|
Yeah just check out that cheapo plastic "gold" toilet seat
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 20:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 17:28 |
|
|
Emulating nobles' houses of yore, filled with exotic trophies and artifacts of finest craftsmanship Also utter, boorish lack of taste
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 23:04
|
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:In lighter news, here’s a scoop on the royal family of Stavropol’. Why are the ceilings so low. Are these people dwarves?
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 23:21
|
|
|
HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:Why are the ceilings so low. Are these people dwarves? Those appear to be perfectly normal ceilings. Here tall ceilings in residential properties are found only in buildings built between Napoleonic Wars and WW2, or after like 2015. Otherwise they’re quite uncommon, in my experience. By tall ceilings I’m thinking of, say, 2.80m.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 23:34
|
|
|
So both the US and Germany agreed to throw eastern countries under the bus so that Germany can have cheap gas and get some more politicians retiring comfortably with board of director positions in russian state companies I'm wondering what's going on under the table here, the US publicly folded on the one significant geopolitical issue they've had (no mention of the 2% defense budget or buying American LNG was ever brought up since the new administration) while Germany agreed to no substantial commitments, just promises of Eternal Friendship and Trying to Ensure Safeties
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 09:35
|
|
|
What real leverage did the US have? At some point it seemed that they had some, but the agreement looks like they simply did not. It sounds like Merkel came in and said "here is how important that gas is for us" and Biden said "hum, okay then, I guess you gonna do it even if we sanction you".
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 09:46
|
|
|
"Buy our gas or else" is not exactly a persuasive argument. Such displays of overt imperialism weaken transatlanticist quislings in EU countries, like, say, the CDU/CSU in Germany, and that's a problem. It's also hard to pretend to be allies when you gently caress with someone's energy strategy. Germany has a very diverse range of suppliers to protect itself from disruption and blackmail, so an attack on that from across the Atlantic won't fly.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 10:17
|
|
|
NS2 concessions, in my opinion, is U.S. hush money to Germany, for forgetting Trump.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 10:28
|
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:NS2 concessions, in my opinion, is U.S. hush money to Germany, for forgetting Trump. This was my reading as well. Germany can have a little Russian gas, as a treat (just never again bring up Trump or how we almost hosed over all of Europe)
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 11:29
|
|
|
laserghost posted:Emulating nobles' houses of yore, filled with exotic trophies and artifacts of finest craftsmanship but enough about Donald Trump!
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 11:32
|
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:NS2 concessions, in my opinion, is U.S. hush money to Germany, for forgetting Trump. It also makes little sense to expend more energy in a fight over a pipeline that's 99% complete, when you expect to take on a much more "dangerous" enemy, and need Germany's (and the rest of Europe's) help in containing China.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 12:56
|
|
|
One of the most important things to understand in a soft power competition is that sometimes you take a minor loss instead of doubling down.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 13:14
|
|
|
Bunch of the eastern EU countries are being morons, so I kinda see why the US and Germany would be all „eh gently caress it”.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 15:43
|
|
|
Mokotow posted:Bunch of the eastern EU countries are being morons, so I kinda see why the US and Germany would be all „eh gently caress it”. I think this is a sucker punch to Ukraine, that most likely will fall short of US or EU commitments towards it when implemented in practice. Poland though was literally asking for it. One of the dangers now is that Russia has actual ground to fire hypocrisy allegations at the West, and try to move a play towards Ukraine with “blah blah Germans don’t want you to make their gas more expensive, but Russia is ever kind”.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 16:22
|
|
|
Russia gains no political leverage with Nord Stream. Neither Russia (nor Germany) can decide who gets to buy gas flowing into the EU through NS, once it enters the EU territory, it is legally bound to be traded as an open commodity with no control from the exporting country, or the country whose territory it traverses. Overall the energy security of Eastern European countries in the EU vis a vis Russia has been greatly improved, compared to the days of extortionist tactics and shutting off the pipelines for political reasons. The only issues are buying from Russia at all, but lol, that was never not going to happen, and leaving Ukraine hanging, but that's been the case for years and years, Ukraine's role as a transit country for Europe has been steadily diminishing for years.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 18:21
|
|
|
