Longtooth

Ubon Joe nailed it at the top.  I had the same problem.  You are truly a Star, Ubon Joe!

Good, usable info. Thank you. Don't smile in the photo. (Unless they tell you to.) I suppose our return of the favor to them would be a tucked in shirt, and no flip-flop sandals. I think it's easy for people who deal with the public every day to get "burnout". Let's not burn them out.

"...in counterbalance with the United States..."

It's a lot more than counterbalancing. It's China's slow inexorable take-over of the world. First they will consolidate their position in Asia with every country owing China and eventually the small Asian countries will be subsumed by China. China is ever so patient.

Yes. China's ambitions are obvious. It's a new world every day, in small ways. China is hungry. Chinese language boarding schools, trains with right of way and maintenance agreements, trade agreements, military agreements, ... Money invested in other countries' infrastructures that benefits China is money well spent. More and more little hooks. That shortcut shipping canal through Thailand and Myanmar would be a super investment for China (as mentioned above somewhere), if the right "agreements" were a part of the finance, build, maintain, and administer package". Eventually I could visualize U.S. warships being excluded from it's use, due to previous "agreements" in place. China is such a powerhouse right now, "resistance is futile!" I think the next lines are, "We come in peace. Destroy! Destroy!"

What does the Thai military really have to offer? Corrupt, poorly trained and equiped do they have any recent real combat experience?

Strategic important position.....Airports and habors (that the USA love to use when they make troubles in Asia).

Strongest military in the region (beside Malaysia, maybe).

Manpower

You saw what the poor trained and equiped did in the Vietnam war. The kicked out the good trained and equiped American, with quantity.

Check Burma.

Well, I didn't see it mentioned yet..... Is it a good idea to release even "some" of the tigers to the wild after they have lost their "fear" of humans? Actually I might say they associate humans with food now. Maybe the shoe will be on the other paw.

It's like turkeys gobbling. First one wisp of smoke, then three others spring up because they figure if one does it why not them. Then many. Also the corn fields are being burned off. I know because black corn husk ashes that have drifted in are all over my yard in the morning. We took the daughter with asthma to Hua Hin during the first bad bout. Expensive trip. Have the big Amway hepa filter for the night time. Looking out my window in Muang district Chiang Rai at 8AM now, visibility is definitely LESS than one mile.

Yes, AH2. Heed all road signs very carefully. What looks like a straight line on the map often takes abrupt 90 degree turns that don't seem to be correct, but they are! The signs going from north headed to the south are very bad. I don't know what to say to help with that problem except get a GPS. My brain may well be fading, but I couldn't follow the map headed south. Going north OK.

While in a waiting room at an Health Maintenance Organization in the US, a lady leaned over to my wife and said, "There sure are a lot of people waiting. Watch this." She then got down on the floor and started rolling and screaming in apparent agony (like a footballer), and they rushed out to her with a gurney and wheeled her right in. Hopefully she wasn't there for a glasses prescription.

The U.S. taxpayer.

I actually worked with a guy who offed himself over taxes. Every day until his demise, for a couple of months he would say, "There are going to be hurt feelings on both sides." But to answer the question, I would say just off the top of my head, "Air Traffic Controller". When I was one, in the U.S. Army almost 50 years ago, they told us if we caused a plane crash we were definitely going to military prison. People's lives were in your hands, often depending on your short term memory. Yikes!!! Not much stress there! I became an electrician when I got out!

Goose.

The question is: "Just how afraid were they for their lives!!!?"

I always assumed forward momentum and glide ratio would prevent a plane from falling from the sky?

My ultralight was lovely. I heard like a single engine Cessna 150 or 172 would be OK. I would guess the glide ratio of a jet airliner would not allow a landing as it would stall on landing flare attempt. You might even need at least one turbine running to power flight controls, don't know. I could be wrong. Is it possible that one particular jet engine is responsible for cabin pressurization instead of the general electrical system? Does every turbine have a generator that powers the electrical system? Is pressurization hydraulically powered and not electrically powered? Is pressurization tapped off of a turbine compressor stage? If it was one particular turbine that somehow drove the pressurization, the pilots would have to rapidly descend as the plane lost pressurization to try to reach a safe altitude, if the pressurization-engine was the one that failed. You would zoom down from about 35,000 feet to at least about 10,000 feet. The oxygen masks would probably deploy if the cabin pressure went below a certain equivalent level of safe pressure. Nose bleeds if they didn't get down fast enough. I'm only guessing, if somebody knows, fill us in.

