Coss

Cav - content warning - the following images are FAKE ChatGPT As if he could run... Melania's Divorce face looks real to me

https://tpnnational.com/2023/03/23/update-phetchburi-gunman-shot-dead-by-police-after-three-deaths/ A 29-year-old gunman who had killed three people was finally shot to death by police after he attempted to fire his weapon at law enforcement. In total three people died and at least two people have sustained injuries from his gunshots. The Phetchburi Provincial Police Commander Major General Piti Naruekattarapichai said, “At 3:45 A.M. special police teams raided a house to arrest the gunman Anuwat ‘Ping’ Waenthong, 29, after 15 hours of failed negotiation. Anuwat was hiding on the second floor of the house. He fired several gunshots at police and was shot dead by officers as self defense. Anuwat was a former park ranger and according to Piti was nervous yesterday as he had to go to court. Anyway had several former court cases including assault and illegal drugs . Additionally, he had an ongoing unidentified dispute with a man who lived near his house. The man was one of the three people who had been shot death by Anuwat. Police are still trying to determine what exactly caused the violent incident to take place. Coss Comment: of course... ___

Will be missed - The Thai capital’s historical Italian Neo-Renaissance-style Hua LamphongRailway Station has burst back into life and is now greeting visitors eager to experience a light and sound extravaganza dubbed “Unfolding Bangkok”. Being held nightly from now until 26 March, the event marks the 126thanniversary of the State Railway of Thailand with cleverly designed light and sound shows that enhance the architectural charm of this Bangkok landmark. Put together by the Creative Economy Agency (Public Organization) in collaboration with TCEB and Thailand’s Lighting Designers, the installations not only tell stories of the past but also accentuate the beauty of the old building. The showcase starts appropriately enough with “The Door”, an illumination of the curved glass at the station’s entrance, representing embarking on a journey... https://www.thaipbsworld.com/bangkoks-historical-train-hub-awakened-with-light-and-sound/

Beachgoers find giant sea turtle carcass in Pattaya While there’s been a lot of happy news about turtles in Phang Nga recently, there’s unfortunately been some sad turtle news in Pattaya. A giant sea turtle carcass washed up on Pattaya Beach on Tuesday. Beachgoers noticed the carcass and detected a foul odour in the early hours of the morning. They promptly informed the authorities of the discovery... https://thethaiger.com/news/pattaya/beachgoers-find-giant-sea-turtle-carcass-in-pattaya ___ Pretty sure that's a Green Sea Turtle and there's nothing "Giant" about it Adult green turtles grow to 1.5 metres (5 ft) long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_sea_turtle On the other hand - The leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), sometimes called the lute turtle or leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, reaching lengths of up to 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in) and weights of 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherback_sea_turtle

The Centre for Economic and Business Forecasting (CEBF) at the University of the Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) estimates that up to THB 120 billion will be flown during the two-month election campaign period. The centre is confident that there will be no pause in government spending. Economic growth of 3 to 3.5 percent is expected in the last quarter. Thanawat Phonvichai, president of the UTCC and advisory chairman of the CBEF, told reporters that after Thailand dissolved its parliament on March 20, 2023, it is expected that there will be elections and the country will have a new government by August. He said that at least THB 50bn to 60bn (1.46–1.76 billion U.S. dollars) will be spent during the election campaign. This money will then boost the economy to around THB 100bn to 120bn (2.935 to 3.520 billion U.S. dollars) in April and May, resulting in the economic growth of about 0.5 to 0.7 percent. Thanawat further pointed out that under a caretaker government, it is understandable that the government will not be able to perform to its full capacity. However, he stressed that it is important for the government to continue all current spending to support the private sector. He is still confident that the caretaker government will be able to do so. Thanawat, however, acknowledged that there might be a pause while the new government is being formed, as several policies are still being dealt with as part of the policy proposal to parliament. He said that the public must pay close attention to who will be the next prime minister, whether there will be an overwhelming victory for a particular party, and what the joint formation of government from several parties will look like. Many political parties want to hold a majority election to influence the formation of the government. Thanawat said all these factors could affect the Thai economy. He stressed that the upcoming elections will be very contested. Wachira Khuntaweetep, president of CEBF, said that according to the survey on the political impact on the economy, if the elections are held in May 2023, about 40.1 percent of businesses will be affected as they will spend more money during the election campaign and sales of goods and services will increase. This will also boost political confidence. “About 40.3 percent of private businessmen expect the economy to grow between 3.35 percent and 3.82 percent in the last quarter,” he said. UTCC estimates growth between 3 percent and 3.5 percent, no change from the previous forecast. The centre expects the [GDP] forecast to be adjusted again in July 2023 after the election.” About 11.5 percent of business people see negative effects of this election, worrying that economic policies will not continue, that politics will be unstable and that many parties campaign on rising wages. In addition, 47.5 percent of respondents believe that politics will have a strong impact on the Thai economy. Businessmen also express their concerns following the dissolution of Parliament. Some 79.5 per cent are concerned that the cost of doing business will increase. 78.3 percent are worried about politics going unchecked. 60.3 percent are worried about political differences. 58.9 percent are worried about the stability of the new government. 57.4 percent are worried that there will be no obvious anti-corruption measures. The private sector needs government support to reduce production costs, especially wages, interest rates and energy. They want government spending to accelerate, especially while the government is in office. They also want the government to continue to support the tourism industry and to take care of the stability of the baht and household debt, as the Thai economy has not yet fully taken off and the global economy is still subject to risks. https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2023/03/23/election-spending/ ___ I guess this means that the political elite has plenty of money. I also guess that many of Thailand's voters, are limited to "one, two, three, many..." and cannot fathom amounts such as, THB 100bn to 120bn, thereby being unaware of their position, in the inequity equation.

