*frappáns klisé cím itt

Hugs and Kisses

2010-01-13T11:21:00.001-08:00

Apparently, some of the ex-pat douchebags that comment on Pestiside....sniff....sniff...miss me....I miss you fuckers too......but I am too busy doing productive stuff nowadays.

BTW where do I stand on the Gawker thing? Gawker hasn't been funny, well, since its inception. And, in general, I don't understand the fawning admiration for Nick Denton.

Douchebag is an eternal pejorative. Ex-pat douchebag is even better.

No comment

2009-08-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

FYI

Cigány ----> Roma ----> Kreol bőrű.

That is all.

PS Varangy = Gazhe.

impedes language learning

2009-06-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

Swung by Red Eva S. Balogh's blog just now. Aside from her usual pro-commie screed, she is making errors a small child wouldn't make.

But I thought she was a Dean at Yale....and her command of English....just so good...so smart these lesbian commies....

Some people claim that dubbing films and television series in Hungary impedes language learning. However, research shows that using subtitles can actually encourage and facilitate it. According to Eurobarometer that is the case in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, countries with a very high percentage of people speaking foreign languages.

I posted this comment. We'll see if it appears.

You are missing the point and you are conflating the two. Dubbing and subtitling are completely different.

Dubbing is the replacing of the original audio dialogue of a film with a translated version in another language.

The alternative to dubbing is to broadcast the original audio version and have the translation as subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

Hungarians prefer to have their television shows/films dubbed. Subtitling would enhance their learning of foreign languages.

Pick any two

2009-06-03T01:19:00.001-07:00

Amikor Isten megteremtette a nemzeteket, minden népnek két-két tulajdonságot adott. Sok lett a nép, elhúzódott a munka, a magyarokra késő este került sor. Amikor a Mindenható megteremtett bennünket, így szólt: - A magyaroknak az okosságot, meg a becsületet adom és azt, hogy a kommunistákra kell szavazniuk. - Elnézést Uram! - szólt ekkor Gábriel arkangyal - Ha jól számolom, a magyaroknak három tulajdonságot adtál. - Ejnye! - mondta az Úr - Ezt aztán jól elnéztem, de most már vissza nem vonhatom. Hát most mit csináljunk? Rövid tanakodás után úgy döntött az Úr, hogy a magyaroknak adott három tulajdonság közül egy emberre csak kettő lehet igaz, a harmadik nem, s maguknak kell választaniuk az alábbiak szerint: -Ha egy magyar okos, és a kommunistákra szavaz - mondá az Úr -, akkor nem lehet becsületes. -Ha becsületes és a kommunistákra szavaz, akkor nem lehet okos. -Ha pedig okos és becsületes, akkor nem szavazhat a kommunistákra.

the best English language blog on Hungary

2009-06-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

Tünde says:

This site is the best English language blog on Hungary, please don't let it go, otherwise you leave information on Hungary in English to Balogh Éva and Pestiside.

Well, flattery won't get you anywhere. Okay. I lied. It will get you somewhere. I'll try to update once in a while.

your name in Hungarian means peach

2009-04-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe Barack Obama has gone through his entire life not knowing the true meaning of his Hungarian name...

After the first question, Obama warned the Americans in the audience to sit quietly. "Americans, wait until we get back home and I'll do a town hall there, because I want to hear from my French and German and European friends."

He called on a young man for the fourth question, and while he did not identify where he was from, the man had a heavy German accent. His final question went to "that young woman in the red," another student from Heidelberg.

"I wanted to tell you that your name in Hungarian means peach," she said.

"Peach? Well, how 'bout that -- I did not know that," Obama said.

Noble rot

2009-03-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

Call me a cynical bastard. But did AXA Millésimes/Disznókó buy an ad in Time Magazine? Not that I have anything against Disznókó -- although I do favor the traditional more oxidized Tokaji -- this mention in Time magazine just strikes me as a bit odd.

A growing interest in eastern European gastronomic culture, and the premium attached to anything produced by artisanal methods, have been very good news for Tokaj (or Tokay) — the enormously sweet, complex wine produced only in Hungary's northeastern Tokaji region. Made from individually picked grapes that have shriveled and botrytized — a oenological term for the "noble rot" mold infection that intensely concentrates the fruit's sugars — Tokaj suffered from cost-cutting production methods during Hungary's communist era, but fresh investment (some of it foreign) is rectifying the situation.

Tokaji, sheltered by the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, has a singularly balmy microclimate. Long, warm autumns combined with the humidity of the Bodrog and Tisza Rivers favor the development of noble rot — much as in Sauternes. Unsurprisingly, the French have a presence in the region. AXA Millésimes — the winemaking subsidiary of the AXA insurance company — is behind Disznókó, the largest and arguably the most forward-looking single-estate Tokaj producer. The label is pioneering a fresher, crisper, more elegantly structured and less oxidized style of Tokaj that ages better in the bottle. Aymeric de Gironde, international sales director of Disznókó, is confident that Tokaj has the potential to double its sales over the next decade.

BTW I love "cost-cutting production methods" during Hungary's communist era. How about Tokaj suffered from state-run cooperatives that had no idea on how to produce wine during Hungary's communist era.

Gypsies are subhuman savages

2009-03-23T11:06:00.000-07:00

I love how ex-pat douchebaggy to the extreme the discussion regarding CEU and its faculty.

This was is a classic:

Msys:

What I find amusing is that Pestisde has no problem with hate speech on its website, yet it uses a comment from a CEU professor to wage war against CEU (if they are such believers in free speech, shouldn't they have just let the comment and the person be?) Clearly, this is nothing but a way to attarct more attention to the website. What bothers me though is that this little pop quiz game may turn into an isntrument of incirmination of CEU professors who have nothing to do with the whole thing. So I would like to appeal to the CEU community: please stop playing by pestiside rules, and stop the guessing game. I love the free speech debate, but please leave personalities out of it -- otherwise it just turns into an unethical witch-hunting!

Msys has not a clue about what the fuck they are commenting on. Erik makes a great point here:

Erik:

@anon600ad: You are reading too much into my "steering" of the conversation back to the question originally posed by the post. The truth (as Msys pointed out) is that I am engaged in a witch hunt, and just want to make sure that as we are having fun kicking ideas back and forth we don't forget to sniff out the witch.

But while Msys is correct about this, I don't think he/she is being honest in saying that witch hunts are by definition "unethical." If our CEU professor had written in saying "The Gárda is right - Gypsies are subhuman savages" I suspect Msys and others would be working overtime to figure out who this person was, and then to burn them at the stake, at least metaphorically.

By the way, I always have a little chuckle whenever someone from the academic left (pejoratively) calls something a "witch hunt" or "McCarthyism," given how no other corner of modern Western society follows the principals of Torquemada with such loving care.

Get the witch!

Too bad Erik is standing by his principles and biting the hand that feeds him: Douchebag know-nothing ex-pats.

Nevetséges

2009-03-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

1. I love the fact that Demszky has no fuckin' clue about what he is talking about. Ironically, as he himself says, nevetséges.

2. Check out the moron actually painting the zebra -- he steps on the wet paint and then proceeds to track paint on the asphalt.

CEU Free Speech

2009-03-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

Was just alerted to this over at Pestiside.hu:

I am actually not a liberal. If I was a liberal I would probably believe in free speech. And I don't.

An academic who doesn't believe in Free Speech? I am totally *amazed.

Much credit to Erik for his vigorous defense of Pestiside and their commenting policy. Most of those leaving comments are utter morons.

*insert sarcasm here

Polgárháború

2009-03-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

Manufactured conspiracy-cum-hysteria or potential prophecy?

Index

A nagy ütemben terjedő lánclevél szerint az idei március 15. minden eddiginél véresebb lesz: az erődemonstrációba beszáll a hadsereg is, kikapcsolják a mobilszolgáltatást és az ellenállókat lelövik. Igaz ez?

A lánclevél

"Subject: Feltétlenül olvassátok el!

Érdekes, de nem meglepő, ahogy látom a folyamatokat és ismerem a
hatalmi technikákat.

Józsi

Gábor fiam az egyik pesti lövészklub tagja, az ott történt egyik
beszélgetését írta le nekem... Tegnap beszélgettünk a lőtéren. A Balázs, a lövészetvezető rendőrségi alkalmazott, konkrétan mint fegyvermester a készenléti erők fegyverraktáraiért felel. Ő egy 5000db-os géppisztoly készletért felel, illetve behívó parancs esetén azok működéséért, kiosztásáért, bevetéséért, beleértve több millió darabos őszerkészletért. Pontosan látja a szükségállapot esetén behívandó tartalékosok, készenlétiek listáját.

De messze nem ő az egyetlen ilyen raktárbázisért felelős
személy, ő csak egy. Pénteken soron kívüli állománygyűlés, eligazítás
lesz ezen kulcspozícióban lévő emberek számára. A hatalom teljes
erővel polgárháborúra készül. A cél: erődemonstráció. Március 15-e
most életveszélyes lesz. A lépések: ha kitörnek a zavargások, akkor
figyelik azok szintjét. Ha egy ponton átlendül, akkor a 3 mobil szolgáltatót kikapcsolják, minden mobil telefon működése megszűnik. A kormánynak van egy saját, ezzel párhuzamosan kiépített mobil telefon rendszere, ők azon kommunikálnak. A honvédség mindentől független kommunikációs rendszerrel rendelkezik, azon kommunikál. Ezzel egyidőben az összes TV adást blokkolják, leállítják. Az internetet megbénítják, minden polgári információ áramlása megáll. A köztv-n kizárólag a kormány által cenzúrázott infók (dezinfók) áramlanak a lakosság felé. Kijárási tilalmat léptetnek életbe, fontosabb közlekedési csomópontokon fegyveres ellenőrző pontokat állítanak fel. Aki ellenáll, arra lőnek. Megszűnik a lehetősége a szervezett ellenállásnak infóáramlás hiányában, a kisebb lázadó csoportokat felszámolják fegyverrel.

A honvédség február eleji tatai hadgyakorlata erre készítette fel a
szárazföldi erőket (HÍR TV élő adása, Szekeres főgengszter személyes
nyilatkozata).Ez az ő forgatókönyvük.

Az persze más kérdés, hogy elindul-e ez a folyamat, és ha igen, akkor
a rendőr, katona fog-e lőni saját szüleire, népére, még akkor is, ha
a hatalom szándékosan vidékieket hoz Pestre, pestieket visz vidékre
emiatt. Volt ugye '56 is, akkor sem volt mobil, meg TV sem, mégis
terjedtek a hírek, ott is belelőttek a tömegbe, mégis a tömeg nyert,
és szépen kidekorálták a körút lámpavasait a szarháziakkal. Ez az,
amit senki soha nem tudhat. És most mi sem, ők sem.

Mi következik ebből azok számára, akik nem rambók, és családjuk, vagyonuk van:

1. Időben el kell hagyni Budapestet, vagy kellő élelem ellátmánnyal
bezárkózni a lakásba. Ha elhagyjuk, akkor az üres lakás veszélyben
van, mert a tüntetéseket képesek lesznek megfékezni, de a
fosztogatókra már nem marad erő (mint ahogyan most sem tudnak mit
kezdeni a bűnözéssel, úgymond "békeidőben"). És vidékről meg az összes rendőr Bp.-en lesz, ott meg rendőri erő híján lesz veszélyesebb.

2. Ha a mobilok megszűnnek, vagy a TV adásban zavarok keletkeznek,
akkor start azonnal, lehetőleg el kell a családdal hagyni addig
Bp.-et, amíg lehet.

Aztán meg ki tudja... Legyetek óvatosak!

Nem ismerek olyat, aki látott már ilyen embert...Nem legenda a fenti
forgatókönyv. Tegnap én magam beszéltem az emberrel. Nem véletlenül
mesélte el. Az ő 13. fizetését is elvették, az ő lakásrészlete is
1,5X-re nőtt, és csak hogy ne kelljen különböző eddig törvényesen neki
járó pótlékokat fizetni, a törvényt is módosították. Persze, hogy
elkeseredett..."

Why isn't Pestiside covering this shit?

Hungarokrácia

2009-03-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

Index

Tragikomédiát írt az amerikai befektető a magyar bürokráciából

Hatvanmilliárdos beruházást tervez a főváros XV. kerületében egy amerikai beruházó. A 2800 lakásos városrész építési munkálatainak megkezdése viszont 2007 óta csúszik, pedig a Park Cityben saját pénzen 3000 embernek hoznának létre új munkahelyet. Richard Field, az Amerikai Ház Kft. vezetője ötfelvonásos tragikomédiában foglalta össze az újpalotai és a fővárosi önkormányzat különböző tisztségviselőivel átélt kalandjait.
...
Az amerikai cég tulajdonosa szerint viszont a XV. kerületi önkormányzat és a főváros érthetetlen módon segítség helyett újabb és újabb akadályokat gördít az indulás elé. A kezdés legfőbb akadálya, hogy fővárosnak már hosszú ideje nem sikerül rábólintania arra, hogy telek kerületi szabályozási terve elfogadható-e a fővárosi szabályozási terv alapján, holott a két dokumentumot ugyanaz a cég készítette, ugyanazzal a szövegezéssel.

As one of my uncles always tells his German friends who have taken the time and energy to invest in Hungary, only to get fucked, "Herzlich Willkommen in Ungarn!"

Nonsense

2009-03-02T14:06:00.000-08:00

Vándorló commented:

It also brings in that nonsense about some Ashkenazi Jews having the highest IQ (G. Cochran, J. Hardy, H. Harpending, Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence, Journal of Biosocial Science 38 (5), pp. 659–693, 2006).

I believe you are referring to the fact that Ashkenazi Jews, on average, score well above the mean and median on intelligence test(-- which is not the same thing your assertion of "some Ashkenazi Jews having the highest IQ").

This is not nonsense. This is biologically (and culturally) driven. Interesting article just on that here.

-----

BTW, on a related note, to think that gypsy crime doesn't have biological (as well as cultural, if you can gypsy lifestyle "culture"), roots is silly. Just as their tendencies to have great rates of dyslexia and disproportionate talent for music are, in part, biological --- so is their tendency for crime.

Hilarious irony and the Holocaust

2009-03-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

An astute reader informs me of this unintentional ironic hilarity:

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, who proposed a bailout package of up to €190 billion ($240.84 billion), warned that without aid a "new Iron Curtain" would descend on Europe and again separate East from West.

Funny how the political philosophy/tyranny espoused by and led by Feri and Friends was the one that installed the (apparently now) "old" Iron Curtain. This akin to a former Nazi warning us with, "If we don't do anything, we'll have a new Holocaust!"

As they say, "you cannot make this shit up".

little comfort

2009-02-25T17:06:00.000-08:00

Vándorló says:

@anon: There are no rules here, so if you are just looking for people to agree with you, will be disappointed and you will find little comfort here.

I say fair enough.

Magyarországon túl nagy a szólásszabadság

2009-02-24T19:07:00.000-08:00

Index

Az Európa Tanács fajgyűlölet- és intolerancia-ellenes bizottsága szigorúbb törvényeket, és a jelenlegiek komolyabban vételét követeli Magyarországtól. Az országjelentés szerint a magyar oktatási rendszer még mindig szegregál, a menekültek nem kapnak elég segítséget, és túlzott a szólásszabadság

Elkészült az Európa Tanács fajgyűlölet- és intolerancia-ellenes bizottságának (ECRI) Magyarországról szóló jelentése. A strasbourgi székhelyű emberi jogok felett őrködő szervezet 5 évente vizsgálja a tagállamokat. A szervezetnek 47 ország a tagja, és bár hasonló a neve az EU vezetőit tömörítő Európai Tanácshoz, ez nem egy EU-s szervezet.

A jelentés szerint a magyar törvények elvben jobbak, mint a legutóbbi 2004-es jelentés idején voltak, de részben nem elég szigorúak részben pedig nem tartják be őket. A problémák hasonlóak az öt évvel ezelőttiekhez, és az idegenellenesség fokozódott az országban.
Össze-vissza lehet beszélni Magyarországon

A jelentés szerint Magyarországon túl nagy a szólásszabadság. Miközben a cigányellenes és az antiszemita írások és beszédek száma megszaporodott, alig van lehetőség a törvény erejével lecsapni az elkövetőkre. Gyakorlatilag nincs korlátja a szólásszabadságnak, és ez a jelentés szerint nem jó. Külön törvényt követelnek az uszító neten terjedő szövegek megfékezésére is.

Why do I find myself agreeing with Vaclav Klaus?

In his latest diatribe, this time before the European Parliament on Thursday, President Klaus, whose country assumed the rotating EU helm in January from France, branded the organisation an undemocratic and elitist project comparable to Soviet-era dictatorships that forbade free thought.

“Not so long ago,” Mr Klaus thundered, “in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition. We learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom.”

He may have felt gratified by the reaction: boos from many lawmakers and a walkout by the left-wing parties — but applause from a minority of nationalists and other anti-EU legislators.

Ransacked

2009-02-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

BTW 1 it is insane to think that gyspies don't commit a disproportionate amount of crime relative to their percentage in the population. Only the insanely politically correct and those who have had no interactions with gypsies would think so. Why do you think that crime stats segmented by ethnicity are impossible to come by?

BTW 2 a close relative's house was recently ransacked. By guess who? During the daytime too.

BTW 3 I think a saw an inane and insane comment on Red Eva S. Balogh's blog about how both "roma" and "cigány" are racist terms, and how neither should be used. And in fact, no term should be used at all when referring to them. Which is funny and ironic, because the gypsies themselves think of themselves as a separate and distinct people from non-gypsy Hungarians --- which they look down upon.

BTW 4 You may think that the csendőr handling of the theft (post below) was especially brutal. But what is brutal is how in modern-day Hungary, the police are afraid of gypsies. A friend had some trouble with a group of them not so long ago, he called the police, and managed to calm them down. After the gypsies left, the policeman showed up.

Where had he been?

By his own admission: Hiding around the corner, safely out of sight. This is not a joke nor an exaggeration. One reason for this is not only that he fears, correctly, that the gypsies will take retribution on the policeman's family ---- but due to nonsense European equal force self-defense laws, if a gypsy attacks you, me or even a policemen, with say a, pitchfork, and said policeman defends himself with his sidearm. Guess who is going to jail?

Mr. Policeman.

A csendőr és a cigány

2009-02-23T14:06:00.000-08:00

The VarangyPapi and I were talking about the recent cigány affair. He laughed and told me the following story:

The VarangyPapi was, as he remembers, 7 or 8 years old when his family was living in Southern Hungary. At that time, there were quite a few true nomadic gypsy families living from time to time in the surrounding forests. The VarangyNagymama would often hire them as labor as well as buy wild mushrooms from them, which the gypsies expertly gathered after the rains. The VarangyPapi remembers the relationship between the villagers and the gypsies being cordial, but not close.

One morning news spread around the village that something had been stolen during the night. The VarangyPapi couldn't remember what it was, but remembered it was something of considerable value. As it happened to be, there was a young gypsy man working for them in the courtyard that morning.

All of the sudden a csendőr appeared in the courtyard, the VarangyPapi cannot remember if he was on horseback or not, but remembers being impressed by his uniform, cap and shiny buttons.

This csendőr spotted the gypsy, walked up to him and and without saying a thing, lekevert egy akkora pofont, one that would have felled most men, and then forcibly interrogated him with: "Mi a neved?"

