What's in the news?

[Scribbles]

TheGlyphstone,

He actually picked up his own order, not his victim's, this doesn't make it any less horrific though...

[Beorning]

Yeah, it's just... shocking.

As for the bloodsucking game controller - huh? Now I thought I've seen everything...

In another news, during today's session of Polish parliament, the leader of Law and Justice openly accused the ruling Civic Platform of having fixed the elections... *headdesks*

I'm so sick of Kaczynski's use of slander and scare tactics to mobilize support for his party! I thought L&J couldn't stoop lower than their active promotion of kooky conspiracy theories about 2010's presidential plane crash having been a political assassination... but this? Kaczynski directly accuses the government of manipulating elections and actually asks international institutions for help??? My God. Can't he see that he's harming our country's international standing with doing things like that???

[Zakharra]

Yeah, it's just... shocking.

As for the bloodsucking game controller - huh? Now I thought I've seen everything...

In another news, during today's session of Polish parliament, the leader of Law and Justice openly accused the ruling Civic Platform of having fixed the elections... *headdesks*

I'm so sick of Kaczynski's use of slander and scare tactics to mobilize support for his party! I thought L&J couldn't stoop lower than their active promotion of kooky conspiracy theories about 2010's presidential plane crash having been a political assassination... but this? Kaczynski directly accuses the government of manipulating elections and actually asks international institutions for help??? My God. Can't he see that he's harming our country's international standing with doing things like that???

Maybe they should change their party name to Lies and Jokes.

[Beorning]

Lies are certainly one of the main methods used by that party.

For years, Kaczynski has been saying things in the vein of "I know something absolutely horrible about [enter person or party], but I'm not allowed to divulge the details". He and his party also are really fond of labeling other people as traitors (Kaczynski once went as far as suggesting that *the whole city of Gdańsk* has suspect loyalties - because it was once a German city, you know..). After the 2010 plane disaster, L&J created their own commission to investigate the crash - which proceeded to promote "proofs" that the plane has been shot down / exploded with a bomb etc. All to gather more support and without consideration of the longterm effects of feeding the society this kind of propaganda.

Now - this: the supposed vote fixing. I can see L&J pushing this lies for the coming months, if not years... using it to brainwash even more naive people. And the worst part? Kaczynski brought this whole ruckus to the outside world... again, with no regard as to how it makes Poland look. He always says that he wants Poland to be respected more... so, will *this* win us respect? Spreading the claims that we're an undemocratic country where the elections are being fixed???

*groans*

[TheGlyphstone]

TheGlyphstone,

He actually picked up his own order, not his victim's, this doesn't make it any less horrific though...

Huh, I misread the article then. Okay...still horrific though, but not as inhuman as I thought.

[Oniya]

Most fast-food places won't take orders from 'walk-ups' for exactly this reason.  Too easy for someone in a car to come barreling on through and have a collision.

[Kythia]

Veena Malik has been sentenced to 26 years for blasphemy for being in a show about Mohammed's daughter's marriage. 

Not clear how binding the ruling is, though, as it was given in IOK so not recognised in Pakistan.  Still pretty fucked up though.

[Zakharra]

  It's crap like that, that helps give Islam a bad name.  >_<

[gaggedLouise]

Police authorities in India who have looked into the case this summer where two "casteless" village girls disappeared and were later found hanging in a tree say they were not killed, nor sexually assaulted but hanged themselves in sorrow over the disapproval of their families about their friendship with somebody else in the village. Hmmm...I remain sceptical.

- An earlier post mortem had found clear traces of invasion of their genitals (DNA, fluids).

- Lie detectors (used by this new team to disprove the eyewitness statements of a relative) are not exactly failsafe.

- The tree they were found hanging from is clearly a big one, and in the grim video clip embedded into the article - images many of us had seen before - it doesn't look like there was any chance they could have got up that high and hanged themselves, unless they had some kind of supports to climb on (like the familiar chair kicked away by a suicidant). Now I'm fairly sure they didn't bring chairs or crates to that place in the open, also sure that any such large objects wouldn't have been removed by the first people who got there...Apparently the girls had died during the night hours, which makes it even harder to see that they would have deliberately hanged themselves (it's a hard thing to pull off if there's no light, especially to a kid I figure). It really smacks of a dodgy cover-up.   :-X

[Ephiral]

- Lie detectors (used by this new team to disprove the eyewitness statements of a relative) are not exactly failsafe.

