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Hola, guys... I paid a short visit to Thermas between planes, coming back from Italy.... I had the pleasure of meeting Pauleiro's Michele, so sweet and sexy and dedicated... hard body, nice face and great bubble butt. A very nice encounter. The second round was with a tall guy from Senegal, nice defined body and endless dick... There were some est-European guys, Africans... and the Brazilians... Everybody eager to do some business. Also, a good time to enjoy Barcelona!

Domestic drones and their unique dangersDismissive claims that drones do nothing more than helicopters and satellites already do are wildly misinformed Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk,Friday 29 March 2013 10.48 EDT AR Drone: almost certainly the world's first Wi-Fi enabled iPhone-controllable miniature flying device. The use of drones by domestic US law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly, both in terms of numbers and types of usage. As a result, civil liberties and privacy groups led by the ACLU - while accepting that domestic drones are inevitable - have been devoting increasing efforts to publicizing their unique dangers and agitating for statutory limits. These efforts are being impeded by those who mock the idea that domestic drones pose unique dangers (often the same people who mock concern over their usage on foreign soil). This dismissive posture is grounded not only in soft authoritarianism (a religious-type faith in the Goodness of US political leaders and state power generally) but also ignorance over current drone capabilities, the ways drones are now being developed and marketed for domestic use, and the activities of the increasingly powerful domestic drone lobby. So it's quite worthwhile to lay out the key under-discussed facts shaping this issue. I'm going to focus here most on domestic surveillance drones, but I want to say a few words about weaponized drones. The belief that weaponized drones won't be used on US soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It's not just likely but inevitable. Police departments are already speaking openly about how their drones "could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun." The drone industry has already developed and is now aggressively marketing precisely such weaponized drones for domestic law enforcement use. It likely won't be in the form that has received the most media attention: the type of large Predator or Reaper drones that shoot Hellfire missiles which destroy homes and cars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and multiple other countries aimed at Muslims (although US law enforcement agencies already possess Predator drones and have used them over US soil for surveillance). Instead, as I detailed in a 2012 examination of the drone industry's own promotional materials and reports to their shareholders, domestic weaponized drones will be much smaller and cheaper, as well as more agile - but just as lethal. The nation's leading manufacturer of small "unmanned aircraft systems" (UAS), used both for surveillance and attack purposes, is AeroVironment, Inc. (AV). Its 2011 Annual Report filed with the SEC repeatedly emphasizes that its business strategy depends upon expanding its market from foreign wars to domestic usage including law enforcement: AV's annual report added: "Initial likely non-military users of small UAS include public safety organizations such as law enforcement agencies. . . ." These domestic marketing efforts are intensifying with the perception that US spending on foreign wars will decrease. As a February, 2013 CBS News report noted, focusing on AV's surveillance drones: "Now, drones are headed off the battlefield. They're already coming your way. "AeroVironment, the California company that sells the military something like 85 percent of its fleet, is marketing them now to public safety agencies." Like many drone manufacturers, AV is now focused on drone products - such as the "Qube" - that are so small that they can be "transported in the trunk of a police vehicle or carried in a backpack" and assembled and deployed within a matter of minutes. One news report AV touts is headlined "Drone technology could be coming to a Police Department near you", which focuses on the Qube. But another article prominently touted on AV's website describes the tiny UAS product dubbed the "Switchblade", which, says the article, is "the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader, even wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems." The article creepily hails the Switchblade drone as "the ultimate assassin bug". That's because, as I wrote back in 2011, "it is controlled by the operator at the scene, and it worms its way around buildings and into small areas, sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target (hence the name) by exploding in his face." AV's website right now proudly touts a February, 2013 Defense News article describing how much the US Army loves the "Switchblade" and how it is preparing to purchase more. Time Magazine heralded this tiny drone weapon as "one of the best inventions of 2012", gushing: "the Switchblade drone can be carried into battle in a backpack. It's a kamikaze: the person controlling it uses a real-time video feed from the drone to crash it into a precise target - say, a sniper. Its tiny warhead detonates on impact." What possible reason could someone identify as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the US? They're designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable a target to be more easily killed. Police agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry will tout their utility in capturing and killing dangerous criminals and their ability to keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same. The handful of genuinely positive uses from drones will be endlessly touted to distract attention away from the dangers they pose. One has to be incredibly naïve to think that these "assassin bugs" and other lethal drone products will not be widely used on US soil by an already para-militarized domestic police force. As Radley Balko's forthcoming book "Rise of the Warrior Cop" details, the primary trend in US law enforcement is what its title describes as "The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The history of domestic law enforcement particularly after 9/11 has been the importation of military techniques and weapons into domestic policing. It would be shocking if these weapons were not imminently used by domestic law enforcement agencies. In contrast to weaponized drones, even the most naïve among us do not doubt the imminent proliferation of domestic surveillance drones. With little debate, they have already arrived. As the ACLU put it in their recent report: "US