pengovsky | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Shit Just Hit the Fan

Oh, yeah, BABY! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m definitely not emigrating, though… This is waaaay too much fun ❗

The three stooges: Sanader, Rop & Janša

Item #1: Government of Janez Janša wrecks havoc in Slovene intelligence agency (Pengovsky goes: disugst already dully noted)

Item #2: Dnevnik daily runs a story on Saturday, claiming that SOVA tapped the phone of Croatian PM Ivo Sanader (Pengovsky goes: Way to go SOVA!)

Item #3: Former PM Tone Rop (also formerly of Liberal Democrats, now of Social Democrats) confirms the claim and goes on to add that Sanader and Janša (then still as leader of the opposition) coordinated border skirmishes in the Bay of Piran, the disputed area of Slovene-Croatian border in the summer of 2004. Full disclosure: Rop lost elections to Janša in the autumn of the same year. (Pengovsky goes: Holy shit! Rop, are you serious?)

Item #4: Janša goes nuts over Rop’s claims, saying that no such records exist and thus either Rop is lying or there was a rouge tap and goes on to say that Rop should resign immediately. (Pegovsky goes: Wow! Dude, hold your fire!)

Item #5: Sanader loses it and call’s Rop statement “anthological political stupidity“. (Pengovsky goes: Idiot!)

Item #6: Janša appears on state TV for some obvious damage control. He states that the spy affair should end soon and that the media should focus on reporting the good economic fortunes of the country instead (Pengovsky goes: WTF?!?… Is the PM really telling me what to report?!?)

Item #7: Rop appears on Svet na Kanalu A and responds by saying that both Janša and Sanader are acting suspiciously nervous. (Pengovsky goes: Neither was he the texbook definition of relaxed)

Now…Could Rop be making it up? Possible, but not likely. Why would he? Rop is not a political idiot others try to make him look and surely he’s aware of the consequences of his actions.

So… Is Janša lying? Again: Possible, but not likely. If you look at his responce closely, Janša is very careful to categorically deny the statement that he arranged the incidents directly with Sanader, as for the rest of Rop’s statements he says that there is no proof. He doesn’t deny the claims.

And most importantly: Sanader does not utter one word of denial. He does say that Rop is acting stupidly, but there’s an evident lack of direct denial.

This is gonna be. So. Much. Fun. 😀

P.S.: What everyone seems to have overlooked is the fact that Slovene spies actually managed to eavesdrop on the confabulations of the Croatian prime minister. If I were Sanader, I’d fire my counterintelligence chief toot-suite…

Chicken

I only caught an echo of a story on Wednesday, so I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. It was this story by Dnevnik that made me look at the incident again…

JJ and Vlad while they were still chums…

Namely: The Prime Minister was due in Sankt Peterburg on Friday for an economic forum organized by Russian government. There, he was due to meet with President Putin, but canceled the visit just 24 hours prior to the meeting.

What. The. Fuck. ?!?

I’m not a foreign policy expert, but I’m sure there are things you just don’t do. Like cancel a meeting with the Russian president. Especially this Russian president. And especially since they seemed to hit it off quite well a year ago, when apparently a lot of high level business deals were agreed. Including a deal to sell the largest Slovene oil company Petrol to Russian Lukoil.

AHA! A clue, Sherlock!!!

Perhaps that’s it. Check this story out. It seems that Petrol’s CEO is not at all trhilled at the prospect of his business card being printed in cyrilic (although in my opinion going from Marko Kryžanowski to Марко Крижанов�?кий is not such a big strech).

Which would of course all be well had Slovenia been a normal state like…… say…… um…… let’s see…… searching…… ah yes!….. like Malta, for example. But since Slovenia seems to be on a par with Cuba and the US (health system-wise) and Venezuela (freedom of media-wise), the definition of “normal” becomes pretty vague. Especially with this government.

Take Kryžanowski for example. He became CEO of Petrol against all odds, holding only semi-important positions before that (such as being CEO of Slovenian branch of Mercedez-Benz). But apparently he co-owned a car dealership in Grosuplje with the prime minister’s brother, and I’m sure that helped. But just to be on the safe side, Kryžanowski is also a nephew to Božo Dimnik, one of the most powerful Slovene lobbyists, who seems to have lobbied hard for a Petrol-Lukoil deal. Finance even ran Dimnik’s op-ed on the deal (Slovene only, free registration).

Now, it could be that JJ and his government took some intense heat for dealing with the Russkies (Foreign Minsiter and an international menace Dimitrij Rupel was sucking up to Condi Rice at the same time when JJ should have been glad handing Vlad), or it could be that Kryžanowski went haywire (which seems to be a reccuring theme with Janša for the past few weeks) and is dealing on his own.

In either case Janša ran for cover rather than having to face the music. Chicken…

A Kodak Moment Of George W. And Nicolas S.

Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, meine Damen und Herren, �?важаемые го�?подины и го�?пожа!

Just as we think this world is going to hell, something happens to show us that if even the most powerful men on this planet can fall prey to the most basic of human flaws. We are, afterall, only humans – although the jury is still out in the case of Dubya 😉

Anyways, Someone stole W.’s watch while he was doing the ropes in Albania (the country Greeks and Macedonians call West ;)). Watch carefully… At 3:15, the watch is still on his left wrist, and at 3:06 (it’s a count-down clock) it’s not there anymore… You can see clearly again that is the case at 2:45

Hey, G.W.! What’s the time?

