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I much prefer the A350, but Airbus has been having some issues with that aircraft too. Qatar Airways has been having issues with cracks in the fuselage (I believe)

I believe that's correct. Bangkok Post has a handy graphic

the "wealthy pensioner" category also requires $250k invested in Thai government bonds or real estate

I just read that Pitch from Love of Siam is the executive producer of Yearbook

I don't know if anyone is still reading this thread, but this new piece in the New Yorker is fascinating and explains a lot https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan-women

I just binged episodes 6-16 of Light On Me (the pretty Korean HS boys drama). They put the first 5 eps on YouTube but then the rest was on Viki or WeTV. I signed up for the Viki free trial to watch the rest. It is really great. Quite well done. I loved the story's twists and turns. The production design is really good. Highly recommended if you get a chance to see it.

they already are. The ethnic armies are joining forces. There were several reports a few months ago shortly after the coup of people fleeing the cities and joining the ethnic armies

At this point with everything closed I'd guess that most airlines are still in wait-and-see mode with few flights scheduled. If things really open they will add flights which will decrease fares. I don't have much faith or trust in the Thai government. I'm way more inclined to wait until mid or late next year to see where we stand. As I said in the other thread, from my home to get to Thailand is about 24 hours of travel time. That much time with a mask requirement isn't something I'd want to put myself through. Especially when what's happening on the other end is rather unknown. I prefer to let things settle and get back up and running more "normally" rather than be a pioneer. Although I am vaccinated we are seeing a fair few "breakthrough" infections with the current variant, albeit mostly without requiring hospitalization or inflicting severe disease. Who knows that the next variant will be like. I'd also rather go when most of the locals have been fully vaccinated.

I'm not planning to travel for 24 plus hours on a plane for quite some time as long as the mask-wearing requirements are in place. I don't expect to travel back to Asia for at least another year.

obviously any "study" like this is going to be essentially anecdotal. I'm sure there's still some interesting tidbits though. The whole young-gay-man-leaves-the-sticks-for-the-big-city narrative is a very old story across many countries and cultures.

I wasn't a big fan of ITSAY either, but you're not allowed to say that. 🙂 I think I outlined all of my issues with it many pages back. I need to finish watching the Korean highschool thing but only the first 5 eps were on YT for free so I'm waiting for it to finish so I can binge it all in the Viki free trial.

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.