Posts by Bobko - page 19

Bobko

12 May 2025

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

Instead of teaching Germany's schoolchildren about the country's world-renowned philosophers, musicians and inventors, of which he suggested Germany had more than any other people, German history was being made "lousy and ridiculous"

Where's the indictable hate speech here? Where is the xenophobia?

If you think this is a problematic statement, then you Germans really are sick.

Germany is a Great (with a capital "G") country. Forget about musicians and inventors - just focus on the philosophers. Schopenhauer, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Marx. That's just the 19th century, but it's already like 60% of everything that actually moved the needle. That is, without Germans - we could not even think properly about our place in the universe.

Russia has a much less impressive intellectual history, and still it carries around its philosophers on its shoulders - jamming them down anyone's throat who is foolish enough to listen.

Bobko

12 May 2025

Off-Topic / 75 Years of Israel and the War - part 3 [497]

trying?

If Trump will be the first American president to crawl out from under the Israeli thumb - I will forgive him everything.

Bobko

12 May 2025

Off-Topic / 75 Years of Israel and the War - part 3 [497]

Another little news report that may shed light on why Trump and Israel are going through a divorce:

tbsnews.net/world/trump-cuts-ties-netanyahu-over-manipulation-concerns-israeli-media-1139061?amp

Some additional back story on why Trump doesn't want to see Netanyahu anymore, and why he is convinced that Netanyahu is trying to manipulate him.

Bobko

12 May 2025

Off-Topic / 75 Years of Israel and the War - part 3 [497]

One reason why I can appreciate Trump - is the way he has dumped Israel in his second term.

After his first term, where he moved the embassy to Jerusalem, closed his eyes to settlement annexations, and made his Jewish son-in-law the point man for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process... I thought it could only get worse.

The Israelis were so happy, that already in November they began discussing annexing the entire occupied West Bank - and were rubbing their hands at the idea of a potential military operation against Iran.

So... how surprising is it then, that we are now witnessing a collapse of Israeli-American relations? Very surprising!

Point by point:

1) Israel, playing the good lap dog, preemptively lowered tariffs on all US goods to zero. The Trump administration looked at this, and decided to slap a 17% tariff on Israel anyway. Massive confusion ensues in Israel.

2) America negotiates directly with Hamas for the release of the last remaining American hostage. Hamas lets him go. No word on Israeli hostages that remain.

3) America negotiates directly with the Houthis, and arrives at a ceasefire agreement. The ceasefire does not include attacks on Israel, but only on US shipping. The Houthis are free to continue hitting Israel.

4) Trump's first overseas trip (besides Pope funeral), is to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE. Israel tries to convince Trump to visit, first through a visit by Netanyahu himself and then by a follow up visit by Ron Dermer. In the end, Trump refuses to go to Israel because "it will look bad with the Arabs".

What a refreshing change of pace. The WaPo article below quotes some people familiar with Trump's thinking. They say there are three reasons for what's happening:

1) Trump feels Netanyahu was trying to manipulate him into a war against Iran. Nobody manipulates Trump.

2) Trump feels that the $4B in annual aid to Israel is "help enough".

3) Core MAGA is anti-Israel, because of their isolationist views, and the belief that Israel is the tail that has been wagging the dog.

Seems Netanyahu didn't get the America First memo - hahaha. What part of America First did you misunderstand, Bibi?

IMG_6595.jpeg

Bobko

8 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

because your manipulations blow my mind:

Good afternoon to you as well, Madame!

morphine

I didn't talk about morphine, but poppy infusions (tea) and poppy concentrate. As mentioned - I heard it from my grandma, and it makes sense - pharmacologically. Morphine is many times stronger than just preparing some tea, and heroin is stronger still than morphine.

Same with cocaine - which not an opioid at all, so I'm not clear on what your point is. It's a stimulant and topical anesthetic. People prepare tea with coca leaves, in the Andes - and it's certainly not viewed there as a dangerous and illegal narcotic.

By the way - thanks to the US and Poles included - the Taliban was toppled in 2001. Previously they had managed to bring Afghan poppy production to zero, but thanks to the new occupiers poppy production was renewed and skyrocketed. The main traffic route lay through Afghanistan-Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan-Russia-EU. Two million people in Russia became addicted to heroin, the largest number in the world at the time. Thank you NATO!

Bobko

7 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

@Novichok

You are an engineer, and I am a humanitarian. We have entirely different understandings of mathematics.

