Author: pengovsky

Agent provocateur and an occasional scribe.

SLS (So Long, Suckers!)

OK, so the title is a bit misleading, but still… Slovene People’s Party (Slovenska Ljudska Stranka – SLS) is opposing the proposed setllement of disputes between Slovenia and Croatia which JanÅ¡a and Sanader have agreed upon Sunday last.

As always, one can always on SLS to stir the shit a bit – as it has done prior to 2004 elections, when party’s president Janez Podobnik created an international incident at border crossing Dragonja, where he tripped over a fence and then claimed that he was viciously pushed by Croatian police who were trampling on the sacred Slovene land.

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Janez Podobnik tripping over a fence (source)


Janez Podobnik was the only party leader who – only days later – was not elected member of the parliament, and it was in my opinion this incident which tipped the scale. Warmongering was never well received in this part of the world. But today, as JanÅ¡a and Sanader seem to be on a brink of a breakthrough, Podobnik (who is now minister of enviroment) must (must) oppose their agreement, otherwise his pre-election stunt would turn out to be a load of bullshit that it was.


It’s a hefty bill of political folly to pay… If they supported the agreement, they would admit to their true intentons in 2004… If they opposed it (which they did), they risk looking uncooperative, which would not be well received. Add to that the fact that SLS is a member of the ruling coalition (it’s a tough gig, I know :D) and you can see why it is entirely possible that the party is on the night train to the Big Adios


But just to give you full disclosure, SLS has a special place in my heart – but I’ll write about that some other time. Suffice it to say that they’ve prevented a coup d’etat…

A Janshism…

…is not unlike “a bushism“, the only difference that it is uttered by Slovene PM Janez JanÅ¡a. It could be that both – well – leaders come from the south of their respective countries and that their speech sports a Texas/Dolenjska drawl.


Both of them also seem to have a problem pronouncing the word “nuclear”…




Is there a coalition of the intelectually impaired so we could enroll these two charaters?


P.S.: I know this was posted time and again, but it’s just too good to miss. 😆

The “V” Word

Dubya compared leaving Iraq to leaving Vietnam. (see video by Beebs). I mean: Could. You. Be. Any. More. Stupid..

But hey… I’m game… If he wants to shoot himself in the knee repeatedly, then I’ll watch gladly… It’s just so fucking sad to see the world being ran by people who have absolutely no sense of history.




The above commentary is a must. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Zee Germans (a.k.a.: I Know What You Did Last Summer)

As predicted, the transcripts of JanÅ¡a’s confabulation with Sanader are about to surface. But according to this report by RTV SLO’s website (a state television!), which quotes POP TV (the competition!) it was actually the German intelligence service BND which eavesdropped on JanÅ¡a and Sanader and then told Slovene intelligence SOVA what it stumbled upon, and it was that which SOVA’s then-director (the top spy) Iztok Podbregar reported to the then-PM Tone Rop.



Protection from what? Zee Germans?!? (a clip from Snatch)


Now, why is this important?


1.) Because Podbregar is finally due to testify before the parliamentary Committee for Inteligence Services Oversight, where he is largely expected to confirm what BND has apparently publicly confirmed. This is a very safe position for Podbregar, because the topic of his testimony is now a matter of public record and he will not be furhter endangering the already strained relations between SOVA and BND which were cooperating closely in hunting down Radovan Karadžić.

2.) Beacuse it gives more credibility to statements of former PM Tone Rop, who maintained that transcripts of the conversation(s) between JanÅ¡a and Sanader did exist, even if they were removed from SOVA’s files. You can always count on the Germans to keep a file on everything.

3.) Because it signals a shift in Slovene-German relations. If the reports are correct then you can be sure that the BND did’t leak this information on its own, but got clearance from someone very high in the German administration. And that should set off JanÅ¡a‘s klaxons. Not having Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s good ear in a period just prior to Slovenia’s EU presidency spells grief in three month’s time, this in turn meaning that something must have gone completely wrong in relaltionship between Ljubljana and Berlin, especially since both JanÅ¡a and Merkel belong to the same European People’s Party.

