Flashermac

Steve, once again a polite, well reasoned response ... as I've come to expect from you. So why can't our political leaders be this way.

The Chinese Communist Regime is on the Brink of ‘Disintegration,’ Says Leading China Expert https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-chinese-communist-regime-is-on-the-brink-of-disintegration-says-leading-china-expert_3167543.html

"Not corruptible ..." Really, CS? All of "the squad" have been charged with misusing there own campaign funds. And Warren and Bernie aren't exactly saints. Just give the new folks time. They'll become as corrupt as the rest. Meanwhile, Ken Starr has spoken up: Congressional Democrats have pushed too hard on President Trump’s impeachment hearings and may force Republican senators to dismiss the case altogether, said former special prosecutor Ken Starr on Thursday: “It’s an outrage to seize control of the deliberate process of a committee — [it] simply compounds a series of very, very terrible abuses,” he said… “Where did she get this power?” Starr asked… “It is an abuse of power.”

How dare CNN print something like this! Donald Trump was elected to break the elite. Of course they want to impeach him By Scott Jennings When the global elite are aligned against him and laughing like the immature cool kids you hated in middle school, President Donald Trump is winning. When the liberal law professors are neglecting their Thanksgiving turkeys to read congressional transcripts and snarking about Trump's 13-year old son, Trump is winning. When the politicians are mad — so mad that they have shut down all policymaking to impeach the President of the United States on what constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley called "wafer thin" evidence —Trump is winning. You have to remember: Donald Trump wasn't elected to fit in with these people — the political, intellectual class -- to make them happy, or to become one of them. He was elected to break them. And that's apparently what he's done. After Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing featuring three liberal law professors and Thursday's announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that her conference is moving forward with impeachment, the die is cast -- Donald Trump will be the third president in American history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. And honestly, that's just fine with Trump's supporters. What better evidence is there that you've shaken Washington to its core when the minders of a system you've come to despise are leveling the gravest punishment the system permits against the very President who is doing the shaking up? We can lawyer this to death, but for many Americans this comes down to a simple observation -- Trump said he was going to rattle their cages, and by golly they seem rattled. Trump's supporters have known since election night that this day would eventually come. After all, his sworn enemies have been openly promising it since before he was sworn into office! They've used words like "resistance," "coup," "insurance policy," and "impeachment" so often that, now that they are actually doing it, the American people — and Republicans especially — are offering a collective yawn. Rueful analysts stare into television cameras, lamenting and wondering why Republicans aren't fleeing from the President over the impeachment hearings (he stands at 90% approval among his party in the latest Gallup poll). But there won't be massive convulsions in public opinion because everyone has known for three years what was going to happen. Sure, some Democrats gamely argue that Pelosi didn't really want to go through with it, but she had to out of a sense of duty to the Constitution. But it's a half-hearted argument at best. It's true that Pelosi had no choice, although it's not because of the Constitution. Rather, her party's left flank and their inflamed grassroots activists overwhelmed her. This is a one-sided, partisan impeachment. It's the exact kind of thing Congressman Jerry Nadler, now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, warned Republicans about in 1998, during Bill Clinton's impeachment. But political party leaders almost always do what the bulk of their party's supporters want them to. Republicans — no matter how moderate — got in line to cut taxes and confirm an avalanche of conservative judges because that's what their activists expected. And what have Democrats wanted more than anything since Trump's election? Since the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh? Since Trump made Twitter his private channel to the electorate? Since the Mueller probe? Since the Trump Hotel story? Since questions over Jared Kushner's security clearance? Since...you name it? The answer is obvious: to undo the 2016 election by any means necessary. It's a political itch that had to be scratched, and Pelosi could hold off her tormented partisans no longer. So here we are, headed for a rushed, hyper-partisan (and futile) exercise put on by the very elites Trump railed against to get himself elected in the first place. But for all the relief they might feel in finally striking this blow against Donald Trump, I wonder: have these Trump opponents even considered what this impeachment signals to the American people? That partisanship is more important than policymaking? That House Democrats have no confidence in their party's ability to beat Donald Trump in an election? And, perhaps most alarmingly, that impeachment — once reserved for the gravest of situations — is now just another tool to inflict damage on their politica https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/05/opinions/trump-is-still-winning-jennings/index.html?ofs=fbia&fbclid=IwAR1CSaOebWGn17KeNxH7ApgEMJAupfxXF5FYhv2ZLx-xV49sSDkB9QtxHOw

Unfortunately, it is only getting rid of the other party's bad guys.

