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flatdawgs

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by flatdawgs

  1. The various PR statehood / commonwealth / independence plebiscites have generally been boycotted or deemed unrepresentative by one faction or another. It's far from a sure thing, should a binding referendum be held, that statehood would even be desired. (see also Ghost's comment above)
  2. This country, despite an often violent and at times thuggish history, has been fortunate enough at times of major societal change to have avoided the reign of terror that has often followed upheavals in other places. When I see the utter hatred for fellow citizens (let alone fellow humans) that so many have crawled out from under their rocks to espouse, I'm not so certain we will continue to avoid it forever. Empathy fades quickly and the leopards thread becomes more and more popular when actual US congress members representing nearly a million people talk like Ogles. Ceauşescu and a Milan Esso station* out front should have told you. This is a ledge I hope can be stepped back from. It will require repudiation from a lot of people that right now revel in it. *(Mussolini et al were executed at Lake Como, but the point/symbolism remains)
  3. First guy I ever had to fire literally had a folder on his work laptop titled "(Employee's) Porn." And it was. Called IT, HR, and the managing partner in before it was opened.
  4. Flying SEA-ORD Friday, ORD-SAN Monday; no news on any abnormal delays yet. Still planning on going but definitely paying close attention.
  5. Hey, come on now, that's only Count 2 of the indictments at the first Nuremberg trial of major war criminals. Probably Count 1 as well, but certainly not Counts 3 and 4! Yet.
  6. Europeans in any given area do their local food - whatever it is - very, very, very well. They've been making it for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, and enjoying whatever the local specialties happen to be is a huge part of getting to know the local culture. However, outside of the bigger cities there is typically very little diversity in what you can find outside of the local fare. If you spend any time at all in a place you'll eventually want something else, and most of us live in places here in the US where we enjoy many different types of food so we miss it at times. I can't get Vietnamese or Mexican for love or money in southern Portugal and was very pleased to find a Thai restaurant in Tavira that was at least a vague shadow of what I can eat in Seattle (for some reason Tavira has several good Indian restaurants and a new Indian grocery). Amazing as they are, you can't just live on sardinhas, bacalhau, or lulas for every meal.
  7. There's a creditable bbq joint across the street from the train station in Faro, Portugal - young Portuguese guy owns it, not an expat. It's where you change trains in the Algarve so I stop by there every once in a while. It's not even close to what you'd find in Texas/the South, but it's still pretty tasty.
  8. lol Finland was one place where I could consistently buy things in the grocery store that upon eating turned out to be something completely different than I had thought (and I actually know a few words in Finnish). It was fun. I love my Pingo Doce grocery store in Portugal - food quality is so much better than here, although it took a while to get used to shelf-stable milk and eggs.
  9. The article pretty clearly states at the end that UCLA has not agreed to the deal.
  10. hey chucklefucks - Argentinian beef is better. Suck it.
  11. You know better.
  12. Was at the Seattle march - 90,000, no arrests, one guy along the route yelling something unintelligible at the marchers. Cops here were barely in evidence; they stay a block away in either direction to stop traffic on the cross streets and basically just wave at everyone. It's easy to march in a place like Seattle, or Portland, or NYC - it's those of you who go out in small towns and red states that will end up making the difference. It's showing up that shows like-minded people in your communities that they are not alone; that there are others like them out there. It's people like you that run risks that we don't. Without the big cities and blue states there would be no momentum for this - but without the smaller communities throughout the country nothing will ever change. Thank you to everyone who went out today.
  13. You're not incorrect re France's earlier colonies, particularly in North America (and on the frontier, the British were more relaxed about it as well, both often using intermarriage as means to effect trading relationships). The French in Indochina tended also to be somewhat more tolerant. However, the French Caribbean colonies were quite harsh on the matter, as was French Africa (even more so after the first world war). There is a fairly obvious reason as to why the difference. Metropolitan France, on the other hand, was much more open to those actually in France; this dated back to the Revolution.
