I would like Zygar to be right. I don't think he is. I read his book - it's basically Plokhi's book but with more apologies and justifications for the Russians being rank bastards going back to the Vikings. His forward and afterward are both pretty much pleas to his friends in Kyiv to stop calling him a monster. And the book, in general, is "Russia didn't solely fuck up Ukraine, there were ex-Soviet Ukrainians who were just as wretched." An interesting point emphasized by both Zygar and Plokhy is that the power structures of the USSR were rife with opportunistic Ukrainians who both recognized that there was no future in Ukrainian politics and also that the Russians, in general, suck at castle intrigue. The main difference I see between Ukrainian writers on Russia and Russian writers on Russia is the Russians tend to be "we don't have to be dicks" while the Ukrainians are at "but you always are."
Speaking of Putin puppets, I kind of doubt Gonzolo Lira was tortured to death by Ukraine, as the whatabout deflection from Navalny goes. I also wonder whether or not the Navalny timing was meant to combo boost Tucker's groveling. What do you think the global order looks like if the two nuclear superpowers align under a common fascist banner? It's probably time to start asking that question. I dunno what Trump would do, besides maybe bomb Mexico, but Putin will probably go for Poland and the Baltics. The EU might not really like that. China probably gets Taiwan, but in exchange for what? Trade deals and something else, maybe. Bibi seems like he'd be cool with other faschy strongmen. Modhi too, and probably his replacement. What would happen with Iran and the Saudis, would Trump and Putin force a (garbage) peace deal? Is there some scenario where the entire globe is either helpless, complacent, or complicit in a far-right alliance, except maybe 20-something EU states, South Korea, Australia, Britain, Brazil, Canada, something like that? Haven't really seen anyone game this out yet, and I'm probably way off from what you might envision.
Devac, it's been exactly a year since that second paragraph above got penned, and I am thinking of you and your country today. Many Americans are fucking disgusted.
Thanks, but I've been too... dunno, emotionally dead to notice what's this about. Between bullshit with my mother echoing kb's, psychiatrist turning 180 from awesome to tool, and my job being some kind of vortex of timewasting anhedonia, I honestly don't give a shit about whose - Trump's or Putin's - tiny dick needs more nuclear-powered whores to undulate ever so slightly. Anyway, I'm half isolating myself to process the deluge, half because I'm making my own quetiapine while trawling for legit source, and it's just about the farthest end of my organic chem skillz. What you guys have been up to?
I think polyglots are criminally underappreciated.
Real polyglots are under appreciated. However, I think it’s mostly an effect of so many pseudo polyglots who take a course on Duolingo and thus claim to speak several languages. Unless you’re putting in serious effort with real language learning materials, you more or less just memorize stock phrases that you can fool non speakers with. I’m not impressed with most of them.
You gotta start somewhere. A2 is a perfectly communicable level, achievable for most (dedicated) people in most languages in a handful of weeks-to-months, but anyone thinking it's 'fluency' is kidding themselves. It consists, or seem to consist, of stock phrases because you know only about 1000 common words, so there isn't much you can do with it. Frankly, looking down on grounds like not enough effort for my taste is pretty shit. Then again, most natives kid themselves about their own mastery of language, usually unaware they are not-so-merely more natural-sounding B2s, but nowhere near what linguists call 'proficient'. Contrary to annoyingly many anglophones, C2 doesn't mean "any about-average native,", but "can go to a post-graduate program and be stumped no more often than a native with a comparable background." Just for kicks: when I was preparing for CPE/C2 three years ago, examiners teaching the course warned me of possible point cuts for things like 'mixed british and american spelling' or 'confused deposition with affidavit', which I'm curious how many natives could explain without looking up.
Oh man I had to look it up, but my test results for CEFR language levels as part of applying for studying abroad a decade ago were “C1/C2” (so some parts C2, some C1). Probably C1 in writing and C2 in verbal skills. That English exam was one of the hardest English tests I’ve done and I’d been learning English for 2/3rds of my life by then. (At age seven, my Pokémon Gold language was set to English and I got through that by asking my mom what the words meant.) Were you also slammed with multiple languages in high school or is that not a small-European-country-with-important-neig ours-thing? One year I had simultaneous lessons in Dutch, German, English, French, Latin & Greek - none of my own volition. Dropped three of them as fast as I could. I wouldn’t call myself a polyglot even back then, as a language studied but never immersed is not a language you really know. At the very least the breadth gave me a deep understanding of language structure and Latin is like the patient zero for a lot of structures and a lotta fancy-schmanzy words.
