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As a perceptive article in yesterday's Guardian points out, it is customary to look at the good that men do when they pass from this earth. Talking of the death of Rumsfeld, President Bush praised his "steady service as a wartime Secretary of Defence - a duty he carried out with strength, skill and honour." Even the USA's main serious newspapers had reasonably decent comments on his life. In the case of Rumsfled, though, surely Mark Anthony's words in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar are far more likely to be accurate: "the evil that men do lives after them." As the Guardian article points out: "He destroyed the public trust, the integrity of the presidency, and left America’s reputation far weaker than when he came. "How did he do all that in the fevered five years between the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and his resignation in 2006? "We could start with his disastrous decision to turn away from the hunt from Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to pursue Saddam Hussein in Iraq: one of the most baffling, harebrained and ultimately bloody choices in the history of American national security. "We now know that Rumsfeld was contemplating this bizarre plan within days, if not hours, of the attacks. He pursued an illegal aggressive war with no link to al-Qaida but with all the dogged skills he had learned from a career inside Washington, concocting a case for war that destroyed international trust and the integrity of anyone who touched it . . . "We are still living with the catastrophic consequences of Rumsfeld and his gang [Cheney etc.]. There’s a direct line from the Iraq invasion to Syria’s civil war, along with the immense suffering of millions of civilians, and the political strain and instability caused by so many refugees to this day. "It’s not as if this chain of events was unimaginable at the time. "Rumsfeld himself was just about smart enough to flick at the lid of the Pandora’s box he was about to detonate. In one of his classically cryptic memos to his inner circle of warmongers in late 2001, Rumsfeld casually raised an eyebrow over the chaos he was unleashing on the world. “'We ought to think through what are the bad things that could happen, and what are the good things that can happen that we need to be ready for in both respects. Please give me a list of each,' he wrote. 'Thanks.' "Rumsfeld might have been talking about Afghanistan, where Kabul was about to fall and Bin Laden was ready to run for the mountains at Tora Bora. Or he might have been talking about Iraq, where Rumsfeld was already planning his war. Either way, he botched them both by failing to give a damn about the messy business of rebuilding nations after war . . . "It was this mixture of extreme arrogance and incompetence, along with a cavalier disregard for human suffering and integrity, that was the hallmark of Rumsfeld’s short and bloody reign. His policy chief, Doug Feith, bragged about how going to Baghdad was just a milestone on the road to Tehran. "But when Iraq fell apart, their hawkish allies in the White House turned on Rumsfeld’s team for failing to have any kind of credible plan to run a country ravaged by decades of sanctions, airstrikes and corrupt government . . . "Rumsfeld’s victories were illusions. His defeats will outlive him. And his much-vaunted courage was a smokescreen for lies, crimes and deaths. If he was an exemplary public servant, we need to reimagine what public service actually means." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/01/donald-rumsfeld-defense-secretary-lies-crime-death

American fitness chains pester the customer with a questionnaire so that the product can be sold to him as expensively as possible before there is any thought of answering his questions. Horrible. And then all the superfluous stuff like coffee and films, dear God, who cares? This modest and small gym is mixed, and I liked it immediately. After the work out, I could turn to one of my favourite activities just around the corner. Fitness Thaniya 9th Floor, Thaniya Plaza, 52 Silom Road Suriyawongse Bangrak 02 231 2250 https://fitnessthaniya.business.site/

So, I was curious about Facebook dating and gave it a try. People like you or you like them and if a match, you can chat. I met one guy that I thought was really cute and I wanted to meet him. We chatted for a few days and last night he came to my place for a date. We went to eat (not really as no seating but brought it back to the apartment). We chatted and had a great time. He speaks great English and is into computers and programming. He is a bit young, 20 years old, but very smart and funny. He did enjoy playing games online a bit, but that was fine. The night was great, sex was very good, and he asked for no money at all. He wants a BF. He comes to Bangkok once per week to play volleyball and asked if he could spend next weekend with me as well. I said yes. Since Jupiter Boy has left the picture, it looks like Volleyball Boy has came into the race.

I don't think Gaybutton will mind if I borrow a post from his board. Pattaya cops walked in on a live broadcast involving three Thai guys that was being beamed to China for a select audience. https://gaybuttonthai.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10704

While reasonable price discrimination based on age like @z909 mentioned for Singapore (which I've also witnessed there, including the beneficial effect on the composition of the crowd) is very much acceptable, the egregious one that R3 and to a lesser extent Sauna Mania had were not. However, if I remember correctly the outrageous 1200 or 1500 mentioned in some posts here (which were real, I've seem those stated there at the cashier myself) were for the orgy nights. On regular nights it wasn't so extreme. And regarding foreigner pricing at Mania, it wasn't for farang, but for foreigners in general, including the MANY Chinese tourists that used to frequent the place. There was a sign saying in English "Entry fee 200 (or 230 or whatever the fee of the day was)" and another one entirely in Thai quoting something like 120. But all those are now a thing of the past. All saunas of the R3 group have completely abolished all tiered pricing. Presumably a result of slow business due to covid to attract more customers. KRUBB has some price differentiation, i.e. discounts for youngsters. It's a nice and attractive place, even with an onsen bath on the top floor (6th) along with the dry sauna and steam room. Almost never any foreigners.

