person would even say that not spending millions on ebola clinics will save billions of dollars on the famine front, given some patience.

I thought stem cells require embryos, not full grown babies. Mind you, that was the "worst case" scenario, so there's no proof of indicator that that's what happened here.

Too disgusting even for "Hostel" style torture porn :-(

Ah, the contortions begin. I see a sleepless night ahead for the haters of all things Thai and female. Let's see how low this can go.

What a twist!

 

After hearing about this 16 year old conviction, I must wonder if one or even some of the hate posts in these threads are not actually written by that man himself and/or his friends/relatives... he obviously has a connection to Thailand and may well be a regular reader and/or contributor. At least it would bring some sense into the abortion-pushing comments.

 

Come on, man up and tell us the story first-hand!

I can't actually believe that people on Thai Visa are actually denigrating the Thai girl that brought this baby to term and cared for it even though it was not her own. Denigrating her, her religion, her decision to try to make a better life for her own two children by taking money to be a surrogate. Jesus! What is wrong with you people? Don't answer that. I don't want to know what makes certain people so cynical and mean spirited.

On ThaiVisa, she's guilty of the two most heinous crimes:

Being Thai and
Being a woman.

You don't need to follow this topic to learn that 😬

 

I'm happy to read some of the comments here. This is being discussed in German papers as well and 90 percent of the comments are outright disgusting. In fact, not a few comments seem to suggest that euthanasia should be mandatory, and go as far as shaming parents who decided to carry a baby that had a disability diagnosed in utero.

Now I see these comments reflected in an international community. I'm happy because it's not just us Germans who are heartless, cruel and despicable creatures. It's everybody, and I suggest here that "everybody" is a male.

Who else would be so casually asking for an abortion?

Consider this:

Is abortion in Thailand legal for this case?
Is it always safe for the mother?
Can you abort only one of two twins?
How would an illegal abortion clinic deal with complications?
Should healthy baby girls be aborted if the contract stipulates "boy only"?
If the buyers change their minds (also death or divorce), should baby be aborted?
Why this hate for women?
Why this hate for Thais?
Why this hate for innocent life?

Humans are altruistic by nature, so you, sirs, are abominations.

 

Abortion is illegal but very common....almost openly promoted at some clinics

Made thousands of times per year...yes safe

Not sure if you can abort 1 safely, but you can abort both and start new

It is not about healthy baby girls, at 3 month it is about some clusters of cells not about babies.

 

It is pretty shocking to read something like that:
"They told me to have an abortion but I didn't agree because I am afraid of sinning," Pattaramon said, referring to her Buddhist beliefs."

 

There is no invisible friend who is judging you. But there is not this poor baby which will have a sad life. Specially think what happens if the mother dies.

Thinking for the living people and not about the phantasies of some lazy male monks. Punishment for sins anyway doesn't fit well with Buddhism, it is more a Christian concept.

 

But it doesn't really matter whether there is "an invisible friend" or not. As a Buddhist, this concept doesn't even apply here for her. If anything then she's concerned about her next reincarnation status. Also I don't think that this woman has any concept of embryonic stages, in her mind after 3 months there was probably a fully formed child inside her. Anyway, what matters is what she believes, whether true or not.

 

(PS: My girlfriend had a miscarriage after 2-something months, I can assure you that there's more than just "a cluster of cells", even though at that stage there's nothing remotely human in it...)

 

Pattaramon's mother, Pichaya Nathonchai, 53. . . 

 

Isn't 53 a little late in life to be any kind of mother? All parties concerned must have been pretty desperate.  Moralising apart, one cannot help but feel for the emotional hell they must all be going through. One can only hope little Gammy survives to receive all the love and joy he deserves.

 

As I read the story Pichaya Nathonchai, 53 is actually the mother of the surrogate mother and the grandmother of the baby boy  Gammy.

 

Thanks for clarifying this. I'm certain little Gammy will achieve higher reading & comprehension scores than a few of the commentators here. Not to mention a kinder and more considerate human being.

moral of the story... the aussi parents asked to do an abortion... she did not ... so who is to blame ?