4.) Given the above, one starts to wonder about stories that the PM is in serious talks about selling Slovenske Železnice (Slovene train operator) to German DeutscheBahn and about selling Telekom Slovenije (Slovene near-monopoly fixed-telephony operator) to Deutsche Telekom. Have the talks already collapsed and is this a form of German revenge or just a sort of “peer-pressure”, as in “I-know-what-you-did-last-summer-and-am-gonna-blow-the-whistle-if-I-don’t-get-a-good-deal“?

5.) The fact that state-television website reports a story which was broken by the competition and does nothing to protect the Ultimate Boss could mean (notice the conditional, please) that this government is fast losing its grip on things and cannot even control its own media. Given that media-control is JanÅ¡a’s speciallity this could mean that he’s in more trouble than originally thought.

And, last but not least:

6.) The Germans are careful as to not make anything official. Both Slovene televisions quote dr. Udo Ulfkotte as saying that BND is in possesion of the transcripts and so should be SOVA, implying that they were removed by JanÅ¡a’s government, since the latter claims that no such documents exist.


Now, dr. Ulfkotte is not a government official, but apparently an outside advisor to the German government on intelligence matters, which automatically means that any and all statements are his own and are not official Berlin positions. Meaning that this is Angela Merkel is sending a strong but totally deniable message to JanÅ¡a, hoping he’ll understand it and make the “right” choice: sell two thirds of Slovene infrastructure to German companies. If not, she’ll crush him to solar dust.


Funny thing is, that this may very well be enough to deliver a very strong blow to JanÅ¡a’s credibility, making him a lame-duck PM, especially if the opposition maintains the self-discipline not to start impeaching him, but letting him cook in his own sauce of espionage scandals, economic fuck-ups and hoping for a screw-up or two during the EU presidency which will have to be solved by the big boys (and a girl).

Belgium Explained To Slovenes (And Whoever Else) In Ten Easy Lessons

LESSON VI : AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY RECENT : THE GOVERNMENT NEGOTIATIONS – BELGIUM’S FINAL DEATH BLOW?

besaweitel08.jpg
(Picture : PhotoNews)

At first I was having a laugh about everything that happened at the so- called government formation talks since the last elections. But I’m not laughing anymore, as day after day, it becomes crystal clear that Flanders and Wallonia are digging their political trenches instead of trying to find common ground. A recap…

WALLOONS AREN’T INTELLECTUALLY CAPABLE OF LEARNING FLEMISH

… is what our current formation leader and CD&V spearhead Yves Leterme said in a pre-election interview the… Wallonian media. Having allied themselves with the Flemish nationalist/separatist party NV-A (no, not the Viet Cong, but Nieuwe Vlaamse Alliantie (New Flemish Alliance)) in a cartel – not to traffic drugs from Colombia, but to win elections, which they did – the CD&V created unrest in Wallonia, where the politicians firmly said they would never accept Leterme – who is half Walloon by way of his father – as prime minister, because he demanded the in Wallonia much dreaded state reform, which would divide federal funding and authorities for several departments – like social security, something that doesn’t sit well in Wallonia, where unemployment is rife – to the regions. Walloons persistently present this state reform as �a hollowing out of the federal structure’. Furthermore, he made the statement above, which resulted in a media witch hunt where everything Leterme says is being perceived as an anti-walloon and anti national government sentiment. Try to lead formation talks that way…

LETERME SINGS (AND IT MIGHT BE THE BLUES EVENTUALLY)

Everything Leterme says and does is scrutinized. Take, for instance, the fact that a TV journalist from RTBF asked him on the national holiday (July 21st ) if he knew the national anthem and if he could sing it. In response, Leterme sang… La Marseillaise . Huge cause for consternation down South, as �Leterme doesn’t even know the �Brabançonne’ is our national anthem, so he doesn’t care about this country!’.