If they are both closeted, knowing u have a family member in the same situation will definitely brings them closer.

I find myself agreeing with much of what you say. I'd go as far as to say that the US supported the wrong side in Vietnam. The regime in the south was corruption on steroids.

With all respect, the horrors of racism were indeed born out of the centuries old 'tradition' of slavery. Not to diminish it in any way whatever, though, I do suggest that making war on a country is a totally different issue. This is especially true when you know so little about the country you have decided to make war on. We know that the excuse for going to war in Vietnam - the Tonkin incident - was a manufactured lie. McNamara's book In Retrospect sums up what followed as a result of that lie. "We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation . . . Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong." I wonder how the families of the more than 3 million killed in those USA adventures felt when they read that, an admission from the man who basically directed much of that war, the Secretary for Defence. And what of those massacred in Laos and Cambodia, wars that were illegal in that Congress had not given the President approval to make war in those countries? Go further back in time. The USA was one of the most anti-colonial governments anywhere. Yet it permitted the hated French to return to take over its Indo Chinese colonies without any suggestion that it might eventually withdraw. Had first Roosevelt and later Truman paid any heed whatever to the various letters received from Ho Chi Minh, they would have realised that Ho was a nationalist and he wanted his country back from the French. Had Truman put pressure on France, that country was in no position to resist. It could have said its farewells to India-China and likely there would have been no wars in Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia. Russia and China only became involved thereby making the region a Cold War issue after 1950. Would they have become involved if Vietnam had become an independent nation in 1947 with assistance to build the country from the USA, that country of which Vietnam had been an active ally in World War 2? The problem with war is that too many governments resort to it on the basis of assumptions and vastly insufficient knowledge. The USA had hardly any South East Asian specialists in Washington after World War 2. It had hardly any Arabic speakers prior to the invasion of Iraq. The British had too little knowledge when it decided to invade Egypt in the 1950s to take back the Sex Canal. It suffered an ignominious defeat. So lies formed the basis of actions.

In my last trip last year I used exclusively Grindr plenty of boys and very easy to use it .

Why not formally repatriate to the UK for the minimum time necessary to get the pension indexed, and than return to Thailand? I suppose moving abroad is not what countries want their citizens to do, so I have some (very limited) sympathy to make it a bit uncomfortable... One argument for not letting expats vote would be that they don't have to experience the consequences of their vote ... but then they should gain the right to vote in the country where they live. EU moved a little bit in that direction, at least for EU citizens living within EU, at least at the local election level.

I have the best luck on Hornet and Grindr. Hornet I have met the best guys on. Grindr I have met guys who say, I want money a lot. I also like Gay Romeo but most of those are working boys and that is good as well. I find when I log in for any, I also get messages.