Bobko

7 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

There is time for fun and time for seriousness.

It's a serious subject for sure. I think a "canary in the mine".

When people talk about fertility dropping, and addictions rising... they usually look at surface level solutions.

You, me, Torq, Novi, Iron and others know the decay is much deeper.

People don't want to make babies because they have lost the will to live. Some paradise - this capitalism is.

Bobko

7 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

Try physics or mathematics.

This is worse than drugs - are you kidding?!!

Number Theory has driven many people mad. Mersenne, Godel, Nash, Ramunajan.

I became obsessed with the problem of odd primes at some point, briefly, for a few months. I can easily see how it could consume my entire life.

Instead of dying as a junkie in some alley, I will die a maniac in some room surrounded by books - whats the difference?

Mathematics is worse than any heroin.

P.S. - For impressionable people - I do not do heroin. I do not do cocaine - as explained above - despite maybe even wanting to (but I have done it).

Bobko

7 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

Moreover, two wrongs do not make a right.

Right from what point of view?

From a theological point of view - anything that distracts from God's glory is wrong.

From my perspective - if I cannot f*ck my brains somehow, with something - I will shoot myself.

What should I do, Ptak? Go into a monastery, and spend the rest of my time in contemplation - hoping this gives my brain the f*ck it deserves?

Maybe "f*ck my brain" does not fully convey the sentiment... In Russian it is much clearer - "чем ебать мозг?" - по вашему "Jak wyruchać mój mózg?". The brain - like any other organ - demands some loving.

Bobko

7 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

Of course not, sometimes addiction is at least partly the least awful option for a traumatized person..

Where my company's plant is, in Upstate New York - there is literally nothing else to do - than to get high and forget oneself.

People make jokes here about Russians stealing toilets, and drinking themselves to death.... let me tell you - not much different in Upstate New York.

Not everybody can be a Youtube star, or Instagram influencer. Not everybody is suited to bash people's brains out in a UFC ring, or to dribble a basketball.

Some people were born to miserable pieces of trash of parents. Some people cannot understand a complex sentence, or follow a basic news report.

However, they are still human beings. In their heart, they carry the same template upon which god had imprinted my person. They dream, they love, they desire, etc.

When your life provides you with no outlet, no joy, no satisfaction - how can you refuse a little brown powder that holds the promise to erase all your worries?

Bobko

6 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

I wouldn't go so far as to defend heroin, though maybe Jon has a point about most of the lethality being resolved if there was a cheap and uninterrupted supply of legal heroin.

Switzerland and Germany are the only two countries I know of that provide pharmaceutical grade heroin to "chronic" addicts that are basically hopeless. I don't know if people started dying less there, but I think it's a no brainer. Portugal just decriminalized drugs completely, but I don't think it "supplies" them to addicts.

All the stuff you are writing about collapsing veins and rotting teeth is because these people are using dirty needles and smoking nasty aluminum pipes - not because of the heroin. The overdoses are also because people misdose, not knowing the potency of the specific batch in their possession. Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, and 100 times more than morphine.

In a hospital setting - clean drugs, sterile environment, perfectly calibrated dose... seems to resolve all the problems.

Just... not a very politically popular proposition, as I think most of the electorate is just hoping for the junkies to die sooner - not invest more money into them.

In former Soviet states, for my grandmas generation, it was totally normal for people to make poppy infusions when sick, or to give kids poppy concentrate when their teeth were cutting or they were running a fever. However, I think heroin is a lot stronger than just a simple poppy infusion.

Bobko

6 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

Also, I would spike cocaine with shlt that is undetectable and kills in hours.

Hahaha! Exactly why I do not like to put things in my nose. Never know what you gonna get.

The bottle meanwhile was bottled at a plant with government supervision, and is sealed tight.

Bobko

6 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

With cocaine... the more you do the more you want, there's no body shut off limit which is why addicts spend so much, they literally never can get enough.

In the moment, perhaps. If you started the night out with 5 bags, you will finish all 5 bags. If you started with 20 - you will finish all 20.

Kinda like cigarettes after the first couple beers. The more cigarettes you smoke, the more you want to smoke - and before you realize it the pack is gone.