steinrokkan posted:Russia gains no political leverage with Nord Stream. Neither Russia (nor Germany) can decide who gets to buy gas flowing into the EU through NS, once it enters the EU territory, it is legally bound to be traded as an open commodity with no control from the exporting country, or the country whose territory it traverses. Overall the energy security of Eastern European countries in the EU vis a vis Russia has been greatly improved, compared to the days of extortionist tactics and shutting off the pipelines for political reasons. The only issues are buying from Russia at all, but lol, that was never not going to happen, and leaving Ukraine hanging, but that's been the case for years and years, Ukraine's role as a transit country for Europe has been steadily diminishing for years. Yes, but once the gas enters NS Ukraine loses the transit fee it would earn from it otherwise. I think only PiS politicians are shameless enough to pretend that some eastern EU member state may loose electricity access over this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 18:27
|
|
|
My concern is that taking out Belarus and Ukraine out of the equation as crucial for European security will give Russia more space for maneuvering to do something unhinged again like trying to unite the Slavs to help with low ratings. Right now it seems unlikely but with grandpa being obsessed with historic legacy, nationalism and the great war cult, it can't be ruled out in the future with more malleable putinverstehers in power
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 21:52
|
|
|
Uniting the Slavs under one banner. And on that banner we will out an image of kvass
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2021 16:51
|
|
|
oh how I pine for the real kvass
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2021 16:58
|
|
|
steinrokkan posted:Russia gains no political leverage with Nord Stream. Neither Russia (nor Germany) can decide who gets to buy gas flowing into the EU through NS, once it enters the EU territory, it is legally bound to be traded as an open commodity with no control from the exporting country, or the country whose territory it traverses. Overall the energy security of Eastern European countries in the EU vis a vis Russia has been greatly improved, compared to the days of extortionist tactics and shutting off the pipelines for political reasons. The only issues are buying from Russia at all, but lol, that was never not going to happen, and leaving Ukraine hanging, but that's been the case for years and years, Ukraine's role as a transit country for Europe has been steadily diminishing for years. The idea is that if the German energy supply depended on pipelines in Poland and Ukraine they would be much more willing to stick up for the security and independence of these countries and Russia would be less willing to gently caress with EE because it would annoy the German pensioners (aka the German government). I don't know to what extent this is even true anymore, but it's certainly a narrative that exists.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2021 17:10
|
|
|
I didn't want to start a thread in the Olympics subforum for such a niche question, thought someone here might know: How/why is Montenegro so good at water polo relative to its size? I was tuned into this during the 2012 games when I happened to catch Montenegro playing the US and the commentators were really hyping it up. I thought, yeah of course they would, it's what they're broadcasting--but it was a competitive game. Per Wikipedia they haven't medaled in the last few Olympics, but have come in 4th each time, which seems pretty remarkable for a country of 750,000 people.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2021 16:30
|
|
|
IIRC, Hungary is considered a water polo superpower as well. Weird game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2021 17:05
|
|
|
Yugoslavia used to have a very strong waterpolo team for most of its existence. All of the FYRs inherited it to an extent.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2021 09:22
|
|
|
Another interesting article appeared on Russian BBC about narco-caching, which is similar to geocaching except you get to find yourself high on shady drugs or years in prison: https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-48928092 In 2019 radio free europe released their article with more details on how this functions with the large scale distributors being tied to the government, working through telegram and bitcoin with mostly school children distributing in the streets: https://www.svoboda.org/a/30101943.html This is a phenomenon I've heard about exclusively in the FSU for the past 10 years mostly in the context of school kids signing up to work as couriers for anonymous people on the internet, finding large caches of drugs to distribute as small caches of drugs, take pictures to send to the coordinator and eventually get caught and get 5-13 years in prison. The customers normally find telegram numbers to contact on the internet or phone numbers being spray painted on walls and garages. Due to the anonymity introduced by telegram and cryptocurrency, the large scale organizations are shielded from the street-level kids who work on an Uber model without personally knowing who they're working for and taking most of the risk. The thing is that in Russia it entered everyday folklore with jokes about pirates and hidden treasure and articles about the draconian prison system and punishments for kids, but I haven't seen any articles about imprisoned kids, kitchen-talk about a relatives kid getting busted for doing uber-highs or phone numbers spray painted on walls advertising drugs anonymously in Europe in any lovely neighbourhoods. In my experience you get stuff from a guy that knows a guy or the ordering through the darkweb model. Is this a thing anywhere else?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2021 19:51