I am not a Facebook member and have not desire to join. But we all know it is not the only way to meet guys and the apps we use have been changing over time. At the end of the 1990s there was one here in Thailand mostly for Thai boys but surprisingly was almost all in English. I'm sure it was only on the internet, but it was a good way of finding very agreeable company. For some years my two most successful Asian computer apps were fridae, based in Singapore, allegedly with 500,000 members around the Chinese diaspora, and gaydar. The former was free but you accessed the entire membership for a $49 annual fee. Living in Asia that was certainly worth it and I met many guys as a result. It was taken over from the gay guy who ran it as a commercial concern about 5 or so years ago. Now it is a shell and in its death throws. Perhaps surprisingly I found gaydar extremely good for making contacts in places like Japan and Taiwan. I may have mentioned this hook-up before - if so, apologies in advance. I have tried to find the key words on the search engine but without success. Once planning a trip to Tokyo in the mid-2000s I spotted a lovely 21 year old on gaydar. We chatted and agree to meet at my hotel for coffee after he had finished his studies. I never like to hook up with someone first in my room as descriptions and photos are still sometimes inaccurate. So I waited for my hoped-for new friend in a corner of the lobby coffee shop. A few minutes later in walked this vision. Surely it has to be him, I thought. It was. He came and sat with me and we chatted for about an hour. Not surprisingly for those looking for foreigners on the hook up sites in those days he spoke excellent English. He told me he had recently broken up with a US sailor from the nearby Yokosuka Naval base. He was happy to come up to my room. I was ecstatic! I was even more so when he hugged and held each other tightly. I could feel down below something which was certainly not the "medium" in the gaydar description. I told him, "Masayuki-san, that is not medium. It's not even big. Its humungous!" Clothes ripped off, I saw with my own eyes that I was right. A marvellous sight to behold - and he was not even a top! We quickly showered, played around a bit and then got down to business. Wow! What an evening. Later I suggested I take him for dinner. One of my favourite restaurants in Nishi-Azabu was full and so we went to a nice French restaurant across the road. He then came and stayed the night, as he was to do the following two nights until I had to leave. Masayuki was definitely boyfriend material - and more! But there were two problems. We lived in different countries and his studies were being paid by one of the Japanese large conglomerates. Six months later when he graduated, he was theirs for a minimum of five years and they could post him anywhere and everywhere in Japan they wanted and when they wanted. So as we discussed seeing each other again, we both knew we could only be together before his graduation. I made the most of it with three trips to Japan and he came to spend 8 days with me in Bangkok and Phuket. We said our goodbyes and they were tearful. Yet we did meet up once again. Probably around 2 years later I was whiling away time in the shower area of the 24 Kaikan sauna in Tokyo when I heard someone mention my name. Who on earth can this be? It was Masayuki. But he had changed. Once he started working, he had met up online with an New York banker who visited Japan every month and was a muscle mary. He had persuaded Masayuki to join him in the gyms. In a way I was glad, because this body was not the Masayuki I had known. But that "medium" appendage was still there! I wonder what the best apps are nowadays apart from Facebook.

How do they reconcile that with the FB "real names policy" ? or (I'm not a FB user) is that a thing of the past?

"When we are together it is clear that I am to be looked after." Yes; my experience is the same, even to the extent of my arm being held when we cross a road, even though my experience as a Londoner makes me far more aware of the dangers of traffic than a farmer from Kamphaeng Phaet, where two tractors are considered a traffic jam!

right, being close to somebody with little of material possessions and still seeing him having happy life clears our mind to a great degree and when we will be gone , whoever will be cleaning our house will be happy that there's so little work to be done dumping all that to Royal Cartage provided trash container

I keep working hard on my quest to check items out of my Two Eat List. Mantecol is a popular candy based on the tradicional halva recipe. The other one is a popular brand of one of my favorite Argentinean flavors: alfajor de maicena. After checking them out of my To Eat List, I should check them in to my Not To Eat Anymore List. Now that I know that I may stay here one month longer than expected, I have to watch my diet. Another check out item: Sopa paraguaya. Do not ask me why its is called "soup", I do not know. It is delicious and it is made with love by my mother. That picture was taken today during lunch. After several cloudy and very cold days, today was a Día Peronista. I took advantage of the sun and the warmer weather to take a walk with an old friend. We started in the Facultad of Ingeniería, a landmark building that was originally built for the Fundación Evita (a beneficence organization) and after the Revolución Libertadora in 1955 (the coup that terminated Perón's second presidency) transferred to the Universidad de Buenos Aires. From there we walked towards and through Puerto Madero. This is the last neighborhood added to the city. All the old port area was reconverted to offices and high end condo apartments. I love that the city landscape designers are abandoning the use of foreign species and planting the city outdoors with indigenous ones. Then we walked up to the City and Plaza San Martin. The Plaza Hotel, one of the most traditional five stars in the city, it is abandoned with no traces of any redevelopment work. In general, the city has been hit hard by the pandemic. It is noticeable in all the areas I have been visiting, and I have stayed in the wealthier side of town. I am told that going to South decadence and poverty are obvious and depressing. I am privileged to be able to enjoy my staying here. Yesterday I had my third encounter with Alan, and the boy has definitely displaced Tomy from the pole position of my favorite guys. It is weird, my brain tells me that I should find Tomy more attractive, but my body responds more to Alan. His ass is amazing, it is almost like it is sucking my dick in. Yesterday I was still very stressed because of my flight cancelation, and was tired and not aroused after our photos session. However, he wanted me and worked me with thirst and passion. It was our third meeting, and again like twice before I busted inside of him. This is really unusual for me, and a high indicator of our good chemistry. He is now publishing in soytuyo and I love to see that he used all my pictures in his new ad. I have one more pic for you. Yesterday, after I busted, he demanded me again to keep digging him until he got his orgasm:

that the mighty understatement

but what really is normal gay topic? anal sex ? no because straights indulge is that too. Knitting? my grandma did a lot of it but with 7 children I doubt she was lesbian. and we can go and go. Only thing I can think as gay topic of are bars and massages but due to closures and lack of reporters on the ground this type of topics is hibernated now. Rest assured a lot of us including nobody me are itching for day when it will be possible . I even have tittle for my next trip report but unfortunately it's gathering dust as of now.

