connda

I know - inject lot more money into the economy, debase the THB further - and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In the meantime, in-between time, ain't we got fun!

People selling melatonin here in Thailand are doing so at completely rip-off prices. Go look on Line Shopping for example. Fyi - it's not banned although some carriers refuse to ship it (Flash). Read through that thread as Sheryl chimed in on the topic. Only available from iHerb shipped via Thai Post and limited to one bottle with a maximum pill count of 90 pills. Which is why I wrote this post.

Expect Increase in COVID-19 Cases as School Term Approaches OMG!!! Say it's not so? Oh wait! And also increases in influenza, colds, RSV, STDs, mononucleosis, herpes, TB, and "bad humours," and a whole plethora of other communicable diseases that tend to occur when large groups of people are in close contact - like at the beginning of school year. But but but - Covid is special. It's special!!! 🙄 Of course it is. Four years after the fact and what is now a mild flu-like illness still scares the pants off of some people (look for mask wearers). Outside of Asia (and Thailand) most people have gotten tired of the rhetoric and have jettisoned the fear and have gotten back to "old normal."

I stumbled around a workaround to iHerb's policy of only shipping one bottle of melatonin with a maximum pill count of 90 pills (they won't ship 120 count). You can only order one bottle of 60 or 90 count melatonin from a single supplier. Get the idea? I just ordered 150 5mg pills (60 + 90) which only cost $1.60 shipping. Total cost $18 and change or roughly 680 THB at today's exchange rate (37THB/USD ). I didn't realize the USD/THB had increased. On a side note, I also made a purchase for $40 and change to get free shipping (different items). Something to watch though is that 37THB/USD which brings the cost of the items razor-close to the 1500 THB threshold for customs. This will be interesting. The charges are in USD so someone at the Post Office would need to look up the exchange rate and calculate the threshold. If the USD keeps climbing (I'm not complaining) the days of $40 for "Free Shipping" may be a thing of the past as you'll be paying duty. Not sure what they'll do as I live out in the sticks and know the people at the post office so they may be a little more lax out here.

Exactly. It's ignorance and panic that is a deadly combination when encountering rips.

I've spent enough time in the ocean surfing and boogie-boarding to understand rips. Keep you head, keep your cool and you can find a way back to shore. Lose you head and panic?

It hysterical how so many people get their Nose bent out of shape (pun intended) by comedy. It's COMEDY ffs?

Assault on Kiev: Russian helicopters swoop above Ukraine's capital At the rate of the Russian accelerating advance, give this thread until around August or September and the title will be relevant again. That is if Europe (and the entire world for that matter) isn't one large smoking hole. Well - you won't have to worry about "global warming" caused by cow farts after the first 24 hours as "nuclear winter" sets in. After which everyone's visceral hatred for other ethnicity and nations they have been raised to hate since birth will be a completely moot point. Ya'll be too busy fighting off your neighbors for a few grains of rice and some canned food. "Hummm, where's my old CD of "A Boy And His Dog?" So I'll leave you with Mark Twain's The War Prayer for all of you wishing Hell On Earth for your enemies whomever you have been told they may be. Thank God for satirists like Mr Clemens whose words may have forestalled the end by a few years. “Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle—be Thou near them! With them—in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it— For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

I guess Cossack gals go for a premium.

Where can I find traditional extension ladders in Chiangmai/Thailand? Lazada - that's where I bought my last ladder.

I expect to be dead in 9 years. If not - I'll worry about it in nine years. However - given the Geo-political situation where the US and the West consider themselves to be Superman and the rest of the world is Lex Luther, and Lex is breaking out the Kryptonite, none of us many be around in 9 months, or 9 weeks, or 9 days. If you don't grasp that, well - ignorance is bliss. In the meanwhile, I'll hand it over to Bobby McFerrin - "Don't Worry, Be Happy!"

Do you have the victim mentality? Nope!

I simply stopped drinking Coke and Pepsi. Shrinkflation plus overpricing equals I'm not bothering to buy it anymore. On the positive side, my blood sugar numbers haven't been better.

Bed bug usually leave 3 punctures in close proximity that tend to be red and swollen. That's a spider bite, or a tiny little cobra. 😉

Spider

Well, yeahhhh. How are corporations to squeeze the most money out of customers if they don't "shrinkflation?" Like the soft-drink corporations do. 2/3 of a liter in a liter plastic bottle. Lots more unnecessary plastic to add to the ocean gyres of plastic. I've got the solution. Just don't buy it anymore. Beer? Drink three "pints" and you won't care anymore. 😉

One out of 100 people could have heart damage and both the government and Big-Pharma would spew statistics saying: Instead both would blame it on the victim for having pre-existing conditions and bad life-style choices - or - We see nothing!. And then I still remember Joe Biden up on stage at a Town Hall saying, "You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations," and "If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the ICU unit, and you’re not going to die." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-if-vaccinated-wont-get-covid/ And then on July 21, 2022 NPR publishes this: "Even if you're the president, it's hard to avoid a breakthrough COVID infection With his positive test for COVID-19 on Thursday, President Biden joined the throngs of Americans who have contracted the coronavirus even though they are vaccinated and boosted." https://www.npr.org/2022/07/21/1112770591/biden-coronavirus-breakthrough-infection And unfortunately people who got the shots, regardless of the relative numbers in relationship to the "unvaccinated," vaccinated have still have gone to the hospital, gone to an ICU, and some have died. The president told us that would not happen! So, like me, there are many people who feel that government officials willfully lie to them to promote pharmaceutical company's products at the expense of safety. It's perception. I catch you lying to me - then a don't trust you after that. Then Big Pharma and the government wrings their hands over "vaccine hesitancy." "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

