GroveHillWanderer

It doesn't say decisions will be made in three minutes, it says that the application time will be three minutes. They're talking about how long it takes to submit the application online, not how long it takes to be approved.

There are a number of different categories of people who can use the Fast Track lane, including if you're over 70 years old, according to the signs at the airport.

Please provide evidence of any abortion in the US that has taken place "minutes before birth." As far as I'm aware, such stories are a myth propounded purely by anti-abortion activists. Late term abortions are exceedingly rare. According to the Pew Research article below, 93% of abortions take place before 13 weeks and only 1% after 21 weeks. Abortions at the point of birth are unheard of. What the data says about abortion in the US

I've never seen anything to suggest they do random checks. I used to come in 3 to 4 times a year for over 30 years before I finally settled here and I know several people with a similar history of frequent visits. If the checks were random, I would expect either myself or one of the others to have been asked to show the required amount of money at some point but none of us ever were. The only times I've heard (or read) about people being asked for money it was in situations where their history of travel made it look as if they were illegally working here and the requirement to show money was a deliberate pretext to have an excuse to deny entry. So not random checks at all, but targeted checks for a specific purpose.

It's a long-barrelled home-made gun. They're apparently fairly common in north-eastern rural areas.

It's a long-barrelled home-made gun. They're apparently fairly common in north-eastern rural areas.

Many, many people (among them many long-term residents) are unaware of the difference between a visa and an extension of permission to stay. However as both @ubonjoeand @DrJack54(probably two of the foremost subject matter experts on this forum) have pointed out, they are not getting new O-A visas at a Thai immigration office every year, they are getting extensions.

Nobody can say with 100% certainty that a person will or will not be asked to show money but I'd say it's pretty unlikely in any event, but even more so for a first time visitor (i.e. someone without a history of the kinds of repeated visits liable to raise suspicion). My daughter has come to Thailand many, many times (though almost never more than once a year) and has never been asked to show money. YMMV

The Thai phrase used means a long-barrelled home-made rifle.

Because he was in charge of the weapons store and forged paperwork showing the guns had been legitimately distributed.

Having checked with a Thai speaker, it appears ปืนแก๊ป refers to an old-fashioned traditional kind of long-barrelled, home-made gun. Here's an example of one from a Thai website.

I was also puzzled by the reference to a "cap gun." Google Translate renders the original Thai phrase as "gas gun" but I'm still none the wiser. Anyone know what kind of gun they're really talking about?

No, it's a contraction of the word "Mussulman" which comes from the Persian adjective meaning "of or related to the Muslim faith."

No, just factual. The Soviet Union and Russia are two different things. Equating them is like saying for instance, that Croatia is the same thing as Yugoslavia - or that Bangladesh is the same thing as Pakistan. Just because a country was once part of a bigger entity, does not mean each component of the dissolved country is equivalent to the former whole.

I have no reason to believe the video is a fake but all it provides evidence of is one fire with one vehicle. It is not evidence of "tons" of vehicles catching fire. As the statement from the US National Fire Protection Association in the link from @Lacessitputs it, such fires, although possible, are "not a common occurrence." As the article also points out the person making the claim is someone with no expertise in firefighting. He's a restaurateur-turned-politician who, as the state's CFO, gets the title of state fire marshal only because the state's organisational structure puts the fire marshal office under the CFO.

How do you know it's not representative? Did you personally review the participants? Also, it is statistically significant because as any statistician will tell you, a properly conducted survey with a random selection of 1,000 people, gives a 95% chance of coming within about 3% of the true figure for the total population. There's not really that much point in going higher because it only reduces the margin of error very slightly. As the article below about sampling size error puts it: Margin of sampling error (MOSE)

The way the article reads, he was not sacked or dismissed from the police force, only dismissed, "from his post as spokesman."

Is that actually aimed at me? My post was not in any way critical of Biden. Perhaps you were meaning to reply to the post that implied this wasn't Biden's idea? That was @proton, not me

Yeah, I'm not saying it was a bad thing, just that it didn't actually free anyone who was still in prison.

Nobody was freed. The pardon only applied at the federal level and there was no-one in federal prison for simple marijuana possession at the time the pardon was issued. All it did was vacate some historical convictions.

If the BYD E3 were available in Thailand for 558,000 Baht, that would be quite something - I somehow doubt it is though.

It was released in 2002, so very possibly.

I agree with a lot of what people have said about the IO asking questions to establish the visitor's bona fides for entry but I'm struggling to see the relevance of having Thai friends, to a person's eligibility to enter the country. For instance, would having Thai friends be seen as a qualifying or disqualifying factor for entry?

Point of pedantry - it's not a high speed line, just a dual track line. Journeys will be slightly quicker because trains can pass each other anywhere, instead of only in stations but the speed of the trains themselves won't be any faster than what it is now.

Could you PM me the info for the Insurance company and policy you used? I'd be most grateful.