I think you have to het REALLY far up. Like the top of Doi Inthanon. But you can't really stay there.

Samoeng is also a valley; it may at time be slightly better, it may at times be worse.

Me? I'm of to Hua Hin.

Yes. "Up" doesn't do it. Hear, hear for Hua Hin.

Why not go a belt drive a la Harley, Kawasaki and Indian/Victory

It can't be that hard to do and it's proven low tech....nology.

Absolutely!!! Loved the belt drive on my Harleys. 900 cc Kawa Vulcan comes with it, I think.

The BIG HEPA filter stand-alone-unit from Amway is very expensive, but it gets even the smoke. I love mine. Just leave it on at whatever speed you like, in a closed up apartment. At a minimum, to just sleep with it for 8 hours in a closed bedroom is quite helpful. It will also help with airborne cat dander, which is not so great for human lungs. Smell the inner filter cartridge (which is HUGE) after a day or two, and you will definitely smell the smoke that is trapped there. When you step outside from inside, the smell of smoke outside compared to the clean air inside will shock you!

"Where would anyone find a house worth less than Bt1 million these days?"

I think the author of this little plum ought to get out of his / her ivory tower one day and take a better look at the great city known by Thais as Krungthep.......etc.

There are hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of "houses" (homes) worth less than B1 million.

One cannot travel by train from Hua Lampong without seeing mile after mile of shacks and run down houses alongside the tracks.

Just about every klong has waterside structures that are used as dwelling places by poor people. Of course some klong properties are quite "des-res" and attractive, but the majority are shacks with tin roofs clustered side by side for miles.

Because of its unplanned growth there are huge communities of slum dwellers all over the city. These people may not be financially well off, but they all have a sense of community, something often lacking in the hi-so moobaans that cost millions to enter.

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The greatest sadness about such as you have described is that the majority, as you rightly pointed out, have a sense of community; and yet it seems after this week's announcement, certainly in and around BKK, the holders are being targeted into moving. A recent article stated that government help would be available to rehouse such, mainly families - yet nothing was explained about exactly how or where.

In addition, nothing has been mentioned pertaining to such that this new tax would be retrospective for all properties previously purchased, or only new properties - or am I wrong? To implement retrospective tax laws is very, very dangerous ground, and could have millions in upheaval and anger. I jointly own my own home with my wife within a mortgage agreement, for which of course there was no tax, and there is no way after what I invested to secure the mortgage will I ever pay any additional tax. I'd sooner sell the <deleted>er to a Thai, and let them pay the tax. My mortgage payments are 3 times the amount of a very large condo, and there is no way I would accept retrospective changes to my signed agreements.

In essence, is this intended to be a new law, or applicable to previously obtained property throughout the land?

You don't own a property asset, you don't pay taxes on it. You have two choices: rent or buy in your own country.

Not quite that simple. Our mortgage is in joint names through Siam Bank, and it's legitimate. There is no way my wife (Thai obv) would also pay additional tax on a retrospective agreement. I'm also sure there are multi-millions of Thais who would argue the same. So you're suggesting that they would propose my wife rent, if she objected to a new retrospective tax? The country would be in uproar - believe me. Yet it doesn't seem that anybody is able to answer my operative words - retrospective tax??

I'll give it a whirl. It's a new tax. If taxes exist, they came into being as "new" at some time in history. The tax would not be linked to a sales agreement or bank loan agreement, but on "real assessed value", as in "real estate". The proceeds would not alter any financial agreements, but would go directly to the "state". I would imagine the tax would be universal, regardless of the age of the dwelling, and "real property appraisers" would be hired, nation wide at a local level, to assess the value of each and every dwelling in the nation. There would be created a "National Assessor's Office", with district offices and thousands of trained appraisers out there measuring houses and looking at local values based on recent sales figures to determine real market value. Easy peasy.

