Eastern Europe: Olivier's sphere of influence

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Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Brown Moses posted:

Woman walking around the Moscow metro with a decapitated baby head shouting "I'm a terrorist".

I am sure this is a planned terrorist act and not just a tragic story of a severely mentally ill person.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2016 11:19

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 17:51

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Imapanda posted:

It could be she's mentally ill.

It could be she's imitating extremism because she doesn't like Islam at all, it's not an unknown issue to act like your geopolitical enemies so bystandards will be hopefully thinking "oh dear, that person and their way of life should not exist." thus ramping up more anti-arab/anti-islam extremism by itself.

It's probably just the typical case of radicalized immigrant though. Poor baby.

No, it's not a typical case of radicalization - a typical radicalized immigrant joins an organization, contacts a group or supports terrorist acts (in extreme cases takes part in them) sure but doesn't walk aimlessly around a metro for hours with a decapitated baby head. It's mental illness. It's fueled by current events and political situation sure and it's tragic but it's not somebody getting righteously angry at something, it's pure insanity.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2016 11:50

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

special tactics posted:

Newborn Crimean Boys Received Draft Notices

http://mil.today/2016/Society1/

I clicked the link expecting a good old Eastern Block bureaucratic gently caress-up. But no, it's an actual political idea :wtc:

. Get'em early.

"...they are supposed to join Russian army on January 24, 2032" - if anyobody was wondering if Russia was planning to exit Crimea.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 19:05

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Liberal_L33t posted:

What the gently caress kind of mental gymnastics do you have to put yourself through to come to this conclusion? More to the point, what part of this attack would ISIS (which has loudly and explicitly called for Muslims in the west to carry out independent, unplanned terrorist attacks, I.E. without contacting a group or supporters) disapprove of?

A significant chunk of the population in the middle east - not a majority but well into the whole percentage points - views the destruction of any perceived threat to their belief system (through murder and other violence) to be the highest moral calling in this life. Literally millions of Muslims will be celebrating this murder when they get news of it.

The case has since been revealed to be an insane woman's horrific act who was jealous about her boyfriend and it had nothing to do with terrorism. Maybe next time slow down and don't use mental gymnastics to drag every unrelated case into sensationalistic terrorism narration.

Murders and sick things like that happen no matter what the current political situation is, they don't immediately have to have a meaning in the larger context but media sure jump on every opportunity (as seen in this case too) to bend them this way because that sells.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 10:33

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Also while we're talking about horrific crimes this is what has been blowing up in Polish news for the last 2 weeks: Poland's 'Hannibal Lecter' arrested in Malta.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 10:40

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Russia would sure roll over Europe if only it wasn't so occupied with trying not to implode.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 14:34

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Lichtenstein posted:

Not much really interesting stuff over the weekend.

There's one thing: Polish Minister of Defense's statement about the NATO summit in Warsaw:

Polish Minister of Defense posted:

The summit - as we hope - will change the character of Poland's presence in NATO forever. It will conclude a long road and make Poland and other Midde- and Eastern-European countries full NATO members. Today Poland is on the verge of a big change which is transitioning from being a political member of NATO to being a full member.

On Russia:

Polish Minister of Defense posted:

Putin's words [from 2009 when he said that Moscow wants to change the political setup in Europe] were said a year after the aggression on Georgia. Only independent Poland can speak louldy and without limitations about the genocide in Katyn. At least it seemed so still in 2009. 6 months later we learned that an attempt to talk about it was met with a reaction that the world hadn't imagined was possible. That reaction cost us the deaths of the whole Polish elite, simply death of the whole Polish delegation flying to Katyn over Smolensk. Soon afterwards the aggression on Ukraine followed, the deaths of over 300 innocent victims that were on board the Malesian airplane, intervention in Syria.

Terrorism was born as the result of the Socialist-Soviet thought and outside of that thought it was absent in the history of the West and Christianity.

