Bob

Using the mail system the end of last year, I got my new passport back 12 or 13 days from the date I mailed it. Rather easy. But, if you're already abroad (except for Canada), you can't use the mail-in system.

You can renew it by mail (takes about 3 weeks) if you're doing that from the US or Canada and the cost is only $75.00 ($100.00 if you do it in person at the US embassy in Bangkok). If it doesn't expire until early 2012 (2 and 1/2+ years from now), why not wait until summer of 2011? You seem a bit early with this.

Always enjoyed his performances, whether in the movies or on television. As Lt. Stone in the Streets of San Francisco, Malden oozed a comfortable mix of honesty and charm. Sorry to see him pass but, like GB said, happy to see he had such a long life.

While I can understand the sentiment, who primarily is putting oneself in jeopardy is oneself - i.e., the first and only intelligent defense is to see what appears to be a valid ID and to make sure you can read it. If I would ever get caught with an underaged kid offed from a bar, I'd blame the bar second (me first). Don't worry, I won't ever let it happen to me. One needs to remember that many Thais think and say they are 18 as soon as they turn 17 (the thinking being they are in their 18th year). And one also needs to remember that some of them (and their mamasans) lie through their teeth about their age. So your only defense is to just be smart as noted above.

Probably but the problem with that scenario is millions of their own citizens will likely die of starvation in the interim (and presuming the crazies there don't start a war that may also kill millions of South Koreans). The world ought to act now before it's too late.

Probably the most repressive regime in the world. What's amazing is how tightly they control information to their own citizens - citizens who reportedly believe that they have a better standard of living than their brethern in South Korea! The crackpots ruling that country live to stay in power and don't give a damn about hundreds of thousands of its citizens starving every year. If China ever has the balls to no longer tolerate this crazy regime on its border, things could change; but China, for its own reasons, acts as if it believes that nobody is allowed to interfere with the internal business of a country no matter how repressive its leadership is towards its own citizens. But, then again, what's happening in Burma largely falls on the same lack of moral leadership from China.

Now why the hell would I have trouble believing that statement? A sad bunch of fools. No wonder so many think many religions are nothing more than veiled mental illness.

Amen. They call it tolerance. Ladyboys don't do anything for me either but that's no reason to mock them or those that are attracted to the ladyboys. Some are rather gorgeous.

I just thought it was strange that you'd ask us. Given you and he know more about it than any of us, my opinion would be that you and he decide. Have fun either way.

Thanks, GT, for the answer...and the photos. The red dress day looks like it was a real hoot.

Before proceeding, my comments here aren't meant to criticize anybody. With respect to the cross-dressing issue, it'd be fair to say I'm rather ignorant of the matter - with my experience rather limited to seeing it in the movies or television and, occasionally, in Thailand. Every time I see somebody doing it, I just wonder why as, simply, I don't get it. So - if you're willing (and, no, you're not required to comment if you don't want to) - can you offer some comment as to why you do that? Is it a comfort issue, does it cause some form of sexual excitement, is it because you think you look good that way, or what? I'm just curious about it.

Like other posters here, I strongly disagree with that notion. These people are some of the worst repeat offenders and, while we can't necessarily fully save the victim, the only way to prevent the guy from doing it again is to lock the bastard up. In my state (Michigan) and I think in most other states, the government goes after the criminal for the expenses of incarceration provided there are assets to get. At least in my state, the creep wouldn't be keeping his portfolio for long.

Lol....if they got married, wouldn't that make them Lebanese? "I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury." -Groucho Marx

Wish you the best of luck in Thailand........but this board is dominated by pasty white falangs who are also looking for Thai boys (gay, preferably). By the way - and I'm a bit doubtful too many people will get this - GO GREEN, GO WHITE!

In that case, I nominated GB to act in the next Poseidan Adventure movie (which, GB, will involve holding your breath for a long time and/or possibly owning an interest in a hotel in the Jomtien complex).

By talking to him or even receiving his money (if that's the case), they're not aiding and abetting in any normal sense of that crime. They'd have to be assisting him to commit a crime either before, during, or after the fact. I suppose if somebody could prove they were helping him hide from the law, there might be a thin case of aiding and abetting. Shinawatra's conviction relates to the Bangkok land (auction) deal and conviction of that doesn't mean he forfeits his freedom of speech rights. Even if he was in jail, he could still say what he thought with impunity (although, of course, it'd only be on visiting days....hehe).

