pomchop

Republicans are the biggest hypocrites ever to sit in the halls of congress. They support a man who tried to overthrow the government. A man who ridiculed crippled people, made fun of POW's, uses Racist slurs against Asians on daily basis, lied everyday, cheated on his taxes, declared bankrupty and stiffed numerous workers, praised dictators over and over and continues to do so to this day. But they want to remove a committee member who made an anti-Semitic statement and then apologized for it. Meantime Republicans who openly joked and called for the killing of fellow congressional members, who had a big old laugh at Mr Pelosi being attacked by a hammer don't seem very worried about the absolute bonkers people like Greene and Gaetz and Santos who say more crazy racist <deleted> in a day than the dem did in her career are placed on committees. When will voters stop supporting these do nothing hypocrites, liars, and batshxxt crazy members who are destroying whatever is left of the once proud republican party that does no more than sit and whine and moan about everything while offering no solutions, no platform, no policies except lets cut the taxes of the rich a policy that has been proven over and over to NOT benefit anyone but the rich.

maybe they use their earnings to buy a nice 30 day luxury cruise vacation to places that control their ports and not gouge them?

Add cruise ship port of laem chabang where a very strong taxi mafia rules with an iron fist and a taxi to Bangkok wants several HUNDRED dollars (can't remember but i think it was $400 usd)...The prices are posted on big signs in US dollars for all to see so it's not exactly a secret gouge. ....it is too far to walk from cruise disembarkation to the road and the mafia does not let any non mafia taxi or even motorcy taxi pick up passengers...as a result a lot of cruise ship passengers are left standing around trying to figure out what to do and many will give up and pay up...not a great impressiom when getting off a cruise ship in the land of smiles.. Been going on forever...no doubt MR BIG who controls it all is well situated with Government officials that control the port and shares a good chunk of baht for their "support". Story after story posted on cruise sites for years yet it goes on and on and on. Mr. Big no doubt has some very nice cars/watches/homes and laughs all the way to the bank every time a 3000 passenger ship docks at "his" port.

Not sure it is a great idea to get out of taxi and leave door open or otherwise do anything to antagonize the driver....better hope your driver is not having a bad day and decides to take his frustrations out on the farang....ask re meter before u get in and if no do not get in....conflicts with taxi drivers by farangs are rarely going to end well for the farang,...

People all over the world have fallen for con men for centuries and the one positive thing i can say for him he is an accomplished and one of the best con men ever. To this day in spite of overwhelming evidence of his multiple lies, corruption, incompetence, fraud and yes criminality many still are willing to send him $$, defend the indefensible and think that he actually gives a hoot about them other than to use as pawns to enrich him and stoke his massive ego. But slowly even a few of the kool aide crew is starting to realize the emperor has no clothes. Better late than never I suppose.

Never been so many witch hunts in history that have found witches in every closet, every business, every statement, every hooker, every coup attempt, every tax return, every election denial, every university, every bankruptcy, every bone spur, every grift, every classified document, and most everything that trump touches....and yet little donnie and the deluionals still sing "why's everybody always picking on me", HINT: It's because you are a hopeless incompetent, an inept liar, fraud, cheat, and soon to be convicted criminal.

.but for sure there is no room for people to get paid off in that kind of budget...

28 baht can provide a fairly decent meal when cooked in quantity....lots of rice and noodles and soup type dishes with veggies and a bit of chicken or pork here and there....drink water. 8 years ago in Chiang Rai the kids paid 20 baht and while certainly not gourmet they had several choices and overall it wasn't all that bad...probably better than what a lot of them got at home...but for sure there is no room for people to get paid off in that kind of budget...

probably not so side splitting if you were one of the kids getting a <deleted> or reduced lunch

And the stealing no doubt reduced portions and quality of the kids meals......that is about as low as you can go to the bottom of human behavior. I have eaten a lot at a Thai high school cafeteria and can say its not exactly gourmet but for a lot of the poorer kids it was probably the best meal they got all day.....my meal was 20 baht...i started paying 100 baht a day and would give free meal to four kids that were nearby every day...pretty soon i had a pack of kids jostling to be near me when i ordered as 20 baht to them was a pretty big deal. Then you have some jackoff trying to steal from them or reduce quality or portions? Scum of the earth.

