spidermike007

Amend that projection to 575,000 foreign tourists and an additional $3 billion baht in domestic tourism revenue. If that. Covid decimated the economy. Be honest for once in your careers, you ignoramus is fools!

On 7/3/2020 at 5:04 PM, GAZZPA said:

It's staggering to me to think that the Thai authorities believe rich people are immune to the virus.. I won't even go into this because it is obvious to anybody with a functioning brain. Never mind, sunny day today, I'm off for a walk..

And yet they have likely not spent five minutes pondering the sacrifices required for the ability to attract this caliber of tourist. 

Easing luxury taxes to 20%, so the fat cats can spend $5,000 to $50,000 on baling while visiting. This is a not a dumb group of people. They will not spend double or true just because they are here, despite what the arrogant and ignorant authorities think. 

Lower wine taxes from 360%, to 80%. It would boost the economy and make Thailand more attractive for the rich who will NOT spend $1,300 for a bottle of wine they can get for $250 elsewhere. 

Simplify visa policy, or have a customs officer come to the plane like they do in many civilized nations. 

Improve high speed domestic travel. Increase access to private helicopter travel. 

I could go on for days. Saying you want super rich tourists, and then doing nothing progressive to attract them, tells us who you are, and why you are so spactacularly unsuccessful in what you do, Mr. Pipat. 

Nothing wrong with “outing” the offending establishment.  The whole go somewhere else thing boggles the mind, as a business owner myself. However, great customer service does require humility, consideration, respect and vision. 

7 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

Those living in glass houses....

I always hold the supporters to a higher standard that the leaders. Supporters, regardless of which party they support, are people. People deserve more credit than leaders and are capable of greater honor. 

Leaders of either party are reptiles. Some are 8 ft. and some are 14 ft. I always maintain awareness of that. 

1 hour ago, Monomial said:

 

I have a problem with the word "centrist", because it has no genuine meaning.  It only works if you assume all political belief can be defined by a line with a specific beginning of "far left" and a specific end of "far right". You can then define a midpoint of "center".

 

In reality, politics doesn't look like that. Instead, it is some kind of convoluted, multidimensional hypersphere, with people on the extreme left and those on the extreme right actually sharing much more in common than they are willing to admit. Seen this way, everyone is a "centrist".  There is no objective center that everyone can agree on. Personal biases always define this point, which is why nearly everyone considers themselves "centrists", even those who are very right biased or very left biased in the colloquial sense. 

 

There are other more appropriate words, such as "liberal" and "conservative".  These had meanings at one point in time. But in today's political environment, those who are liberal don't actually want to liberate anything. Instead they want to restrict freedoms in favor of more government control. Similarly, there is no intent of conserving by the conservatives. They are actually trying to actively expand the government policies supporting corporate welfare over the individual.

 

Words change over time, but human biases remain. We are all biased. Saying we are centrist is simply a way of avoiding facing our own biases and avoiding accepting the uncomfortable biases of others. I have a problem with the word "centrist" because it is usually a substitute for the intended meaning "reasonable and not radical". And yet, in the correct context, we are all radical thinkers with deeply held convictions that we would never compromise on.

 

I am neither right, left, nor centrist. I find anyone that self identifies and is proud to be a Democrat or a Republican quite radical to be honest.

 

 

 

Do you also object to the term moderate? Though I do identify as a Democrat, I am most definitely not liberal, as most on the right prefer to cast us. Or demonize us. Frankly, I have no idea what they are trying to say, and my guess is the majority on the right do not either. 

14 hours ago, whaleboneman said:

I didn't even know there was a rule about posting recent photos?

There is not. It is what we call “highly defensive, local nitpicking”.

Speaking of extraterrestrial planets, when I have a friend visiting Thailand for the first time, I like to explain to them that it is helpful to bear in mind, that Thailand is not really a foreign country. It is more like a distant planet. So, knowing that, do not expect the kinds of things you might expect on earth. Expect the culture and the habits, and the systems to be way beyond foreign, and often incomprehensible.

Personally, I find alot of that wonderful. I never know what to expect here. I found life in the US to be terribly predictable, and therefore stunningly boring. Not here. 

Does Dr. Taweesin Visanuyothin even know if a policy with a covid inclusion is even available anymore? Many policies have a pandemic exclusion clause.