Everything works against the other, because no one simple does cocaine and nothing else. You are drinking and starting to notice a slight slur, a certain dullness of the mind - despite the overall pleasant warmth. You smooth it out with some coke. But the coke gives its own edge, so you either smoke some weed or drink some more to grind off the edge. This causes a new round of drowsiness - so you do the coke again - and this way until 10 am the next day. Your Saturday is destroyed. On Sunday you are slowly returning from the world of the dead. By Monday - you are a soldier once again.

Long term they have adverse effects on the body and mind though. Even weed:

Eating a roast chicken every day will just as likely give you heart disease and kill you. Regarding weed and psychosis - existing can create psychosis.

That's totally different.

Alcohol is so terrible, that it kills you for trying to quit. I mean come on.

Bobko

6 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

one of the most addictive substances on Earth

I have no idea what they were studying there, but I wasn't talking about addictiveness per se but physical withdrawal.

As far as I know, and I could be completely wrong - alcohol is the only substance which has an almost 50% chance to kill you if you quit suddenly. That is, if you have a full blown addiction. Your whole life becomes focused around finding more alcohol - otherwise you cannot function PHYSICALLY. I never heard of people spending their entire day trying to get weed or coke.

Withdrawal from heroin may seem like a living nightmare, but there isn't much chance that your heart will simply stop.

From a medical website:

"According to a 2022 paper, the mortality rate for delirium tremens is between 5 and 15% with treatment. However, this figure is much higher if an individual does not receive medical care. Without appropriate treatment, the mortality rate is around 37% ."

Wrap your mind around that. You could already be in the hospital, with everyone busily flitting about trying to save you - and you still have a 5-15% chance of dying.

Alcohol fundamentally rewires the body - not just the brain. It teaches your stomach and other vital organs to rely on and demand completely other substances than a normal human being for normal function. When this is denied - the body shuts down. I can't emphasize enough how strong this physical need is. My friend - an alcoholic - cannot walk properly without alcohol. After a drink - he can (and often does) go to the gym for a long workout. It's literally like his medicine, and no one can tell he is drunk.

This is why quitting cold turkey is so dangerous with booze - and why doctors need to use various antipsychotics (like benzos) to keep people from going raving mad while their body tries to reset itself.

Cocaine and weed do not even come close in this ability to kill you.

Bobko

6 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

dangerous and socially destructive intoxicant is freely available

Alcohol really is much, much worse.

You have to take a LOT of coke, or smoke a lot of weed - to experience the same kind of personality degradation and health wreckage.

Also, and this is probably important, weed and coke don't give you the *****, the shakes, seizures, or vomiting - after you haven't had any for a day.

Coke and weed literally have no physical withdrawal symptoms. Ran out of money - no problem - can live without weed.

If you run out of money when you are a professional alcoholic - ho ho ho! A very interesting journey is about to begin for you.

Bobko

6 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

Are you serious...

I mean... I had the same view of cocaine when living back home. You just don't see it very much in Russia, and the public perception is very unforgiving towards it.

In America I actually got to understand better what it is. Don't get me wrong - it's a serious drug - but to me no more serious than alcohol or weed. If it is actually cocaine that you are consuming, of course.

That's the real problem with cocaine, at least in New York. How "stepped on" it is. People cut it with inert stuff like baby laxatives, powdered sugar, lactose, etc - and this is fine. Sometimes they cut it with harmless other stuff like caffeine. But on occasion, some super greedy idiots add things like fentanyl to it - to give it a "kick". Unknowing and unconditioned users take this product, and then promptly die.

The NYTimes and WSJ have been writing a lot about this in NYC. People now carry test strips to test their coke for fentanyl, lol. Dealers that sell fentanyl-laced coke are actually going to jail (of course a white college kid had to die first).

So... yeah, I don't think Coke is very bad, and the tribal people of the South American highlands would agree with me. It's just that by the time you put it in your nose in Manhattan you are putting 10,000 other chemicals there that you probably should not be taking.

Remember - cocaine used to be an ingredient of cough syrups and Coca Cola.

Damn...

Yep. My home metro station, is around the corner from a methadone clinic. These ******** go pick up some methodone, freebase it in front of hundreds of passing by tourists and children, then chase it with "actual" opioids. Some of them, like I mentioned, top it all off with a nice few toots of meth.

It's disgusting. They have oozing sores on their limbs. Children see this everyday.

Bobko

6 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

How do you know all of this?

