mtraveler

1- I think that it's a good solution to let offending countries know that Thailand will ban imports. Will those countries find other outlets for their products? Who knows. But at least you're doing the right thing. 2- To the person who looked at the map, and said that even if there were no fires in Thailand, there would still be a problem... a- Local smoke still affects people locally. Even if there were none coming over the border, if you're living next to an offender, you're breathing bad air. b- When I look at the map, fires in Thailand look pretty awful. Maybe not as concentrated as Northern Burma or Cambodia, but there's a lot of fires. c- You make the assumption that all the smoke from those fires are blowing into Thailand all the time. Which I doubt.

Please take a look at this wind map. You might have to move the position and zoom in to see Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. I looked at it today at 3:45AM. I'm sorry I didn't realize to google this earlier to see wind direction. But from what I see at 3:45 AM, all the wind is moving from west to east. Absolutely no wind from the north (northern Myanmar) and nothing from the east (Laos). Again, I'm not looking to pick a fight or win, what I'm looking for is the truth. Yes, there is a lot of burning in the region of Myanmar west of Thailand. Is that where the smoke is coming from? Let's assume that's the source. So, if I count all the fires in the wind path from Myanmar to Chiang Mai, and compare the number of red dots (fires) in Myanmar to the number of red dots in Thailand, it seems to be about the same amount. What am I getting wrong here? Isn't half our smoke home-made? My biggest peeve about all of this is calling this a "transboundary haze" crisis. That's an easy way to point the finger at someone else, while there are more than enough red dots on this side of the boundary. Even if 50% of the smoke is coming from over the border, if we had none here, the PM 2.5 would be half or less, right? https://windy.app/forecast2/spot/203236/Asia

Sorry if it sounded like an attack on you. It wasn't my intention. I've just heard so many people point the finger at our neighboring countries, blaming them for our pollution problem, and I'm sensitive to that. So again sorry. But that said, would it be really that bad if Thailand didn't burn? What data do we have about that? Here's a chart of hotspots in Southeast Asia from January thru April (not sure what year it was). When I look at the number of hotspots in Thailand per month, I think it tracks pretty closely with the PM2.5 levels that are seen in each of those months relative to the other months. More fires, higher PM2.5. So, again, I wonder what percent of our PM2.5 is a gift from other countries. Any data you can share with me to prove how much smoke is actually coming from other countries would be much appreciated. I'm happy to change my beliefs if there's some data to back it up. For now, the data tells me: more fires in Thailand, more PM2.5. (And again, this is not an attack; it's an attempt to seek out the truth.)

I assume that by posting this you are making the argument that the pollution Northern Thailand is experiencing is coming from Northern Laos and Northern Myanmar. Yes, there is higher concentration in Laos and Myanmar. But is there data showing that all that bad air is coming to Thailand? What percentage actually gets to Chiang Mai? And, doesn't pointing the finger at our neighbors try to make the Thai people/government innocent, when you can clearly see on the map that there's more than enough red within our borders? How about we clean up our house first, and then we can put pressure on our neighbors to do the same? This is my 5th smoke season here, and by far the worst. And I promise, for the health of my lungs and my body, my last. This is awful, depressing, and scary.

Thank you for posting this. I had been thinking the exact same thing when I saw the 5 days that ranged between 128-129 deaths. Beyond improbable.

Sorry, but it makes a LOT of sense. Deaths follow illness by several weeks. So, if there was a peak 2-4 weeks ago, you would now be seeing higher death rates. It's not about today's reported infections, it's all about how many people contracted the disease 2-4 weeks ago that determines what the number of deaths will be today.

Did I say that they were or weren't? This is "whataboutism" at its finest. Two wrongs don't make a right. The original story is about discrimination, and I was responding to someone who posted his opinion on the subject. I chose the example to point out why I disagreed with what he posted. The discrimination of white guys in Thailand doesn't justify discrimination of trans, Blacks, women.... or anyone else for that matter.

