Karee

How come one of the choices isn't "We don't have any money left?"

Okay...but is the 100 billion of 2009 stimulus spending included?

& I wonder if O should get credit for the spending reductions since the budgets he requested;

2010 = 3.55

2011 = 3.83

2012 = 3.729

2013 = 3.8

& ...what about debt -

Did all that borrowed money help cap spending....?

Seems the drop in spending is...cooked?

Don't bother. He'll just keep parroting the same thing over and over that it's all the Republican's fault. I'm starting to worry about him.

Funny you say that, I've thought a few times as well. We used to do beach runs to get away from the family and would stay in Jom Tiem which is not much better. Then years ago discovered Hua Hin which is about the same drive from wife's village. I love that place and nice beaches which Pattaya definitely does not have.

Take a walk on the beach after 10:00 pm. It's like something out of a horror movie or transsexuals gone wrong. Can't figure out which. At least that's how it was back in 05.

So it appears the issue was somewhere between the chair and the keyboard on my end. I entered the recipient as "Bangkok Bank" and not my my wife's mother's name. Thankfully Bangkok Bank didn't say "Thanks for the donation" and keep it. They rejected it and sent it back. Of course BoA kept my $3. Not that I blame them. I'll make a second attempt at this tonight when I get home.

Update. I looked at my U.S. BoA account this morning, and the $100 was back in there. I called BoA and they said the Bangkok Bank office in NY rejected it. I called the person at NY Bangkok Bank that sends the money to Thailand, and she says that she never got it from the person there at the Bangkok Bank Branch in New York that that sends it to her. Peter (212)329-9240 is that person and he doesn't get in until after 10:00 am.

Just an FYI for everyone. I'll come back and let everyone know what Peter had to say about it.

Well.. but at least we can all sleep better knowing Exxon, Halliburton etc. made a killing. In more ways than 1.

& China surely appreciates all our efforts. That's worth a ...right?

One of my favorite quotes = On December 11, 2003 President Bush said, “The taxpayers understand why it makes sense for countries that risk lives to participate in the contracts in Iraq, it’s very simple. Our people risk their lives, friendly coalition folks risk their lives, and therefore the contracting is going to reflect that.”

The God of War sure is fickle.

I read an interesting book a few years ago. It's premise was that the Iraq war indeed about oil, but it was about making sure there was less oil on the market, rather than more. It actually made sense. I wish I could remember the name of it.

The kind who needs dissenters to make examples of?

A true dictator doesn't have any dissent. Everybody loves him. In his mind anyway.

I am a US citizen married to a Thai citizen. We were married in Thailand last year, and I now live with her in Thailand. We intend to live in Thailand together for the foreseeable future.

I have a Thai work permit, we have a lease agreement with both our names on it, and I filed our taxes jointly using our address in Thailand for 2012.

We want to visit my family in America next year, spend about 5 months in the US, and then come back to Thailand.

Is it possible to get a B2 tourist visa for my wife under these circumstances?

I was told by US immigration in Bangkok that we should apply for a tourist visa instead of a immigrant visa because we do not intend to stay in America long-term.

However, I have read here and in other places that applications for a B2 visa for the spouse of a US citizen are often automatically denied, before there is any opportunity to present evidence.

My wife was already denied a B2 once, but that was a different situation - I was still living in the US at the time and we were not yet married. However, it was very disconcerting because we put together all the evidence we could think of to prove that she had strong ties to Thailand, but when she got to the interview, the decision had already been made on the basis of her DS-160 alone.

If my understanding is correct, to help her case, we need to produce evidence that I - the US citizen - have strong ties to Thailand so that I have to return to Thailand after visiting my family. What kind of evidence would help prove those ties?

Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

I would suggest posting this question here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/forum/25-visas-and-migration-to-other-countries/

I've seen alot of threads there that are specific to the U.S. embassy in Bangkok. While it's true that you could be construed as a reason for her to try and immigrate, the opposite is also true. Meaning that if you as well as her prove strong ties to Thailand, there's a good chance she'll get it. There's a couple guys on Thaivisa that will answer your question and tell you what you need to do.

Ohh yeah? Good luck with that. I used him back in 2008. My case took a year, and at least 3 months of that was him not doing his job. One of the worst decisions I ever made in my life, and I've made some pretty bad ones.

ETA: My wife would probably still be sitting in Thailand if it wasn't for this website. I was able to correct all the mistakes with information I gleaned here.

