TallGuyJohninBKK

I've been using LotusS online more lately, usually for non-food household items, as they typically just don't have anywhere near the same availability of various imported food items as Tops. There also was a long period of time after the Tesco to LotusS conversion where their website payments system simply would not accept any of my U.S. bank cards.... But they seem to have improved that lately, and I now find I'm able to use them for online purchases via LotusS these days. As for Tops Online, the last time I tried them a few days ago, their ability to save items as "Favorites" via the little "heart" icon on the product pages was still broken. And of course, in their recent tech overhaul, they ended up erasing all of the long list of "Favorites" that I previously had stored in my account. Tesco used to have a kind of Favorites capability where items that you had previously ordered got saved to a list for a period of time in your account. But that disappeared with the conversion to LotusS, and they still haven't done anything to restore that functionality up till now. So as a workaround, I ended up saving as browser bookmarks folder a list of the various things I frequently order from LotusS, and I find myself going back into my LotusS online history of past orders to remind myself what I might want/need for an upcoming order.

Predictably, yet another in a continuing series here of right-wing Republican opinion pieces courtesy of what's supposedly the "World News" forum. Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4591632-this-one-problem-is-why-democrats-must-replace-biden-at-the-convention/ I'm still waiting to see posted, for any semblance of balance, a Democrat leaning version of the same kind of column as posted above... something like: This one problem is why Republicans must replace Trump at the convention... ...the fact that the presumptive Republican nominee for president is facing 90+ felony criminal counts.... https://www.npr.org/2024/02/22/1233132273/how-trumps-trials-for-91-felony-charges-in-4-states-could-take-over-his-campaign Still waiting on that one....

COVID is still, even now, killing nearly 1,000 people PER WEEK in the U.S., and another 100+ per week in the U.K., with many people in both countries no longer current / up-to-date with their COVID vaccinations, or never vaccinated at all. So COVID hasn't gone away or disappeared by any means. But considering that there have been 13.5 BILLION COVID vaccinations given worldwide since the start of the pandemic, resulting in many millions of lives saved, the numbers of confirmed vaccine related deaths and serious reactions have been very rare. Those are the facts as documented and sourced below, no matter how many questions anti-vaxers want to ask, and then fail to produce any factual answers for. Nearly 1,000 U.S. COVID deaths per week: 100+ U.K. COVID deaths per week: https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/ 13.5 billion COVID vaccine doses administered worldwide: Source link: Millions of lives saved by COVID vaccines: COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-england-54d29ae3af5c700f15d704c14ee224b5 Two Years of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccines Have Prevented Millions of Hospitalizations and Deaths https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/two-years-covid-vaccines-prevented-millions-deaths-hospitalizations And in comparison, serious vaccine-related side effects have been rare, more than offset by risks of COVID: Posts misrepresent findings of world's largest Covid vaccine safety study 28 February 2024 "The February 2024 publication of the largest peer-reviewed study of Covid-19 vaccine safety to date has inspired misleading social media claims that its findings show the jabs are unsafe. Study authors and independent experts say the research confirms that adverse reactions to vaccination are rare and pose far fewer risks than Covid-19 infection. ... Epidemiologist Anders Peter Hviid, one of the study authors, told AFP the findings confirm previous research and should not deter people from receiving Covid-19 shots. "What we take away is that the Covid-19 vaccination campaigns have been very effective in preventing severe disease," he said on February 23. "The few serious side effects that we have observed in this and other studies have been rare." https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.34K78ZW Study Largely Confirms Known, Rare COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects February 27, 2024 "An international study of around 99 million people confirmed known serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccination. It also identified a possible relationship between the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and a small risk of a neurological condition. Social media posts about the study left out information on the vaccines’ benefits and the rarity of the side effects. COVID-19 vaccines — like all vaccines and other medical products — come with side effects, including serious side effects in rare cases. The vaccines were rolled out to protect people from a novel virus that has killed millions of people globally and would likely have killed millions more without the arrival of the vaccines. There is a broad consensus from experts and governmental health agencies that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the risks." https://www.factcheck.org/2024/02/study-largely-confirms-known-rare-covid-19-vaccine-side-effects/

Yes, I was going to caution about that.... that people who have their last prior TM6 still stapled in their passport ought to leave it there..... and not discard it.... despite the reported news above. Last time I was at BKK CW Immigration to renew my retirement extension, because I had seen the practice of the TM6 forms no longer being issued to incoming air travelers, I asked the IO if I could now discard my last old TM6... And they advised NO, that at least for the time being, I should keep it, as they were still asking for photocopies of it for various purposes.

Thailand MoPH Weekly COVID report for Apr. 7 - 13, 2024: --849 new COVID hospitalizations, up 75 from the prior week --4 new COVID deaths, up 1 from the prior week --242 current COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition (pneumonia symptoms), up 14 from the prior week (dark purple) --86 current COVID patients hospitalized requiring intubation/ventilation to breathe, up 3 from the prior week (light purple) Cumulative figures since the start of the current year are COVID new hospitalizations (8,589) & COVID deaths (69). Of the 4 new official COVID deaths, the MoPH below is reporting that two were male and two were female. By age group, two of the fatalities involved people age 70+, one in the 50-59 age range, and one in the 20-49 age range. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main Reported weekly COVID new hospitalizations have now risen for the past 5 consecutive weeks since mid-March, as follows for the weeks ending: March 16 -- 501 March 23 -- 630 March 30 -- 728 April 6 -- 774 April 13 -- 849

If he did (which he probably did NOT), it most likely still would have taken 4+ hours for the trip, as that continues to be the scheduled trip duration for most of the Bangkok to Hua Hin departures.