Cigány bűnözés

2009-02-23T13:56:00.000-08:00

So, it looks like I am awakened from my deep hibernation. Apparently, "Tünde" has been censored at Eva S. Balogh's Commie Echo Chamber. Here is the very accurate, interesting and fair comment that was deleted by Eva S. Balogh herself. Editing and highlighting are all mine. My opinion in the post above.

Well I am taking no comment to mean no objection. As I took the time and effort to write this thing, I hope you don't mind:

On "A brief survey: Hungarian Gypsies in the Kádár regime and since" 2009. february 13. Hungarian Spectrum

Mark said on my comment “While I agree that gypsies are not necessarily more criminal than the majority population, there is no denying the differences in the type of crime and a view of it."

I asked the question earlier of someone else, what is your evidence? Given that there is no crime statistic that can be broken down by ethnicity, how do you know? "Prejudice" by definition is a tendency to pre-judge a situation before you've found the evidence to back to it up. That's what the word means. And that's what these sweeping judgements are. You say there is "no denying" it - well, prove it.

You cite Kemény, but you then misrepresent his report and conclusions in part by taking it out of context, when it actually is rather close to the opposite of what you are trying to argue (I've got the report in front of me). Not only that but his report was published thirty-three years ago under a different system, and pretend that this describes the situation as it exists now. I do think people should use evidence to support what they say, but they really ought to be expected to use it properly.

My response which was deleted by BSE was: Mark, telling me the definition of prejudice, saying that prejudice is irrational and labeling anyone prejudiced who says yes, there is are differences, is unhelpful. Deviant behavior has exploded in areas with high concentration of gypsies, in heavily partly due to economic reasons, partly due to continuing cultural traditions. The problems with attempts to rapidly assimilate gypsies have been documented during the Kádár era, and the term cigánybűnözés was born in that time, particularly in the high employment years of 1970s and 1980s. Why is that? In the only period when the state was making huge efforts at assimilation?

Tapasztalat szerint a romák főleg vagyon elleni és erőszakos bűncselekményeket - zsebtolvajlás, besurranásos lopás, kisstílű rablások, lakás- és üzletbetörések, autófeltörés, gyermekek kifosztása, markecolás - követtek el (Molnár, 1988 in Póczik Szilveszter:http://epa.oszk.hu/00700/00775/00050/2003_01_10.html).

[Translation:]Crime associated with gypsies: pickpocketing, sneaking into homes, smaller robberies, break-ins to houses and autos, stealing from children, prostitutes stealing wallets).

And: A 60-as évek óta tudott, hogy a cigány bűnözésnek vannak bizonyos minőségi és mennyiségi jellegzetességei: vannak jellegzetes, cigány elkövetőre utaló bűncselekmények és elkövetési módok, cselekményeikre jellemző egyebek között az indokolatlan brutalitás.

[Translation:]It is known since the 1960s that there are certain qualifiable and quantifiable characteristics to gypsy crime, there are certain crimes and the manner in which they are carried out which point to gypsies, one of which is unnecessary brutality.

Lipovszki J.: A cigány bűnözés néhány jellemző sajátossága. In: Vigh József (szerk.): Szakkriminológia. http://www.sulinet.hu/oroksegtar/data/Magyarorszagi_nemzetisegek_kotetei/Ciganyok_es_idegenek/pages/005_ciganyok_magyarorszagon.htm Also mentioned was the clan, mafia tradition but this is specific to a criminal subculture (Veszprém incident). Also typical: violent behavior “quick reaction” and absence of strategical thinking (Póczik) is partly historical-cultural, partly being made worse by the economic situation. Pócszik mentions some experts believe there is a high rate of sexual abuse amongst gypsies (the victims also being gypsies). This seems to have been institutionalised with prostitution in the mafia element. There is deviant behavior which seems to be present in all strata, and behavior which is specific to a criminal subculture. Roma are not uniform, and there is a hierarchy amongst themselves. „Mint láttuk, a tömeges cigány bűnözés tételét csak egy bizonyos aspektusban igazolja a statisztika” or that statistics do bear out the incidence of mass gypsy crime, to a point, because the study goes on to say that the high rate of gypsies in prison is due to discrimination (in this case the situation is similar to American blacks). On the other hand, this does not take into account the crime never processed such as scrap metal (recognising here this was effectively encouraged by the scrap metal privatisation, and that those at the top of the scrap metal business were often Hungarian, such as our present Finance Minister). Garden and livestock (chicken) theft is also not reflected in the statistics, because anything stolen with a value under 20 000 Forints does not constitute a crime. That sort of theft is noted in literature and history (as Éva Balogh wrote earlier) and one can imagine the friction this is causing in villages, particularly as those stealing have as much land now as those from whom they are stealing. As one villager and one Miskolc resident told me recently, the difference is that gypsies used to steal at night, now they steal in the daytime as well. Garden theft in the Slovak town of Eperjes is such a problem now, that the town put up a huge fence between the gypsy settlement and the gardens. It is particularly this kind of crime which has a different ethical meaning for gypsies, as I wrote earlier and quoted from Rostás-Farkas-Karsai.

There are certain pointers in reading police reports or newspaper reports which point to specific behavior. eg. The Népszabadság reported last week on police being called out to a street on the edge of town, because two families were going at it with each other. The police car was immediately surrounded and that the crowd began to attack the car with garden implements. There are four pointers in that report which point to the group in question being gypsy. “Kihívták a rendőröket, majd rájuk támadtak”: http://www.nol.hu/lap/mozaik/lap-20090209-20090209-20. Although the Olaszliszka incident was particularly brutal, the crowd behavior exhibited there (and since, in similar incidents) is not uncommon. And we do have statistics on the high rate of deviant behavior in gypsy children. So these children were suddenly reformed as adults? I mentioned Kemény re: behavior problems in school because he is seen as the definitive authority, certainly by the liberal left, and that even he wrote mentioned behavioral problems. You say this does not count, because it is 30 years old. Well here is a newer one: http://www.oki.hu/oldal.php?tipus=cikk&kod=2002-11-ta-Lisko-Cigany. “Ha a három nagy problémacsoportot a cigány tanulók aránya szerint elemezzük, az derül ki, hogy a magatartási és a tanulmányi problémák előfordulása ott gyakoribb, ahol magasabb a cigány tanulók aránya, etnikai problémák pedig csak azokban az iskolákban fordulnak elő, amelyekben viszonylag kevés a cigány tanuló.”

The discussion of whether or not there is specific deviant, or a certain type of criminal behavior amongst gypsies, seems to me pointless considering that there similar patterns of behavior all over Europe. My question (and this is also mentioned in the sulinet study) would be not that the problems exist, but rather why do they exist, and what should be done to address them.

Che: King of Marketing

2008-12-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

Watch the whole thing. At 7:13, the piece makes an especially good point.

palpable fear and some irony

2008-11-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

As the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, an economist, anti-totalitarian and climate change sceptic, prepares to take up the rotating presidency of the European Union next year, climate alarmists are doing their best to traduce him.

The New York Times opened a profile of Klaus, 67, this week with a quote from a 1980s communist secret agent's report, claiming he behaves like a "rejected genius", and asserts there is "palpable fear" he will "embarrass" the EU.

But the real fear driving climate alarmists wild is that a more rational approach to the fundamentalist religion of global warming may be in the ascendancy - whether in the parliamentary offices of the world's largest trading bloc or in the living rooms of Blacktown.

You gotta love the New York Times. They openly use and source a Communist informer's report to provide background on Klaus.

Here is the IHT version. (The IHT is owned by the NYT)

"His behavior and attitudes reveal that he feels like a rejected genius," the agent noted in his report, which has since been made public. "He shows that whomever does not agree with his views is stupid and incompetent."

Which is sort of funny considering that it is the Communists who actually spy and persecute those do not agree with their views and those "who had come under suspicion for extolling free market virtues."

If I understand correctly, it is worse to be a bit of arrogant prick than to spy on a free-market economics seminar. Just a bit fuckin' ironic, eh? Christ, you cannot make this shit up.

I think you will agree, if you are at all rational and moral, this tells us nothing about Klaus but speaks volumes about the NYT and where its sympathies lie.

I wonder if the reporter, Dan Bilefsky, is Jewish? Anyone know?

"no Gypsy can be safe in Hungary"

2008-11-04T18:47:00.000-08:00

Been out and about. But I'm back.

Have nothing to say about what has happened in Hun. and elsewhere since I have last posted.

Two things though:

a) I can only imagine the schemin' and dreamin' going on amongst both the Hun. Left and Hun. Right about how to get their little paws on the IMF and EU monies set to flow into Hungary. ~~Millionaires and fortunes will be made.~~ The scum on both sides, more on the Left as they are in power, will add to their ill-begotten wealth.

b) This is the most stupid issue:

The government has called on law enforcement to give top priority to a suspected racially motivated pair of murders in a village in northeast Hungary on Monday and to investigate all possible motives, racial and other
...
Two people, a man, 43, and a woman, 40, both Roma, died instantly of gunshot wounds in what may have been random shooting. The perpetrator or perpetrators fired into two houses, across the street from one another, after throwing petrol bombs in through the windows during the night. The killings were in the village of Nagycsecse, Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen County, police spokesman Tamas Dobi told MTI.
...
The National Gypsy Authority firmly believes the action was racially motivated. Spokesman Janos Bogdan told MTI that he had consulted with Jozsef Balog, a senior official in the Roma interest organisation and had learned that two pubs run by Roma in nearby Sajoszoged and Sajooros had been attacked with petrol bombs overnight on Sunday, shortly before the combined petrol bomb and shooting spree. This would strongly suggest racial motivation. Bogdan said the Gypsy Authority was initiating a meeting with the national police chief and justice minister. He called on county investigators to find the perpetrators as quickly as possible because "while people like that are free, no Gypsy can be safe in Hungary."

Allow me to employ Occam's razor and suggest the unthinkable: Gypsies did this to gypsies.

“sympathizer” means “supporter”

2008-09-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

What the fuck? Aren't Ashkanazi Jews known to have the highest average IQs per ethnic/racial grouping? If so, then where the fuck is ~~NWO~~ JWO coming from?

Varangy-

I am happy to play the straw man for you, but the thing is that the answer to my question was right in the middle of your post.

“Of course, most Jews were never communist or procommunist, and most communists were never Jewish. Various minorities were overrepresented among communists.”

Your response to this, however, does not hold water. You know as well as I do that in the context of a discussion on communism, “sympathizer” means “supporter”.

I cannot believe you are Jewish cuz you appear to fuckin' stupid to be. You might be the first stupid Jew I have had the displeasure of interacting with.

You know as well as I do that in the context of a discussion on communism that “sympathizer” does not necessarily mean “supporter”. They mean two wholly different fuckin' things, you stupid fuck.

Allow me to illustrate for the record, I sympathize with Israel's plight, but I am not a supporter. So quit trying to move the goalposts with some overt semantics.

YOUR expert while arguing that there were A LOT of Jews in the top ranks of Communist parties, “most” were not.

Due to religion, he is more YOUR expert than mine, really, isn't he? Clearly, most Communists weren't Jews --- there simply weren't enough to go around.

Let me be Krystallnacht-clear:

All of the following is true: “Of course, most Jews were never communist or procommunist, and most communists were never Jewish. Various minorities were overrepresented among communists.”

but that does not mutually exclude from the very fact that most Jews then and now were/are sympa-fuckin'-thetic to Communism abundantly and repeatedly illustrated in the paper.

And this means the following with which I whole-heartedly agree:

Jewish communists have left a disturbing legacy that needs to be confronted by the reemerging Jewish communities in East Central Europe. This is not to say that Jews are guilty and non-Jews are not. That is the anti-Semitic opinion and I shall have nothing to do with it. Accepting a Jewish share of moral responsibility does not make non-Jews less responsible or less morally involved. The problem of communist crimes remains a challenge for the left (obviously, I do not propose to ignore the crimes committed by the right) and for many groups and nations.

Back to your ignorance:

On your two other points, I believe you are absolutely wrong that most current Jews in Hungary that support MSZP or SZDSZ are “sympathetic” to communism. I don’t believe any organization polls on this question, but I find that utterly non-credible. Show me data to the contrary.

Then you don't know shit about Hungarian politics and should shut the fuck up about expounding on it. Recommendation: talk to a honest Jewish Hungarian and ask them about it yourself.

I think the vast majority of Hungarians are post-ideological (including-yes-MOST Jews). What matters for them is jobs, food on the table, cash in the bank, schools and hospitals. Politics is now about how the cake is cut.

Your naivete is embarrassing. Nothing in Hungary is post-ideological.

Despite what you want to think and what you want to attribute to me, I am not interested in exonerating all Jews. I am interested in arguing the evil of Communism versus the holocaust. They both win or they both lose, depending upon your vantage. I asked about your proof for using the word “most”. And, I got my answer.

You got your goddamn answer and you didn't like the taste of it. You do yourself no favors by choking on it and spitting it back up. Take it like a homo and swallow the geci down.

BTW, the statute on Szabadsag ter is not South Ossetia,

No shit it is not so don't even try to force the comparison...oh shit...here you go....

BUT Saakashvili may have proven by his actions that he is no COWARD [you must be proud], but in his miscalculation he may have done far more damage to his country and its freedom than he should have, and if so his actions may end up being considered “immoral.” Mind you, not in respect of the Russians who have no ground to stand on in this dispute, but from the perspective of Georgia’s own citizens who will be left to suffer the consequences for many years to come.

Why bring this up? This is no parallel. I, clearly no fan of Russia/Putin and Co., from what little I know of this conflict, I do NOT take the view of Russia:bad --- Georgia:good. My shooting-from-the-hip intuition/guess tells me that Saakashvili is not 'one of the good guys' and may have instigated this little war in an effort to draw the US to do some of his dirty work.

In the end, I am sure you can feel gratified that you can continue to believe that you have the bigger cock than me the immoral, coward. One day, maybe, we can each put our own on the table and see who wins. Even if I am playing with the disadvantage of having a little piece of my own cut off, I think it can match yours just fine!
L'Chaim

--NWO

Ironic you intentionally play to the stereotype of the nagyszájú zsidó -- because if it comes to that --- you're gonna need a big mouth. As in: kapd be.

Don't try vitriol and insult -- it doesn't suit you and makes you look like a piker.

Zentai Károly

2008-08-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

Zentai Károly háborús bűnökkel vádolt egykori magyar katonatiszt elhagyhatta a perthi Hakea börtönt, miután óvadék ellenében szabadlábra bocsátották.

Előtte egy perthi bíróság úgy döntött, kiadható [1] Magyarországnak a 86 éves emigráns Zentai, akit azzal vádolnak, hogy a II. világháború alatt, 1944. november 8-án harmadmagával halálra kínozta a 18 éves Balázs Pétert, amiért a fiatalember nem viselte a zsidók számára akkor kötelező sárga csillagot.

If true, let's put a bullet in his head for starters.

For the entrees, we can start rounding up the Commies of the same evil ilk here at home, for dessert, the ones abroad.

There has been almost no attempt to punish the guilty, especially the ÁVO who massacred hundreds of unarmed, peaceful civilians during and after the revolution; the reasons for this are manifold, but the reality is that the justice button has never really been pushed.

Why not?

BTW aside from me and Tibor Fischer - who's in?

fuck's sake

2008-08-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

Anonymous sends his/her thoughts on my post below:

As usual, you avoid the niceties, but I've known for some time that NWO is Jewish, the way it came through with some of his comments, and that he got much testier with your Jewish comments than in some "let's not offend anyone" type of person.

On a different note, notice how Eva made no mention of the 40th anniversary of the Prague Spring being crushed.

http://www.politics.hu/20080822/solyom-expresses-regret-over-hungarys-role-in-1968-invasion-of-czechoslovakia

Even MSZP said they regretted that Hungary participated in crushing it via Hiller. My guess is Eva supported the crushing of it. The idea of her being sent out by the komcsik is becoming more viable. For fuck's sake, there has to be a reason she only taught for something like 7-8 years before becoming a dean (meaning no teaching) and leaving Academia to raise dogs. SOMETHING happened there.

Comments?

STANISŁAW KRAJEWSKI

2008-08-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

I am embarrassed. Painful-fuckin'-ly embarrassed for NWO's naivete and ignorance. Hitherto, NWO had appeared to be reasonably well-informed ---- but now, has jumped the shark. Into the breach:

Where is your evidence that "most" Hungarian Jews NOW or THEN are/were sympathetic to Communists? Jews may traditionally have been more left leaning (including sadly in some cases pro-Communist)than gentiles (and gentiles in Hungary are more sympathetic to radical right wing forms of extremism (including the clergy, I might add) than Jews), but this is a large leap to assume MOST are sympathisers.

Are you out of your mind? Do you know anything about Communism and CEE history?

Let's parse this paper written by a, I assume, Polish Jew, teaching at CEU.

Now, the first image is true but it does not represent the total picture of the
relationship of Jews with communism. The second image is false but it does point to certain facts, specifically to the large number of Jews among active communists. As Andre W. M. Gerrits puts it: the power of the association of Jews with communism comes from the fact that “it was based on elements of fiction and reality”.1 The myth of ‘Jewish communism’ is only a myth. What is real is the existence and importance of Jewish communists. The distinction made by Gerrits had been made earlier by Jaff Schatz in the most important book-length study of the topic,2 and also by me.3 This reality has been subjected to surprisingly little research.

The writer fully discloses his interests in the subject:

That leader, Adolf Warski, was one of the founders of the Polish Communist Party, was later a member of the Polish parliament, was murdered in Russia during the Stalinist terror, and happened to be my greatgrandfather.

He reiterates my central point:

Jew were not only among the oppressed, but also among the oppressors! Because we Jews were the victims of the most horrible persecutions, the very idea that some of us were among the victimizers sounds dramatic and is hard to accept. Yet it is clearly a fact.

You asked me about Jews sympathy for Communism in the past?

Let me mention just some examples showing that communism, and, more generally,
left-wing radicalism, was relatively widespread among Jews, especially in Eastern Europe. I refer to facts not myths. Most Jews who left the closed traditional communities tended to support political radicalism. If they did not choose Zionism, they supported the revolutionary left. Sometimes both. Secular Yiddish culture was predominantly leftist. What is even more relevant, Jews were important in communist movements. They were prominent among revolutionary leaders, both before and after the seizure of power by the communists.

Occasionally, other leaders praised Jews for this, as was the case with Engels and Lenin, for example.
...
For instance, Jewish activists in Eastern Europe and in Israeli kibbutzim were eagerly pro-Soviet in the period of terror in the later years of Stalin’s life.

Can it be any more clear than this?

In Poland, right after the Second World War, most Jewish organizations were procommunist; they saw communists as a force that could bring security and stabilization. To be a Jew was sometimes an advantage for those ready to make careers in the emerging communist system. (Though it could also be a burden. I know examples of returning Jews who were offered career opportunities, and examples of those who were denied them—in both cases Jewishness seemed essential.) I wish to avoid a misunderstanding: I am not saying that Jewishness was ever sufficient for a career; not Jews, but loyal persons were needed, preferably those with no family ties. Jews were often perfect candidates since they were isolated, with no families, not connected to the prewar power elite, dreaming about normal lives and about protection by the state authorities.

He astutely brings up a point I have made before:

Some Jews in postwar Poland tried to punish those guilty of the murder of their
families. This is mentioned in some literary renderings by Jewish survivors, as for example in a remarkable book, recently published, by a Polish–Jewish survivor Wilhelm Dichter.7 His mother asked a Soviet Jewish officer in Lvov to send to Siberia a Polish neighbor who had reported to Germans and thereby sent her family members to death.

