spidermike007

My guess is that a lot of grandparents don't really want to take on this responsibility, but Thai society somehow does not give them the ability to say NO! This is your child you deal with them! Instead they end up engaging in a form of martyrdom in their golden years. Especially in Issan, where the absentee mother issue is rampant.

These days I will only drive into Bangkok if it's after 10:00 p.m. And I will only leave Bangkok prior to 5:30 a.m. That's how bad I found traffic to be on Rama II, getting in and out of Bangkok. I just will not take a chance of being in traffic for 2 hours or more to go 10 or 15 km, which has happened to me on multiple occasions. I do consider the lack of high-speed transport options to be an abomination, and highly representative of the level of sloth that Thailand has experienced on a governmental level for the past 30 or 40 years.

Trump is an absolutely horrific negotiator, and one can see that fully on display now. When you give away the talking points of a negotiation prior to sitting down at the table you have failed. There is a 0% chance of success once you do that, and any decent negotiator knows that. The man could negotiate his way out of a paper bag to save his own life. The United States is now dependent upon this creep for to defend itself. Prior to the election all of his supporters knew that he adored dictators and despots and he had a lack of affection for democratically elected leaders, but did anybody guess that it would be this bad, so soon? Trump is a clear and present danger to the security of both the United States and the Free World and he must be stopped. The Senators and Congress members of his own party and the Democratic party must stand up and defend freedom and rational thinking, against this insane goon.

Well the highway patrol certainly appreciates your willingness to do free PR for them, but the bottom line is that the only time I've ever seen highway patrol cars on the highway, is if they are approaching an accident site, and that applies to decades of highway driving here. In 20 years I've never seen anybody get pulled over for reckless driving. And worldwide that is one of the primary functions of the highway patrol. But not here. Ever.

That is a load of misinformation, typically any nation during wartime will not be capable of conducting elections, so if he's unelected that is the fault of the serial killing, genocidal madman Vladimir Putin.

See my response below. It is utterly shameful for a parent to leave their child with the grandparents for extended periods of time, and it's a sign of some sort of breakdown of contemporary society when this happens.

I completely agree with that, and I find that embarrassment and shame is one of the truly great motivators in Thailand. When I'm looking to get any kind of service or achieve some customer service I will oftentimes be forced to resort to those tactics, and most of the time it works. Nothing like massive amounts of egg on the face for someone who's absolutely obsessed with shameful and useless practice of saving face.

They may be well versed, but that doesn't mean they actually practice it. I think worldwide the art of parenting is a vastly eroding art, and very few parents seem to know it anymore, much less grandparents. It takes a lot of effort. A lot of older farts just don't seem to have that kind of energy.

That is very true. I remember those long time encounters, however one can negotiate for time. When they ask how long I always say a minimum of 2 hours, and negotiate for that. When we get back into the room I show them the clock. There are ways to control anxiety levels and create a level of comfort in spending some time and not being rushed.

I wish I could wrap my mind around the possibility that Musk is actually engaging in work that will benefit the American people, however I can't see it, he is simply too self-serving and so is his creepy boss. I expect that the only dividend that will come from this will be the further decline of America and that will be great news for both Russia and China.

Well I think the same could be said for Phuket, Samui, and Chiang Mai. There is a different element here these days, there's a far lower quality of tourists, they're not spending as much and the nightlife has diminished dramatically from what it used to be. There are still plenty of bars but they're loaded up with older and considerably larger women than back in the day! From my point of view the only exception to that is Bangkok, as you can still find very hot women there. You just have to pay a whole lot more than you used to!

There is no doubt and that life here is dramatically less expensive than in the US or in Europe. I know many people that pay 10,000 baht per month for nice three bedroom homes in smaller towns. On the average I would say between 50,000 and 100,000 baht per month is required for a couple to live comfortably here. Of course there's a huge variation depending on how spartan you are, or how well you're living. But many of us spend at least 100,000 baht per month. Which is reasonable to live well these days.

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. 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. The current situation with Rama II a decade behind schedule, and moving at a snail's pace is an absolute abomination and a boil on the face of Thailand.

