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Szarrukin posted:I love how Czech word for loudspeaker is the same as Polish word for breeder. (reproduktor)
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Apr 30, 2024 11:14
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Real quedtion but are words like 'kurwa' abused in neighbouring Czechia, Slovakia, and East Germany too? I don't just mean that they're used too much. But that they punctuate sentences, fill any pauses in speech, and precede and procede words that that don't need it, whether the person is angry or happy or even just relaying neutral information. Over here the overuse extends to even a large part of the educated classes (although plenty of people find it vulgar as well). When we're dealing with someone not from the upper middle class or above it's not entirely uncommon to hear: Kurwa no, żeby dojechać do kurwa Warszawa Centralna trzeba kurwa pojechać, no kurwa, autobusem 7A. Ale kurwa trzeba 7A a nie 7B bo tamten jedzie do kurwa Warszawa Zachodnia. I'd guesstimate maybe 1/15 people in my city talk this way. And that's a conservative estimate. (I do look back to my time in NA and do concede that people using 'loving' in place of kurwa in this manner is also something I distinctly remember. And my sister is the child of two educators, studying at one of the top 25 schools on the planet, with a large vocabulary and excellent writing skills, but her and all her classmates use vulgarity like sailors. Still, I only noticed so many people doing it when I came here so I'm presuming it's more common over here.) e: Does anyone know the etymology of 'przekleństwo'? Google would only tell me it's Polish for cursing, swearing, or using profanity. But all those have religious connotations and I'm not sure the Polish term has those, although it might. Bright Bart fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Apr 30, 2024 |
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Apr 30, 2024 11:41
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In Czech the most commonly used vulgar filler word would be "vůl", which is used analogously to generic "man" in English (as in "man, I'm so busy today, man" etc). But that's not very vulgar compared to kurva / kurwa
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Apr 30, 2024 11:45
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Also inspired by this thread's long ongoing nightmare, I recently bought some rye flakes that I randomly ran into at the store and tried to prepare them as I usually would oatmeal (boiled in milk with sugar and cocoa). Big mistake. The earthy flavor of rye doesn't go with chocolate at all 
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Apr 30, 2024 11:51
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steinrokkan posted:boiled in milk with sugar and cocoa Ja, Herr Wachtmeister, dieser Kommentar.
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Apr 30, 2024 12:23
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I don't like oatmeal. Which I realize to a lot of people sounds like saying I don't like pizza. It's the best! after all. But I don't. So the rye flakes I was/am after are the toasted, crispy bits just under a cm in diameter. Lit. looking like slightly darker corn flakes you get in cereal boxes. Like corn flakes they have a natural sweetness even without adding sugar. But Lubella was the only consistant brand I'd find in supermarkets and local stores. That was the brand that had a tainted supply. But apparently *all* brands here stopped producing rye flakes as consumers pannicked (while of course being happy to continue eating all sorts of rye products including from Lubella).
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Apr 30, 2024 12:50
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Things are moving fast - Obajtek has apparently fled the country, and investigators entered his home earlier today. Other Orlen directors' homes are also being searched. It's all related to the sale of Lotos to Saudi Aramco and the fuel price manipulations before the elections.
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Apr 30, 2024 13:02
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Bright Bart posted:Real quedtion but are words like 'kurwa' abused in neighbouring Czechia, Slovakia, and East Germany too?
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Apr 30, 2024 13:04
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Bright Bart posted:Real quedtion but are words like 'kurwa' abused in neighbouring Czechia, Slovakia, and East Germany too? I don't just mean that they're used too much. But that they punctuate sentences, fill any pauses in speech, and precede and procede words that that don't need it, whether the person is angry or happy or even just relaying neutral information. Over here the overuse extends to even a large part of the educated classes (although plenty of people find it vulgar as well). When we're dealing with someone not from the upper middle class or above it's not entirely uncommon to hear: Wrong country, but the Finnish swearword for vagina is often used as punctuation as you describe. Some English-speaking friends were horrified to learn it was the local equivalent to the "c-word".
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Apr 30, 2024 14:34
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Btw, tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of a bunch of CEE countries joining the EU. I'm mildly horrified at it being 20 years already, but it was a good choice. Things became better.