C1/C2 is pretty much a must-have for studying abroad, I think even ERASMUS that's aimed at undergrads requires it. I took CPE and IELTS (general and academic), passed decently well but it was HARD. That said, working abroad is a different bag. I think you can work as a full (registered?) nurse with B1 and some specialized course that builds up thematic vocab. My ex is doing some kind of dentistry fellowship in Berlin and her German makes me sound like Goethe despite progressively forgetting the language over the last decade. My school offered English and German/Russian/Italian/French to choose from, English and at least one of the others were compulsory. I took German, because I was born there and wanted at least one easy grade. My mother caught onto it, changed it to French. Then she begged the principal to have that reverted after first year when it turned out I'm dyslexic outa wazoo. I vented my frustrations with "how stupid does it feel to make me study a language where every word has 14 letters but you only pronounce ones that aren't there?" I also tried the other two, but Russian is... really weird. Poles either catch it quickly - like, from 0 to accentless B2 within 2-4 semesters, I've seen that happen - or stay confused. I can understand basic, non-idiomatic speech without much effort, so never got motivated to buckle down, but it's purely passive. Mieja zawód Devac, u mieja nie bolsze. If you give me an hour, I might remember enough Cyrillic to write that? EDIT/Addendum [I think it's all too visible I wrote these recent posts super sleep-deprived, feel it'd be iffy to correct in full]: Forgot to finish the thought on Italian. Its grammar is astoundingly similar to Polish. Which is unfortunate, as in both there are so many weird pitfalls and unexpected irregularities they sap any will to use it. Dropped it quickly, afterwards came to class here and there because my high school made free hours in schedules and you can only read our library's meager sci-fi section so many times. I actually wanted to learn Latin and Greek very early on, but... my first lesson with a tutor involved an explanation of declension so convoluted I didn't get it despite German having the exact same cases as Greek [Nom, Gen, Dat, Acc], and Latin having 5 out of Polish's 7. Now? Hodie linguae Latinae studeo cum magna alacritate, et in Graeca antiqua commentaria et epistulae personae scribere possum. Ut in anno proximo et latinae aevo medio et graecae communi studeam.
I took Spanish for three years in high school. Latin for a half year, mostly to boost my SAT scores (Nate Silver's new fave metric[?]). Language doesn't stick with you much if there's no cultural immersion or social imperative. Or if I'm dumb. How unfortunate that all is. I'm still half-fluent, Lo hablo mas que a poco, que huevos por un guero, no? Lo se. But what use is it, how can I prove I'm better than google on the internet without cultural knowledge? I have almost none. (edit2: well... actually that might not quite register in European dialects of Spanish.. so... I dunno. It is a Mexican-style Spanish that I know, or more acutely, Tex-Mex) So while I was doing my best "perdon" in the Toulouse subways with all my luggage, in rush hour (thanks academic advisor)... you know what? We will finish this one in person some day. I might be in Paris in April but I doubt it. Sorry demure, things are... yeah. I will be back over in the Schengen someday. I know your Eurorail, and I have already schnitzel'd at the Ratskeller (and I'm a little glad that's over with). Uh but I think these next few years? I'm busy, but I age at half the normal rate on account of the fed-common-pot (FCP) adrenochrome we share; as fed contract perks. See you in 4 or two years Edit: I know they say it's hard when you're older (with no adrenochrome, I think?), but I know I can eventually reach some actual polyglot status. It's probably two decades out or so, but if the world would chill? Who knows.
-May I have some of that tofu? You can take my fries. -"Joey doesn't share food!" -The fuck's a Dżołej? (pronounced it back in an exaggerated Polish accent to emphasize my confusion) Oh, the looks of all those people suddenly realizing Friends wasn't as timeless as they thought back in the day. You make a great point regarding culture, but knowing the language is still a great tool to recognize your horizon of familiarity. It's also a way to expose yourself to it, should you want to. As to proving you're better than google, believe me, it has a long way to go vis-a-vis word choice. Usually not to the level of confusing "forgive me father for I have sinned" with "spank me daddy I've been naughty," but note my use of 'usually' there.how can I prove I'm better than google on the internet without cultural knowledge?