We knew they would be going after Pence too. How else are they going to take over the White House without an election? If both Trump and Pence are booted out of office, guess who becomes president. That's right, Nancy Pelosi! My liberal fruitcake sister has even told me she can't wait for that to happen. If the Dems could manage to pull that off, right or wrong, you really would see a civil war in the USA, and the Dems aren't the folks with guns. Are they so blind that they can't see that? They could probably get away with dumping just Trump, but no way they could by seizing the White House but such a method.

My sarcastic point was that this is all going to be a waste of time. The Dems can impeach Trump, but the Republicans will more or less lock-step vote him not guilty in the Senate, which they control. here is an interesting comment that confirms what you've been warning about: "Prof Turley, who was chosen as a witness by Republicans, said he disagreed with Mr Trump's conduct but 'this is not how an American president should be impeached'. He also warned that Democrats are setting a dangerous precedent. "'I get it. You are mad. The President is mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My Republican friends are mad....' he said. 'We are all mad and where has it taken us? Will a slipshod impeachment make us less mad or will it only give an invitation for the madness to follow in every future administration?'" - BBC

The Democrats have made their report. The President deserves to be impeached for placing his own interest ahead of those of the Democrats! It was released by a vote of 13 Dems for and 9 GOP against. Nothing partisan in it at all.

https://www.kqed.org/news/10482521/a-photographers-quest-japanese-american-internment-then-and-now Mitsuo "Mits" Mori gazes at a photograph shot by Carl Mydans at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. It ran in the February 1944 issue of Life Magazine. It's next to one taken by Kitagaki in 2012. "There I'm in the barbershop getting a haircut," Mori says. "But here I am with no hair anymore." He was 9 -- a San Francisco kid whose parents were forced to sell their South of Market dry-cleaning business for $450 when they were hauled off to an internment camp. He's 80 now, a retired architect who lives near San Francisco State. He still remembers when he and his family arrived at Tule Lake. "When they walked into that room, it was just bare nothing," Mori says. "A mattress and a cot bed and a potbelly stove. And that was it -- that's all they had. My father, my mom, myself, my sister and my uncle lived in that space for two years."

That plastic snow must have been tracked all over the world in the pockets of visitors.

My neighbour in the 1960s was one of those held in a concentration camp. His mother told us that she and her husband owned an Asian antiques shop in Los Angeles, with a fortune tied up in their stock. They were given just 3 days to sell their home for whatever they could, while their shop was seized and ransacked. Finally, decades later, the US government paid them $20,000 for their losses, which didn't even begin to cover it. To add insult to injury, IRS considered it as "income" and they had to pay taxes on it. FDR was solely behind the imprisonments, issuing an executive order to arrest all Japanese Americans. Strange that no one accuses FDR of racism. (German and Italian citizens were arrested, but not German Americans and Italian Americans.) What few Americans know even today is that FDR pressured other countries in the region to arrest their Japanese ancestry citizens. The Central American countries did so, sending those arrested to camps in the USA. And those folks never got a penny in compensation for their losses. ... “Separation from parents is the most traumatic thing a child can experience,” says Satsuki Ina, a professor emeritus of California State University-Sacramento who is now a psychotherapist based in Oakland, California. “Every day they are altering the neurology of the child.” Ina was born in an internment camp. Hers was among the families unwillingly torn apart: her father was arrested for protesting conditions at a camp and sent with other protestors to an all-male detention center run by the US Department of Justice, she says. Ina has been visiting family detention centers along the US side of the US-Mexico border and speaking out against the detainment of children there for several years now. https://qz.com/1311736/japanese-american-internment-camps-taught-us-what-happens-to-the-health-of-separated-families/ Wrong is wrong, no matter which party does it.