So, 94% of the possible candidates don't need to apply. And in the past, all the Blacks, women, and many other minorities (Native American, for example) didn't need to apply. The door was shut to them. Every time a White Man was chosen (well, 111 out of 115 times). And again, this goes to statistics. If 12% of the country is Black, then there should be a 12% chance. Of course, that doesn't mean that particular time it must be a Black person, but over a long period of time, it should be close to the population distribution, assuming there is a fair system. Asking "is that fair" in a vacuum is not fair. What is fair about the fact that over 200+ years there have only been 3 people of color, and only 5 women? If you rolled dice 115 times and they came up "White Male" 111 times, someone would think the dice were loaded. Had there been fairness before this, there would be no need to be "unfair" now, by saying that you wanted a black woman. (And by the way, Reagan promised to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, and I don't think anyone got upset. Is it that it's a Democrat making the nomination, or is it the fact that it's a Black Woman?) Once again, if all were fair, I would agree with you. But it is sad to say that.... it's not fair.

What was the job? They were jobs in Fortune 500 companies. All sorts of jobs. Link here, to read the article: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/08/18/name-discrimination-jobs I think you might have misunderstood my question about percentages. I think there shouldn't be a list that says the next person must be "______". But when you start looking at a job, and you see that 95% of the people holding that job are white men, then maybe you have a problem. It's not fair to all the other people who are EQUALLY QUALIFIED, whether Black, female, trans, whatever. I'm not talking about making accommodations for those less qualified. I'm talking about, for example, a woman who is just as smart as the male applicants, but never seems to get that job. That means there's something wrong there, and I think it's our responsibility to make things fair. Once again, if we look at job categories, and there are major imbalances in representation by different groups, it's time to fix that. Up until now, most good jobs were held by White Men. Let's take as an example the Supreme Court. There have been 115 Justices in the history of the Supreme Court. 110 men, 5 women. 112 White. 2 Black. 1 Hispanic. "Why should any of us even try to work for anybody who doesn't want us?", you ask. Well, I can think of a bunch of people who would love to be a Supreme Court Justice, after an exemplary career in law. Why should they be limited by your set of rules, that tells them there are lots of other good jobs for them out there. Think Ruth Bader Ginsberg should have worked at Hooters instead? Or that she should never have been given a chance to be on the Supreme Court, and stayed with a lower court, or in a Private Law Firm? What's fair about that? No, I'm not talking about those less qualified, I am talking of those equally qualified, and underrepresented statistically. Another example: Head coaches in the NFL. Only 1 Black head coach, for 32 teams? Why? According to your beliefs, the black men who want to be head coaches should just be happy with some other job. Is that really fair? Lesser opportunities? Less pay? I'm again talking about those with equal qualifications. And if you're not aware, there are studies that show that the few Black head coaches that have been in the NFL have been judged on a very different curve than their White counterparts. Once again, if this was all fair and all sorts of people were equally represented, this wouldn't be an issue. But the problem is that it IS NOT. And if companies can't find a fair way to give all Equal Opportunity, something has to be done. If overall the odds were equal, we wouldn't need laws or policing to make them fair. Why should non-White, non-Male humans have less opportunities than White Males?

I have no interest in being an activist forever. I would be happy to see the day when there was equality in the world. I know it will never be perfect, but it's got a long way to go before it's even close. When I say payback, I mean balancing the scales. No, I don't want disequal favoritism. But what I do want is an acknowledgment that the scales are still not even. And a rebalancing. Does it seem fair to get employment percentages by race/gender/whatever to match population distributions? An experiment was done recently where 83,000 fictitious job applications were sent out with either Black sounding names or White sounding names. The fictitious applicants had equal qualifications. Applicants with Black sounding names got 10% less callbacks than the applicants with White sounding names. I hope that fact disturbs you. That's where we're at, right now, in this world. And so, if we need to compel companies to create a fair balance, then that's what we need to do. That's my idea of payback. Let's make things fair. Thank you for acknowledging that the USA has a history of suppressing Blacks. But to say that the rest of the world is immune to this problem is naive. Apartheid ended in South Africa in the 1990's. Turn on any Premier League match, and you'll see it starts with players taking a knee, to acknowledge the continuing problems of racism in the game and in the world. And just a few weeks ago we heard that Ukrainians were refusing Blacks entry on buses to escape cities. I know this started as an article about trans discrimination. I used discrimination about Black people to make the point that unfairness is, well, unfair. I didn't mean to take it off topic, if that's how it appeared. I'm sorry if you feel that certain people are getting an unfair advantage at this time. They probably felt the same way about us for a long time. And justifiably so, as they watched themselves be passed over for Whites either equal to their qualifications, or perhaps even beneath.