America is a much more liberal place when it comes to drugs, than is Poland - I gather. In NYC, cocaine is omnipresent (though apparently the 80s were even worse). Weed is legal. Alcohol is obviously legal too. It's not unusual for an acquaintance who's beginning to feel a bit too tipsy, to snort some coke and go right back to being "sober". I would do it myself, if I didn't have a strong reflex against putting stuff up my nose - because it seems like an amazing workaround to being a drooling drunk at the party.

The methheads I have a good idea about, because there's simply so many of them. Their antics are on display daily. As you walk into the subway station, you can observe for yourself how they first use the syringe (opioids) and then immediately the pipe (amphetamines). Easy enough to guess that the point of this is to stay lucid for a longer part of your high rather than immediately turning into a vegetable.

The father said that it's enough for his son to drink one beer to go crazy like that.

That's one of the last stages of alcoholism.

The brain's hippocampus has shrunk. The liver is in such condition, that it can no longer metabolize alcohol properly. The brain is dopamined out, and conditioned to perfection by the "First Drink" effect.

At this point, there's not much that can save a person. Probably has only a few years left.

Bobko

6 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

What the F are you guys talking about... people fighting on fentanyl and benzos!!! This is impossible, like it is impossible for a driver with Down's Syndrome to win the Monaco Gran Prix.

I mean, I suppose it's possible if you take an already extremely aggressive individual, give him some benzos, and then start zapping him with a cattle prod for a good 15 minutes. But even then, a 12 year old child would defeat such an assailant.

Benzos and fentanyl are central nervous system depressants that are literally famous for making people lose all motor function. Besides being limp - your situational awareness is pretty much zero. Add to all this - that it takes a huge effort to inhale even a full breath of air, because your lungs refuse to cooperate with you. Great fighter!

I think you may be thinking of people that are mixing several things at once - then yes, you can get some funny combinations. Fentanyl + Meth. Alcohol + Meth. Cocaine + Heroin. Meth + Benzos. In this way, the meth keeps your reflexes tip top, while the downer dulls your pain and removes your inhibitions.

who are usually not coordinated/fast enough to do much damage

Depends on the stage of intoxication. At a certain point, even Muhammad Ali becomes helpless, but there are other stages. At earlier stages, you can still have decently snappy reflexes, but already significantly dulled pain perception and heightened aggression - a combustible mix.

If you are dealing with a professional alcoholic, you could be dealing with a real demon. If he's in the midst of what Russians call белая горячка (Delirium Tremens), he may decide that you are Beelzebub sent to take his soul - and lunge at your eye with a screwdriver. For this, he doesn't need to have drunk much at all.

In fact, with veteran alcoholics, the best time to get stabbed is when they are sober. Sometime between 8 and 11 am, or whenever the first liquor stores begin to open up.

Bobko

5 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

plus visited them due to an interest in prison reform

Very nice, Jon.

Bobko

5 May 2025

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1440]

You stop a million when you shoot 10 at the border.

Novi is right here. It's the most effective deterrent.

After the terrorist attack on a mall last year, a lot of people said bad things about Putin for broadcasting on federal channels that the attackers ears were being cut off, and that they were being hooked up to big voltage batteries.

But guess what - the FSB did such a brilliant job at this job - that the entirety of Russia's migrant community is now literally crawling out of its skin to demonstrate loyalty to the Russian state.

Cutting off ears, and electrocuting the balls seems to work - sometimes.

Bobko

5 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

@jon357

I don't know what could ever compel me to become a prison guard.

I think you have to have a very specific mental profile to want this job.

One of the worst possible jobs I could imagine.

Bobko

5 May 2025

History / PAŃSTWO - A Tale of Polish Occupation [27]

What happened - not fun anymore

It's hard man. I have to sit for 20-30 minutes writing a post. Then I look at it, and am disgusted with my writing, and infinitely embarrassed I decided to share it.

A proper few paragraphs, if I wanted you to be really impressed - should take days/weeks.

Bobko

5 May 2025

News / Attacks against healthcare workers in Poland [142]

Not long ago another prison guard shot dead his 5-year-old daughter

Something about being a prison guard...

The ring leader of the Abu Ghraib torture clique was a former corrections officer. Had multiple complaints against him by inmates, at first. Then got a restraining order from his wife, after beating her. Still had no issues re-enlisting with the Army, and then got to do his favorite job again but now in Iraq.

When you spend 8 hours a day around men caged like animals, maybe it does something to your psyche.