They're actually pretty terrible, with a 40% false positive and 15% false negative rate.

[gaggedLouise]

Yep, and with a bit of somewhat intimidating behaviour from the cops vs the witness, you'd probably get still worse results.  >:(

[Beorning]

Back here, it's more political ruckus about the supposedly-fixed elections (<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21634934-law-and-justice-partys-latest-conspiracy-theory-challenges-polish-democracy-itself-overturning">here's The Economist's article about the matter</a>). At the same time, the second round of elections will be taking place on Sunday, so there's some talk about it, too.

When it comes to non-political matters, we lost a legendary actor today, as Stanisław Mikulski passed away at the age of 85. Mikulski is best known for playing Hans Kloss in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Kloss_%28fictional_character%29">Stawka większa niż życie</a> (More Than Life At Stake) TV series. The series was made in 1960s and it remains extremely popular, as it was simply... damned good. It was a spy story set during WW2 and chronicled the adventures of a Polish agent operating undercover as a German military intelligence officer. It was well-written (with some brilliant dialogues that ingrained themselves in Polish pop culture), well-acted (both by Mikulski and other actors, especially Emil Karewicz, who played the show's recurring villain, Herman Brunner) and it's still very watchable today. The character of Kloss became quite iconic and is to us Poles what, say, Superman is to Americans...

[jouzinka]

Czech Republic

One of the best / most popular composers of the last few decades - Petr Hapka - passed away yesterday at the age of 70. The papers are all over it, summarizing his long list of hits and the other people from the biz he worked with are getting space to mention memories of the cooperation.

Here's an excerpt from The Maiden and the Monster - a movie to which he composed music entirely and added a completely new eerie element to Juraj Herz's masterpiece. My fav, probably.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0_TACcG_fk

Prague has a new Mayor - it's a woman, for the first time in history.
Aftermaths of (President) Zeman's on-air excess (using foul language).
Ferguson, obviously.
Police shooting a 12 years old boy with airsoft gun in Cleveland, US.

[Beorning]

Now I'm curious: what is The Maiden And The Monster about? I haven't heard of that movie.

Also, could you tell me more about Zeman's situation? We didn't get these news here.

What we did get, is the news of that kid being shot because of brandishing a toy gun  :-( Horrible...

[jouzinka]

Now I'm curious: what is The Maiden And The Monster about? I haven't heard of that movie.

It's a "fairytale" (sorry, it's a full fledged, super-eerie horror), based on Beauty and the Beast. It was made in 1978 and directed by Juraj Herz. He was prosecuted by the communist government then and wasn't allowed to direct, but he was allowed to make this one children's story. It's very very very dark, but visually stunning, even though there isn't one CGI trick save for at the very end. All very hands-on, honest, thorough craftsmanship - from the stage, costumes, screenplay to acting and directing - just plain filmmaking. I'm gushing, I know, but it's one of my favorites. Scary as hell, but B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.

It's *cough* on youtube *coughcough* with (dreadful) subtitles. *cough* But at least you'll get the gist.

Also, could you tell me more about Zeman's situation? We didn't get these news here.

Well, recently in a traditional radio interview he bashed the Russian group Pussy Riot and used quite a few... nasty words (cunt, shit, whore... etc). Presumably it was a ruse to give the papers something jucier to talk about after his clusterfuck in China where he let it be heard that he wasn't there to lecture them on human rights and then got back to Czech Republic with a private jet of PPF (private investment group). Add to this his older excesses (as in, being blind-drunk when coronation jewels were presented etc) and people are demanding his resignation (finding out that people can very well elect a president, but they can't depose him as easily). There was a demonstration called "Show the president the red card," which was attended by thousands on November 17th (on 25 years anniversary since Velvet Revolution - the fall of communism), but, as always, nothing came out of it.

It was remixed (it's funny, too bad, you probably can't understand it... :-( ) http://www.mixcloud.com/filip-titlbach/milo%C5%A1-zeman-kundy-z-l%C3%A1n-rmx/

ALSO! The twerking scandal
During the Miss of University of Economics the girls were asked (as part of the competition) to undergo a crash-course lesson of twerk on stage. In bikini.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej21SuOTM_I

[Beorning]

It's a "fairytale" (sorry, it's a full fledged, super-eerie horror), based on Beauty and the Beast. It was made in 1978 and directed by Juraj Herz. He was prosecuted by the communist government then and wasn't allowed to direct, but he was allowed to make this one children's story. It's very very very dark, but visually stunning, even though there isn't one CGI trick save for at the very end. All very hands-on, honest, thorough craftsmanship - from the stage, costumes, screenplay to acting and directing - just plain filmmaking. I'm gushing, I know, but it's one of my favorites. Scary as hell, but B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.

