Travelingguy

The authors said they had low to moderate confidence in their results from the Cochrane study, not the individual studies. Like I had said, originally, the standard view prior to Covid was that masks were not effective in preventing viral infections. Many of these studies in the Cochrane analysis are pre Covid and during non epidemic flu where the people being studied were unlikely to be worried about dying of flu. However, I worked in an ED with sick Covid patients throughout the pandemic. We weren’t turning people away or having them seen by younger staff outside. We were intubating patients as well as doing other procedures on them. People were dying around us. My partners and I were extremely diligent about masking. I wore an N95 from before I entered the hospital to the time I left without ever taking it off. I did not eat or drink inside the hospital. Most of my partners did the same. We literally left the building if we needed to eat or drink. We did not start getting sick until the end of the Covid pandemic despite taking care of people from day one. Many of us got sick after our kids got sick. My personal Covid infection did not occur from the hospital, since I had been off for a while when I got sick and that was more than 2 years into the pandemic. You can discount my experience as anecdotal, but my experience with Covid and the risk of contracting a deadly disease with people dying around you every day gave me an insight into what real compliance with masking looks like. I would disregard any of these studies pre Covid because there was no real fear of dying. I also doubt that there were many high quality studies of masking being done during the deadliest parts of the pandemic, since the focus was on patient care and keeping anyone that did not need to be around these patients out of the hospital. But for all of us who took care of these patients for years without getting sick with one of the most infectious agents that humans have been exposed to is not due to luck. We took care of these patients for many months before the first vaccine. If masks were completely ineffective, we should all have gotten sick, yet only 1 or 2 of my partners got sick in the first year or so of the pandemic. When looking at a study, you have to look at the weaknesses and limits of the study. Also, if you have insight into the question being studied, you can rightly apply skepticism to conclusions based on your experience and your knowledge of what masking diligently involves.

You present these studies as somehow definitive to the question, but the authors of the studies themselves do not support your confidence. They report having low to moderate confidence in the results of their study based on the weaknesses that they identified in their study with regard to compliance with masking and handwashing.

I do not have much confidence in these studies, but you seem to have a great deal of confidence in them. So, the next time a covid patient comes into the ED and is sick enough to need intubation (yes, that is still happening from time to time), you would be comfortable intubating them without an N95 mask? I don’t know any ER doctors who would be willing to do that.

Studies prior to the pandemic argued that flu and other respiratory viruses could not be prevented by masking. So that was the default belief prior to Covid. These studies now arguing that masks don’t prevent the spread of viruses don’t seem to address what happened during the first winter of the pandemic. There was no flu. That was true all around the planet. Previous studies had shown that masks did not help prevent getting the flu, but all those studies were probably confounded by people not religiously wearing masks. The pandemic showed that we could stop flu, which would have been hard to imagine previously. Also, once the pandemic really got going and hospital personnel got very good about N95 masks and avoiding exposures, very few doctors or nurses who worked with Covid patients every day were getting infected. I am not talking about medical personnel who had already been infected and had immunity. So, based on what happened during the pandemic, I find these studies arguing the ineffectiveness of masking as not addressing the elephant in the room. Masks and social distancing literally gave us a flu free winter. First one in my lifetime.

He looks like he is choking.

For what it is worth, I stumbled on this post from the feed on the right side of the forums page. So, I never noticed that this was in any particular forum.

I am guessing Filipino. There is a particular way they do the circumcisions there at around 10 years old that leaves that collection of skin on the underside of the penis. So yes.

I guess they aren’t going to call it LIttle Saigon….😂

Just a clarification… Freedom of speech is a concept related to being able to say whatever you would like without being punished by a government authority. The freedom of speech guarantees in the United States are quite extensive. In other western countries, there are certain things that cannot be said, publicly, without violating specific laws. There are very specific issues in Thailand that cannot be discussed publicly without violating laws. In repressive dictatorships like Russia, the list of things you cannot discuss is extensive and not always clearly defined, making it easier for the government to arrest you if they so desire. Freedom of speech also does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech. People can counter your speech with their own speech. They can hold you in low regard. They can go so far as to shun you and refuse to have anything to do with you. None of this violates your freedom of speech. You seem to confuse freedom of speech, which is a government issue with the right to say whatever you’d like in a private domain. You can’t just go into somebody’s house and insult them and expect that they’re going to respect your freedom of speech and not kick you out on the street. The same actually applies to the Internet. the host of the website can decide what is acceptable behavior or not. People on the Internet, who are arguing so vociferously for their freedom of speech are often times just arguing for the right to state offensive things without consequences. No internet host has to put up with speech that they find offensive. They don’t even have to put up with speech that they find boring and trollish. It seems bizarre to argue for freedom of speech on someone else’s internet site, when one has their own internet site where they could post whatever they would like, but choose not to. That sounds more like trolling behavior. Being banned from a site because you deliberately post things with the sole intent of provoking others would not be a violation of your freedom of speech. You have your own website on which you can post whatever you like. Therefore, your freedom of speech would not have been violated.