Darren Dashing Darren was an Australian naturist, a leading frottage proponent, bestialist and onanist, widely known for his contributions to biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from both a human and a common animal ancestor's, genes, is now generally allowed and considered a fundamental concept in loopery. His assertion, that the common animal ancestor, which he maintained we all descend from, is a racoon dog, as found near Wuhan, China has yet to gain wide acceptance. The Darren Award, is a fictitious award, often presented online, to failed endeavours, resulting in death or great injury.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/131579787/watch-the-moment-tourists-bungy-cord-snaps-in-thailand

555 We all know who Tucker Carlson is right? Amongst some of his rantings are: those that decry Hunter Biden and his laptop. The following is from: The Guardian May 2022. Tucker Carlson tried to use Hunter Biden to get his son into Georgetown ...As Tucker Carlson asked Hunter Biden for help getting his son into an elite Washington university in 2014, the Fox News host’s wife, Susie, reportedly wrote in an email: “Tucker and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. Always!”... ...The existence of emails about getting Buckley Carlson into Georgetown has been known for some time, thanks to a laptop once owned by Hunter Biden that was obtained by Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and pushed to media in 2020... ... “The story here is that Tucker Carlson is the living embodiment of the unearned, privileged elitism that Tucker Carlson derides on his show every night. The Hunter Biden part is just gravy.”... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/19/tucker-carlson-hunter-biden-georgetown-emails So that's why the contents of the Hunter Biden Laptop has not been made public, too much embarrassing stuff on there for the GOP.

I reckon this week coming will be good TV. Trump is due to be indicted as you say, and he's already saying he's "gonna be arrested" and asking his supporters to "PROTEST PROTEST PROTEST ". My money is on, a few dozen idiots outside wherever the court is. _____ Writing from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, Trump surprised his advisers by posting an all-caps message on his Truth Social platform Saturday morning that declared he “WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” His language, along with a fundraising pitch sent out by his 2024 presidential campaign, echoed rhetoric that Trump used in advance of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by his supporters. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/03/18/trump-protest-arrest-new-york/ _____ "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!" he added, in an ominous echo of the words that preceded the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. He followed up in a second all-caps post, writing, "IT'S TIME!!!" "WE JUST CAN'T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE," Trump wrote. "THEY'RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!" https://news.yahoo.com/time-trump-calls-supporters-protest-173042971.html _____

movies

and remember the meetings?

