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Well if only the good czar knew about their plight, he would fix it, but the bourgeoisie won't even let the glorious ruler know of those things. 
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Mar 7, 2016 09:31
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This thread has been lacking recently of fabulous things we come up with in Estonia. 1 unit of monetary fine is 4 euros right now. Would be 8 afterwards. What this means is if you're walking around drunk without wearing a reflector you will get fined 800 euros instead of previous 400. Without being drunk its just 40->80. This in a country where people from poorer areas already take sitting in jail over paying their fines. For some perspective, the average net salary is 850 euros. edit: this is not necessarily the maximum. but they could. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Mar 21, 2016 |
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Mar 21, 2016 15:25
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Estonia's prime minister is visiting USA. He has been invited to be a guest on The Daily Show. I am sure that he is going to embarrass us thoroughly.
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Mar 21, 2016 18:56
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Russia has been arming both Azerbaijan and Armenia. Simple really - the former have plenty of money. http://www.eurasianet.org/node/68407 - More Russian Arms Deals With Azerbaijan Add Insult To Armenia's Injury http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-08-13/azeri-russian-arms-trade-4-billion-amid-tension-with-armenia - Azeri-Russian Arms Trade $4 Billion Amid Tension With Armenia http://www.eurasianet.org/node/77486 few interesting tidbits from that last article: quote:...That said, Azerbaijan's purchases are still substantial, and a large portion of them also come from Russia. This week, the Stockholm International Peace Research institute released a report noting that Azerbaijan was the largest importer of arms in Europe over the period 2011-15, and that it accounted for nearly five percent of Russian exports over that period.... quote:....Earlier this month, U.S. intelligence officials said that the potential for war over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh is rising. "Baku’s sustained military buildup coupled with declining economic conditions in Azerbaijan are raising the potential that the conflict will escalate in 2016",.... And in february some sales to Armenia http://www.janes.com/article/58187/russia-details-usd200-million-arms-sale-to-armenia - Russia details USD200 million arms sale to Armenia Armenia's position is hardly enviable. They are held dependent on Russia and it's military bases in Armenia, Azerbaijan has triple the population and twice the GDP per capita.
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Apr 2, 2016 22:32
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Dapper_Swindler posted:so they are playing both sides? Probably making sure Armenia plays along. Russia could always pull their troops out, or at least threaten Armenia with that happening. It sure looks like Armenia was strong-armed into joining their eurasian union too. I recall that the troubles in Ukraine started over signing the EU association treaty. e: and eurasian union hasn't been beneficial to them anyway. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Apr 2, 2016 |
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Apr 2, 2016 23:09
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 Fines for traffic offenses in Estonia now and after planned changes to fines (light red -> red). First four are for violating speed limits up to a certain speed. Followed by 1) unfastened seat belt 2) dangerous situation caused by ignoring a pedestrian at a crossing 3) unreadable license plate. And drunk driving ranging from slight to moderate drunkenness. The ones in blue are supposedly what they have in Germany right now. Three strikes for drunk driving. And at the bottom of the picture is Spain with a maximum fine of 500 euros for traffic offenses, which is halved if paid in 15 days. The justice commission is going to decide on this today. They have to be outright mad for this to go forward. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it did though.
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Apr 7, 2016 10:17
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Traffic safety. Probably to make us look better in the EU and to get closer to the Nordic countries. But I wouldn't disregard the revenue part too. Child support money paid out every month is now increasing by 5 euros every year until 2019 while social tax was reduced by 1%, so that money has to come from somewhere, amirite. edit: as a reminder, average net income is still 855€ 
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Apr 7, 2016 11:00
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Guildencrantz posted:....He thinks he can create a paramilitary that he'll be able to control, but he won't. And the kind of people who will be attracted to joining it are mostly nationalist bullies, especially since he wants to enshrine "Christian principles" into its rules. That complete loving idiot is about to give automatic weapons to football hooligans. Which one of these is that national guard organization created last year or so?
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Apr 12, 2016 12:17
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chitoryu12 posted:Doesn't Poland live in constant fear that Russia is going to try and restart the USSR and start rolling past Ukraine? I don't think their obvious invasion of Ukraine and Crimea is helping matters. I wouldn't call it fear, not in Poland and not anywhere else in eastern Europe. A few foreign journalists have asked me this when I've been in uniform. "Aren't you afraid that Russia might invade Estonia" ? *snort* of course I'm not afraid.