Currently CBR500R, hopefully by the end of the month I'll get my Ducati Scrambler. After that I'll need something comfortable that can take some luggage too for touring. An inline-4 or 3 with more than 650cc but not much more than 200kg. Oh and not outrageous price because of import. Narrows the list down to pretty much nothing

MT09 Tracer, a rumored 800 Honda... maybe a Triumph. Yamaha and Triumph get minus points because of dealer network so my hopes are with Honda. Will be tough but I have time.

Yammy 700?

You can tell a lot about a country by its toilets. Best toilets I've ever seen? Japan.

The public restrooms in Bergan, Norway, 30 years ago, were perfectly clean. It was amazing to me. No tiny messages written in the tile grout between the tiles at the urinals. 5555! Also no litter anywhere and everyone's front yard was manicured. Beautiful place. Back to the subject. Despite there being many Chinese vehicles (most of them super expensive models), I found their driving habits to be quite acceptable. I don't know how much of their money they will actually part with while down here. It looks to be mostly organized tours of a "train" of autos.

no image unfortunately

like the idea of a 6 long leg robot zapping the weeds from above with a lazer. should cost far less than $100000

Exactly! This could be a good solution for the HUGE star-thistle problem in "Cali". Super deep roots. Very bad for cattle or anything else except as a "flower" for bees to make honey with, which is why they were introduced by bee keepers into California many, many years ago. Now they're rampant and out of control. Computers could recognize the species and ZAP it as the weeder slowly but steadily covers the farm area. Great! Solar powered would be the icing on the cake.

Amway concentrated laundry detergent.

I use Amway powder in my TOP LOADER. They say to use a TINY amount. NO foaming, but you can see the very dirty water immediately. Took off most of an indelible marker writing on a sheet that normal detergents didn't touch. Also my young daughter does not get itchy spots on her back and arms like she did with the regular detergents. OK for front loaders, I just checked the box. SA-8 Concentrated Laundry Detergent. Very, very slight, but GOOD smell. Haven't bothered to do the math on cost per load, but it has my vote. I'm not a dealer or employee, by the way.

I wonder to myself, in what way would a synthetic oil be different in the "car" version, and the "motorcycle" version. In my unenlightened state, I'm just using "car" synthetic. No catastrophe yet. Use multi-vis of your pleasure, I think. "Mobil 1" has a good name for itself. Synthetics don't break down with time and heat as much as "chemically thickened" normal engine oil because the oil molecule is actually made longer with heat, pressure, a catalyst, some hydrogen, etc. in a "reformer" at the refinery. Should be "lovely-glovely".

My hope is that the Thai would discover un-Thainess.

Can the "Gordian Knot" be un-Thaid?

Well now, what about designing one very wide and very "flat", like a Stingray. They're quite stealthy. You can be wading knee deep and step on one. Maybe you could even design it to bury itself in the mud while it lays in wait for illicit shrimp poachers. You have to think "out of the box". Water thruster intakes on the top to exhaust manuevering thrusters. I LIKE it! Where to find a four foot long poison barb for the tail?

I am not sure if I would be happy riding a cut and shut.

It would be interesting to see what the green book looks like and I even wonder how it would get through the DLT test.

A cut and shut normally applies to a car and dramatically weakens the vehicle unless done properly, if done properly like with a stretch limo. This has a decent tube over the joints and with an amount of triangulation involved, would seem more than adequate.

The book, I don't know, but will try to find out, it did have a plate though??

It was just out of curiousity I asked. Perhaps a Honda Bros 400 V twin engine would fit? I also ride a Honda CB 400 Four which is a transverse 4 cylinder but I don't think the Phantom could take that. Red lined at 12,500 rpm and I chickened out at 160kph and went back to a comfortable 120kph where I felt happy.

V-twin would be major frame mods. I have heard you can do engine swaps legally. Green book would be OK with the legality hoops jumped through. Again, I "heard".