Ambos sabemos que o eucalipto cresce a um ritmo que àrvores autóctones não crescem e por isso é tão cultivado. E não comparemos o cânhamo a uma árvore, quer porque cresce muito mais depressa, porque não requer as extensões de terreno que árvores requerem para produzir a celulose equivalente e porque pode conviver com outras culturas.

Consigo imaginar com algumas facilidade plantações de cânhamo de norte a sul, com os campos abertos do Ribatejo e Alentejo. Mesmo nas zonas mais montanhosas seria fácil de implementar a cultura em campos menos extensos, devolvendo algum interesse económico a pequenos produtores.

Quanto a esforços de reflorestação, sérios, não há.

Como vivemos numa lógica de que não se pode constrangir a livre iniciativa económica (treta!), o plantio de pinheiro não é restringido, porque cresce rápido e é uma madeira apta para o mobiliário e construção civil e com necessidade mínima ou nula de regadio.

Ignoremos que um pinhal é uma acendalha natural…

Isto deixa a Serra da Estrela e interior, zonas onde o pinheiro não pertence, à míngua de incentivos e apoio à reflorestação autóctone, que é sabido gera muito mais dinheiro por hectare e de muitas mais formas que a porra do pinhal mas só se pode extrair esse valor numa janela temporal acima dos 50 anos.

E toda a gente quer dinheiro já. Especialmente quem dele não precisa.

Eu vivo em zona de eucaliptais.

Sim, a árvore é um cancro e o plantio é abusivo, especialmente em zonas com escassez de água (que o último inverno inverteu mas continuemos) mas é uma fonte de rendimento para muita gente.

Como não temos os tintins para plantar cânhamo para produção de papel, até lá o que podemos forçar é que mais gente faça a devida gestão florestal.

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Portuguese and, aledgelly, one of the biggest european paper paste and paper products manufacturers.

They don’t have a direct shop but search for their products.

To my knowledge, there is none. But it should.

I agree on how you explained your point, although I disagree with it. Healthy disagreements help clarifying points of view.

Removing someone’s right to run for elections only on the basis of contesting a result is excessive. I’m in favour of cutting funds and putting heavy fines on such actors. And not after a lenghty court run: as an administrative punitive action, something already prescribed by law.

Yes. Undemocratic forces use democracy to dismantle it. We need to really explore what democracy is actually about if we want to keep it.

Agreed.

If I’m in any kind of relatinship and I challenge the other party on a whim without any evidence, that relationship will take severe damage.

I understand your point but it is not a good equivalence. This isn’t about a relationship; that implies, at the very least, the smallest of slivers of respect. This isn’t the case.

Currently, we keep discussing matters without context which makes it easy to shortchange the public due to their limited imagination.

As it is, what is being constantly brought in front of the public eye is not to generate discussion; it is about generating disagreement. But this is the modus operandi of politics at large. It is easier to provide distractions and scape goats than create, explain and put in place real solutions for concrete problems.

If you use democracy witbout faith, you dont have democracy. You have cold war.

Exploitation of democratic system is solely for its own dismantling. It’s not a cold war. Bullets may not be flying (yet) but the war is there.

I would go further. If a party would show a pattern of asking questions solely based on ethnicity of people (current strategy of the german fascist party) they should be excluded from government. Also, a party that is deemed fascist should be excluded by default and have to prove that thats not the case instead of the other way round.

If a constitution doesn’t have the necessary safeguards to defend itself of hostility, it is lacking. If it has but they are not enforced by courts, it’s disinformation to the public and indiference from the courts.

Fascism is not an opinion. It is not compatible with democracy and needs to be eradicated with force.

Authoritarianism is as old as humans. Most people still revere the leader image. It is extremely hard to be fully responsible of one’s one actions. So it is easy to fall prey of charismatic figures and easy to follow speech.

Fight malaria when you can!

You can challenge results based solely on the request of having ballots recounted. You want to go that far?

Loneliness affects people. And as gregariois animals we are, the closest possibility to connect, in any form, is taken.

Two sentences I have on my walls:

Violence is always an option.

This is a reminder that that option is always available. I should not resort to it but I can and so will others.

Violence is not the answer, is the question. The answer is yes.

A reminder to always question myself if resorting to violence is, in fact, on time. There are times when things are only or more easily solved through violence than negotiation and words.

This is the next to go up on the wall:

Whoever said violence doesn’t solve anything, wasn’t using enough force.

If you need to resort to violence, be brutal, be swift, be hard. Because, as someone else has said, “don’t start a fight; but if you have to fight, fight to win”.

Try store brand first. I have first hand experience with Lidl and it’s good. But then again, my mouth is very tolerant regarding care.

From my country, Portugal, I can recommend Pasta Medicinal Couto.

It’s a staple from decades ago. Never used it but people who do swear by it.

And after this, I think I have to try it.

Nobody can pay me enough for me to carry their logo as free publicity.

