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All I can tell you is that he is American and "no one is going to tell him what to do" and "it's his right to move wherever he wants and he'll just deal with whatever he finds when he gets there as it couldn't be THAT bad" and "Im sick of being told what to do here in the US and having to wear stupid masks that dont work so I'm going to Thailand where I wont be told what to do every two minutes and my right to chose will be respected" HA !!! Hilarious then that one of his first video blog posts thereafter was to complain that he was being "forced" to now "wear 'a stupid mask" again in Thailand "and it was a nonsense and this was just the Thai Government trying to control the people just like in the US " - meanwhile two weeks later lockdown took place and even then he couldn't / wouldn't see any correlation between those two facts and was just angry that his "rights" were being trampled on "again" and repeated how it was all a Thai government conspiracy by the elite to control the people for political reasons. Quite funny too as before he departed the US several people had asked / goaded him online as to was he going to Thailand to find "a girl" and he was very offended and made lots of speeches about "not all of us are like that you know, that's NOT whyI'm relocating there" and stating his aims where more about perhaps doing charity work to "help the poor Thai locals" ( not in terms of Covid mind just in general there by the way as they obviously needed it as they "looked so poor". So it was hilarious to then watch as literally on his FIRST full day on the beach when released from quarantine he was posted a video, where a nice (attractive) young Thai lady "|just happened to bump into him and speak with him ' as "wow, these Thai's are SO friendly to us US citizens and they love us and they love America it seems" (apparently ) - and then listen love on his video to the whole "hello, what your name, how long you stay routine being played out "live" ending in him issuing an invite for dinner later that night :-). BUT he stressed this lady "is different" and did not seem like the usual Thai girls you see in bars but seemed very respectable and upper class. ( perhaps he's right about that I dont know) Either way, the bottom line is that she's now in every video he makes, every day 24.7 and "at his request" she volunteered to take time out of her busy day him to take him to a local state school and after him witnessing "the poor Thai children who had nothing", he made a sizeable donation to help those same "poor children" to the teacher. His new lady also apparently has several other ideas lined up for him too as to where she can take him so give over some more money to other poor Thai's :-) So, he's very pleased and he's posting how pleased he is as he's finding "all Thai's so warn and welcoming everywhere he goes when giving out his money" ( during a lockdown when they've no other income no less - they must have thought that Buddha literally sent them a money angel all the way direct from the USA ) But as for your "he is totally stupid" thought...... I couldn't possibly comment ! lol Either way I've a feeling that his is a story that's going to run and run somehow :) Good luck to him !

From CBS 60 Minutes 60 Minutes has tackled many strange stories on 60 Minutes, but perhaps none like this. It's the story of the U.S. government's grudging acknowledgment of unidentified aerial phenomena— UAP—more commonly known as UFOs. After decades of public denial the Pentagon now admits there's something out there, and the U.S. Senate wants to know what it is. The intelligence committee has ordered the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense to deliver a report on the mysterious sightings by next month. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-military-intelligence-60-minutes-2021-05-16/

thanks for the TST link. I thought the idea of it looked interesting. How do you guys have time to watch all of these things? I guess the short episodes help. Right now I'm just watching Fish Upon the Sky. I like that it's light and fluffy. But I have a feeling that the second half is going to take a bit of a turn. For me the Meen/Duean storyline is more fun and interesting. Louis plays innocent so well with those big puppydog eeys.

Take me with you...I'm thirsty.

Top Secret Together started last weekend seems very interesting Thai BL series . First Episode :

It's the Thai way to say this issue is in a very low priority for the Thai government.

