connda

I guess Cossack gals go for a premium.

Where can I find traditional extension ladders in Chiangmai/Thailand? Lazada - that's where I bought my last ladder.

I expect to be dead in 9 years. If not - I'll worry about it in nine years. However - given the Geo-political situation where the US and the West consider themselves to be Superman and the rest of the world is Lex Luther, and Lex is breaking out the Kryptonite, none of us many be around in 9 months, or 9 weeks, or 9 days. If you don't grasp that, well - ignorance is bliss. In the meanwhile, I'll hand it over to Bobby McFerrin - "Don't Worry, Be Happy!"

Do you have the victim mentality? Nope!

I simply stopped drinking Coke and Pepsi. Shrinkflation plus overpricing equals I'm not bothering to buy it anymore. On the positive side, my blood sugar numbers haven't been better.

Bed bug usually leave 3 punctures in close proximity that tend to be red and swollen. That's a spider bite, or a tiny little cobra. 😉

Spider

Well, yeahhhh. How are corporations to squeeze the most money out of customers if they don't "shrinkflation?" Like the soft-drink corporations do. 2/3 of a liter in a liter plastic bottle. Lots more unnecessary plastic to add to the ocean gyres of plastic. I've got the solution. Just don't buy it anymore. Beer? Drink three "pints" and you won't care anymore. 😉

One out of 100 people could have heart damage and both the government and Big-Pharma would spew statistics saying: Instead both would blame it on the victim for having pre-existing conditions and bad life-style choices - or - We see nothing!. And then I still remember Joe Biden up on stage at a Town Hall saying, "You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations," and "If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the ICU unit, and you’re not going to die." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-if-vaccinated-wont-get-covid/ And then on July 21, 2022 NPR publishes this: "Even if you're the president, it's hard to avoid a breakthrough COVID infection With his positive test for COVID-19 on Thursday, President Biden joined the throngs of Americans who have contracted the coronavirus even though they are vaccinated and boosted." https://www.npr.org/2022/07/21/1112770591/biden-coronavirus-breakthrough-infection And unfortunately people who got the shots, regardless of the relative numbers in relationship to the "unvaccinated," vaccinated have still have gone to the hospital, gone to an ICU, and some have died. The president told us that would not happen! So, like me, there are many people who feel that government officials willfully lie to them to promote pharmaceutical company's products at the expense of safety. It's perception. I catch you lying to me - then a don't trust you after that. Then Big Pharma and the government wrings their hands over "vaccine hesitancy." "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

If there is such a super low incident of side-affects, then why are the shots indemnified? If the major side affects are so rare then the company should have no problem paying the health care and recovery costs of those rare, few souls who the shots damaged. Or if the government indemnified the companies than they should step up and pay. Right? Instead - "Get the shots, get the shots, get the shots - oh - you got TTS and a 2 million THB hospital bill? You must of had a comorbidity. It's your own fault, sucks to be you. Fill out this paperwork and we'll get back to you in a few years...maybe; may not. Get the shots, get the shots, get the shots." Then they wring their hands about "vaccine hesitancy." 🙂 "Get the shots. TTS is very very very rare. Never happen to you." 🤕 "It happened to me and now I have heart problems and bills and I can't work." 🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗 <chirp chirp chirp> 🙂 "Get the shots. TTS is very very very rare. Never happen to you." Then it takes the public to step up: "We're holding a benefit for Khun SucksToBeYou who got TTS after his AZ shot to help pay his medical bills." Government and Pharmaceutical companies "Why are so few people getting the shots. Come-on. 'Safe and Effective.' Get the shots! We're losing money. Chop chop! Declare a pandemic."