Plus ça change… I remember, as a kid, reading about armed gangs, robbing entire apartment buildings in Rio . This was in the pre-cell phone times. They would cut the power and the telephone communications to the building. They would have armed people on the first floor /garage level. Then they would go through the building door-to-door robbing everybody. it was far away the most outrageous thing I ever remember hearing. And I grew up in a violent neighborhood in the United States. Anyway, Rio has been extremely dangerous for my entire lifetime. I’m guessing this waxes and wanes somewhat. But with extremely high levels of insecurity, it is easier to understand why people would support fascist politicians with easy answers.

“Not once a problem....I'm not new at this, I worked on a cruiseline for a bit (in a senior position) , I know EXACTLY how it works and the logistics of doing it, is why I have been able to do it.....so don't jump to conclusions before knowing the whole story 😉” Now that is a story that I would love to hear….

Not all of these oligarchs fell out of windows in Russia. Some suffered their fate in other countries. But more to the point, why do you feel so comfortable dismissing the persecution of fellow gay people in Russia and why do you feel safe in Russia from persecution yourself? As far as propaganda goes, have you ever criticized the Russian government or Putin on this board for anything?

I find it fascinating that someone who appears to be gay and posts about hookups with university students in Moscow, would consistently defend Putin, in particular his scapegoating gay people which has been going on for more than a decade. There are so many stories about gay Russians who have suffered horribly under Putin’s rule, either at the hands of the government or at the hands of thugs while the government turns a blind eye. Does a gay person living in Russia, posting on gay websites daily, really think that they are safe? And if they really do think that they are safe, are they deluded? Or does their ardent defense of the regime give them protection? Or are they deluded in thinking that their ardent defense of the regime will give them protection? It just makes no sense. I am new to this site and I have wondered if Moses is a Russian citizen who has little choice, but to live in Russia. Or is he an ex-pat living in Russia by choice? On Swatdee, he encouraged someone to move to Moscow for all the sexy foreign exchange students. But what gay person or Westerner would make that choice, particularly in today’s Russia? It all seems so risky and so dangerous. Even oligarchs that were close to Putin at some point routinely “accidentally” fall out of windows. I just don’t get it. I must be missing something

Gays have been persecuted with laws and without laws forever. They have been and are executed and tortured in various societies. Yet none of this repression eliminates homosexuality. It just leads to horrendous suffering for those who get caught up in it. Even the Russian government isn’t stupid enough to believe that this will have any effect on the number of gay people in their society. They don’t care. It is all for show. They also don’t care about the suffering of their gay victims. But why should we be surprised when they consistently show us how little they care for anyone except Putin and whichever oligarchs around him are currently in his good graces.

Antibiotics don’t generally work for upper respiratory infections, since they are mainly caused by viruses.

I cannot imagine anyone in Israel wanted this massacre to happen. And I am saying that as someone who is no fan of Netanyahu

On some guys, the beards accentuate their looks. These guys usually have angular features and the beard is relatively short. Other guys just look unkempt or have these bushy beards that I don’t think is attractive at all.

I realize that for many the massage itself isn’t important, but I also would like to have a quality massage.

Line number does not seem to connect to anything

I guess there are several different lotteries going on there at the same time (money, massage, etc) You don’t have to hit the big jackpot to be a winner

Perhaps, you have already answered your own question. When you are in Thailand, you get bored. Perhaps Thailand is not the place for you to retire. Running a business, even if it is only with the goal of breaking even, is basically a 24 hour job. You could entrust it to someone else, but how does that address your boredom? It also dramatically increases the risk that the business will be run at a loss (perhaps great loss). If you want to just have a place to hang out during the day, you can do that at gyms or cafes by buying a membership, not the whole business. But for that to work, you would probably need to be social, which you said that you struggle with. Someone suggested learning Thai. Taking classes is a great way of scheduling your day, and you can learn a skill. You may not be able to volunteer in Thailand, but I would think that language exchange would not be considered volunteering. You could meet with local Thais in coffee shops and they can speak to you in Thai and in exchange, you can speak with them in English. A win win. It is also informal and could help you form social connections. You say that you like to travel. You could just travel to Thailand regularly for periods that are short enough that you do not get bored and you can schedule many things to do during that time to keep yourself busy. But honestly from a financial point of view for a person at a point in their life where they are “retiring”, I cannot think of a worse reason to start a business than boredom. The answer to boredom is not going to be found in taking on the risk and stress of running a business that your heart really isn’t even into. You might as well keep working in your current job.

There was also this modern dance number, that on its own would have been fine. But it was a complete non sequitor dropped into the middle of this play (either right before or right after intermission).

West Side Story was a modern (at the time) take on Romeo and Juliette. It also tackled issues like race, immigration and the role of women in society. Oh!!!!! The horror!!!!!!! Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I saw this version of Oklahoma and I thought that its’ biggest crime was that it was boring.

No need for racist slurs.

Retiring to a foreign country will require flexibility and patience on a daily basis. Things will not always go as planned or desired. Best of luck.