Fuck Around And TEŠ 6

In a development that surprised a grand total of zero people, due to the TEŠ 6 project, the Šoštanj coal power plant is going bust. Bankrupt. Done for. Broke. Insolvent, even. The government announced yesterday that it will draft an emergency bailout legislation to safeguard the plant’s thermal energy production, vital for some 35,000 residents in the region.

Fuck around and find out meme featuring TEŠ 6 as its centrepiece.
TEŠ 6 entering the find out phase

Such is the inglorious end of one of the largest and most expensive infrastructure projects since the completion of the motorway network. That is not to say that TEŠ (and, specifically, the infamous Unit 6) will be shutting down tomorrow. But the site and the connected “coal” mine will now be on life support, indefinitely. Lest they drag down half of the Slovenian energy sector with them.

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Notes On Slovenian Recognition of Palestine (Part 6, Finale)

After a day of tense politics, procedural manoeuvering in the parliament and dubious life choices in general, Slovenia last night recognised the State of Palestine.

Flag of Palestine was raised in front of the foreign ministry as Slovenia established formal diplomatic relations, despite Janez Janša doing everything to stop the vote in the parliament.
Palestinian flag was raised in front of the foreign ministry

Predictably, however, the more the debate dragged on, the less it was about Palestine and the more it was becoming about domestic politics, electoral soundbites and pure brinkmanship.

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Notes On Slovenian Recognition of Palestine (Part 5)

In an inexplicable bout of na¨ivete, pengovsky really did expect Slovenian recognition of Palestine to actually happen this time around. Well, not so fast, said Janez Janša.

Slovenian recognition of Palestine is once again bogged down in parliamentary procedure.
Recognition of Palestine is once again bogged down in parliamentary procedure

The recognition will still likely happen, but probably not before the EU/referendums vote on Sunday. And oddly enough, there is a non-zero chance this somehow ends up helping Robert Golob.

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How To Lose Friends And Alienate People (Robert Golob Style)

Harold Wilson was very much correct when he observed that a week is a long time in politics. Let alone eight weeks. Two months ago, Robert Golob was riding high in the polls, courtesy of the immediate aftermath of the August floods. This week, he is running around like a clown across a minefield, kicking MPs out from his party and calling people liars. And it’s only Wednesday.

Robert Golob, Urška Klakočar Zupančič, Mojca Šetinc Pašek and Janez Janša in a parody of a poster of How To Lose Friends And Alienate People.
Sorry, not sorry 🙂

It is difficult to pin down when exactly things started going tits-up for the Big Bird. It seems a safe bet, however, that forced departures of minister Šinko and Brežan definitely accelerated things. In light of this, losing Sanja Ajanović Hovnik suddenly became a big fucking deal. And then, as it is so often the case, events began.

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Flash Flood Of Unity

Pengovsky was either on vacation or steeped in work over the summer. Or both. As a result this here blog got slightly less love than it would have deserved. But that is all water under the bridge now. Or water over the bridge, as it were, as the flash flood in early August wreaked havoc in parts of the country and turned Muddy Hollows from a parable to a literal and very painful fact.

Borut Pahor, Janez Janša and Robert Golob at the one of the sites of the flood disaster
Borut Pahor, Janez Janša and Robert Golob, united af. (source)

But with this site being what it is, we should take a look at the political aspects to the calamity, too. Because in the true spirit of that New Yorker cartoon, raging waters may have destroyed large tracts of the country, but for a beautiful moment in time created a lot of unity across the entire political spectrum.

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