EDIT December 6th 2008 by pengovsky: video removed by YouTube

The incriminating clipFact : 99% of the Belgian populace DO NOT KNOW THEIR OWN NATIONAL ANTHEM. Could have something to do with the fact that it’s not a drinking song (which I find infinitely cooler, kudos Slovenija!), but in fact, Flemings and Walloons only come together as Belgians at sports manifestations. It went so far that the Belgian Football (that is soccer to y’all Yanks :P) Association instructed the players for the national team to learn the lyrics by heart because they could be seen mumbling something or other or not moving their lips altogether when the national anthem was played before the matches (but they keep losing anyway :twisted:). So while Leterme probably doesn’t differ from his fellow countrymen on both sides of the language border, his leadership capabilities are as much in question in Wallonia as Bill Clinton’s were during the Lewinsky Affair. The long and short of it is that in neither case their leadership capabilities should be questioned, because they have nothing to do with it.
SO WILL STATE REFORM BE THE UNDOING OF BELGIUM?

There is no way of knowing just yet, but there is a real crisis. The Wallonian politicians find the Flemish demands for thorough state reform unacceptable, especially the aforementioned social security as well as fiscality (it is true that Wallonian policy makers are a bit more, erm, creative when it comes to taxes and more lenient toward those ducking them). So they launched a counter proposition, in which among other things they wanted to redefine the position of Flemings in Brussel (read : they want Brussels to become part of Wallonia with Flemings reduced to requiring special facilities, just like the francophones in the Flemish suburbs surrounding the nation’s capital.). Even a blind person can see that hell will freeze over three times before the Flemish politicians allow this.

So what is going to happen next? In a surprise move, king Albert II has returned from his holiday and will have talks with representatives of all parties involved in the government formation. This, to my knowledge at least, has never happened before in Belgium’s history. As I stated in a former post, the king’s role is restricted and he isn’t allowed to interfere in political affairs. That it would take such a move to defuse this crisis is a grave indication that all is not well over here. Everybody keeps acting as if the elephant isn’t in the room, but it’s there. The elephant in question is the undoing of this country. What was a mockumentary that had two thirds of Wallonia scared shitless is now threatening to become real (and the mockumentary itself reinforced the belief down South that Flemings are all separatists, which doesn’t help the present situation; thanks RTBF!).

But we’re not there yet. And I personally believe Belgium will at least continue to exist until the next national elections which is, if all goes well, in five years. But the stage is set. While I may be accused of predicting doom, I find it very feasible that even now a civil war could break out if the negotiations take too long. People are following this on both sides of the language border, they listen to their own versions of what’s going on through their own media and all it would take is one wrong word out of the mouth of a Fleming to a Wallonian or vice versa. The reason why I say this, is because we have the extreme nationalist party Vlaams Belang, who took lessons from their Nazi counterparts and could instigate riots just the same as the NSDAP did in the 30’s when Germany was in an unstable political and economical state. I worry about this, as they’ve been keeping unnaturally quiet lately. Even so, with or without civil war, I am very certain that what the picture above portrays will happen sometime in the not so distant future. Can I apply for asylum in Slovenija now? 😉

Dr. ARF

Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’americano

If you hang around long enough in this city you’re bound to stumble upon a rare jewel. In this case it was a couple of Italian guys who set up an imprompru gig in the middle of Å uÅ¡tarski most in the Old Ljubljana on Tuesday night. The trio was apparently joined by a passing trombone player and I came just in time to catch a funk version of Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’americano, a legendary tune by Renato Carosone.



The gig ended with a traditional visit by the Bad Blue Boys and Girls (no offence, Blur), the crowd gave them the ritual booing, but in the end everyone went home happy… Well, some of us went for a glass of sangria 😉