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I got directed that this thread might be a suitable place to post this, so... In the recent years, Serbia's coal industry got hosed up pretty badly by various hazards and disasters, and our power production suffered pretty badly for it. As an added bonus, coal production this year is on the lower end of what could have been expected in the conditions. With the ongoing trade clusterfuck, we've started importing a lot of power, and it's likely that it's going to significantly escalate when winter hits. We're already experiencing major food price hikes, and the first signs of shortages of basic produce. (it's still not particularly bad, but you're starting to see things like all the stores in an area running out of milk mid-day, etc). The national power company is offering (additional) reduction of power bills for people who drop their power consumption by a certain percentage over the next few months, relative to their prior power spending, but the implication inbetween the lines is that the price is going to go up in general for everyone. One of the options being brought up by our government (in a way that a lot of poo poo 'options' were brought up in before being implemented) is a loan from the IMF, in exchange for them getting to decide how our national power infrastructure is run. For ideas on what happens when IMF makes deals like that with countries in the Balkans, you are free to look at what happened in Greece. The recent media storm about Kosovo fits this in nicely with the cycle of europe/nato making GBS threads on us out of nowhere, followed by our government puffing up as the world's greatest patriots who'd never do what the eu tells them, followed by some sort of loud deescalation broadcasted everywhere, and a quiet surrender of yet another part of our economy that never gets mentioned outside of the country and is heavily downplayed within it. Especially when I consider how laser-focused the EU was on loving with our energy sector ever since the war in Ukraine begun. poo poo's gonna get ugly this winter. Very ugly. And if the IMF deal goes through, it's gonna stay ugly.
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Sep 1, 2022 19:38
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lollontee posted:when is serbia getting elections, and what's it looking like? Didn't see your post until now. We had them this year. It looks the same as before them. Some laws were changed to make sure nobody new gets their foot in the door, but that's about it.
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Sep 3, 2022 18:41
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My country is probably going to extradite a Turkish communist over to a guaranteed unfortunate accidenting back in his home country. He's been hunger striking in prison for a very long time, and I'm starting to suspect he might not survive either way.
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Sep 13, 2022 15:42
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There is something darkly hilarious about our lesbian prime minister going on a tirade about how the LGBT community needs to be stopped from infringing on our society's traditional and religious values.
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Sep 15, 2022 03:17
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I am currently in a crappy hostel in Berlin and will be there for a few weeks so I'm not up to date on things. My default response to this kind of stuff is "crisis fluffing". For any real poo poo, we don't get to decide if poo poo will escalate, it will be escalated the moment you guys need it for something, and not one second sooner. When that is, I have no loving idea. Last time it was actually critical in a way that involved our initiative was not broadcasted in the news in any way, and it was US agencies during the Trump admin trying to convince some very high ranking officers over here that Serbia should totally send in the troops and that USA will totally twiddle its thumbs and do nothing. NATO had been fishing for a nice European war for quite a while before the shitshow in Ukraine. (that time, there may or may not have been a friendly letter by another government with a picture of "you should totally move into Kuwait, Saddam, we'll support you" by US diplomats on one side and a picture of Saddam hanging on the other side)
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Nov 6, 2022 16:05
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To give some more context for the incident I mentioned, our government gave a bunch of money to the Clinton foundation during the elections that Trump eventually won, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair also came here and held a bunch of expensive "talks" paid by Serbian tax money, and then after Trump won there was a fun period of time where the Trump admin was taking revenge on us for supporting the losing side, AND the hawkish anti-Trump dems were also trying to gently caress us over because we're the wrong kind of Slavs and Russiagate was a thing. e: Seeing that one coming if Trump wins was why I wasn't very fond of his win despite a gutteral loathing of the Clintons. my dad has issued a correction as of 21:50 on Nov 6, 2022 |
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Nov 6, 2022 21:47
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Near the entrances of three different S-Bahn stations in Berlin, I ran into a dude (different dude each time) who was drunkenly shouting "I will kill all Ukrainian motherfuck" in English with a vaguely Russian accent. Exact same phrase. One and two it was like "yup, drunk Russian dude" but number three made me scratch my head a bit. One S-Bahn ride included an old man shouting about Abraham and God and making masturbatory motions towards a bunch of schoolchildren. Almost nobody wears masks outside of like 40% people in trains and Chinese? people most of the time. Cleaning staff in some places look 1) flat loving terrified and 2) don't speak German (i mean neither do i outside of guten tag etc but i don't live there). Berlin sure is a garden.
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Nov 11, 2022 13:39
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:were they singing this to the tune of Berserker? lol It had some vague tune to it, but nothing I recognized.