From The Thaiger Action against corruption in Thailand is now a “national agenda” and a 20-year plan, backed by the National Anti-Corruption Commission, is set to be rolled out to promote transparency in the Thai government, PM Prayut Chan-o-cha announced today. On a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being “highly corrupt” and 100 being “very clean,” Thailand’s score is 36, according to the Corruption Perceptions Index by the global coalition Transparency International. Each year, the organisation ranks countries by their levels of public sector corruption. Out of 180 countries, Thailand ranks 104. South Sudan and Somalia both ranked last as the most corrupt countries. Prayut mentioned the Thailand’s ranking on the Index during a broadcast today, adding that the Thai government is working on solving the problem of corruption in the public sector. To help with plans to improve transparency, government agencies in Thailand are told to complete a self-assessment by Integrity and Transparency Assessment. The results will be used to improve the management of government agencies. “I’d like to encourage all Thai citizens in government offices in every department nationwide to take part in improving Thailand’s transparency to meet international standards by jointly completing the transparency assessment online via NACC website or ITAS application from now until May 31, 2021.” https://thethaiger.com/news/national/pm-prayut-chan-o-cha-announces-20-year-plan-to-take-action-against-corruption

YES!

This is how u should do it. If u want your citizen overseas to be taken care of, make some vaccine donation!

Let's hope they can speed it up!

YES.

Broken, beat and scared as The Stones say but nothing that won't heal given time.

I am so sorry to hear this. Are you OK?

20 years? I reckon non-existent is more like it!!

Why are we flying over Florida? We're looking for the biggest asshole in the Universe I'm picking up something in New Jersey

Yet again the government has brought this on itself. If it had listened to the medical experts and cracked down early with testing at the fish market, locked down during Songkran and been 100% compliant in its quarantine laws without permitting a child of the rich elite to get back from Cambodia without quarantine, THAI might well have been able to resume more of its schedule many months earlier than will be the case.

"Until social attitudes change?" I always find this the most ridiculous argument, one that is continuously trotted out by the Singapore government whenever any discussion of the dreaded Section 377A rears its head. The fact is that it is all but nonsense! The demographics of Singapore are roughly 76% Chinese, 15% Malay and 7.5% Indian. In the 2015 census, 18.8% of the population professed to be Christian, the vast majority being Chinese. Let's compare this with other nearby countries with a majority Han Chinese population. Roughly 92% of Hong Kong now are Chinese. For decades the colonial government refused to change its version of Section 377A. It claimed that Chinese society was too conservative and did not accept homosexuality. After a series of scandals and an extensive consultation led by the Law Reform Commission, the law was finally changed in 1990. In 2006 the High Court lowered the age of consent for consensual gay sex from 21 to 16. Has there been any challenge by Chinese community leaders? Has there been any legal objection to the change in the law? Nope! Apart from a few religious sects, the Hong Kong public accepts homosexuality as part and parcel of life. Taiwan's population is between 95% and 97% Han Chinese. As Taiwan moved towards greater acceptance of an LGBT community, there were occasional protest movements against a change. But most of the anti-change movement was led by Christian Evangelical Churches. Christians make up all of 3.9% of the population according to the 2005 census and the numbers have been decreasing since 1970. Christians led the movement against gey marriage. They failed! It is interesting that the anti-gay movements in Singapore are led mostly by a community of sometimes scandal-ridden mega-evangelical Christian Churches. There is rarely any anti-gay public movement from the Muslim and Indian communities. So yet again, it is a very small minority of the population dictating what the government does. Yet increasingly, people in Singapore feel it is wrong for the LGBT debate to be led by religious leaders. In October 2019, a Report by the Institute of Policy Studies found that between 2013 and 2018 there was a "steep drop" in opposition to LGBT issues. The Report also found that, yet again, it was the minority Christian community that "were most likely to the amenable to religious leaders being vocal about LGBT issues. Slightly more than half said they could be comfortable with it." Yet up to 71% of those professing to belong to other religions said they would feel "uncomfortable." So if about half the Christian community are pro their religious leaders advocating anti-LGBT issues, that means roughly 9.4% of the population. Only! In other words, around 310,000 are dictating the policy of the island state's 5.7 million citizens. It is about time the Prime Minister and his dictatorial government (just one party has ruled the island since Independence) took into account the views of the vast majority of its citizens and not the bigoted views of a tiny minority. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/majority-of-singaporeans-uncomfortable-with-religious-leaders-speaking-up-on-lgbt-issues

Sometimes people will only learn when they make mistakes. While there are people who never learn from their mistakes.