Perfectly understandable. This is written without sarcasm for the record.

He goes onto contradict himself:

It is imperative, then, to remember all the facts that contradict the image of ‘Jewish communism’. Let me mention just a few. Of course, most Jews were never communist or procommunist, and most communists were never Jewish. Various minorities were overrepresented among communists.

Hhhhhhhhmmmm, really?

While most Jews may have not 'been' active communists --- most Jews were certainly sympathetic to them.

Why do most Hungarian Jews find their political home in MSZP and SZDSZ? Don't bother with claiming that these parties are free-market capitalist/libertarians. They are free-market capitalist/libertarians as long as it is politically advantageous. This goes for all Communists of all religious faiths BTW.

Let me see --- it is 1988 and the writing is on the wall, why would I go from heading KISZ to becoming an ardent capitalist?

He then goes onto address you, NWO, directly:

And why should we care now? From the perspective of the contemporary Westerner [NWO] the story of Jewish communists seems rather exotic, an unimportant dead end of Jewish history.

I disagree with this point of view. It is true that most of them were strongly un-Jewish, that is, they tried hard to abandon their Jewishness. Some authors maintain that no relationship existed between their origins and their communism.17 After all, they clearly did not act as Jews. However, many of them came back to the Jewish world when the communist world rejected them. Also, they had Jewish family members. One striking example is Jakub Berman, number-two in Stalinist Poland, who was very far from paying heed to Jewish concerns; at the same time, his brother, Adolf, was a left-wing Zionist who emigrated to Israel. Also, many Marxist Jews had a strong Jewish identity and were ‘Jewishly’ active.

Bundists and left-wing Zionists believed in socialism and in revolution in a similar fashion to communists.

Above all, the size of the phenomenon should not be underestimated. Isaac Bashevis
Singer recalled how in the 1920s, in Warsaw, in the coffee shops attended by Jewish writers and journalists “everyone” was looking forward to revolutionary changes, and he alone was “living in the past”. We are not talking about a handful of individuals. It was a social phenomenon: radical leftist alternatives were dominant in some Jewish circles.

This paper is long and chock-ful of insight --- some excerpts:

Despite all these reservations, the fact remains that communist Jews were numerous and influential. I believe that this fact should be incorporated into their thinking about Jewish history by scholars and by ‘average’ Jews alike. And to me the sheer number of communist Jews is not the only and not even the most important aspect of the problem.
...
There is a simple proof that it was the situation rather than tradition that led Jews to communism.
...
One could still ask: why should we remember the Jewishness of the communists,
especially of those who did not want to be part of the Jewish people, of Jewish history? My answer is that what Jews did is usually considered as part of Jewish history, even if they did not act as Jews. Lists of outstanding Jewish sportsmen are compiled for Jewish encyclopedias: why not make one of the top Jewish communists? Jewish communists did not represent Jewish interests (and Jewish Olympic medal winners did not represent Jews), but they were perceived as Jews by others, Jews and non-Jews alike.
...
This romantic view of revolutionaries is still shared by some of my American and
Western friends [ex-pat douchebags]who remember the idealistic leftists who cared about justice [for all of three seconds].
...
At the same time, I am horrified by the consequences of their choices and I feel ashamed. Moreover, I believe that all Jews should understand the drama and share the feeling of uneasiness.
...
Jewish communists have left a disturbing legacy that needs to be confronted by the reemerging Jewish communities in East Central Europe. This is not to say that Jews are guilty and non-Jews are not. That is the anti-Semitic opinion and I shall have nothing to do with it. Accepting a Jewish share of moral responsibility does not make non-Jews less responsible or less morally involved. The problem of communist crimes remains a challenge for the left (obviously, I do not propose to ignore the crimes committed by the right) and for many groups and nations.

Exactly.

So, in sum --- NWO, go fuck yourself raw.

As usual you paint with a very broad brush, and for that reason you are even more inaccurate in your generalizations than your friend Eva.

You are a know-nothing fool beyond comprehension. Perhaps only surpassed by Lars the Village Idiot Viking.

Finally, I think the statue in Szabadsag Ter should have been removed, but is it worth a disruption of gas supplies to Hungary? I don't think so.

That is because you are a coward and immoral. I polled my friends and family --- they said they would gladly suffer disruption of gas supplies for this. One of the youngsters spoke up --- why wouldn't we do it during the summer, if that would be the case?

Estonia seems to have made out alright and had much more to lose as they have a sizable ethnic Russian population.

Instead, a huge statue to the victims of communism should be erected on the other side of the square.--NWO

LOL. You are really thick. Would you not support the removal of a monument to the Germans who died 'defending' Budapest from the Russians? You would simply ignore it and propose a memorial to the Jews be erected on the other side? Don't lie to me you ignorant faszkalap.

You are worthless and stupid. For the record, are you Jewish?

Juhú, jön a kedvencem

2008-08-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

1) NWO, I saw your comment. Steel yourself for rhetorical caning of the sort that the VarangyPapi gave me as a child (although his were actually physical).

2) In the meantime, a reader drops a line to:

Náczivadász

Drága elvtársak!

Azt hiszem, az évszázad leleplezésének lehetünk most tanúi, és most aztán végleg bebizonyosodott, hogy már abban sem bízhatunk, akiért akár az életünket is feláldoztuk volna az antifasizmus oltárán. Drága jó Mindannyiunk által Szeretett és mélyen tisztelt Miniszterelnök Urunkról kiderítettem, hogy valójában nem több, mint egy ügyesen álcázott náczi besúgó. Nézzétek csak meg a képeken: az elsőn véletlenül (valószínűleg megszokásból) kedvenc nyilascsíkos nyakkendőjét vette fel, és bár a képen nem látszik, de én Hiller István arcáról leolvastam, hogy Gyurcsánytól jobbra a képen már nem láthatóan ott ül Kóka elvtárs, aki éppen Holokauszt™-ot tagad, Gyurcsány pedig lelkesen tapsol neki. Hát hogy engedhet meg magának pártunk egy ilyen aljas návzi vezetőt?
...

"Juhú, jön a kedvencem, a nyilas-zászló!"

bus stop

2008-08-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

Ironically, I am the stupid douchebag, as I continue to argue in good faith with the likes of Lars the Viking and Kincs.

My response to one of Lars' most moronic comments ever. That is saying a lot. BTW anyone know if Lars the Viking is Down's Syndrome?

***********Mr Ape: "The memorial should have been removed in 1989 --- but alas, we are not as honest and brave as the Estonians"

'honest'? What is the simple truth? That War Memorial is regulated in a state agreement with today's Russia. Any changes to it, must be agreed with the other contract partners.***********

Who cares what the Russians think? They were an occupying and oppressive force --- their so-called 'liberation' lasted 50 years!

***********As you are well aware of, that agreement covers Hungarian Memorials in the domain of Russia. Do you propose that Russia destroys those memorials?***********

Russia can do whatever the hell they want to do with any Hungarian memorials.

***********The Estonians were not brave - they had nothing to lose then there are no Estonian War memorials in today's Russia, so it was a rather single-sided affair. They were a bit stupid though, because the move just fueled internal problems with the Russian minority. The official reason for the move was a bus stop.***********

Official reason...LOL. You really, really, really think that they would rub the Russians the wrong way, both the internal ethnic minority as well as the Bear next door, for a bus stop? If so, you are more brain-damaged than I previously thought.

The Estonians were right to do this.

***********You make everything very easy for yourself, like all opportunists and populists do. Of course the memory and honor of the people who actually died is never important for you guys, just to make cheap points.***********

Ironic -- because they taking the moral high ground is never easy. That is exactly why this testament to Evil has not been removed.

A force that subjugated and oppressed the Hungarians, not to mention literally raping Bp., for 50 years deserves neither honor nor a memorial.

I ask all of you again:

How would you feel about a column topped with a swastika for the 'brave' German soldiers who fell 'defending' Budapest? Oh yeah, it would be on 'Szabadság' tér.

Not counting other Communist nightmares, the USSR (i.e. in the name of the hammer-and-the-sickle)tops the list of global deka-megamurders.

Need I remind you --- the USSR killed many more than the Nazis did.

You still think that some international treaty binds us from its removal?

Posted by:Majom | August 01, 2008 at 11:06 AM

We'll see how long that Communist harpy tolerates my presence on her blog. My guess I will tire of changing my nom-de-blog before she tires of deleting my comments.

BTW if it isn't abundantly clear -- I invite any and all of you to debate anything on this blog --- UNLIKE Eva, I will not delete any of your comments and will address them point by point.

Last obvious takeaway, which I hinted at: Eva will not reference or draw parallel to the Soviet Memorial and the Turul because she is, like most, Hungarian Jews, a strong sympathizer of the Communists.

hardly exceptional

2008-07-31T21:54:00.000-07:00

"My initial point was that Eva intentionally did not tie in relevant data into her post."

Few, if any, of the various discussions of the turul statue that I have read or heard mention the Soviet memorial. So Eva is hardly exceptional in leaving it out here.

I was going to thoroughly fisk Kincs's replies to me --- but then I thought, what the fuck is the use? He/she is a complete fuckin' moron and incapable of higher thought -- just like the rest of the commenters on Red Eva S. Balogh's blog.

Fuck me sideways.

red through and through

2008-07-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

Anonymous said...

Somewhat related, on another Blog I saw the Greens being referred to as watermelons: Green on the outside but red through and through.

Watermelon. Absolute unadulterated genius.

Uncommon Common Sense

2008-07-28T16:16:00.001-07:00

Surprisingly, Adrian retains some uncommon common sense in the face of Red Éva S. Balogh's hyperbolic hysteria:

"it was hard not to think of the repeated atrocities committed in our time. Then, largely due to the efforts of Teleki and his successor Bethlen, the murderous activities of these radical groups were stopped and the Hungarian radicals were pushed into the background."

This passage seems to imply that today's far right groups have actually killed people, which simply isn't true. It seems that that most serious beatings have been administered by the police, which as a law and order nut, I am glad of. People are dying in France and I think one has died in Britain as a result of clashes over islamist issues. I think you are overstating the street violence in Hungary, which by British standards is very tame. In addition, the street conflict is now going the way of the liberals, Magyar Garda demonstrations are now significantly outnumbered by Roma or Anti-anti-semitic demonstrators. I remember the Anti-nazi league seeing off the National Front, and it makes me proud to be British.

Posted by:Adrian | July 24, 2008 at 09:05 AM

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

Adrian; "This passage seems to imply that today's far right groups have actually killed people, which simply isn't true."

Perhaps I assumed too much. I thought most people knew that no blood has been shed yet. However, the intent was there. They were just too stupid. See the Molotov cocktails thrown at politicians' houses/apartments or the several shots fired through the windows of a house inhabited by Gypsies only a couple of days ago.

As for police brutality, I consider the whole issue overblown by certain people close to Fidesz. Orbán thinks that the paralysis of the police force is in his political interest.

Posted by:Eva S. Balogh | July 24, 2008 at 09:46 AM

"Very simple. Doesn't belong to the topic."

2008-07-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's me. Whom else would it be?

Red Éva S. Balogh

2008-07-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

A friend points me to Pestiside.hu:

Germinator, July 3, 2008 16:45

@Adrian D: Eva a. k. a. 'BSE' http://tinyurl.com/39ggeo is an ex Yale administrator, lesbian activist, dog breeder and hate magnet. She probably switched to English because her audience in Hungarian is now zero. I am not surprised by her super sensitivity to comments either. After experiencing her for a certain amount of time almost everyone, regardless of intelligence, education or political pursuasion seems to revert to insults for some reason.
@Erik: Wouldn't Al Qaeda, al-Qaida, al-qaidah, whatever (we don't even know how to spell this BS) would actually have to exist for that dream match?

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

Hatodik Oszlop, July 4, 2008 12:03

Germinator, if you could send a link to her Hungarian language blog that would be great. And she's lezza? To be honest, I always thought she had a metaphoric hard-on for Gyurcsany.

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

Germinator, July 20, 2008 06:10

I don't think she *has a Hungarian language blog. I know "Red Eva, BSE," etc. from Hungarian language discussion groups where she was as popular as the plague. Partly because some people were convinced she is a Lendvai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lendvai type 56-er who was *sent to the US and partly because she was in the habit of denouncing people who dared to disagree with her or whose views she didn't like such as a Szeged University lecturer who died shortly after Eva denounced him to the dean, said to be some commie hack. To be fair, noone has even tried to prove the allusions (why did she have to slip into the States through Canada? Why can't she become a US citizen? etc.) or accusations that included the sexual abuse of her beloved bassets. Think of her as a cheap, wrong-sex reincarnation of Jászi Oszkár http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1szi_Oszk%C3%A1r ,soul sista and not too secret admirer of Vásárhelyi Mária. ("I'm an admirer of Mária Vásárhelyi. Her writings, in my opinion, are always on target.") If you want to sample her first language venom do a group search and you'll find enough of her mental vomit to give you indigestion. Here http://www.geocities.com/paraport7 is what she lookes like.

These allegations explain a helluva a fuckin' lot, don't they? She isn't an involuntary vén szatyor spinster --- Éva S. Balogh is fuckin' lesbian. A Jewish Communist Lesbian. What a fuckin' nightmare!

The Lendvai allegation makes perfect sense to me, although we'll never know will we. Wonder why she never 'fessed up all this time...

Could you think of a more perfect mix of belief-systems for a perfectly amoral Western academician?

Nor could I.

an additional 1,638 kilowatts per month

2008-07-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

3) Why hasn’t his [Al Gore - The Esteemed High Priest of Neo-Socialist Environmentalism] one-year plan for energy worked at his own home? A year ago, after the embarrassing revelation that his home in Tennessee used 20 times as much electricity as the average home, he renovated his home to make it more energy-efficient. But a year later, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research reports that his home electricity usage has increased by 10 percent — an additional 1,638 kilowatts per month — since the renovations, which included solar panels, a geothermal system and a variety of conservation measures.

1 - The old socialist philosophy just won't quit: Do as I say, not as I do.

2 - Interesting how 'conversation' so-called 'green' measures perhaps contribute to higher cost and/or usage.

3 - Irony, irony, and more irony.

4 - Read the comments to the piece. The reflexive and idiotic defense of Al Gore - The Esteemed High Priest of Neo-Socialist Environmentalism is astounding.

cigányzene

2008-07-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

Cigánypecsenye, cigánypetrezselyem and cigánymeggy will no longer eaten, and will be struck off all menus --- nor will the words be spoken as they are clearly racist, and especially not when doing a cigánykerék.

Special temporary dispensation is being given to usage of: romapecsenye, romapetrezselyem, romameggy and romakerék.

But this maybe rescinded at any time, you racist fuckers.

PS read the comments at the link provided -- some are genuis.

Az ikes igék azért ikes igék, mert õk az ikes igék.

2008-07-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

Not gonna dedicate a lot of pixels to this and definitely do not want to go into the grammatical minutiae ---- but, do want to cover it. Whether or not a Hungarian conforms to the ikes igék, can say a lot about them.

For those of you not in the know, this simply means, in verbs where the present-tense third-person singular verb ends in –k ---- for example, enni : eszik ---- you would not say: Eszek egy hambit. You would say: Eszem egy hambit. Same goes for inni --- you don’t say: Iszok egy bambit. You say: Iszom egy bambit. (BTW same goes for if you were to drink THE bambi – Iszom a bambit.)

There are also false ikes igék, but I don’t want to go into that now. For example, baszom sounds stupid, so you would say baszok, even though she/he baszik.

I don’t think we know why this exists in Hungarian – but it does.

But let me shortcut you to the socio-linguistic bit: when a native-speaker of Hungarian who says: Dolgozom – meets another native-speaker of Hungarian who says: Dolgozok. ---- it gets noticed by the former. And it doesn’t make the latter look very good, if you get my drift. (Does the latter even notice the former?)

As my uncle puts it, why is it those that don’t watch their ikes igék are always the proliks? And moreover, more interestingly, why are they almost always on the Hun. Left politically?

Not coincidence, let me tell you that much.

Now everything in linguistics ultimately boils down to prescriptivism versus subscriptivism --- and this may well be such a case – my cousin from Southern Hungary strongly feels that my maternal side of the family is unbearably snobby in this regard.

But what I want to know what is taught and how is this explained to:

-ex-pat douchebags and ex-pat non-douchebags

-Hungarians in Slovakia, Transylvania, The Ukraine, and Serbia and Hungarians in North America

Thoughts and experiences?

Mr. Spielberg, tear down this wall

2008-07-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

Andrew Breitbart:

...
There are tons of movies on Nazi Germany. But why the dearth of stories on the rise and fall of the Iron Curtain? Are there no stories of tragedy and triumph in the 100 million or so dead, or those who came out alive?
...

Hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm. Couldn't have anything to do with Jewish Hollywood could it?

populista és veszélyes demagóg

2008-07-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

Éva S. Balogh

Régóta fájó hiányosság pótlása történt ezzel meg. Éva a Klubrádióból tájékozódik, majd az így nyert információt szabatos, keleti parti akadémiai körökben csiszolódott angol nyelven tárja a Magyarország iránt érdeklődő külföldiek elé. Specialitása a tárgyilagosság: a Nyugat-Balkánon dívó, érzelmi töltetű kifejezések helyett az angolszász tudós objektivitása vezeti a tollát. Sajnos ezen az objektív szemüvegen át nézve is az tűnik fel, hogy Orbán populista és veszélyes demagóg, a bírók a fideszes elfogultságuk miatt bűnözőket helyeznek szabadlábra, a magyarok pedig úgy általában homofóbok és antiszemiták, de különösen a jobboldal szavazói.

Mit van mit tenni, ha ez a tudományos igazság.

Előnye: angolsága tökéletes.

Hátránya: Magyarországhoz nem sok köze van.

Hiszterométer: 1/10

Left a few comments starting here.

Iszok

2008-07-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

Wonder if I should a post on the ikes igék? Again, those you without deep knowledge of Hungarian socio-linguistic triva might not get why that is an interesting topic.

"I don't speak a foreign language."

2008-07-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

One of things I am very much interested in is language and have mentioned it a few times on this blog. While I have no formal training in linguistics --- I do have a strong amateur inclination for it --- probably stemming from my odd, although not entirely atypical in Hungary, linguistic background. For example, my Ómami never learned to speak Hungarian, although she lived more than 3/4 of her life in Budapest. Guess what language we communicated in?

This should give you a clue as where some of my predecessors, at least on one side of the family, came from. Another clue: the Varangy family refers to their parents as Papi and Mami, not Apu és Anyu.

For those of you without deep knowledge of Hungarian socio-linguistic trivia --- 99.999999% of the 8 people reading this blog --- this implies a few things:

1) There is a strong Germanic/Austrian heritage in my family.

2) The terms of endearment the VarangyCsalad uses for its elders, is also found in those with 'noble' blood. In fact, I don't think I have ever heard an echte magyar use Papi or Mami.

3) Those same terms of endearment are rapidly becoming extinct -- may give you a clue about how old I am.

Enough of this shit. A friend forwarded me the following post:

Obama doesn't speak a foreign language

After telling Americans earlier this week to have their children learn Spanish, Sen. Barack Obama admitted yesterday, "I don't speak a foreign language."
...
Obama lacks a second language despite living for four years at an impressionable age in a foreign country, and then spending eight years at a lavish prep school that currently offers five different languages and makes studying at least one of them mandatory in 7th grade. Sen. Obama also has an undergraduate degree from Columbia University, which has a foreign language requirement and offers 37 different foreign languages, including some that don't exist anymore, such as Akkadian. He later spent three years at Harvard, which offers instruction in more languages than I'm willing to count. I did make it through Harvard's "African Languages" list and counted 20 separate ones offered at Harvard.

