News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

You should read about how the Russian intelligence services (FSB, GRU, SVR, etc) understand and evaluate the soundness and integrity of political regimes, and how they identify points of fragility.

Once you can see politics through the eyes of a Russian "silovik", all becomes simple. We may not have a rich political scene in Russia, but we understand how things work in other places.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Human beings are tribal creatures. Cultural alignment or perceived shared identity are prioritized over policy specifics. When a candidate feels like "ONE OF US", they generate loyalty - even if their positions are unpopular with the electorate.

In every place in the world, from Moscow to Mogadishu, average people value something they call "saying what he actually thinks". That is, voters prioritize PERCEIVED authenticity, even if they don't agree with what is said. A candidate that is seen as transparently flawed,, but at the same time consistent... may inspire more trust than one perceived as quite polished but ultimately insincere. This is another feature built into Homo Sapiens through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.

Further yet - many people have a "results oriented" mindset - "I don't care that he's a criminal, as long as he gets the job done". This is especially strong among voters who feel culturally or economically "under siege". They see norm-breaking behavior as a good rather than evil, because traditional politicians have already failed them.

Some people have simply lost all faith in institutions. Widespread cynicism about mainstream media, elite universities, the government leads many voters to reject what can be called "elite consensus". In this twisted world - a criminal investigation can in fact be perceived as proof that a candidate threatens the "System" and that he needs your helps fighting all the dragons.

...and back to what I started with - myth and narrative. People love stories. God knows I love, love, love stories. Voters also love stories, and they are always in search of some symbolic vessel onto which they can project these myths. You have many myths to chose from: (1) the outsider hero, (2) the rebel against corrupt systems, (3) the builder or destroyer of old orders, (4) the Icarus.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Yep.

Right here - what Ptak wrote.

That's what people are voting about. Not because Putin gave them money to elect Trump or Nawrocki.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]


Yes and here in America they talk more often of the Pogroms their grandparents ran from, than the Holocaust.

Centuries of hatred from Poles and Russians is harder to forget than a brief episode of total slaughter from the Germans - I guess.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]


Of course Hamas never harbored hopes of winning such a war.

Instead, they were strongly aware that the attention of the world had moved on from their plight. The glitz and glamor of being a mediator between the Israelis and Palestinians had worn off, while their Arab neighbors became increasingly interested in normalizing ties with Israel.

They calculated that they could trigger a war with Israel, where Israel would lose all sense of proportion and act like a wild gorilla. This would make it impossible for the largest country in the region (Saudi Arabia) to continue on the path of normalizing relations with Israel. It would strengthen Nasrallah in Lebanon, and Khamenei in Iran. It would give Erdogan - reasons to rally his Islamist electorate. It would bring the United States back, as an eager mediator - instead of being distracted by Ukraine and places like Mali.

Their calculation worked perfectly. Israel took the bait, and followed its worst instincts.

The result? Netanyahu judged a war criminal by the ICC. His hopes of Trump saving him from Biden - dashed - he still got tariffed like everyone else. Trump didn't even stop in Israel on his tour of the Middle East, and even announced a plan to negotiate with Iran. Israel itself is becoming an international pariah - on par with Russia (country that started the worst war in Europe since WW2). The Israeli economy is in a recession, and there are daily protests against Netanyahu's government pressing him to do a deal where the hostages return home immediately.

Hamas already lived in a dump. Now they live in a dump full of construction rubble. But they won a much bigger moral victory - converting hundreds of millions of new believers to their cause, and isolating Israel.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]


To me - it's obvious what's going on.

Germany was a super powerful industrial state that steamrolled practically all of Europe. The British, Russians and Americans were genuinely afraid of it. When you are afraid of something - it is difficult to sympathize.

In the same way - Israel is a 1000X more powerful than Gaza. Homo Sapiens - evolutionarily - are predisposed to cheering for the underdog.

Even a child understands that what Israel is doing is utterly disproportional. As it would be, if an older brother thrashed his younger brother half to death, for breaking his toys.

Even a child understands basic mathematics - even though it is unpleasant to apply it to human lives. That is: 1000 dead Jews, and 40,000 dead Arabs.