You can't make this stuff up....smoke weed or cigs all day everyday, sold everywhere....can't buy beer from 2 to 5 at big stores but ma and pa no problem....hookers everywhere but cops see no prostitution....want to get immigration done just pay an agent to bribe someone for you to avoid hassles. Kill a cop hyped up on cocaine and flee? No problem. Have a vape pen....oh u are in big big trouble now.

by far most addictive and worst habit i ever had ....i seem to have dodged the cancer bullet and that is a semi miracle as i sure smoked a lot of them in my younger days. ..i am so happy to see that younger kids these days don't seem to smoke nearly to the degree that my generation did.... i grew up in north carolina tobacco road...RJ reynolds used to hire people to stand on corners near our high school lunch hangout and pass out those little 5 cig sample packs of winstons and salems to us kids...never seemed to care re our age goal was to get us hooked and for many many it worked...bastards...

I found that my booze was/is almost always at same time everyday....sunset when i love to have a few drinks...i had to break the time habit by going out at my normal drinking hour....5-6 pm...and do something like go for a walk or similar.. .i am a creature of habit and to break the sunset cocktail habit i have to substitute something else....not perfect and don't do it every day but the days i do by time i finish the walk i am ok to skip the cocktail part of sunset...maybe helpful for you to try....good luck, hang in there...it ain't easy but everyday it will get a tiny bit easier I think.... .i never thought i could give up cigs...tried moderation quit and started again over and over and over. etc ....didn't work...but eventually one day at a time i had gone a month then 3 months then a year to now over 20 years and never ever even think about cigs anymore except in idea that boy am i glad to be off those damn things..

As a daily walker I have had people coming directly towards me on a sidewalk looking at their phone or talking to each other... often walking two abreast taking the entire sidewalk and completely oblivious to what is around or right in front of them. I have come to a complete stop and had to yell HEY otherwise they would have walked right into me.......and that is in USA. Walking for me is suppose to be relaxing and I have no desire to get into some macho BS as to who can walk over the other person. Tons of oblivious people wandering around the world. I am often amazed that more of them don't get hit by cars / buses. That is a good reason when possible to walk out in the country where few people are around....but of course that is not so easy to do sometimes.

as the article says the rest arrived on cruise ships

A good old high school buddy and I decided to try and walk all 252 miles of the blue ridge parkway in the state of North Carolina at age 72. We walked ten miles a day and after about 26 days of walking (not consecutively but spread over 3 months) we reached milepost 469 near Cherokee NC . Looking back it was one of the best things ever. We had a great time rehashing lot of old high school memories, we enjoyed spectacular views, nature, a variety of weather, camping out etc...and in between various legs we plotted and planned the next legs. And yes we also enjoyed a few beers at night but felt we had "earned them". Bottom line is if you can break out of whatever rut you are in and do something that makes you happy and a bit healthier I think you will never ever look back and say "gee i wish i had not done that". Find some sort of adventure or goal whether it is learn Thai, do some volunteer work, play more golf or whatever.....the longest journey begins with the first step. Just take it.

5 big beefy looking "highly trained" cops could not constrain one skinny looking guy who is on the ground? Maybe they should handcuff or zip lock him or throw a net over him instead of pepper spray him in the face and later taser him. Incompetence on display. I mean look at the victim does he appear to be Rambo or something? And no reports of him having any weapons, Pitiful excuse for supposedly highly trained cops...but then again it appears their goal was not to constrain him but to use him as some sort of macho man punching bag. A jury is not going to look kindly on these cops and the city of Memphis is going to write some very large checks.

Laos?