So, Obama has had more opportunity to learn a foreign language than 95% of all native-born Americans, but he hasn't.

Looks like Sen. Peaches is nothing more, nothing less, than an ex-pat douchebag. Yet, the international press can't stop falling over themselves in hagiographic compliments for his alleged 'international' outlook and understanding.

Didn't the American Left ridicule Dubya for his imperfect command of Spanish? Irony tastes great.

heterosexual bias

2008-07-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

Saw this piece at Politics.hu and had to laugh at the commenters. 'Blair' and 'Joe', please know that you are utter douchebags of the most moronic and inane order. 'Viking' continues to man his post as village idiot. Ignoring the politics in the article, which the aforementioned get wrong anyhow, the gay tangent struck me as hi-fuckin'-larious. Couldn't stop giggling all day about it.

Quick summation: The writer of article goes out of his way to bend over backwards (or forwards (?)) for the gays and references The Onion to make a great and 110% valid point. He says:

While some people may have come out to protest the Gay Pride March because of their opposition to the gay lifestyle or because of how these marches/parades frequently turn out to be, (this satirical piece by the Onion encapsulates my misgivings with respect to pride parades), it was clear that the Pride March was just an excuse for the far-right to show up.

Over to the piece:

"I'd always thought gays were regular people, just like you and me, and that the stereotype of homosexuals as hedonistic, sex-crazed deviants was just a destructive myth," said mother of four Hannah Jarrett, 41, mortified at the sight of 17 tanned and oiled boys cavorting in jock straps to a throbbing techno beat on a float shaped like an enormous phallus. "Boy, oh, boy, was I wrong."
...
Among the parade sights and sounds that did inestimable harm to the gay-rights cause: a group of obese women in leather biker outfits passing out clitoris-shaped lollipops to horrified onlookers; a man in military uniform leading a submissive masochist, clad in diapers and a baby bonnet, around on a dog leash; several Hispanic dancers in rainbow wigs and miniskirts performing "humping" motions on a mannequin dressed as the Pope; and a dozen gyrating drag queens in see-through dresses holding penis-shaped beer bottles that appeared to spurt ejaculation-like foam when shaken and poured onto passersby.

This is spot-on and that is, when behaving this way - part and parcel of being gay I assume - be it in private or public - gays do themselves no favors and only perpetuate 'stereotypes' (which BTW I believe are usually accurate). And what comes next?

Blair,

I agree with your comments. They're right on!

But don't get too worked up about the media in Hungary.

Just look at who owns this site: The All Hungary Media Group.

They also own:

http://www.sexiside.hu/

Check it out and you will understand the heterosexual bias here.
-
Joe at July 8, 2008 4:07 PM

You cannot make this shinanity up! Erik runs a heterosexual Hun. gossip sex blog of sorts, ergo, and that makes him and his stable of writers oh-so wicked homophobes!!!

LOL x 1,000,000,000,000,000

Joe, you got 'em. You got 'em good, you fuckin' cunty faggoty douchebag. As anyone who has read Erik's stuff knows, he is largely a libertarian and a friend to the gay community. I have to say I really do love the irony of it all.

Sorry to break it to all you gays out there, embedded into biological life is a 'heterosexual bias' -- or let me be even clearer, heterosexuality is normal, homosexuality is not.

Now, here come the cries of my alleged homophobia -- (which is really not a good term, for I am certainly not afraid (phobic) of gays.) I just find the lifestyle, for the most part, repulsive and abnormal but I do not wish any gay any harm in any way. In fact, I sympathize with their plight --- no joke --- I cannot imagine it easy being gay, but, unlike gays, I don't believe that the norm needs to be subverted for them.

Note to Self: Insert gratuitous gay-friendly street cred below

Was at a party a few years back and a comically flamboyant gay (Hollywood could not have written a character more stereotypical) was the life of the party and ripped us all to shreds with a barrage of vile yet amazingly funny jokes.

Good, solid guy.

Please

2008-07-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

Bored out of my skull. Someone give me something to write about. Please.

Kemény kirakott két olimpiai bajnokot

2008-06-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

Az olimpiai bajnok kapus, Gergely István kimaradása nem meglepő, Szívós Márton kihagyása annál inkább, ő négy éve is az utolsó pillanatban maradt ki, azóta viszont stabil tagnak tűnt. (A tavalyi vb-döntőben nagy ziccert hagyott ki, később végzetes lett a horvátok elleni hibája.)

A Vasas bajnok centere, az Athénban már olimpiát nyert Steinmetz Ádám is itthon marad, de őt ez kevésbé érte váratlanul, mert a tavalyi világbajnokságra utazó csapatba sem fért be, helyette Kis Gábor élvezi a bizalmat. Kis éppen Steinmetzet váltja a Vasasnál.

I never thought much of Steinmetz Ádám -- fairly overrated.

utópiát vagy apokalipszist könnyebb teremteni?

2008-06-30T21:58:00.000-07:00

A napilap [NYT] kritikusa szerint Dragomán prózája szikrázó és akrobatikus. A Fehér Királyt több mint 20 nyelvre fordították már le.

Dragomán György "sötéten szép" regénye, A Fehér Király azt ábrázolja, milyen volt a totalitárius Romániában felnőni - írta a The New York Times címá amerikai napilap hétvégi könyves melléklete.

A szerző kegyetlen portrét rajzol az életről egy totalitárius társadalomban; regénye egyszerre brutális és lefegyverzően gyöngéd - olvasható a rangos The New York Times Book Review-ban.

Emil Cioran filozófus Történelem és utópia című könyvében azt a kérdést feszegeti, hogy utópiát vagy apokalipszist könnyebb teremteni? Dragomán György válasza erre az, hogy az utópia létrehozza saját poklát.

No comment.

A száz leggazdagabb magyar

2008-06-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

Simultaneously feeling intellectually a bit bored, extremely misanthropic and exhausted from work.

Gonna take a few days off soon -- which will hopefully re-charge my internal vitriol generators.

In the meantime, chew on this:

Guess who has a close relative on the 100 richest Hungarians? Guess whose family think this person may have been III/III-as? Guess who might have become rich due their connections to the communists? Guess whose family will never know? Guess what the VarangyNagypapi would think of this?

Believe you me -- truth is not only stranger than fiction, but more fucked up.

de náluk bizony valóság

2008-06-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

Atti fires this over:

Miről ismerszik meg egy magyar?

Az egyik különös szokásuk, hogy sírva vigadnak. A másik, – talán még különösebb – hogy evés közben nem beszélnek. A harmadik, hogy a túrót csokival képesek fogyasztani. A negyedik, hogy gyűlölik egymást és társadalmuk alapvető kohéziója ez a masszív érzelem, amelyhez hasonlatosat talán csak Orwell 1984-ében lehetett olvasni (amely egy szörnyű negatív utópia), de náluk bizony valóság.

A magyar hierarchia a „felfele bukás” különös elvét követi, amely a társadalmukban minden szinten ellentmondásokat okoz, de amelyre minden magyar rászokott. S csakugyan: a szenvedéshez nagyon értenek.

A magyar fiatalok mind külföldre vágynak, de mivel nem tudnak más nyelveket beszélni, ezért nem mernek a legtöbben nekivágni, és amiért még jobban utálkoznak itthon. A kivándorlásvágy valószínűleg genetikai eredetű. Annyi magyar emigrált már, hogy a bárhol is szólalsz meg magyarul; elmés kritikádra egy egészen váratlan szögből az elmész te a p...ba! választ kapjuk.[1]

A legtöbb magyar azt hiszi magáról, hogy gazdag, pedig nem is, de ezt persze titkolja, így mindig adóssága van, amiért szomorú lesz és iszik, általában keményebben mint azelőtt. Ugyanis nagyon sokat isznak.

Az öregebb magyarok hipochondriával küszködnek, mert nem tudnak mit csinálni magukkal, ráadásul a fiatalabbak utálják is őket.

...

Egyedi jellegzetességek

* Egy levegővétellel tíz percig is képes káromkodni.
* Bármikor, bármit képes meginni.
* Nem tud focizni.
* Bárkiről, bármikor tud rosszat mondani.
* A lónak csak a másik oldalát ismeri.
* Ősei hatodíziglen nem vettek részt győztes hadjáraton.
* Ha valamit meg kell csinálni, rögtön tudják hogy hogyan nem lehet...
* Ha két hetet üdül Amerikába, visszatérve, még három hónapig töri[3] a magyart.
* Építkezés elkezdése előtt évekig tanácskoznak miközben 100-szor meggondolják magukat, hogy hol/hová és mekkora legyen az épület (színház)/metró.

Genius.

scientists say

2008-06-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

For the vast majority of ~~bipedal sheep~~ people --- the words "scientists say" obviates any bullshit filter they may have developed over their lifetimes and primes their susceptible and puny minds for argumentum ad verecundiam. This is prevalent the world over, but especially in Mo.

For your own amusement, do a Google search for "scientists say" and "experts say".

Every time I have a conversation with someone who precedes their douche-baggy opinion with a variant of the above, all too often, I might add, my brain melts a little bit.

"So clever, but so stupid."

2008-06-09T07:18:00.001-07:00

Continuing my crusade* against academia...
Uneducated Indonesian street prostitute smarter than over-educated academic researcher? You betcha!

We'd just finished our first survey of HIV, syphilis and risky sex among waria in Jakarta...I had the impression from the qualitative research...that waria were turning dozens of tricks a week, but the study showed they averaged only three. And since that figure came from 250 waria selected at random as the manual requires, it was certainly more accurate than the qualitative research...

"Three a week? Your insane!," snorted [sex worker and waria] Ines....Ines left school at fourteen but she is not stupid, so I explained how, through our probability sampling, we are asking a representative sample of Jakarta's waria. Ines dismissed by lecture with a wave of her manicure and a flick of her locks. "So clever, but so stupid." she sighed.
...
She explained, as if to an enthusiastic but slightly dim child, that a waria who is hanging around on a street corner to be interviewed by a research team is a waria who is not with a client. 'You are talking to all the dogs, obviously'.

Not something I learned in the lecture halls of London...but Ines is quite right. Our sample is biased towards the 'dogs,' who get picked up less than the cuter girls. So the study results underestimate the true number of clients per seller...

In my mind, this is so embarrassing, if I were this Elizabeth Pasini, I wouldn't have admitted to this.

This says it all for me: "...but the study..." ---- BTW my guess is that the frequency of tricks turned by these prostik is probably subject to a Power Law distribution --- what does that mean? That the 'average' is completely fuckin' meaningless.

*For the sake of irony, I chose a word that has tremendous religious connotations.

purely out of love, or is there some commercial aspect to it?

2008-06-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

SIMULTANEOUSLY. THE. FUNNIEST. THE. MOST. STUPID. AND. LEAST. SELF-AWARE. COMMENTS. I. HAVE. READ. IN. A. LONG. LONG. TIME.:

As you know, I like your blog. My one question is why this blog (typepad) is such that referring to the URL does not automatically open the page. I.e., I have to copy your URL into Internet Explorer's top line to get to your blog. Is there some solutions to this quandary?

Are you doing this intelligent and interesting commentary purely out of love, or is there some commercial aspect to it?

Posted by: Tom Beretvas | June 02, 2008 at 01:17 PM

___________________________

Tom: "Are you doing this intelligent and interesting commentary purely out of love, or is there some commercial aspect to it?"

Purely out of love or better said, out of interest. As for your URL question. You can easily reach the Spectrum from my "signature" at the bottom of my e-mails. Since you're a member of my list, it's easy. Perhaps someone could give you a better answer because I reach the Hungarian Spectrum from my own icon.

Posted by: Eva S. Balogh | June 02, 2008 at 01:33 PM

Hahhahahahahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahahhahahahhahahahhahhhahhhhhhhhahahahahhahah!!!!!!

*wipe tears from eyes....

AHhahhahahahhahahhahahhhhahahahhahahhahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahha!!!!!!!

"some commercial aspect to it?" -- the only people stupid enough to perhaps compensate Eva S. Balogh for her pseudo-intellectualism would be the Budapest Sun?

(Or perhaps Yale?)

AHhahhahahahhahahhahahhhhahahahhahahhahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahha!!!!!!!

Suckers!!!

"Purely out of love or better said, out of interest." is great as well. Try out of spinster boredom.

Generation Investment Management

2008-06-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

Great, great post. [I mixed up quotes a bit for easier reading -- if you want to see the original, click on the fuckin' link.]

On Wednesday, despite claims by one of Gore's representatives two months ago, it was revealed that his Generation Investment Management private equity fund has taken a 9.5 percent stake in a company that has one of the largest carbon credit portfolios in the world.

Hhhhhhhhmmmm. Why would the Eco-High Priest AKA The Goracle do that?

Can the IRS please tell me how Al Gore can get away with having the nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection do all the PR heavy lifting for his for-profit investments?

A politician seeking to profit, perhaps illegally, via his undue sway and influence? Nah, never.... I wonder how that might work...

Note that carbon credits are a zero-value asset unless by government fiat they are declared to have some value. In the absence of global warming legislation and cap-and-trade schemes, this company's portfolio is worth nothing. Only the lobbying by Gore and his "non-profits" can make it have value.

Interestingly, this carbon credit portfolio also has zero value even under alternative CO2 reduction alternatives, such as a carbon tax. Under a carbon tax, there is much less opportunity for rent-seeking by powerful people like Gore, and carbon credit portfolios are worthless. Interestingly, Gore proposed a US carbon tax 15 years or so ago. My guess is that he would no longer support a carbon tax, as it would bankrupt many of his investments.

I like it. A testable hypothesis.

Amazing how many ostensibly smart people buy into the proposition that only skeptics are driven by money, whereas 'scientists' are as pure as the driven snow. (BTW you like that use of 'driven' twice? Pretty godammn good.)

Ironically, there is more money being made in supposed global warming hysteria than in actually maintaining the status quo. When you see the large multinationals start jumping on the bandwagon; promoting 'green' this and 'green' that -- hold on to your fuckin' wallet. You're about to get financially sodomized.

The Varangycsajszi and I have been doing a little traveling on business, staying at rather good hotels, I don't mind telling you. More and more I see those goddamn cards on the bed, something to the effect of: "In order to protect the environment, we will not be changing the sheets during your stay unless explicitly request."

Let me explain to you what just happened: an implicit price increase. You are getting less for your forint, euro or dollar. Trust you me, the environmental propaganda is perfect cover for such clever pricing schemes. This nothing to do with 'the environment'. And we stupid sheep accept this all in the name of ~~faith-based neo-socialism~~ environmentalism. Much, much more of this to come.

PS Big, bad evil Enron was a strong supporter of the anthropogenic global warming myth. Wonder if being a middle-man in a huge government artificially created and maintained energy/carbon/tax credit/whatthefuckhaveyou market would be profitable?

Enron executives thought so:

According to Washington Times reporter Jerry Seper, a December 1997 private internal memo written by Enron executive John Palmisano said the [Kyoto] treaty would be "good for Enron stock!!"

"The memo said the Kyoto treaty - later signed by Mr. Clinton and leaders of 166 other countries, but never ratified by the Senate - 'would do more to promote Enron's business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.'"

Hugó Rony

2008-06-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Completely fuckin' off-topic from the usual blow-hard know-it-all* horseshit of mine.

I no longer believe that body weight is a function of calories in, and calories out. See this video (and my comment here) and fast forward to 31:10 min. Watch the whole thing. Guess what? Apparently, a Hungarian, Hugó Rony, had a more credible hypothesis for weight gain/loss years ago. Fast forward video to 38:30 min.

*A friend recently asked me for some advice concerning a woman. I gave advice predicated on a mutually exclusive binary assumption. Do X, not Y.

He did Y. It looks to have worked. My next piece of advice to him: Ignore all advice (including mine). That said, it is not clear-cut that X wouldn't have to worked. Or maybe my over-inflated ego just needs to believe that.

Evil NHS-nightmare-ocracy

2008-06-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

Telegraph

Linda O'Boyle and her husband Brian, both retired health workers, decided to pay for treatment in addition to that available on the NHS in order to prolong her life.
...
"We were quite happy to pay for the drug and to give the health service what it costs them to buy it and to deliver the treatment but they said they could not do that," said Mr Boyle, who was an NHS manager for 30 years.

Six other patients have begun a legal action to trigger a test case that they hope will force the NHS to allow "co-payment", as the buying of private treatment while under NHS care is called.

Some cancer drugs not yet available on the NHS can markedly increase the chance of survival.

But Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, claims that co-payment will create a two-tier NHS, with preferential treatment for patients who can afford the extra drugs.

Ah yes, socialist equality's anus shits all over NHS serfs once again.

Last year, he issued guidance to NHS trusts telling them not to permit patients to pay for additional medicines.

One might naively think that:

a) a patient with the informed consent of a doctor might just be able to make better decisions regarding their healthcare than the NHS nightmar-ocracy

b) this might even net save NHS funds

c) just might save or prolong a few human lives

d) this is a severe encroachment upon one's natural human rights

One might think all these things, but I suppose this stupid fuckin' varangy would be dead wrong and dead naive.

When Mrs O'Boyle, who had three children and four grandchildren, developed bowel cancer and began having chemotherapy, doctors said she could boost her chances of fighting the disease by adding the drug cetuximab.

It is not routinely funded by the NHS but she decided to use her savings to pay for it.Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust then withdrew her free treatment, including the chemotherapy drug she was receiving.

Evil NHS-nightmare-ocracy: NHS consultants (doctors to you and me) advise her take/purchase an unsubsidized drug to help fight bowel cancer, she does so, paying her own way out of private savings, and then the NHS condemns her to death. In the name of equality.

Mr O'Boyle said: "When she heard there was something that could extend her life, of course my wife jumped at it. It was stressful enough for Linda having cancer without all this stress on top of it."

John Baron, the Tory MP for Billericay, said: "She has been penalised by an NHS system that is grossly unfair. This is morally wrong."

Exactly.

A spokesman for Southend NHS Trust said: "A patient can choose whether to continue with the treatment available under the NHS or opt to go privately for a different treatment regime.

"It is explained to the patient that they can either have their treatment under the NHS or privately, but not both in parallel."

Wow. What an implicit satisfactory explanation of social engineering in its worst and most evil form.

BTW in case it wasn't clear: Linda Boyle died. Perhaps ger life may have been prolonged or even saved. Wonder how many other innocents the NHS kills every day.

Hungarokratic efficiency

2008-06-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

So, I work at a firm that has an ostensible reputation for running things lean and mean. In sum, we minimize our operating inefficiencies.

Couldn't be further from the truth. It comes down to most, if not all, of senior management don't know how to effectively operate a computer, much less, Bill Gate's gift of productivity to the world, that is, Excel.

If we implemented a few specific industry standard firm-wide integrated software systems/modules, we would save oodles of money and be a shitload more productive --- as all the data would be centralized, be sliced and diced a million ways, no more needless data re-creation, less data error etc etc

But no. It ain't gonna happen because senior management are fuckin' dinosaurs.

Now here is the scary part:

Our firm makes money. A good amount of it. And we could make more if we implemented some technology. So, I always wonder how much money (not even accounting for corruption, embezzlement, theft etc etc) is puked, pissed and shat away by the, by definition, horrifically inefficient, Hungarokrata who don't even know the meaning*** of technological efficiency?