law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic drones for surveillance." An LA Times article from last month reported that "federal authorities have stepped up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in US airspace" and that "the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known." Moreover, the agency "has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later" and "local and state law enforcement agencies are expected to be among the largest customers." Concerns about the proliferation of domestic surveillance drones are typically dismissed with the claim that they do nothing more than police helicopters and satellites already do. Such claims are completely misinformed. As the ACLU's 2011 comprehensive report on domestic drones explained: "Unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise the prospect of a significant new avenue for the surveillance of American life." Multiple attributes of surveillance drones make them uniquely threatening. Because they are so cheap and getting cheaper, huge numbers of them can be deployed to create ubiquitous surveillance in a way that helicopters or satellites never could. How this works can already been seen in Afghanistan, where the US military has dubbed its drone surveillance system "the Gorgon Stare", named after the "mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them". That drone surveillance system is "able to scan an area the size of a small town" and "the most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record certain kinds of suspicious activity". Boasted one US General: "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything." The NSA already maintains ubiquitous surveillance of electronic communications, but the Surveillance State faces serious limits on its ability to replicate that for physical surveillance. Drones easily overcome those barriers. As the ACLU report put it: I've spoken previously about why a ubiquitous Surveillance State ushers in unique and deeply harmful effects on human behavior and a nation's political culture and won't repeat that here (here's (also embedded below) and the transcript of one speech where I focus on how that works). Suffice to say, as the ACLU explains in its domestic drone report: "routine aerial surveillance would profoundly change the character of public life in America" because only drone technology enables such omnipresent physical surveillance.Beyond that, the tiny size of surveillance drones enables them to reach places that helicopters obviously cannot, and to do so without detection. They can remain in the sky, hovering over a single place, for up to 20 hours, a duration that is always increasing - obviously far more than manned helicopters can achieve. As AV's own report put it (see page 11), their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot for much longer than many military satellites, most of which move with the earth's rotation (the few satellites that remain fixed "operate nearly 25,000 miles from the surface of the earth, therefore limiting the bandwidth they can provide and requiring relatively larger, higher power ground stations"). In sum, surveillance drones enable a pervasive, stealth and constantly hovering Surveillance State that is now well beyond the technological and financial abilities of law enforcement agencies. One significant reason why this proliferation of domestic drones has become so likely is the emergence of a powerful drone lobby. I detailed some of how that lobby is functioning here, so will simply note this passage from a recent report from the ACLU of Iowa on its attempts to persuade legislators to enact statutory limits on the use of domestic drones: "Drones have their own trade group, the Association for Unmanned Aerial Systems International, which includes some of the nation's leading aerospace companies. And Congress now has 'drone caucuses' in both the Senate and House." Howie Klein has been one of the few people focusing on the massive amounts of money from the drone industry now flowing into the coffers of key Congressional members from both parties in this "drone caucus". Suffice to say, there is an enormous profit to be made from exploiting the domestic drone market, and as usual, that factor is thus far driving the (basically nonexistent) political response to these threats. What is most often ignored by drone proponents, or those who scoff at anti-drone activism, are the unique features of drones: the way they enable more warfare, more aggression, and more surveillance. Drones make war more likely precisely because they entail so little risk to the war-making country. Similarly, while the propensity of drones to kill innocent people receives the bulk of media attention, the way in which drones psychologically terrorize the population - simply by constantly hovering over them: unseen but heard - is usually ignored, because it's not happening in the US, so few people care (see this AP report from yesterday on how the increasing use of drone attacks in Afghanistan is truly terrorizing local villagers). It remains to be seen how Americans will react to drones constantly hovering over their homes and their childrens' schools, though by that point, their presence will be so institutionalized that it will be likely be too late to stop. Notably, this may be one area where an actual bipartisan/trans-partisan alliance can meaningfully emerge, as most advocates working on these issues with whom I've spoken say that libertarian-minded GOP state legislators have been as responsive as more left-wing Democratic ones in working to impose some limits. One bill now pending in Congress would prohibit the use of surveillance drones on US soil in the absence of a specific search warrant, and has bipartisan support. Only the most authoritarian among us will be incapable of understanding the multiple dangers posed by a domestic drone regime (particularly when their party is in control of the government and they are incapable of perceiving threats from increased state police power). But the proliferation of domestic drones affords a real opportunity to forge an enduring coalition in defense of core privacy and other rights that transcends partisan allegiance, by working toward meaningful limits on their use. Making people aware of exactly what these unique threats are from a domestic drone regime is the key first step in constructing that coalition. Harms from the Surveillance State One of the most difficult challenges in all discussions of privacy rights is articulating what most people instinctively already know: why privacy is so vital and why a ubiquitous Surveillance State is so destructive. Here is the speech I gave last year in Chicago in which I attempted to articulate those reasons: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/domestic-drones-unique-dangers?INTCMP=SRCH