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Apr 30, 2024 14:54
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Rappaport posted:Wrong country, but the Finnish swearword for vagina is often used as punctuation as you describe. Some English-speaking friends were horrified to learn it was the local equivalent to the "c-word". In certain Dutch circles 'cancer' is the punctuation curse. At least it's something actually nasty for us.
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Apr 30, 2024 14:59
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Antigravitas posted:Ja, Herr Wachtmeister, dieser Kommentar. It's the superior way
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Apr 30, 2024 14:59
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a podcast for cats posted:Btw, tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of a bunch of CEE countries joining the EU. Thanks for bringing this up. This event splits my life in half and I've been lucky enough to live through and see the immense changes and transformation of the last 35 years. Some places I know from childhood have been redeveloped and transformed not once but sometimes twice or thrice - see the Chlodna neighborhood in Warsaw Srodmiescie. There were things around in the 90s we'd never thought will change, like rampant corruption, atrocious road conditions and general "bylejakosc" and it's all a distant memory now, or at least moving in that direction. It's fantastic to travel through Poland now, see all those villages abandoned in the late 90s now clean and with people returning and building their new houses and businesses. At the same time my trip to the Balkans this year had me asking "what if" we didn't join EU and NATO and the answer looked bleak. Don't get me wrong, we still have a lot of work, but this is the first time in my life I'd rather not live somewhere else (aside from the weather, I'd be down for a summer house in the Med) and I don't think Poland had it better ever than we do now. I don't think the architects of us joining the EU and NATO get enough recognition.
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Apr 30, 2024 15:17
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I'm super curious to know how much Poland (or neighbouring countries) had to fight to join the EU. Did they want to sweep everyone up as soon as possible? (Which could have been for altruistic reasons to wanting a cheap workforce.) Did they understand that all the countries added in 2004 were going to eventually join so might as well do it all at once? Did they go 'hmmm yeah we'll take Czechia and Estonia and Malta' then decide it'd be unfair and/or that they wouldn't want it if it caused issues with neighbours and other trading partners? Was it the above but Poland and Slovakia and the like had to lobby and plea and beg behind closed doors?
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Apr 30, 2024 17:46
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First Polish deal with EEC was signed in 1992, negotiations begun in 1993 and the request to join was filed in 1994. The actual process of joining started in 1997. It took a while! I believe this was made possible in large part by Walesa being widely recognized in the early 90’s and the US advisors that basically helped him win the first election also pushing strongly on the other EU countries. As far as the Polish political scene, unlike today, EU support was uniform across the board.
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Apr 30, 2024 17:54
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Poland certainly didn't have to grovel and beg to be admitted, it was the largest economy out of the 2004 accession countries. The reason why they had to wait so long to accede was manifold, but mostly related to endemic corruption left behind from the Communist era and the transformation period, as well as the need to meet economic indicators to assure old EU they wouldn't just collapse all of a sudden and turn into basket cases the rest of the Union would need to prop up. Also I can't say this for sure, but I don't think it's a coincidence that all of those states had first become NATO members (with the notable exception of Cyprus).
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Apr 30, 2024 18:12
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Mokotow posted:As far as the Polish political scene, unlike today, EU support was uniform across the board. How can you forget Samoobrona's heroic "vote however you want, but Poles will be slaves if they join the EU" position smdh (Your overall point is correct, I'm just being a pedant over the one party that was still EU-neutral by the time of the referendum)
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Apr 30, 2024 18:17
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burnishedfume posted:How can you forget Samoobrona's heroic "vote however you want, but Poles will be slaves if they join the EU" position smdh No, you’re correct on calling me out, I did forget about Samoobrona and for the life of me I don’t remember what the left thought of it either around ‘92-‘94.
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Apr 30, 2024 18:22
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Generally speaking, the EU wanted the region for reasons both economic (export markets) and geopolitical (keep it from regressing back to Russia-adjacent bullshit after riding out the 90s in a decent shape). Having said that, a notable trait of the EU is that it's in a much, much stronger position to make demands on potential candidates than it is able to police current members. So of course it had to play hard to get for a while to get everyone to clean house. South was messier, so they had to wait a couple more years to get up to shape. Balkans haven't really resolved the constant genocidal tensions, so nobody really wants to touch that. The two notably thorny countries are Ukraine and Turkey. For various reasons, both good and bad, they've been kept at an arms length with a loose promise of accession talks, but nobody really wanted this to happen and rather just didn't want to burn bridges. The attitude to Ukraine might change because the war is such a shake-up, but it'll be a proper messy situation anyway.
