Xerxes17 posted:

I think this is the first time I've seen Grouchio post something that isn't an essay question.

SaltyJesus posted:

I don't 100% get why the international community thinks it's totally kosher for Kosovo to unilaterally secede because they are an ethnically consistent area with the right to self-determination but the Krajina Serbs in Croatia weren't allowed to because we gotta respect the administrative borders of a sovereign state. Either one of those arguments could have been applied to either of the situations equally and it's just a touch inconsistent. I am not excusing the behavior of some of the Krajina Serbs but the KLA were hardly angels themselves.

e: I'm not arguing it shouldn't, we lost that demographics battle a long time ago, I'm legitimately asking because I'd like to hear the reasoning squaring those two things.

Squalid posted:

I'm not sure how much the international community actually got involved in Krajina. In the BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia, former Croatian president Franjo Tuđman recounts how 24 hours before the commencement of the operation in which the Croatian government reoccupied the area he received a diplomatic note from the State department telling him to call it off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLrIaZSGXyA&t=667s

Not that the US tried very hard.

I think rather than the difference in policy primarily reflects differences in the political pressure American politicians felt they were under to take action of some kind, with criticisms mounting at perceived inaction early in the 1990s and increasing by the time the Kosovo conflict really broke out. It's rather depressing it all ended in ethnic cleansing with anti-serb pograms in the early 2000s anyway.

SaltyJesus posted:

I agree, bring back the guillotine gulags.

Squalid posted:

I'm not sure how much the international community actually got involved in Krajina. In the BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia, former Croatian president Franjo Tuđman recounts how 24 hours before the commencement of the operation in which the Croatian government reoccupied the area he received a diplomatic note from the State department telling him to call it off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLrIaZSGXyA&t=667s

Not that the US tried very hard.

I think rather than the difference in policy primarily reflects differences in the political pressure American politicians felt they were under to take action of some kind, with criticisms mounting at perceived inaction early in the 1990s and increasing by the time the Kosovo conflict really broke out. It's rather depressing it all ended in ethnic cleansing with anti-serb pograms in the early 2000s anyway.

Young Freud posted:

In Russia, it's not the guillotine, but the Nagant revolver to the back of the head (or sometimes the front). The gulag is only if you need them alive or you want them to suffer before they die.

Doctor Malaver posted:

A listener calls Radio Erevan.
"Is it true that poet Majakovski shot himself?"
"It is, in a way..." responds Radio Erevan, "the neighbors heard him shout 'DON'T SHOOT, COMRADES'"

jonnypeh posted:

Looks like this refugee resettlement thing isn't going well in Estonia, more than half of them have left for Germany. I think that if they are on file as having received asylum here then they will not be getting it anywhere else, but will be deported.

There was also an article recently: http://www.time.com/4793913/finding-home-estonia-where-the-heart-is/

Dwesa posted:

I think vietnamese population in CR is quite closed by itself (based on experiences of one czech researcher I met) and not just because there is a current xenophobic/islamophobic hysteria in CR.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Russian President Vladimir Putin is always at his best, he tells director Oliver Stone in a new documentary called "The Putin Interviews" that will air on Showtime June 12-15. The politician attributes his stamina and stability in part to the fact that he's a man.

As Bloomberg reports, "'I am not a woman, so I don't have bad days,' he tells Stone while giving a tour of the Kremlin's gilded throne room. 'I am not trying to insult anyone. That's just the nature of things. There are certain natural cycles.'"

Later in the interview for the documentary, which Bloomberg describes as friendly bordering on fawning, Putin reminds Stone that he is a "Judo master" in peak physical shape.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Later in the interview for the documentary, which Bloomberg describes as friendly bordering on fawning, Putin reminds Stone that he is a "Judo master" in peak physical shape.

fatherboxx posted:

Best part - he said that when asked what he would do if he needed to share a shower with a gay man on a submarine.

fatherboxx posted:

Hard-hitting questions from Oliver Stone: Mr Putin, imagine you are flying with a parachute, to the left of you is a forest of dicks, to the right - a sea of poo poo, where would you land??

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Is this the chair "riddle" translation?

cinci zoo sniper posted:

In case someone else gets confused like me, CR here stands for Czech Republic, not Croatia.

E:

Russian President Vladimir Putin is always at his best, he tells director Oliver Stone in a new documentary called "The Putin Interviews" that will air on Showtime June 12-15. The politician attributes his stamina and stability in part to the fact that he's a man.

As Bloomberg reports, "'I am not a woman, so I don't have bad days,' he tells Stone while giving a tour of the Kremlin's gilded throne room. 'I am not trying to insult anyone. That's just the nature of things. There are certain natural cycles.'"

Later in the interview for the documentary, which Bloomberg describes as friendly bordering on fawning, Putin reminds Stone that he is a "Judo master" in peak physical shape.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Later in the interview for the documentary, which Bloomberg describes as friendly bordering on fawning, Putin reminds Stone that he is a "Judo master" in peak physical shape.