The answer: So much so that they have lost count and most run at perpetual compounding losses. And the people who might have an inkling, make sure that no one will ever find out.

Source: Some family who work/ed in a finance function at a few of Hungary's largest bureaucracies. Some good stories there.

***Except that implementing an IT system means a large dirty government cash-river that everyone will dip their hands into, bring to their mouths and greedily slurp up, making for a very dirty small almost dry government cash-patak very soon.

a fogorvos

2008-06-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

Index:

Megkezdődött a Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Bíróságon hétfőn annak a kunhegyesi fogorvosnak a polgári pere, aki a 2007-es bevezetés óta nem szedett vizitdíjat betegeitől. A tárgyalás június 18-án folytatódik, hogy akkor a védelem a mostaninál részletesebben kifejthesse álláspontját.

A hétfői tárgyalás után ifjabb Tóta Áron, az alperes ügyvédje elmondta: álláspontjuk szerint az a vizitdíj, amit a fogorvos nem szedett be, egy őt megillető bevétel, így tulajdonképpen saját támogatásáról mondott le. A védő jelezte, hogy mivel az eset alkotmányossági aggályokat is felvet, nagy valószínűséggel az Alkotmánybírósághoz fordulnak kérelemmel a jogszabály felülvizsgálatára.

No fuckin' comment.

Uncool

2008-05-28T07:19:00.000-07:00

Washington - Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Tuesday he is ready to debate Al Gore about global warming, as he presented the English version of his latest book that argues environmentalism poses a threat to basic human freedoms. "I many times tried to talk to have a public exchange of views with him, and he's not too much willing to make such a conversation," Klaus said. "So I'm ready to do it."
...
Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the "climate alarmism" perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.

"Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality," he said.

"In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet," he added.

Well put.

"It could be even true that we are now at a stage where mere facts, reason and truths are powerless in the face of the global warming propaganda," he said.

Klaus alleged that the global warming was being championed by scientists and other environmentalists whose careers and funding requires selling the public on global warming.

For the record, there is more money to be made promoting global warming than being skeptical of it.

What I like about Klaus is not only his fiery nature, and free market principles, but his willingness to champion ideas that are currently tragically uncool, much like this blog BTW.

Recent experience

2008-05-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

Too fuckin' often, so-called 'compromise' is nothing more than the worst of both worlds.

Jóska Pista

2008-05-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

Anonymous said...

you refer quite a lot to your relatives who were tortured by the communists in hungary, would you mind elucidating what exactly this torture consisted of? out of interest, it seems to inform quite a lot of the comments on your blog and its robust and laudable defence of free speech. I have followed your battle with Eva B with some interest, and while I don't agree with many of your opinions, I do agree thet banning your comments is unbecoming in the lady from yale and offensive to free speech.

I don't want to go into too much detail of the torture and imprisonment episodes (as information about them is either publicly known or readily available on internet --- i.e. clearly, I don't want to accidentally identify my family and friends. Therefore, all you have to know that the episodes I will described happened to immediate blood relatives and/or very close, intimate family friends.

1) Jóska Pista-1 was once swept up completely randomly by Russian soldiers for some malenky robot. He was deposited in a labor camp outside of Bp. He was there some 6 months, when, before he and a group of his compatriots were to be sent to labor camps in Siberia, he pleaded with a Hun. doctor working with the Russians to allow him to leave. He got lucky as the the doctor had him expelled from the camp on account of supposed illness and allowed him to go back to the family.

2) Jóska Pista-2 comes from a very well-known noble family. He was repeatedly violently tortured in the cellars of the now (and then) infamous building on Andrássy. His family's estate was taken and he fled the country. He feels lucky to have escaped with his life intact.

3) Jóska Pista-3 wrote a poem and waved a flag, not a samizdata pussy as you can see. He was thought to be subversive; jailed and violently tortured for more than two years. He was not allowed to go back to university. His spirit was broken till his death recently.

4) Jóska Pista-4 was picked up and sent to Siberia. He was lucky and made it back. Due to the conditions there, he lost his hearing in his left ear.

I could go on --- and I am not even mentioning the innumerable non-torture events such as when Jóska Pista-5 was branded a subversive for, no joke, keeping an inordinate amount of books at home. A neigbor ratted on them. They were forced to account for what sort of books they (all completely innocuous BTW) had and many of their books were taken away.

My take: All of these are horrific and evil -- but many families suffered even much, much more than we did. We are all grateful that we only went through these (and a few others I haven't mentioned).

What else can I do for you?

enamoured with the MSZP

2008-05-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

Minsztrel said...

Here's an honest question. Do any of you think Eva has some connection to the current government, as in perhaps familial or financial? It just seems the most likely explanation for her unquestioning admiration of GyurcsCo.

__________________________________

Varangy said...

@Mini

I think she does. On iwiw, if I am not mistaken, she is connected to people with ties to the party.
23/5/08

__________________________________

Anonymous said...

Minsztrel,

Eva has recently admitted that she has high level connections with the SZDSZ, but given her recent comments on their future I don't think we can assume any undue influence there.

She fled Hungary in '56 so I don't she why she should be enamoured with the MSZP either. Of course I'm English so I don't have the Hungarian nose for conspiracy.

She just strikes me as having the typical outlook of a western liberal, from whose point view Gyurcsány would look remarkably like Tony Blair or Bill Clinton. She doesn't seem to recognise that lots of ordinary Hungarians detest him. Mind you, I'm an ordinary Englishman who detested Blair

__________________________________

She fled Hungary in '56 so I don't she why she should be enamoured with the MSZP either.

Not even mentioning her complete sociopathic lack of self-awareness, she is much, much more hypocritical, evil and sick than just that. She supports the very people she fled from. She has made all sorts of Stockholm Syndrome-like excuses for Communism et al -- yet has made the conscious decision to live the majority of her life in two of the freest countries in the world.

She could have gone back to live, study and work in Hungary at any time. But she didn't.

Her latest posts are painfully ironic too -- she blames Hungarians for not understanding economics, business, globalization etc etc --- and she is right, they don't, which Viki then unfortunately capitalizes on ---- but hhhmmmm why wouldn't they have a healthy relationship with free markets and capitalism?

I suppose it has nothing to ironically do with how the Communists had brainwashed and ruined Hungarian society for the last 50 or so....nah.

Reading is a useful skill, you should try it

2008-05-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

Adrian,

Either you are stupid, dishonest, or now trying to retreat from your original position. I suspect the latter two, but the first is definitely possible. You have tried to strawman me, while ducking all that I have pointed out to you. Be so kind as to attempt to fisk my orginal response.

Varangy,

1: Free speech, etc.
--------------------

Q: "Answer me this: I am unforgivingly insulting and politically incorrect, to say the very least – and I am sure that some think I propagate what some would mistakenly call hatred – should I be arrested and jailed?"

A: "But I'm not advocating a blanket ban on either: the respective governments have exercise their judgement"

THAT IS THE FUCKING POINT you leave uncontested --- the fuckin' subjectivity of 'free speech'. For me and any right-thinking person, it is very, very simple:

Say, write and THINK whatever you want, no matter how odious --- but do not cross the line and use force to inflict your will upon someone. End of story.

Some might want me arrested and jailed, purely on what I write!!! You tell me that is not the historical realm of tyrants and dictators?

So don't pussyfoot around and tell me: Should I be arrested and jailed? If so, why? If not, why not?

Appeasement
-----------

Statement: "You would appease them"

Implicit rebuttal: "[Criminmals]should be arrested, tried and, in general, locked up."

You write that now, but previously you held the Danish cartoonists, exercising their ostensible and natural, for that matter, right to freedom of expression, culpable for the violence/deaths/riots. To quote you;

The Danish Cartoons resulted in widespread international disorder, destruction and even death. The Magyar Guarda marches haven't - so far, so the Danish cartoonist's are more culpable than the Magyar Guarda.

The Danish cartoonists are culpable of nothing, you stupid fuck. Until I read a retraction, I, and all 3 people who read this blog, will assume you are in principle, a weak-willed appeaser, ironically, one who implicitly plows fertile ground for violence.

Reading is a useful skill, you should try it.

Adrian

Ironic. Hahahhahahhahahhhahhahhahaha. LOL. Please. Please, leave the insults to me. They don't smart and they aren't funny. If they were, that would be great. But clearly, insulting is not one of your forte's. That said, neither is basic logical reasoning and thinking, you should learn it. Tee hee hee.

keeping the peace

2008-05-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

thanks for the link - I now share your suspicions about the other V.

I am not suspicious and doubt that he(she?) would go by my handle.

One good turn deserves another, so here is my answer to your question: I look forward to being called a douchebag, or a stupid fuck but would advise you against using the c word, it doesn't do you any credit.....

I will do my utmost-est best-est to restrain my Aspergian Tourette’s.

Islamofascists are fascists. Terrorists are murderers. Murderers - like the Muslim fanatic who ritually slaughtered Theo van Gogh in 2004 - should be arrested, tried and, in general, locked up for life.

I would say executed, but fair enough.

Satire has a useful political purpose in humbling the powerful. Humour that exploits peoples fears and hatreds of minority groups doesn't.

Islamists are not powerful: I think one of the things driving fascisms of all descriptions is a sense of inferiority and powerlessness.

You have severely gone astray here.

1) Satire has nothing to with ‘humbling’ the powerful, if it does, great. But its definition does not include reference to power.

2) Even assuming that the cartoons in question are “humour that exploits peoples’ fears and hatreds of minority groups” --- you painfully miss the entire point: “humour that exploits peoples’ fears and hatreds of minority groups” is free speech, and therefore, ostensibly protected. No matter how distasteful, ‘exploitative’, hateful it may seem to you , me or anyone else.

Without having seen the cartoons your post is about, but having seen the Danish cartoons, I don't think the Danish cartoons did anything to satirise the powerful but they did exploit peoples fears and hatred of minority groups.

Irrelvant.

Governments have a fundamental obligation to keep the peace, to preserve life and property. If a government feels the peace is best kept by arresting those who peddle fear and hatred, then prima facie I wouldn't disagree with it.

Seeing through your bullshit – you should have written, had you been honest:

I, Adrian, believe that if a government feels the peace is best kept by arresting those who disagree and voice subjectively unpopular, perhaps, ruthlessly and unfairly insulting opinions and then ‘peddle’ fear and hatred and even ‘hate-speech’, then I am nothing more than a fascist/communist – and true implicit enemy of free speech and freedom.

Answer me this: I am unforgivingly insulting and politically incorrect, to say the very least – and I am sure that some think I propagate what some would mistakenly call hatred – should I be arrested and jailed?

To me there is not much difference to me between the Danish cartoons and the Magyar Guarda marching in villages largely occupied by gypsies. The Danish Cartoons resulted in widespread international disorder, destruction and even death.

Those (Muslims) who burned, rioted, beat and killed have no responsibility for their own actions? The international disorder, destruction and death you speak of was no more, no less than a blackmail show of strength. Criticize us and we will riot.

You would appease them.

The Magyar Guarda marches haven't - so far, so the Danish cartoonist's are more culpable than the Magyar Guarda. But I'm not advocating a blanket ban on either: the respective governments have exercise their judgement.

As long as the Magyar Garda marches are peaceable, non-violent, no matter they spew, or any other protest for that matter, free speech should be protected.

You end with some nonsense: “governments [to] have exercise their judgement.”
‘Judgement’ is the crux. What you judge unacceptable, even though non-violent, is insane. Think about it: You would jail someone for drawing a FUCKING CARTOON!

Not a joke or hyperbole: The former Communists certainly exercised their judgment in 'keeping the peace' by torturing (in the most literal sense) Varangy family members and friends – for doing things deemed hateful/subversive whathaveyou.

You stand with the Thought Police.

Cartoon Police

2008-05-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

The ~~Thought~~ Cartoon Police of the ostensibly most tolerant European state, The Netherlands, have arrested Dutch cartoonist, Gregorius Nekschot:

The judicial authorities in Amsterdam said yesterday that the cartoonist was arrested as a suspect for the criminal offense of “publishing cartoons which are discriminating for Muslims and people with dark skin.”

The cartoonist was arrested on Tuesday, while the police searched his house for “discriminating evidence.” His computer, backups, usb sticks, mobile phone and a number of drawings were confiscated. Nekschot was released two days later but it is possible that he will be charged following a complaint in 2005 by the Dutch imam Abdul Jabbar van de Ven, an indigenous Dutchman who converted to Islam.

According to the Dutch public prosecutor Nekschot “makes his profession” of drawing cartoons of “an insulting and/or discriminating nature.”
...
Nekschot, a friend of the late Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film maker who was ritually slaughtered by a Muslim fanatic in 2004, hides his real identity in order to avoid unnecessary risks. Hans Teeuwen, a Dutch stand-up comedian and friend of Nekschot’s, told the Dutch media yesterday that the police had told Nekschot as they released him earlier that day that “he has now lost his anonymity.” Teeuwen said this was “a rather intimidating remark.”

As spokeswoman of Xtra, Nekschot’s publisher, said today: “He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen.” The spokeswoman asked that her name not be used because the cartoonist and publisher have received death threats. Nekschot told the Dutch newspaper Het Parool today that police officers had told him: “What you draw is worse than what they did in Denmark. Do you realize what can happen to you if your identity gets known?” The cartoonist fears for his live if he is being sent to jail. “As the maker of those cartoons my life is in danger in prison,” he said.

Nekschot’s work is rude and often sexually explicit. As such it is characteristic for the Dutch liberal mentality and not beyond the limit in the Netherlands. In his cartoons, however, he mocks the multicultural society, and that does seem to be beyond all bounds.

Does that not give any of you pause?

objectivity and a case built on facts

2008-05-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

'kincs' is in-fuckin'-sane, not to mention clearly suffers from severe mental retardation.

Guys:

There is plenty of scope for objective debate without hurling accusations at others. And it’s no use accusing Eva of censorship, because she has already said that she is prepared to accept that charge, if that’s what it comes to.
For my part, I hope she chooses not to throw out letters – everyone benefits from reasoned discussion, maybe even more so from reasoned disagreement – but then I’m not the one who has been subject to personal assaults.
As someone with a Ph.D. who has worked for many years at a top university, Eva knows all about objectivity and how to construct a case built on facts.

Fooled by the sheen of a 'top university', you stupid fuck. Eva has proved time and time again, that a) can't b) won't even try c) cuz she knows she is incapable.

As for Orbán, I came across the remark the other day: “I am not a head of state but the chief of the people, because the people stand behind me.”

He has made remarks very like this before, to the effect that the nation supports him, despite the message sent by the electorate in the past two elections. As it happens, this statement came from Hitler, but one can easily imagine Orbán saying it.

I love the open effort to intentionally conflate Viki with Hitler!!! If Hitler had said, 'I love kitty-cats', and then I said it. I guess that would make a Hitlerite...

So long as Fidesz followers continue to see Orbán as infallible,

a) they don't
b) they don't differ on this from the Gyurcsi supportees

Fidesz will resemble a Stalinesque cult of personality more than a mature political party. The party leadership elections, in which there is always only one candidate, are all too reminiscent of party politics in this part of the world not so long ago.

Right...are you out of your fuckin' mind? They are a) democratic b) what party in this part of the world indulged in 'party politics' not so long ago, you fuckstick?

No, I don’t imagine that Orbán would be as bad as Hitler or Stalin if he returns to power, but he shares some of their character flaws. The mystery of why so many Hungarians seem to have a need to believe in an infallible leader is an interesting sociological question.

Posted by: kincs | May 14, 2008 at 11:38 PM

So, he wouldn't be so bad, eh? Would his secret police kill people quickly or torture them slowly? The previous regime tortured them slowly, I have close relatives and friends who can attest to this.

Viki is certainly a douchebag in many, many, many ways (as most all(?) politicians are) ---- but to think that he would automatically morph into a monster with the worst of Hitler/Stalin/Chavez/Mugabe (to name a few) is ludicrous and nothing less than derangement.

Ironically, kincs, your post does not resemble anything close to what you aspire to, "all about objectivity and how to construct a case built on facts."

Eva S. Balogh

2008-05-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

Eva S. Balogh, you are a stupid Communist old cunt, aren't you?

So, here is the skinny in this trite yet so important idiotic blogging game we play.

Eva barred Vándorló from commenting, he then commented a few times under the moniker 'traveler'. Eva then subsequently deleted his comments under the 'traveler'. And deleted ~~one~~ ~~many~~ all(?) of mine as well like when I commented that I don't think she knows how to block IPs, but probably uses keyword/'spam' filters i.e. trap everything with the word Varangy or Vándorló (and now 'traveler') as spam.

The stupid hag forgot to delete her own comment to Vándorló/'traveler':

Traveler:"OK, so now you have silenced me too with your spam filter. Do you not see the irony?"

I certainly don't see the irony, because I haven't silenced you with spam filter.

Posted by: Eva S. Balogh | May 14, 2008 at 10:41 AM

No irony, eh? Seeing as you deleted his comments and barred from the site? You lying cunt of ironic cunts.

Now as anyone who read this blog knows, in the past, Vándorló and I got into it, time and time again. But never once did I delete or bar him. I did viciously savage and insult him, but never barred him. The difference in instinct between a true democrat and a communist.

Even MORE ironically, a few weeks ago, when I tried futilely to engage Eva S. Balogh in honest debate --- I held back my usual vitriol and spite.

Let me ask you this, Eva S. Balogh, when you are alone at night and you auto-stimulate yourself by forcing one of your wretched basset hounds to partake --- do you fantasize of Gyurcsány or of Péter Gábor? Or is it a spit-roast?

quod erat demonstrandum

2008-05-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

Vándorló runs his rhetorical sword straight through our favorite komcsi vén szatyor.

Brilli-fuckin'-ant! Cheers!

future reign of terror

2008-05-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

Vándorló is on a fuckin' tear. Great comment to the Viki-is-the-Anti-Christ-Would-Be-Dictator-Language-of-'Fear'-Hysteria promulgated by the Hun. Left.

While I openly disagree with Viki on almost everything, I find it ironic that he is accused of being 'undemocratic', harnessing the language of fear and somehow we 'know' he will appoint himself dictator ala Mugabe/Chavez should he get elected --- is all perpetuated by the very same people who WERE THE DICTATORS OF THE PAST. What is that saying about people in glass houses???

Moving on, read the post and comments below from here. There is a ton of stuff that I would like to blog about, especially on some of the very insightful comments on my blog (Pistefka, I am talking about yours) - but I am still getting absolutely raped at work + a fair amount of travel as well. Hopefully, will get to it this weekend.

Last thing, when I will comment on Eva's blog, look for me to use an animal moniker such as Sündisznó or other to outwit Eva's stupid attempt at censoring me (being sympathetic to the Communists, I think this standard modus operandi for that side of the political spectrum) Again, ironically, one of her defenders 'Big G' accuses ME(!) of censorship, and then refuses to show himself on my blog. Big G, you are the Big Pussy.

Whilst "Élet és Irodalom" is one of the few rags that bothers to live up to the epithet journalism, the general tone and language of this piece is recursively referential. Meaning, overblown drama.

The language used by Fidesz is the language of opposition, intended to disturb, create unrest, uneasiness, doubt. Any party would engage in this.

What is more, Hungarians live in a daily maelstrom of fear, recrimination and caustic disbelief (most of it self generated) that raises the significance threshold barrier. There is no amount of caulking against the general level of misinformation, gossip and foul-play.

But no matter what, the most disturbing and misguided accusation of the piece is that this government has been frozen in action in the fear of the necromancy of Orbán's future reign of terror. That is a pathetic excuse for political and fiscal impotence.

