sparky

Yeah, it’s not great. Seems to be a trend all over the world :(

Hi from Portugal. Chega (far right) is a major party in parliament right now (1/3) and arguably PSD (another 1/3) has gone far right lately especially on immigration. So we basically have two out of three parties who are far-right.

One of them even talked in parliament about “diluting Portuguese blood” and “keeping Portugal for the Portuguese”, right before they voted to retroactively prevent all the foreigners from being allowed to apply for nationality, and prevent most of the southeast Asians from being eligible to renew their residency.

They are also talking about trying to amend the constitution, not to put anything good in there.

So uh, you sure about that?

Sony: but line go up

(line turns out to be steam deck sales numbers)

Sony: not like that

And Jeff has given away $0. That guy is truly the scum of the earth.

Anyone have that I’m too European for this image handy?

Portugal.

Health care is free in the public system. Prescriptions cost but they are token amounts, usually like 50 cents to 5 euros.

Emergency and urgent care is generally good.

Routine care, like family doctor / GP stuff, has some issues with wait times.

Private hospital systems exist as do private insurance plans, but these are pretty inexpensive. In general, they treat routine to minor problems. For major surgeries or serious stuff like cancer treatment, you’ll likely be handled in the public hospitals anyway.

I’ve never tried salvia but if this is an accurate description of the trip then I guess I’ll pass..

This is my most reluctant upvote in a while.

Oh yeah. The principal and the other administrators floated suspension, among other things. My parents had to take off work to come in and fight them with me. The staff were all so hopelessly ignorant of all things IT that they were acting as if I’d been using some kind of malware. After they decided to kick me off, they emailed all my teachers telling them I’d been banned for “hacking” and “deploying computer viruses”. It was all quite surreal. This was in Virginia, USA.

Has something changed in your home country in the time since you left? I guess so if you want their passport?

I got banned from the school computers one year back in high school for the “crime” of using portable apps off a flash drive! This was back when IE6 was the standard and I wanted to use Firefox. Maybe 2006? Sounds funny now in retrospect but it was pretty annoying at the time.

Nobody needs a private jet or a superyacht. They are hugely environmentally damaging and serve no purpose. These should be banned, yesterday. If you’re rich, congratulations, you can fly first class on a commercial flight. More than that, fuck you.