There might be some truth to the possibility that american culture is dora the explorer'd a li'l bit, for me. More than ever. And the emerging elements are increasingly less fascinating. I found myself defending weeaboos the other day because I was like "well..? I mean I kinda get it, at this point. Kinda, though". "Tic-a-tac-a" is an offensive move I know in futbol (it's the "give and go" in american basketball offense), but yeah I got an antenna to watch the worldcup via digital radio broadcast TV on Telemundo because when the american announcers react to a goal, it's literally "and there it is, peter, into the back of the net, for the argentinians, once again, Messi" vs. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL", like yeah I went and got an antenna for that second option! Hell yeah. No regerts. I'm in the minority here, actually. City and county wide. Oh no (/s). Just like with veen, it is more fun to banter with you or other europeans than many of the people I'm supposed to be culturally identically to in God's yt America or whatever we're doing now.You make a great point regarding culture, but knowing the language is still a great tool to recognize your horizon of familiarity. It's also a way to expose yourself to it, should you want to.
veen; your ability to express yourself in English is better than at least about 94% of my countrymen, by my best estimates. And you're gonna love their/my dutch. "as;dlkhf;xacvklhasdf" etc.
you eat those for BREAKFAST?! You might be British if…you think beans on toast is a perfectly acceptable breakfast food but you mock the Dutch for their hagelslag.
Dude there is nothing so delightfully self-pwning as a British gourmand. Every few years I get to break the heart of some British elitist friend making fun of us for "Hawaiian pizza" by pointing out it was invented by a Greek in Canada.
The way I see it? The only countries this side of the pond who can honestly proclaim to have decent cuisine are the Italians and the French. There’s a B-tier of tryhards and then aaaaalllll the way down are the “we don’t have cuisines but we made some weird snacks and sweets?” and that’s us, Belgians, the Nordics. This D-tier is what the British aspire to. Y’all over there have gone “we don’t do cuisine but we are the Children of God and the Lord has given us Sugars and Oils and the Hands and Wits to Create so by God are we gonna use them well (plusamassivefoodindustry)” and it has resulted in Good Shit that is also more often than not Unhealthy / Unpure for our small Europotato minds. But it beats the shit out of the British.
Dunno about that. There's a lot of almost-regional foods people don't know about because they weren't a feature at British Bakeoff or something, like Eierschecke. Generally, the recipe pool is so vast, you could pick the most cursed town in Bavaria and probably still find a subset you'd enjoy eating regularly. Hungarians have some amazing foods, if you adjust spices for your pallet. Ćwikła is a pan-slavic condiment that's just beet pulp mixed with horse radish that goes with anything. Liptauer is a cheese spread that can go from basic to divinely complex, depending on experience and ingredients. Same goes for pierogi. I have a door stopper of a book of old Polish recipes where, so far, substituting venison for tofu only required common sense adjustments and hasn't backfired yet. EDIT: I know you meant 'cuisines' not 'recipes', but... where do you draw the line, really? Is pizza still Italian or just of the broadest Italian origin if most well-known variants are regional adaptations of US-spinoffs? Balkans, Greece and Turkey are mixed almost as much as Slavs and Ashenazi, Prussians, Baltics, Germans... the reason most of them don't have a well-defined 'cuisine' is that they've been raided, taken over or displaced so many times it's almost meaningless to deliniate beyond etymology.The way I see it? The only countries this side of the pond who can honestly proclaim to have decent cuisine are the Italians and the French. There’s a B-tier of tryhards and then aaaaalllll the way down are the “we don’t have cuisines but we made some weird snacks and sweets?” and that’s us, Belgians, the Nordics. This D-tier is what the British aspire to.