Palpek fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Mar 13, 2016

# ¿ Mar 13, 2016 11:02

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

If you want actually professional journalists try contacting S�ddeutsche Zeitung. They're more reputable than Spiegel and if they took you seriously everybody else would basically have no choice either.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 11:10

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

The expert was right but he's not a journalist - he can only give an opinion about the material that he's given by a journalist and that limited choice can be manipulated for the purpose of the article.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 12:06

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

But seriously, are they having some sort of commemorative day at CBA on the 10th of every loving month? That's beyond hosed up.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 10:40

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

With every passing day it's becoming clearer why Putin endorsed Trump's candidacy.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 14:45

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Shes Not Impressed posted:

Barring I pass all my medical stuff, I'll be heading off to Ukraine for the Peace Corps in September. Reading this thread throughout grad school has probably prepared me more for the job than anything else. One aspect of living in Eastern Europe that I don't look forward to having to deal with some of the overt anti-Semitism though.

You will most likely have to deal with strong hatred towards Russia and Syrian refugees and not anti-Semitism.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 18:11

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Yeah, the Muslim hatred is off the charts. Educated people who never had anything against Jews or gays have been frothing at the mouth for months now.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 18:26

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

OddObserver posted:

Though Ukraine is probably slightly more sympathetic towards Muslims than the rest of the region because of Crimean Tatars. Still plenty of bigotry to go around...

Those are the ok white Muslims though that have no bearing on the hatred towards current refugees. It's as idiotic as it sounds, it's basically racism. Poland had no problem with accepting tens of thousands of Muslim Chechens during the Chechen wars, it wasn't even any sort of deal.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 18:43

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Now that I checked - Poland accepted almost 90 thousand Chechen Muslims, no deal made out of it at all. But now these 7 thousand Syrians, holy poo poo those guys are all spies waiting to blow themselves up because Islam is a religion of intolerance you see :ironicat:

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 18:54

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Gantolandon posted:

The chief of the Polish diplomacy said to the press that Poland "abandoned negroeness" in diplomacy with the US. By this, he meant the servile attitude.

Using the word "murzyńskość" wasn't his idea, to be fair. Radosław Sikorski, the former Foreign Affairs Minister in PO government. The difference is that he used it in a private conversation which, unknowingly for him, has been recorded and published. Waszczykowski did this speaking officially as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

(The word "Murzyn" is pretty similar to the word "Negro" in English. It used to be a word for a black person, but after 1989 it became slowly displaced. It's probably because its connotations were quite racist - its root word, "murzyć się" means pretty much "to get yourself dirty, especially with coal or tar".)

Holy hell. While PiS is some scary poo poo sometimes I just think they'll fail out of sheer incompetence and stupidity. This is a new low of politics even for this hosed up country. That word isn't even a real thing, it sounds clunky as hell but I'm sure it was deliberately used to insult the US president, what a clusterfuck.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 09:46

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

I mean that there's this vision of PiS copying Orban and Poland becoming a fascist state in a couple of years but these idiots just lack competence, intelligence and efficiency to even attempt their sick dream.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 10:55

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Gantolandon posted:

Stupid poo poo done (or in preparation) by PiS, another update.

They are going to support total ban on abortion act, prepared by religious wackos and endorsed by the Episcopate. Terminating pregnancy is not going to be allowed even when the mother' life is in serious danger because of it (like in case of the melanoma, which pregnancy makes much more malignant). Hell, even if the mother needs an unrelated medical intervention that poses a danger to the "unborn child" (like chemotherapy), the doctor authorizing it could risk getting prosecuted.

It's worth noting that the women will also be prosecuted for having an abortion and not only doctors, this includes rape victims. The 'best' thing is that the main argument used by those bishops is that "Life of every human being is protected by the 5th commandment: don't kill. Therefore the Catholic point of view in this matter is clear: life is supposed to be protected from conception to natural death"... Yeah, that sure is a great argument for letting the mother die giving birth because apparently the 5th commandment doesn't include her, loving retards.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 09:38

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Gantolandon posted:

They had been preparing for some time a very restrictive act making selling arable land much more difficult (ostensibly to prevent it from getting into foreign hands). Recently it turned out that religious organizations are going to be exempt from most of these rules, being able to sell and buy land without limits.

