spidermike007

Untrue. They never made a serious effort to have him returned. No super wealthy Thai has even been convicted of anything. It is it doesn't happen.

I agree. I am a Centrist Democrat, and the far left is the reason democrats have so little power now. I despise most of what they stand for.

The spectacularly heinous CCP have created a one-way street, products go out, money comes in, it is extremely difficult to export anything to China, and it's extremely difficult to pull wealth out of China. This obnoxious government (who will eventually be deposed) really have the nation locked down and the people oppressed to an extreme degree. They express a mild degree of contentment due to the economic miracle, and the fact that the middle class has expanded fairly dramatically. But the number of issues that that nation faces are countless, and it's only a matter of time.

The Chinese are very clever and they have many different work around systems setup to own land and houses here, and from what I hear real estate prices in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing are completely out of control. 5 to 10 times what they're paying in big cities here with exception of Bangkok.

No. Absolutely not. I would say a minimum budget for someone who's willing to live like a monk, live on a shoestring and never treat themselves to anything would be 25 or 30,000 per month, to live well 60 to 100,000 a month, so your budget wouldn't last me one year. But I know a lot of people who could live on that budget for three or four years, maybe.

The only way to survive here on the road, is to be patient, have eyes in the back of your head, drive with caution, and always, and I mean always watch out of the other guy. Chances are, he does not have much driving skill, nor patience, nor reason, nor common sense. You cannot be too careful on the road here. Especially considering that the toy police offer no traffic safety, prevention, enforcement of the law, or concern toward the prosecution of very reckless drivers. Those of us with driving skill, and a strong desire for not only survival, but the avoidance of terrible injury, are constantly scanning the road, in front of us, beside us, and behind us. There are an exceptionally high number of reckless fools on these roads, and it is the only way to preserve our lives, and those of our families, and friends, who may be driving with us, and depending on us. Many of us drive motorcycles or scooters here, and it is dangerous getting on the roads with some of these other drivers. Getting on a scooter, or a motorcycle anywhere in Thailand, much less Phuket, Phangan, Dark Tao, or Samui without a very good helmet, is like playing Russian Roulette with three or four bullets in the chamber. It is absolutely asking for problems. The degree of recklessness here is astounding. And many foreigners come here thinking "how much trouble could I get in on a little scooter, on a tropical island"? Well, the answer is alot. The amount of foreigners who are killed on the Southern islands is staggering. Most are not reported in the media. I had a friend who worked for Samui rescue for many years, and said the numbers were about 30-60 a month, on Samui, Phangan and Koh Tao. The official number is about 3 a month. Rider beware. Use as good a helmet as you can afford, and do not use these eggshells pieces of crap. They crack at the first impact, and what lies underneath them? Your skull, which is very delicate.

Well he sure did a good job of selling you and a lot of his supporters on that agenda. I consider it to be another one of his myths and lies. I'm hopeful that I'll be pleasantly surprised and it will only take the fulfillment of about 10% of his promises too impress me. I don't expect much from him.

I agree with a lot of what you say, and it makes me reflect on the fact that when I wake up every morning and look in the mirror I'm totally satisfied with my gender and my sexuality, and I guess that's quite a huge blessing to have in life, considering how many people are confused and unhappy about that kind of thing. Life is complicated enough, can you just imagine how complicated it would be if you wanted to change your gender? Yikes.

Rsstoring law and order. That is highly amusing coming from a supporter of the biggest criminal to ever occupy the White House.

For once I agree with Musk, health care costs in the US are completely out of control, they are so overpriced and so are prescription drugs. If there's anything that Trump can do to wrestle these profits away from these Mafia organizations like the Healthcare and hospital industry in America and big Pharma that would be a huge boom for the American people. A good friend of mine got in a bad motorcycle accident some time ago. He almost lost his leg. He got his first of 11 operations at Bangkok Hospital Samui. It costs him over a million baht. They wanted to do a second procedure. They quoted him 1.4 million baht. He decided to transfer to Bangkok. He was quoted 460,000 baht for the same procedure, at a top private hospital there. The surgeon told him that he worked at a public hospital too, and could do the same operation there, for alot less money. He told him he would get him a quote. In the interim, my friend called a buddy in San Diego, who is an orthopedic surgeon. Since my friend is a retired chiropractor, who knew all the terminology, and explained what he needed, and asked for the best price. His friend called him back, and quoted him $960,000, with cash discounts! The local surgeon here got back to him, and told him he could do it for 46,000 baht. He transferred, and they did all the rest of his procedures. So, 1.4 million at Bangkok Hospital, 460,000 at the other private hospital in Bangkok (I think it was Vejthani Hospital), and 46,000 at the public hospital, with an excellent surgeon. VS. 33,000,000 baht in the US. Again, no complaints from this peanut gallery.

They never looked for boss. That much was obvious. Having the son of a multi-billionaire extradited to Thailand is just not something that happens. He was always above the law.

Very simple solution. When it is time to renew, explain the issue, and ask any immigration agent, at any office how much it will be for them to create bank statements for you. They are ALL for sale

That highway construction project is one of the greatest abominations in Asia, everyone associated with that project should be fired or jailed. Apparently this guy is responsible for transport. He should be brought before a committee to answer for this project and the 15 year delay.

Somprasong us a tiny mam, with no self esteem, no sense of self, and no maturity or development as a man. You are scorned and you politely walk away. Instead he shoots up the boyfriends car. What a nitwit. A 13 year old, trapped in a man's body. He looks like a man, he smells like a man. But, he is a petty juvenile! Lock him up!