Getting 68% of the vote is a landslide (or, in the vernacular, a thumping). Just about the same percentage that Shinawatra won in the last general election before the coup.

I don't get that one, KhorTose, as John Wayne in person was a sweetheart and rather shy (now does that sound like our GB!?!). Maybe you were referring to his acting persona - the tough guy with the thick skin.....and, yea, I do give GB credit for having a thick skin over the years. As to the Dom Deluise and Ethel Merman comparison, I can see the Dom Deluise humor component but I didn't know GB sang that loud...

GT, why don't you take Hedda with you? Helmet-less, of course....

Praise the Lord.....and pass the basket!

Please don't ascribe your words to me. Since I didn't say that, how can you suggest I meant it? We're sorta back to the "does your mother know you beat your wife" logic. I object to just what I said I objected to - outside religious groups effectively coming in to fuck up the local culture. If a Morman wants to live in Thailand and practice his religion, I have no problem with that - but I do have a problem with that Morman attempting to convert the "pagans" (on a more humorous side note, I wonder why can't they find 144,000 gullible people in Nevada???). Too often, again in my opinion, the groups hide their main intent to "convert" under the guise of charitable aid. Just because some religion has some basic tenet (hmmmm.....wasn't it the pope that pronounced it was the holy duty of the catholics to join the crusades and kill as many of the muslim heathens as possible?) doesn't mean a country has to allow a particular tenet to be practiced. There's a difference between belief and action and, while I'd certainly allow any belief, I wouldn't allow (presuming I was in charge - which I am not) certain practices if I felt they conflicted with and harmed the local culture. And, obviously, I'm a religious cynic. There are hundreds (thousands?) of religions which believe they own the patent to the one and only true religion. Simple logic tells us that all but one of them is wrong. My logic tells me they're all wrong.

It's beyond me how somebody can assert a person is intolerant just because that person personally believes a given organized religions (or most or all of them) are, to him, a joke. I have no problem with (and in fact support the rights of) any person who wants to be religious or non-religious and I think that's the same notion expressed by GB. A very tolerant attitude, at least in my eyes. Now, just because I have no use whatsoever for organized religion (and consider most if at the same level I consider voodoo) doesn't indicate any intolerance; in reality, those who would blast somebody for having that kind of belief is, in my view, the intolerant ones. In one prior post, a poster suggested that we "gay" people somehow ought to understand that freedom and individual liberty relate just as much to being religious as to being gay. I didn't quite understand or agree with that post for the reason that (1) nobody here has suggested in the slightest that anybody ought to be denied the liberty and freedom to practice any given religion, and (2) the rather lame analogy somehow forgot the history of how it's mainly been organized religions that have attempted to attack and eradicate those sinful homos. Believe what you want and, frankly, I likely won't even roll my eyes if you want to pray to Jehovah, Buddha, or Britney Spears in my presence; nevertheless, if you could read my mind at the time, I'd consider your mental state no different than the caveman who prayed to the god of thunder or lightning.

Amazing too, Hedda, how you don't seem to cotton to freedom of speech at times (unless, of course, it conforms to your own dogma). You also missed some of the point. There's a difference between toleration of what (or who) one wants to worship or not worship but it's quite a different thing when some voodoo bullshit is being foisted on less educated people under the guise of charity work (oh well, I'll help feed the pagans and, along the way, convert them to the right way of thinking). History is replete with the damage these people have done. Whether it's the crusades, the Northern Ireland history, or the Sunni/Shia love-in in Iraq, it doesn't seem to make any difference. Your attempting to equate toleration or intoleration of gay rights also misses the mark. Sure, we have a right to be gay but, in my view, we don't any right at all to covert others to gaydom.

Hmmmm......I think I'll take the fifth (preferably Sangsom). Let's put it this way, I've momentarily strayed substantially less than once a year for the 9 years I've known him. And I'm not so sure that a quick roll in the hay or a massage with happy ending is necessarily a breach of the relationship; regardless, I must admit that those rare events are not discussed.

I figured that; but, you'd marry Al Gore if he dumped her, right?