spidermike007

That highway is an absolute abomination, heads should be rolling and company executives should be imprisoned. The fact that the delays are allowed to continue and the public safety is being ignored, is nothing short of a national tragedy.

I've been getting good quality crowns and root canals done for about 9,000 baht, a small fraction of what it would cost in the US and the work is top quality. I got an very good implant for 35,000 baht, and my friend was quoted $7,000 in the San Francisco area. I spend a lot of time in India and I love the place, but I don't think I would trust it for medical treatment. Thailand is infinitely more sanitary than India.

I think it is fairly safe to say that Vance said that sometime before he sold his soul to the dark forces, for the sake of power. Perhaps he still had a nanogram of integrity within his small body.

Sometimes a mistake is wearing white at a formal gathering after Labor Day in New York City, and sometimes a mistake is advancing German forces into Russia at the onset of winter.

I think it's time for the false piety and the fake purity to end. This netizen outrage is becoming nonsensical. Look, you invite 40 million tourists into your country in a desperate bid for their cash and you're going to have some delinquents, you're going to have some that misbehave, you're going to have some lowlifes. If you want to avoid that you put some qualifications on the visa process. Otherwise, just deal with it and stop the moaning.

The reality is that regardless of what side of the aisle you're on the quality of a Tesla is not very admirable especially the Interiors which year by year seem to be getting cheaper and more chintzy looking. All the interior value seems to be in that ridiculously large monitor. And then there is that utterly ridiculous and juvenile looking cybertruck. And then you come to the man himself. Even Republicans are having a hard time defending him at this point, as there's been no transparency whatsoever when it comes to the supposed DOGE savings, there's been huge job losses amongst Republican supporters, and he's become such a liability and such a fool, that even Trump's having to let him go, and that says a lot.

This story does not make any sense, how would you go out without some cash knowing that you were going to be engaging in some form of paid companionship? I don't know of too many ladies (or men) of the night who accept payment by bank scan.

That's what I call a very low information, very non-intellectual reply. How much time did you give that reply, 1/10 of a second?

A deterrent can often be very effective, word gets around and people start behaving differently, however Thailand doesn't seem to believe in the concept of a deterrent and it has one of the weakest and most compromised police force and judicial systems in the world.

It can also mean Trump deceives his supporters. And they love him anyway!

His insanity seems to know no boundaries. His thirst for unbridled power is beyond gluttonous. He is a ugly, wannabe dictator, and is pushing as hard as he possibly can. I don’t think he has a coherent value structure as most of us understand it. I think we’re seeing a president who’s operating without anything any of us would recognize as a conscience. Truly. It is about showing what he can get away with. It’s about showing his enemies that what they support, he can tear down. It is all about displays of brute strength. He gets off on that, and in that sense, it seems not so much an autocracy but a flexocracy. Let me show you how I can flex my bicep as I use it to power my fist coming into your face. Trolling meme removed. It’s not about any coherent morality. It’s not about any North Star. It’s about showing that you can turn the boat 180 degrees around and that you can do whatever you want and you can bring the people who opposed you to their knees.

While in Italy I witnessed ambulances with monster bumpers literally pushing vehicles onto the side of the road, and tearing them up in the process. It was a gorgeous sight. The drivers were left stunned. Would love to see that in Thailand. You don't want to move and help to save lives? OK, let's destroy your vehicle. HA! They were similar to the image below. Such a great idea.

Well that certainly applies in some countries, Thais do tend to be quite polite but I do agree that we are fairly invisible to them, and we will never be considered to be a part of their culture, no matter how long we live here and no matter how good our Thai becomes. It's just part of their tribal culture, that they are very closed to the idea of embracing foreign people as an integral part of their lives. I have not found that to be the case in Mexico, if I lived in Mexico for 5 years the people around me would consider me one of their own, and the same applies to many other nations. The Thais are uniquely insular. And it really doesn't bother me because I've never really felt a deep need to belong. I feel that with my woman, and I feel that with her family and some of her close friends, but I certainly don't feel that with society at large, which works just fine for me.

Yeah I could see where the deities could be off-putting to some people, but from what I've gleaned from my studies of Hinduism, it is that they are devotional manifestations of specific aspects of Divine creation, and it's the devotion itself that is the extraordinary aspect of the practice. Hinduism when practiced at a deeper level can be very profound, especially the meditation techniques and the devotional chanting.

With many people, once they got attached to a theory, it was hard to get them detached. They’d screen out unhelpful facts, invent favorable ones, and ignore contradictions in their own claims. Look at those Sandy Hook, multiple fraud convictions, and Jan. 6th truthers, babbling about false flags and crisis actors and all the rest. When people were motivated enough to believe something, they were going to believe it no matter what. There was no such thing as a bridge too far. That most certainly applies to Trump a hundred fold.