Bobko

2 May 2025

History / PAŃSTWO - A Tale of Polish Occupation [27]

Scene: A small village N. somewhere between Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk. The local Orthodox parish - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker - has been designated for transfer to the Roman Catholic Church under the "Ecclesiastical Realignment Agreement" brokered by PAŃSTWO's religious affairs bureau.

Father Janusz (Polish priest, mid-50s, practical, not overly ambitious) arrives to formally take possession. He finds Father Mikhail (Russian Orthodox, older, tired, kind-eyed) already waiting in the cold vestibule. The church smells of wax and mildew. A stray cat sleeps in the lectern.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Father Janusz:
You are Father Mikhail?

Father Mikhail:
Yes. You must be Father Janusz.

Father Janusz:
I am. I have the transfer papers. You have the keys?

Father Mikhail (produces them):
Such as they are. The big one sticks. We use a hammer.

Father Janusz (nodding):
That's often the way.

[They stand in silence. Neither makes a move toward the keys.]

Father Janusz:
I am instructed to conduct a formal inventory.

Father Mikhail:
If you wish. But I advise against counting the hymnals. Half were chewed by mice during the last... political adjustment.

Father Janusz:
Understandable.

Father Mikhail:
The iconostasis is original. Except for St. George's face. A soldier borrowed it in 1943 and never returned it.

Father Janusz:
Noted.

[The cat stretches and yawns. Neither priest reacts.]

Father Mikhail:
The parishioners will be slow to adjust. Most cannot tell the difference between Latin and Church Slavonic. They go where the candles are cheaper.

Father Janusz:
That is true everywhere.

[A pause.]

Father Mikhail:
I suppose you will change the calendar?

Father Janusz:
Yes.

Father Mikhail:
They will object at first. Then they will enjoy having two Christmases.

[They both nod.]

Father Janusz:
The bishop in Smolensk requests that any Orthodox relics be set aside for collection.

Father Mikhail:
There is only one relic. A finger bone said to be from St. Euphrosynus. The provenance is questionable.

Father Janusz:
In what way?

Father Mikhail:
The bone is rather large. Some say it came from a horse.

Father Janusz:
I will note it as pending clarification.

[They fall into a companionable silence.]

Father Mikhail:
The parish records are in the sacristy. You will find the attendance figures have been... optimistic. The last census was during Lent, when numbers tend to be higher due to the fasting market closing early.

Father Janusz:
A familiar pattern.

[The cat jumps down and pads toward the door.]

Father Mikhail:
I will remain in the village. I am told there is need of a man who can repair fences.

Father Janusz:
A valuable skill. Perhaps more valuable than theology these days.

Father Mikhail:
It always has been.

[They exchange the keys without ceremony.]

Bobko

30 Apr 2025

History / PAŃSTWO - A Tale of Polish Occupation [27]

Gauleiter?! Surely you meant Wojewoda Moskiewski!

This exalted office is already reserved for Zbigniew Stonoga.

He would make a great Voyevoda, that man.... I would follow him beyond the River Styx.

@Torq

Why is it so much easier to write dialogue, than to write narrative prose?

Does this mean that film scriptwriters are inferior to other authors?

Does this mean that Hasek was some kind of an amateur, since Sveik is almost completely dialogue?

Bobko

29 Apr 2025

History / PAŃSTWO - A Tale of Polish Occupation [27]

@Torq

Excellent. I imagined Braun as Gauleiter of Moscow, but Vladivostok should do.

Grzegorz Braun *pushes the intercom button*:
Let the chinks in, Ms Kowalska

Amazing.

Bobko

29 Apr 2025

History / PAŃSTWO - A Tale of Polish Occupation [27]

Checkpoint outside Oryol. A folding table, one broken chair. Rylov (Russian private) and Walicki (Pole - equivalent rank) are manning the station. They've been told to question any travelers and "record suspicious behavior in accordance with DUCH Directive 42/Б." So far, no travelers.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Rylov:
You ever actually caught someone suspicious?

Walicki (without looking up):
Not really. Closest was an American rabbi, came through with a guide and a translator. Said he was visiting to "check in on the Jewish community."

Rylov:
What did you tell him about the Jewish community?

Walicki:
Told him we just guard the road.

Rylov:
Was he wearing a hat?

Walicki:
Of course. And gloves, even though it wasn't cold. Gave us some brochures.

[Pause.]

Rylov:
So what'd you write in the log?

Walicki:
"Cleric. Foreign. Expressed general concern. Provided literature."