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Apr 12, 2016 19:48
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The proposed doubling of monetary fine rates did not go through in the Estonian parliament. However, of 101 MPs 50 still voted for it. One coalition member was absent and three of them voted against it. No problem, it was surely an accident. It will work the next time surely, after they have instilled some party discipline. I'm now half-wishing that it would go through, to just give the opposition more ammunition before next year's elections. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 13:28
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No doubt they will be telling us how just like a year ago, even more effeminate homowesterners serving on that ship have resigned over the incident.
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Apr 13, 2016 19:32
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Kiejzar posted:As you can see, Polish military is about twice as big as rest of the EE countries armies combined, but still far cry from Russia. Even after two years of Russian scare, military budgets of most of eastern Europe remain pitiful.
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Apr 14, 2016 10:49
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About time, I have been getting fed up constantly saying 'Czech Republic' this or 'Czech republic' that in a conversation. Historically, Estonians have referred to Bohemia and Morava as 'Böömimaa' and 'Määrimaa' (where 'maa' is land). Our 'ä' sounds like 'a' in American pronunciation of "fast", and not like how it's pronounced in German. That's what I found out when I was in Germany. But Tšehhi and Tšehhia have been used anyway.
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Apr 15, 2016 13:20
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steinrokkan posted:Actually it's delicious. A cheese that doesn't offend at least one sense is no cheese at all. Smelly cheese, you say? I've been looking for new things to try since surströmming (which really wasn't disgusting to me) and I think I just found it. Now I just have to procure some.
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Apr 18, 2016 10:13
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Cat Mattress posted:I think it's a fitting illustration of our era of generalized mass unemployment that the racist cry of "they're going to steal our jobs" has been replaced by "they're going to steal our welfare". Living off welfare payments for a long period of time is definitely a bad thing, and since most of those immigrants have little in the way of qualifications I don't see their situation changing.
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Apr 20, 2016 16:25
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Apparently some norwegian site aldrimer.no came up with a claim that russian drones have been flying in Estonia and have been shot at. Well I really doubt those claims, especially after seeing this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooGSSLA_LFM If it looks like propaganda, and it smells like propaganda, then it is propaganda.
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Apr 30, 2016 15:54
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Crowsbeak posted:Well Russia does have a history of authoritarianism. They also have a history of loving uniforms. Look at Tsarist uniforms for the civil service. The same applied to Prussia / German empire too, until the first world war. Apparently in Estonia, if an illegal immigrant is detained but refuses to say who he is and has destroyed his documents, then he can not be detained for more than 18 months and gets to stay on as a homeless person because he can not be deported anywhere. Terrific. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 18:48 on May 1, 2016 |
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May 1, 2016 09:40
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Could any Romanian posters link me some youtube videos of good songs in romanian? Old ones also okay. I want to enjoy the sound of romanian language for my own enjoyment. 'Dragostea din tei' not accepted.
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May 7, 2016 19:20
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I don't know what I expected on this forum.
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May 9, 2016 19:28
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I'll just leave this awesome youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=channel?UCS5tt2z_DFvG7-39J3aE-bQ With gems such as: How to squat like a slav https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-8gsWZqDBM
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May 11, 2016 18:57
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My Polish is a bit rusty but 'dupa' means rear end.
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May 24, 2016 13:02
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quote:....Canadian business to understand the impact of reform measures that have been implemented by Ukraine to date.... Somehow I'm not feeling optimistic about such statements.
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Jun 15, 2016 09:56
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Sinteres posted:So Donald Trump said today that the US may not defend the Baltics in the case of a Russian attack if he doesn't feel like they've done their part for the alliance. I can't imagine Eastern Europe is going to take that too well. I can think of one country that doesn't. They have not even brought back conscription. If you're not prepared to defend yourself, it's not likely that others will.
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Jul 21, 2016 07:39
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Dragas posted:Lithuania has, in fact, brought back conscription Latvia has not. quote:yeah, conscription is going to help a lot against a superpower sporting high tech weaponry and nukular arsenal 30,000 soldiers is already better than a token professional force of 1,500 (even if supported by the home guard units). Give them quality MANPADS and ATGMs and the opponent will have something to think about.