If there is such a super low incident of side-affects, then why are the shots indemnified? If the major side affects are so rare then the company should have no problem paying the health care and recovery costs of those rare, few souls who the shots damaged. Or if the government indemnified the companies than they should step up and pay. Right? Instead - "Get the shots, get the shots, get the shots - oh - you got TTS and a 2 million THB hospital bill? You must of had a comorbidity. It's your own fault, sucks to be you. Fill out this paperwork and we'll get back to you in a few years...maybe; may not. Get the shots, get the shots, get the shots." Then they wring their hands about "vaccine hesitancy." 🙂 "Get the shots. TTS is very very very rare. Never happen to you." 🤕 "It happened to me and now I have heart problems and bills and I can't work." 🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗 <chirp chirp chirp> 🙂 "Get the shots. TTS is very very very rare. Never happen to you." Then it takes the public to step up: "We're holding a benefit for Khun SucksToBeYou who got TTS after his AZ shot to help pay his medical bills." Government and Pharmaceutical companies "Why are so few people getting the shots. Come-on. 'Safe and Effective.' Get the shots! We're losing money. Chop chop! Declare a pandemic."

That's one of my major complaint regarding news stories. BREAKING - MAJOR PRESS RELEASE Videos, interviews, Thai social media upheavals - News at Six!!! Then. <poof> memory holed in 24 hours. No follow-up. "Who Cares Journalism" at its finest. Off to report on the next shiny object. It's like the guy on the three-wheel EV scooter who shot through an intersection and got T-boned by an Isuzu. Guy's in ICU. Lot's of discussion regarding who is in the wrong and who is in the right. Did anyone see any follow-up. That's a huge story at a public service level in order to educate the public about road safety on a number of different levels plus many are probably wondering what happened to the "elderly farang" and how the cops sorted it out. But? <crickets>

For those people who want the shots that is. The study below addresses "vaccine hesitancy" among health care workers in Poland. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies Level and COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters among Healthcare Workers with the Highest SARS-CoV-2 Infection Risk—Follow Up Study Lorent et.al, Vaccines Journal, April 29, 2024 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/12/5/475/pdf?version=1714393067 "Our study found that 42% of the HCWs (Health Care Workers) were hesitant about the second booster dose, while 7% reported no intent to get vaccinated with any additional doses. As reasons for not vaccinating, participants most frequently highlighted lack of time, negative experiences with previous vaccinations, and immunity conferred by past infections."

I think Britain should mobilize along with France and immediately send the majority of their military forces to the front lines in Ukraine in order to accomplish what neither Napoleon Bonaparte or Germany could accomplish in the past. Their generals could drop off the 3 billion quid with Zelensky as they pass through Kiev where the money will no doubt be funneled directly into paying the salaries of brave Ukrainian volunteer soldiers fighting on the front for liberty and democracy. Britain and France are the greatest fighting forces in the West. So go show those ill-equipped, low-morale Ruskie conscripts fighting with 50 year old, rusting Soviet equipment which barely function by using IC chips from washing machines a thing or two! Brave French and British patriots with the most modern and expensive Western military hardware in the world advancing shoulder-to-shoulder across the Novorossiya steppes will scare Ivan right back to the Urals and will bring Western "freedom, democracy, and a rules-based international order" to those backward Cossack once and for all. Grrrr - go get them boys! In the meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu who has consistently referred to Russian military tactics in Ukraine as "active defense" is now referring to military operations as "offensive." Not that words matter to backward, borsch-eating Russians. Highly trained French and British troops would cut through Ruskie lines like a hot-knife through butter. It would be even better if their forces were led by Macron and Sunak backed by defense ministers Sébastien Lecornu and David Cameron, all mounted on horse-back, swords in hands and waving the French Tri-color and British Union-Jack from the highest hill, urging their brave, shining troops forward to put an end to "Russian aggression" once and for all. What a magnificent sight that would be!!! Ivan would drop his rusty, malfunctioning Kalashnikov and high-tail it back to Lake Baikal at that sight for sure! So "come on" France and Britain. Mobilize Now! Get to the Ukie Eastern Front ASAP and stop Ivan in his tracks! You can do it!

In England Conservative / Labor Flip the coin and put the party who shows up on top into power. However? It's the same coin. Ditto in the US Democrat / Republican Flip the coin and put the party who shows up on top into power. However? It's the same coin. Flip the coin regularly and your country is called "A Democracy."

That's nothing that a little bit of stimulant like Ritalin wouldn't clear right up. Just need a diagnosis and a prescription (wink wink)

This is why pharmaceutical companies require a tight-knit "public-private partnership" with governments where the government promises to purchase billions of dollars worth of "vaccines" and then forcefully mandate that their citizen take the "vaccines" after which the pharmaceuticals funnel some of the profits to individual government members in the form of "campaign contributions" (wink wink) and guarantees of board memberships and life-time jobs as rewards for their exemplary government service in support of their collective efforts to save the planet from novel viruses which their "vaccine" wasn't effective at stopping the transmission. So, what Moderna needs now is for the government to declare another pandemic so Moderna can get the ball rolling on "saving humanity" once again - $$$ Cha-Ching $$$ I can't wait until they actually find a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's or other dreaded diseases. Then the profits will be funneled to individual government members in the form of "campaign contributions" (wink wink) and guarantees of board memberships and life-time jobs as rewards for their exemplary government service in support of their collective efforts to not interfere with the pharmaceutical companies price-gouging and over-charging by a few million dollars per treatment (if not per shot) and therefore separating society into "the wealthy who are clean and worthy to be saved" and "the poor commoners who are dirty and worthless and should be left to die." And then? Another Pandemic!!! Free Shots For All At The Government's Expense - and on, and on, and on.....