Dwesa posted:

He is also an excellent ice hockey player https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/hockey/2017/05/10/vladimir-putin-keeps-scoring-goals-nhl/101518442/

I think there was a video where some trainer commented on a video of Putin and Medvedev working out. It turned out that they did almost everything incorrectly.

Baronjutter posted:

Why do conspiracy theorists and washed up celebrities all end up love with and fawning over Putin?

Warbadger posted:

He's a conservative strongman with a pretty significant and long running international propaganda campaign.

Kurtofan posted:

so you're saying that they're falling in love with him...as a result of an international conspiracy?

Dwesa posted:

He is also an excellent ice hockey player https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/hockey/2017/05/10/vladimir-putin-keeps-scoring-goals-nhl/101518442/

Budzilla posted:

Rinkles posted:

Trump's coming to Poland.

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

Just read that this morning. July 6. Hope you don't get too offended by a doddering, fat, orange smoothbrain who can't remember what he said five minutes ago.

quote:

Korwin-Mikke is a popular public figure in mass media and in the Internet, mainly due to his unusual or eccentric ways of demonstrating his political stances. For instance, together with the Polish musician Krzysztof Skiba, he protested against the high taxes in Poland by eating his tax return in front of the Polish revenue service office.[17]

One of Korwin-Mikke's idiosyncratic claims that caught public attention was him denying the basis for women's suffrage, as according to him most women were not interested in politics anyway and would more often vote for a welfare state.[18] He also claims that women are generally less intelligent than men. However, he also makes it clear that he perceives intelligence as a very specific criterion and that on average, women have better memory and are generally wiser and more patient than men.[19] To back up his claims, he pointed out that in the top 100 chess players there is only one woman.[5] On the other hand, he does not deny women the passive right to vote and he claims that Margaret Thatcher is his political authority; he attended her funeral.[20][21][22]

Other provocative statements include his claim that there is no written proof that Adolf Hitler was aware of the Holocaust.[23] He also stated that the difference between rape and consensual sex is very subtle.[23] He further claimed that: "there is a hypothesis that the attitudes of men are passed to women by way of the semen which penetrates the tissue... now when contraceptives are much more in use, the women become much more independent".[11] During the 2012 Summer Paralympics, Korwin-Mikke wrote that the general public should "not see the disabled on television".[24] In 2007 he set up the "Individual Development Foundation" which helps disabled people develop their skills in chess.[25][26] He proposed that the European Commission's Berlaymont building would be better used as a brothel.[13][27] In regard to welfare, he believes that "if someone gives money to an unemployed person, he should have his hand cut off because he is destroying the morale of the people".[11]

In 2014, Korwin-Mikke was fined by the President of the European Parliament for 'expressing himself in a racist manner'.[28] The decision was taken due to Korwin-Mikke's speech given during the plenary session on 16 July, when Korwin-Mikke had compared the EU employment policy to the policy of John Kennedy's administration and concluded that: 'we have 20 million Europeans who are now negroes of Europe'.[29][30] According to Korwin-Mikke the word 'negroes' was not meant as an offence, but rather referred to the song by John Lennon and Yoko Ono 'Woman is the friend of the family of the world'.[31]

At the plenary session of the European Parliament held after the assault at Charlie Hebdo, Korwin-Mikke expressed his dissatisfaction with the public reaction to those events by typing at his laptop 'I am not Charlie. I am for death penalty' and presenting it to the public instead of a sign 'Je suis Charlie' held by the other MEPs.[32] The following day Korwin-Mikke gave a speech stating that 'our enemies are in mosques' and advocating the reinstitution of death penalty, rejection of the acquis communautaire, and the dissolution of the European Union.

In January 2015, Korwin-Mikke was dismissed from the position of the leader of the Congress of the New Right by one of the party's supreme bodies.

On 15 April 2015 the Polish news outlet Wiadomości quoted Korwin-Mikke that the snipers that shot civilians and police officers during the Maidan protests were trained in Poland and that they acted on behalf of the CIA to provoke riots.[33]

In July 2015, Korwin-Mikke was suspended from the European Parliament after giving a Nazi salute and saying "ein volk, ein Reich, ein ticket" during a speech to protest against a uniform EU transport ticket.[34]

On 8 September 2015, Korwin-Mikke was giving a speech in European Parliament about the European migrant crisis, during which he described immigrants unwilling to work and only interested in welfare as "human garbage".[35] His opinion met with critical reaction of other MEPs. As a result of this, Korwin-Mikke was once more suspended from the European Parliament for 10 days and fined €3062.[36][37]

On 1 March 2017, Korwin-Mikke sparked controversy by stating that women must be paid less than their male counterparts due to them being "smaller, weaker and less intelligent", during a debate in the European Parliament regarding the gender pay gap.[38][39] Two days later, Korwin-Mikke would make further comments stating that there was a
stereotype that "women have the same intellectual potential as men,” with a follow up that it “must be destroyed because it is not true.”[40] Later Korwin-Mikke has been suspended for 10 days from the plenary sessions as MEP of the European Parliament.[41]

anilEhilated posted:

The question is whether he's a professional idiot or a talented amateur. Does him blabbing these things coincide with events his party would like to draw attention from?