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Jul 21, 2016 08:54
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steinrokkan posted:No, it's not. The alternative to a corps of 1,500 professional, well equipped soldiers is not 30,000 professional, well-equipped soldiers - it's 30,000 useless conscripts who would only bog down any modern military operation by straining its supply lines. The NATO itself has been pushing for specialization of its minor forces, with its Centres of Excellence initiatives etc., not to mention the pretty much universally supported push to actually scrap as much of the Cold War era hardware left in Europe as possible (MBTs, APCs...) because it's a liability, not an asset. Why would conscripts be useless in your opinion? A soldier with a rifle is more useful than no soldier. And training matters. Finland trusts them to operate tanks and APC-s, never mind what they have in Israel. In addition, none of the Baltic states are large enough to have to overly worry about supply lines. And are you trying to tell me conscripts are that useless that they do not know how to load a truck and drive it to places? 30,000 was just an example, Estonia has more than that in reserves. Lithuania and Latvia *should* be able to field more. Worst decision would be getting rid of conscription to only maintain a token expeditionary force to support American military ventures abroad in hopes that HRH Donald Trump will be sated enough to lend a hand. quote:...not to mention the pretty much universally supported push to actually scrap as much of the Cold War era hardware left in Europe as possible (MBTs, APCs...) because it's a liability, not an asset. Yeah, I'm guessing politicians in large countries cut defense budgets because they are not threatened by anything, much less Russia. Luckily it's an opportunity for poor eastern european countries to hoard perfectly good tech sold cheap. I don't see how firepower and armor protection afforded by either of those things is a liability.
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Jul 22, 2016 07:31
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steinrokkan posted:Reservists are useful as a complement to the professional army, but having healthy reserves doesn't translate into having a larger standing peacetime army. quote:Budgets are going to be limited no matter what (though currently we are probably pushing against the bottom of what is feasible to spend on security in Europe), and it seems defense professionals have generally concluded that the best way to spend these monies is to focus on lean, highly specialized forces that complement each other in combat instead of having each and every country field a structurally complete, but mediocre force. I.e. some small and poor NATO countries may end up with no air force to speak of, but if it means that they can provide e.g. a top-class anti-chemical warfare brigade capable of filling this role for alliance-wide deployments, it's a net gain compared to the same country providing a handful of antiquated migs and T72s that wouldn't be used in actual combat anyway. quote:Also you talked about arming conscripts with MANPADs and sending them to the frontlines, not about letting them drive forklifts around a warehouse. That's very different. Also I'm not quite convinced those Finnish reservists would actually have much of a battlefield impact in case of a proper conventional war, even if some of them have been trained in operating heavy equipment. Maybe in a delaying deployment to allow allies to deploy themselves un-harassed, but if the defense of the country fell 100% on the shoulders of reservists after the professional force had been defeated, it would probably be more humane to surrender instead of sacrificing their lives. quote:It has little to do with politicians in this case, even the US military officials have been pushing for a development of the Common Security and Defence Policy / ESDP and its precursors for decades specifically to improve budget allocation by pooling resources (such as military hardware, training and manufacturing facilities) and eliminating surplus assets that are reducing defense flexibility in Europe. Every nation having its own inventory and its own procurement strategies leads to gross inefficiencies and sub-optimal asset composition.
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Jul 22, 2016 11:23
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I can not read and I thought at first that it was Scrubs because of their blue outfits.
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Aug 28, 2016 08:17
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I knew that Uzbekistan was not exactly paradise, but I had not even come across the news about that massacre in 2005. But I do remember reading about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/world/asia/a-brutal-feud-emerges-in-uzbekistans-fractured-first-family.html The excesses of eastern rulers, still going strong after thousands of years. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 30, 2016 16:04
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:Peasant in English has the connotation of fuedalism and economic servitude. It's interesting that that's not the case in the Baltics. I'm not sure what I'd translate it as without those connotations though, besides just "small farmer" which is less precise but more accurate. I don't know about Lithuania, but in Estonia serfdom was abolished in 1816 and in Livonia in 1819, which is a lot later than in England. And serfs belonged to Baltic German landowners under the rule of Russian empire, so it might have something to do with nationalist pride.