I wear logoed clothing because the logo acts as identification and grants me special acess to fenced off areas, which I otherwise wouldn’t be able to lawfully acess. But when the clock is off, the logo is off.

I’m going to use a personal case, now.

I can get an instant transfer, within borders, two ways, in my EU corner:

a) I use account to account immediate transfer order, where I can pay anything from a few cents to a few euros, depending on bank

b) I can use a national subsystem, where phone numbers are used, and pay a few cents

But doing this, even within EU borders, is, to my knowledge, border line impossible, with current systems.

IBAN, BIC and SWIFT do exist but transfers through those channels can take days and be very expensive.

My country ordered all national banks, still in the very early eighties, to get their acts together, and find a way for people to access their accounts, pay services, receive and transfer money, regardless the bank they had their account. Thus it was created Multibanco, a service network, built, paid for and maintained by all banks working on my country.

The eEuro closely resembles this concept, in my understanding.

The eEuro becomes a parallel subsystem, vouched for, surpervised and controlled by and through legally binded institutions, without the need to force federalization of european bank systems.

The ECB issues eEuros, which you can exchange your conventional Euros for, through your bank account, but only use through the eEuro network. It’s the ECB managing all those movements, not every single country (veilled federated banking), thus it can bypass a huge amount of beaurocracy.

I can imagine this system as a precursor to something a lot bigger, like a world unified payment system. Individual creators and professionals could greatly benefit from it, using it to directly receive payments and donations

No need to dumb it down; you got the gist of it. But I’m going to do my worst to make my “explanation” as ridiculous as possible.

get bank account

get euro monies in said account

go to bank again

open linked account for digital euro monies

from bank app, convert euro monies into digital-euro monies

1 euro monie = 1 digital euro monie

send digital monies to anyone in Europe with no middle man, instantly; receive monies, too.

buy and sell with digital monies, in Europe, no assle

have digital Euro monies in linked account

want to buy breakfast with Euro monies

convert digital Euro monies to euro monies

1 digital euro monie = 1 euro monie

go to ATM, insert card, take euro monies out, get euro monies bill

go to cafe, get coffee and croissant, pay with euro monies

I laughed too many times writing that. I’m ridiculous and deserving of your scorn.

I’ll see myself out.

I read the article.

Boiled down, it is essentially a direct exchange between physical (money in your bank account) currency and a fully digital counterpart, at a 1 to 1 ratio, that can be done both ways.

Unlike crypto, it is to be issued by a central bank and will have to be accessed through properly licensed bank entities or similar institutions.

This can work. I want to read the full rule book now.

People are too wounded and exhausted already.

There is no revolutionary spirit in the masses.

The economic hardship has done its job as intended.

Those three sentences describe my country around the 50’s and 60’s. And nonetheless, at some point, the people started organizing and the political police then had their fair share of scares, with agents and even teams being beaten to an inch of their lives.

The police had developed a fear tactic where around dinner time a few unmarked cars would park in the street and a few civilian clothed people would get out, calmly, walk up to a building door, enter, knock on the door they were going to enter, making sure they were noticed by the entire building or neighbourhood, kick the door down if nobody answered and drag people out - men, women, children, no matter - kicking and screaming, by their hair, and throw them in the cars, to never be seen again.

At some point, people snapped. Entire buildings started “welcoming” the agents, the door locked and the agents beaten by a dozen people or more, dragged out, thrown into their cars and driven away to be dumped somewhere and the cars destroyed by fire. The targeted family/house would be spirited away by the resistance, then linked to the communist party.

My own grandfather had his fair share of beatings and not even carrying a gun spared him. One guy told him he had a limited supply of bullets and even if he and a few others were to die, there were plenty to beat him to death after he ran out of bullets.

There is a point where everyone snaps and loses all fear.

You guys have a lot of guns in civilian hands. It is a matter of time until someone throws their life away and kills a few men hiding behind badges.

Today I learned.

I knew Solingen as a brand through men in my family, from a barber and later on through a book. And the straight razors were just called Solingen, nothing else. I was never told the name stood for anything else but a manufacturer.

I was very disappointed, when I came to the age of needing to shave, that Solingen was no more. I was always told their fare was very good. Every place I went to always said the brand had been out of the market since the mid 90’s. Which is obviously a lie, after today. Even barbers were buying japanese or english scissors and straight razors, then.

And after checking the prices for my national made razors, I’ll sooner buy a Solingen than a Tatara. I like my country very much but I don’t see myself spending 175€ for a safety razor when I can get one for 50€.

Solingen sounds like quality, Tatara sounds like luxury brand.

BIC and Wilkinson Sword immediatly came to mind. Wasn’t aware Solingen still existed - I grew up hearing their single edge razors were fabulous. But I really wasn’t aware my own country makes blades. Now I have to try check Tatara.

Great-great-great-great-great-grandmother chicken.

And most probably females would be bigger than males and hold territories.