It's ironic how PiS accuses PO of being in an arrangement/pact with Polish business while themselves being in the exact same setup with the church. I mean I knew that politics and Catholic church have always been very close in Poland but the shamelessness of PiS in revealing just how deep that connection goes has honestly blown my mind.

It's also scary that it goes the other way too - in the past I thought that Polish Catholic church while being a bunch of conservative idiots did their own thing and used politics to reach their goals but in their stance on refugees and their attacks on the loving pope of all people they proved how hard they can bend their own views and turn into a Rydzyk-like cult for government money. It's disgusting.

Pierogi posted:

Whew, glad i'm neither a woman nor a gynecologist.

Dodged a bullet there.

Just be a white straight male and you're going to be fine...while on your way to the unemplyment agency.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 10:13

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Baronjutter posted:

I don't understand why Poland is so anti-russia. Shouldn't they be lobbying to quit the EU and NATO so they can just become a lovely hyper-conservative religious dictatorship with Russia? Is it a catholic/orthodox thing? They seem to desperately want to become some sort of catholic russia.

No, just no. Poland will gently caress over its own citizens a thousand fold but will do everything in its power conservative or liberal to keep away from Russia. One of the biggest motivations for being a part of the EU and NATO was to find ways to be safer from Russia, not the other way round. In 20th century alone Poland was first partly annexed by Russia, then was at war with Russia 2 times, then was invaded by Russia during WW2 and finally taken over and put under a Russian-controlled regime until 1989. So overall Poland wouldn't like to be allies with its biggest enemy.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 18:15

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

At least between Hungary/Poland it comes to economical differences imo. Hungary's transition to democracy turned it from one of the leading countries in the Eastern block into one with economical problems disappointed with EU not being a cure to all troubles so their sentiment towards older days and connections with Russia may be (?) positive. Poland experienced economical growth and did well during the last big economical crysis so the sweet past with Russia isn't seen as something positive.

Also what PiS is doing is really bad but the country is (at least) still democratic. Its current government is lovely but there's an abyss between how Russia and Poland operate despite how flashy the news headlines sound. We'll see how the situation develops as what PiS communicates is loving scary but up until now it's been more smoke than fire and jumping from one big heated issue to the next giving people a lot to get angry about when turning the tv on but other than that it's business as usual.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 21:22

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

How exactly are they planning to track if somebody is going to have a same sex marriage?

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 22:53

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Yeah, PiS hid the straight jacket really well during their campaign and while a lot of their voters agree with them even on nationalistic issues like refugees - the insane abortion stance is too extreme.

I'd say letting the church be exempt from the land purchase limitations is an even bigger deal though that a lot of people will be absolutely pissed about. It's all fun and games until money comes into picture and I could see that becoming a scandal.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 23:52

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

This is probably the best place to ask: what's the background of Czech Republic being mostly atheist/undeclared? The country was dominated by Christianity until at least the first half of the 20th century just like Poland and then...what happened exactly? Furthermore from 1991 to 2011 Roman Catholicism decreased from 39.0% to 10.3% which is once again quite a rapid change.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 12:56

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Poland was also under the Soviets for the same amount of time, my question is what went differently.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 14:16

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Now that I'm reading about it, it seems like a pretty complex issue but one of the factors is definitely that Communist Poland wasn't as repressive towards religion so it was able to grow into a backbone for later opposition.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 14:56

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Gantolandon posted:

There is a silver lining in Church - proposed abortion ban: it activated plenty of women that usually stayed out of the politics. Yesterday there were manifestations against the act in major Polish cities and plenty of people showed up - women outnumbered men, at least visually. There were plenty of other protests - in some churches, several women walked out during the reading of the letter of Polish bishops, urging the Catholics to support total abortion ban. Right now, plenty of activists are flooding Facebook fanpages of the Prime Minister, PiS and the Episcopate with very graphic descriptions of their menstruation cycles.

