Politics Thread!

[Orava]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... court-says

So the Roman Salute is no longer a crime in Italy?

The Finnish army used it in the 1940s and still later in the swearing into the army ceremony. Gives you the proper Nazi feeling.

[PFVA]

And around here the Neo-nazis are calling a demonstration for downtown Lisbon in February.

Not the extreme right party running for the elections and gaining more support but actual Neo-Nazis, some group called 1143 which is the date of our independence fm Spain. Lovely, it should do wonders for Lisbon downtown's tourism.

[PFVA]

Good to keep books or 75 800 €


Ikea bookcase advertising says "good to keep books or 75 800€"
It's a reference to the amount found at the office bookcase of government member (the PM chief of staff) during a search due to alleged corruption linked to lithium and green hydrogen. The gentleman's explanation is that money was received when working in Angola prior to his current position. What most people don't understand is why he has kept it all this time in cash rather than in a bank, or a safe in his house. It appears there is something about a divorce too.

The advertising is being quite popular with the people.

[PFVA]

This week was Madeira's turn with the Mayor of Funchal and 2 individuals related to hotels and construction arrested and brought to the mainland for trial on corruption related issues.

If the hotel in question is the one I'm thinking off they should have done it before that ugly monstrosity was stuck there.

In anyway they found 30 thousand in cash in the house and 70 thousand more were deposited in cash at a bank. .

Note: Cristiano Ronaldo is a investor on the group that owns said hotel but so far is not involved in the corruption affair.

[snaff]

https://www.cityam.com/immigration-to-l ... -mid-2026/#

Immigration is set to lift the UK’s population to 70m by mid-2026, according to new projections released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today.

Those are official stats - the reality is even worse.

[tufty]

the reality is even worse.

Well yeah, it's hardly surprising that Brexit would reduce immigration.

[PFVA]

As the tractors approach Paris and similar movements are popping up in other countries, ours starts tonight, I learned that the famous French brie cheese is often being made with Dutch or German milk, and chickens sold at the supermarkets in Belgium come from Hungary.

[PFVA]

Measure announced to solve the drought in Algarve:
"Cost of water will increase between 15% and 50%, depending on consumption."
I keep having this feeling that the climate crisis has reached us and they, the government, has no idea what to do about.

[Harlequin]

If it happens slowly enough it never seems to be an immediate emergency. The fable of the gradually boiling frog seems to appropriately apply.

[venusian]

If it happens slowly enough it never seems to be an immediate emergency. The fable of the gradually boiling frog seems to appropriately apply.

The frog had, I'm told, had its brain removed before the experiment. Still seems apt.

[Harlequin]

If it happens slowly enough it never seems to be an immediate emergency. The fable of the gradually boiling frog seems to appropriately apply.

The frog had, I'm told, had its brain removed before the experiment. Still seems apt.

As might be the concept of brain removal in the context of most of the richer world's Governments.

[gilesgoat]

Measure announced to solve the drought in Algarve:
"Cost of water will increase between 15% and 50%, depending on consumption."
I keep having this feeling that the climate crisis has reached us and they, the government, has no idea what to do about.

So the solution to the lack of water problem ... is to make the water even more expensive so people will be forced to use less ?

It's like "There's less food ! I am hungry !" .. "I'll make the food even MORE expensive so you will NOT be able to afford much of it and you will HAVE to eat even less ! Problem solved !" ..

[edit] - this HAPPENED FOR REAL IN ITALY ( and probably in many other places too ) .. in the early days of the Chernobyl accident .. there was A LOT of radioactive contamination, especially on large/green leaf vegetables .. in fact I remember in the very early days for a certain amount of time you could NOT eat certain foods because too radioactive .. But then time passes and the food is still radioactive "above limits" .. so what do they do ? .. NEW LAW .. ok "first the max limit was 10 ? NOW the max limit is 30 !" .. so we can sell ( and let people consume ) the food that is contaminated up to 29 .. ...

Gets worse .. there was an "infamous scandal" about certain food/milk that was still TOO radioactive .. and ended up being SOLD ( NOT give for free - that would still be bad - SOLD ) at some prices to some third world countries.

When certain people/the scandal was finally exposed/questioned they even had "the guts" ( the face ) to say "Well .. those people there would have died even earlier without the milk/food, they'll still live longer with it even if it's radioactive !" ..

.. "you can't make this up" .. ..

[KlaxonCow]

Solution: solar powering a sea water desalination plant.

Convert the problem - sunshine - into the solution - drinking water.

Also, you can float solar on reservoirs. Then instead of the Sun evaporating away your water, it's generating energy, and the solar shields the water below, so it doesn't evaporate.

This is the underlying grand irony of the climate crisis.

On the one hand, the problem that the planet is retaining too much of the solar energy raining down upon it. So much heat energy, it's slowly boiling the planet. Too much energy!

On the other hand, the problem of where do we get our energy from. I know, let's ignore the "too much energy" problem over there, which is supplying enough raw energy to boil a planet (which is an insane amount of energy required) and act like the Sun isn't piling ridiculous amounts of energy upon us. No, let's burn some dead trees instead, which produces carbon, which makes the planet retain too much solar energy. Not enough energy!!

Connect the dots. Turn the problem into the solution.

[Little stoned kiwi]

The problem is on the demand side. Increase the supply and inefficient demand will scale to match it.

[Mayhem]

Water table demands are the main reason my (new) local village community is pushing back heavily regarding more housing developments at the moment. On top of a need for more infrastructure that likely wouldn’t come either.

The frog had, I'm told, had its brain removed before the experiment. Still seems apt.

Yes, the frog had been lobotomised. Only found that out about ten years ago.