Oddly enough, in my experience, members of the Thai Army, not the top brass, are more sympathetic to those rebel armies fighting the Burmese Army than they are to the Burmese Army. Not only do they not interfere with the activities, in Thailand, of the EAOs but do, on occasion, actively support them. (The leader of one of the biggest EAOs is actually a Thai citizen.) I don't think the top brass would approve. On the other hand the BIB choose to make life difficult for anyone in Thailand who supports an EAO.

I got to São Paulo last friday! i couldn’t get the place i usually stay at but found another single family home in the same area which i really like for the many restaurants in the neighborhood as well as the upscale area it is. very close to CGH airport. as well. i got to Fragata at 4:30 , and the new facility is really nice if only people would go there! i stayed until 5:15 and during that time i appeared to be the only client(for sure the only one in the bar and pool area!) I left and went to lagoa less then about 12 minutes away by Uber. and it was Packed! as soon as i got there a blondish/brown haired guy who i met before came up to me. he has a very athletic muscular body and we wasted no time getting to a room. then when i came down a guy who doesn’t work at the sauna but knows me got there, he is another tall muscular guy, i told him that the 6’1”.black muscular stud who i have known for a couple years was coming to meet me and stay at my house that night and would he like to join us?(i knew he would! we left and got back to the house and he showed up about 5 minutes later! it was a instant love connection between the 2 of them! the next morning we got up at 9:00 and they left with the promise that we would all meet again this coming weekend(i go back to SP this coming Friday!). Saturday night i was back at lagoa which on Saturdays it is allowed to stay open 1 hour longer to 9:00 pm , i went for a massage first but it rapidly turned into sex a 1/3 of the way through! when i got back downstairs i saw a absolutely stunning guy, beautiful face, slightly worked out body (gym twice a week type but in good shape since he was only 24! we went up to a room and when he took off his towel i was surprised by his large hard straight as a arrow Dick! it was 9” and thick! the only down side is this guy did not have much of a personality...gee i wonder why? :-). i stayed until 9:00 and then left because on of the guys i had taken to mexico a few years ago was coming to spend the night. Sunday i caught a noon flight to Rio and i was going to go to Pointe when i remembered it is closed on sunday! So i went to 117, i wouldn’t recommend it for. someone as there were only about a dozen guys working although i did find a 25 year old from Bahia who i ended going up to a suite with. i got back to the apartment in Ipanema and there was a message for me that another guy i know that doesn’t work in the saunas but who i was with 1/2 dozen times on previous visits was going to be in ipanema that evening and wanted to know if i wanted to meet! this is one guy i could seriously fall in love with! he is 23 black belt and is at the police academy! and he probably is one of the nicest guys you could ever want to meet! he has a very toned body with a 6 pac, is 6’ tall, and i almost forgot a. 8-1/2” dick! amazing kisser, just a all around nice guy!(he is going to mexico with me on the fall! Today(Monday)i had this guy over that i met a year ago at pointe, it was his first night working and seemed shy! he was but not in bed! he has a incredible body but is very short, but very cute! he came to the apartment this afternoon and we really had a lot of fun! tonight is pointe’s night as 117 is closed

exactly, and as @PeterRS remarked at the end of his (very interesting) Kong Kong story the political will has to be there, which clearly is absent here. This is put up for show, with the long time frame there is no risk of any immediate "damage" to the golden goose and in a year or less the whole thing will be entirely forgotten Such "initiatives" have happened here before haven't they? To what effect? Zero as everyone knows