That's one of my major complaint regarding news stories. BREAKING - MAJOR PRESS RELEASE Videos, interviews, Thai social media upheavals - News at Six!!! Then. <poof> memory holed in 24 hours. No follow-up. "Who Cares Journalism" at its finest. Off to report on the next shiny object. It's like the guy on the three-wheel EV scooter who shot through an intersection and got T-boned by an Isuzu. Guy's in ICU. Lot's of discussion regarding who is in the wrong and who is in the right. Did anyone see any follow-up. That's a huge story at a public service level in order to educate the public about road safety on a number of different levels plus many are probably wondering what happened to the "elderly farang" and how the cops sorted it out. But? <crickets>

For those people who want the shots that is. The study below addresses "vaccine hesitancy" among health care workers in Poland. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies Level and COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters among Healthcare Workers with the Highest SARS-CoV-2 Infection Risk—Follow Up Study Lorent et.al, Vaccines Journal, April 29, 2024 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/12/5/475/pdf?version=1714393067 "Our study found that 42% of the HCWs (Health Care Workers) were hesitant about the second booster dose, while 7% reported no intent to get vaccinated with any additional doses. As reasons for not vaccinating, participants most frequently highlighted lack of time, negative experiences with previous vaccinations, and immunity conferred by past infections."

I think Britain should mobilize along with France and immediately send the majority of their military forces to the front lines in Ukraine in order to accomplish what neither Napoleon Bonaparte or Germany could accomplish in the past. Their generals could drop off the 3 billion quid with Zelensky as they pass through Kiev where the money will no doubt be funneled directly into paying the salaries of brave Ukrainian volunteer soldiers fighting on the front for liberty and democracy. Britain and France are the greatest fighting forces in the West. So go show those ill-equipped, low-morale Ruskie conscripts fighting with 50 year old, rusting Soviet equipment which barely function by using IC chips from washing machines a thing or two! Brave French and British patriots with the most modern and expensive Western military hardware in the world advancing shoulder-to-shoulder across the Novorossiya steppes will scare Ivan right back to the Urals and will bring Western "freedom, democracy, and a rules-based international order" to those backward Cossack once and for all. Grrrr - go get them boys! In the meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu who has consistently referred to Russian military tactics in Ukraine as "active defense" is now referring to military operations as "offensive." Not that words matter to backward, borsch-eating Russians. Highly trained French and British troops would cut through Ruskie lines like a hot-knife through butter. It would be even better if their forces were led by Macron and Sunak backed by defense ministers Sébastien Lecornu and David Cameron, all mounted on horse-back, swords in hands and waving the French Tri-color and British Union-Jack from the highest hill, urging their brave, shining troops forward to put an end to "Russian aggression" once and for all. What a magnificent sight that would be!!! Ivan would drop his rusty, malfunctioning Kalashnikov and high-tail it back to Lake Baikal at that sight for sure! So "come on" France and Britain. Mobilize Now! Get to the Ukie Eastern Front ASAP and stop Ivan in his tracks! You can do it!

In England Conservative / Labor Flip the coin and put the party who shows up on top into power. However? It's the same coin. Ditto in the US Democrat / Republican Flip the coin and put the party who shows up on top into power. However? It's the same coin. Flip the coin regularly and your country is called "A Democracy."

That's nothing that a little bit of stimulant like Ritalin wouldn't clear right up. Just need a diagnosis and a prescription (wink wink)

This is why pharmaceutical companies require a tight-knit "public-private partnership" with governments where the government promises to purchase billions of dollars worth of "vaccines" and then forcefully mandate that their citizen take the "vaccines" after which the pharmaceuticals funnel some of the profits to individual government members in the form of "campaign contributions" (wink wink) and guarantees of board memberships and life-time jobs as rewards for their exemplary government service in support of their collective efforts to save the planet from novel viruses which their "vaccine" wasn't effective at stopping the transmission. So, what Moderna needs now is for the government to declare another pandemic so Moderna can get the ball rolling on "saving humanity" once again - $$$ Cha-Ching $$$ I can't wait until they actually find a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's or other dreaded diseases. Then the profits will be funneled to individual government members in the form of "campaign contributions" (wink wink) and guarantees of board memberships and life-time jobs as rewards for their exemplary government service in support of their collective efforts to not interfere with the pharmaceutical companies price-gouging and over-charging by a few million dollars per treatment (if not per shot) and therefore separating society into "the wealthy who are clean and worthy to be saved" and "the poor commoners who are dirty and worthless and should be left to die." And then? Another Pandemic!!! Free Shots For All At The Government's Expense - and on, and on, and on.....