Thais have always thrown their trash whever they felt like, but back in the 1970s and early '80s it was all paper or banana leaves. It disintigrated in a fairly short time, while the damned plastic bags last for centuries. It would be hard to go back to the old paper bags made from newspapers and magazines, since the print press is dying. Not many newspapers are around anymore, while even several of the top magazines have shut down. The younger generations only look at the internet or their iPhones. Until a few years ago, you would see the scavengers out with their carts, scrounging up plastic bottles, plastic bags, aluminium cans, glass beer bottles, cardboard boxes, and old newspapers. They would even buy them from householders, though I always gave mine to them. Quite a few poor families used to make a living in this fashion. But little more than three years ago, the new Bangkok governor banned the recyclers and put a stop to it. What kind of genius was that bright idea, not to mention the poor folks who lost their only source of income?

Well, at least he managed to live 65 years before blowing himself away. Ronald Cyr ... hmmm, a lot of French Canucks have settled in that area.

Yes, the Doll House started at Clinton Plaza and had quite a nice bar there. Several of the early Nanapong dance contests were held at the original DH. But Clinton Plaza turned out to be a big swindle! The two guys who sold the leases didn't actually own the land, and they did a runner with the money. Then the real owner ordered the bars to go, and the Doll House had to be torn down. I moved to Soi Cowboy after that. I wonder what happened to #33. At one of the dance contests she grabbed my head and shoved my face into her crotch. Being a judge had its benefits. When in doubt, google Stickman. https://www.stickmanbangkok.com/weekly-column/2013/02/the-dollhouse-a-brief-history/

It was sort of a tradition for me to walk into the DH around Christmas time, stumble over the unseen step in the floor, and fall on my face in the plastic snow. Darel told me that when they cleaned up the "snow" after the New Year, they'd find all sorts of things buried there ... phones, watches, money etc.

Here you go ... not the same without Darel, but still a good bar. https://www.facebook.com/The.Dollhouse.Bangkok/

Around 75 brands and 24,500 distribution channels under the Thai Retailers Association will stop providing plastic bags from January 1 in a bid to reduce the whopping 9 billion, or 20 per cent, of plastic bags used in Thailand. According to the Pollution Control Department, 45 billion plastic bags are used each year in the country – 18 billion, or 40 per cent, by local markets and street vendors, 13.5 billion, or 30 per cent, by retail shops, and another 30 per cent by department stores and supermarkets. Each Bangkokian uses eight plastic bags daily on average, which totals 80 million plastic bags per day. Association president Worawut Oonjai said that 75 brands under its umbrella joined forces to reduce plastic waste and signed an agreement to stop providing plastic bags on the fourth day of each month last year. Retail shops and department stores have from December 4, 2018, until August 31, 2019, been promoting non-plastic use with reward points. The effort resulted in a reduction of 2 billion plastic bags – a 4.6 per cent decrease. After discussions with department stores, convenience stores and retail shops in November, the association decided to introduce a campaign titled “Every Day Say No to Plastic Bags”, under which all its members will stop providing such bags. Worwut believes this campaign will produce more effective results than the government’s road map to eliminate plastic bags from Thailand by 2028. https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30378996?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=internal_referral Better get yourself an old fashioned cloth bag to take shopping with, the way it used to be in the UK and Australia around 50 years ago.

So veterans aren't part of the public any more?

Yo, Coss ... Pew survey: Vets’ support of Trump as commander exceeds public’s, but some question his military judgment https://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/pew-survey-vets-support-of-trump-as-commander-exceeds-public-s-but-some-question-his-military-judgment-1.598182