What is more it fails to explain how under this government so much theft and mismanagement from Kóka and other cronies has been allowed to continue.

Further, it also fails to explain the obvious collusion of all parties in covering up thefts during Fidesz's last reign. How else is it that all legal cases of theft and misappropriation of funds, no matter how well founded, have gone unpunished? Without one person being held accountable. How is it Happy Kft got off scot free. Why is it that this government implicitly (and hence fairly explicitly) allowed the authorities to sit on a number of water tight cases until they all passed their legal limit for prosecution.

I don't buy any of this language nonsense. All parties have helped each other in gorging on the pie and making excuses for each others appalling greed.

Actions speak louder than words.

Posted by: Vándorló | May 13, 2008 at 07:36 AM

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

Vandorlo: "The language used by Fidesz is the language of opposition, intended to disturb, create unrest, uneasiness, doubt. Any party would engage in this."

I'm afraid, you are mistaken. This is no ordinary language of an opposition party.

Posted by: Eva S. Balogh | May 13, 2008 at 09:46 AM

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

Eva,

Why do you not engage any of Vándorló's specific arguments/points? To simply state the opposite is completely silly.

He taken the time and thought to craft a cogent comment and you, a Ph.D, deem it sufficient to stubbornly write:

***I'm afraid, you are mistaken. This is no ordinary language of an opposition party.***

Pathetic.

-Sündisznó AKA as that warty amphibian...

Posted by: Sündisznó | May 13, 2008 at 10:31 AM

Eva, you really are a stupid fucking know-nothing bitch, aren't you?

the real threat to Jews in Europe

2008-05-08T11:18:00.001-07:00

...
At first it struck us as a little odd that the Times would have sent an art critic - the Berlin-based Michael Kimmelman - to write a feature about anti-Semitism in Hungary.
...

1) The reason is obvious: Michael Kimmelman is most likely a Jew. Possible bias, nah....

2) Erik, as usual, sees through the bullshit:

Erik, May 8, 2008 18:18

What's really irritating about these sorts of pieces like the Times' is that they never get around to indicating that there is generally no actual violence here by the far-right against the people they hate on. Compare this to, for example, France, where there are have been *loads* of cases in recent years of Jews getting the shit kicked out of them, temples getting the torch, etc. And of course the reason this isn't really noted is that the real threat to Jews in Europe doesn't come from people like Hungary's (very real) anti-Semites, but from Muslims, which doesn't really fit the approved narrative of papers like the Times. Meanwhile, another statistic worth pondering is that in the last decade or so there have probably been a grand total of zero people killed in Hungary by crazed anti-Semites, while in the hometown of the NY Times that number is at least 2,603, and all on one day. This is not to excuse people for being haters, or for being frightened that there are lots of haters out there. But people should not be led to believe that Budapest is a dangerous place for Jews, because it isn't.

I said as much, albeit less eloquently, here:

...
3) Sorry to mute your faux-hysteria, but THERE IS NO neo-nazi threat in Hungary. You have a couple neo-nazi wackjobs running around, causing trouble, buying books at Szkítia -- and if they engage in violence of any sort, be it roughing up a person or throwing petrol bombs, they should be persecuted mercilessly.

Again...

THERE IS NO NEO-NAZI THREAT IN HUNGARY.
...

If anything, if you want to measure crime by ethnicity/race/whathaveyou, who does what to whom ---- there is a fucking GYPSY threat to non-Gypsies, you fucking douchebags!

Bastiat and Healthcare

2008-05-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

"Paris gets fed!" If you don't understand, look it up.

RESPONSIBILITY

2008-05-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

Interesting how these discussions morphed from my rants on academia and anti-‘science’ (more on this later --- before you get hysterical on me, by now you should now, I value reasoning and (hyper-?)rational thought and am not anti-science, but just anti-‘science’) rant to thoughts on the media to education and pedagogy. All interrelated and quite fucking stimulating (for lack of a less douche-baggy chin-stroking word), I might add.

As someone who has been (over?)-educated, both in private (Catholic) and public settings, good, almost bad and very good, in Hungary, the USA, and a Germanic country I refuse to name (the village that is Budapest shouldn’t know who I am), each in their native tongue, I might add, I think I can safely comment on something interesting that NWO wrote:

I think all this carping about academia and in particular elite U.S. universities is a bit much. Of course, they are not perfect

I really don’t think so. But to go a little off-topic/tangential -- while I did not attend an elite US university, I do know and have a few friends and acquaintances, which have. I have also worked/work with a few Ivy Leaguers as well. The conclusion I have come to is the following: It is not the university that makes a particular person successful/intelligent/educated – but rather, almost the opposite, that person adds to the reputation of the university and very likely would have been successful/intelligent/whathaveyou with or without the university.

Another conclusion: More than a couple graduates from US elite universities have awed me with their unbelievable intellectual arrogance coupled with their primitive intelligence and lack of real intellectual processing power and utter lack of knowledge. Students from average-to-good schools seem to less engrossed with their own ostensible intellectualism.

but tell me where if not the elite U.S. universities one is able to regularly meet with so many top flight intellects and have the resources to really pursue one's academic interests?

Largely agreed for reasons I don’t want to go into now.

Ultimately the burden is on each student to take advantage of the resources of the school and to learn. In America, there is this thing that is completely anathema to Hungarians called: RESPONSIBILITY. The opportunity is there, but one must be responsible and self motivated, unlike, I might add, in lots of Universities around the world where given the lack of resources, and given the learning methodology this opportunity is far less obvious.

Completely agreed.

For me at least, the time I spent at a elite universities in the States was fantastic. Of course I had some crappy professors, and of course I did not necessarily always agree with the "politics" of my department all the time, and of course some of the other students were idiots, but by in large it was intellecetually challenging, exciting and rewarding, and when I finished I was certainly far better educated then when I began.

I don’t know if I agree with that. (Not about you as I don’t know you) But where one is always better educated post-education – my time spent at a good US university worsened my writing skills significantly. Why? Because their writing department is insane. I literally became a worse and worse writer. I don’t pretend to be a ‘good’ writer now or any sort of ‘writer*’, (I know I am a great one – just kidding), but I have had to shed all what I ‘learned’ at uni to bounce back to where I stood before.

Random related VarangyNagyPapa quote (as best as I can translate into English) some of you might enjoy: “Little children are little animals, it is the parents’ job to make them into humans.” As you can tell, the man who wore a tie to dinner every night and had a lófejű shoehorn (nicknamed the Keresztapa, no joke) by his right-hand, with which to discipline the children and grandchildren (me included) was what people nowadays call ‘Old School’. As you can imagine, as a child, I was terrified of the man. Good man, that he was. (Same NagyPapa who was repeatedly asked to join the Communist Party as a would-be high-official, and repeatedly denied them.)

Another pedagogical note about NagyPapa --- he was left-handed, but beaten in school (by his teachers) and forced to sit on his left-hand, in order to learn to write with his right. As an adult, he wrote with his right, but drafted/drew his engineering documents with his left. What sort of psychological trauma that must have left him with??!!

(I know I always promise posts that expand on ideas I briefly mention, and then I never do, because I find it hard to write when my ideas don’t follow spontaneity. BUT I do want a post and the ensuing comments on what I think about modern ‘science’.)

*I always have an overwhelming urge to bash anyone’s head in who claims and/or aims to be a ‘writer’.

No, you are a fuckin’ douchebag of the 1st order, go fucking die.

"we are all schooled, yet we educate ourselves"

2008-05-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

Luv it.

Vándorló has left a new comment on your post ""They'd argue with your ideas."":

@NWO: That you came out better educated is no surprise. The human animal is engineered to learn, it needs little encouragement, just opportunity. As Ivan Illich put in in 'Deschooling Society' "we are all schooled, yet we educate ourselves".

The implicit and explicit philosophical and pedagogic fallacy of schools and lecturing is that of the Nurnberg Funnel (http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=4779&ttype=2 ). That knowledge can be poured or transferred from one mind to the other. The other extreme is Socratic dialogue in which the learner is led by the expert tutor to explore their understanding and the tutor reveals to the student through questioning the faults in their reasoning and knowledge.

The former is clearly impossible and false, the latter is also false, but the reasons are more subtle. In the latter case we shall simply take a mathematical proof of why lecturing and tutoring doesn't work that way. Imagine a class of 1 tutor and 10 students (I am being very generous here) who meet 4 times a week for one hour each time (again I am being generous). That is a total of 240 minutes, or 24 minutes that can be devoted exclusively to each student. Is it likely that 24 minutes would be enough for any tutor to analyse the student's knowledge and misconceptions, let allow repair it with some well chosen analysis. Simply, no.

The questioning of the positions of educational establishments, their special tax status, their enormous redundant wealth absorption capacity goes beyond this.

Educational establishments work because they create opportunities to learn but these are paid for by the state and these opportunities should be more widely available and for all.

To borrow from André Malraux classic text 'Museum without Walls' (Le Musée Imaginaire, 1965) in which I take a classic quote and liberally abuse it to my own ends:

"A university without walls has been opened to us and it will carry infinitely farther that limited revelation of the world of learning which the real universities offer us within their walls."

I think the idea of exclusive time per student is a bit overrated at times, and I am a fan of the Socratic method, finding it unbelievably useful, but I have to say Vándorló has been intellectually dominating these discussions and dropping some serious analysis on us here.

Kudos.

high-falootin tone

2008-05-06T14:55:00.001-07:00

Marginal Revolution has a post on The Economist and links to this guy:

Dani Rodrik makes a self-conscious confession today:

Am I the only economist who does not read The Economist? Well maybe the first one to confess to it.

...I realized that the more I knew about a subject, the less The Economist was making sense. Its one thing to be opinionated, another to be misinformed and arrogant at the same time. After one too many articles in this mold, I simply stopped picking up the magazine.

I too stopped my subscription more than a year ago. This is a far cry from my pre-graduate school days when I (warning to self: you will rue this nerdy confession) actually treasured a picture of myself taken outside the Economist's headquarters. (No, I will not post the photo.)

It wasn't the magazine's endorsement of politicians and wars that I had come to abhor--a factor that has driven away more than one reader. Dani puts his finger on the true cause: the more I knew about a subject (development, Africa, civil wars, etc.) the more I shuddered to read the thing. I often have the same complaint with coverage in other news sources, but Dani hits on something especially vexing: the high-falootin tone.

All that said, clearly there can be a case made for both these guys and me being wrong, and The Economist being right. Or, the above could be a clever and subtle way to discount the magazine, not on its merits, or lack of, but on its general poltical pro free-market leanings which are never popular in academic crowd.

"They'd argue with your ideas."

2008-05-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

I swear to you that I did not go looking for this --- serendipity would have it that I stumbled upon it a few minutes ago. You could not fucking write fiction this good and this ironic.

Often it seems as though American higher education exists only to provide gag material for the outside world. The latest spectacle is an Ivy League professor threatening to sue her students because, she claims, their "anti-intellectualism" violated her civil rights.

Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment.
...
Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. "My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful," she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. "They'd argue with your ideas." This caused "subversiveness," a principle English professors usually favor.
...
Ms. Venkatesan's scholarly specialty is "science studies," which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, "teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth." She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."

The agenda of Ms. Venkatesan's seminar, then, was to "problematize" technology and the life sciences. Students told me that most of the "problems" owed to her impenetrable lectures and various eruptions when students indicated skepticism of literary theory. She counters that such skepticism was "intolerant of ideas" and "questioned my knowledge in very inappropriate ways." Ms. Venkatesan, who is of South Asian descent, also alleges that critics were motivated by racism, though it is unclear why
...
Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was "fascist demagoguery." Then, after consulting a physician about "intellectual distress," she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.
...

Nothing like an indigant, shocked and personally offended explanation such as: "They'd argue with your ideas." Hhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm. In academia? How could that happen? Doesn't resemble anyone we might know, does it?

"You don't seem to get it. I don't answer your stupid questions. That's all."

The everyday Irony of life is just too goddamn bittersweet sometimes, isn't it?

useless research

2008-05-06T07:59:00.000-07:00

Vándorló is on fire.

@Minsztrel

Their insularism is deliberate and self protecting. It is yet another way to milk the docile and obedient cow.

A few years ago I reviewed a really good book on statistic methods for search engine optimisation. In this, hidden amongst the set theory was a clear series of proofs that the educational field deliberately does not link to competing research.

Why, why not link to relevant research for a specialist knowledge domain, particularly when there are so few experts? So that it still looks like you are the only one doing original research.

The US ignores the UK, Japan, China and visa versa. This way experts in each country get to repeat the same research and get paid for it. All you have to do is limit who you reference.

Better still create a vocabularly for your research. A set of neologisms makes it look as it your work is really new and original. So new and original that common everyday English with it's 500,000+ words just can't express how new your concepts really are.

Your rivals in the US then create their vocabulary and you both get to talk about the same thing using completely different language and no-one is any the wiser. You still get your research grant.

Best of all you get to write up your useless research which is all from taxpayers money in commercial journals that do not allow your average Joe to see what crap you are spouting and what they have been paying for.

One of the tremendous problems of academia is that the consumers and the producers are, by and large, the same people.

'Scientist A' produces a research paper, that is then read by 'Scientist B', not Jóska Pista. Anyone see a few problems there?

Thought so.

lazy and largely redundant intellectual elite

2008-05-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

Vándorló hits the nail right on the fuckin' head:

I've had the 'pleasure to work in world class Universities and can honestly say that at least 80% of their research and about 98% of their research papers is unadulterated bullshit. At worst it is simple, organised fraud with the sole intent of milking the state to provide the self-indulgent under-worked, over-holidayed staff the opportunity to plan yet another conference trip to somewhere they would like to spend tax payers money.

Favourite trick is simple abuse of T-tests and post hoc interpretatons of any significant results as if they were apriori hypotheses. Typically the statistical analysis is then honed to make it even more significant by 'cleaning up' the data (taking out any 'aberrant' reading).

But this, like government contracts is part of the universal game. Professors and university lecturers like to think they are some sort of intellectual elite, when they are mostly lazy and largely redundant civil servants who lack the drive and intelligence to do anything else.

And how do you tell those unimaginative politicians that in the pursuit for competitive global advantage in the age were intellectual capital is all that your universities are run by charlatans.

_____________________________________

The language log blog normally does a good job of debunking scientific studies that abuse statistical properties of data.

http://www.xkcd.com/406/

I should also add, besides intentional misuse of statistical techniques, I question the validity of:

a) the omnipresent assumption of the normal distribution on a variety of data

b) what, even accurately and precisely executed statistical techniques such as the ever present regression analysis can really tell us about anything.

That is one of the reason why the school of Austrian Economics, which I am very sympathetic to (not that it doesn't have certain weaknesses), intentionally eschews statistical methodologies.

Government Numbers

One final area of theoretical concern that distinguishes Austrians from the mainstream is economic statistics. Austrians are critical of the substance of most existing statistical measures of the economy. They are also critical of the uses to which they are put. Take, for example, the question of price elasticities, which supposedly measure consumer responsiveness to changes in price. The problem lies in the metaphor and its applications. It suggests that elasticities exist independent of human action, and that they can be known in advance of experience. But measures of historical consumer behavior do not constitute economic theory.

Another example of a questionable statistical technique is the index number, the prime means by which the government calculates inflation. The problem with index numbers is that they obscure relative price changes between goods and industries, and relative price changes are of prime importance. This is not to say the Consumer Price Index is irrelevant, only that it is not a solid indicator, is subject to wide abuse, and masks highly complex price movements between sectors.

[Varangy note: For example, can you really compare an inflated adjusted automobile from 1980 to 2008? Short answer, no. Why? Compare how much safer, more comfortable, less polluting etc etc today's, even cheap, cars are than yesterday.]

And the Gross Domestic Product statistic is riddled with composition fallacies inherent in the Keynesian model. Government spending is considered part of aggregate demand, and no effort is made to account for the destructive costs of taxation, regulation, and redistribution. If Austrians had their way, the government would never collect another economic statistic. Such data is used primarily to plan the economy.

Fooled by Randomness

2008-05-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ironically, I am going to invoke academia and 'science' to demonstrate why you should be distrustful of most academic research, even when making the oh-so-naive assumption that most "scientists'" hearts are pure and neutral, and would never bend/fit their research to their biases -- which is laughable, depending on the field (hard sciences vs. soft sciences) when the exact opposite is clearly true.

There is increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims. However, this should not be surprising. It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false.

Suppose there are 1000 possible hypotheses to be tested. There are an infinite number of false hypotheses about the world and only a finite number of true hypotheses so we should expect that most hypotheses are false. Let us assume that of every 1000 hypotheses 200 are true and 800 false.
...
Sadly, things get really bad when lots of researchers are chasing the same set of hypotheses. Indeed, the larger the number of researchers the more likely the average result is to be false! The easiest way to see this is to note that when we have lots of researchers every true hypothesis will be found to be true but eventually so will every false hypothesis. Thus, as the number of researchers increases, the probability that a given result is true goes to the probability in the population, in my example 200/1000 or 20 percent.

It is inevitable in a statistical study that some false hypotheses are accepted as true. In fact, standard statistical practice guarantees that at least 5% of false hypotheses are accepted as true. Thus, out of the 800 false hypotheses 40 will be accepted as "true," i.e. statistically significant.

He is quoting "true" because he wants to implicitly point out what most people, and even many academicians, either ignore or simply don't understand.

Just because something is statistically sig., does not make it 'true' --- assuming it is, when it is not is called being 'fooled by randomness'. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written two fantastic books, The Black Swan and the aptly named, Fooled by Randomness exactly about that phenomenon and its persistent prevalence in both business and academia.

This should give 99.999999% of you serious pause in your interpretation of 'science', the role and function of academia, and what constitutes 'news' and how the media interprets and conveys 'scientific' findings.

BTW I read a great definition of 'news' once.

Q: What is news?

A: Whatever the media decide it to be.

Read the whole thing (as well as the books I mentioned) and you might learn a fuckin' thing or two.

PS I used to read the The Economist regularly and almost fanatically. Then I discovered some serious errors in a few articles on a somewhat obscure subject I happen to know a helluva lot about. I have a friend who is an international financial consultant, who knows a few things about finance and accounting, he too reports that he has caught, even a staid weekly such as The Economist, making serious errors of interpretation of various financial events.

Not surprising, I guess. If most journalists knew anything other than writing 'news', they'd probably be doing it.

PPS I canceled my subscription to The Economist a while back.

academia

2008-05-03T16:36:00.001-07:00

They say familiarity breeds contempt. How true. I was almost entranced by academia at one point in my life. But now my take on academia, its role in society, and the value it adds to modern life has swung to the other far side.

"CIVILISATION will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.'' (Harvard biologist George Wald, 1970.);

THE world will be "11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age''. (University of California ecologist Kenneth Watt, 1970.);

"BY the year 2000 ... the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine.'' (University of North Texas Professor of Environmental Philosophy Peter Gunter, 1970.); and

"IT is already too late to avoid mass starvation.'' (Stanford and Harvard academic Denis Hayes, 1970.)

Néger

2008-05-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

Hearing that my comment inspired a post brings a smile to my face :D

Good reflections - during my 4 years among the Hungarians, the persistent provincialism has been and is one of my biggest bones with Hungarian culture. One aspect of provincialism that you didn't mention is racism, which is absolutely rampant in Hungary. The stories I hear from my black friends living in Hungary are often truly unbelievable in a horrible, sad kind of way - i.e. random violence on the bus/tram/metro perpetrated on them by perfect strangers (while the rest of the passengers, all "decent Magyars," I'm sure, just watch without doing or saying anything), people staring at them EVERYWHERE they go (especially if they dare to leave the confines of downtown Budapest), old people in the villages telling them that they thought black people (usually referred to as "négerek," even after my friends tell them that they find this profoundly offensive) were not actually real and were made up by the TV people to make movies more interesting, etc.

