spidermike007

Are you saying that you got Google Voice to work properly and that the Google number rang directly into your phone without using a VPN?

After a little bit more reflection on this disaster, I believe it was not only a huge mistake I believe it was an intentional setup to benefit Putin. Trump intentionally wanted to humiliate Zelensky in the Oval Office on a world stage, and for Vance to be lecturing him, a man who's never been to you Ukraine, and a very small man who's never fought in a war, was really the bottom of the barrel. Vance had the audacity of accusing Zelensky of acting disrespectful in the sacred confines of the Oval Office, when in reality both he and Trump are being disgrace to the overall office on a daily basis. What he really meant to say is why are you not kissing the ring? This would appear to represent a fundamental breakdown in relations between the US and Europe, and a realignment of the US with Russia. What's next, the embrace of China and North Korea? As I keep saying it's just a matter of time until public sentiment goes against the ridiculousness of these policies, and the bizarre and hugely destructive foreign policy that Trump is engaging in. We're already seeing quite a bit of pushback on the part of Trump voters at Town Hall meetings with senators and congressman, who are attempting to support Trump in a vain and fruitless manner.

I agree, I would call him the Great Disruptor, or the man who will not embrace peace. I would also say that he has terrible negotiation skills, and could likely not negotiate his way out of a paper bag to save his own life. Despite his well honed reputation to the contrary. The art of the deal, that's pretty humorous isn't it?

I have been using Skype for many years as I still do business in the US and the greatest feature is the dedicated Skype number that rings right into my desktop, laptop or cell phone. Does anybody know of another comparable service that offers this feature, and in addition for an annual subscription fee I'm able to make unlimited calls to the U.S. I don't know of any other service comparable to that. Microsoft is offering an alternative service but I don't know anything about it, has anybody used it? I think it is calwld Microsoft teams?

While that might be true, certainly in it's past, it would take millennia to catch up with the CCP or Russia.

I watched that cringe worthy lecture that Trump gave Zelensky, and it caused me to be very ashamed of my nationality. This man seems to be deliberately sabotaging America's influence throughout the world on a daily basis, and he seems to be grossly overestimating the influence of America. Does anybody agree with me? The typical Saint Donald defenders need not reply, though no doubt you will. Earlier Friday, Trump cut the meeting short with Zelensky, said the Ukrainian leader is "not ready" for peace with Russia in an extraordinary meltdown in the Oval Office that threw question marks over chances for a truce. Zelensky was meant to be making a full White House visit to sign a US-Ukrainian deal for joint exploitation of Ukraine's mineral resources, as part of a post-war recovery in a US-brokered peace deal. Instead, an ugly clash blew up almost immediately in the Oval Office where Trump and Vice President JD Vance shouted at Zelensky, accusing him of not being thankful for US help in the three-year war against Russian invasion. Trump berated Zelensky, telling him to be more "thankful" and that without US assistance Ukraine would have been conquered by Russia. "You're either going to make a deal or we're out," Trump added. "And if we're out, you'll fight it out and I don't think it's going to be pretty." Zelensky left in his motorcade shortly after, without holding a planned joint press conference. The resources deal was left unsigned, the White House said. Trump took to his Truth Social platform to castigate Zelensky saying "he disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office." Zelensky is "not ready for Peace," Trump wrote. "He can come back when he is ready for Peace."

Hua Hin Airport is one of the least utilized airports in Thailand, possibly even in the world. Shame on these guys. They can do so much better. Thailand desperately needs more regional airports, especially within a few hours of Bangkok. Anything to ease congestion, and save souls from the nightmare of getting in and out of Bangkok has to be a good thing for the nation and it's people. Shame. Shame. Hua Hin might as well be 1,000 km. away, with the lack of high speed transport options. It's no wonder Thailand can't attract many affluent tourists. The same promises being made for 20 years for an airport that desperately needs a significant number of international flights and domestic flights, to take pressure off of the airports in Bangkok, and the absolute nightmare of getting back and forth. The lack of many flights a day is something that just has never made any sense “We will begin by growing the flight base at Hua Hin Airport with a focus on international destinations, and domestic travel and our numbers will take time to grow. We will get started immediately working with the town and recruit local businesses to participate in our new programs, Open to the World and LIVE-LEARN-WORK-PLAY, in Hua Hin,” Laroche said. Ha. What a joker. New routes are a decent thing to have, but Thailand absolutely has to get its act together and create some high-speed ways to move people around. There should be High-Speed Rail from Bangkok to Hua Hin, which there is not. Rama II is an abomination. The current situation with Rama II a decade behind schedule, and moving at a snail's pace is an absolute boil on the face of Thailand. There should be commuter flights from Bangkok to Hua Hin Airport, which there is not. There should be flights from Hua Hin airport to Pattaya, which there is not, since Hua Hin airport is one of the least utilized airports in all of Southeast Asia. This hapless administration has to at least make an attempt to get their act together, and they need to stop pretending that they are competent and that they are representing the Thai people. They are not competent, and they are not representing anyone here in Thailand, other than their own self-interests, and the interests of the elites. Period.