All I can say about this is: I'm sure you weren't whining about the unfairness of it all when Blacks, women, and other minorities were discriminated against while trying to get a job (not to mention other things denied them). But now that some white males are receiving a bit of resistance because the pendulum is now swinging back to find equality (because companies wouldn't do it on their own .... and exactly because they think like you, ie, that they should be allowed to discriminate against groups of people according to their personal preferences), you're caterwauling about the unfairness of it all. I was 9 years old when the Voting Rights Act was finally passed, 10 years old when there were protests in Birmingham, that woke the country to the mistreatment of Black people. 13 years old when Blacks and Whites could actually marry in the USA. The Equal Rights Amendment is still in limbo, giving both sexes equal rights. And it took until last week for a law to be passed to make lynching a hate crime. Discrimination is not ancient history. It happened in our lifetimes, and the battle still continues. You can't cry about the unfairness of inequality to White Males after they held the upper hand for hundreds of years. Payback is, as they say, a female dog.

What if the reason was because you were black? That certainly was the case with discrimination in the US in the past, not only in employment but in accommodations of all sorts. Read what you wrote, and consider the situation, if the applicant was a black person. Maybe the company thinks it would be better that everyone was white. Maybe the boss doesn't like the applicant for "whatever reason", as you say... and maybe that reason is because he/she is black. Do you think that would be fair? I think when you haven't had that shoe on and haven't walked in that shoe before, the notion of being denied employment for a reason that's not acceptable is an alien concept. I assume that you're a white male, a person who has probably never experienced this sort of discrimination before. I'm not judging you, just pointing out a reality. It's hard if you haven't felt it or experienced it to appreciate the issue.

Simply a profit-motive-driven move. Controversy results in more profits for Facebook. That's the only reason they're doing it. Shame on them.

My whole life I was taught that the whole point of kosher killing was to minimize pain and stress. A knife must be tested for sharpness before the slaughter is done, and if the slaughter is not done correctly (vein sliced apart cleanly), the animal was not considered killed kosher. Of course, that meant that particular animal suffered. I was also taught that when the vein was cut properly, the animal became unconscious immediately. Perhaps I am misinformed. And once again, I have no idea about the practices of Halal. I'm confused by your last paragraph. I assume you mean the exact opposite... how could it ever make sense that the animal is NOT rendered insensitive before being bled? Regarding stunning, I had heard many animals are improperly stunned, so that many more suffer as they are moved on hooks or conveyor belts. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I accept that we humans, as animals ourselves, want and perhaps need to eat other animals. It is certainly the right thing to do, to slaughter animals in the most pain-free and stress-free way for the animal. If in fact kosher slaughter is more inhumane, I would absolutely agree it should be changed.

What, may I ask, is specifically and uniquely cruel about Kosher laws, as compared to the treatment of animals by those who do not follow Kosher laws? I know nothing about Halal, so I can't speak of it. But as far as Kosher laws are concerned, I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Yes, the killing and eating of animals is probably considered cruel by many (I'm a vegetarian, though I choose not to judge others choices), but I'm questioning why you're singling out the practices of these two religions as regards to their laws of raising, slaughter, and eating of animals, and claiming that they are cruel. Do you think they are worse than the non-Kosher, non-Halal practices?

Making an objective observation of the driving skills of Thai people in general is not a racist point of view. It is an observable evaluation of the facts in front of me. Having lived in the US for many years, and driven there for more than 45, I can tell you that when I was there, I never saw someone drive a motorbike the wrong direction on a highway. Ok, maybe I saw it once or twice, but it's not something I would see 50 times a day. How is that NOT an objective observation of the way Thai people drive? I've also never seen an 18-wheeler make a U-turn on a highway. I could go on, but you get the point. I don't think Thai people are incapable of driving. I simply think this is what they've observed other people do, and what they've learned, and consequently drive this way.