The currency's rise is expected to continue well into 2020 and bring far-reaching consequences to an already sputtering economy. More than two decades ago, the baht suffered heavy devaluation as a result of speculation, forcing Thailand's central bank to de-link the local currency from the US dollar and adopt a managed floating exchange rate. Fast-forward to the present and the baht's value has become a challenge for the trade-reliant economy. This time the local currency's strength is the issue, as opposed to drastic depreciation during the 1997 financial crisis. The last time the baht's value against the greenback touched 29 was in 2013. The currency appreciation irked many businesses and policymakers to the point that there was a public rift between Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong and former central bank governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul, as the latter did not acquiesce to the former's demand to cut the policy interest rate to curb the appreciation. The strong baht in 2019 is a result of Thailand's massive current account surplus. The surplus, worth US$26.4 billion (797 billion baht) on a year-to-date basis as of September, stems from lower import value compared with export value, inflows of tourism revenue and near-record foreign reserves of about $222 billion. Ample foreign reserves have made Thailand stand out as a safe haven to park capital, either for actual investment or speculation, amid the US dollar's significant retreat, rattled by the shaky future of the global economy, the Federal Reserve's monetary easing and a tit-for-tat trade dispute between the world's two biggest economies. The baht is the top-performing currency in Asia, gaining nearly 8% against the greenback year-to-date, even as Thailand bears the brunt of subdued growth yet again. Domestic economic growth was 2.4% year-on-year in the July-to-September period, up slightly from the second's quarter 2.3% reading but down from the first quarter's 2.8%.Bank of Thailand governor Veerathai Santiprabhob said recently that the baht was surging beyond the economy's fundamentals and the central bank was concerned about its strength. Given that capital inflows should be balanced against outflows to ease pressure on the baht, the central bank aims to radically overhaul the Exchange Control Act. The act, which has been in place for more than 70 years, was drafted based on a perspective of positive risk, referring to how local investors, who are eligible to invest abroad, must meet the stipulated criteria. The existing paradigm of global financial developments should register negative risks, since investors can freely invest in overseas assets as long as they are not involved in prohibited activities such as speculation. This fits well with the modern world because there is a high degree of flexibility, Mr Veerathai said. The central bank is also poised to change its outdated foreign reserve management, as asset allocation is restricted to traditional asset classes. To curb the baht's strength, thinking outside of the box is needed because Thailand is a small economy, said Jittipol Puksamatanan, chief strategist at Krungthai Bank. He suggested the central bank encourage banks to offer cheap-rate loans to importers or any companies planning to invest or acquire businesses outside the country to accelerate capital outflows and ease pressure on the baht. The central bank could also offer to absorb foreign exchange hedging costs for institutional investors, including the Government Pension Fund and the Social Security Fund, to encourage them to plough more money into overseas markets, Mr Jittipol said. He agreed with Mr Veerathai that the central bank should change the way foreign reserves are managed and focus on investments other than US treasury bills. "The baht is managed against only the US dollar, and the dollar's weakness is the problem as market players shun it," Mr Jittipol said. He gave Singapore as an example. The Monetary Authority of Singapore will do nothing if the US dollar becomes weaker or firmer, as the regulator manages the Singapore dollar against a basket of currencies of major trading partners. Moreover, the Bank of Thailand should clearly communicate with market participants that it will manage the currency until the baht moves to a level considered appropriate and seriously take action to thwart a one-sided bet, Mr Jittipol said. "I think the central bank might be concerned that the US will include Thailand on its watchlist of currency manipulators, so only a handful of activities in managing the baht have been spotted," he said. Monetary policy easing has a minuscule effect on the baht against the backdrop of an existing low-rate environment, but a negative policy rate would blunt the baht's gain. "The central bank, however, would avoid cutting the benchmark rate to below zero because it could pose a threat to the economy," Mr Jittipol said. [more and more] https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1806469#cxrecs_s

The Doll House in Soi Cowboy. Meanwhile ... Rain, cold weather forecast for next week Rain from a tropical storm will precede cold weather from China next week, with temperatures forecast to drop up to 5C in upper Thailand. Several northeastern and eastern provinces have been warned about the rain brought by the Nakri tropical storm, which will make landfall in Vietnam on Sunday and Monday. Another wave of cold weather from China will follow, resulting in thunderstorms in all regions from Wednesday to Friday, according to a Meteorological Department forecast issued on Saturday.Tropical cyclone Nakri in the middle of the South China Sea weakened to a tropical storm on Saturday morning. It is moving westward tothe Vietnamese coast at 13km/h. Its influence will affect the weather in Thailand from Monday to Wednesday. Slight to moderate rain is forecast in Mukdahan, Yasothon, Amnat Charoen, Ubon Ratchathani, Si Sa Ket, Surin, Sa Kaeo, Rayong, Chanthaburi and Trat. From Wednesday to Friday, strong high pressure from China will cover upper Thailand, resulting in thunderstorms, initially in the Northeast and East, and then in the North and Central region. After that, the temperature will drop with strong winds, by 3-5C in the North and Northeast and more up mountains. Mercury will drop 2-4C in the Central region and the East. The Northeast monsoon which is covering the Gulf of Thailand and the South will gain strength, resulting in heavy rain in some areas and high waves up to 2m. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1790799/rain-cold-weather-forecast-for-next-week