Already here! One of the best flight I had ever. The plane from DC to Dallas was full, but he long flight to Buenos Aires was probably only have full. I was in the Premium Economy section and only two other people were in those 24 seats. American Airlines service was super nice, the food quite goof for a plane, and one of the cheapest tickets ever, almost 1,1 K. Ezeiza was also semi empty and totally transformed by the control protocols. After picking up your luggage, you have to take another test (I had to take one before), but the whole process was efficient and there were few travelers. Once I received my negative result, I was ready to walk out to meet my driver. In previous trips, I would just go for the car services offered in the airport. Two years ago, I paid over 30 buck, which it is quite standard in my international trips. This time I tried something different. I asked my sister to hire a remise service. I paid $AR 1,650, 2K with the tip. That is U$S 20.56 at the official exchange rate, 12.94 at the Blue exchange. IMG_2113.MOV My Airbnb looks just like the pictures, and the neighborhood is exactly what I expected. I walked a little bit around. As the exchange rate shows such an abyssal difference between Official and Blue, I did not want to buy anything. In the airport, I withdrew $AR 4.000 to pay to the driver and have some cash. I need groceries, but I will wait to see my sister and mother (they are coming in 2 hours) and will sell them dollars at Blue rate. I am not scamming them, my friends, that is what people do here. You do not need to have family or friends. The locals want your dollars. If you go to most exchange shops or travel agencies, they will make the deal with you at Blue prices, without any paper track. But I was hungry after almost 24 hours eating airport/airplane food. Right in the corner of my place, I found a very affordable restaurant. It looks quite average, and I loved the price although I did not have much time to compare. They were offering a "Menú Ejecutivo" for lunch at $AR 420. I wondered if they were making a pun, "420" is popular here in social media and hook up apps. I did not ask. I went for the first option, the "mini" bife de chorizo. Delicious, my first piece of Argentine meat. While I was waiting, I enjoyed being in a Buenos Aires sidewalk. This is a Fase 1 weekend, so there is no traffic and people are walking their dogs wearing masks. This tree was right in my corner. To give you an idea of local prices, this is the full menu of the place I chose: I included a tip, and paid $AR 500 for my bife de chorizo: U$S 5,14 at official rate, 3.24 at Blue rate. 30' after opening my Grindr, I had 15 hits. 10 of them were attractive men and young men. The good thing of having so many, you can pick only the best. I am talking with a 24 years guys very cute. I am not planning to do anything today anyway, so we are talking about meeting during the week. I am also talking with my boy Y, the Venezuelan hottie into chubby men that I met 2 years ago. I talked about him in my report here, (he was 22 back then, 24 now, I make the acceleration because I mention several possible ages in that linked report)and also wrote abut him in my blog. He is getting me pot and we will meet tomorrow. All this is sex for free. I have not yet decided who the first professional will be, or when. The offer is generous. I wrote a report on my candidates, but since then more have been added to the list. Now, I am going to wait for my mami while I catch up on my networks. That's all for today, folks!

Fantastic reports. Thanks for sharing, @Latbear4blk

From Thai Enquirer Experts say that Thailand may have Covid-19 infection numbers 3-4 times higher than the total number declared by the government per day, according to insiders within the healthcare sector. According to a doctor at the Bangkok Dusit Medical Services group, experts at the Private Hospitals Association meeting on Wednesday suggested that the real number of Covid-19 infections could be much higher than that being declared by the government. “We have no idea what the total number is but it could literally be 3 to 4 times higher than what is being declared based on the statistics we have gathered at our hospitals,” the doctor said on condition of anonymity. “The reason we don’t know is because private hospitals don’t have the capacity or the mandate to do widespread testing, we can only test people that come to our hospitals,” said the doctor who asked not to be named. “In April, we had infection rates around 10 per cent of people that were tested. Now it is much closer to 20 per cent.” Thailand’s government said that the country saw 6,464 new covid infections in the general public on Wednesday. “We do not know for sure what the actual number is we can only judge it by the rate of infections and by the numbers we see that come to get tested at the hospital,” said Dr Suwadee Puntpanich, a director at Thonburi Bamrungmuang Hospital which is part of the Thonburi Healthcare Group. “But in our hospitals, we have people lining up since 3 am to get tested in the morning as we have a limited number of tests. Of those that we do test, there are days when over half are found to be infected.” If the experts working for the Private Hospital Groups are correct, Thailand’s reopening plans for October may need to be shelved until the population can be vaccinated and protected against further infections. Thailand is currently in the midst of the third, most severe, wave of the pandemic with nearly 300,000 people infected since April 1. https://www.thaienquirer.com/29512/thailand-may-have-infection-numbers-3-4-times-higher-than-the-government-declared-total/