Nobody asked your mother for an abortion? I blame that person.

I'm happy to read some of the comments here. This is being discussed in German papers as well and 90 percent of the comments are outright disgusting. In fact, not a few comments seem to suggest that euthanasia should be mandatory, and go as far as shaming parents who decided to carry a baby that had a disability diagnosed in utero.

Now I see these comments reflected in an international community. I'm happy because it's not just us Germans who are heartless, cruel and despicable creatures. It's everybody, and I suggest here that "everybody" is a male.

Who else would be so casually asking for an abortion?

Consider this:

Is abortion in Thailand legal for this case?
Is it always safe for the mother?
Can you abort only one of two twins?
How would an illegal abortion clinic deal with complications?
Should healthy baby girls be aborted if the contract stipulates "boy only"?
If the buyers change their minds (also death or divorce), should baby be aborted?
Why this hate for women?
Why this hate for Thais?
Why this hate for innocent life?

Humans are altruistic by nature, so you, sirs, are abominations.

If they have evidence of espionage, how about putting him in prison?

Surely that would be a much bigger embarrassment to the US.

I mean.... Surely the US would hand down a huge prison sentence to a German for the same offence.

In German news, the "official" is actually the head of CIA in Germany - I guess equivalent to the ambassador of a country. The person going to jail is someone else entirely, a German national working for the German secret service BND.

No taxes? She received the car etc. as an employment benefit.

Most companies have rules that employees can't accept gifts from customers over a certain, usually very low, value. So this must be considered a bribe (immediate dismissal) as well as a taxable benefit.

The shit people get away with because it's religion... :-(

Good news for kids who "roleplay" shooting up their school...

It doesn't need this to expose Buddhism as the same sham that all other types of religion are. This version of elitist mind robbery got discarded by me as a serious alternative decades ago when I learnt about how it, too, regards the 50 percent of humans who are not male. Take any religion and subtract the Golden Rule and you're left with a negative balance for that reason alone.

We need more like her, not less.

If you don't care much about the order of the songs and what artist/title is playing (say, you love Jazz in general but are adventurous enough to listen to lesser known artists or lesser known titles by famous artists), I would recommend to rip audio streams from web radio services such as Shoutcast (there are many more). It's not limited to Jazz, there are usually dozens of styles or eras on hundreds of channels. The quality varies from very sketchy 32kbps to quite acceptable 128kbps and even 256 kbps.

But I can tell you that if you're wondering how to get or make an MP3, you'll have a much harder time ripping an audio stream. And worse, this is done in real time so that 300 minutes of music will take you 300 minutes in real time, and there are no gaps - basically like listening to a real radio program.

Is it legal? Probably as much as making a recording of a show on real radio,

It takes 4 people to dig a hole, only one is actually working. One is the engineer/supervisor. So 50% of employed people don't work. Should be higher on the country.

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Love the article: "a bill worth Bt596,398". So does that mean that she could sell the bill for this amount? Or hold it and wait for its worth to further appreciate?

I love the copy-paste English phases here. Something "is valued at" when actually it's "priced at". A bill has "worth" although it's just a statement of an amount.

And I am sure if you were to write a newspaper article in Thai it would be grammatically perfect.

I don't see that as a valid argument in any discussion, but if I were to write for a leading Thai newspaper I'd make damn sure that I get the writing right.

Love the article: "a bill worth Bt596,398". So does that mean that she could sell the bill for this amount? Or hold it and wait for its worth to further appreciate?

I love the copy-paste English phases here. Something "is valued at" when actually it's "priced at". A bill has "worth" although it's just a statement of an amount.

when she defaults AIS sell the bill to the debt collector it will be worth something for her to clear up the mess before her knee caps are broken.

But the bill itself does not have this worth, it's a piece of paper. If you lose it you can get a new one for free; try that with 600,000 Baht of real money.