Thankfully, it looks like the U.S.'s recent streak of consecutive 1,000+ weekly COVID deaths has ended at 29 straight weeks, with the latest official update coming in at just under 1,000 -- specifically, 961 new U.S. COVID deaths for the week ending March 16 (the last column shaded in blue, meaning it's considered "official."). CDC source link: The other broader COVID trends in the U.S. also are continuing to improve now during the spring, which last year also was a low period before COVID deaths and hospitalizations rebounded and rose markedly in the fall heading into the new year (as shown in the above chart). Remains to be seen whether the same fall rebound trend will occur again this year. These days, as shown below, it's considered good news when the U.S. has only 7,000+ new COVID hospitalizations for the week. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home

So let me see if I'm following this right: They're planning to shut down or significantly lessen household water supplies to a wide range of areas in the province today and through the weekend during morning to mid-afternoon hours as the temperatures exceed 40C... ...So that there will be enough water for Song Kran revelers to waste on drunkenly splashing each other on the streets of the province...so as to not interfere with tourism???? And meanwhile, the day before, there's a news report with the province governor talking about emergency declarations in a large number of districts because there's not enough water and the reservoir levels are low...so low that they're having problems supplying enough water for agriculture. Where's the sense in any of this???

The Sharp purifier we've been discussing here comes with its own built-in (and removable-rinseable) pre-filter that's built into the back cover of the unit. In addition to that, I've always added a sheet of carbon filter between that prefilter and the unit's HEPA filter. As a result, I was able to continue using the original HEPA filter that came with the Sharp unit (that's rated for 1 - 2 years) for almost 5 years with it still having good/effective purifying effect. I'd also periodically take out the HEPA filter and vaccum it off with a HEPA filtration vacuum I have at home.

I PM'd via Lazada chat the cheapo filters supplier above who's selling filters for Sharp purifiers, and the best they could offer is that the filter they're selling is "similar" to the actual Sharp filters. In the end, after some back and forth, the seller conceded that the filters they're selling are not in fact official Sharp filters, despite them posting photos of actual Sharp logo filter boxes on their Lazada listing. So goes it in Thailand. Given their lack of honesty/truth in advertising about the product they're selling, it's kind of hard to believe whatever they may be claiming about the actual quality of the filters they're providing.

Chiang Mai comes to Bangkok today.... You don't want to be breathing outside without some filtration: https://aqicn.org/station/thailand/bangkok/chulalongkorn-hospital/

So the upshot here is: The one guy who has been found guilty of ordering the murder of a policeman gets nearly the same sentence (2 years) as 15 or so other policemen (16 months to 2 years) who didn't kill anyone, but also didn't intervene to stop the shooting or apprehend the suspect. Pathetic!!! PS - how can Kamnan Nok here have been found guilty of "attempted murder" when the policeman who he ordered be shot actually died from the shooting?

I've found you have to be careful, particularly in Thailand, with third party vendors selling Chinese made substandard filters for Sharp purifiers, often at very low prices... and they're low-priced for a reason. Yes, they FIT the Sharp purifier models cited. But they're substandard filters to the OEM version that came with the Sharp units. I know, because one of Sharp's vendors sold me one on the cheap a while back because they claimed it was the only version they had at the time. And when I finally went to use it, that brand new replacement filter did a noticeably poorer job of filtering the air in my room where it was used than the by that time very well worn 3-year-old original Sharp filter that came with the unit. I ended up reinstalling the original filter and putting the replacement away in the closet. Sharp Thailand has an official store on the Lazada site, where they're selling their original FZ-F30HFE HEPA filters for 1,290 baht. I'm as much of a bargain hunter as the next guy. But color me suspicious when the third party Lazada seller you linked to above is selling supposedly the same filter for 279b... Sharp official store on Lazada: https://www.lazada.co.th/products/sharp-filter-fz-f30hfe-f40sfe-f50dfe-f50hfe-i1264922053-s21405884232.html

The optimal HEPA filter for general public use is the H13 or H14 types, which roughly equate to the U.S. "True HEPA" standard, the prevailing one, of 99.97% filtration effectiveness. The "True HEPA" marketing term was born in the U.S., AFAIK, because of the practice of some manufacturers to sell so-called HEPA purifiers and filters that in fact contained substandard filters (those with below 99.97% effectiveness). If you're going to pay money to buy and use a HEPA air purifier, why settle for one with substandard / less than optimal air filtration capabilities?

From your Jan. 2024 cited journal article above: Interpretation "Vaccination against COVID-19 consistently reduced the risk of long COVID symptoms, which highlights the importance of vaccination to prevent persistent COVID-19 symptoms, particularly in adults." AND "Studies suggest that approximately one in ten people infected with SARS-CoV-2 have persisting symptoms,10, 11 with increased risk for developing long COVID associated with age,10, 12 female sex,10, 12, 13 and comorbidities.12, 13 AND Discussion "Our analyses of more than 20 million vaccinated and unvaccinated people show the clinical effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines to prevent the development of long COVID in three European countries (the UK, Estonia, and Spain), with overall vaccine effectiveness ranging from 29% to 52%."