Trump Picks an Enemy: Us (USA) The Orange Caligula sides with Russia. For a moment, set aside the buzz about an impending indictment, bank bailouts, and even how badly your March Madness bracket is doing. Pay attention to this. Please. Because on Earth 2.0, this would be the stuff of endless news cycles and nightmares. Here is Donald Trump channeling Kremlin propaganda, siding with Russia, even as he declares that our real enemy is . . . other Americans. Despite the wishcasting punditry, the magical thinking of his rivals, and the fervent hopes of the Hollow Men of the GOP, this man is the presumptive nominee of the Republican party, and therefore possibly the next president of the United States. (The DeSantis bubble hasn’t burst. But it’s leaking.) I don’t mean to alarm you. You should be alarmed. Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 @RonFilipkowski Trump says Russia is not a threat, our greatest threat is our American representatives, we need to reevaluate the purpose of NATO, and most of the people in the State Dept, DOD and Intel Services need to be fired so he can put the right people in. https://t.co/T6FCjIqMtr 7:17 PM ∙ Mar 16, 2023 1,791Likes438Retweets Let’s break this down: *The Purge At a time of growing international tension, the former president is threatening a massive purge of the nation’s defense infrastructure. He proposes dismantling — and completely overhauling — the Defense Department, the nation’s intelligence agencies (our eyes and ears), and the country’s foreign policy capabilities. Mass firings, the loss of centuries of experience. A purge of independent, adult voices, and anyone else who might tell the new president “no.” More important though, after the purge of the “Deep Staters,” he would “reconstitute” the country’s destroyed defenses, presumably by stacking the agencies with his own loyalists. All while Russia advances, China rattles sabers, and the Middle East boils. *Dumping NATO Don’t assume he’s bluffing. His former national security director, John Bolton, has said that Trump would have pulled the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if he been re-elected in 2020. Via the Wapo: For Putin, this would be a gift beyond the dreams of even his avarice. In other words: Make Russia Great Again. *Blame America First Compare and contrast this line to a propaganda bleat from the Kremlin. Indistinguishable. Once again, he blames America, not Russia. Trump accuses the U.S. “foreign policy establishment” of lying about Russia because it is trying to “pull the world into a conflict with a nuclear armed Russia.” It is we who are the warmongers, trying to foment WWIII. It is the United States — not Putin — who is risking nuclear war. And, even as he suggests we should fear Putin’s wrath, he downplays the danger of a country waging a genocidal war against its neighbor. *Our real enemy: other Americans Here we get the nub of Trump’s message. We should not fear Putin or Russia… but, rather, ourselves. Or, rather, we should fear other Americans. Our real enemy is one another. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the essence of Trumpism. The Divider in Chief. ** “If a Democratic president were to say these things—dismissing Russia as a threat, cowering before China, preaching moral equivalence, and blaming America for Russia’s war—every Republican presidential candidate would denounce that president as a gutless, soulless, Putin-loving traitor,” Will Saletan wrote this week. He was talking about Ron DeSantis, but how much more does it apply to the former president himself? So far, though, Republicans have been reluctant to push back against the Orange Caligula himself. As our Joe Perticone noted in his newsletter Thursday: But it is hard to overstate what a departure this is from what the GOP once stood for. Writes David French: ** Over at Defense One, Kevin Baron asks: “Who Else Would Trump and DeSantis Abandon?” ** The good news: Despite some premature obituaries, conservatives have not yet completely surrendered. Based on past experience, it’s true, Republicans may fall into line behind the Appeasement Caucus. But that hasn’t happened yet. And this is a fight worth having. https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/trump-picks-an-enemy-us

Australia will purchase U.S.-manufactured, nuclear-powered attack submarines to modernize its fleet, a European official and a person familiar with the matter said Thursday, amid growing concerns about China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region. The purchase agreement for Virginia-class submarines will be announced Monday when President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meet in San Diego for talks on the 18-month-old nuclear partnership known by the acronym AUKUS. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of the announcement. The AUKUS agreement, announced in 2021, paved the way for Australia to get access to nuclear-powered submarines, which are stealthier and more capable than conventionally powered boats. “We all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term,” Biden said in September 2021 when the partnership was announced. “We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve.” The secretly brokered deal included the Australian government’s cancellation of a $66 billion contract for a French-built fleet of conventional submarines, which sparked a diplomatic row within the Western alliance that took months to mend. The European official said France had been briefed on the terms of the purchase agreement. Biden spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, the White House said, adding that they “discussed the cooperation between the United States and France in the Indo-Pacific region.” The submarines, which cost $3 billion each, are built at shipbuilding plants in Virginia and Connecticut. Under the terms of the agreement, subs would eventually also be built in the U.K. and in Australia with U.S. technology and support, the person familiar with the matter said. The initial plans called for all of the subs to be constructed in Adelaide, Australia. The U.S. would also step up its port visits in Australia to provide the country with more familiarity with the nuclear-powered technology. While relations between the U.S. and France have recovered over the submarine deal, the French continue to convey concerns that the deal could potentially be used by China as an excuse to stretch the boundaries of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and deliver sensitive technologies to adversaries of the West, according to the European official. The official added that France has urged the three AUKUS alliance members to be mindful of the issue as they proceed. China has argued that the AUKUS deal is in violation of the treaty, arguing that transfer of nuclear weapons materials from a nuclear-weapon state to a non-nuclear-weapon state is “blatant” violation of the spirit of the pact. Australian officials have pushed back against the criticism, arguing that it is looking to acquire nuclear-power and not nuclear-armed submarines. The White House declined to comment on the submarine purchase ahead of the planned meeting on Monday. https://fortune.com/2023/03/09/australia-buying-nuclera-submarines-us-3-billion-each-china/ _____

yes, always

I reckon they'll keep us like pets

D'ya think, if you had two phones, with text-to-speech set up and ChatGPT on them, that you could get the phones talking to each other? This comes from a comment I made, to a mate recently, that soon we would become like donkeys, just animals that carry around our phones so they could do whatever it is they have to do. We'd go to the pub and put our phones on the table and then just wait, until the phones wanted to go somewhere else. Such is the reliance of some people, on their phones, to do anything.