One of the worst things about that abortion ban idea not mentioned yet is that because of women being held legally responsible for getting one...every miscarriage would have to be investigated by the police as a potential crime. Imagine how that would go given how bad Polish police already is at treating crime victims (zero psychological training) and now they'll be asking every women who lost a child 'why did you abort your baby?'

# ¿ Apr 5, 2016 10:41

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

grate deceiver posted:

In Poland it's actually just one guy narrating the whole movie (it's called "juxtareading" I think?), at least on the freely available channels.

Yeah, it was fun finding out that this is actually pretty bizarre and that only Eastern Block countries do it. Basically every movie and series in Polish is like a nature documentary narrated by David Attenborough.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2016 14:41

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Paladinus posted:

Wait. In cinemas you still get dubbed films, right? Can't they show those on TV? It's cheaper to buy this version from your local distributor than making your own translation, too. And I am pretty sure cartoons on non-Polish channels like Cartoon Network or Disney are dubbed, so why not films? It's really strange considering video games as far as I know have pretty good voice acting in Polish.

Movies in cinemas are subtitled with maybe a few exceptions. Movies for children are dubbed so when an adult movie is dubbed it sounds bizarre for a Polish ear as the concept is considered as something that kids need. Which is probably why video games are dubbed.

The voice-over dubbing is also meant to be as neutral in tone as possible. It's basically subtitles in audio form so giving different voices to men and women or voice modulation sounds strange. Weirdly some reality shows in Poland sometimes have separate male and female narrators but it's considered not as 'serious' as a well-known voice-over. It all jus comes down to what people are used to hearing.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2016 15:24

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

grate deceiver posted:

my nigga have u tried Rolnik Szuka Żony?

There's another show like this but I forgot the name now - it's about bachelors young and old living in Polish villages looking for wives. It has more of a documentary format though where you only see them talking about their lives and going on dates without some big reality show splendor. I'll tell you this - it's INCREDIBLE, it's like The Room: Polish documentary edition and just what those people talk about, the wording they use, their stories - it's some insane poo poo. Every episode could easily have a companion comedy show filled with just quotes from it. It's one of my greatest late night discoveries.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2016 13:33

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Lichtenstein posted:

Please try to grok the name out. I love poo poo like that.

Found it, it's 'Chlopaki do wziecia'. Here's a trailer for one of the seasons (sorry, only in Polish):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9zB7Lg6Eoo

# ¿ Apr 6, 2016 13:52

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

It's not just misery, the outcomes are very varied. poo poo, I don't want to sell this show to you because I'm not going to defend it and I'm not a big fan or anything. I just discovered it one night while hanging out with one of my siblings and it's just an absurd but actually pretty authentic experience.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2016 14:03

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

I heard that "samolot" and "samochod" are hilarious to Czech people. Also as a Polish tourist you shouldn't tell people that you're looking for something ("szukac").

Although Czech language as a whole sounds like weird baby talk to Polish people so it goes beyond vocabulary in this case.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2016 20:24

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

anilEhilated posted:

I've read it only on one news server, but Poland apparently wants back 368 hectares of territory they lost to Czech Rep during border adjustment in 1958. Is that a joke or is Poland really that butthurt about it?

The server it's on isn't very reliable and there's no date in the article, so that feels kinda weird; on the other hand, the current Polish government seems capable of just about anything.

Lichtenstein posted:

It's either pulled out of someone's rear end or a random remark some crazy D-list politician made. It's not a recognizable thing any of the usual suspects ever talks about.

