Acharn

Minor quibble: two or three years ago the USD was down to 28 Thai Baht for several months. It was below 30 for six to eight months (I'm not going to look it up -- see https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/ for Thai baht).

??? I've never had to show a rental contract or lease. Is this a new thing? I do have to furnish a copy of the tabian baan and the owner's ID Card. Is that what you're talking about? Granted, for the last fourteen years I've been living with relatives (by marriage).

I get recycled.

??? Why on earth would that happen? Evolution is random. Species produce more complex and less complex variants all the time. It's just that evolutionary pressures on predators seem (to me) to be more likely to favor intelligence in predators than in prey species.

I get letters from Social Security and Tricare at my address in the boondocks outside Nakhon Sawan.

If you drive a truck you get stopped about every 50 kilometers for the price of a cup of tea.

When I see a case like this I'm suspicious. Maybe the cops got the right guy, but the fact that they interrogated him for 24 hours (or more?) makes me suspect a false confession. There's a lot of pressure on the cops to "find the killer," and they are often happy to serve up any convenient scapegoat. From the postings on this thread, I notice that few people share my skepticism, and, indeed, sound like they would happily join a lynch mob to prevent an inconvenient trial.

Well, he didn't say he didn't know the answer, he explained that the questioners didn't know what to ask and would not understand his answers. His basic assumption was that life is cyclical. Birth --> Sickness --> Old Age --> Death --> Birth ..., without end unless you practice the Eightfold Path, which leads to the ending of Birth, which is the end of suffering. By the way, Suffering includes not getting what you want and getting what you don't want, as well as any minor disappointment.

Well, just so. They don't KNOW that. It's a hypothesis, which means it's the best story they can make up from the facts they know and other hypotheses they have. Back in the '50s there was discussion among science fiction fans about why aliens have never (as far as we know) visited us. Any intelligent entity will have evolved from a predatory animal. Therefore they will have aggressive instincts. Therefore, when they have evolved far enough to develop nuclear weapons they will eventually end up destroying themselves. I'm 85 years old, and not at all sure I won't live to see the nuclear winter that ends 95% of life on Earth.

You're right, but in fact there are very few pimps in Thailand. Some of them are police officers. There is relatively little real human trafficking, although the NGOs that make a good living from it want you to believe otherwise. Even the Kazakhs on Soi Nana are mostly here by choice. They may not like their job, but it pays fairly well.

Soi 22 is on the other side of Sukhumwit, and some distance south. I wouldn't call it "in the area of Soi Cowboy," but that does give a general idea.

I don't have to believe something came from nothing. I believe everything has always been here. That seems to me just as reasonable as believing everything was created by a god who has always been here. I'm not trying to convince you, or anyone else. It's just that this is what I believe. I really don't believe that 4 billion years is an infinitesimal part of 14.5 billion years, which is what I understand is the current consensus of astronomers of length of the current cycle of Samsara. I can imagine much larger amounts of time, but technically there was no time before the Big Bang. I don't know what the current consensus of astronomers is for the "end" of the universe. I gather they don't expect a real ending, just that eventually entropy is maximized everywhere and things just sit there with the universe expanding forever. Myself, I believe it will all contract to create a new monoblock and a new Big Bang, but I gather most astronomers believe there is not enough mass (I think they include "dark matter" and "dark energy") in the universe to bring about a contraction. When asked if Samsara would ever end, the Buddha refused to answer, saying the question was unprofitable, having nothing to do with the extinguishing of suffering, which was all he was teaching.

Well, the material for the Big Bang came from Samsara, this physical universe. After it used up its fuel it collapsed and created the new Big Bang. Of course, there's no way to prove this, and most astronomers believe there's too little mass in Samsara to be cyclical. That's OK, I disagree with them. As for how humans evolved intelligence, the Earth has been around for a little over 4 billion years. That's a long time for the primordial soup to try different chemical combinations until several of them were self-replicating with controls to prevent change (which work poorly). I think the current consensus is that life as we know it appeared a little over 2 billion years ago. That's still a long, long time. By the way, we don't have any idea how smart the dinosaurs were. We keep finding more creatures that use tools. What do you mean, "How were the laws of physics created ...?" They're inherent in matter and space. Most of your questions come from believing in a creator god and believing the universe had to have a beginning and an end.

THB ฿3 Billion is about USD $88 MILLION. I don't believe these scammers ever got that much. Nowhere near.

1. There are no podiatrists in Thailand. Surprising, but true. 2. I don't eat oysters, so I can't help you.

I don't believe in a creator god, like the Christian god, but I can't deny there are powers greater than myself in the universe. I accept the Buddhist understanding that Samsara (the physical universe) has no beginning.

If you scroll down on the product page and look at the right-hand side you will find the code-name of the seller. It should be in the form of a link, and might take you to information about their physical location.

Oh, boy. Varawut Silpa-archa. I remember going to visit Suphan Buri years ago and was impressed by how widely his father's name was on things. Really popular. He knew how to take care of his constituents, and it looks like he taught his son. I love Chuwit. He's the only entertaining politician around now. My favorite used to be Police Captain Chalerm, from Thon Buri, who was alleged to control the Military Police, who control the Klong Thoey Market and several other protection schemes. Every time there was an uproar in Parliament he would threaten to expose the evidence he had against other politicians. He never did, of course, but everybody believed he really knew where the bodies are buried. I wonder if he's still living. Looks like Chuwit is the holder of secrets now.

I suspect he's made it clear to the people who matter that he has a whole lot of undeniable evidence, held by somebody they can't whack or extort, which will embarrass the entire elite, especially the monarchists. This has been going on at least since the kingdom of Sukothai. Used to be, up until the Revolution of 1932, that every new king reformed the judiciary and police (or the military, which were used before the creation of police). King Rama V was especially effective while he lived.

Well, I haven't been on the scene for over a decade, but I met a few decent ones. Ones with a strong work ethic, anyway. Some of them wouldn't rob you.

I dunno. It's been this way for eight or nine centuries, probably several millenia. The worst offenders get taken out, the rest keep right on. Human nature on display.

I disagree. The author didn't understand Thai language outside Bangkok. The well-to-do say "mon" is only used for animals. Thai Northern and Northeastern people say it means "him." Bangkok residents who have only attended public schools up to sixth grade say it means "him." Granted, if he had married the girl things might not have worked out (he doesn't seem to have understood reality very well), but not because he overheard her referring to him with the word "mon."

My grandfather used to keep a large crate in his basement, next to the cream separator. It held several dozen eggs. Whenever it got full (a month or two) they would send it off to the creamery and set a new, empty crate there. In those days eggs were expected to stay fresh at room temperature for several months. I don't know when they started this process of washing them to remove the protective coating, but they sure turn bad fast now. Unless they're refrigerated.

With the exception of 1976, most Thai coups d'etat have very few casualties. Soldiers do not like being killed and neither do the civilians.

One of my niece's husband's employees did. I think it's not that uncommon in Thailand. The relation between employee and small business employer in upcountrry Thailand is often family-like. The business owners throw parties at least once a week for everybody, sometimes two or three if there are birthdays. Although this guy had shown symptoms of depression on previous occasions, he had seemed in good spirits for several days before this party, and he had joined in the drinking and singing. About ten o'clock he took a bottle of gasoline, walked about thirty meters outside the compound, poured the bottle over his head and lit a cigarette lighter. By the time the others got to him and put the fire out he was already dead. Nobody knows what, exactly, drove him to the act, but he was another victim of bipolar disorder.