Exactly. Trump's autocratic tendencies are very indicative of his hatred of democracy and open and free speech, so what does that say about his continued support?

Well this is a massive failure, either on the part of air traffic control, the helicopter crew, or a third party. I hear that Reagan Airport airspace is incredibly congested, and they should have systems in place to prevent these kinds of occurrences. It never should have happened.

What is really being said here is that Trump is going to decide whether or not he's going to throw Ukraine under the bus and side with his pal Vlad, or whether or not he's going to show some dignity and reliability by supporting Ukraine and standing up to a serial killing despot dictator. I bet on the former, the Lads spurning of Trump and him having shown his true colors lately does actually seem to be pissing Trump off, which is amazing. Is it possible that Trump could actually do the right thing for a change?

Who pays attention to "netizen outrage" these days? So many people just sit down behind the keyboard and express their outrage. Perhaps this excessive criticism of misbehavior of foreigners has gone just a little bit too far? What do they expect, they invite anyone and everyone in a desperate bid for tourism cash, with no criteria whatsoever. Who was harmed in this adventure other than a broken lock? It just doesn't sound like a big deal at all, trespassing is a crime but as far as crimes go it's pretty damn minor.

Only truly demented people who have made the huge mistake of going off their medications, have pests and rodents as pets. This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard in quite some time, and I hear a lot of ridiculous stuff.

Well Pattaya was getting 15 to 20k arrivals previously so they weren't just there for the women, and the Chinese for the most part are not a particularly heavy clientele for the industry. There are so many other factors that work here including the Chinese government encouraging its citizens not to travel abroad, and instead encouraging domestic travel, which has has exploded. The Chinese also tend to be rather timid and easily scared, and I'm certain that the scam center scandals has discouraged a lot of Chinese from visiting too.

You left out Hinduism, which has likely produced the greatest number of saints in the last couple of thousand years.

And all this is happening while we likely have the worst Secretary of Defense, within the past century, if not longer, along with a president who's had the worst first hundred days in presidential history. So one of the big questions right now is how long will it be until Hegseth gets thrown under the bus? A month, 2 months? The latest flashpoint is a near collapse inside the Pentagon’s top ranks. On Friday, Hegseth fired three of his most loyal senior staffers — senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy secretary of Defense. In the aftermath, Defense Department officials working for Hegseth tried to smear the aides anonymously to reporters, claiming they were fired for leaking sensitive information as part of an investigation ordered earlier this month. Yet none of this is true. While the department said that it would conduct polygraph tests as part of the probe, not one of the three has been given a lie detector test. In fact, at least one of them has told former colleagues that investigators advised him he was about to be cleared officially of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Hegseth’s team has developed a habit of spreading flat-out, easily debunked falsehoods anonymously about their colleagues on their way out the door. On Friday, POLITICO reported that Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, was leaving his role. Kasper had requested the investigation into the Pentagon leaks, which reportedly included military operational plans for the Panama Canal and a pause in the collection of intelligence for Ukraine. Once the Signalgate story broke, Hegseth followed horrible crisis-communications advice from his new public affairs team, who somehow convinced him to try to debunk the reporting through a vague, Clinton-esque non-denial denial that “nobody was texting war plans.” This was a violation of PR rule number one — get the bad news out right away. His nebulous disavowal prompted the reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, to release Hegseth’s full chat string with the detailed operational plans two days later, turning an already-big story into a multi-week embarrassment for the president’s national security team. Hegseth now faces an inspector general investigation into a possible leak of classified information and violation of records retention protocols. That was just the beginning of the Month from Hell. The Wall Street Journal and other outlets reported that Hegseth “brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed.” Next, the Pentagon set up a top-secret briefing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on China for Elon Musk, who still has extensive business interests in China. After learning about it, the White House canceled that meeting. The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon. Given his record of holding prior Cabinet leaders accountable, many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly if Trump chooses to do the same in short order at the top of the Defense Department. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/20/pentagon-chaos-ullyot-hegseth-00205594 Trolling meme removed.

Cognitive rigidity seems to be a big one here. Those that seem to be able to dance on their feet and maintain an open mind seem to have a much better chance of getting along with others. I'm often discussing politics as many of you have noticed but it really ever becomes personal for me. On the other hand I'm very frequently attacked for not paying sufficient fealty to the current circus clown.

It sure would appear that the romance between and Vlad and Donnie appears to be wearing off. Vlad took Donnie for a big ride and for once in his life Donnie seems to have expressed some dignity and been offended by the betrayal. So much for absolute fealty to Prince Vlad.