Re: "All foreigners must file digital arrival card", (BP, April 20).
As a retiree in Thailand for many years, can the immigration authorities please tell me what country of residence I can put on my TDAC form on my return from Europe? The TDAC form seems to be designed for foreign tourists only. Thailand is not an available option.
Re: "Neglect at the top", (PostBag, April 22) & "Cracks in the state health system", (Editorial, April 18).
Today, like previous days, Michael Setter is Michael Know-it-all. In this letter, "Neglect at the top", he is an expert on Thai public healthcare and starts by saying, "Ask any Thai citizen, and you will hear horror stories." Wow! It must be bad! And Mr Setter knows it.
So, I turned to my wife, Dr Singha (Phd), who always wants me to go to the provincial hospital. I asked the opinion of her sister, now retired from her career as a nurse at that hospital, and she did not have any horror stories.
Mr Setter's conclusions are directly related to bias regarding Thai income inequality, claiming senior public health positions are held by the wealthy. Okay, show me a place where that isn't true. But are they behaving with honesty?
In the USA, if a person has personal money or a good, lucky job, they can have good healthcare. But I assure you, a huge number of American citizens wish they had Thai-style healthcare.
Re: "Two men arrested with over 630,000 speed pills", (BP, April 20).
If they are found guilty as accused, these two accused persons are likely to get 25 to 35 years each. I recommend six months. A speed pill is less harmful to a person (and those he interacts with while high) than three beers. Look at the statistics, if you don't believe me. When have you heard of a wife-beating, a bar fight or a dangerous driver high on a speed pill? My guess: never. Yet those ugly things happen nightly, on alcohol. Over 1,000 deaths over Songkran. How many were speed-fueled and how many alcohol-fueled? Come on, Thailand. Don't lock a young man up for 30 years because he is doing an entrepreneurial gig to make more money. Legalise all drugs.
Re: "Nasa fires chief scientist, more Trump cuts to come", (World, March 13).
It appears that the Trump government is considering cutting Nasa's science budget in half for 2026. This will stop a number of projects, including possibly the Goddard Space Flight Center. Support for the Hubble Telescope will continue until it falls apart, but then no more telescope launches.
One possible reason for the cutbacks might be that the search for alien life will succeed, and we discover that rather than being small and green, they are large and orange and want their lost child back.
On a more serious note, any cutbacks to science funding should be condemned, given the developments with people losing faith in science and the rise of pseudoscience. The appointment of Robert Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic, to lead America's health departments does not provide confidence in their support of real science.
Perhaps the space programmes could be taken over by SpaceX, owned substantially by Elon Musk, President Trump's money saver. The SpaceX rockets, however, do explode from time to time, which is worrying.
23 Apr 2025
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