This kind of provincialism/racism I just don't fathom - what century are these people living in? It's not every Hungarian, certainly, but it's a disturbingly high number. If someone tried to randomly assault me on the tram, they'd probably end up in the hospital - but, I don't have to worry about such things in this country, since I'm white.

Posted by: Bill | May 02, 2008 at 03:45 AM

Néger is not a slur. It may, sadly, sound like the American English slur 'nigger', as both words are, I assume, derived from the same Latinate root for the word black: negro.

Boring

2008-05-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

OK Varangy, enough with the silence. The blogosphere is getting boring.

-Lastochka

L. pays me a great compliment – I’d rather be anything than boring. Really.

Been traveling and getting absolutely killed at work these days and, unfortunately, don’t have personal Varangy time for my usual masturbatory-self-indulgent-shit-stirring-pseudo-intellectual pissing-into-the-cold-digital-wind-of-the-Eng./Hun.-cybersphere-meaningless-bullshit that I usually submit you all to.

Also haven’t been able to keep up with my blog reader and my RSS feeds are piling up unread – which is torturing me beyond fucking belief. It really is a vice of mine. Some people gamble, some people drink, some people, literally and figuratively suck circumcised (as well as, in the interests of both fairness and accuracy, uncircumcised) Communist cock (you all know who I am talking about), some complete, utter douchebags, like me, read blogs incessantly.

But as we all know, shameless flattery WILL get you, you sly devil you, somewhere. Will see if I can generate something(s) this weekend.

Mangalica zsír

2008-04-15T22:26:00.000-07:00

That's right, ladies and gentlemen: lard. The word alone makes fatophobes cringe like a vampire to garlic. It also makes epicures salivate.
...
The fatty acid profile of lard might give us a clue. The predominant class of fat in lard is monounsaturated, 45% by weight. This is the same type of fat that predominates in olive oil (73%), and which elevates HDL (so-called "good cholesterol") while lowering LDL (so-called "bad cholesterol"). The second most prevalent class of fat in lard is saturated, at 39%. More than one third of this saturated fat is stearic acid, which even the most hardened fatophobe will agree has a favorable effect on blood lipids. Then there's the 11% polyunsaturated fat, which has been the darling of mainstream heart disease research for decades (for the record, I disagree with them). The omega-3:6 ratio depends on how the pig was raised.

So what does that leave us with? 70% fats that we're told are heart-healthy, and 26% saturated fats that are supposed to be unhealthy. But if you still believe saturated fats cause heart disease, check out this post and this one.

Has Mangalica zsíros kenyér hit the market yet? If not, there is money to be made there.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

self-exiled

2008-04-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

Varangy-

This has nothing to do with your post, but anyway-I offer you two statements culled from the news wires today:

(1) The neo-liberal, profit-oriented economic policy cannot elevate Roma from their present position, [Viktor] Orbán continued, as only a social market economy can provide the answer.

(2) After blaming everything that is wrong in contemporary politics on the Free Democrats, (who of course, Fidesz was closely aligned with up to 1994), Kövér [Laszlo] suggested that were the Socialists to buck their current leadership, who has been tainted by the Free Dems, Fidesz could perhaps work together with them in the interests of the nation...

Are you ready yet to admit it and "throw in the towel" on FIDESZ? This right wing socialism gets scarier by the day or the comment!

-NWO

I am unsure of what you mean by 'throw in the towel'. I am not fideszes, and repeatedly stated, painfully and honestly, that I do not support their economic policies. I also see no evidence that makes Viki any 'scarier' than any other politician. In fact, the hysterical and irrational 'Viki is a dictator' meme is so fucking irritating cuz it has no basis in reality. Especially, when, ironically, thrown at him from the former dictators of the Hun. Left!

Look, in Hun. politics, I will be forever self-exiled. The Right's policies make no sense, the Left, while economically a bit better, is derived from pure unadulterated and moreover, remorseless evil, led by a man who made his millions illegally and immorally.

Aside from starting the Varangy Party and telling everyone to fuck off on the Right and the Left, what do you suggest I do? (This is a serious question.)

way more interesting before

2008-04-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

Anonymous said...

This blog was way more interesting before it became the anti-Hungarian Spectrum blog.

Just sayin'.

R.

Forthright. I like it.

Anonymous said...

On the other hand, I'm sort of enjoying watching The Great Varangy-Eva Feud. It'll run its course in due time, enjoy it while it lasts. :)

-Lastochka

'Feud'? 'Feud' implies some sort of equality in capability and wronging. Yet she is over matched in every way, brains, reason, logic, knowledge, wit and writing style. She refuses to engage in any sort of exchange of ideas even though I have, against my better judgment, withheld my usual dosage of Aspergian-like vitriol and insult.

Sadly, she appears now to be emboldened.

As you will soon see, we will be back to Varangy blogging as we all know and love it. The verbal armament will be pulled out of storage and dusted off, the blades honed for cutting insult, the fierce expletives double-checked and re-loaded into the machine-guns, and the sniper-scope of unorthodox and politically incorrect thinking calibrated to true once more.

All after I finish this project at work that is killing me right now.

Delusional Hungarian Senior Citizen Commie Academics

2008-04-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not saying that it [Index.hu] is far right publication (Arpad flags and all) but surely it is not ultra-liberal. How independent is it? It's not independent. I'm not even sure that totally independent paper exists or that it is necessary a good thing. The aim is to give as neutral as possible, good, factual information. The Op-Ed page is something else.

Posted by: Eva S. Balogh | April 14, 2008 at 08:48 AM

Lesson learned: Disagree with or dare criticize with Gyurcsi and you are on the Hun. Right. Booooo!!! Hissss!!!

@NWO
Saw your comment, am slammed on a project right now, but will get to it soon.

Banned?

2008-04-14T20:49:00.001-07:00

Looks like Eva will be banning me from her blog. Under Varangy, it wouldn't allow me to comment, notifying me that the blog author would have to review my comment. I commented under 'A beka'. Here is the oh-so-offensive comment should Eva decide to delete and ban me.

****Please, understand: I don't want to debate your ideas.****

Then don't. But man up enough to defend yours. Otherwise, don't enable commenting on this blog.

****It's that simple. I didn't insult your family, I don't hold any grudge against you,****

You can lie to yourself, but don't lie to me. You DID insult me and my family. And you DO hold a grudge against anyone who doesn't agree with you.

****I just don't want to engage in endless and useless debates with somebody like you. I know the type from experience.****

Really? You know my type? What s my 'type'? I'd love to know, b/c, to be frank -- I don't know too many people like me, perhaps you could send a few my way? I am hamstrung between the Hun. Left, its immoral and evil past, but most likely better economic policies of today AND the Hun. Right and its irresponsible long-term economic policies that lead towards economic socialism, and ultimately negative growth.

I am NOT a right-winger, but if I were, I would not hesitate to admit. But at the same time, I do NOT think Viki is the AntiChrist, and, well, do not think all that much of Gyurcsi, our over-night dollar millionaire (Great businessman, that he is...).

It is not a matter of will on your part. What it comes down to is that you do not have the intellectual firepower, neither cannon nor even musket, to back up your foggy thinking.

Coming from the echo chambers of the Ivory Towers of Western Academia, you are not used to being challenged and questioned and find it insulting and uncomfortable.

Last thing, you may not be smoking anything, but you gotta make sure there is nothing in the water you are drinking. Because you are delusional if you think that Index.hu is anything but firmly on the Hun. Left.

Posted by: A Beka | April 14, 2008 at 11:47 PM

igazolt nemes

2008-04-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

My curiosity got the best of me from the comments a few days ago. Swung by a buddy of mine who really is of traceable noble descent and cracked some books open.

The Good News:
My mother is right. We are mentioned in Nagy Iván's Magyarország családai, czimerekkel és nemezetrendi Táblákkal.

More Good News:
My mother is right again. We are mentioned in Gerő József's A m. kir. belügyminiszter által igazolt nemesek 1867-1937.

The Bad News:
My mother is wrong. We are not mentioned in Gudenus János József's A magyarországi főnemesség XX. századi genealógiája.

Conclusion:
We might be of noble blood as Nagy Iván is supposed to be the last word on these nonsensical matters, but unlikely we ever were true titled aristocracy. No idea if the kutyabőr exists or even existed. Will ask my mother this week.

Interesting tidbit:
This buddy of mine has a great-aunt, still alive, living in Vienna. She stills get some pension because of their noble Hungarian-Croatian ancestor who fought against Napoleon...

Last thing:
I promise not to organize my thoughts in this manner again, it is even annoying to me.

Lavrenti Beria

2008-04-13T08:18:00.001-07:00

Anonymous asks:

Varangy, could you explain what you mean with "her religious background, which would suggest, but does not set in stone, at least some sympathy with the Communists"?

Why would Jews love Communists more than Christians, or any other?

The answer to you question is simple. Although many Western foreigners in Hungary are largely unaware. After WW II, the Jews who, obviously, had suffered terribly and horrifically, to say the very, very bare minimum at the hands of the Germans and their accomplices saw the Russians as liberators, not potential enslavers.

(Eva still thinks it today!!! More on that below.*)

Therefore, very naturally and even almost understandably, Jews gravitated to the Communist Party. Think about it, you have been persecuted mercilessly and now you get a chance to take a leadership position with an organization that is (falsely) promising Utopia, equality and all the other nonsense the Commies promised.

So much so, that:

In June, Rakosi and other party leaders--among them Imre Nagy--were summoned to Moscow, where Soviet leaders harshly criticized them for Hungary's dismal economic performance. Soviet communist party Presidium member Lavrenti Beria** reportedly upbraided Rakosi for naming Jews to Hungary's top party positions and accused him of seeking to make himself the "Jewish King of Hungary." (Communists of Jewish origin had dominated the party leadership and the secret police for a decade after the war, and every party leader from Bela Kun to Erno Gero had Jewish roots.)

A couple caveats: This is also not surprising since we observe:

the extravagant overrepresentation of Jews, relative to their numbers, in the top ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine, finance, entrepreneurship, and the media.
...
cultural evidence from Spain, where, under both Muslim and Christian rule, Jews attained eminent positions in the professions, commerce, and government as well as in elite literary and intellectual circles.

most likely due to their, genetically predisposed, high IQs.

BTW should you think me anti-semitic, how many anti-semitics do you know that link to articles titled 'Jewish Genius'?

In modern Hun. political theatre, Jews are generally, although not always, on the Hun. Left, the former Communists and their sycophants.

Interesting to note, Western academic Jews generally identify with the American Left and also tend to give Communism a free pass.

Even ones who should know better like Eva.

BUT, we haven't gotten to the irony of it all! The brutal, slap-you-in-the-face and wake-you-up-from-your-stupor irony!

People, some often thoughtful and reasonable, will often react to the above mentioned fact with misplaced knee-jerk sympathy, "Yes, they felt mistakenly liberated. They wanted a better world after suffering the horror of WW II. And these Jews became 'true believers' in Communism and therefore should be somewhat excused for the evils of Communism."

Irony: The Communist Party (again controlled by Jews) actively recruited from the former Nazis!

How much of a 'true believer' can you be if you recruit among and accept the evil that formerly persecuted you?

Short answer: You can't be. You have become just as evil. That is, all Communists, not just Jewish Communists, are forever morally corrupted.

I asked as much of Eva here:

My father also recounts how many did join out of principle (!), one of their neighbors in the village he grew up in was the local Nazi chief, after the war, he became the local Party chief.

Can you still not condemn a movement that openly accepted and courted former Nazis?

She, of course, knows all the above, but with a lifelong affliction of moral and intellectual cognitive dissonance (and refusal to accept and work around her own biases) does not want to come to terms with the truth. Communism and Fascism are different sides of the same coin and moral equivalents.

* There some of them broke through the cordon surrounding the monument remembering the Soviet soldiers who died during the storming of the city in 1944-45. The monument is under constant threat by those who consider the Soviet liberation of the country from German occupation nothing more than a change in the identity of the occupier.

Mark me as one of those morons who is part of 'By those who consider'.

Note: The preceding was not a slur against Jews, but a, perhaps uncomfortable and politically incorrect, observation of recent history.

**Lavrenti Beria was Georgian like Stalin BTW.

BTW should anyone feel that the aforementioned facts ARE slurs, please be liberal in the following comments and tell me why.

Mint egy falat kenyér

2008-04-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

Permit me another perspective on the recent balhé to which Éva has devoted two posts.

To claim that Gyurcsány (and Schröder) "were the heroes of the hour" is achingly stupefying, to say the least. Keep in mind, however, the author of this phrase most likely suffers from a case of unrequited, at least, Gyurcsány affection. Remember in her eyes, Gyurcsi is "tireless", "athletic", in "best form when he or his party or both are in the deepest trouble. In such cases he comes up with some excellent ideas."

Hardly an unbiased commentator. Then again, neither am I, but I do not pretend to be either.

But, back to the matter at hand. To hold oneself as an informed commentator on Hungarian political theatre and not instantly realize that Gyurcsány's presence (and Schröder's) at the counter-demonstration was nothing more, nothing less than extremely clumsy and divisive politicking, beggars belief.

Gyurcsi, like Viki (and Dubya, for that matter), is what one would call polarizing political figure, to say the very least. Clearly his presence at counter-demonstration is a catalyst for a flashpoint in an already incendiary situation. In other words, he makes things worse. Not just a little worse, a lot worse.

Tóth-Szenesi Attila

Gyurcsány Ferenc csütörtökön levelet írt [1] a parlamenti pártok vezetőinek, hogy menjenek el pénteken a szélsőjobboldal által kipécézett Hollán Ernő utcai jegyiroda elé szervezett antifasiszta tüntetésre. Már megint ez a túlmozgás.
...
Gyurcsány most azzal tenné legtöbbet az antifasizmus ügyének, ha csendben maradna.

Vagy ha mégis ragaszkodik a levélhez, akkor az utolsó mondatban írja ezt: „Mivel személyem mélyen megosztja a magyar társadalmat, és ha elmegyek, akkor a rendezvény nem azt jelenti, amit a szervezők szerettek volna, hogy jelentsen, és az őszödi beszéd óta az összes utcai rendezvényen, beleértve egy mászóka átadását is, kockázati tényezőt jelentek, ezért inkább távolmaradásommal tüntetek.”

Exactly.

Let's note that fideszes municipal representative of the 13th District, Szabó György, by the way, who ~~took part~~ organized in the counter-demonstration, has been recieving death threats against himself and his family, so much so, that they have moved out of their flat.

Szabó György fideszes önkormányzati képviselő telefonon, emailen, levélben kapott fenyegetéseket. "Nem elsősorban magam miatt, hanem feleségem és három gyermekem miatt döntöttünk úgy, hogy elköltözünk" - mondta az Index kérdésére Szabó György.

So, I feel that gives him a some decent counter-protester street cred, wouldn't you agree? Moreover,

Szabó György nyílt levelet írt Gyurcsány Ferenc miniszterelnök és Szabadai Viktor budapesti SZDSZ-elnök leveleire. A helyi politikus szerint Magyarország válságban van, mert kormánya kizárólag saját magával, a hatalomhoz minden áron való ragaszkodással foglalkozik, ahelyett, hogy az egyre nehezebb helyzetbe sodródó ország bajaira keresne megoldást. A politikus szerint, amikor a kormány szembekerült a társadalommal, előkerült az antiszemita- és a gyűlöletkártya. Szabó szerint ebben a válságos helyzetben mindenkinek világos, hogy Gyurcsánynak úgy kell a szélsőséges provokáció, mint egy falat kenyér.

This is what it is all about and I couldn't have said it better myself. (By the way, does anyone have a good English idiom for úgy kell a XYZ, mint egy falat kenyér?) I cannot think of one.

What hasn't been mentioned --- is that Szabó is a Jew. In fact, he served for a time in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) infantry division, and is raising his children such they keep with Jewish traditions.

K: Mit jelöl ez a jelvény és honnan való? Miért hordja?

Sz.Gy.: Az izraeli harci utász egység jelvénye. Az izraeli hadsereg, a Cáhál utász egységében szolgáltam. Erre mindig is büszke vagyok. Ezért is van ez a jelvény mindig is a zakóm hajtókáján. Tíz évet éltem Izraelben. A nyomdász szakmában dolgoztam az egyik legjelentősebb irodai papíráru gyártó (Superfile Ltd.) cég nyomdavezetőjeként. 1999-ben tértem haza a fentebb említett cég képviseletében Magyarországra.
...
Három gyermeket öntudatos, hagyományőrző zsidóként neveljük.

Doesn't get more Jewish than that, no? So why not mention it, Éva? I think we all know why.

I will leave you with Szabó's shot across Gyurcsány bow:

A politikus felszólította a miniszterelnököt, hogy ne menjen el a délutáni demonstrációra, és távolmaradásával segítse elő az újfasiszták elleni küzdelmet. Feltette a kérdést Gyurcsánynak, hogy ha komolyan gondolja kiállását, akkor tudassa, mikor költözik el abból a villából, amit először a nyilasok, majd a kommunisták vettek el zsidó tulajdonosától.

Sakk-matt.

Guess who?

2008-04-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

A smarmy someone, commenting on my futile and stupid exertions on my blog and elsewhere, emails me this:

Fucker. LOL.

FEAR!!!

2008-04-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

What is it with Viking and 'fear'? He keeps projecting -- His fears? His fear of me? -- into my comments and subsequently, makes no sense at all. Take a look. (I am going to spare you my boring and tedious comments, before or after, that prompt his odd hysteria/projection, but if you want to read them, just follow the links.)

...
Finally, for me as a Swede the Soviet-icons do not scare me. A strong and hungry Russia do. It has nothing to do which ideology is in power in Russia. We have fought the Russian Empire for several hundreds of years and helped to make it big. Communism had nothing to do to make Russia big, so I really do not understand Varangy's fear for some outdated insignia.
...
He probably has a formula for calculating how consistent he is in his arguments, you know -x%/(+-)y%.

Posted by: Viking | April 11, 2008 at 09:46 AM

Makes no sense to me either. But I like how he attempts to insult me for being reasonable, mathematical and clear-thinking.

So Varangy-Country is ruled by fear. Fear of getting caught. The people there are not guided by a moral compass that keep them on the straight and narrow road. No 10 Commandments etc, just fear and repression from the bad State.

In China they have public executions as Saturday entertainment in big Stadiums. I believe they still get new murderers, rapists and big embezzlers faster than what they can kill them off. So if it fear of getting caught and killed does not stop people from committing crimes, how will then fear of getting caught for tax evasion stop people from cheating with the tax, regardless of the %?

But what do I know, I am just the "village idiot" in the Varangy world.

Posted by: Viking | April 11, 2008 at 09:13 AM

That last bit is certainly true. Although, it may be a bit insulting to the original village idiot and valid not just in the 'Varangy world'.

Big Pussy

2008-04-09T08:59:00.001-07:00

Big G -- I and comments are open for business. Bring it on.

'good post!'

2008-04-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

If I know one thing, (and this becomes more and more apparent to me as I age) it is that I am a moron. Granted, I am somewhat less of a moron than most of you, because I, having learned a bit from Antiquity, somewhat redeemingly am cognizant of my status as a moron.