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Nov 11, 2022 14:35
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 late edit: a friend who does art commissions for a living reacted to this with "what people expect when i tell them i do art commissions" my dad has issued a correction as of 15:49 on Nov 13, 2022 |
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Nov 13, 2022 14:27
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I would highly enjoy never having to see another BILD ad in my life, jesus loving christ german youtube
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Nov 15, 2022 23:55
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Gotta say, I expected colder weather in Berlin. People kept warning me "it's cold up north" but so far tracksuit bottom + tshirt + leather vest seems to be more than warm enough for spending several hours outdoors.
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Nov 16, 2022 12:31
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A yank coach tried to get in my pants, although he took "I don't swing that way" well enough and wasn't creepy so we ended up chatting a lot. Apparently dude has a husband AND a girlfriend, so, uh, props for successfully managing that.
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Nov 17, 2022 13:29
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I'm back home and I'll be resting and stuff for a while before I'm back to posting, but just wanted to add that apparently ~2 days ago my government signed a "border security treaty" with Austria and Hungary, which is exactly what you think it'd be.
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Nov 18, 2022 21:19
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Doktor Avalanche posted:aren't you serbian, what border agreement can there be with austria since you don't share a border Come on, dude, think a bit. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/serbia-hungary-austria-agree-bolster-fight-against-illegal-migrations-2022-11-16/ e: tl;dr: We're starting to have joint police patrols on Macedonia's border, and are ending our visa free travel arrangements with a bunch of countries, up to and including India. Cuba is mentioned by name a lot. In "exchange", we allow Austria and Hungary to do what they needed a world war to try to achieve last time, having a sizeable police force in Serbia's teritorry enforcing the international politics of their super-national entity and they pay us a tiny bit of pocket money and we hasten the exile of a bunch of refugees stuck here. Why am I supposed to give a crap about China's half-dozen tourist herders here again? Horrors of having a foreign police force acting here? Huh... e2: for the 'serbia strong' minded: the countries that we are ending our visa free travel with happen to mostly be countries that never recognized Kosovo's independence my dad has issued a correction as of 10:30 on Nov 19, 2022 |
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Nov 19, 2022 10:22
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Apologies for not finishing my trip report yet, life's being really weird lately, and also I'm laughing too hard whenever I think of Germany because god loving damnit this poo poo is the gooniest loving conspiracy possible.
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Dec 8, 2022 16:46
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PERPETUAL IDIOT posted:Isn't / wasn't there a small disputed island somewhere on a river border between Croatia and Serbia that a bunch of Serb libertarians tried to take over and make into a free market paradise? They weren't Serbian, but yeah, that happened. The island is also... reversely disputed, so to speak. As in nobody wants it. Serbia and Croatia both say that it belongs to the other one, although Croatia is the one to usually send in the military to mop up anyone who tries to go for a third option.
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Dec 8, 2022 17:11
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Habsburg families sometimes had Grenzer bodyguards, and based on generationally passed down gossip, I have my suspicions on why certain branches seem less inbred than others. Which reminds me, sorry about that time an exiled Serbian king hosed Winston Churchill's mom, that one went real poorly for everyone I'd say.
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Dec 8, 2022 18:23
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Megamissen posted:why is that? is it similar to the situation between egypt and sudan? I have no idea what the situation between Egypt and Sudan is. The old Yugoslav border was drawn based on where the Danube was flowing, and it has since changed course. There's a minor dispute over whether the old or the new course of the Danube should be the border and the tl;dr of it is that neither side wants the interpretation that ends up with them getting that island, since they'd lose a lot more. De facto, it's Croatian since they're the ones policing it, just like Serbia is policing the other disputed stuff. Danube isn't a creek, it's a wide-rear end fully navigable river, second biggest in Europe, and the practicalities ended up siding with Serbia's interpretations, even if it's going to be a 'dispute' pretty much forever. my dad has issued a correction as of 23:30 on Dec 8, 2022 |
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Dec 8, 2022 23:28
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Wait, Churchill was Serbian? I'm roughly 85% sure he's not. The timeline of when she was having that (particular) affair don't quite match up, and Churchill's mom really got around throughout that whole period. The Serbian king in question, Milan Obrenović, was a spectacular fuckup of a man, but with an almost supernatural ability to survive assassination attempts. (the most infamous one probably being the outhouse sabotage one, which he only survived because someone heard his panicking gunshots from the bottom of the poo poo pit, which {un}fortunately didn't have the right gas mix to either suffocate him or explode) That man was eventually literally being paid by the Serbian government to do whatever the gently caress he wanted abroad just to make sure he stayed the gently caress away from the country.
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Dec 9, 2022 02:06
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Maximo Roboto posted:Speaking of which, this is what happens if Stalin actually got him No.
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Dec 9, 2022 04:01
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Whatever else I might think of the shambling corpse that is nordic social democracyWeka posted:Maoism - third worldism, the objectively correct position No.
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Dec 15, 2022 22:53
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Is the journal by any chance part of the Anti-Deutsche movement? Because that would explain a lot.