And this being in LOS, that's a given.

My excursions on the wheels of death, are from the age of 21, after I did an "advanced safety" course, which was driving around a car park at slow speed, whilst some dude watched... I've had one close call (broken leg), several adrenalin highs whilst airborne (Acid), and only one accident that wasn't my doing. That accident was at 10 km/hr in Pattaya, when a local piled into my ankle... 1st best bike, Yamaha XS650. 2nd and last best bike, Honda 750 super Magna 86 - magnificent V4, which is as mother said, half a V8. In Laos, if you don't have a moto, you walk everywhere, or get out the ute. I'd like another one of these -

Authorities in Thailand are scrambling to locate a metal cylinder with dangerous radioactive contents that went missing from a power plant this week, warning the public of serious health risks should they come across it. The revelation comes just two months after Australia was forced to launch a similar hunt to find a tiny radioactive capsule that was eventually located by the side of a highway. But while that Australian capsule was lost in the country’s remote outback hundreds of miles from the nearest major city – the Thai canister has disappeared in a much more populated area. The cylinder, measuring 30 centimeters (4 inches) long and 13 centimeters (5 inches) wide, was reported missing during routine checks by staff on March 10, at the coal power plant in Prachin Buri, a province in central Thailand, east of the capital Bangkok. The province has a population of nearly half a million people and houses some of Thailand’s best national parks, including the famed Khao Yai National Park which is popular with both local and international tourists. The parks are a common day trip from nearby Bangkok, a sprawling megacity of some 14 million people. Used for measuring ash, the cylinder was part of a silo and contains Caesium-137, a highly radioactive substance that scientists say is potentially lethal. Search teams and drones have been deployed to recover the missing cylinder, according to a statement from the Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP), a government regulator for radioactive and nuclear research in Thailand. Deputy Secretary General Pennapa Kanchana told CNN on Wednesday they were using radioactive detection equipment to locate the cylinder. “We are searching in waste recycling shops in the area,” she said. “We are (using) survey equipment to detect for signals. For areas we cannot reach, we have dispatched drones and robots.” Also involved in the search are Thai police, who believe the cylinder has been missing since February but was only officially reported lost by the National Power Plant 5 company on Friday. Police have examined CCTV footage from the plant, Si Maha Phot district police chief Mongkol Thopao told CNN – but were hindered by “limited views” of the machine. “It is unclear if the item was stolen and sold to a recycling shop or misplaced elsewhere,” Mongkol said. “We have dispatched our teams to recycle shops around the area… we still couldn’t find it.” Experts warn that Caesium-137 can create serious health problems for people who come into contact with it: skin burns from close exposure, radiation sickness and potentially deadly cancer risks, especially for those exposed unknowingly for long periods of time. Caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30 years, which means it could pose a risk to the population for decades to come, if not found. Pennapa, from the Office of Atoms for Peace, urged the public not to panic. “If general people (come into) contact unknowingly, the health effects will depend on the level of the (radiation) intensity. If it’s high, the first thing we will see is skin irritation.” It is not the first time something like this has happened in Thailand. In 2000, according to the Congressional Research Service report, canisters containing another radioactive isotope, cobalt-60, were bought by two scrap collectors, who took it to a junkyard where it was cut open. Some workers suffered burn-like injuries, and eventually three people died and seven others suffered radiation injuries, the report said. Nearly 2,000 others who lived nearby were exposed to radiation. But Pennapa said the canister that is currently missing is far less radioactive than the incident in 2000. The most recent case in Thailand follows a similar incident in Western Australia in January when a tiny capsule, also containing Caesium-137, went missing along a remote outback highway while being transported from an iron ore mine to a depot in Perth. After a challenging six-day search, the capsule was eventually found and officials are still investigating how it apparently fell off the back of a vehicle during transit. Nuclear radiation experts in Australia who previously spoke to CNN said that the loss of that capsule was “very unusual” and spoke about challenges of recovering such a tiny device. But a good thing, they said, was that the search area was extremely isolated. “So it would be very unlikely to have much impact (on people),” said Ivan Kempson, an associate professor in Biophysics from the University of Southern Australia. But there had been some past examples, Kempson noted, of people finding similar things and suffering radiation poisoning. “The concern… is the potential impact on health of the person who would find the capsule,” he said. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/15/asia/missing-lost-radioactive-cylinder-thailand-search-intl-hnk/index.html