I didn't read the other replies, but IMO Lawrence Holmes is someone you need to get in touch with. Yes, his fees are up there ($1900 quoted for my K1 case) but the guy has an amazing track record. Consultation is free, I talked his ear off for 40min, he takes payments AND he was kind enough to tell me our case isn't that complicated and I could do it alone if i wish. If I use a lawyer for our case I won't be using anyone but him.

http://www.kvisas.com/Fiancee-or-Spouse.shtml

Ohh yeah? Good luck with that. I used him back in 2008. My case took a year, and at least 3 months of that was him not doing his job. One of the worst decisions I ever made in my life, and I've made some pretty bad ones.

I figure there is only one reason to stay in Patts. There is a whole lot of Thailand out there if you want to build a serious relationship. The pendulum swings both ways. He most likely wants to stay in Patts for the same reason she does. The cash flow is just in opposite directions.

Anybody who meets a girl in Patts and then stays in Patts with her is either naive, or just turning a blind eye to the reality of the relationship. I have a hard time feeling sorry for these guys.

As far as the sub culture goes. Spend time at any Hi-So dinner. Check out the rich old farts with the young eye candy never more then an arms reach away. I'm sure she loves him for his maturity.

I can't think of too many places I've been worse than Pattaya. I absolutely hate that place. They need to launch an airstrike from U-Tapao and level that city.

Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday, was anticipated to be neither free nor fair. President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago, has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists. Rights groups are complaining about free speech restrictions and one-sided state media coverage. The BBC's headline for its story on the election reads "The Pre-Determined President." So expectations were pretty low.

Even still, one expects a certain ritual in these sorts of authoritarian elections, a fealty to at least the appearance of democracy, if not democracy itself. So it was a bit awkward when Azerbaijan's election authorities released vote results – a full daybefore voting had even started.

The vote counts – spoiler alert: Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide – were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission. It showed Aliyev as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote. That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections: he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and 87 percent in 2008.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/09/oops-azerbaijan-released-election-results-before-voting-had-even-started/

Lame. What kind of dictator only gets 72% of the vote? Saddam Hussein would routinely get 99+% of the vote. I guess his father didn't give him any pointers before he died.

Government is not for profit,

No kidding. 16 trillion in debt and the pi$$ away another .6 billion.

That's a separate argument and I don't doubt that as usual the American government has managed to mess up aspects of this, because despite being the best government in the world, it basically sucks because somehow, despite the government being 'of the people' it manages to satisfy mostly the people who lobby not your average Joe. However, the point, such as it was, iis that health care in the US is not single payer and it's not run by the government. Therefore the argument that being unable to access one of the points of access to affordable health care means that affordable health care is a non profit, non competitive business is totally false. It's both for profit and competitive,

If it's for profit, why aren't the people making the profit shelling out the $634 million? I guess if they spent that kind of money on a website, they wouldn't be in business very long.

You don't have to use a Federal Health Care website, that's just one of many options. The competition does not lie in who is able to provide the most information online is it?

Then what's the point of pi$$ing away more than a half a billion dollars?

Okay, maybe it's not every single person, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it still stands. The website will never again have this kind of traffic. A website being built for average traffic instead of extraordinary traffic is not uncommon in the slightest.

Does it usually cost $634 million to build a website than can handle average traffic? Is $634 million not uncommon?

So wait. For the first and ONLY time for this site, every single person in the US is trying to access a website at the same time.

Put down the pipe.

What is the formula for converting Rai to Acres?

http://www.convertunits.com/from/rai/to/acre

I dislike CGI Federal, as a company, in general terms.

In specific terms, however, another 'joint project' of theirs, CGI/Stanley, produced the ustraveldocs.com website , and that one is abysmal as well. About 1/3 of all K-1 visa chasers must use it, worldwide. It's major suckage...

Are you telling me that the govt. hired someone to build a website, they did a bad job, and the govt. hired them to build another one?

well karee, it's always beneficial to budget for your dreams. even dreams of ladyboys.

I guess with 12.6 million, a few surprises are inevitable.

i would like to see the u.s. move forward. the right needs to accept that obamacare is happening and knuckle down, get to work on making it function properly. the money end of the website shouldn't be an issue given the current standstill in washington.

I guess I'm having a hard time getting past the 634 million dollars. To put it into perspective I could short-time 12.6 million bar girls in Bangkok for that much money.

Can't argue with a brilliant come back like that?

OK why can't we have a discussion without name calling and other nastiness?

America! Don't like it, Get out!!

So the Republicans are responsible for this?

I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around. I'd guess both parties are responsible for it.