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Apr 30, 2024 18:42
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The fact that the eu used all is leverage to wrestle some reforms out of the candidate countries through the application of the acquis was absolutely a blessing, as it was the first and last time in history the elites of said countries were forced to crawl out of their collective rear end and do something for the general good of it.
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Apr 30, 2024 21:20
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don't think it's gotten mentioned much here but Georgia is having some fun times (with some bonus getting reposted by idiot american audience infoshum accounts as "look at this gaza protest going off the rails!" mislabeled contemporaneous content) re the russia-aligned ruling Georgian Dream party trying to (again) run a lookalike "foreign agent" bill through parliament and generally walking away from the EU. the population of Tbilisi has been rather unhappy about this https://twitter.com/xonoda/status/1785405994853355702 https://twitter.com/revishvilig/status/1785395856344031488 https://eurasianet.org/perspectives-georgian-dreams-doublethink-may-backfire-in-tbilisi https://eurasianet.org/georgia-draft-law-would-negate-30-plus-years-of-work-to-promote-rule-of-law-activists this comes ahead of parliamentary elections later this year
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Apr 30, 2024 22:04
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:don't think it's gotten mentioned much here but Georgia is having some fun times (with some bonus getting reposted by idiot american audience infoshum accounts as "look at this gaza protest going off the rails!" mislabeled contemporaneous content) re the russia-aligned ruling Georgian Dream party trying to (again) run a lookalike "foreign agent" bill through parliament and generally walking away from the EU. the population of Tbilisi has been rather unhappy about this Why Qtotonibudinibudet posted:don't think it's gotten mentioned much here but Georgia is having some fun times (with some bonus getting reposted by idiot american audience infoshum accounts as "look at this gaza protest going off the rails!" mislabeled contemporaneous content) re the russia-aligned ruling Georgian Dream party trying to (again) run a lookalike "foreign agent" bill through parliament and generally walking away from the EU. the population of Tbilisi has been rather unhappy about this I don't get why this is a bad thing other than the NGOs saying "we might look bad." It seems like a good idea and similar laws exist or are being enacted elsewhere eg EU (EU ‘foreign agents’ law spooks NGOs). Why is transparency a bad thing? In summary one of those articles describes the dangers as thus quote:Leaders of each of the above-mentioned groups told Eurasianet that they are fearful for the future of their respective organizations, either because they will refuse to self-identify as agents of foreign influence, as would be required by law, or they expect to be targeted if they declare their funding sources. Which isn't really explaining why transparency in this instance is actually bad and not a fairly ordinary or even good thing. mawarannahr fucked around with this message at 01:07 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 01:04
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Osmosisch posted:In certain Dutch circles 'cancer' is the punctuation curse. At least it's something actually nasty for us. Tangentially, I wonder how Holender (Dutchman) became a mild curse word in Polish.
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May 1, 2024 01:14
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Foreign Agent laws in Russia were used to shut down human rights groups and non-governmental organizations with the goal of dismantling civil society and crushing all political activity. Georgia's law is basically going to provide the same toolset.
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May 1, 2024 02:34
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Morrow posted:Foreign Agent laws in Russia were used to shut down human rights groups and non-governmental organizations with the goal of dismantling civil society and crushing all political activity. Georgia's law is basically going to provide the same toolset. OK, how, and how is it different from other countries, and why is Georgia like Russia and not like other countries with transparency laws? The articles only go into how it might make some NGOs look bad but the only real danger mentioned is that some will choose to shut down than be transparent about their funding.
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May 1, 2024 02:38
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mawarannahr posted:Why the stated aim of a law doesn't necessarily entail its actual effects. if you've watched the practical application of the similar russian (and now kyrgyz as well) law mainly being used to quash a developing civil society, it's quite reasonable not to want it such law also hits a bit different if you already have large and robust economy and the domestic NGO funding sources that come with it (which is the case for the EU) than if you don't (as is the case for Georgia)
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May 1, 2024 02:41
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:the stated aim of a law doesn't necessarily entail its actual effects. if you've watched the practical application of the similar russian (and now kyrgyz as well) law mainly being used to quash a developing civil society, it's quite reasonable not to want it The article you linked about Kyrgyzstan just describes the potential harm of NGOs deciding to shut down to avoid "bureaucratic hassle." Do you have anything after the fact? Also, wouldn't Russian sources of funding be revealed as well? I for one would be fully in favor of this in Turkey.
