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jingjai9

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  1. Open Arms vs. Xenophobia Thailand has high hopes of receiving 36 - 40 millions visitors in the coming year. Some of them will be bad people. People who come to play and then get drunk and have melt downs. A handful will fall off the balcony and there will be some other bad boys and girls who draw the attention of the police. There is a small part of the tourist population that no doubt tacitly believe that since prostitution is so much in the open and road signs and regulations serve as no more than mere suggestions, there is really no need to respect the law in Thailand; therefore, some will be prone to act accordingly when they drive and when they party. If Thailand is going to extend its open arms even wider - be realistic. You can't have it both ways: More people mean more problems. Don't treat tourists like objects. You are inviting people here and giving them incentives to come. And it is often forgotten that tourists in general are not cognizant of Thai culture. What can you do about that? Running news stories day after day and week after week about tourists that run amuck seems to broadcast the notion that non Thais are somehow culturally inferior. This may or may not be the intention, but reading the forums on ASEAN.NOW, ii seems to me many of the forum readers interpret the publicity as treating westerners pejoratively. I do not see how the news stories educate people or serve as a way of improving relationships between tourists and non-Thais. If Thailand wants these tourists and their money, they are going to have to work for it and that includes being creative.
  2. I am smart enough to know I am not smart.
  3. I used an agent last year to do my marriage visa. This year I want to do it on my own as I have the necessary funds in the bank. Will I encounter any problems about my bank account balance? The agent withdrew the necessary funds from my account as soon as the visa paperwork was accepted and I had the necessary stamp in my passport (pending). When I apply for the visa in June, I will have had the required balance in the bank just a shade over three months. Therefore, my bank account will show a balance below 400,000 from June 2023 until March 2024. How will this look when the immigration sees my bank statement for the past 12 months? I will be using the same immigration office as I did with the agent.
  4. I think the lawmakers are out of touch with reality. People use cannabis for medicine and recreationally because they like it. It is quite appealing to be able to use cannabis in the privacy of your room and then go and hang out at the beach, etc. Tourists like this and to think that the restrictions on cannabis will not affect tourism is a prime example of taking something you believe and then converting it into facts simply because you have thick skin and power. At the risk of continuing a tiresome argument comparing alcohol and cannabis, all the criticisms lodged against the dangers of cannabis can easily be applied to alcohol. However, it is doubtful alcohol has any real health benefits. So here we go again, the uncles in the military and government have decided cannabis is no good so the public is forced to comply. This seems to be one more iteration in a process that covers most legislation, mandate, edict or whatever the word of the week is.
  5. I want to use a webcam on my PC to take a photo. However, the photos are not clear. Does anyone know how to improve the quality of photos using a webcam. I have two webcams - a Microsoft webcam and General Webcam (that is all it says on the product's box). Is there any software available to aid with the quality of PC webcams? There are settings on the webcam application, but they do not really improve the quality. Is there a particular way to hold the webcam or an optimal distance? I am trying to photograph documents like passports, driving licenses, etc. My own personal documents.
  6. Don't you think Edward Snowden is America's Navalny? America did not have Snowden killed, but he is in exile and skillfully marginalized by the US Mainstream Press.
  7. The first mistake is to think that FB cares. They know how to cover themselves and they make sure their lobbyists are in the right places. Check C-SPAN ( a cable TV sponsored channel covering the US Congress) archives and you can see the hearings that have been conducted in the past accusing FB of anti-competitive measures, hosting content that is adverse to young people and teens. The Congress makes a good show, but in the end it is business as usual. The US Congress is beholden to the members of the donor class who support their campaigns.
  8. "His opinions are soaked up, verbatim, without any filtering, by his tribe.... They will all go to their graves with supercilious smiles that even the most skilled undertaker will be unable to remove from their sour pusses." You are correct about Maher being an Pseudo-intellectual. Just check on the Maher archives for his interviews with Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald. You may not be a fan of either of the two, but they are experienced, award winning journalists and they research their subjects. Whereas Maher's research is superficial at best. Bill Maher is more of a gatekeeper for the status quo than a true social critic. I do think he is funny at times, but he is a hollow liberal. The excerpt of Maher on this post is a classic example of the "Ugly American" profile many host countries draw of American tourists.
  9. That bird is so loud in the morning that I cannot hear the TV. One day I wanted to see it as it was unusually loud. As I approached the tree where it was perched it quickly flew off. I was surprised it left so quickly. When will it go away, next month? This was a good post, appreciated the pictures and explanations.
  10. Post like these make the forum here invaluable. Thanks
  11. You are doing people a noble service by reporting how you were violated when using FB. It helps to raise awareness on just how unreliable FB is as time goes by. The FB website is getting to be like a dangerous neighborhood with thieves, blackmailers and bullies running amuck and endangering what at one time was a relaxed community where you could catch up with family and friends. The sad thing is that FB seems to be aloof when people report issues. When FB does respond to a complaint, users are most often not satisfied. Thanks to international mega corporations like FB it is virtually impossible to call a tech business and report a complaint. Do you know anyone who has read the FB user's agreement from beginning to end? I listened to an interview with consumer advocate/lawyer, Ralph Nader who opined that once you check "I agree" on the FB user agreement you are actually surrendering some of your rights as a consumer. Why is the FB user agreement so long and difficult to read? How many of your friends on FB report being hacked and how often do you get a friend request from someone who has been your friend for years? I had a colleague in tears last week because she had built up a small business with 11,000 followers only to find out she had been hacked. All of her data had been stolen and was being held for ransom. When she opened the page for her FB business, it was occupied by people unknown to her. I have reported adverts to FB that were sexually suggestive as well as jobs that were not really jobs. I have read articles recently citing FB as a conduit for pedophile communities and so forth and so on. Many of us who use social media and rely on sites such as FB to stay in contact with our families in other countries need to find a new web site as FB is too big, too rich and too powerful to really care about the regular folks. They are there to collect our data and induce us to stay on their website for as long as possible. The social critic who said, "FB is free and you, the user are the product," was quite articulate I would say.
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