  14. Brasil. Enough said. (The French and British generally took a much dimmer view of such practices in their colonies than the Portuguese and Spanish did, hence the, um, fairly attractive populations of several of our neighbors to the south.)
  15. Really enjoyed my time in Mindelo just before Covid. Cool people, good food, extraordinary musical culture. Força as tubarões azuis!
  16. The Portuguese had already reached and rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean by then. I'm pretty sure Henry the Navigator kicked off the golden age of exploration, staring out at the vast ocean from Sagres. Cabral reached Brazil in 1500; it would be hard for me to believe that the only reason he did so was due to Columbus' voyage a few years before. Hell, da Gama completed his India voyage in 1498; regardless of Columbus, Portugal would have kept exploring - they had been for a half-century prior, quite lucratively - and due to that almost assuredly the Spanish (and likely the English) crown would have been obliged to do the same.
  17. I actually hope so, since it means I'll probably get to see one of their matches. Spent some time in Mindelo just before Covid and loved the place, so have been rooting for the tubarões azuis (Blue Sharks) to make it. Força Cabo Verde!
  18. Same as it ever was. When I was in Zambia, a decade or so ago now, some Chinese mining company managers were killed near Kitwe in the Copper Belt (I was in the South Luangwa, so not nearby). When I asked some Zambian friends about the incident, they said "we know colonialism when we see it." The Chinese were (are?) brutal and I'm sure they are not alone in that.
  19. In every other functioning democracy in the world, the government would have fallen.
  20. My avatar is not confirmed as caretaker president. Seriously, at one point Rajoelina was considered as a young leader who could clean up the country's endemic corruption and myriad other problems. Only about a third of the population has access to electricity. The country has mineral and O&G resources, particularly in the south, but as in many other places these are exploited by Western multinationals and the Chinese, and any returns are skimmed off the top. It is sad as it is a beautiful place with the kindest people.
  21. Albert Speer laughs - laughs - at that puny piece of shit arch. Do better.
  22. One of the reasons Japan and West Germany (and the rest of occupied Western Europe) became staunch allies after WWII - and stepped back from their generational resentments - was that the USA poured billions of dollars over quite a few years into rebuilding them and reintegrating their economies into the Western economic structure. Has anyone heard of any honest plans for that in Gaza, Trump Gaza Beach Resorts aside? Because if it doesn't happen, ain't nothing ever gonna change there. "Hey, we're not shooting at you any longer, enjoy the rubble!" It needs to be the West as well to build any sort of trust; middle eastern petrodollars are fine but if we want them to think there might be a better future, there needs to be hope that they can join that better future. (and oh yeah, the West Bank is still a thing)
  23. Do you or have you lived there? I'm not romanticizing it; I have residency and live there several months a year most years. And, yes, I feel the failings of unfettered capitalism are a large part of the problem; I'm much more a proponent of controlled capitalism that at least pays lip service to the greater good (see Norway for how this is done with their natural resources). Possibly this is due to where I was born and raised, which is much more that way than most other parts of this country; part of that is knowing that even a state like mine has the #2 economy (GDP per capita) in the nation while a more "free capitalist" state like Texas is 16th. I've done well enough for myself in a not terribly lucrative profession; I'm not opposed to making money but I am opposed to hoarding it at a cost to society. It seems to me that like most Reagan Republicans - of which I was never one - you don't seem to have actually lived there either. (One reason I read this board is to get opinions different than mine, so I appreciate your viewpoints!) I will say that in nearly every European country the public health care system is a base that's available to all; many/most also choose supplemental private care. In Portugal, which has decent government healthcare, the top end private cover is about 1/10th the cost it is here. (oh, and whatever NVidia did or didn't do compared to Europe is wholly irrelevant to my quality of life both there and here. In my own profession - architecture and building science - Europe is decades ahead of the USA in product and materials development.)
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