tgw

I would cheer for a giant turd falling on the Kremlin

and let's be clear, Ukraine didn't invade the Russian mainland !

I did some new thinking about this, my best guess is that memberships would need to be set to around 1 million baht nominal value (transferable perpetual membership with leasing options) and yearly costs to somewhere around 100k for 1000 members. That would net 1 billion for infrastructure and 100 million/year for maintenance. Regarding legal structure, Thai Law provides the "Association" as a form of Jurisdic Person that seems completely appropriate for a golf club.

Just be yourself, at 60 he probably knows what reactions to expect from you - if you are curious, just ask him if he's ok to talk about it. Or not. Depends on your relationship with your brother. There isn't a "one fits all" method of handling such news. Also, I would be careful with labels, such as gay, straight, etc. sexuality is a continuum, not a handful of hermetic boxes.

Spending the dollars on helping Ukraine (and Taiwan, and Israel, to some extent) does help EVERYONE that wants to live in a DEMOCRATIC WORLD. The Ruzzian playbook is all about destabilizing democratic countries by promoting divisiveness. the 1%, racial tensions, tensions about emissions, etc. Funny you mention the 1% ... what about the richest man in the world and his oligarch cronies ? You seem keen to expand their Ruzzian economic model.

wow, so much adventure!

hmmm.

what I take away from that war is that Russia supported war criminals there too.

regarding the pressure put on Russians by NATO, I suggest you examine the war in ex-Yugoslavia.

I might have been guilty of being too optimistic as well. But : you portray the war as depending on the USA, instead of the perpetrator. The war would end instantly if Putin withdrew his troops from Ukraine. Then big blocks and buffer zones theory with the untold "bigger game" is there to further muddy the waters. After being painted as being equally responsible for the conflict in the previous argument, Ukraine is now totally insignificant except for its geographic position and is merely a pawn in the hands of superpowers. So, that was another leap of logic. Or of illogism. But let's look at big blocks and buffer zones and how that is itself a flawed theory : The one entity which needs buffer zones is a fascist Ruzzia. Buffer zones are useful in a context of conventional ground war. Who has been building up ground troops ? It is obvious that NATO has not been preparing for conventional ground war at all, and Ruzzia was fully aware. That certainly was one of the arguments in favour of Putin's attack. Weakness of NATO. As a defensive pact of countries with insufficient ground troops, NATO doesn't need buffer zones. While countries like France or Germany will of course feel more comfortable having Poland and Ukraine on the Eastern border, NATO itself doesn't care much about buffer zones. The reason is that it's a defensive pact, if one country is attacked, all NATO countries will defend that country. In fact, the situation we have now with Ukraine resembles more a buffer country situation than if Ukraine was a NATO member. But of course, the other side, ex-Warsaw Pact people don't understand this. For them, Warsaw pact members were all expendable pawns in the grand scheme of Ruzzia's supremacy. They think of NATO as their nemesis, and that NATO's goal is to attack Ruzzia and that NATO will sacrifice its member countries in the process, which is a ridiculous thought, but one that can gain hold in the minds of Putin and cronies, where one can find paranoia, narcissism and an inferiority complex. "This is not just a border conflict escalating in to a war." This isn't a border conflict. It is a 20+ year attempt by Putin to subjugate Ukraine. Because he was unsuccessful, he gradually escalated from covert influence into an all-out war. There are indeed bigger plans at play, but these bigger plans are Ruzzian. It's funny that you should mention Georgia, as many aspects of that country's misfortunes in since 2007 are pretty similar to Ukraine's. How is Georgia for a NATO buffer zone ? Nah, it's purely a piece of what Putin considers the Ruzzian empire. What Georgians have to say about it is meaningless. Georgia is pro-EU and pro-Democracy. Sounds familiar ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia–Russia_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikheil_Saakashvili

nice shooting, well done Ukraine.

cause : Russia / USSR nearly raped every country that was under their control. effect : all these countries want to join EU / NATO and be protected against crazy Ivan.

You avoid the question. Violence started with Ruzzian interference in Ukrainian democracy back when the Orange revolution took place. I was in Ukraine at the time. At that time, Ruzzian-organized assassinations, bribery, etc. were common and they also poisoned president Yushchenko. Large scale violence started when Yanukovich the Ruzzian puppet was ousted and Ruzzia organized armed groups and invaded Crimea. Ruzzia influenced the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and created armed separatist groups there, armed and supplied by Ruzzia, who were shooting both sides with MLRS (grad) to escalate tensions. The extreme right has always been rather insignificant in post-WW2 Ukraine, not even reaching 2% support in the population. Private armies were a requisite in an ultra-corrupt Ukraine shaped after the Ruzzian model. I can say that private armies existed in Ukraine because of Ruzzia's influence, which made it necessary for some oligarchs to maintain an army. Asking if human rights were violated is a biased question, as this is almost guaranteed to be the case at different degrees anywhere in the world at any moment. Equating Ukraine to Ruzzia and saying they should both share the blame is Ruzzian propaganda. Why do you want to blame Ukraine when a large part of the Ukrainian state structures were controlled by Ruzzia through bribery, blackmail and extortion ? My best guess is that at the time of invasion, about 20 to 30% of Ukrainian government officials were controlled by Ruzzia, and when Crimea was invaded, I guess Ruzzia controlled over 50% of Ukrainian state structures in Crimea and the Donbass. Don't try to throw Ukraine and Ruzzia into the same basket for assigning blame about who started the conflict, for 2 reasons : - Yes, the responsibility is shared, but the ratio is 95% Ruzzia and 5% Ukraine - Saying otherwise is supporting the Ruzzian narrative, which is a lie don't support Ruzzia.

prior to Putin's attack ?

I think for re-establishing fairness in women's sports, they should introduce a rule saying transgender athletes should only be allowed to take part in women's sports if at least 75% of men say the athlete is "hot". then it would be fair.