This has to be some form of joke! A 20 year plan to root out corruption? Why on this good earth does it take 20 years? Fact is it doesn't need to take a fraction of that time - unless this is merely another of the PM's publicity stunts and nothing whatever will actually have been achieved at the end of that time. There are examples in the region of the correct way of rooting out corruption in a vastly shorter period. Singapore is one. Hong Kong another. Before the mid 1970s corruption in Hong Kong was rife. There was triad infiltration in many aspects of society, many in the police force were corrupt. Same with the civil service and even the judiciary. For example, even if you wanted an ambulance to get to hospital, most crews would demand tea money to get you there! Once in hospital the cleaners would demand a small amount to clean around your bed! Power in Hong Kong in those pre hand-back-to-China days was vested in the figure of the Governor. Appointed in 1971 Sir Murray Maclehose became the longest serving Governor and was much liked and respected especially by the general public. He quickly realised that Hong Kong was a cess pit of corruption. He determined to do something about it. He also realised that only a radical solution was needed, one that would strike at the problem with speed and teeth. Nothing within the existing police force and civil service system could achieve that. The trigger for what was about to happen was a case in 1973. Peter Godber, a Police Superintendent, was found to have assets vastly in excess of his income. During the investigations, with the help of his friends he was able to escape to Britain. A mass body of students assembled in a park to protest and condemn the government for failing to tackle the corruption problem. Like Thaiiand now, Hong Kong had an anti-corruption agency. Like Thailand it was a toothless tiger. In 1974, virtually overnight but with many top secret earlier discussions, Maclehose established the Independent Commission Against Corruption - the ICAC. Key elements of the ICAC was that it was answerable only to the Governor. It was also totally separate from the existing police force. It had its own thoroughly vetted inspectors and investigators, most specially imported into Hong Kong from the UK. Judges ruling on corruption investigations were again thoroughly vetted prior to being accepted. Although it was not specified as such, essentially anyone accused of corruption had to prove their innocence. The existing system of justice was all but reversed in those cases. Relatively quickly, 143 police officers and 247 civil servants were fired. One judge packed his bags and left the territory with indecent haste. Later a Crown Public Prosecutor was jailed for 8 years. The business and commercial sector was far from immune. The Chairman and some members of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange were hauled before the ICAC and jailed for the preferential allocation of shares about to be listed on the Exchange. Even today the ICAC continues its work. In 2015, one of the territory's top multi-billionaire property tycoons and the city's former No. 2 in the administration were jailed for 5 years and 7.5 years respectively for collusion and sweet deals. Anyone who thinks such measures were unpopular need only look at a survey conducted on the eve of the millennium. The general public was asked to nominate the most important events in Hong Kong's 150 year history. The establishment of the ICAC was ranked #6. The attached paper outlines Hong Kong's experience in formulating an effective anti-corruption strategy. The first item on the list is "Is there adequate political will to fight corruption?" As far as Thailand is concerned, the answer is unquestionably a loud 'No'! Oh, and one of the ICAC's first successes was the extradition back to Hong Kong of Peter Godber who ended up in jail for 4 years. https://www.unafei.or.jp/publications/pdf/RS_No69/No69_23VE_Man-wai2.pdf

you're confusing that with the "action for corruption" which has indeed always been on the agenda

shock for me , I thought it always was

In the end its all going to be about risk, because, to obviously varying degrees, we manage risk every day in almost everything we do, every time we get in a car, or on a plane, etc. Covid is with us now and will probably always pose some level of risk in the future, We manage risk of STD's in all our sexual interactions with the boys; some of us might take more precautions than others, but we still do it, and it doesn't prevent our holiday fun. We manage risk every time we try and walk across Second Road in Pattaya, for example. We accept a level of risk every time we take a taxi-bike whose driver wends his way at speed through the daily traffic jams along Beach Road. We are in a situation now with Covid where governments are, understandably, managing risks for us, but those restrictions will eventually ease, and then it will be up to us?