The sceptic will argue that anything we do could not possibly influence the climate, or effect the atmosphere. The planet is simply too large, and the population is too small to have any effect. Let the ships dump whatever they want into the ocean. The ocean is simply too large for anything we do to damage it. This frees them to buy as many plastic bottles as they please, drive filthy diesel vehicles, and behave as if nothing effects anything. It's not us. It is just a cycle. We are not responsible.

Thank you, if I cared what you thought of me I might be a tiny bit offended, but since I don't care one iota it's water off a ducks back! Unlike many Republicans I have very thick skin and you probably objected to the fact that a lot of the Marxist doctrine that I quoted is something that Trump has adopted into his playbook. Which makes him a bit of a Marxist.

I often times reply, but I rarely ever reply to jingoistic nonsense and people who simply repeat GOP talking points. It's about as boring as listening to somebody trying to convert me to Christianity by quoting from the Bible.

There's no question that there should be prohibitions against any level of transition prior to the age of 18. Youths simply don't have the capacity to make a wise enough decision and parents should be able to say NO. There's a reason why the suicide rate of people who have transitioned is so high, especially amongst those who started to transition at a very young age. And the medical establishment is very culpable there's a tremendous amount of money in this transition industry and they share some of the blame for the permissive nature of society.

It is very much the nature of Donald Trump to select from the bottom of the barrel, he needs absolute fealty, and it's hard to get that from high quality candidates. It's also very possible that he can simply relate to those accused of a sex crime as they have a similar nature to himself. In addition to the sex crime issue there's also just the issue of grossly underqualified and totally inappropriate people for very important positions. It goes almost without saying that Kash Patel, whom Donald Trump picked over the weekend to lead the F.B.I., is supremely unqualified to direct the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. That’s what even those who know Mr. Patel well are saying: “He’s absolutely unqualified for this job. He’s untrustworthy,” his supervisor in the first Trump administration, Charles Kupperman, told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s an absolute disgrace to American citizens to even consider an individual of this nature.” Mr. Kupperman’s view is hardly an outlier: In Mr. Trump’s first term, both Bill Barr, then the attorney general, and Gina Haspel, then the C.I.A. director, went to great lengths to prevent Mr. Patel from being installed in senior intelligence and law enforcement roles. Yet the Patel selection stands out as more concretely dangerous and worrisome than many of the other questionable Trump choices. The true danger is almost less about Mr. Patel and more about what it says about Mr. Trump and his approach to his new presidency. To understand the full scope of the damage Mr. Patel could inflict, you have to understand how unique, powerful and dangerous the F.B.I. can be — and why a Patel directorship would likely corrupt and bend the institution for decades, even if he only served a few years. Choosing anyone new at this point is concerning because it is a flagrant break with tradition. There is no current vacancy at the head of the F.B.I.: Following J. Edgar Hoover’s decades-long tenure, Congress set into law in 1976 a 10-year term for the F.B.I. director, fireable only for cause. It is meant to isolate the job from political influence, and Christopher Wray — originally nominated by Mr. Trump in 2017 — still has two years left to serve. What this independence illustrates is that the F.B.I. is not, as many MAGA loyalists believe, some liberal bastion of wokeness. No Democrat has ever served as an F.B.I. director. Even Democratic presidents appoint Republican officials to head the bureau, as Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton both did in their presidencies. Mr. Trump has been clear in what he is trying to do with a nominee like Mr. Patel: He wants to bend and break the bureau and weaponize it against his political enemies and domestic critics. Mr. Patel himself said last year that he hopes to prosecute journalists.

I understand the idea of charging tourists a higher price than locals, that makes sense, but there should be a policy where expats are allowed entrance for the same fee as locals. We do contribute to the economy, we're now being asked to pay taxes, and if we can show a pink card or even a driver's license we should be allowed entry at the same price of a Thai, otherwise it's racist, ugly, nasty, being a poor host, and very discriminatory.

The lack of a reply are very telling.

Hitting the head can be fatal. People die from a slip, all the time. A friend of a friend went to the bathroom, took a leak, and turned around and slipped on the tile. He hit his head on the floor and died instantly. It happened at the office. He was 26. I have two friends who hit their heads while driving a bike without a helmet. One still cannot walk, or talk or function on her own, from a motorbike accident, where she hit her head on the pavement going only 20 kph. The other one has lost alot of his mental capacity after hitting his head. He insisted for years he would never wear a helmet. Now, he seems 15 years older. It doesn't take much. The head can be very delicate.

A basic primer or the use of Marxist doctrine. The most reactionary and far-right sectors of the capitalist class have teamed up to back a wannabe dictator who’s managed to assemble a mass movement of contradictory forces behind him — outright racists and misogynists along with millions of disaffected and confused members of the working class. It’s the classic formula for fascism. But beyond the race hatred, the anti-immigrant hostility, the misogyny, and the homophobic/transphobic attacks, what else motivates significant blocs of voters to go over to the fascist side? Georgi Dimitrov, one of the famed anti-fascist leaders of the 1930s, provided the beginnings of an answer: “What is the source of the influence of fascism over the masses? Fascism is able to attract the masses because it demagogically appeals to their most urgent needs and demands. Fascism not only inflames prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays upon the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions. Fascism aims at the most unbridled exploitation of the masses but it approaches them with the most artful anti-capitalist demagogy, taking advantage of the deep hatred of the working people against the plundering bourgeoisie, the banks, the trusts, and financial magnates.” Add to that the deep resentment that Trump supporters had toward law enforcement and the justice system, for going after their felonious master with such unbridled passion.

Sorry, I meant to say Marxist, since he used propaganda right out of the Marxist playbook, during his campaign.

Perhaps, if he does become the fascist leader some of us think he will be, I will be forced to say Mr. President, or your highness. By force of law. Until then he is goombah Don.