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May 1, 2024 02:44
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Fwiw the Kyrgyzstan link proved above, as well as two links about Georgia, are on Eurasianet, which might be interested in pushing an anti-that-law point of view because of its backers quote:Eurasianet is an independent news organisation[1] based at Columbia University's Harriman Institute, the United States,[2] that provides news, information and analysis on countries in Central Asia, the Caucasus region, Russia and Southwest Asia.[3][4] Launched in 2000, it operated under the auspices of the Eurasia Project of the Open Society Foundations (OSF). Eurasianet spun off in 2016 to become an independent, tax-exempt non-profit news organization.[3][5][6][7] The organisation receives support from Google, OSF, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, the National Endowment for Democracy and other grant-making institutions.[8][9]
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May 1, 2024 02:47
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mawarannahr posted:OK, how, and how is it different from other countries, and why is Georgia like Russia and not like other countries with transparency laws? The articles only go into how it might make some NGOs look bad but the only real danger mentioned is that some will choose to shut down than be transparent about their funding. The bill is coupled with constitutional amendments, also very much lifted from Russia's example, proposed by the ruling party that would ban LGBT propaganda. Unlike, say, Kazakhstan that also introduced transparency laws recently, where the law is enforced by the tax authority, in Georgia the framing is vastly different. First of all, organisations are marked as 'promoting the interests of a foreign power' based on the sources of their funding even if funding is not actually from any foreign government. It's not neutral at all. Because of this framing, the law, if passed, will be enforced by the ministry of justice, and therefore prosecuted not as a financial crime but as criminal offence. And just like in Russia, when 'foreign agents' are identified, it will be trivially easy to impose more restrictions. The rhetoric of the current government is fairly unambiguous in what their intention is. Georgian PM posted:If the funding is transparent, then it will be difficult for donors to finance activities related to the organisation of revolutions, constant attacks on the Church [...] The opposition TV channels air hundreds of negative stories against the Church as part of a sponsored chain that is launched against the Georgian state and identity. [...]
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May 1, 2024 03:04
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Paladinus posted:The bill is coupled with constitutional amendments, also very much lifted from Russia's example, proposed by the ruling party that would ban LGBT propaganda. Unlike, say, Kazakhstan that also introduced transparency laws recently, where the law is enforced by the tax authority, in Georgia the framing is vastly different. First of all, organisations are marked as 'promoting the interests of a foreign power' based on the sources of their funding even if funding is not actually from any foreign government. It's not neutral at all. Because of this framing, the law, if passed, will be enforced by the ministry of justice, and therefore prosecuted not as a financial crime but as criminal offence. And just like in Russia, when 'foreign agents' are identified, it will be trivially easy to impose more restrictions. Thanks for the context, it's helpful and I did not find this information in the aforementioned links, and I can see some of the intentions of those proposing it more clearly. Regardless of that, I still think transparency is a good principle to adopt, and I don't really see a problem with "not actually from any foreign government" -- the description of the bill states, "The bill currently being considered by parliament would require organizations receiving more than 20 percent of annual funding from sources outside the country to list themselves in a registry of entities acting on behalf of a foreign private or governmental entity," so that just covers foreign funding from any source. I am still not seeing any fundamental issue here. I think this should happen everywhere. Also, wouldn't this reveal Russian funded operations?
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May 1, 2024 03:12
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mawarannahr posted:Thanks for the context, it's helpful and I did not find this information in the aforementioned links, and I can see some of the intentions of those proposing it more clearly. An organisation shouldn't be branded as 'promoting the interests of a foreign power' simply for having international donors. It will also affect organisations with thousands of small donors and, crucially, international organisations. Twenty countries may contribute 1% each to your budget and that puts you on the naughty list. It's very clear that it's not about transparency at all. It's not like it's their first try to pass the law, they know about how it can be exploited and it's a feature not a bug. Whether it should reveal orgs with Russian funding and whether it will reveal them are two different questions. The Russian law, in theory, should also cover every Russian propagandist that gets donations on streams from viewers all over ex-USSR, but in practice, it turns out renting a flat to a foreigner and also regularly posting on social media that you don't like Putin to a sizeable audience, is what actually gets you on the list. The fact that the PM never even mentioned Sputnik Georgia, a Russian state-owned news outlet, and chose to specifically call out the evil godless heathens that want to make you gay, it's safe to assume that under this government the enforcement will also be selective. Out of context I also think transparency laws can be good. It's sort of like voter ID laws that work perfectly well in many countries, but when a US politician brings it up, you know it's almost certainly nothing but a dog whistle.
