I was laughing and smiling a lot reading this piece, which I guess is both good - your writing has this slight sarcastic, funny, genuine kind of Hunter Thompson vibe, but also sad, because the situation is bad, and we're mostly in the shit.
My wishes to you and yours from Portugal, for a very Happy Christmas and holidays with friends and family!
I enjoyed this, thank you for your sensible takes.
For me 2025 was the year that I notice a significant decline in the quality of food, clothing and other products. It seems that they stopped the shrinkflation and just decided to start making shit. It’s like being in WWII England. (There’s an Orwell novel where he memorably describes how all the hero’s food is basically shit. Props to anyone who can name it.)
I would link this to the AI and immigration trends you covered. I think what happened is that the native born population got smaller and more expensive, so the elites turned to low quality third world immigration and figured consumers have no choice but to take it. Now the next dream is to eliminate workers entirely with AI. Hey, 80% correct is an A!
I think a lot of this is corporate leaders’ resentment of employees, especially the young. They simply do not want you to have a better life than them, or much of a life at all. The dream is to have a profit machine with zero employees at all.
Yes, I did. It seemed to me to be fairly accurate. I would only add that "it's rarely as bad as we fear, or as good as we hope". The situation is indeed very bad, BUT... personally, I think it is (somewhat) better than during the heydays of the wars and of islamists infiltrating the country. I went there in the mid 1990s, and spent about 12 days in the Bijagos (my sister and her late husband had something of a business there, believe it or not!), and it was literally paradise. This was still when Camarada Nino Vieira was in charge, of course.
But of course, I think there is less killing than back then, but it is a completely dysfunctional, failed, state.
My brother in law started a resort in the Bijagós (he had fought the war in Guinea before the Revolution in Portugal, and had fallen in love with the place). But it never went anywhere, it became just a set of huts (noice but very bare bones) in a small, lovely village. He eventually ceded the place to a french guy who would fly in rich europeans for a week of fishing (which is great there). Because the grift was so intense and the bureaucracy and corruption so strong that it was impossible to actually have anything done.
So my sister and her husband would simply use the place for their own holidays, and take some friends with them. It was great.
that does sound awesome. I looked at it pretty closely writing that article and finding what pictures I could on google maps etc, I definitely had the thought "I would love to fish here!"
there were pictures of people catching some fish i haven't even seen before but they were big. I really want to go to Senegal if I ever actually make money- in part because it's one of the only places in Francophone W Africa safe enough to take my wife and/or family on vacation without it being a crazy thing to do- and the fishing there also looks amazing, but of course it would be nothing on all those islands packed together which surely provides tons of habitat
Trump 2.0, with its staggering corruption, gross incompetence of Trump's handpicked clown circle of idiots (most particularly Patel, Hegseth, Noem, Kennedy, Bondi, Leavitt, and Bessent), hilarious military parade, missing East Wing, and $40 million Melania Movie, is every bit as embarrassing as the Biden/Harris shit how.
I was laughing and smiling a lot reading this piece, which I guess is both good - your writing has this slight sarcastic, funny, genuine kind of Hunter Thompson vibe, but also sad, because the situation is bad, and we're mostly in the shit.
My wishes to you and yours from Portugal, for a very Happy Christmas and holidays with friends and family!
Thanks, you too. It is indeed a sad but fairly comical world we live in.
Did you happen to read my last article, about Guinea-Bissou? I go into the Portuguese Empire at some length.
I enjoyed this, thank you for your sensible takes.
For me 2025 was the year that I notice a significant decline in the quality of food, clothing and other products. It seems that they stopped the shrinkflation and just decided to start making shit. It’s like being in WWII England. (There’s an Orwell novel where he memorably describes how all the hero’s food is basically shit. Props to anyone who can name it.)
I would link this to the AI and immigration trends you covered. I think what happened is that the native born population got smaller and more expensive, so the elites turned to low quality third world immigration and figured consumers have no choice but to take it. Now the next dream is to eliminate workers entirely with AI. Hey, 80% correct is an A!
I think a lot of this is corporate leaders’ resentment of employees, especially the young. They simply do not want you to have a better life than them, or much of a life at all. The dream is to have a profit machine with zero employees at all.
Yes, I did. It seemed to me to be fairly accurate. I would only add that "it's rarely as bad as we fear, or as good as we hope". The situation is indeed very bad, BUT... personally, I think it is (somewhat) better than during the heydays of the wars and of islamists infiltrating the country. I went there in the mid 1990s, and spent about 12 days in the Bijagos (my sister and her late husband had something of a business there, believe it or not!), and it was literally paradise. This was still when Camarada Nino Vieira was in charge, of course.
But of course, I think there is less killing than back then, but it is a completely dysfunctional, failed, state.
yeah it looked like one of the best places in the world to develop resorts etc if there was ever the money and stability to do it
And no corruption...
My brother in law started a resort in the Bijagós (he had fought the war in Guinea before the Revolution in Portugal, and had fallen in love with the place). But it never went anywhere, it became just a set of huts (noice but very bare bones) in a small, lovely village. He eventually ceded the place to a french guy who would fly in rich europeans for a week of fishing (which is great there). Because the grift was so intense and the bureaucracy and corruption so strong that it was impossible to actually have anything done.
So my sister and her husband would simply use the place for their own holidays, and take some friends with them. It was great.
that does sound awesome. I looked at it pretty closely writing that article and finding what pictures I could on google maps etc, I definitely had the thought "I would love to fish here!"
there were pictures of people catching some fish i haven't even seen before but they were big. I really want to go to Senegal if I ever actually make money- in part because it's one of the only places in Francophone W Africa safe enough to take my wife and/or family on vacation without it being a crazy thing to do- and the fishing there also looks amazing, but of course it would be nothing on all those islands packed together which surely provides tons of habitat
My suggestion for an alternative title:
"A vomit-inducing modern farce"
That could be an alternative title of most of my articles 😅
Trump 2.0, with its staggering corruption, gross incompetence of Trump's handpicked clown circle of idiots (most particularly Patel, Hegseth, Noem, Kennedy, Bondi, Leavitt, and Bessent), hilarious military parade, missing East Wing, and $40 million Melania Movie, is every bit as embarrassing as the Biden/Harris shit how.
Perhaps as embarassing for America generally, in terms of how it personally makes me feel to be under it, still less embarassing