I’ve had some great regional foods across Europe (just discovered the wonder of Tiroler Gröstl this week), but what I was gettting at with ‘cuisine’ is a generally accepted body of recipes that are a cornerstone of the national culture. You think of Germany and you think of sauerkraut and currywurst. Things you’d be able to eat every day of the week. The Dutch word for cuisine is just “kitchen”, as in the meals you make in the kitchen. I love me some hutspot or snert but is Dutch aren’t able to fill a meal plan properly, I’d argue. And to also answer kleinbl00, decent is the wrong word, because yeah most cuisines are fine for most people. What I meant is “good enough to be up there with the best cuisines around the globe”. Which is what you do hear from Brits from time to time.
"fill a meal plan properly" is a good way to look at it. Can you eat the national cuisine every day of the week. This is definitely a test where Americans fall down, not because there's no food but because so much American food is borrowed and then bastardized. I could have English muffins, yogurt parfaits, omelets and oatmeal for breakfast, sandwiches, burritos, quesadillas and sushi for lunch, then spaghetti, roast chicken, burgers and pizza for dinner and ostensibly only two of those meals are "American" but everything else is an American version so mutated from where it started that its owners wouldn't recognize it. You can't properly call it "American cuisine" because so much of it has been borrowed. And even then, you would definitely be better off eating in France or Italy.
I think that's unkind. "Decent" isn't a difficult bar to clear and I think many countries succeed; fundamentally, "decent cuisine" needn't be much more than "something most cultures would cheerfully eat if they were hungry." As "comfort food" the world over has similar characteristics (heavy on the fat and carbs, light on the vitamins) I think the more cosmopolitan the culture the more likely their food is going to be unhealthy. The stuff that isn't intended for ex-pats and tourists is where things get gnarly; the stuff intended as a hazing ritual for ex-pats and tourists is where things get really gnarly. I would hypothesize that the French and Italians don't have much in the way of "really gnarly cuisine" because you aren't ever going to be accepted as a native no matter how much rotten shark you eat. I would further hypothesize that the British and Americans have more fat and carbs in their food because they spend more time in the land of lowest common denominators. The stereotype of 'Mexican food' is heavy carbs, heavy cheese, heavy meat, heavy grease but that's really "Mexican-american food." It, too, is a lowest common denominator of a number of cultures artificially melded into one for purposes of foreign consumption. The British ideation of Indian food is similar. Meanwhile the French and Italians have a lot of really good, really stable cuisine that you can eat all the time (assuming you can put forth the effort to cook it) without clogging your arteries while the British and Americans... don't. Not really. I think the Americans don't because everyone in America either came from somewhere else or had their culture ruthlessly stamped out by invaders. I think the British don't because their culture has been import-based for 400 years and every bit of spice or flavor that got imported needed to be balanced out with a Spotted Dick or a Yorkshire Pudding or a Brown Windsor. And I think the British spend a lot of time convincing themselves of the superiority of their dreck because absolutely no one agrees.
I misspelled a word in a graphic as "magnetospause" instead of "magnetopause" and I doubled down, told everyone at work I have an electric wife. Now I'm a loser though
my best shot before looking it up: a deposition is a collection of your sworn testimony in like a pre trial context and an affidavit is a declaration of .. something that you confirm? after i looked it up i see no reason why we have two words for this
Fundamentally? Depositions are created through an adversarial process while affidavits are created through cooperation. If you get robbed, you go to the police station and swear out an affidavit as to what happened. If you are accused of robbing an insurance fund, the lawyers gather around and record your responses to hostile questioning. Both create legally-significant records of an event. You want to swear out an affidavit, you do not want to be deposed. If you are contemplating this question without a lawyer to explain it to you, your problems are direr than your English proficiency.