One of my greatest fears is that the US influence will continue to wane, and China will pick up the ball. They are not, nor will they ever be responsible guardians of the "public trust", as long as the CCP is in control. Not that America was always that. But, the CCP has nothing but evil intentions, in my opinion. World domination. And not what I would call "an overlord that wears their power lightly". And trump is allowing them to fill that void with his insane policies and his extreme lack of vision he gross the overestimates the influence that America has, on a daily basis. The only hope for the world, is the swift downfall of the CCP. One can dream. They seem to be heading toward world domination. Though the Americans certainly have their faults, and alot to answer for, I would take them as a dominant force over China, any day of the week. China does not wear their power lightly. A couple of quotes that come to mind.

In a sense you're right, I mean what difference would 50 people make in the grand scheme of things, right? But the CCP is a morally bankrupt organization, a serial killing government, and for them it's all about power and pride.

The PM and Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai are extreme cowards, hiding behind fake assurances from a heinous government that cannot be trusted for a nanosecond. They know better, we know better, everybody knows that Thailand should have had the moral courage to stand up to China on this one, and they completely dropped the ball, and the egg that is all over their faces is well-deserved.

Whatever backlash is taking place is well deserved, and the officials can only blame themselves for it. Sending those people back to China was an act of extreme cowardice, and it demonstrates a lack of morality and the presence of extreme moral bankruptcy within the government, and the Thaksin family, and the army and others. This is being done at a time when Thailand should be showing moral courage and should be standing up to despot empires like China and despot regimes like Burma. Instead they are cowering and lending them support, which is pathetic. And it is not just the Uyghur people who are being persecuted. China has heinous leadership. Falun Gong practitioners across China are subject to widespread surveillance, arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture, and they are at a high risk of extrajudicial execution. The party-state invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in the campaign to crush Falun Gong, while simultaneously engaging in exploitative and lucrative forms of abuse against practitioners, including extortion and prison labor. https://freedomhouse.org/report/2017/battle-china-spirit-falun-gong-religious-freedom The Chinese government has imprisoned more than one million people since 2017 and subjected those not detained to intense surveillance, religious restrictions, forced labor, and forced sterilizations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights

I don't need a link, anybody who spends five minutes online can come up with a hundred reasons to establish his criminal past. Asking for a link is just simply an excuse to continue to believe in this creep without exercising your muscles, and making a sensible determination as to the immoral nature of this creep. Please stop the nonsense.

Sorry but by being born in this country you have permanently revoked your right to criticize the driving habits of people from other nations. Thailand has some of the most reckless drivers on planet earth, and I'm constantly seeing people doing things with their entire families in the car, that put their lives and the lives of everyone and the car at risk (in addition to everyone else on the highway) when they could have simply waited three seconds and been completely safe.

Trump stiffed over 3,600 contractors in the past 40 years. Some for very significant amounts of money. He also made a fortune on fraudulent college degrees from Trump University. All this information is available, for anyone who cares.

The US could not exist without Mexico, Canada and China. End of story. The US consistently overestimates it's influence which is declining dramatically and will continue to decline over Trump's lack of leadership.

As I said it's a lot easier to make money if you're willing to steal it, and if you're willing to stiff nearly everyone that you work with.

Both Trump and Musk are pathological liars and I don't think they have a genuine bone in their entire bodies between the two of them. Trump giving Musk all that power was the last thing in the world America needed, and he has done nothing to date to show that doge is accomplishing anything. On Tuesday, Trump said at a press briefing in Florida that “we have millions and millions of people over 100 years old” receiving Social Security benefits. “They’re obviously fraudulent or incompetent,” Trump said. “If you take all of those millions of people off Social Security, all of a sudden we have a very powerful Social Security with people that are 80 and 70 and 90, but not 200 years old,” he said. He also said that there’s one person in the system listed as 360 years old. Late Monday, Musk posted a slew of posts on his social media platform X, including: “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” and “Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as “ALIVE” when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem. Obviously. Some of these people would have been alive before America existed as a country. Think about that for a second …” A July 2024 report from Social Security’s inspector general states that from fiscal years 2015 through 2022, the agency paid out almost $8.6 trillion in benefits, including $71.8 billion — or less than 1% — in improper payments. Most of the erroneous payments were overpayments to living people. A July 2023 Social Security OIG report states that “almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.” And, as of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old. https://apnews.com/article/social-security-payments-deceased-false-claims-doge-ed2885f5769f368853ac3615b4852cf7