|
|
|
Speaking for Latvia, weed here is a face-to-face affair on all levels of the supply chain. Same for hashish, as both drugs date back to USSR and have associated cultures or traditions existing natively. Various “vitamins” (umbrella term used here for night club drugs like acid, speed, or ecstasy) kind of follow the same principle, but not without caveats. There’s plenty of distrust or negative superstitions towards those, leading to situations where, e.g., my hometown mafia would actually hunt down and “take for a forest ride” anyone dealing them there, because mafia boss had a daughter of my age and wanted to prevent her ever encountering them. For mushrooms I know people used darknet, but orders were sent via regular post. That poo poo got predictably nuked once the state caught up. Stuff like heroin or cocaine I’ve honestly got no idea where one would even go about finding it. The only time I’ve encountered them in my life here was on my 18th birthday - I was playing billiard at 3am in a local casino, and some friend of an acquaintance was entertaining us with his plan to bring $6000 worth of cocaine into U.K. by stuffing his up his anus and taking a plane. I wouldn’t be surprised if getting something like that is actually way more difficult than buying a gun on shadow market.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2021 20:28
|
|
|
Yep, exactly the same in Lithuania (surprise), weed and shrooms - locally procured, synthetic stuff - from labs in western Europe. Heroin idk, cocaine used to come from Russia over the railway on its way to western Europe at least in the late 00s according to my ex-classmate who had a mafioso dad and a new car at the ripe age of 18. The darkweb or intestinally transported goods are there but on small scale The curious thing for me is all of this needs some level of personal contact, on a basic level knowing a dealer and meeting him. The darkweb was innovative with the anonymizing and digital aspect with the biggest risk for the buyer being the mail delivery. Here the anonymous crypto hell is turned up to max but European drug markets seem not to have caught on yet that you can get school kids through the internet to plant drugs for you and go to prison in your place. I follow press in 4 languages and Russian is the only one talking about it, I'm wondering what material conditions make it stand out
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2021 10:51
|
|
|
Eastern Europe has been supplying the world synthetics - LSD, Ecstasy, etc. for decades and this is no secret. I've never heard Cocaine coming from Russia... I don't think they have the climate to grow Coca.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 00:52
|
|
|
Crosby B. Alfred posted:Eastern Europe has been supplying the world synthetics - LSD, Ecstasy, etc. for decades and this is no secret. I've never heard Cocaine coming from Russia... I don't think they have the climate to grow Coca. It's "Russian cocaine" in the same way we had "Belorussian salmon"
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 08:05
|
|
|
What would you counterfeit cocaine with? Meth for stimulant and a smidge of fentanyl to make it numbing?
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 08:23
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:What would you counterfeit cocaine with? Meth for stimulant and a smidge of fentanyl to make it numbing? Mobby didn’t mean counterfeit cocaine, just that Russia acts as a redistribution proxy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 08:36
|
|
|
Crosby B. Alfred posted:Eastern Europe has been supplying the world synthetics - LSD, Ecstasy, etc. for decades and this is no secret. I've never heard Cocaine coming from Russia... I don't think they have the climate to grow Coca. I'm curious specifically about the "private contractor" distribution model since I've never heard of it being used outside of Russia (+Kazakhstan) yet Russia is a major transport hub for cocaine from South America, Litvinenko reported that it was controlled by Petersburg mafia clans since the 90s and then shipped to western Europe through the ports and railroads https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/litvinenko-report-putin-ally-motive-murder-inquiry quote:Ben Emmerson QC, the lawyer for Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, said one report contained “staggeringly serious” allegations against both Ivanov and Putin. The report claimed that Ivanov was intimately involved in criminal activities in St Petersburg from 1990 onwards. At the time the local mafia ran a lucrative operation smuggling cocaine from Colombia to western Europe via the city’s seaport. This is still continuing and is controlled by the government: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/09/21/russian-lawmakers-ensnared-in-argentine-cocaine-scandal-report-a71496 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/23/russian-embassy-cocaine-buenos-aires-police-arrests quote:A former Russian diplomatic official and an Argentinian police officer are among those arrested in connection with a large cocaine seizure at the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires that prompted a year-long investigation into an international drug ring, officials have said.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 08:43
|
|
|
Throwback to cocaine freight diplomatic plane caught in south america - RA 96023
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 10:26
|
|
|
Tevery Best posted:Yugoslavia used to have a very strong waterpolo team for most of its existence. All of the FYRs inherited it to an extent. The same also goes for basketball, football, handball...
