@pony Clearly it is a laptop cat.
@freeschool That is a very simplistic worldview you promote there. Plus, it ignores the fact that people have agency.
@pony I feel sorry for that. You know, maybe you just missed the message: fridges these days are typically sold without content. ![]()
politics Hungary Russia invasion
I don't speak Hungarian, so I have zero exposure to their media reporting. What bugs me the last couple of years is why there's such an affinity between current political elites (and by extension the majority of people who vote for them) to Russia. Given [what happened in 1956](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956) one would expect an effect similar to Poland, Czechia or Slovakia (to a lesser extent) with a relatively significant opposition to Russian military escapades. Not so much in Hungary. Why?
Did Hungarians forget about all that period between 1956-1989? (would be somewhat odd, because they are still very much obsessed with Trianon, which is a 100+ years old wound - perhaps a selective memory kicks in, or something)
Any solid foreign policy analysis of that?
@piggo @pony This is a very interesting topic in different countries this probably works differently. AFAIK, for instance in the Netherlands you can check the phone when the car is stationary, for instance waiting at the traffic lights. At the moment you move, though, using a phone amounts to a fine of €350.
@apilsetas There's not even a button in this fediverse-platform-land to express how I feel about these kinds of stories. And maybe the lack of that button is actually a good thing...
@andrej Yes. I guess you figured it out yourself by now. Since the end of March German authorities indicated that its use falls under potential criminal offenses. Anyway, check the sources e.g., here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(military_symbol)#States
@piggo @andrej https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraina/comments/tvdnd8/ridiculous_video_shows_how_large_the_prorussian/
These seem to be Russians living in Germany. Not really a demonstration, more of an semi-anonymous rally.
Anyway, disgusting. Many bearing the Z symbol, which is now a problem in Germany. I guess the Staatsanwaltschaft will have some work to do there.
@piggo without knowledge of history, we are doomed to believe in fake histories created by stupid and malevolent.
We were not thought many things like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Czechoslovak_War or that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_invasion_of_Poland .
BTW, only now I noticed the two parties at war in Czechoslovak-Polish war flied exactly the same flags. Didn't realize it before...
@piggo re skipped: well, perhaps the most important part as that time is the source of all sorts of grudges people hold against each other still today
@piggo BTW, the first special operation was 1956 in Hungary, not 1968.
@piggo I often think about that. On the one hand, people die. I might die. My parents, my siblings, my family may die. All that is truly horrible beyond what I can even express. Especially now when we see what it really means in fresh graphic imagery from battles in Ukraine, or on the backdrop of the newest horrible photographs of mass graves and streets strewn with dead civilians from places like Bucha.
On the other, this is how nation myths are created. It was important that Poland fought. Lost battle, but myth creating. Other countries fought back too and lost. For instance the Netherlands. But they also created myths which define and carry the society for another 100 years. It's important to stand up and fight even under such conditions.
Now, CZ-SK armies over the past 100 years simply folded in the face of an invader (perhaps with the exception of Hungarian invasion of Eastern Slovakia post-WWI and then the somewhat-forgotten offensive campaign against Poland also post-wwi. And of course the Slovak National Uprising and other minor uprisings in WWII). And those non-acts are perhaps myth creating and society defining too. No clue whether that's a positive message...
Just thoughts, no hard opinions. Complicated histories.
@z428 Made me smile 😄
## Calexico: Harness the Wind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isk6Piyfom4
> Do you dream of flying
> At the speed of light?
>
> -- Calexico
@piggo It's also important to point out that this is the very first (and most likely also the last) snow of this season where I live. So I couldn't resist to build this one, whatever muddy and wet it is, on my morning walk with the dog. Because in about 3 hours all the snow will be gone (it mostly already is anyway) and that will be it. ☃️
@piggo Because they are not old enough to have seen the same thing play out in the previous cycle 10 years ago, nor the 3 iterations before that. And then they move on and some other new generation of invincible know-it-all smartasses will rinse and repeat.
war crimes
@piggo Yes. Did the same. Directly Ukr central bank. Still it feels like a drop in an ocean.
@trinsec Ik geniet daarvan.
Exploring, failing, backtracking, just to identify the only viable path forward. And then scarred, stumbling forward into the future. Learning.
Boring and steady. Knowing little and questioning a lot. Mostly harmless.
***
This is an experimental scrapbook space. A collection of stuff I want to keep in a form somewhere on the spectrum between a blog and a shoe-box full of scraps, cut-outs, quotes, links and reading notes and sometimes my own silly thoughts about them.
Perhaps it might be of marginal interest to others too, but I don't care that much.