Germany and Israel get no sympathy because they are strong and technologically advanced. Different behavior is expected from them.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]


Yeah so unsuccessful - that it's the best f"*cking university in the world. The smartest kids in China and in India are ready to disembowel themselves for a chance to study there - and America does not see this as an all-powerful weapon.

Idiots.

This will do much more damage to America, over the long term, than any tariff will.

Targeting Harvard kids is not the same as deporting strawberry pickers from Texas.

News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]


As much as I hate that institution up North, have to stand up for them here...

They survived the King of England and the American Revolution. They are older than the country itself. The level of disrespect, to what is an American engine of excellence - is disturbing.

Today they are anti-semites. Yesterday they were Communists. They have this right - so long as they do not betray America.

Is supporting Palestine a betrayal of America?

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


I would do the same to you, if you decided you'd prefer to sit in the trench while I go on an assault.

I'm likely gonna die - meanwhile you'll only have to wear a bucket on your head.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Ah - the imperial Chinese model, with a distant emperor.

Yes, it worked for 2,000 years - and now China is the greatest country in the world.

Not a bad idea. Examinations for all public officials. Can't pass the exam - go home packing.


It really won't. People like to get excited about these things, as if it makes any difference at all - but in the end, the personal decisions they make will affect them 1,000X more than any decision by the government. Nothing Trump does will ever really affect you. What will affect you - is what Jay Powell does, who is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (an unelected position). But for some reason, nobody except for professionals cares to tune in to hear the minutes of the Fed.

When your normal day to day life is concerned - the head of the Polish national bank should worry you much more than the president or prime minister. After that - who is your local police chief. Next, the director of your local public school.


People call us slaves and orcs - but maybe Russians just understood earlier than others, simply not to focus on certain things. They are irritating, lead to blood pressure rises, and provide no satisfaction.

Much more interesting to troll foreign populations, still engaged in the myth.

A cynic might say - we live democracy vicariously - through the Polish and American electorate :)

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

@Torq

I think you should get used to the idea that people that are disgusting to you personally will rule over you.

There are many other things to focus on in life.

You are not black. You are not Jewish. You are not gay. You'll probably live just as you live - regardless of who is in power.

Go sit in front of a waterfall. Read some good book.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


This graphic below, published by the New York Times last week, should remove any doubts about who votes Trump.

They vote against their self interest - and even grit their teeth and suffer through tariffs - because he is THEIR MAN.

He could be a literal ape - as you say - and they would still vote for him. Well... maybe if the Democrats didn't try to run with a senile man that has cancer and then replaced him with a political nobody - they could have beat Trump - but history does not like "what ifs".


Historically - some of the most competent governments were oligarchies. Florence, Venice, Holland, etc.

That is - not just one rich guy, but many rich guys competing with each other.

For many reasons, however, the average people find it easier to accept a monarch or an elected leader, over an unelected group of super rich guys.

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News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

The above is also why I never buy the line that "Russia delivered the victory" for such and such a candidate.

It's impossible - what they claim.

It means to deny the agency of hundreds of millions of people - that go out and vote.

It's a crude oversimplification, of very complex and very real processes that are happening in almost every country.

Russia can't elect Trump, Le Pen, Alice Weidel, Silvio Berlusconi, Nawrocki - or anyone - if the American, French, German, Italian, and Polish people do not want them.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Based on the exchange here - I think Kaczynski still has excellent political instincts.

Mentzen is often called the Polish Trump by foreign media, but its Nawrocki that has secured Trump's endorsement, and who got Kristi Noem to stump for him.

The same ideological sub-currents must be operative here, as elsewhere.

The American lumpenproletariat (despite being ultra religious) does not care that:

1) Trump is a divorcee

2) A several times bankrupt failure of an entrepreneur

3) A potential crook

What they care about is that he makes the gay nerds from the big coastal cities squirm. They love that all snobs that look down on them as second class Americans are running terrified for the trees. They love that he promises to deal with all the dirty/smelly immigrants that they actually have to live with - and that no one in Manhattan or Beverly Hills every really deals with.

The more the left hates Trump - the more the right loves him. "If you're taking a lot of flak - it means you're directly above the target" - their favorite thing to say.