Kamil Galeev argues that Navalny died because the Tucker interview was such a bomb; Tucker was super-invested in getting Putin to say MAGA talking points and Putin was super-invested in Russian imperialist talking points and the result was neither audience got what they wanted. I guess he beat a rerun of a mind-reading competition? I think this fundamentally misunderstands the facts on the ground: 1) There is one nuclear superpower and eight nuclear-armed nations. Each one of those eight could get up some birds and kill millions. Three or four of them could get shit across an ocean. And the United States could glass them all within half an hour, any day or night, rain or shine. 2) We've SEEN what a Trump administration looks like - careerists leave, incompetents move in, the bureaucracy hems them in and they fizzle out to nothing. Yet you're out here going "I dunno what Trump would do, besides maybe bomb Mexico" and 'Putin will probably go for Poland and the Baltics." have you been watching the past couple years? Back in the heyday of the cold war the Western scenario went like this: 1) Russia gets provocative somewhere 2) America escalates 3) Russia crosses the Rhine 4) America fights back 5) Russia takes heavy losses 6) Russia pushes the button 7) We all die horribly The Soviet scenario went like this: 1) The US gets provocative somewhere 2) Russia responds 3) The US kicks Russia's ass, gets cocky, and lights up a nuclear first strike 4) We all die horribly but not before Russia gets in some vengeance strikes in via failsafed nuclear and biological weapons I bring this up because "Russia gets pasted" was a fundamental axiom undisputed by either side. And this was based on (1) America's losing of Vietnam (2) America's inability to protect the barracks in Lebanon (3) America's rather dismal performance in Grenada (4) America's lack of excellence in Libya (5) America's disappointing showing in Panama. Able Archer 83 and all that but the last 20 years of the Cold War were an exercise in furtiveness by both sides. Fast forward to Desert Storm and - Look. Desert Shield was wall-to-wall coverage of "the Elite Republican Guard." Chemical weapons everywhere. Battle-tested, frontline Soviet arsenals. Fourth largest army in the world. The government and press were softening us up for another Vietnam. Common consensus on the invasion of Iraq was we were gonna be Tet Offensiving our way through the mid '90s and we were there for it because yellow ribbons'n'shit. Girl in my chem class was beside herself because her national guard dad got called off to an FOB in Saudi Arabia and she didn't think she'd ever see him again. "How to avoid the draft" became a hot topic of discussion. Instead? We were in Baghdad in 48 hours. We actually had to slow down because our logistics couldn't keep up with our front line - like, Abrams tanks are faster across open desert than Power Wagons are across paved highways. And then we left because eww who wants to run a place like that? Black Hawk Down tells the tale of a bunch of special forces who got pinned down in Somalia and ended up getting routed. It also tells the tale of a dozen American elites who managed to kill between 300 and 700 Somalis while they were waiting for rescue. There are things that the American military sucks at - nation-building, garrison-holding, hearts'n'minds winning - but it absolutely does not suck at ass-kicking. And we have exported the shit out of that. See this guy? He sucks so hard that Cary Elwes starred in a movie about it. That li'l guy entered our arsenal in 1981. Yet here he is, absolutely bodying a late model front line Russian battle tank. I cannot properly express - I have tried and I fail - to communicate the astonishing level of fail displayed by the Russian armed forces. It is fucking bogglilng. That tank getting held at bay by a 40-year-old chain gun? I have parts of that thing. Fuckin' T90M? That's the most fearsome thing in the world, man! Holy shit! It's not supposed to be rendered useless on the battlefield by a fucking troop carrier. (So why hasn't Ukraine won yet) The powers that be definitely want everyone to think they're duty-bound to free Ukraine from the bonds of tyranny as soon as possible so it can be welcomed into the brotherhood of Western European nations. But then, Western Europe has been doing that shit since the Varangians. If you look at US-Ukraine relations over the past 20 years one way to look at it is "man, the US were a bunch of dicks." Another way to look at it is "man, the US sure didn't think this 'democracy' thing was gonna stick." Fundamentally? Ukrainians have been an outsized influence in Russian history going back to the 1700s and from a think tank point of view, the over/under on a collapse into tyranny is an even bet. Not only that but provoking it in the direction of Starbucks and SWIFT gets the Russians really really itchy because Ukraine is pretty much where their good culture comes from so they're super good at pretending that "Ukraine" has always just been an awkward phase for some excessively cosmopolitan Cossacks who don't know their place. A history of Enlightenment Europe is a history of "buffer states" (Poland, Belarus, Ukraine. Slovakia) soaking up blood so the barbarians run out of juice before they get to Paris. And Europe, and the US, are definitely taking advantage of that, and both Russia and Europe really want that buffer state on their side. Putin bleeding in Ukraine keeps Putin from bleeding in Austria, Biden bleeding in Ukraine would keep Biden from bleeding in St. Petersberg. But don't for a minute think Poland would go down like that. Poland's got Leopards, Poland's got Abrams, Poland's got K2s. Poland is getting mutherfucking F-35s. The fuzzy, ambivalent circle we drew around Kyiv is a hard, red line around Krakow. Poland got royally fucked by the allies in WWII and fuckin' hell it's a Western nation that spent an achingly long time under tyranny so for once, the West is not being assholes to Poland. But Ukraine? The Machiavellian move in Ukraine is to let it fucking bleed. I don't like it but I get it. The USSR fell in no small part because of their invasion of Afghanistan and every couple months, the Russians lose more troops in Ukraine than they did in the entire occupation of Afghanistan. As far as Mexico? C'mon, man. You know that stupid horse-racing that the press does? "Hey, a Republican hack said Biden's memory is faulty OBVIOUSLY THIS IS A BIGGER PROBLEM THAN TRUMP"? Fuckin' geopolitics are harder to understand and harder to explain and less easy to drum up outrage over. That's why you're out here goin' "two nuclear powers aligned under a fascist banner" as if it was anything other than lazy fanfic.What do you think the global order looks like if the two nuclear superpowers align under a common fascist banner?