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May 25, 2023 13:13
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3D Megadoodoo posted:never claimed to be Balkan. A Buttery Pastry is making fun of the time I mentioned that there was a time period during which a bunch of really weird extremely online Finns (and sometimes yanks) loved roleplaying Balkans nationalists online. The ones I've heard people over here bring up a few times were on Total War and Paradox forums, but I've encountered a few out in the wilds. It wasn't organized as fair as I know, it was just a weird, bizzarre thing that was happening at one point that I do not in any way understand other than "it happened" and "it might have had something to do with Ylilauta". Like, why Finland of all places? This, of course, evolved into "all Balkans nationalists are secretly Finns roleplaying" because goons.
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Jun 30, 2023 19:22
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hey, balkans eu goons, you guys ok? the storm was weaker when it moved on over here, but it was still strong enough to do poo poo like this in my hometown.
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Jul 20, 2023 12:48
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huh, and here i was thinking that the antigravity satelite weirdos were a more local thing here
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Jul 20, 2023 13:14
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Truga posted:14cm hailstones gently caress
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Jul 20, 2023 13:31
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 the gently caress is this poo poo
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Dec 6, 2023 01:16
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Nah. I mean, they've got guys on standby no matter what is happening here, but this ain't it. Opposition lost an election (again) because they're liberal morons who can't even be a lesser evil compared to Vučić and are throwing a tantrum over it. НАТО нас јебе, Вучић држи свећу, опозиција хоће да и они могу мало да држе.
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Dec 25, 2023 23:18
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Weka posted:What's your take on allegations of electoral irregularities including ballot stuffing? tl;dr: There are plentiful irregularities, I wouldn't be surprised there was outright ballot stuffing, but it didn't really make a major difference. The funniest result of the election so far is a local bussinessman who used to argue for the seccession of Vojvodina from Serbia (I'm among the undesirable 'newcomers' from communist families that moved in after WW2 whom they considered to be polluting the province and wanted to get rid of) continuing his series of political rebrandings (some including pro-USA monarchists) to run as the head of the Russian Party, and actually getting a seat under minority party regulations. Except most of his voters are the exact same people who used to vote for him and most Russians here have no loving idea who that guy even is. 
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Dec 27, 2023 22:51
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As a sidenote on my personal stance regarding the election: My brother happens to have a very similar name to some bigshot at his workplace who signed some joint statement in support of Vučić. My brother can't loving stand Vučić, and had nothing whatsoever to do with this, but that didn't stop the hatemail he started receiving from the big opposition coalition supporters after that. Or the phonecalls. Or the... other stuff.
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Dec 27, 2023 23:41
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I'm still not sure how to feel about one of my fellow Dominions 6 playtesters being a guy who used to commission chibi art from Ben Garrison
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Dec 28, 2023 00:02
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So, because a former coworker of a friend did something really loving stupid cuz he forgot that online stuff is still real, and is now in prison: Please do not call for the assassination of the president of the country you live in publicly online. It won't produce any results, and will get you in deep poo poo without achieving anything. e: A certain kind of liberals are obssessed with Vučić because they like the liberal order he's preserving in principle, but don't like that they aren't the ones on top my dad has issued a correction as of 20:06 on Jan 23, 2024 |
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Jan 23, 2024 19:50
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copy pasting a short summary I posted elsewhere: tl;dr: of Serbian politics is that Vučić is a piece of poo poo who is renting us out to the West on the cheap, and his biggest liberal opponents are people who generally like the whole arrangement except for the part where he's on top and they aren't - and so there's this hyper focus on the persona of Vučić instead of... anything he's actually doing. And they have a history of selling us out even faster than he does when they get their hands on the levers. I hope the guy gets released after the media shitstorm is over, he's just a harmless idiot. We're in some deep poo poo as a country, and the West is basically slowly digesting us as we dismantle the remaining national ownership laws from the socialist days, piss away our ties to NAM countries one by one, and burning bridges with Palestine to suck up to Israel more.
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Jan 23, 2024 20:41
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We are single-handedly keeping up the Russian economy. Why, we launch invisible rockets (like Hamas! Because we're evil!) full of mystery tank assembly kits directly towards specially established Russian dropzones, and to be extra evil, we launch them from silos positioned right next to NATO's Platinum Wolf crew doing military exercises here.
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Feb 13, 2024 12:28
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Jokes aside, the EU is already sanctioning our oil industry, not sure what this "for the first time" crap is.
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Feb 13, 2024 12:38
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Not sure which thread this would be relevant in, but it looks like there were Serbian casualties in the terrorist attack in Russia, too, a 6 year old child and both parents.
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Mar 24, 2024 16:31
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Oh, look, my opinion of Germany from the weeks I spent in Berlin is entirely justified.
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Apr 13, 2024 19:11
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