connda

The only difference now is that the US is posed to violate "treaties" with it's allies as opposed to violating "treaties" with its so-called enemies. Unilaterally pulling out of treaties is a mainstay of US Geopolitics - not just Trump. As Russia has so succinctly stated, the US is "not agreement-capable" ("недоговороспособны" (nedogovorosposobny) in Russian). Russia knows it, Iran knows it, China knows it, North Korea knows it - and now America's allies know it. However America's allies and their mouthpieces like Roche will now melt down into a puddle of goo and kick and scream about Trump being Putin's Puppet and Xi's Tool. However, both those leaders are equally distrustful of anything that looks like an agreement or treaty coming out of Washington. So now everyone hates American and Trump-haters really really really hate Trump and his entire administration as they search for spanners to throw into the works. In the meanwhile they just shift into hyperbolic over-drive and spit, froth, have conniption-fits.

I'm really glad that this has worked out well for you. But you understand how things work here. Most Western retirees don't.

For those who can't grasp the culture, it's a really bad idea to move here with the intention of retiring. Someone should make a documentary of instances like this and make it mandatory viewing for any retirees thinking that Thailand will be their dream-retirement mecca. Think again. "Well you retired here!" I was here in the 1980s and then returned to work 18 years ago. I've been here since I was in my 50s and I've lived in Thailand communities with working class Thais the entire time. I'm pretty well integrated into the culture and my entire extended family are Thais. That's a lot different than starry-eyed 60-70+ year old Western retirees showing up and expecting this to be like their home country built on top of a Thai travelogue. Then reality hits them squarely between the eyes. Best of luck!

Jolani's Al-Queda/ISIS head-choppers go door-to-door murdering unarmed Christians, Druze, and Alawites, and Jolani blames it on Assad. I've seen some of the videos (which I'm sorry I watched - I won't do that again) and it's just horrendous. In the meanwhile, the West tacitly supports the genocide. Hell, the UK even lifts sanctions. "Keep killing and chopping heads! The UK/EU/US will stand behind you and sharpen your knives!" Western Asia seems to now be the land of Western condoned genocide in the name of "Freedom", "Liberty", "Democracy", and "Western Values." Ahhh, we truly live in freaking Hell.

"Russia bad, Russia bad, Russia bad, Russia bad." Wash, rinse, repeat ad-infinitum.

41 million people in Canada. 131,700 voted his guy into the PM slot. "Democracy" UK and Commonwealth style: peasants and commoners need not vote - your betters will select your leaders for you. Now shut up and get back to work.

Here - let me help. Heroin overdose. Case closed. Next?

I'll bet dollars to donuts that I'm required to provide immigration with a copy of my 18 year old TM6 at my next extension.

"There is no such thing as happiness." Why do I get the feeling we will eventually read about you as a "webfact" side-note after you join the Pattaya Sky Diving Club?

Here ya go bob - your next life Buddhist style. A Preta. Unending wants.....

Same here. I detest live music. I go out to eat to socialize and enjoy a meal, not have my conversation drowned out by music. But each to their own.

POC = Good White = Bad

Ditto - he's French so he's irrelevant.

People are drawn to Buddhism because it offers the path to the ending of suffering. Nibbana is not annihilation. It's non-dualistic, stateless, formless, immeasurable, indescribable. You can approximate it in very deep meditation - i.e., Jhanas. Touch those subtle states and you get a glimpse. Few take the time to make mediation a priority so, they don't validate the experiences subjectively, so they are left with naught but questions. Buddha's teaching are sign-posts. You can validate the teachings through personal experience. You can talk about it forever and never gain any understanding. Buddhism isn't a philosophical discussion - Sila, Samadhi, Panna (Morality and meditation leads to understanding). No one can validate the truths of the Path but you.

Good. The war ends when the Ukrainians are incapable of continuing. The sooner the better.