2023 and still burning dead plants.... .while the entire planet offers multiple energy sources....enough sunshine on the planet to power the entire world if a small percentage is converted...wind power that blows and blows for centuries to turn turbines....waves crashing on shores worldwide with massive amounts of energy that can turn turbines...under sea currents like the gulf stream that can turn undersea turbines....geo thermal bubbling to surface for thousands of years releasing massive amounts of energy to be captured.....hyrogen, nuclear and who knows what other similar technologies and perhaps safer sources... is it simple? no Is it cheap? no but the returns are massive When the old peanut farmer (jimmy carter who was also a nuclear physist) begged america during the arab oil embargo in 1979 (44 years ago) to get off the oil nipple and invest in other sources if the usa had actually listened to him ...the USA would have likely long ago figured out sources and become the world leader in energy with technology that could/would have been sold worldwide for billions upon billions of $$. and untold jobs.....no oil nipple would not have required so many countries to suck up to the middle east , fight wars over oil, be held hostage by shxxthole countries who happen to sit on top of huge oil reserves...add in all the cost of climate change, bad air, health care, and it becomes apparent that it would have been one of the best decisions ever made... but instead carter got ridiculed...he installed solar panels on the white house to set an example...the very first thing Regan did when taking office was to remove the solar panels...imagine if congress had backed carter with a JFK style goal of going to the moon except applied to finding and developing clean renewable affordable energy....boggles the mind as to how different the world would/could be today. and here we go again in 2023 with many politicians taking big bucks from the oil guys to keep those dead plants burning....stupid is as stupid does... i suspect in 50 years that our grandkids will look back at our hundreds of years of burning oil and coal and be amazed at <deleted>.......you could send men to the moon and probes to mars, you created the internet, artificial intelligence, massive tech across hundreds of industries, but you couldn't figure out how to power your homes/industries/transport other than burning dead plants???

Five , count them, big beefy cops can't subdue one skinny guy without beating him to death? Appears to me he is laying on ground being held down by several of them then for some reason is pepper sprayed in face at which point the guy figures i better get the hell out of here before these guys kill me and manages to escape the grasp of 5 cops?.....geez can't they throw a big net over him or duct tape his arms and legs together...it's not like he has a gun or knife pointed at the cops. Whether macho, hate, or incompetence when five big guys can't subdue a guy like this somebody needs to take a long hard look at what the heck is the problem here? People, yes many of them Blacks have been saying for decades this kind of stuff goes on all the time....now that we have cameras it would appear they are correct. If these cops did this knowing full well it was all on video try and imagine what they might have done down some dark country road with no cameras.

You visit an immigration office and watch as agent after agent get preferential treatment by giving out some "gifts" to the staff. You listen to farangs talk about how for a thousand $$ or so they don't have to follow the rules to get long visas. You get Japanese tourist being offered fast lane and a police escort to Pattaya all advertised online for a fee. You get Mr Red Bull who kills a cop while speeding and jacked up on cocaine who for some hefty gifts is able to avoid any pretense of justice. You get elected leaders being ousted by illegal coups with no repercussions. As to what corruption and demands many everyday Thai businessess fork over to get permits etc who knows but it is just a cost of doing business for many. You get Thais who become very wealthy with fancy cars and rolexs and homes all on a meager salary. Is it any big mystery why a poorly paid cop would conclude that the entire bunch is corrupt so why should i not get in on the action. Maybe if i am corrupt enough I can amass enough money to move to the juicer end of the trough

I have a camper van in usa that i use often.. BUT as said already by many Thailand is really not a good place for a campervan....you will need a/c as often mosquitoes will eat you alive if camping out in boonies and outside the cool season it will be like sleeping in a sauna. As far as I know any rv type parks with hookups are basically non existent... you would likely be much better to stay in cheapie hotels which are vey easy to find especially out in the boonies....if u are intent on camping i would buy a regular car or tuck and a tent and maybe camp out some in the cooler months but of course that is when the thai campers will be doing the same and camping areas can get crowded with tent campers...if you camp out up north in cool season you will also find that it gets darn cold many nights and you would need some serious sleeping bags/blankets etc....so too hot half the year and pretty cold a few months...

So this will play well on youtube. Police admit extortion after calling Taiwan gal a liar but say it was all a big misunderstanding .that she was indeed extorted, and they would like to show you the videos but unfortunately it was all erased so just trust us it was really not our fault and if the gal had not made a big stink about it all then nobody would have known and we would not lose face. Therefore after careful investigation all the way to the highest ranks we have determined that it was all the gals fault. We will however return 500 baht to the girl as a show of good faith. We will also transfer the officers to continue to enjoy a paid leave for a few months to give our new recruits an opportunity to become more adept and practice more forms of extortion. Darn people. Why don't they just give us what we demand and keep their mouths shut. Always causing problems. Next thing you know the PM will talk about cleaning up corruption again but that is not a major concern...unlike a vape pen talk is cheap. After all we have badges aka a license to steal. (take that James Bond).

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Yes i am pretty good at reading. I remember reading all your posts over past few days that appear to have been proven wrong.