It's a great theoretical argument. But I think you're missing the point. A person driving his/her motorbike the wrong way on the highway or a local street is a menace to all others on the road. Perhaps they will get killed, though really no fault of the other person driving in the correct direction. Perhaps they will kill some innocent person going the right way. Or perhaps they will just add chaos to the road. I don't think my thinking is "Dunning Kruger Effect" at all. I think it's just plain simple logic. Otherwise, why do we have 2 different sides of the street on which to drive? I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that too many Thai people take too many chances when they drive. I bicycle extensively here in Thailand, and I experience close calls on every ride, whether from motorbikes going the wrong way and forcing me out into traffic, or oncoming cars not staying in their own lane, sometimes causing me to bail off the road to not get killed. I might suck as a driver sometimes, but I sure suck MUCH LESS than the average Thai driver.

Honestly, after watching the behavior of drivers on Thai roads, I'm always surprised that the death statistics are as LOW as they are. I'm not making light of people losing their lives; that's terrible. But from what I see when I'm out driving, I would expect the death toll to be significantly higher.

Can't Thailand just stop trying to be a hub of whatever?

Sounds like this meeting's only result was to add "hot air pollution" to the mix. I've never read so many words that meant so little. With the prediction that there will be more rain than usual, I'm sure they are hoping that Mother Nature will help them with their "plan" and knock some of that smoke out of the air. As I noted before in another post, Thailand should spend its efforts first cleaning up its own air rather than having meetings with other countries regarding their bad air.

I keep hearing this argument about smog, that it comes from other countries. I'm sure that it's true, to some extent, but it's not the only smog that people are suffering with in this country. I just wish the government would focus on the pollution problems that exist on this side of the border. Perhaps if they set the example in the region, others would follow their lead. And if not, if nothing else, the air would be at least 50% better.

It's so sad that you have to throw out sarcastic comments, as others try to share information in an intelligent and respectful way. I don't care if you disagree. Come to the table politely with facts and data, and I'll be happy to listen and even change my opinions, based on that data. But the sniping really doesn't add to the conversation at all. You can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.

Unfortunately, I didn't know how to grab two different quotes, and I knew when I did that I'd get the "taking out of context" defense. But I posted nonetheless. Should have known better. So, for the record, below is the original complete post, which you responded to. Please tell me now what is in this particular quote that changes anything. Here's the quote: "My school has pushed back the Nov 15 openning to Nov 22 so remains online. P6-M3 or grades 6-9. Been here before. Pushed back then pushed back again then again, then ....... . I wonder about other schools not openning tomorrow as was so joyously announced by the empty heads. Low primary grade 5 and below and kindergatern I suspect will not be back until the new school year next year." And here is your response, again in full: "Should move up North. Schools open since the 1st. November Older children 4 days/week, younger children 5 days, all teachers jabbed, all required students jabbed. Albeit after months of closure. Happy days." Full quote, right to the last period. Maybe you did have different intentions from how it read. But, to be honest, from reading your many posts on this forum, one would infer that it was more than likely a smarmy response, which is exactly what you have offered to me both times in response to what I have written. You've inferred that I post for likes and popularity, and that I'm a hypocrite. And that I should just move on. All things that are not very civil. And no, I'm not posting this for likes either. I'm responding to show you that you're not being honest about my quoting out of context. Nothing in the post changes anything. And now I'm happy to move on.

Perhaps the way it sounded in your head when you wrote it, and the way it read was very different. I didn't take anything out of context purposely, nor was I looking for popularity points. Here's what was written: The original poster said: "My school has pushed back the November 15th opening to November 22..." And you reply: "Should move up north". How else should I take that? It sounds like you're telling someone who is lamenting the situation that schools are still closed where he lives to solve the problem by moving up north. If you had written "It's a shame you don't live up north...", well, then that would have sounded very different. I think most people would read your response and come to the same conclusion I did, without "purposely taking things out of context for likes and popularity" (which honestly is not a nice thing to say).

Perhaps should move to Mars. No Covid there. Ok, I'm being facetious, but suggesting someone move to another area is a bit silly. And, for the record, as I understand Chiang Mai (in the North) currently has an on-site learning ban. I honestly don't know which schools are affected by this. Chiang Mai Province is having a pretty serious problem with Covid at this time; the last report I saw put the province at 3rd for total daily Covid cases in the country.