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dean

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dean last won the day on August 26 2018

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About dean

  • Birthday 04/01/1953

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    d_decoursey@yahoo.com

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    Kansas City

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  1. The one concern I have about Biden running again is having VP Harris a heartbeat away from the Presidency. I wish he would dump her and go for someone like Governor Whitmore of Michigan. Whomever Trump finally chooses for his running mate will have the only qualification that Trump cares about; total loyalty to Trump. So, in either case, you will have a person unqualified to be President a heartbeat away from the office. However, since Trump is totally unqualified for the job, if he dies while in office, his successor would be an improvement.
  2. Unfortunately, what the U.S. has that other countries don’t have is the Second Amendment. The right to bear arms for self defense has gone from keeping a gun at home to protect against break ins to packing heat almost anywhere you go. The defense by people of using the 2nd Amendment to allow the sale of semi automatic weapons is crazy. This is not what the founding fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution. But 2nd Amendment hard core supporters, who amount to 20-30% of the population, always talk about the “slippery slop” in allowing even modest gun control laws. Whe way things are now, those supporters, the same that support Trump, would probably start a civil war to keep their precious guns.
  3. I didn’t go down to the parade today, thankfully. Kansas City has Ben on a roll over the last 15=20 years. They reinvented their downtown area into a place where millennials like to live, built a large, multipurpose arena, a new airport, brought back streetcars and are planning to help build a new baseball arena downtown (and renovate the Chief’s stadium). The mayor, Quinton Lukas, is the third mayor in a row to dedicate his tenure to developing Kansas City, Missouri. However, during the same time period, infrastructure has been elected. If you drive there, it’s an experience trying to miss all of the potholes. If you are there during a snowstorm, you can expect that it will take at least a week to snowplow the side streets, unless you live in an affluent area. For the last 10-15 years, the rate of gun violence has gone up almost every year. It’s only February, but the rate is higher than last year, and last year was a record year. Kansas City, and the State of Missouri, along with the rest of America, responds to gun violence by increasing the budgets for the police. Politician’s response is to initially pray for the victims, then call for the arming of teachers, and spending money on schools to provide a constant police presence and redesigning schools to make it harder for shooters to enter. Anytime serious gun legislation is proposed, the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby come out with their propaganda, and but the squeeze on politicians, mainly Republicans, to kill any gun control legislation. Even legislation to kill regulation of semi automatic weapons (whose only place in in a war setting). Gun control, like many things including immigration, vaccination and single payer health insurance, has become a polarizing topic, split between the MAGA Republican right wingers and the Democratic moderates and liberals. I’m 70 years old. I don’t expect to see meaningful gun legislation in my lifetime. It’s to the point that enough Americans have to be victims of gun violence, or know someone who was a victim, to get to a point that real pressure can be put on politicians. We haven’t reached that point yet.
  4. I live in Kansas City and know Travis Kelse enough that it’s unlikely that he is a liberal Democrat. About every commercial on TV that uses a sports figure uses Patrick Mahomes. The few commercials that he doesn’t do are done by Kelse. I’d like nothing better than to see Taylor Swift endorse Biden and suggest that her “Swifties” also vote for him. The parade for the Chiefs is Wednesday. I may go down to watch it as the weather should be in the low 60’s F. It would be a perfect day (for me, anyway ) for the 2 of them to publicly endorse Biden.
  5. That would just cause the Chinese to open plants in other countries that have favorable tariffs with the U.S. They already have several in Mexico and that gets around the tariffs.
  6. I’ll second buying direct from airlines over from a 3rd party travel agency whose Customer Service department is non existent. I flew Singapore Airlines last September for 2 months at my house in Chiangmai, working on it. On October 18, I got a call that my brother suddenly died and I needed to get home for the funeral. I contacted Singapore Airlines and they wouldn’t offer any help, telling me to contact my 3rd party travel agency that sold me the ticket. The only way I could contact them was by email. After 3 days of waiting for a reply, I gave up and bought a one way ticket on Qatar airline to get home. I’ve been fighting with both Singapore airlines and BugetAir (don’t use them) ever since and after giving them my brother’s birth and death certificates in PDF form and DNA samples from both of us, two days ago, I was told I would receive a refund of $236 sometime in the next 2 months In the meantime, not wanting to use Singapore Airlines, I’m flying China Airline one way to Chiangmai for 23 days. Currently, I’m being treated for stage 3 melanoma with a 13 stage one treatment approximately every 28 days, so I need to get back at the end of December or first part of January. At some point, I checked Philippines Airlines and round trips run $600 if I fly BKK to LAX. I then use FF points to fly Southwest Airlines to Kansas City. That’s the cheapest that I’ve seen post Covid. I’ve got 2.5 years left until my son graduates from high school. Then, I can move to Chiangmai, be rid of U.S. healthcare, which would be a lot less expensive for me here with Medicare paying almost all of my costs. I just can’t stand dealing with the bureaucracy of our healthcare system. If my Thai wife decides to stay and run her Thai restaurant here, I may come back once or twice a year for short stays and get whatever expensive testing done here rather than in Thailand. I’m pretty sure that coastwise, I can’t get health insurance in Thailand because of preexisting conditions (cancer and Afib) and age, 70.