Yeah I agree with a lot of what you're saying Thai people have a great sense of humor, that's perhaps my favorite quality about them. Most don't take themselves too seriously for the most part, and they love having fun. Being here is such a different life than being back in the US, it's infinitely higher and better for most of us, and for me it's an absolute delight being around Thai people all day. And the women. Damn. My Thai woman is amazing. Every day with her is a very good day. She is the same lovely woman from one day to the next. I never experienced that level of emotional consistency from a western woman, ever. She has a smile on her face when she wakes up in the morning. Never experienced that in the states. She just does not seem to carry any emotional baggage from her past so I never have to deal with that neurosis. Some Thais manifest that unbearable lightness of being, that is so delightful to be around. I cannot really get enough of that spirit, and feel so blessed to be around that, and to have found such a well adjusted and delightful creature.

Just wait, it's only starting. Trump is doing a great job of isolating the US, diminishing its influence and demolishing its economy. As far as I'm concerned one of the most dangerous, reckless, and poorly thought out policies that Trump has proposed, are even higher tariffs on many classes of imported products. Who ends up paying for this? American companies who are manufacturing in China, and the consumer, that's who. In the end huge taxes may encourage companies to pull out of China, which is a good thing, but how long will that process take, and what will the economic consequences be in the interim? If he enacts his import tariffs as promised it could spell disaster for the American economy. It is nothing but a massive tax hike on the American people, and could have a very negative impact on thousands of American companies that manufacturer overseas, without any true understanding of why they manufacture overseas. Trump manufactures overseas, every opportunity he gets, to save money. Bibles, baseball caps, and likely countless other things. So, calling him very disingenuous and extremely dishonest would be an understatement. Trump is a failed capitalist. It is fairly easy to get wealthy if you are willing to steal most of your fortune from unsuspecting small contractors. Yet he still went bankrupt. Five times. Massive failures. That requires a special kind of skill. Or another form of grifting. His tax hike proposals would end up being a disaster. If they were highly targeted tariffs, only imposed upon goods other states were subsidizing, making it impossible to compete, that makes sense and would be good policy. But, blanket tariffs end up being punitive for the American consumer and American companies forced to operate overseas due to the silly costs of manufacturing in the US. They are a tax. Trump lies when he says other nations will pay for them. He lies when he says companies will pay for them. Consumers will pay, so it becomes a tax. Be bold, big Don and for once be honest. It is a tax hike. And it could slow down the economy and result in a massive loss of jobs, and major inflation. Very dumb policy.

There is no question about the fact that Patel is a blazing fool, but the real question is, is he a bigger fool than Trump, Vance or Hegseth? Those three are rather hard to beat in the numskull category.

Well, you can certainly make an argument that North America was in its prime prior to 1492. But in terms of it's glory years I would say America was in its prime from the late 40s to the early '70s and it's pretty easy to make an argument that for a cup of decades it stagnated, and then as you said it went downhill from there. There is no making America great again, it's never going to happen. America is going to become less significant each year from here on out, no matter what any foolhardy politician lies about or promises.

You are embracing impossible dreams. I understand why one would want to hope, but hoping against hope is a bizarre and dangerous thing. The US will never ever be the country that it once was, those days are long gone, the 50s and 60s were the heyday and since the 90s the US has been on a slow decline that will not stop, regardless of what this absolute goon promises.

Yes. It is a derogatory term regardless of how normalized it's become here, and I always refer to people from other countries as foreigners, and refuse to use the word farang. And it's most polite version it means outsider or "not one of us". For an expat who's been living here for many years and contributing to Thailand in countless ways, that is an insult, and I don't like it, nor will I use the term.

As a Westerner I can accept blame, apologize for an offense caused and take responsibility for my actions. No big deal. I care not one iota if I "lose face". Means less than zero to me what others think of me. Some will say it is a cultural difference. True. But, what about the deeper aspects of self esteem and having enough of it to be able to act like a man? A real man (or woman) accepts responsibility for problems they have caused. When that is being constantly deflected due to a pathological fear of looking bad in the eyes of others, that creates enormous problems for society. I despise the practice of face, and think it is the single greatest weakness of many Thai people. Own up and do what is right. Behave like a decent person and a responsible citizen.

True story. 30s is too soon. Dying in your 30's is tragic. As is the 40s Sympathy dissapates from there. 50s is such a shame 60s is too soon 70s is a good run 80s is a life well lived 90s - is a fricking hell of a ride