While I generally tend to, perhaps moronically, engage the moronic in argumentation, I am always torn between engaging or summarily ignoring them. And sometimes I am just dumbstruck by the absolute sheer moronity of it all. Mine very much included BTW.

But then there are morons, and then there are fucking morons. Sandor responds to a comment of mine addressed to Adrian.

Varangy, your didactic singlemindedness is not conducive.

Socialism was not completely evil, if you consider the elimination of the bone-grinding poverty that was left behind by the Horthy era. It wasn't wealth, but it was honourable penury for the wast majority. It alleviated the conditions that earlier forced the notorious emigration of three million paupers. It wasn't a sustainable, or desirable political system, but at least it was livable somehow.

Nor is capitalism fully ideal.

But whatever the system, the measurement of success is the opportunity it gives to the individual to realize his desires.

The political system in Hungary wasn't evil, it was merely lousy. And now the capitalism, or a similacrum of it, is similarly insufficient to cater to everyone.

It is not the system, but the people who carry it out, that makes the difference.

Posted by: Sandor | April 09, 2008 at 12:01 AM

In sheer amazement, I read and re-read this comment again and again. How do such moronic people get away with writing such inane and overt moronity? (Maybe Communist Thought Police aren't such a bad idea?) And then I wonder, is it even worth fisking it? Because while fisking moronity:

a) is enjoyable (To a hyperrational bastard like myself, at least.)

b) clearly defines the validity or invalidity of the points employed

c) should advance the discussion towards some Platonic Truth (Yes, I know I am a douchebaggy idealist.)

It could also be, and I suspect it is, a meaningless masturbatory intellectual exercise on my part.

In general, I do fisk away at the unrelenting hordes of morons, who keep coming back for more --- and rarely, if ever, do they cogently respond. There are, however, notable exceptions: NWO, Minsztrel, Vándorló, and lately, Adrian (and sometimes Odin's Lost Eye). That's about it.

BTW Jaffa-Cakes, if you are lurking about, would love to know what is the latest and greatest with you, as much as your anonymity will allow.

The rest are rhetorically pathetic. I mean, by all means, disagree with me, but come back with some logical firepower or at least something other than flinging digital diarrhea in my direction.

Anyhow, so I have decided not to fisk Sanyi's absolutely absurd comment above. Only because village idiot, Lars the Viking's follow-up comment, made me laugh out loud...

Sandor, good post!

Posted by: Viking | April 09, 2008 at 01:39 AM

I am still smiling as I write this.

obvious lack of own experience

2008-04-08T00:10:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Just got an email: 'Maybe you were KISZ member, wouldn't that be ironic?' LOL.

Lars the Viking doing his best to out me at Hungarian Spectrum.

Good luck trying to pin me down and identify me. Truly flattering. I, while telling the truth, will be annoyingly vague on certain parts of my life. My background and childhood is atypical, let's leave it at that.

After all, we all know that Bp. is more like an inbred village than a city -- and that is exactly why I remain anonymous -- and so do you.

Posted by: Varangy | April 08, 2008 at 02:11 AM

No Varangy,

I do not try to smoke you out. I also, for security reasons, try to be anonoumys (I will never learn to spell that word...).

No we are just trying to understand your biases...

I do now, not believe that you really lived in Hungary during the pre-1990 period in Hungary as an adult. That would explain your obviuos lack of own experience and your reference to older relatives.

Posted by: Viking | April 08, 2008 at 02:25 AM

***I do now, not believe that you really lived in Hungary during the pre-1990 period in Hungary as an adult. That would explain your obviuos lack of own experience and your reference to older relatives.***

Believe what you need to believe. I neither confirm nor deny your hypothesis.

Posted by: Varangy | April 08, 2008 at 03:04 AM

Anyone else have any guesses?

Reverse boiling frogs

2008-04-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

I wasn't talking about support I was talking about acceptance. There was no hope to change the system and Hungarians looked around in the region where the effects of the so-called socialism were much worse.

Er, the reason there was no hope to change system was because the system maintained itself ruthlessly.

What you would term 'acceptance' is the extinguishment of hope.

Sure, as you say, things got better in the 70s, but it really isn't hard to get better when you come from hell. Like the boiling frog in water, but reverse. You throw the poor breki in the pot and slam on a lid. You turn up the heat to beyond scalding for a while, and then dial it back down to just simmering. Probably feels great relatively. But you are still being kept in a pot of hot water.

And, sure our little frog is, I suppose, comforted because he sees the froggy in the Romanian pot get absolutely fricasseed.

Great argument.

Over at Eva Balogh's blog, Hungarian Spectrum.

Stifling Debate

2008-04-05T01:07:00.001-07:00

'Big G' takes a swing at me with:

Varangy: "d) not debating people's ideas and arguments..."

I notice your new Tumblr blog pages do not allow comments. As opposed to you old website: http://varangy.blogspot.com/ where, basically, you posted mainly in rather vulgar fashion ("Expat Douchebags" was a favored term) in response to anybody who posted a comment on your blog. On your new "Tumblr" page you don't allow debate. Your response?

I am accused of stifling debate because of my time spent at Tumblr. If it wasn't so ironic, I'd be insulted. Well, out with the new and in with the old. It is open season on me found at *frappáns klisé cím itt - varangy.blogspot.com.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Tumblr

2007-12-29T16:31:00.000-08:00

Will posting at the mega-trendy blogging platform, Tumblr. Adjust your RSS or bookmarks. All 3 of you.

White (and Yellow) Flight

2007-12-29T15:40:00.001-08:00

This, my friends, is fascinating:

Sweden's population boom continues

Sweden's population is continuing to grow at a rapid clip, according to preliminary figures from Statistics Sweden.

By New Year's Eve, the country's population will have reached 9,184,000, the agency estimates.

The increase can be largely attributed to immigration figures, which are the highest since records began.

Some 100,000 new immigrants will have begun calling Sweden home by the time the fireworks are let off to mark the beginning of the New Year.

Birth rates were also higher than average in 2007, with the number of births (107,000) outnumbering deaths by 16,000. This can be compared to 2002, when the birth surplus was just 806.

Emigration figures, though practically unchanged since last year, remain relatively high. Some 45,000 people are expected to have left Sweden by the end of the year. As with immigration, Swedish nationals make up the largest group.

Others leaving the country in large numbers include, Nordic citizens, Germans, Brits, Chinese and Americans.

Very goddamn interesting. Wonder what would make the most productive citizens leave Sweden? Couldn't be a generous welfare state combined with poorly integrated Muslims on the dole, could it?

The Essence of Communism

2007-12-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

I luv it. I really do.

From The Guardian

German communist in hot water after dining out on lobster

By the time she had realised her mistake - that as one of Germany's top communists she should probably not be seen eating lobster - it was too late.

There was no time to switch from the €22 (£16) "rich man's dish" to a more modest platter of kippers, because Sahra Wagenknecht had already been caught on camera in the act of betraying her own political ideals.

A Communist would betray their own political ideals? Who would have thought? LOL.

So the photogenic MEP for Germany's Left party set about trying to destroy the evidence of what happened that night in the Strasbourg restaurant Aux Armes in a manner that has sent ripples of scorn across Germany.
...
According to Uca, the photographs of Wagenknecht cracking into her lobster had been erased from the camera when it was returned to her the following day.

The issue came to light after Uca lodged a complaint in protest at the "surreptitious search through the private photos on my camera", triggering an inquiry.

A cover-up? Remarkable. Totally unlike a Communist.

Germany is appalled that its favourite communist has taken to adopting "tactics at which Stalin was a dab hand," as one newspaper commentator said.

Er, Germany has a 'favorite Communist'? I hate Germans more than ever. And that is a lot.

...
A clearly embarrassed Wagenknecht - who was brought up on the works of Marx and Engels, joined the East German communists in 1989, and allegedly mourned the fall of the Berlin Wall - has admitted both to eating the lobster, and erasing the pictures.

But she defended her actions.

"I don't do anything that I say others shouldn't do," she told the daily TAZ. "On the contrary, I'm fighting for a society in which everyone can afford to eat lobster."

As to why she erased the pictures? "I didn't like them," she said.

You fuckin' cunt of cunts. Brings to mind Orwell's masterpiece, Animal Farm, wherein the pigs write on the wall of the barn: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Of course they are.

This little brouhaha is identical to Kovács László's little dinner party in 2003. Remember that?

Kovács szerint két pár virsli elég lett volna Söjtörön

Szégyelli magát a kormány - mondta Kovács László a söjtöri díszebédről nyilatkozva a Napkeltében. A külügyminiszter szerint egy nehéz helyzetben lévő ország kormánya ne urizáljon, egyen inkább virslit. A söjtöri Deák Ferenc-megemlékezésre egy rózsadombi étteremből szállították többek között a mandulával töltött angolnát, és a borjúsültet.

Szégyelli magát a kormány, és megköveti az adófizetőket a söjtöri kihelyezett kormányülés Budapestről rendelt ebédje miatt - mondta Kovács László külügyminiszter, az MSZP elnöke csütörtökön, az MTV Nap-kelte című műsorában.

A minisztereknek a meghívott VIP-vendégeknek, külön erre az alkalomra készítették az ínycsiklandozó ételeket:

előétel: mandulával töltött angolna, pácolt fogasfilé és fokhagymás, parajjal tekert harcsa leves , magyaros erdeigomba-leves kakukkfüves vadhúsgombóccal

főétel: borjúsült háziasan, pirított borjúmájjal és sonkás tört burgonyával

desszert: Rigó Jancsi, gesztenye "kupola" diós holdacska tokajis mazsolával

Gonna be honest with you, sounds fantasically delicious. Just the sort of things Communists tend to eat, no?

Bár nem a kormánytagok döntöttek az ebédről, hanem egy referens, akinek ez a dolga, beismerik, hogy hiba volt a fővárosból, drágán hozatni az ételt - jelentette ki az elnök. Kovács László utólag úgy értékelte a történteket: "két pár virsli egy kis mustárral és tormával, és egy szelet barna kenyérrel (...) nagyon megfelelt volna".

Oh, I bet that a couple of virsli would have been more than sufficient. Sure, fuckface.

A hypocritical Communist is a hypocritical Communist is a hyprocritical Communist for ever and always. Somethings will never change.

UPDATE: Leafing through the latest issue of The Economist, I accidentally come across this tidbit.

Born a modestly well-off villager, Mao lived like an emperor, carried on litters by peasants, surrounded by concubines and placated by everyone. Yes his most famous slogan was "Serve the People". The paradox illustrates one aspect of his brilliance: his ability to justify his actions, no matter how entirely self-serving, as being done for others.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

He did, however, 'serve' 70 million or so people their deaths.

AGW

2007-12-26T12:44:00.000-08:00

The first intellectually honest piece on global warming by a Lefty news source. Unbelievable. I am almost speechless. Is the false information cascade tide turning? If you have any interest in 'global warming', read the whole fuckin' thing.

Via the New Statesman:

Has global warming stopped?
David Whitehouse

'The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 and every year since 2001'

Global warming stopped? Surely not. What heresy is this? Haven’t we been told that the science of global warming is settled beyond doubt and that all that’s left to the so-called sceptics is the odd errant glacier that refuses to melt?

Heresy is exactly what this is in the context of the neo-socialist religion of environmentalism.

...
With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.
...
The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

A Lefty actually considering the economic and financial ramifications of the so-called solutions to 'global warming'? Holy fuck.

Actually, questioning the hypothesis and mechanism behind the eco-hysteria of 'global warming'? String the fucker up before the word gets out of his heresy.

Maybe we need to re-consider the 'global warming' hypothesis? Maybe, it isn't happening? Maybe, just maybe, we as humans don't have enough data and context to understand what, if anything, is happening?

..
But here it starts getting messy and, perhaps, a little inconvenient for some. Looking at the global temperatures as used by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office and the IPCC (and indeed Al Gore) it’s apparent that there has been a sharp rise since about 1980.

The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued.

For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.

Even a dig at eco-hysteria high priest Al Gore? I am stunned.

...
Some media commentators say that the science of global warming is now beyond doubt and those who advocate alternative approaches or indeed modifications to the carbon dioxide greenhouse warming effect had lost the scientific argument. Not so.

Certainly the working hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is a good one that stands on good physical principles but let us not pretend our understanding extends too far or that the working hypothesis is a sufficient explanation for what is going on.

Precisely. In short, it is the height of scientific hubris to think that we understand and/or can model 'climate'. We know a helluva lot more about, say, employment and GDP in Hungary, yet any forecasts more than 2-3 years out are pure guesswork.

I have heard it said, by scientists, journalists and politicians, that the time for argument is over and that further scientific debate only causes delay in action. But the wish to know exactly what is going on is independent of politics and scientists must never bend their desire for knowledge to any political cause, however noble.

Scientists, politically motivated? Nah, can't be.

The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are fools if we think we have a sufficient understanding of such a complicated system as the Earth’s atmosphere’s interaction with sunlight to decide. We know far less than many think we do or would like you to think we do. We must explain why global warming has stopped.

Humility and skepticism. Daring to question authority/consensus. All what novel concepts.

Let's see what some of the commenters on the New Statesman website have to say about this:

SCEPTIC
20 December 2007
YOUR ARTICLE IS PAID GOVERNMENT NONSENSE

GLOBAL WARMING IS MEASURED NOT ONLY BY TEMPERATURES BUT ALSO BY AMOUNT OF MELTING ICE GO TO THIS LINK AND SEE YOURSELF......

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

Jane Greene
21 December 2007
This article is a complete load of old cock and I'm horrified the New Statesman ran it!

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Cybertiger
21 December 2007
How will the Americans power their F16 fighter bombers when the oil runs out?

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truf76
21 December 2007
It is astounding that such an ill conceived article can find its way into the pages of the New Statesman.

LOL.

Best News You'll Hear This Week

2007-12-21T16:24:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia:

Toward the late 20th century, lard began to be regarded as less healthy than vegetable oils (such as olive and sunflower oil) because of its high saturated fatty acid and cholesterol content. However, despite its reputation, lard has less saturated fat, more unsaturated fat, and less cholesterol than an equal amount of butter by weight.[2] Unlike many margarines and vegetable shortenings, unhydrogenated lard contains no trans fat.

Sugar Water

2007-12-20T21:11:00.000-08:00

Not too long ago, the VarangyCsajszi's Mama and I were debating the merits of the Hungarian State taking away gypsy children from their parents to put them in foster care. Believe it or not, I take the stand that parents, even gypsy parents, know better than the Hungarian State in raising their own children.

I think I stand entirely corrected. From Sárga Ház

Megint van jó kis elgondolkodni valónk mára. Éhen halt egy 1 éves kisfiú a Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg megyei Piricsén.

How the fuck does a one year old starve to death in, er, the EU? Well, the location is a clue.

Még novemberben hívták ki az ügyeletes orvost a szülők – akik 6 gyereket neveltek egy egyszobás házban –, de ő már csak a lesoványodott kisfiú halálát tudta megállapítani.

Note, the doctor came AFTER the poor child had already expired. Fuck me sideways and call me Zsuzsa.

A ...kisfiú az átlagos 10 kiló helyett alig volt több 3 kilónál. A településen többen állítják: a gyerekeknek gyakran csak cukros víz jutott táplálékul, a szülők elitták a segélyeket.

Let's recap. 30 fuckin' percent of normal weight. Fed on sugar water. Six children in a one room house. The family on the dole. The parents, alcoholics. Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county. (30 percent unemployment according to the site.)

Hhhhhhhhhmmmm. What does this scream at us? Let's whisper it together...sssssshhhhhhh...cigány.

A 6 gyerek egyike korábban saját kérésére inkább egy gyermekotthonba költözött. A kisbaba halála után a gyámügy ...mindegyik gyereket elvette. A házaspár felelősségét még vizsgálják a rendőrök...

How bad must the situation be if one of the children asks to be put in a foster home?

Sárga Ház makes a great point in the post - everyone in Piricse knew about the situation. Do they share in the responsibility of the child's death? The post ends with:

Mindenkinek, szomszédoknak, hivatalnokoknak, rendőr-bendőröknek, állami gyámoknak, boldog, békés karácsonyt ott, a messzi Piricsén!

Time Person of the Year

2007-12-20T20:17:00.001-08:00

Putin is allegedly worth $40 billion. Am I surprised? Not really. Is it true? Who the fuck knows? Is it plausible? Hell yes.

From the Guardian via Drudge:

...
At stake are billions of dollars in assets belonging to Russian state-run corporations. Additionally, details of Putin's own personal fortune, reportedly hidden in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, are being discussed for the first time.
...
Citing sources inside the president's administration, Belkovsky claims that after eight years in power Putin has secretly accumulated more than $40bn (£20bn). The sum would make him Russia's - and Europe's - richest man.

In an interview with the Guardian, Belkovsky repeated his claims that Putin owns vast holdings in three Russian oil and gas companies, concealed behind a "non-transparent network of offshore trusts".

Think any of our politicians have stakes in non-transparent offshore trusts? Nah...

Putin "effectively" controls 37% of the shares of Surgutneftegaz, an oil exploration company and Russia's third biggest oil producer, worth $20bn, he says. He also owns 4.5% of Gazprom, and "at least 75%" of Gunvor, a mysterious Swiss-based oil trader, founded by Gennady Timchenko, a friend of the president's, Belkovsky alleges.

Asked how much Putin was worth, Belkovsky said: "At least $40bn. Maximum we cannot know. I suspect there are some businesses I know nothing about." He added: "It may be more. It may be much more.

I suspect there are some businesses that Kóka and Gyurcsány have interests in we know nothing about.

"Putin's name doesn't appear on any shareholders' register, of course. There is a non-transparent scheme of successive ownership of offshore companies and funds. The final point is in Zug [in Switzerland] and Liechtenstein. Vladimir Putin should be the beneficiary owner."
...
The officers were involved in "velvet reprivatisations", Shvartsman, a fund manager, said - in effect forcibly acquiring private companies at below-market value and transforming them into state-owned firms. These assets were redistributed via offshore companies, he said.

According to Panfilova, the "randomised" corruption of the 1990s has given way to the "systemic and institutionalised corruption" of the Putin era. Members of Putin's cabinet personally control the most important sectors of the economy - oil, gas and defence. Medvedev is chairman of Gazprom; Sechin runs Rosneft; other ministers are chairmen of Russian railways, Aeroflot, a nuclear fuel giant and an energy transport enterprise.

Velvet reprivatisations. I like that. Wonder how many of the richest Hungarians were involved in similar thefts. I know of at least one. And he is a not-so-distant VarangyCsalád relative.

Pedophilic Irony of the Year

2007-12-20T10:21:00.001-08:00

Can someone explain this to me?

The image hardly fits our idea of the happy couple's wedding picture - but this haunting photograph taken in Afghanistan graphically captures life for millions of girls given in marriage while under age.

It shows Mohammed, 40, with his new 11-year-old wife, Ghulam. Taken by US photographer Stephanie Sinclair, it was named Unicef Photo of the Year yesterday.

Some 60 million girls worldwide are married while still under age, according to the children's rights agency.

Er, I was under the impression that UNICEF ostensibly/ironically is meant to protect children, not glorify pedophilia. I dunno if I buy the 'showing the world' argument.

This picture is just too fuckin' creepy for me.

Would love to know how many of those 60 million girls worldwide live in Muslim countries. My guess, the majority.

Random aside: One my cousins just gave me a stern lecture about how the real familial power in Islamic countries, according to an Egyptian buddy of hers, is vested in the females of the family. Right...