Everywhere you look, signs of a self-inflicted crisis are evident. The crowded conditions in migrant worker camps were identified more than a year ago as major breeding grounds for new infections yet little or nothing was done. In one location, infections were linked to having to deposit coins to gain access to a public toilet. From the Thai Enquirer Infighting between the public health ministry and the BMA is slowing Thailand’s Covid response Disagreements and infighting between the Ministry of Public Health and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has intensified in recent days as both try to charter a course out of the current Covid crisis, sources told Thai Enquirer on Wednesday. The third wave of the pandemic continues unchecked in Thailand as the total number of people infected since April 1 approaches 100,000. Bangkok continues to be worst hit area in the country with high daily infection rates that have not gone down despite lockdown measures imposed by the local and national government. Now, sources within the public health ministry and inside parliament tell Thai Enquirer that disagreements between the two largest organizations responsible for managing the situation in Bangkok are threatening the capital’s recovery. “The governor’s office have basically told the MoPH that Bangkok is their jurisdiction and to butt out,” said a senior advisor to the Ministry of Public Health. “They have their own health advisors and are charting their own path – a path which is sometimes at odds with the ministry’s guideline.” One such example is the decision by the governor to only focus vaccinations initially on outbreak sites. According to the source within the MOPH, the rate of vaccination inside the capital is actually slower than other outbreak sites like Samut Sakhon and Rayong because of the BMA’s mismanagement. “I think the governor and his team think that this is a public relations opportunity and are putting their name on every billboard at vaccination sites or proudly proclaiming their covid success,” said the source. “It is tone deaf.” “We are facing the worst part of the crisis right now and Bangkok is at the epicenter,” said the MP from Bangkok. “If the two most relevant government agencies can’t even see eye-to-eye and work together then what hope does the country have?” “Right now speed is of the essence but this fight for who gets to take credit is actually costing us time and lives.” https://www.thaienquirer.com/27671/infighting-between-the-public-health-ministry-and-the-bma-is-slowing-thailands-covid-response/ =========================================== From Bangkok Post Construction camps major cause for concern Bangkok has five new Covid-19 clusters, raising the total to 34, health authorities announced on Wednesday. Unhygienic construction camps, many housing more than 1,000 workers, are a major cause of concern. Situation Administration, said the new clusters were at Bang Kapi market, a construction workers' camp in Bang Kholaem district, an ice factory in Chatuchak district, a construction workers' camp of Italian-Thai Development Plc in Don Muang district, and a cargo warehouse in Bang Sue district. "There are concerns about construction workers' camps, which exist in all 50 districts of Bangkok. Some districts have more than 20 camps each, including Bang Kapi, Bang Khen, Lat Phrao and Huai Khwang," she said. Dr Apisamai said some camps housed more than 1,000 workers. One camp in Bang Khoaem had 1,374 workers. There were seven construction camps in the district. "In some camps, workers share buckets and cups of drinking water. They must be informed that cannot be allowed. In addition, transport to and from the camps of infected workers must be restricted, to prevent disease transmission to other camps," Dr Apisamai said. ======================================== From the Thaiger / Thai PBS Restroom turnstile linked to hundreds of Covid infections at Pathum Thani market The turnstile at a public restroom is said to be linked to hundreds of Covid-19 infections at a Pathum Thani produce market, just north of Bangkok. Health officials tested 10,480 vendors and workers at the Simmummuang fruit and vegetable market and say 867 tested positive with many believed to have contracted the virus by inserting coins in the slot and touching the gate before using the public toilets at the market. The market is sectioned off into 10 zones, with 2 of them closed off following the outbreak while the other 8 zones remain open. A field hospital has been set up in the closed section of the market to house 400 Covid-19 patients. Another field hospital with 400 beds is being set up and planned to open tomorrow. https://thethaiger.com/coronavirus/restroom-turnstile-linked-to-hundreds-of-covid-infections-at-pathum-thani-market