fedssocr

a little surprised Taiwan is allowing that. But I presume they have pretty stringent quarantine procedures

sounds almost like the plot of The Everlasting Secret Family

clearly there are other options out there. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. There was a good bit of controversy over JFF several months ago. https://boston.edgemedianetwork.com/story.php?ch=nightlife&sc=sex&id=295837&justforfans_founder_accused_of_inappropriate_sexual_behavior_with_models,_intimidation

it's not just women who tease. There are plenty of gay guys doing it too. I paid for one month of Lucas Dell's OF. Very disappointing. Apparently there are also some celebrities and pseudo-celebrities who use OF for fan engagement that are not pornographic. But clearly it is a tiny segment of their business. The issue does seem to be visa and MC not wanting to be associated with the business. It seems like proving performer age is easy enough to prove with a government ID. Just like the porn studios have to keep records proving ages, these site can and I suspect that they must.

some other site will fill the void at least for a little while. I guess OF decided that a small sliver of income was better than no income.

I think it will be sooner than that. As I said in a different forum recently, I can't believe there's been no plan made to move to higher ground or at least inland. It's going to take a long time to build a new capital. You'd expect with all of the corruption in Thailand that the opportunities for graft would be too good to pass up with all of the construction contracts. Instead they just keep pouring more money into BKK train systems and more and more big buildings. Indonesia has been making their plan. And as nuts as the generals in Myanmar are, building Naypyidaw in the middle of nowhere seems kind of prudent with the rising water likely to wipe out Yangon and the delta.

I found this recent report from US public broadcasting to be quite interesting. I don't know if it's geo-blocked. But their Afghan reporter recently returned and interviewed the Taliban (and expected to be murdered) as well as some other people on the ground. There's some sense that Iran is actually meddling quite a bit in Afghanistan

It's a situation where there are no good options. Biden put out a statement today laying out what the administration sees as the situation. He seems to mainly blame the previous administration's "peace" deal that set a May 1 withdrawal date for the remaining US forces - effectively saying his hands were tied. Since the Taliban would appear to not be upholding their end of that deal at this point I'd imagine that the US could also go back on our side of the deal. But I think the train has basically left the station now. As noted previously the US has had only a very small troop presence for several years in training roles along with some air support. I guess there are also lots of "contractors" there. I don't know exactly what their roles are since there are quite a few mercenary "security" contractors. The disorganization and corruption of the Afghan regime seems to be a big part of the problem. The Taliban was smart enough to lay low and wait for us to leave before they swooped in. I was reading a piece earlier talking about how the Taliban isn't a monolithic organization but is a sort of group of franchises that are coordinating with each other. Without the US and allied presence for the last 20 years no women or girls would have had a chance at education. Would it be better that no one had a better life for that period of time because their hopes are going to be dashed now by the Taliban? Is the US required to stay there forever? Sure, I think we all wish the Bush administration had more realistic goals. And the mission creep started long ago. But just because those things happened are we all required to stay there indefinitely? When does it end? How much more mission creep is required? The fact that it's collapsing so quickly would seem to indicate that there wasn't all that much to prop up. People are happy to shit on Biden's decision to continue with the agreement reached by Trump. But no one seems to have an answer to what he should be doing instead and how and for how long and at what cost. People complain when the US intervenes and polices the world. And then they complain when the US doesn't. Do I wish the UN would have sent troops in to Myanmar? Kind of. But I don't know what they would have been able to accomplish and how. Stopping arms sales and cutting off the junta's funding sources makes sense. Unfortunately the Russians are only too happy to sell them arms. It's not in anyone's interest for Myanmar to become a failed state. Certainly their neighbors will be most effected and would seem to have the greatest interest in doing something about it. But we all know ASEAN is full of dictators and wannabe dictators who aren't going to do anything that might shine a light back on them. The Chinese aren't going to send their army. And there are plenty of other internal conflicts all of the world. Should we get involved in all of them?

those 3000 are just to help get US staff out along with the translators and their families. We've been there for 20 years. The last 10 years the situation has been falling apart. Vox had a good round up of the situation the other day with an intelligence expert. https://www.vox.com/22618215/afghanistan-news-taliban-advance

apparently no one has bid on the 2030 winter games https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/08/08/ioc-olympic-host-cities/

a single location makes the most sense, but that would limit the amount of graft the IOC can engage in - so it's probably a non-starter

what always amazes me is how many different weight classes sports like judo have. They seem to award dozens and dozens of medals in that one. I've always felt like, "the more the merrier" is probably fine. If the host has the facilities and there are people who are top class athletes looking to compete, why not? The trend seems to be that it's more and more difficult to find places willing to waste all of the money necessary to host. That will be the IOC's biggest problem in the future.

probably by threatening them with the same fate

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman had a Zoom meeting with reps of the "national unity government" today. And put out a statement welcoming the new ASEAN envoy. I don't expect ASEAN to do much given all of the undemocratic governments in the group.

everybody wants to be Bhutan ("high quality", low quantity tourists). Thailand will struggle to shift so much of its economy away from the tourism sector. What's going to happen to all of those hotels they keep building?

sad to see Oak is leaving Wayufilm and it sounds like he won't be acting, but I suspect he may be back at some point

I guess Variety doesn't subscribe to the One China policy either

and lots of vulnerable old people. It's like they're trying to kill off all of their voters

indeed, I've saved a lot of money by not traveling over the last 16 months. Public health experts that I follow are quite concerned about the reporting mischaracterizing the new CDC guidance. I recommend everyone follow Dr. Ashish Jha on Twitter (@ashiashkjha). He's the dean of the school of public health at Brown University (and a regular fixture on US media).

I don't think it's really his decision

It's been about 2.5 years since I was last in SE Asia. I really miss it. Almost 2 years since I was in Taiwan and Korea as well. I'm glad I managed to travel as much as I have over the last 15 years or so since it looks like it might be a while.

as difficult as it might be I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that travel won't be worth trying until next year some time

presumably the posters are gay, so maybe that's enough to qualify. I'm glad we can talk about the news of the world even if there's no overtly gay angle to it. Those of us who miss these places like to read about what's happening over there, even if the news isn't especially encouraging at the moment.

I happened to see a video on YT last night that was several weeks old about the deteriorating conditions in Pattaya. I read an article the other day about the current situation in Myanmar and how dire it is. They expect up to 50% of the population is going to be infected. That's going to mean a huge number of deaths given the fact that their already-fragile healthcare system has all but collapsed since the coup. It certainly seems like a big reckoning is on the way.

maybe something about wanting to keep everyone from crossing back and forth to Malaysia?