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Sep 2, 2016 09:19
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Estonia's Delfi.ee published an article quoting a website called 'whitegenocideproject', and it was pretty much the exact translation of what it said there. Whole lot of propaganda about some wikileaks document from 2006 about how USA should promote tolerance (edit) in Estonia and equality and all that, typical NGO stuff. Then the article was pulled and was replaced. Now it quotes "Norwegian web portal frieord.no" and is much shorter. Hmm let's see what's that website about, let's try the articles in English: "85-year old man died after being punched by African". "11 year old girl beaten up by muslims", etc Wow, what an improvement over the original. Of course the paid trolls are having a field day. edit: document in question. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06TALLINN576_a.html jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Sep 5, 2016 |
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Sep 5, 2016 21:34
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cinci zoo sniper posted:
I doubt any heads will roll, but I guess somebody will get chewed out. The name of the author is hidden anyway, but that happens often there. I guess some young eager journalist thought that he came across something huge ;D But Delfi and other publications of Ekspress Group are mostly neutral, with the exception of some journalists who.. well, they write the opposite of what I was talking about. But those propaganda posters do annoy me. They are the lowliest of the low, the scum of the earth, equal to spam robot creators and the likes. I bet they think they are real clever. But I doubt they could be cleverer than.... a bullet. edit: what's more, the title literally said: "Norwegian web portal reveals a wikileaks cable from 2006, when USA pressured Estonia to increase immigration and number of minorities". So I read that cable. Lo and behold, closest I came to that claim instead said: ...The Estonians agreed that with a declining birthrate and booming economy, Estonia is likely to face increasing immigration pressure and a more multicultural society.... jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Sep 6, 2016 |
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Sep 5, 2016 22:09
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Good lordy, I hope the heads fly. I wonder if our or Lithuanian Delfi has something like that too, though, admittedly, I dislike neither of the Latvian Internet news trio, so I just read LSM which sort of aggregates everything meaningful, and even translates key news to English.
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Trogdos! posted:The only thing I know Delfi from is that they were sentenced to pay a 320 euro fine by Estonia for not removing blatant hate speech and threats of violence from their comments section after it was requested by the party towards which comments were made. Of course that last case of hate speech and such... There's another story right there. The slander was directed towards that one fellow who operates the ferries between the mainland and our biggest island. He is being cut off from the tit of government subsidies as of this year, and the line would be taken over by a state run company. A former minister of economy (current CORRUPT AS poo poo mayor of Tallinn) signed a favorable contract for him back in 2006. When it was known that the contract would not be renewed this year, he took the new ferries to Germany to operate on some river line, leaving old smaller ships that break down constantly to service the lines. And the contract is such that he could do so with impunity. The new ferries operated by the state run company due to get here by 1st of October will in fact not get here, because they are being built and they're delayed. WHAT A SURPRISE. So now said state run company rents those older ships from the subject of that slander to keep some sort of connection going. Wish they would build the loving bridge already. edit: luckily that line of his in Germany is having financial difficulties. HA HA. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Sep 6, 2016 |
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Sep 6, 2016 20:27
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Russia up to some tricks as usual. When Putin visited Finland about a month ago he brought up the case of flying without transponders, and invited it's neighbors to talks over the issue of flying without transponders. From what the propaganda posters say and a few bits from Sputnik I gather that they say "BUT NATO DOES IT TOO". Fortunately Estonia declined, citing freezing of civil and military relations between NATO and Russia since 2014 and that bilateral talks regarding international problems are only means to drive a wedge between unity of NATO and EU. I've no difficulty imagining how their media will be all over this, saying how Russia wants only stability but those damned nato pigdogs do not.