So... Kania - you are very naive if you think that hammering away at prostitutes and old men that lost their apartments will get you anywhere. This is a culture battle - and the lines are already drawn for all but the most academic types - such as yourself.

Trump once said at a rally in Iowa - "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."

He understood something, and Kaczynski understands something - that you still don't seem to grasp.

Nawrocki and Trzaskowski are not "people", to be judged and understood. They are avatars. Canvases. Canvases onto which the "people" project their wants and desires.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


I think when a hotel provides prostitution services - it's called a brothel. So yes, obviously hotels do not normally provide prostitutes.

At the same time - every single hotel has certainly seen its fair share of prostitutes. I am sure prostitutes have been brought to the guest houses of the Vatican, and have stayed overnight at Blair House where guests of the White House stay.

I am also certain that the Swiss Guards or US Marines keeping watch in those instances, didn't say a word to anyone about what they saw.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


What the Polish press writes, is that Nawrocki precisely sat in the middle - catching the arbitrage between odlaty.pl and what guests of the hotel were willing to pay.

From the point of view of hotel staff - it makes no difference if you now work through a website. It's still completely within their power to deny you entrance, or create a big scandal. If you want them to play ball, they'll still have to get their taste.

I suspect the existence of this revenue stream is a big part of the draw of the job - not the official salary. Further - I'm sure the hotel is aware that staff are earning this money, and doesn't give a damn. More than that - I think being a person with... shall we say "flexible" morals, is an important qualification for the job.

If you put some Puritan in that position, god knows what will happen.

Nawrocki did not finish a theological seminary, but a history PhD. That tells me he is a big drinker and has an appropriately wide perspective on the full range of the human condition.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


I have already totally debunked this claim.

What Nawrocki was doing, is what has been done by every doorman, concierge, and security guard in the history of the world.

People away from family get frisky - and unfortunately everybody else around them has to deal with it. If you forbid a guest from bringing prostitutes to the hotel, you may very well lose him as a patron. So you accommodate people, and their petty vices - but not without a price!

The price you charge, is the price for inconvenience (after all - families stay at the hotel too), and the price for confidentiality. Not the price for a woman's body - because you don't get to keep that - that goes to the girl and her pimp.

I challenge anyone to find me a hotel security guard that has not been involved in helping guests procure prostitutes.

I'm sure if you dig deeper, then you'll discover Nawrocki turned a blind eye to the sale of marijuana on hotel property. Then, he'll be not just a pimp - but a drug dealer too.

---------

The lengths one has to go to, to defend the good name of pro-peace candidates.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland - part 2 [383]

Foreign press tells me the mayor of Warsaw has trouble with his left-leaning/progressive electorate, because him and his Daddy Tusk did not manage to rollback PiS-era abortion restrictions. This may hurt him at the ballot box.

How important is this to Polish voters from the big cities? For you, Lenka/Paulina, does this count as a mark against Trzaskowski? The failure in the fight against abortion?

Are you upset that he has walked back a lot of the LGBT positions he adopted earlier?

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


My father put me in our neighborhood club, at the earliest age they would accept me. Then at school, we had extracurricular chess also. This is how the Soviet chess combine was built.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Very nice. I only touch 1800 on occasion, and this means - playing sober, well rested, and not getting tilted after a loss. Standard chess. Stopped playing blitz, because I watched a video with Nakamura where he said it teaches amateurs bad habits. I really did feel it on myself.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


What's your Elo?

No need to share if it is embarassing :)

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Basil, here's his entry on Wikipedia:

"Originally an apprentice shoemaker, he went to Moscow when he was sixteen. There he helped those who were ashamed to ask for alms, but were in need of help. He adopted an eccentric lifestyle of shoplifting and giving to the poor to shame the miserly and help those in need. He went naked and weighed himself down with chains. He rebuked Ivan the Terrible for not paying attention in church. Vasily was said to have the gift of prophecy."

A retard - clearly. Also a criminal. But.... he did it with an especial Russian flare - and for this all is forgiven.

Life / Problems adjusting in Poland [43]


You don't know my professors. The type of people that taught my type of history, were as far from "woke" as Genghis Khan is from Greta Thunberg.