How about returning as a couple, with my Thai wife? Does she need the same insurance policy?

And does he even know if there is still a threat of quarantine, even with these requirements being filled?

And does he know if a letter stating you passed a covid test is sufficient? Has anyone ever even defined what a "Fit to fly health certificate" is, and if it is available anywhere in the world?

It seems that there is so much neither Taweesin or the administration does NOT KNOW. 

One has to feel for the Russian people. Either they have been severely duped, they were forced into this vote, the vote was manufactured, or doctored, or some other tactic was employed by this despot dictator, who is unbelievably thirsty for more power, more fortune, and more mischief. 

14 hours ago, khunPer said:

And here is some more current photos from the beach road in Chaweng...

 

June 30th

 

July 1st

 

Looks about the same to me. Night time in Chaweng always has more action, and as we know, July 1st was a breakthrough date for the night life, hopefully. If they can survive. 

19 hours ago, khunPer said:

You should update the photos to fairly up-to.date photos, before you post...????

They were taken within the past couple of weeks, thank you very much. 

21 hours ago, SpaceKadet said:

I think you make a wrong presumption about SETI. SETI is not looking for a signal directed at us, it is looking for A SIGNAL that would indicate an intelligent civilisation that is using electromagnetic waves as a means of communication. It's simply looking for intelligent life, perhaps at a level equal to us. Our first signals left less that 100 years ago. So, if any intelligent beings would detect it, decipher it, and decide to reply, it would take the same time time to come back to us. Not very efficient use of communication, it's 1.5 seconds delay to the moon, and something like 30+ minutes to Mars.

Late Carl Sagan, in his book Contact (also a movie), describes the fist transmission likely beamed at us, as the first publicly broadcast TV transmission of the opening of the Olympic Games in Berlin 1936, with A. Hitler making a speech.

 

The are also discussions that more advanced cilivilisations would not use electromagnetic waves for communication due to the limitations of the technology, but more likely some more esoteric means, like quantum entanglements, making their transmissions totally invisible to us, at our current technology level.

 

Absolutely spot on. Great observations. Whatever technology an alien civilization would use, would likely be "light years" beyond what we have. We have not even mastered nuclear fusion, or non invasive surgery yet, which from a speculative philosophy point of view, is very crude, and not advanced at all. Surely they would have far more efficient means of communication, travel, healing, and living more fulfilled lives, not so bogged down by petty conflicts, toxic politics, war, and greed. Even a tiny advancement over our so called civilization would be able to achieve those steps. 

I suggested back in late March, that Covid had already beaten Trump, with a TKO,  one minute into the first round of the fight. Now? He is looking more and more like a lame duck, every day. I predict he is going to get beaten badly. "Sleepy" Joe seems to be waking up! If Covid were not enough, you have his historic and epic failure with the Floyd situation. Poor Don. He cannot seem to get anything right, these days. Bye bye!

People want to have sex. This is such a basic human instinct. The sex industry in the US is far larger than it is here according to very well informed sources. However, it is well hidden. And therefore infinitely more dangerous for the women involved. Here it is more open. And safer for all parties. 

The country is being led by dinosaurs. They are fake puritans. It is all about appearance and has absolutely nothing to do with reform, self discipline, honor, integrity and righteousness. It is a totally hollow quest for an appearance of purity, with no substance behind it. This type of hypocrisy must be resisted at all times, and paid no regard. 

When you consider the size of the universe and the state of things on earth, one has to presume that not only is there life out there, there it is likely to be millions of intelligent civilizations, spread out over inconceivable reaches of space.

My presumption is that we are probably quite low on the evolutionary scale within those millions of civilizations throughout the universe. The universe is just simply too vast to be lifeless and for humans to consider themselves to be the pinnacle of all that exists in the universe to me is a representation of utter hubris, antiquated religious conceits, or just a presumption that is nearly mindless in its scope.

And one asks if there is life out there why wouldn't we know about it? When one takes into account both the size of our galaxy alone and the level of ignorance on earth, even if they could contact us, why would they want to? What would they have to gain from a people like ours? 

The SETI project makes a bizarre and arrogant presumption. That intelligent life (likely far more advanced than that on earth), would want us to even know of their existence!

This is all good. The world is becoming more conscious, and FB is paying the price. They must monitor their site more closely. They are being penalized for their utter lack of concern and diligence.