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 14:25
|
|
|
According to several sources, Tikhanovskaya's just met with Biden in the White House during her visit to the US. A pretty unexpected turn of events, as neither she or Biden had this meeting in their schedules, and Tikhanovskaya recently said that she didn't expect too much help from America in the near future. E: Yep, it's real https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1420422355109748743 Paladinus fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jul 28, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 17:01
|
|
|
Somaen posted:I'm curious specifically about the "private contractor" distribution model since I've never heard of it being used outside of Russia (+Kazakhstan) yet Cocaine controlled by Petersburg mob. Aka Putin.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 17:15
|
|
|
Somaen posted:Is this a thing anywhere else? I know that in Finland some of the largest non-border drug busts in recent years have all been caches in forests. The idea is less uber-but-for-drugs and more "bury your drugs to keep them safe until you have a buyer and then you can just hand them a location in exchange for payment".
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 19:55
|
|
|
Where do Russian teens find the time to sell forest drugs between being incited to kill themselves by Ukrainian nationalists on Twitter and taking Krokodil all the time? Russia trying to get self-sufficient on satanic panics is a noble goal but their product really sucks.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 20:06
|
|
|
Quick report from Ukraine: it's infrastructure week!  It seems like Zelenskiy is trying to pull a Biden with a lot of high profile infrastructure investment. First thing you notice is the road from the airport is jammed horribly in a way it's never been before, because they're building something. The national opera gets a big makeover, the giant poster explicitly says it's a project of the President. Lots of new pavement, bike lanes, and cleaned up parking. That street (and all others) used to have cars parked on the sidewalk and double-parked on the street. I'm sure it's mostly concentrated to the richer, high-visibility areas, but still that's the most change I've seen in a short period of time so hopefully this has some positive long-term effect.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2021 20:36
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/Freedom_Paper/status/1420703275381411844?s=19 Viktor Filinkov, an antifascist political prisoner serving 7-year sentence has been moved to a basement cell, apparently as a punishment for sitting on his bed during day time. Filinkov was one of the defentants in “The Network” case. According to the Russian state authorities, “the Network” was an “anarchist terrorist community” set up in May 2015 with the aim to overthrow the Russian regime by “establishing combat groups and recruiting individuals who shared their anarchist ideology.” Filinkov, who takes keen interest in robotics and computer programming, has been accused of volunteering to be the group’s “radioman.” Additionally, he allegedely “supplied members with communications devices,” taught them encryption, “recruited other individuals, discussed and planned crimes during meetings, attended classes on tactics, reconnaissance, sabotage, and combat, and the use of weapons and explosive devices, and acquired the knowledge necessary in extreme circumstances and combat conditions.” Filinkov denies all charges and states that he does not understand them. Filinkov was arrested on the above bogus charges in January 2018 and subsequently subjected to torture in order to extract a confession. In June 2020, he was sentenced to 7 years in the general regime prison colony. He is now serving his sentence in SIZO-1 prison facilicity in the city of Kirov in western Russia. During a recent meeting with his lawyer, Yevgenia Kulakova, Filinkov said that he had been transferred to the basement cell due to a conflict with the guards. According to Yevgenia, the conflict situation arose due to the fact that the convicts sat in the cell during the day on prison beds, which is prohibited according to the “Internal Regulations of Correctional Institutions” (TAP). Filinkov shared a cell equipped with two sitting spaces with six other people, and that was the reason for the breach of the Internal Regulations. Yevgenia Kulakova said: “As Viktor told me, there are only two benches for seven people in the Kirov SIZO-1 cell, which can accommodate only two people. During meals, people are forced to take turns. The Kirov SIZO-1 is not equipped with everything necessary to comply with the TAP, but this is required from the prisoners.” After repeated refusal to obey the TAP demands, about ten officers entered the cell, one carrying a stun gun. Two prisoners were then removed from the cell and informed that they are being taken for a “”professional conversation” in the prison’s special block. The remaining five, including Viktor Filinkov, were taken to a cell in the basement, accompanied by an employee who was rattling with the stun gun. The place where the prisoners were brought is a seven-seater cell. It has a window at ground level, a wooden floor, a vaulted ceiling, at the highest point you can reach the ceiling with your hand. This cell is dirty, humid and infested by flies and cockroaches. As an additional punishment, Filinkov and his cell-mates were barred from calling home. They were also informed that if they protest their prison conditions again, they will be moved to even more squalid cell.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2021 21:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 17:28 |
|
|
mobby_6kl posted:Quick report from Ukraine: it's infrastructure week! Has Zelenskiy actually had any coherent policy so far, or is he just winging it and getting managed by his advisors on the 95% of things he's not experienced with.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2021 01:00
|
|
I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!