Heat signature

There was an article in today’s newspaper by a writer on how it is easy to write about nothing in summer.

I didn’t bother reading it but still I feel I must register my respectful disapproval. And I think that the last couple of days of postings on this blog will answer why.

Quote for the day

"Republicans claim the credit for everything good that happens, such as last year's anti-Syria protests in Lebanon, while Democrats claim the credit for everything bad, like the coup in Venezuela. The idea that the Lebanese and the Venezuelans might have had anything to do with it doesn’t compute." --- Harry Hutton.

Dispatches from a brain-dead country

What I am about to undertake in this post, which by the way could very well evolve into continuing series, is something the Slovak nationalists tend to describe as "shitting in one’s own nest". Another slightly less provocative turn of the phrase calls it "constructive criticism". Whatever, I am really not partial to neither of the phrases mentioned above. What I propose is just naming facts in plain manner, facts which whether you look at them "in" or "outside" of their context are still pretty embarrassing.

- The government is still in a state of formation, recently the coalition partners (now they are mostly concerned with governmental "programme", i.e. what they intend to do to, pardon, for us) sat down to decide the names of departmental secretaries, who should aid ministers and be their deputies but essentially are mostly meant as a precaution so that coalition partners could watch what the other ones are up to (I think it was Vladimír Mečiar who came up with the degree scale for the word enemy: "enemy, worst enemy, coalition partner".) Anyway, one proposed state secretary for the department of environment has been accused in the past of illegal smuggling import of endangered species of parrots and only his MP immunity stopped proper trial. So there.

- In an empty gesture to his voters the government of Robert Fico is hell-bent on "pulling the troops", a feat which is so 2005. Anyway, our 100 contingent of engineers deployed for de-mining and ammunition destroying operations have done enough "clowning around" to use Ján Slota’s memorable words and are to be brought back home, although not immediately, as Fico promised before the elections, but under a reasonable time-table. So there.

- The Slovak Security Office (NBÚ) responsible for security issues involving state secrets and even issues concerning our NATO allies, doing back-up checks on people at the top, whether they aren’t a potential security risk and so on, has been hacked recently. Twice! (at least.) First in April and then again this July. Fist hackers copied internal emails from the NBÚ server then later this month they reportedly used the same unfixed (!) hole in security to shut down the office’s server completely (!). This was in reaction to the fact that police confiscated a server allegedly linked to the hacker community. Instead of concentrating on the security hole to patch it up and firing the incompetents the powers that be are more concerned with shooting the messenger. So there.

I could and probably should go on, but I am getting embarrassed now.

Quote for the day

"I ended with modern drama the moment when at a play by Elfriede Jelinek used condoms started flying at me." --- Dušan Mikušovič (link in Slovak)

"Duh!" Of the Day

Here Theodore Dalrymple, contemplating the reactions to Zinedine Zidane’s infamous “chesting” of his Italian opponent, seems surprised, nay shocked, that footballers and especially football fans are, in essence, nasty, brutish and short:

Not much here about sportsmanship, let alone the need for self-control. Indeed, it conjures up an image of a Hobbesian, pre-social world, in which only a swift resort to violence can preserve a person’s honor, dignity, and self-respect. It seems that material progress does not necessarily entail subtle moral understanding.

Well, Duh! It’s football goddammit, what did he expect?

Dog Days Fiat

Displaying that old arrogant Bolshevik mentality which was best summarised by the mock-motto applied to the old Czechoslovak communists: “We command the winds and rain!” Robert Fico and his revolutionary vanguard of the fat rich Slovak proletariat government are concerned with Slovak "energy security" as well as oil prices and so have issued threats to the oil industry:

Petrol is also of pressing concern, the prime minister said, adding that his government had begun "extraordinarily intensive dialogue" with Slovakian crude oil refiner Slovnaft.

"There are three options," Fico said. "The first one is to cut consumer taxes. This option is equally valid as the other two options.

"The second option is that an agreement is concluded between Slovnaft and the Slovak government because with rising prices of oil Slovnaft's profit increases, too, which is unacceptable to us.

"The third option is: The state will, in an authoritative way, make certain decisions -- to which it is entitled -- in the sphere of prices or some other regulation processes defined in some laws."

That’s right kids, he really said the R-word. Our new Bolshevik-in-chief wants to command the oil prices. It would seem that the tropical weather has circumvented the plush air-conditioned governmental offices and finally got to him. Thank god that in his heat-stricken condition Fico hasn’t issued any threats to regulate the weather; now that would be embarrassing!

