Why are religious people in charge of medical decisions?!?

I’m an optimist. Maybe they think that all others know the answers by heart and don’t need to check the options? (I know that’s probably too optimistic)

Unbelievable…

The more I see about education nowadays, the more I realize I would not survive it anymore. So many tests and assignments and whatever, students have barely any time left to think or be bored. Everything gets constantly evaluated.

It is not unusual to get a partnership recognized just for this reason. (I honestly have a very down to earth view on marriage, so I’m all for getting married for the papers)

We only had to deal with three EU countries and it was already messy. We are married, but kept separate family names. One of the three countries did not allow the kids to have the mother’s family name (yeah equality…/s), so we had to go with the father’s family name.

I assume you already checked your situation, but few countries accept “the right of land”, aka citizenship upon birth in that country, so we didn’t have to deal too much with the country with were in. Except for filling in the birth certificate that generates all other documents.

Personally, it feels like sooner or later something is going to majorly fuck up, but it hasn’t yet.

In my country of origin, only your first name is your legal name. You can have middle names on your birth certificate but they don’t get put on any other ID document. I honestly discovered I had them when moving to a new country. So now I have an ID and passport as <First name> <Family name> but my education papers and marriage certificate are <First name> <Middle name> <Family name>. Somehow nobody yet called me a scam.

To avoid this problem, my kid has <2 First names> <Family name>. That is legal in my country of origin and where they were born… but I later learned not in my partner’s country, so my kid has two passports, one with <2 First names> <Family name>, one with <First name> <Middle> <Family>.

Anecdote: a Mexican guy I knew went to the US and got a visa. Went back to Mexico then back to the US again with a new visa. Apparently, between the two visas the naming conventions changed, and his US legal name got scrambled. It was a mess to prove he was still the same person… and he never really understood why it happened.

Alimony: support for a spouse that sacrificed their career to further yours during the course of the relationship

Child support: support for the child, given to the parent that incurs in the costs for the child

What the novel talks about is child support.

I still don’t get the black humor and I will pretend to believe it’s because of the translation.

I’m not even American and this makes me rage

Our society (with US at the forefront) is built on contradictions. On one hand, capitalism says you don’t deserve anything, you have to earn it. On the other hand, consumerism says you deserve every new gadget, luxury, treat.

I believe both are false: everyone deserves a reasonable standard of living (UBI?), nobody inherently deserves more than that but it should be possible to earn it. And we should acknowledge that earning something is not a matter of moral superiority, but a combination of some effort and some luck.

And it’s so rewarding to make something long lasting!

One day maybe we can also consider pregnancy and obesity? But at least it’s one step in the right direction.

In particular if you look at the long term (even just a couple of years): many homeless just need a little help to start climbing the ladder again. So housing and mental care would allow them to quickly become productive members of society. Prisons just lock them into a circle of poverty.

I’m definitely on the other end of the spectrum! 8 hours is a normal day, 10-12 possible

I hate how “think of the economy” comes before “think about the starving people”

What does voluntary surveillance mean in this context ?

But he thought about it for at least a month! Must be a good idea! (/s)

Scary when a person can decide what you get to see and what you don’t. (Same problems in other places too, just usually less obvious)

I support beets as a substitute. Roasted they are sweeter with almost no acidity, while pickled would hit most of the tomato notes.

About the “guaranteed to fuck up on the first go”, I got strongly encouraged to first apply to positions I wouldn’t love (but was okay with), just to learn the ropes of interviewing. Once you have done one or two, time to shoot for your dream job!

Are there any supports to the claim he has a Russian passport and has been helping the Russians in some way? It seems a very slippery slope to remove a citizenship!