There are different types of history, and consequently different professors.

If you are a major in "Women's Studies" or "Decolonization" - you'll get the according professors. But if you study Gomulka-era Poland, you get people like my Polish professor, who gives exactly zero ***** about gender issues. If you study the Spanish Civil War, then you might get an Austrian professor who most suspected of fascist sympathies for Franco.

Different types of history.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


People that make jokes at the expense of genuinely retarded people, are retards themselves. The 95% of the rest of us should be left alone, since we mean no harm.

To our American friends - please don't view this as a dig against your current president, who had famously made fun of a disabled journalist at one of his rallies.


Wow! Idiot is ok? Thank God!

Seriously - who is "retard" offensive for? I think the only people it is offensive for, is the people that are involved in their active care. For the retards themselves, it makes no difference. You can call them Hitler, and they'll kiss you in return.

In Russia we have a long tradition of adoring retards - I mean real retards. The Russian word was "Blazhenniy" - or literally touched by God. The cathedral on Red Square is named after a retard. Translated directly from Russian, it translates as "Cathedral of Basil the Retard".

Russians have for a long time believed that retards are able to communicate with forces, which a normal mortal cannot contact.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Speaking of retards - this man is not a retard. Still - he is not "for" me.

Life / Problems adjusting in Poland [43]


Literally the first thing a professor taught us at Columbia, in our first year as history students, was that history is a very poor predictor of future events.

All history does, is track change over time. This can be just as important.

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Again, proof that the only way to stay clean in politics - is to stay out of it.

Nonetheless, I plan to one day become President of Russia.

My plan for my first day in the Kremlin:

1) Grant state awards to every prostitute who can prove she has been working for more than ten years.

2) A pocket aquarium for every citizen above the age of 46.

3) Full subsidies for all Orthodox priests wishing to evangelize in Afghanistan

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


uhmmm, no? The graph shows Business Administration has an average IQ of around 110. It also has a disturbing amount of women (half).

Business Administration is to Economics, as a Trabant is to a Ferrari.


No. In fact, I grew up around my grandpa's retarded brother - and he was my best friend (no joke).

When I say retarded, it is aimed at people that behave *as if* they were suffering from a major mental disability.

Mind you, Mr. Word Police, retarded was brought into circulation to replace the deprecated "Mongoloid", which in turn replaced "Idiot".

What do you call people that are behaving stupidly, if "cretin", "idiot", "retard", and "mongoloid" are no longer politically correct?

News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


Let's critically examine Kania's claims, again.

From Wikipedia we get the skeleton:

Morawiecki is an alumnus of the University of Wrocław (history, 1992) - as an "historian" myself, allow me to say that the history faculty always has a high concentration of retards. In contrast to say, the Astronomy or Physics departments.

Wrocław University of Technology (1993), Wrocław University of Economics (Business Administration, 1995) - Business Administration is famous as a degree for retards. It's evident he could not manage the course load for straight economics.

University of Hamburg (European Law and Economic Integration, 1995-97) - bullshit degrees

University of Basel (European Studies, 1995-97) - worse than African Studies.

While at the Wrocław University of Technology, he studied abroad at Central Connecticut State University - never heard of Central Connecticut State University. Makes me wonder why someone would travel from Europe to study there.

Completed an advanced executive programme at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management - it is a well known fact, that "executive" programs at business schools are a cash cow for the institutions. Any retard can get in, if he pays $80-200K for the pleasure.

Attaching a graph below showing just how stupid "Business Administration" majors are, on average.

In conclusion, I find that there is not enough proof to overturn Kania's claim that Morawiecki is a retard. More evidence will need to be supplied by defendants.

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News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]


I would argue with you, but the existence of Duda gives me pause. Perhaps there is something to it...


Yes, reintroduce the Roman consular system.

The Poles can then abandon the Gregorian calendar, and use the Roman Republican style:

Anno urbis conditae MMMDCCLXXVIII, in consulatu Dudae et Tusci.

alternatively:

Sub auspiciis magni Dudae et senex Tuscius, duumvirorum periculosissimae rei publicae Poloniae, anno sacratissimo MMXXV.