First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Probe all they wish, but when they begin passing laws to directly or indirectly "abridge the freedom of speech, or of the press" and "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" (protest) they'll be shot down in short order in federal courts. Right now the Uni-Party, i.e., Congress, with the exception of a handful of legislators not bought and paid for by billionaires mega-donors and lobbies who are anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim and pro-war, are in the process of doing just that. Attempting to make excuses to eviscerate the Constitution. And they are saying it: "We can't allow this speech or that speech, or speech against this group whom we support or that group whom we support. Of course - they are paid to protect those whom their donors expect to be protected and shut down the speech by those their donors do not like. That's not how the Constitution was framed. They are going after "protected speech" and it will get shot down in Federal courts (as it should), and barring that the SCOTUS. I know there are people, including US legislators and US citizens who wish to live under totalitarian control - and call it "democracy" - but as long as the SCOTUS functions that isn't going to happen. Keep an eye on this thread as you'll see those people who wish to destroy the Constitution say so right here. They'll start out with: "Freedom of speech is not absolute!!!" Yes - it is. Except in a very, extremely limited set of circumstances, and most of those have already been established in Constitutional Law via precedent. And the recent arrests on US university campuses are going to create a plethora of new cases, as well as laws moving through Congress to "abridge the freedom of speech" which are supported by both Democrats and Republicans. I never thought I'd see the day - but here it is. You say you don't like US Constitutional "protected speech?" Then move to the UK or the EU and ask for asylum based on being terminally offended by "hate speech" or "political speech" which IS "protected speech" under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The watchers of MSM cable news whether on the Left or Right will be holding hands as they board the first planes back to the England to swear fidelity to King Charles if he promises to protect them from the scourge of the First Amendment and unrestrained "Free Speech."

Does Urai have a black belt in Brazilian Ju Jitsu?

Eat the bugs. That will fix it all.

Are the Gore's, Obama's, and Biden's ocean-front properties flooded yet by the "melting glaciers?" No. Didn't think so. "But but but - Asia!!! Asia is under water!!!" What? Now we're suppose to believe that the world is tilted and the melting glaciers are flooding Asia but not the East Coast of America? Ok - whatever. To paraphrase PT Barnum, "There is a sucker in every crowd."

Ditto. I love this. The "vaccine" that doesn't stop transmission is affecting global public health. "But it will keep you from getting hospitalized." Bunk - I never got the shots and Covid was a 4 day mild flu. If the "vaccine" was actually a "sterilizing vaccine" that stopped transmission there wouldn't be vaccine hesitancy. Instead, people take the shots and get Covid once, then maybe get it again, and then are told - "See, it kept you out of the hospital." What utterly flawed logic. They started off in 2020 and 2021 by having world leaders tell the population that "If you get the shots you won't get Covid." So people took the shot and -- got Covid. So now there are a lot of people who feel they have been lied to. And rightly so. To the Op. When they develop a sterilizing Covid vaccination (or sterilizing flu vaccination) that has long-term safety testing and is proven to stop transmission - I'll be first in line to take it.

But you already do. You pay 7% VAT on all sales and if you have a saving account the Thai government automatically extracts 15% of your earned interest. So - you already are paying taxes in Thailand. You may not pay "income taxes" but you do pay taxes.

Unfortunately if you read the US-Thai Dual-Tax Treaty it's based on how residency is interpreted. Well, except for Social Security which is only taxable by the US <period>. I wrote about it and included the DTA earlier in this thread. There are cases when Thailand gets first shot at taxing your US earned pension, as suckola as that may be. The easier method to bypass this madness is, imho, not to transfer any more than you can claim exemptions for. Bottom line - don't be a target.

Eat bugs, stay home and never drive again, and give GammaGlobulin half your income in carbon offsets (so he can buy and fly a private jet and buy some beachfront property next to Al Gore) and the Earth will be saved.