If there was hardly any doubt Bush II's Florida election was in fact a coup d'état, then take a look at this comparison between facts concerning the Florida election and facts concerning CIA-sponsored coups in Guatemala and Chile. Today I was watching a documentary on the History Channel about a similar coup in Iran during the 50s, so it gets even scarier. Although I live in Europe, that's not quite the example I expected from the 'world's strongest democracy'. Link found in The Null Device.···

Keeping up with my 'sex on vacations' theory, today is my friend Ricardo's birthday. Alex organized a diner party on a good chinese restaurant, still celebrating his birthday (as more people are available on weekends), and later we picked up Ricardo to have a few drinks celebrating his birthday. We first went to Agência, which was crowded, so we went to the Ribeira outdoor cafés (as the weather is starting to warm up nicely). But something really pisses me off: Porto is the second largest city in this country, and if you count the Greater Porto area it is at least a 1.5 million people metropolis. At this scale, this city (which has Europe Cultural Capital status, for sake!) should have a lot more places to go out and have a few drinks, it should have a lot more 'alternative' places. But no, it seems to be crowded everywhere, and it's quite annoying that the 'alternative'/'underground'/'whatever' scene consists of always the same people. Which would be nice, if there was a real sense of community, but instead everyone seems to be a posh pseudo-intellectual marxist type, cynic critic-phobic, slave to the latest trend, wearing expensive 'casual' clothing. Yes, I am pissed.···