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Sep 21, 2016 12:55
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One of the candidates (from the far right party) in Estonian presidential elections went full Trump and claimed ("relying on certain information, but not saying which") that in Estonia there is a 5th column of 5,000 well trained young Russian men who train in paintball clubs, hunting clubs, airsoft events, sports shooting clubs and are ready to mobilize at any moment. He has very little chances to win. I feel touched by his claims because I also play airsoft, and also in games organized by the Russian community. Granted, there might be some folks with more than dubious views, but I would be very surprised if they numbered even as much as 20. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 13:27
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Meanwhile in Estonia, the new president has been elected by the parliament. With 81 votes out of 101, 17 against and the rest did not show up. Some far-right wingers also voted for her, the correspondence in their party mailing list (which is leaking to the press all the time) implied the reasoning being that alternatives would have been worse for them. In September the first rounds held in parliament did not succeed, nor did the... electoral committee (that's the body that consists of MPs and representatives from municipal/parish councils and all that). Both rounds also failed there, so back to the parliament it went. Then the main contenders withdrew and it looked like we had no candidate. I might write later about who were all the other candidates, though frankly I would not have chosen any of them for various reasons. It was quite a circus anyway. edit: wikipedia has a decent article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_presidential_election,_2016 So finally several parties put forth one Kersti Kaljulaid, who used to represent Estonia in European Court of Auditors. The media promoted her heavily, like that one letter to estonian people which delfi.ee and Postimees.ee published. Delfi.ee added all sorts of explaining editor's commentary to that which I did not like, it's like they really badly wanted her to get elected, though the people do not elect the president directly. And she is the first female president of Estonia. I really hope that being a woman will not be the only reason she will be remembered by history. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 13:13
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Cat Mattress posted:Now if you look at where these factories are located, you'll notice that the Sikorsky and Agusta ones are in PiS territory, while the Airbus one isn't. Wait, how does that work exactly? Do they rule some kind of fiefdoms of their own somewhere where those factories are located?
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Oct 12, 2016 23:29
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The former president Ilves of Estonia who recently stepped down, well... In 2006, before he even knew he was going to become a president, he applied for support from the state foundation that hands out money for developing private enterprises, provided that there is an adequate plan, criteria, all that. His business plan foresaw fixing up the farmhouse that belonged to his grandparents before the war, for use as a guesthouse, so he received €170,000. Then he became the president, this was quite an unusual situation, for security reasons the place could not be run as a guesthouse. So an exception was made, that business project of his was suspended until the end of his term. Now he is no longer interested in running the guest house, which means he has to return that money. But in 2012 said foundation ruled that he would only have to return 10% of the sum he received. Unlike with other projects that fail or do not meet the set goals, which have to return *all* of the money. So the media is luckily having a field day with this. It would be a shame if this was ignored. With one headline being: "see what the president said about the corruption in previous years when he was not profiting from it". Of course as the place was designated as his residence his office paid for most of the expenses over the years anyway, even down to every last trash bag, but no-one's bothering with that. Not yet anyway.
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Oct 13, 2016 14:25
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Polish official claims Egypt sold warships to Russia for $1 http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/276518,Egypt-sold-Mistral-battleships-to-Russia-for-USD-1-Polish-defence-minister http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/10/21/polish-official-claims-egypt-sold-warships-to-russia-for-1.html quote:and later told reporters he had the information "from good sources" A populist politician claiming outrageous things for political gains. Well I never would have thought.... This is the original "good source", and also the only one at the time that claimed it. http://in24.org/world/23597
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Oct 21, 2016 20:18
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The government coalition of Estonia is about to fall apart, by Wednesday at latest. About drat time. When some party hack in a high position in his party says that following the suggestions of the opposition would make our economic growth slow down (while that growth has been at 0,6% for a while), I would say that it's time for them to go. But that's just one of many reasons. Ferry fiasco, national airline fiasco... The excises on alcohol have been doing very good things for economy of Latvia, but we'll raise them even more coming year. I guess it's true what was written in the book Švejk: "the government that raises the price of beer will not last long". One factor that certainly helped was that the epitome of corruption on municipal level, the head of the center party (opposition), has been pushed to the sidelines in his own party last weekend, in addition to being under investigation on corruption charges for some time. Now other parties are willing to be in a coalition with them. Though there's still plenty of things wrong with the center party. Today our now former prime minister came up with another gem: "causing a crisis of the government in the current security situation is irresponsible". But they really are not that important that the fate of this country would depend on them in any way. Now I have to watch Under Siege.
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Nov 7, 2016 18:21
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-pUHYXRvIk BREAKING: Putin says Russia now 'ready and willing' to restore full relations with the USA quote:Trump has done more for Global peace within 24 hours, than Obama has in 8 years... quote:Trump already doing more than Clinton and Obama and hasn't been in office yet. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain  It will still be two months until Obama's presidency ends. Also, I don't think anybody is exactly sure how Trump would handle this, seeing as he has said one thing, then the other...
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Nov 10, 2016 00:48
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