These kind of picks are wet dreams for our rivals like Russia and China, cannot believe the extent to which Trump is weakening the fabric of American society with his downward, highly incompetent, and horrific selections to head very important divisions of the government. Hegseth, Patel, Vance? Really Don? Donald Trump, weakening America every day of the week. Just wait. If you voted for in him you're in for a big surprise over the next year or two, and it won't be a pleasant one.

Bad news for America, and very typical of Trump picking another highly unqualified, bottom of the barrel pick, but then again his primary qualification is fealty, so qualifications don't really matter to this goon. Jamie Raskin's statement kind of says it all. “Kash Patel’s unrepentant enthusiasm for violent J6 insurrectionists, his cartoon comic books about how ‘Hillary Queenton’ ‘spread lies’ to stop King Donald from becoming our King, and his comically evasive and petulant answers to Members of the Senate refusing to acknowledge plain facts about his own statements, now tell us everything we need to know. This political operative’s wavering commitment to the rule of law and spectacular disrespect for the truth disqualify him as a candidate to lead the nation’s premiere law enforcement organization. He is a dangerous and cartoonish choice for the job.

He only speaks well of people who kiss his butt. Then he speaks nastily of them if they don't. He is so simple minded, and utterly predictable. A terrible negotiator is one who is entirely predictable. Anyone with any smarts simply begins the negotiations with a series of compliments published in the media prior to the negotiations starting, and then butters up the goon with a couple of compliments upon his arrival. At that point he gives you everything you've ever wanted. The man could not negotiate his way out of a paper bag if his is life depended upon it. Just another reason why he's very dangerous for America, and for the world.

Whenever I'm driving I see a lot of highway patrol cars pulled over on the side of the road at these little air conditioned offices where they're likely playing cards, so what you're saying is utterly false. They have enough cars to patrol, they just don't have any motivation.

Trump has spent nearly the entire week on his golf courses, and he just seems to be content letting Musk run the country at this point. We get the occasional tweet and that's about it. Must did buy the presidency after all, so Don seems to be his underling.

Grandparents were never intended to be parents, there's something about Thai Society that allows a woman to leave her child with her parents and turn them into complete martyrs. They probably don't want it but they can't say no. It's a completely ridiculous aspect of Thai society and the grandparents cannot be expected to know the art of parenting, and take care of the child as if it was their own. So, who's fault is it really? Mama is to blame. Environment is stronger than willpower so you just can't expect a 12 year old to behave in a wise manner.

I don't personally care about Ukraine that much, but I do care about enabling a serial killing madman dictator like Putin. Trump can sympathize with him all he wants, and give away the store. That is what terrible and incompetent negotiators do. That's who he is and what he does, but that doesn't make it right for a nanosecond, and maniacs like Putin must be stopped. We need to stand up to that superfreak, not cower and bend the knee, like the creep is now doing.

I think that he's been semi senile for at least the last few years, and I think he's been insane for the last couple of decades. Now he's relatively unhinged, and it's just a matter of time until people start figuring that out.

He deserves it, he richly earned it, and he's proving every day why he deserves the criticism, the lack of approval, and the lack of fealty. Billions of people around the world feel that way. You think most people love him, but quite the opposite is true, it is a relatively small minority that support him. And I can assure you that minority will get smaller as time goes on.

Putting Musk in this position was one of the most horrific mistakes that Trump has ever made, and time will reveal the extent of the irreparable destruction he has caused and will cause. It's just a matter of time. The richer Musk has become, the more arrogant, the more self-righteous, the more ignorant, and the more obnoxious he has become. He's the last person in the world who should have this kind of power and he is as dangerous as his boss.

Just wait. It is only beginning. People will come to realize that the fraudster was simply hoodwinking them and filling them with Marxist style propaganda. 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 too 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? He 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. 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.

You raise a very good point, there's no doubt that the RTP pyramid has been upset by the legalization of ganja, as billions were being collected in bribe money. I've heard a number of first-hand stories, so they have to make up for it somewhere else.