In other news… French president Nicolas Sarkozy provided the undisputable proof that power intoxicates. Namely, his cabinet had made a Belgian TV network apologise for a statement by the anchor that Mr. Sarkozy drank more than just water prior to his G8 newsconference. But the fact that he came to the press conference straight out of a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin strongly suggests that there was vodka involved… See for yourselves:

You want to… burp… ask qest…burp…ions, or do you want a …burp… ment first

It only goes to show that when democratic institutions fail, you can count on the Balkans and Russia to do the right thing and provide one of those Kodak moments 😉

P.S.: This post was inspired by venera’s comment on yesterday’s post.

P.P.S.: A Reuters article claims that Bush’s watch was not stolen… they claim he put it in his pocket.

You can decide who to believe: Reuters or Pengovsky 😀

Children of the Revolution

Here we have it, ladies and gentlemen… The first major political rift in the ranks of PM Janez Janša (JJ).

Friends no more…

Not to bore you with details, former State Secretary Andrijana Starina Kosem (ASK) has written a letter to various top members of Janša’s party (and some influential non-members as well) about how JJ forced her to do all these dirty things for the party, including making sure SDS would keep control over Delo once Laško brewery bought the newspaper. Among other things, she wrote

I objected to [Janša’s orders to sell] Večer newspaper to Austrian buyers, since the Austrians, influenced by their socialist government, could not be trusted too keep Večer from publising communist propaganda.

Ouch… Very hardcore… And this from a lady who was the Big Kahuna of Slovene ecnonomy for the past two years.

Janša of course retaliated in kind, but with a surprisingly short letter. Only 35 lines and some 300 words. Among other things he wrote that

It is an insult to common sense that ASK as head of Delo’s Supervisory Board is a guarantee for the newspaper’s independence, especially since attorney Stojan Zdolšek is also a member of the Board […] The latter also had in hand during the political purges following the Depala vas scandal as well as in a number or murky enterprises during transition. So we must be prepared for everything.[…] People ask themselves why these so-called party faithful act the way they do precisely in the time when investiations into black-ops funds, misuse of archives and other intelligence service wrongdoings are being launched.*

Double ouch! The paranoid JJ is using his biggest and most deadly weapon (discreditaion through using secret service) for a mere former state secretary. He really must be feeling the heat..

But all of this is just another example of revolution devouring its own children. As ASK became a hardcore party member she came to abhore anything and anyone who did not toe the party line. Including the PM himself, who did not even stop to think that Austrian social-democratic government could use a Slovene newspaper as a vehicle for communist propaganda”.

We have just witnessed the begining of an end of JJ. This will most likely not bring him down. But it is a bad omen for the future. Other challengers and challenges will follow. And Janša will have an increasingly tough time fending them off

*please take note of this post for refferences to Depala Vas affair, and also of this post for reffrences to influence of politics and economy on one another

Blogres Two-Oh-Seven

To cut a long story short (as I’m sure you’ve already seen and read all the relevant reports of the event including this one), this is the report I did for The Firm™

Also, as I promised to camille, a complete and unabridged version of Michael M.’s lecture at Blogres:

All in all I had fun… I’m glad I skipped workshops (turned out I already know how to pimp my blog), besides: as me and Michael M. jointly declared (after Laško number three), we like the retro style. I finally met the man, and he’s as cool as they come.

I already knew that Poulette is the quintessential classy chick… But I also discovered that this post of hers could as well have been written in first person (especially the last two or three paragraphs :D)

And to top it all, there is a new case of Pengovsky spotting over at brumec.org. Catch me if you can! 😀

Going Loco

The latest and greatest example of this government losing its grip on reality…

One of the decisions of last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting is to rename Ljubljana International Airport. Henceforth it shall be known as Jože Pučnik International

The government said that Jože Pučnik has done so much for Slovenia and its independence that he deserves to have an important facility carry his name.

Riiiight….

True, the man was one of the driving forces behind independence, but he sure as hell wasn’t the only one. He didn’t just come to the bar one night and said to his fellow dissidents “Listen guys, I’ve an idea… Why we don’t declare independence?“, and everyone else didn’t go “Hey, that’s a neat idea! Why didn’t I think of that?“.

Besides – he never held any formal function (we was elected deputy, but that was more or less it). Now, the government would have you think that this is all perfectly normal. Afterall, we do have JFK I’ntl in New York, or Charles de Gaulle International in Paris – they even mention John Lennon International in Liverpool as proof of their endless wisdom.

There are differences, though… One: Jože Pučnik was never elected president – neither did he write a single hit song. Two: There are little public locations in Slovenia that are named after politicians. There were of course numerous Tito’s Steets, Kidrič’s Parks, etc, but few of them now remain, more of a historic relic than a sign of respect. And (perhaps more importantly) two – or three, for those keeping count: There are waaay better options for naming the largest Slovene airport. Perhaps it could be named after Edvard Rusjan, the first Slovene flyer, who went airborne only six years after Wright brothers. On the other hand (my faviourite), the airport could be named after Herman Potočnik – Noordung, whose seminal work “The Problems of Space Travel” was the basis for Werhner von Braun’s breakthroughs in rocket design.

But no… In accrodance with the totalitarian instincts of this government, we now have an airport named after a party leader. Sounds awfully familiar….

Trubači Fejata Sejdića

Ever been to Guča? Me neither… I plan on going to. But in the mean time, Fužine seems to be a good second choice, as Trubači Fejata Sejdića (Fejat Sejdić’s Brass Band) has a gig there until Sunday, June 10th (inclusive). We’ve had a lot of fun there Wednesday night…

Ej kome sada moja draga
na djurdjevak mirise
na djurdjevak mirise
meni nikad vise
evo zore evo zore
Bogu da se pomolim
evo zore evo zore
ej djurdjevdan je
a ja nisam s onom koju volim

or, as Mark Knopfler would have it:

Juliet, the dice were loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded in my heart
And I forget the movie song
When you wanna realise it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet ?

Sorry… I’m a bit introspective these days