[A man with a bicycle rides past without stopping. He salutes vaguely with two fingers. Neither soldier reacts.]

Rylov:
You think they'll make us fill out the form for him?

Walicki:
Depends. Did he look ideologically consistent?

Rylov:
His chain was rusty.

Walicki (nodding):
That's a good sign. Revolutionaries always oil their chains. They're obsessed with progress.

[Pause. Walicki begins writing.]

Rylov:
What are you putting?

Walicki:
"Subject: Bicycle man. Status: inconclusive. Chain rusty, but honest eyes."

Rylov (with awe):
You should get promoted.

Walicki:
Promotions cost money.

[The wind changes. A dog barks once, then goes quiet again.]

----------------------------------------
@Torq

I like the first cover!

Bobko

29 Apr 2025

History / PAŃSTWO - A Tale of Polish Occupation [27]

Leading member of PIOTR, Captain Marcin Burak wasn't looking positively at the whole situation.

Very nice Grunnie.... hahaha!

This is what we should do - write books, instead of slinging insults at each other.

Bobko

29 Apr 2025

History / PAŃSTWO - A Tale of Polish Occupation [27]

Inspired by Kania's kind words - I have decided to serialize my PAŃSTWO chronicles.

As a reminder, this is a fictional record of a Polish occupation of Russia - triggered by an unprovoked Russian declaration of war, followed by their immediate surrender (thanks Grunnie for the idea).

-----------

Internal Call Log - PAŃSTWO Headquarters

April 17 - Day 9 of Polish Presence in the Former Russian Federation

Call between Nikolai Sergeyevich (Head of Cultural Affairs, Ural District) and PAŃSTWO's DUCH (Departament Ujednolicenia Cierpienia i Heroizmu). On the phone for DUCH is Lieutenant Kazimierz Wrzodak.

-----------------

Nikolai Sergeyevich:
Good afternoon, Pan Wrzodak. I'm calling again on behalf of the Ural District Cultural Committee. I've been instructed to submit our "Regional Identity Compliance Report," but I'm having trouble answering section seven.

Lt. Wrzodak:
Section seven... that's "Local Expressions of Polishness and Willingness to Participate in the Romantic Struggle Against Invisible Enemies," correct?

Nikolai:
Yes. The form asks us to list "examples of spontaneous Polish melancholy in regional art." Our resident sculptor made a statue titled "Sad Man With Cabbage", but it turns out it was about tax reform. Does that qualify?

Lt. Wrzodak:
It depends. Does the cabbage represent the futility of fiscal clarity in the face of cosmic disorder?

Nikolai (uncertain):
The man is weeping and the cabbage is partially shredded. There's also a receipt nailed to the plinth.

Lt. Wrzodak:
Excellent. That meets the criteria for Class II Symbolic Despair. Proceed.

Nikolai:
Thank you. We also attempted a painting. The initial proposal - Chopin crying in a snowy wasteland - was deemed too abstract. So the team produced a new work titled "Kościuszko Receives an Administrative Summons."

Lt. Wrzodak (suddenly attentive):
Go on.

Nikolai:
It depicts General Kościuszko being handed a stack of official papers by a junior clerk from the Ministry of Seasonal Road Maintenance. Behind him, a portrait of the Virgin Mary is hung slightly crooked. There is a sense that Kościuszko doesn't understand what he's being fined for, but feels morally obligated to accept it.

Lt. Wrzodak (quietly):
That... is magnificent. It encapsulates everything. Duty. Confusion. The quiet humiliation of paperwork. Send it immediately to the Central Registry of Heroic Misunderstandings.

Nikolai:
Of course. I'll have it couriered.

Lt. Wrzodak:
Ensure the Virgin's frame remains crooked. It's essential.

Nikolai:
Yes, sir. One last question - do the official forms in the painting need to reference a real department?

Lt. Wrzodak:
I defer to your best judgement here, Nikolai.

Nikolai:
Perfect. Thank you, Pan Wrzodak. Long live the Commonwealth.

[Line disconnects. A pigeon flies into Nikolai's office window and dies without cause. The paperwork begins.]

Bobko

28 Apr 2025

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [484]

he had pleasure of trolling Poles

Espana is a poet and a scholar. I try to follow humbly in his footsteps. But I sketch in charcoal, and he paints with light. I am the echo, and he is the voice.

I am the candle to his sun.

Once I read a post from Espana, and he said - "My dog is stupid. I think he is Polish."