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Posts by Bobko  

Joined: 13 Mar 2017 / Male ♂
Last Post: 5 hrs ago
Threads: Total: 28 / Live: 24 / Archived: 4
Posts: Total: 2701 / Live: 2625 / Archived: 76
From: New York
Speaks Polish?: A
Interests: reading, camping

Displayed posts: 2649 / page 3 of 89
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Bobko   
10 Jul 2025
Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

what is the situation in your country about peripatetic teachers for Travellers kids?

Kind of zero, I'm afraid.

The central government has no gypsy policy. The Kremlin does not know Gypsies exist.

Policy is determined locally, by municipal leaders and governors.

Usually the methods are coercive. Some kind of murder or other gruesome crime happens within a Gypsy tabor, and the government cracks down. Takes away their children, places them in Russian boarding schools, and forcibly Russifies them.

If it doesn't go the extreme boarding school route, they still insist on educating the kids - sometimes under convoy and armed guards.

This is the only way that Gypsies ever reform - if you steal them away from their family and immerse them in secular Russian education.
Bobko   
10 Jul 2025
Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

Do you know the famous Polish song based on the Agnieszka Osiecka poem?

Nope.
Bobko   
10 Jul 2025
Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

They are surprisingly polyglot-ish.

The "uncle" who first confronted me - first spoke English to me. Then Italian. Finally he spoke Russian.

Amazing language skills.

When I heard his Russian accent, I knew immediately he was not from Romania or Bulgaria, but from Moldova, or somewhere in Odessa Oblast. Asked him if he's proud of himself, and whether the family back home knows how he feeds himself. Mentioned the name of a couple famous tabors that settle around Odessa and Chisinau.

He immediately sh*t his pants.

They're only good at scaring Western tourists. When confronted with somebody from the home country, they are meek as mice.
Bobko   
10 Jul 2025
Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

very rough lot

A relative concept.

On the scale of Russian crime - they are a nuisance more than anything else.

Pickpocketing, palm readings, scam games, livestock theft - that's the extent of their criminality.

They're not selling anyone into sexual slavery. They're not bringing in shipments of heroin. They don't do murder for hire, or extortion. They don't assist rogue regimes in smuggling arms or radioactive materials.

They still irritate me. Especially their men. Sitting on their ass all day, smoking cigarettes and sipping on tea - while their wives and children beg on street corners. What kind of man is that?

What kind of man - melts away into the crowd - at the first sign of danger, and lets women and children handle his matters for him? This is what happened in that Paris incident that happened with me and my friend.

Ten beers deep, and several double whiskies - we were hoping to cause a ruckus. My friend threw the guys game into the river (and was arrested shortly afterwards), while I was just lollygagging about hoping they would escalate. Sure enough, the "uncle" of the group tried some cheap intimidation tricks on me, but then when he understood that he is dealing with a completely disinhibited person simply vanished. Then the rest of the boys vanished. All that was left were hysterical women screaming into my ear and slapping away at my back, and tearful children.

When the Gendarmes arrived, it looked like we were trying to beat up a bunch of women and children.

Disgusting.
Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

The only agreement is going to be to postpone the deadline to never never.

I know we read the exact same article, but it feels like we read totally different ones.

I definitely got a sense of finality from everything I had read. That it was just a formality before this was inked.

Why else, would German and other officials offer opinions like "Surprising that the Brits got a better deal than we did" - when nothing had been decided?
Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

Nowhere does it mention signing in 2 days.

Do you have a current subscription?

It's pretty unambiguous:

Talks between the EU and US are continuing, but both sides expect an agreement this week. Trump said a "letter" might be agreed within days.

Without a deal, tariffs on the EU would rise to either 20 per cent or 50 per cent on August 1, after Trump postponed a July 9 deadline. One diplomat argued that reducing it to 10 was a success.

The US was "probably two days off" from sending the EU a letter outlining its planned tariffs, Trump said on Tuesday. Merz on Wednesday said talks were "not easy" given US demands but he remained "cautiously optimistic" of a breakthrough this week, or by the end of the month at the latest.

Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

The EU hasn't signed a deal Bobko

The FT is a serious newspaper. They interviewed officials on both sides. It is to be signed imminently - perhaps within two days.

It's a done deal.

Official spokesmen have already began to report as much.

Whose deficit? The US'?

Yes the US. Did you see my last 4 posts? There's big news today.
Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

@Novichok

This deficit is now all but guaranteed to quickly vanish, or at the very least be reduced substantially - through EU bureaucrats selling Europe out.
Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

The EU on the other hand thinks it deserves special treatment based on what exactly?

Based on the huge size of their market - the largest there is in the world.

To control the world's largest market, and to still sign the type of deal they signed - one needs to be an especial kind of incompetent.

They could have twisted the arms of American digital behemoths, that earn a huge portion of their profits in Europe (Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, etc). They could have insisted on preferences for European banks trying to crack the US market (Santander, Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank). But most importantly - they should have stood firm on steel and aluminum - because these provide tens of thousands of jobs in Europe - much more than in the UK. The UK's steel industry is microscopic in comparison to the European one.

They did none of these things.

These unelected women (one was a German defense minister, and the other a Prime Minister of ESTONIA) - are maybe not the best people to negotiate on behalf of Europe. Their heart is in the right place, and I'm sure they are good people - but they are woefully out of their depth in this context.
Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

Still sitting here shocked with how sh*t the EU's deal is.

Japan is not engaging with Trump. China is trying to bend its line. The EU flushes itself down the toilet.

1) The UK got 10% tariffs on up to 100,000 motor vehicles. The EU has 25% tariffs, and no tariff free quotas. Hello Volkswagen! Hello Daimler!

2) The UK has ZERO tariffs on steel and aluminum exports. The EU, currently, looks to be set for a 50% barrier for these items.

3) The UK got preferential treatment for pharmaceuticals, and waivers on copper, timber, and jet engines. The EU got none of these.

In exchange for all these nice things... the UK promised:

"In return, the UK pledged to meet US "requirements" on China's role in its supply chains, as well as a tariff-free quota of 13,000 tonnes of beef and 1.4bn litres of bioethanol."

I mean... wtf. Starmer fed Trump a load of sh*t. 13,000 tonnes of beef? Haha. 1.4 billion LITERS of bio ethanol - that's nothing.

What does the the EU promise in exchange for their higher tariffs? To try to eliminate the trade surplus through purchases of US weapons and LNG.

You Europeans got f*cked in the ass, without even the courtesy of a reach around. No coffee in bed, no fancy dinner. Just ass f*cking.

--///-

Enjoy your vassal status and your expensive American energy and expensive American weapons. We'll supply China and India meanwhile, with all the cheap energy that should have been yours.
Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
History / "How Poles Built Russia... [26]

@Torq

It upsets me that the things Russia is good at, are not very profitable. This thing you have brought up is one such example.

Who makes a f*cking piece of machinery that works nonstop from 1969 to 2025? That's just stupid. American and European manufacturers have planned obsolescence, and make more money from part supplies over the life of a product than from the initial sale.

The things in which we're world class are super niche. A firefighting airplane. An icebreaker. An amphibious transport. All sh*t that you can't sell more than a handful of - even if you build Canada's entire icebreaker fleet. Our firefighting planes - people most often don't buy them, but just rent them from us.

Russian's don't want to make a t-shirt or nice little handheld drill like the Chinese. We only want to make things that go "BOOM!" or are good for travelling through marshes or tundra.
Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

Robotic imagination-free Germans and venal and scheming Frenchmen

Well, it was French business and German officials that were most critical of the Commission's clumsy negotiations.

Not a whole lotta noise out of Italy or Spain. I suppose they don't sell much to America, and don't really care.

More from the article:

EU negotiators have been scolded over their approach throughout the talks by both business and some European capitals. LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault in May said the bloc got off to a "bad start", especially compared to the British who "negotiated very well". Friedrich Merz, Germany's chancellor, last week said the commission's approach was "far too complicated" and called for a "rapid" deal.