Behind the Candelabra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqAC1yiIROw

I was enjoying Lee before I knew what "gay" was but I knew he was different. Best regards, RA1

Maggie was amazing. No doubt she had faults but, like Sir Winnie, was larger than life and someone who was much needed during her time. Even though, from time to time, she had problem getting along with some of her own country folks, she got along with "others" who also were world leaders such as RR and MG. We can never go back but I will miss her sense of the world. Best regards, RA1

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Great photos and great report Firecat. Thanks so much.

And the problem with that is?

Hunting for FREE sex is basically a game in these times. It takes time, and it takes patience. And, I perosnally dont believe anything that anyone says onn websites, because the anonymity GIVES people the opportunity to lie. You just have to rely on your gut and invest some time and MEET if it gets to that. Most major city have venues or parties where you do pay admission, basically "sex clubs" so YES you are paying in a way, but if its sex you want, its sex you get, and you can SEE what you are getting. Will HE turn into your next ex-husband ? Probably not, but you never know. As for smaller cities, there are gays lurking EVERYWHERE, you just have to be "in it to win it". Sitting behind a computer will not get you laid necessarily. You have to get out and be seen. You'll know when I guy is interested in you, you'll see it in his eyes... And every small city has infamous crusing spots. Dangerous, maybe a bit, but EVERYTHING has its risks. If its where the gays are, than its where YOU need to be.... The biggest necessity to meet is attitude and Confidence. If you KNOW you can get the guy, YOU WILL. I defeatist attitude and negative outlook doesnt give a guy a Boner. If you know YOU are a hot ticket, than HE will too ! Go out there and be "Gone with the Wind Fabulous"..........Getting Free sex is the easy part. Now if we are talking relationships, thats another story, but everything starts with baby-steps

What, no honor among thieves so to speak? How can we trust anyone? Answer, we don't. Best regards, RA1

OK time to catch up on what I have been doing since I recovered from Montezuma's Revenge. I took a ride out to Jomtien Beach which is about 2Km. from where I am staying on Pattaya Beach . This is a 6km stretch of beach that is much wider then some photos I posted earlier in this thread. Part of this 6km stretch has a predominately Gay Area and many visitors love to rent a chair and spend the day looking at boys etc. You can get a massage in your chair or move to a blanket for a full massage(no happy ending) most of the time. You can get a manicure and a pedicure and order food and drinks while you pass the time. There will be vendors trying to sell you anything you can imagine from watches, perfume, x rated dvd's and regular dvd's . Depending on the day and the time of year hopefully there will be some boys who would love to have you buy them a beer and then go to your Hotel Up to You but be careful of you valuables if you decide to take one of these boys to your room. You can get there from Central Pattaya on baht buses I mentioned earlier for 20 baht (65cents USA) or on motorbike taxi for 80 -100 baht. The photos at the bottom of the beach were taken at the end of the day when most people had left and the chairs were being gathered up. When you leave the beach there is sort of a Village of bars, massage parlors , restaurants etc all of which cater to the Gay Customer. No GoGo Bars are allowed in Jomtien but Beer Bars with boys and massage parlors are ok. There are also some very good restaurants of any type you can imagine and the prices are usually quite reasonable. Later in the day I returned to my Condo and visited BoysTown as mentioned earlier and I have included some photos of the area . There is also a photo of Orleans Restaurant which has a New Orleans vibe and excellent ribs (yumm) There are many more bars then then the few I have mentioned and you never know what Diamonds in the rough could await you . Sometimes you just go into a Bar with only 6 dancers and you see Mr Wonderful there . When you have been as many times as I have, you have your favorites but if you were a first time visitor then stop in at many. I have included photos of most of the boys I have seen in the last 8 days since recovering from my sickness. All of the photos are boys who advertise on Gay Romeo and have many photos on the site and in all but one case they all work in GoGo Bars also. In Pattaya all you have to do is smile at a boy in the Mall or a restaurant and there is a good chance he will end up in your bed. Naturally he most likely will require a small gift for that visit but not always. Sometimes they are just Horny to have Sex with a Non Thai. Amazing Thailand!!. If you have never been , you have to visit someday. You will find nice Hotels and restaurants at a fraction of the cost in Europe, USA, Brazil etc. and the money for the boys is as small an amount of most places in the world. Yes for many of you it will be a long plane ride but I guarantee when you are on the plane going home , all you will be thinking about is how soon you can return!! Replying to 27 Days and Nights in Thailand