  7. Cav, I went to College from 1971-1975. Going to 2 Jesuit institutions, Holy Cross and Creighton University, the tuition my senior year was around $1,200 a semester. “For the students who are admitted to Creighton in Fall 2022, the estimated tuition for four(4) years is $189,918. The estimated total costs of attendance with living costs and personal expenses is $254,397 for four(4) years.” That increase isn’t just from cost of living. My Thai step daughter just graduated from Pharmacy school with about $80,000 in debt. That should be reduced by $20,000, as she had a Pell Grant as an undergraduate. Not related to the topic, but the most famous graduates of the 2 schools that I went to are Clarence Thomas at Holy Cross and Jenni Thomas at Creighton. Not overly proud of that.
  8. If Trump runs, the Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee has said that the RNC will no longer pay his legal bills. In Trump’s case, that’s a powerful incentive not to run. On the other hand, if he runs and is elected before being thrown in jail, he can pardon himself or claim the privilege of not being indictable as a sitting President. I think that he wants to stay out of jail more than have his legal bills paid by someone else.
  9. Trump just steals government papers/documents, like classified information including nuclear weapons secrets
  10. Yesterday, I received an email from the Thai Consulate in Chicago, stating I had made a mistake on my application and it was being denied. They said the name that I use on the application has to be the same as the one on the Passport. My last name starts with a “D” and they said I used “O” instead. I don’t know the number of times that I’ve typed my full name but if you look at a keyboard, the letter “D” is on the left side and “O” is on the right side. It’s not like I hit “F” or “S” which are next to “D.” pits not like I can check the old application because they deleated it. When I E filled for the visa, I assumed, incorrectly, that I could change any portions of the application after filing, like the letter of residence that was required. They want me to start completely over, which should take me at least 90 minutes to do. I’m assuming that they want me to pay the $40 again. These assumptions are made because I can’t get ahold of anyone there by phone or email. They lost my business. I’ll dispute the $40 charge with my credit card company and handle the extra 30 days that I need at immigration, in person. If I need an airline ticket that shows me leaving within 30 days, I’ll buy a fully refundable one way ticket to a neighboring country. I’d hate to see how Thailand treats it’s unwelcome tourists, if this is how they try to jumpstart their big reopening campaign.
  11. Can, maybe Kavanaugh and his wife can stand outside their house with assault rifles, just like the St. Louis lawyer/couple did during a Black Lives Matter protest. Even bad publicity for Kavanaugh is better than no publicity. The St. Louis commando is now a serious candidate for the U.S. Senate.
  12. Business partner in the only respect that matters, splitting the profits. Plus, I get someone that keeps an eye on the house (as does her nephew who lives across the street and niece and her husband that live next to the nephew. That involves keeping the gras cut, trees trimmed, the inside cleaned every 3-4 months, the sprinkler system working and the termite company in once a month to spray. Legally, I do have a contract signed. I didn’t apply for a work visa over the apartments but I’m also not applying for a work permit this September and October, as I plan on working on my house, my wife’s house that she inherited and our 1 bedroom house in Saraphi that I gave her as a wedding present. I guess that I’m not much different than the digital nomads that come to Thailand and work on their computers. I admit that I’m much too trusting. Eventually, I’d like to put house and land in my son’s name. He can do whatever he wants to do with house after I croak. I trust him enough to respect my wishes. As far as who owns the house, as long as no one contests my staying there and I can eventually die there in peace, that’s all I care about. Knowing Thai culture, no one is going to want the house with my spirit inhabiting it anyway. I probably wouldn’t be a friendly ghost.
  13. I’ll worry about that when I’m there in September. She also is a business partner of mine, co owner of a small (15 units) apartment complex since 2008 (next door to my house). I could say the famous last words “I trust her,” but will get answers about it in per, rather than a phone call. I’ve called the Thai consulate in Chicago, Washington DC and Atlanta. Nobody answers the phone, so my option is to email them and ask the question. If that fails, I’ll type a letter giving permission to stay at my house and have my wife sign it. I seriously doubt if they will ever check on it. In the past, when arriving with a 30 day automatic visa, I usually just stayed at house but would put on the arrival card the name of a hotel in Bangkok where I had stayed in the past.
  14. It was my understanding when my wife acquired the land, she also acquired the right to the property once the 30 year lease is up. In 4 years, I want the ownership transferred to my then 18 year old son. I’ll take a copy of the documents that my wife signed with me in September and have a lawyer check it out. I’d be very surprised if the 3rd party has any claim, as my wife reads everything that she signed and is no body’s fool
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