I, and many other critical thinkers on AN who were openly disparaged, were saying in the face of the Covid hysteria, that given time the facts would eventually come to light and the Covid narrative of Fauci et.al. would collapse and be proven to be fabricated. Now we are here even though some publications still promulgate the 2020 "killer Covid" narrative and will still paint eminent scientists such as Dr Bhattacharya as everything under the sun except a scientist. True science took a major blow between 2020 and 2024 as pseudoscience bordering on religious fanaticism replaced the scientific method of open discussion and debate of opposing views among peers: any view other than the proper Covid Narrative was quite literally censored and banned during that time. I expect with the ascension of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to the position of the head of the NIH, that within two years the majority of the facts regarding the so-called Covid pandemic will be on the table and in the purview of main-stream science and main-stream media, as will the actual safety and efficacy of the mRNA and adenoviral vector shots. It's probably a good thing that Fauci received his preemptive pardon from Joe Biden because he and others are about to be slid under a microscope and dissected to ascertain their roles in creating the "one and only one excepted narrative regarding Covid" during the pandemic years. The COVID-Era Smearing – and Resurrection – of Trump NIH Appointee Dr. Jay Bhattacharya "Jay Bhattacharya was in pretty terrible shape five years ago. He was losing sleep and weight, not because of the COVID-19 virus but in response to the efforts of his colleagues at Stanford University and the larger medical community to shut down his research, which questioned much of the government’s response to the pandemic. Some of his Stanford colleagues leaked false and damaging information to reporters. The university’s head of medicine ordered him to stop speaking to the press. Top leaders at the National Institutes of Health, Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, dialed up the attacks, dismissing him and his colleagues as what Collins termed “fringe epidemiologists” while their acolytes threw mud from a slew of publications, including the Washington Post, The Nation, and the prestigious medical journal BMJ. In the years since, many of Bhattacharya’s scientific concerns about the efficacy of lockdowns and mask mandates have been corroborated. Fauci, meanwhile, accepted a pardon from President Biden, protecting him from COVID-related offenses dating back to 2014, the year he started funding research at a Wuhan, China, lab that U.S. intelligence agencies now believe probably started the pandemic. And this week, Bhattacharya looks set to achieve surprising vindication as the Senate holds a hearing on his nomination to head the NIH, in a Department of Health and Human Services run by science nonconformist Robert F. Kennedy Jr." Article continued here: https://realclearwire.com/articles/2025/03/04/the_covid-era_smearing_and_resurrection_of_trump_nih_appointee_dr_jay_bhattacharya_1095151.html

Might not want to fly Zee. Just saying...

It still just seems strange. You have an 90 something husband with Alzheimer's and other health issues, you're in your mid-60s, you get sick, and you neither seek out medical attention or call anyone to let them know you're sick and probably unable to care for your husband. In this day and age of computers, mobile phones, and family but you don't reach out. And worse, nobody checked in. And no medical care for what should otherwise be a wealthy film actor who should be able to afford live-in assistance. Just very, very odd.

Canada and Europe have been screwing the US for decades. Now we're just finding out as Trump levels the playing field and imposes quid pro quo. Hear that? Yeah - screams!

Gonna be a much smaller country pretty soon. Didn't need to be that way had Zelensky signed the April 2022 Istanbul Accord, he would have kept all but Crimea. But Boris Johnson talked him out of it and it was "War On!" Now? Reality on the ground is the loss of significant territory and very soon, the loss of the entire regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. And as Rubio recently noted, this has been a proxy-war between the US/West and Russia with the West's intent to strategically defeat Russia. Probably a good idea to sign a Peace Accord before Russia reaches the Dnieper River. Up next? Odessa.

Those in power have been gunning for Big Joke for years. "Over the target? 🎯 You get flack." Is he clean? He's a Thai with power. 🤔

Antisemitic Thai transsexuals strike again.

Provide a Russian-haters (generally Leftie neo-cons, but also neo-con Russian-haters in general) with factual information. https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/the-ghost-of-polands-past In return you get ad-hominid attacks and snide commentary: "Does your ignorance on everything drops out of your ears or nose?" Go figure...

Many of us have been saying this since 2020: The main-stream media lies. But we are told by the gate-keepers of social media that outlets like CNN are "Trusted News Sources." Over the next four years I expect we are going to see just how far down the rabbit-hole the trope that the MSM are "The only purveyors of 'trusted news'." And then I expect we will also see who the "Media Fact Checkers" are funded by and associated with in order to perpetuate the lies. What a scam.

Most Western women I know seem to gravitate toward the men who will treat them the worse. They seem to love the "strong man who will show me my place" types of guys, and then if you read their social media posts, they spend the rest of their lives complaining about the sh*tty relationships they in and men in general. "Ha ha ha - Western women don't want you." Ditto - I have absolutely no interest in those perpetually angst ridden chicks who find their "knight in shining armor" bad-boys then spend the rest of their lives - or until the divorce - b*tching about it. Actually, they continue b*tching about men for the rest of their miserable lives. They just do it as single men-hating spinsters. I left that nonsense and will never look back - ever.