Trifles

It has come to my attention that a blog requires certain amount of new content from time to time. So here then is some "content":

- Kant had nothing on this guy. Want a proof of God’s existence? Take a look at a banana.

- Behold! Severed horse heads for sale!

- London Olympic line-up. I’d actually watch that. In fact I might even be a contender in some of those disciplines. Especially the "Self-Deprecation" discipline. I am not very good at self-depreciation. (That previous sentence would probably win me a bronze medal.)

- I meant to link to this a long time ago: Stephenesque's History of the Movies Cinema: The Early Years. Brilliant, like most of the stuff over there.

- Oh, humanity! What a perfect pun! I couldn’t stop laughing. But later I did anyway. (Via Odious and Peculiar)

There. I hope you are content with that content. I know I’m not. Brace yourself; there will be even less content soon to follow.

Importance of keeping a cool mind

Hot damn! This article in wikipedia has it all wrong, since the climate here has been anything but temperate. I shouldn’t complain, cold winters and hot summers are normal around here, but still, from one extreme to another, that can really be hardly described with the aforementioned t-word. And today I learned just how dangerous hot weather can be to one’s mental faculties.

My first mistake was to go on a stroll in the city; it was so ... well for lack of a better word, hot! Anyway, to escape the malicious sun I entered a bookshop and there I inadvertently purchased a copy of Derrida’s Of Grammatology. I mean, can you believe that!? Whatever possessed me? Yet another sign of my declining mental health. I know I will never read it, not because I wouldn’t want to but simply because it is unreadable (as brief perusal at home attested; and indeed it should have more aptly been named Of Graphomaniology), but still I bought it. And it wasn’t exactly cheap either. The hot weather really taxed my strengths and mental capacities. You drop your guard for one minute and a thing like that happens. Man this hot weather is killing me, my bookshelf and my wallet.

Burma!

Sorry about the post title, I panicked. Couldn’t think of anything better.

Anyway, I typed in this blog’s address into my distrusted web browser today to see what’s new. I have been surprised and even slightly embarrassed to see that nothing is new. Indeed, there were no new posts, since I have omitted to write any. Sorry for the inconvenience folks, it’s just that in the last couple of days I have been so frantically not busy that I really didn’t give a crap. And in the most scatologically possible sense I still don’t.

Tomorrow I will have to go and endure the graduation ceremony (pfui!), or what do you call it, where men in funny robes and ridiculous hats will finally toss my diploma at me and put that unfortunate academic affair behind me. And since mass ceremonies of such kind cause irreparable psychological damage to my frail mental constitution you shouldn’t really expect to see any new posts in the foreseeable future as well.

Questions

Showing once again why it’s one of the best blogs around Marginal Revolution, or Tyler Cowan to be exact, asks, among others, this poignant question:

Would a modern teenage Thomas Jefferson have a crush on Veronica Mars?

Seriously, who wouldn’t!?

Eternal recurrence

Please excuse my prolonged absence, seeing the political situation developing, I, just like that coward Zarathustra, took to the hills, metaphorically of course, where much pondering was done. I would have enjoyed my spirit and solitude but then I got famished, and grew tired of it all, ... anyway to make this intro even more convoluted and more laden with obscure references to some spirochete induced ramblings of a 19th century poofter I became weary of my anger, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I would fain bestow and distribute this rancour.

Ahem.

Behold onlookers; I give you the Ubercunts, the government of Supercunts. Mere cunts are but a thing of the past, surpassed.

Indeed, not even the Party of European Socialist could stand it:

Following his meeting with Robert Fico, Leader of the Slovak SMER Party, the President of the Party of European Socialists Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said "It is very clear that we cannot accept in our political family a coalition with extreme right-wing nationalists".

"The question of SMER membership of the Party of European Socialists will be on the agenda of the next meeting of the PES Presidency" said Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. "As long as SNS is in Government in Slovakia my recommendation would be to suspend SMER from the PES."

Anyway, they raised their collective eyebrow and even their voice, but it remains to be seen whether they will raise hell for Fico.

But I must say I was most likely wrong back when I stated that Robert Fico is facing a dilemma, au contraire, in retrospect he showed hardly any wavering or qualms, without much ado and in record breaking time he formed a coalition most suitable to his mindset. A government of national socialists.

But Fico chose a coalition that is more of a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting. What is wicked in this coalition is that it is a goal and not a bridge: what is despicable in this coalition is that it is an over-going and a down-going. Robert Fico, the rope-dancer, has commenced his performance. And it will only take one of his two fellow buffoon coalition partners to spring out, and jump about rapidly to bring about his downfall.

I already can’t wait.