I'll be honest - I didn't expect the EU to come out the loser from this. They had enormous negotiating leverage as the largest trade bloc on the planet - and ended up folding to Trump - a Manhattan real estate developer.

How?!?!
Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

UK view on things:

One British official said: "We approached it like a business deal not a trade negotiation. We've played it straight, understood what the US is trying to achieve, matched our people to theirs, and been flexible."

The top comment under the FT article about the EU-US deal:


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Bobko   
9 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [378]

hate to break it you but we can do tariffs too

You guys just sh*t the bed.

From the article:

When London struck the first deal in May, EU diplomats and officials made clear they believed London jumped at an agreement and locked-in disadvantageous terms.

Brussels was more confident its bigger economic clout - as the world's largest trading bloc - would over time give it leverage over the White House. But it has hesitated to retaliate in kind against US measures.


Womp womp wooooooomp! After all that moaning, you signed a deal that is worse than Brexit UK's deal. How is that even possible?

Another quote:

"The UK agreement was better than this," said one diplomat. "It's a surprise given how long we have negotiated."

Apparently Merz and Macron are super frustrated with the Commission for negotiating like idiots. The EU parliamentarian in charge of overseeing the internal market, said it was a big mistake not to retaliate earlier and harder - since this would have provided negotiating leverage in the current moment. As it happened, the EU had practically no bargaining tools to counterpose to Trump's unilateral hikes.

This is what happens when you have people like Kaja Kallas and Ursula Von Der Leyen as your representatives.

Enjoy watching German and French manufacturing migrate to the US and UK to avoid the tariff wall.


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Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [689]

Ask Bobko if he feels this way.

What? This is funny after I have been here defending Polish-Russian nobles and Polish contributions to Russia. Poles get respect, but Ukrainians don't - sorry not sorry.
Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / Random Chat Thread [707]

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Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / Random Chat Thread [707]

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Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [689]

way of the samurai? Bushido? Honour?

Come on - you are a well-educated person.

A samurai never killed himself "under pressure".

It could - very often - be his Daimyo's fault.

The completely blameless samurai would still disembowel himself, to prevent his family (that serves the Daimyo), his Daimyo (who needs to carry on performing his executive functions), and his Shogun from shame.

It is fully acceptable to absorb shame on someone else's behalf, if he promises to feed your wife and children or protect them.

We are never alone. We are always part of some bigger whole: To understand why your life plays no meaning I advise you to read more.

The only thing that matters is your wife and your children and their honor. Your life... is worth zero.
Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

Kale

Same group we have in Russia.

Crazy that they managed to maintain commonality from Russia to UK.
Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

There are certainly large gypsy populations in the Middle East

What relation do your English, Welsh, and Irish "Gypsies" have to our gypsies?

I always thought that the "travelling folk" were basically English, Welsh, Irish in dress costume. That you don't have real gypsies?
Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / Random Chat Thread [707]

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Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / Random Chat Thread [707]

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Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [689]

So many r*SSians accidentally cut their own heads off while shaving...

Yeah how many people in America or Britain would kill themmselves after losing Trump's or Starmer's trust?

Answer is zero.

Your government is some silly reality TV show, with low stakes, and even smaller rewards.

so did the legendary Kursk Shogun steal the $50 million or didn't he?

My working theory is that he did not. And that's why he killed himself.

The guys that DO take - they never kill themselves. Instead they improvise heart attacks and epilepsy in court, and get all sorts of random civilians to write letters in support.

The guys that kill themselves - are more often than not innocent. Because they cannot metabolize the betrayal of the accusation.
Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / Random Chat Thread [707]

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Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [689]

In Ukraine - they envy this Bushido Code of Russian ministers.

They wish that their ministers would also kill themselves.

Putin is doing a good job bringing back the fear of God that we lost when Stalin died.

Instead, Ukranian thieves are being rewarded with ambassadorships and board positions in state companies.
Bobko   
8 Jul 2025
Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [591]

I don't know where I read it but I think renewables are getting close to 50 percent of Polish power market.

I read that renewables capacity has for the first time overtaken coal fired capacity.