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May 1, 2024 03:42
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Paladinus posted:An organisation shouldn't be branded as 'promoting the interests of a foreign power' simply for having international donors. It will also affect organisations with thousands of small donors and, crucially, international organisations. Twenty countries may contribute 1% each to your budget and that puts you on the naughty list. It's very clear that it's not about transparency at all. It's not like it's their first try to pass the law, they know about how it can be exploited and it's a feature not a bug. Thank you for providing more context, I feel I have a better idea of what's going on that I did not before. I don't have a specific response to the points you raise right now, but I'll chew on this knowledge to be sure. (I am still in favor of the move at this time cause I think the value of transparency outweighs the cons you described, but my opinion is moving needles nowhere.) mawarannahr fucked around with this message at 04:26 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 04:19
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mawarannahr posted:Fwiw the Kyrgyzstan link proved above, as well as two links about Georgia, are on Eurasianet, which might be interested in pushing an anti-that-law point of view because of its backers i mean if you wanna take the "aha, pernicious NED and Soros influence!" angle as the most prominent thing, idk what to tell ya. yes, eurasianet has (declining) funding from US and EU NGOs, but it's IMO the more independent of outlets offering broad coverage the region in english. funding comes from the ghosts that spoop CSPAMites, but it's managed by academics and local correspondents. i prefer them over RFERL insofar as they're a further step away from state influence, though both generally do a decent job supporting local journalists in environments that historically haven't had a strong independent media industry (by comparison i generally won't touch RFERL's russia coverage, russia does have plenty of independent, if stifled media to source from) either way, if you wanna take the "yes the mass protests on the streets and any coverage of them are just paper crisis actors puppeteered by gosdep" view that denies any agency on the part of those people actually on the streets, idk, go off i'll confess to less expertise on the caucasus and don't know their local media landscape as well, but i try to post poo poo that's from things endeavoring to be news organizations and not just whomever from my twitter network--i trust the latter (by definition) but try to include more formal press because lol twitter, especially now re central asia afaik https://vlast.kz/english/ is the only significant local news org to maintain an english service, because kazakhstan got money n poo poo. https://kloop.kg/blog/category/cap-english/ tried but eh, lol, they've been suppressed recently (in part because of said law) and couldn't maintain an english outlet with their limited resources you do not gotta hand it to the government of mr japarov
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May 1, 2024 04:55
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:i mean if you wanna take the "aha, pernicious NED and Soros influence!" angle as the most prominent thing, idk what to tell ya. yes, eurasianet has (declining) funding from US and EU NGOs, but it's IMO the more independent of outlets offering broad coverage the region in english. funding comes from the ghosts that spoop CSPAMites, but it's managed by academics and local correspondents. This strawman is uncalled for. Not cool.
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May 1, 2024 05:05
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mawarannahr posted:This strawman is uncalled for. Not cool. Go to hell (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 1, 2024 05:32
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steinrokkan posted:Go to hell Could you explain your problem?
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May 1, 2024 05:55
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Could we skip discussing the hate-reading psychos from Doomertown further?
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May 1, 2024 05:58
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Rust Martialis posted:Could we skip discussing the hate-reading psychos from Doomertown further? I'm not sure why you seem to have a problem with me or think I am somehow an outsider; you can search my posts on this thread and mostly they're about culture and the country where I am from.
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May 1, 2024 06:05
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mawarannahr posted:Could you explain your problem? The problem is you sealioning in support of authoritarian regimes that apply laws unequally. Hope that helps you understand why people hate you. And I agree, go to hell. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 1, 2024 07:57
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Antigravitas posted:The problem is you sealioning in support of authoritarian regimes that apply laws unequally.
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May 1, 2024 08:15
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