This isn't a new thing and it's real. Those negotiotations have been taking place since 1992 but nobody really wants to have anything to do with them so it mostly stays out of the media. I think I last read about it a year ago.

It's not enough land for anybody to care about but both countries can't seem to find an agreement on the compensation. Czech Republic doesn't want to give the strip of land in question back because it belongs to one of the smallest Czech counties, Poland doesn't want to accept money for it because well, it's land - Czech Republic proposes to give a different strip of land back, Poland accepts but now good luck choosing a county that should lose land for no reason and which would be still equally worth etc. So the whole thing goes through local politics hell and hangs in the air despite the laughable subject matter but it involves foreign politics so nobody wants to say 'eh, gently caress it'.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2016 13:28

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

anilEhilated posted:

Anyone else getting strong SS vibes?

SS? More like NKVD and Putin can use the same forms lying around in Stalin's old cupboards, just change a few names and dates.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2016 17:05

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

DrProsek posted:

While #7 is still high, I'm surprised Hungarians aren't higher, with PiS wanting Poland to become Super Hungary.

It's because only PiS loves Orban, there is literally nobody in the street going "oh boy, why can't we be more like Hungary" no matter how conservative. It's such a non-existing sentiment that it's not even funny.

The positive connotations with Hungary are more deep-rooted and have nothing to do with its current government:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_and_Hungarian_cousins_be

# ¿ Apr 7, 2016 23:41

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Eh, Italy is seen as separate from the Vatican although them having the same religion is a factor. However I'd argue it's more about the positive and friendly image of Italians on TV shows (some of them being stars on reality TV), the popularity of Italian food and Italy being a beloved holiday destination. There's also this idea of a "handsome romantic Italian" that a lot of women have a soft spot for. Also they aren't our neighbors which helps a lot :v:

# ¿ Apr 8, 2016 07:13

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

Gantolandon posted:

Also, TVP2 (the second channel of the Polish public TV) wants to make a sitcom about future Poland, which became a world power. It quickly dominated Europe thanks to cutting edge tech and now plenty of impoverished Belgians, Germans and Brits try to leave their third-world shitholes and work here. The series will begin with the Polish national team beating the Brazilian one and winning World Cup.

http://m.wirtualnemedia.pl/m/artykul/tvp2-chce-nakrecic-futurystyczny-sitcom-2050-o-polsce-jako-swiatowej-potedze

Hahaha, oh god. They're not very good at this propaganda thing are they? I can't imagine people watching it for anything other than the irony factor. I mean, if it was just about Poland being a superpower I could see people buying it but the crazy switcheroo where it's Brits and Germans that wash our dishes now you see and then the national soccer team that even its fans love to hate becomes the best in the world and it's too close to a parody.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2016 13:57

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

I bring 'wonderful' news from Poland - yesterday was the commemoration of the presidential plane crash at Smolensk and as you can imagine with the current government - it was an event highly televised on the national TV.

One of the guests during the live discussion was the artistic director of TV Republika (a private TV station closely tied to PiS) and she stated that Donald Tusk should be given the highest possible penalty because of Smolensk (which was obviously an assassination) and the death penalty should be brought back to Polish law specifically for that occasion.

The Marshal (Speaker) of the Sejm who represents Polish parliament and who basically holds the most important position in the Polish lower house commented that personally he's against death penalty but that "an absolute, severe prison sentence for Donald Tusk would suffice".

Law and Justice everybody.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 20:45

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 17:51

Palpek: Dec 27, 2008; Do you feel it, Zach?
My coffee warned me about it.

A Pale Horse posted:

I really can't believe that anyone except the absolute fringe of PiS believe that Smolensk was anything other than a tragic accident.

It's amazing how fast a variety of sleazeballs surface and go out of their way to appease to a government when they smell a totalitarian climate. All things that PiS does are really similar to the communist regime's concepts which Kaczynski is so fond of imagining that he bravely fought against.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 21:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Eastern Europe: Olivier's sphere of influence

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