Yes, Tucker Journalism is "you say anything you want, then I go a little, and you can cuck me a bit if you're more powerful than me (such is the way). Don't worry, I won't challenge a thing". I would argue that the entire Trump movement timeline is lazy fanfic. The best predictions often involve an absolute caricature of terrible events, but the cards still usually fall more fantastically and awfully than previously thought possible. So here we are. Hey, I didn't say Putin would successfully acquire Poland. It'd be a game of Bear The Poke, in which Russia periodically sends volleys of missiles to test the NATO defense pact. Regardless of anything, Trump will force a U.S. exit of NATO, that much is a given. Europe would be on their own. As for Mexico, sorry, I could absolutely see Trump trying to order military strikes on cartels if he needs to really feed his image and base. Would trade be massively impacted? Sure, but it was all because of the "DRUGS AND MIGRANTS LIKE NOBODY HAS EVER SEEN, EXTREMELY THE WORST ANYONE HAS THOUGHT POSSIBLE, REALLY". The plan is to station the entire military down at the Mexican border for mass deportations anyway, Trump would say, they can defend if Mexico tries anything funny (Trump would say, not me). I do always dig the history takes, truly. It's just very hard to convince me that the U.S. will contain our brand of fascism before it irreversibly infects the global hegemony. When the most powerful country in the world switches teams like this, I think using modern geopolitical history as a guide only gets you so far. Sorryyyyy I know you hate this paragraph. Sorry. But I did love the tank footage, I've seen that tank fight from another angle. There's a separate Bradley that drew their attention and allowed the one firing to flank the T-90, iirc. And I did watch The Pentagon Wars a couple of nights ago. That was pretty excellent. Thank you for the recommend. I think we'd ally with Russia more and more with Trump back in office. I do wonder how Putin will subvert U.S. power and influence while cozying up to Trump, besides the obvious diminishing of respect from other western countries. That'll be a fun courtship to watch, "Kiss me on the dancefloor while I smash your toes".
I’m convinced Trump could be a revolutionary, it’s not just fanfic, as he’s actually executing a plan to bring the administrative state to heel and to some extent I think it’s necessary as much of it has been doing de facto legislation since probably the 1970s with little to no accountability or oversight. That’s not to say replacing everyone with loyalists is good, but letting the administrative system decide to outright ban things with no input from congress is not what I would call democratic either. Likewise, these agencies do waste a lot of money on things that don’t do the public any good. Someone needs to force these issues simply because the public is not served when agencies can make wide ranging decisions or spend millions with no accountability for following the directives of the actual elected government or for causing harm or wasting money. None of that is Trump going Full Hitler. That’s more of a democratic talking point than a political reality. He’s not massing troops to take Mexico, Canada, or Greenland. He isn’t undermining the power of congress. The worst I could say he’s actually done is rename the Gulf of Mexico into Gulf of America. Other than absolutely hilarious “google support notes” insisting that Google shouldn’t have gone along with the renaming, it’s not that important. I am concerned about mass deportations, and I think it should be stopped.
It would be fruitless to have this discussion at this moment in time. We will get back to it at a later date.