Interesting! Thank you for the info, I wonder if this movie is available around here...

Well, recently in a traditional radio interview he bashed the Russian group Pussy Riot and used quite a few... nasty words (cunt, shit, whore... etc).

... Sounds nasty. You say he said these things on record? Wow.

ALSO! The twerking scandal
During the Miss of University of Economics the girls were asked (as part of the competition) to undergo a crash-course lesson of twerk on stage. In bikini.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej21SuOTM_I

*facepalms*

[jouzinka]

Interesting! Thank you for the info, I wonder if this movie is available around here...

Panna a Netvor in original. Other than the youtube link I shared, I don't know if you can order it as DVD somewhere somehow.  ??? Somehow I would have thought it could have been rather famous behind the Iron Curtain, but there really isn't a way to tell... guess since Herz was not popular with the government they weren't particularly interested in getting his work abroad.

... Sounds nasty. You say he said these things on record? Wow.

He said them on air at noon on Sunday (I believe). Way to go...

[Beorning]

Panna a Netvor in original. Other than the youtube link I shared, I don't know if you can order it as DVD somewhere somehow.  ??? Somehow I would have thought it could have been rather famous behind the Iron Curtain, but there really isn't a way to tell... guess since Herz was not popular with the government they weren't particularly interested in getting his work abroad.

Maybe I just missed when it aired on TV, or something :) And I'm not certainly not a movie afficionado...

I'll look for it. It looks quite interesting.

He said them on air at noon on Sunday (I believe). Way to go...

Uh. That certainly beats our current president making on-record comments about female soldiers in one country he was visiting being ugly...

[Lustful Bride]

Apparently everything that is going on over here in the US is most troubling to the high and mighty UN.


http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-shootings-by-police-prison-conditions-trouble-un/ar-BBg6VEw?ocid=HPCDHP


Don't they have bigger fish to fry?  I am pretty sure Mexico's (no offense to any mexicans) police and prison system could use more help than ours. Are these incidents really so bad that the UN has to add its commentary? Shouldn't the UN be doing something better like working to thwart ISIS?

-Im not denying that there are some ugly stuff happening but the way the UN says it, it almost makes it look like we have a gestapo going around instead of incidents that get out of hand and turn very ugly quickly. Its just that I'm pretty sure there are more horrible things going on for them to talk about. IE: Boko Haram, the mass of civilian killings being perpetrated by ISIS. The list goes on.

[Oniya]

I doubt that they are ignoring the other things you mentioned, but when a first world country with veto power in the UN is having problems like this (they also recently made noises about the state of things in Detroit), you have to admit it looks pretty bad.

[Lustful Bride]

I guess your kind of right.  :-\

[Deamonbane]

Brazil's penitentiary system and police force are... ridiculous, for lack of a better word...

[gaggedLouise]

Unfortunately it's not just in the US that delinquents and local gangsters are grabbing more space. The local county seat (and bggest city in the area) around my corner here in Sweden has seen a rising trend of gang violence, explosions, shootings (mostly amongst criminals themselves, but not always) and unprovoked assaults in the street or in parks and clubs at night. Around midnight last night a bomb went off, having been planted right next to the entrance of the main city court. Already before this, a week ago, a national tv channel had dubbed the same city "one of the places best stocked with illegal explosives and unregistered firearms in western and central Europe".

It's feeling less than nice when the next big city is such a potentially unsafe place.  :-(

[Beorning]

When it comes to Polish news, the second round of local elections happened yesterday.

There's a lot to talk about when it comes to the results, but most of it would be of interest to people with some knowledge on Polish politics. So, I'll only share one particular news: in the town of Słupsk, people elected Robert Biedroń as their new mayor. This is noteworthy, as Biedroń is openly gay. This makes him the first gay mayor in Poland ever...

[Caehlim]

in the town of Słupsk, people elected Robert Biedroń as their new mayor. This is noteworthy, as Biedroń is openly gay. This makes him the first gay mayor in Poland ever...

Wow, that's really cool.

Well, at least the first openly gay mayor. There have probably been a few who just kept in secret.