Silly geographical comments (or whatever you'd call this)

glennmagusharvey

glennmagusharvey

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/155483376

PEED

glennmagusharvey

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2009/08/01/is_a_bald_raccoon_prowling_parkdale.html

glennmagusharvey

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/05/21/decades-long-mystery-of-monkey-colony-at-fort-lauderdale-airport-now-solved/

lrdgck

Long-Time Resident Florida Monkey Proven Fugitive

lrdgck

An overview of archaeological research on Polish vampire burials

TL;DR: highly likely not every vampire grave actually contained a vampire

glennmagusharvey

Abstract

This paper examines the history of research on medieval deviant burials discovered in the area of Poland. The problem of unusual funerary practices (e.g. decapitations, prone burials or covering the corpses with stones) was acknowledged by Polish archaeologists already in the early decades of the 20th century, but for a long time it remained on the fringes of mainstream academic debates. Considerable changes occurred in the 1970s when deviant burials started to be treated as a separate group and interpreted as representing “anti-vampire practices”. Over the next few years the tendency to perceive the dead buried in deviant graves as “vampires” dominated the academic discourse, with very few attempts at offering alternative explanations. Recently, the sensationalist interpretations of deviant burials have also permeated into (inter)national media, leading the general public to misinformation about Poland’s past and the mentalities of its medieval societies. The main objective of this paper is to critically explore the inspirations and contexts in which the “vampiric” interpretations first came to light. An attempt will also be made to propose alternative ways of understanding deviant burial phenomena in Polish medieval archaeology.

> Over the next few years the tendency to perceive the dead buried in deviant graves as “vampires” dominated the academic discourse, with very few attempts at offering alternative explanations.

I hope this was the scholars thinking that people back in the day thought those people were vampires, not that the scholars thought those people were vampires...

lrdgck

Not to mention, leading people to believe there were no vampires and we shouldn't focus too much on researching old ways to defeat a vampire, is exactly the thing that could have been on a vampire's agenda.

glennmagusharvey

vampirethinking.ico

glennmagusharvey

meanwhile in australia

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-24/nsw-man-allegedly-tried-to-cook-bin-chicken-ibis/102387206

For those of you unfamiliar with the "bin chicken", that's a nickname for the Australian white ibis, a common bird in urban Australia. See also this video:

glennmagusharvey

no one:



Florida: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2023/05/23/rats-on-ice-a-look-back-at-a-florida-panthers-hockey-tradition-photos/

glennmagusharvey

glennmagusharvey

Meanwhile, near Australia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopolis_and_Octlantis

lrdgck

Categories: Populated places in New South Wales

lrdgck

Meanwhile in Poland: Bus line number 666 cancelled, no longer courses to Hel

...yes, there's a place called Hel and there was a bus line going there. You thought 666 is the number of the Beast, but for a good few years it was the number of the Bus. But alas, apparently fundies just couldn't take it.

edit: it's making rounds

Stormtroper

I learned this about Issei Sagawa (Japanese author known for his taste in women):

Sagawa also wrote restaurant reviews for the Japanese magazine Spa.

glennmagusharvey

*clicks link*

what the f### did i just read

lrdgck

I learned this about Issei Sagawa (Japanese author known for his taste in women):

I wanted to add something but this joke is perfect, nothing left for me here.

lrdgck

One of the sillier geographical comments I've seen recently was a news article stating that over the last year, the number of Ukrainian millionaires rose from ca. 8000 to ca. 9500.

No, not because war made them rich or something. What happened instead is that a bunch of folks got the pangs of conscience because of it, and decided to stop cheating on taxes.

glennmagusharvey

I heard that, earlier today, at a meeting of Michigan Republicans, a party committee member from one county was going to enter a meeting where the chair from another county's party committee was in attendance. For whatever reason, the first person was locked out, seemingly by intention, but he insistently wriggled the doorknob. Eventually, the second person approached the door, which had a window, through which someone reportedly flipped him off. He then opened the door, and was promptly kicked in the nuts, and a fight ensued, including the first person at one point shoving the second person into a chair and threatening to kick his ass.

I admit to having a laugh.

glennmagusharvey

I am sorry, I stated something inaccurate in my previous reporting.

It seems it was allegedly (according to the first person) the second person who threatened to kick the first person's ass, not the other way around.

I apologize for the confusion regarding who is alleged to have stated an intention to kick whose ass.

Meanwhile, this image is now circulating in certain niche segments of social media.

Stormtroper

lrdgck wrote: »

Meanwhile in Taiwan: dancing cactus toy proven to sing Polish rap about doing cocaine. (Apparently it's not a strictly Taiwanese issue, but the article I've read was based on a discovery made by a Polish expat in Taiwan.)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dancing-Electronic-Singing-Wiggling-Ornament/dp/B08TWTBW3W/

edit: I've found a photo, here it is:

Look what I found!:

(It was off so I couldn't tell if it also sings about cocaine.)

lrdgck

There's been some sort of a new edition which, sadly, does not sing about cocaine. Unfortunately I can't tell by look which one you got.

lrdgck

Oooh, this is cute. I just read this one article and I gotta tell you guys about it.

So, a few years ago - 2017 - the previous Party prime minister's son became a priest. All the Party officials attended his first Mass, the public TV live-aired it, and the Party media were all fawning over him.

Two years later, he failed to appear in a parish he was assigned to. The curia announced he took a leave with no specific length of absence given. (I don't know the proper English legalese - indeterminate leave?) In other words, something serious was going on behind the scenes, so people began to gossip since, you know, everyone likes a good gossip, and the man was both a priest and a son of a politician, so you got double the scandal for the price of one. A popular rumour was that he got a girl pregnant. Again, it was obviously unverified, as such rumours do.

Now, a little detail: we don't really have a lawyer culture in here, we don't sue each other for shits and giggles. You don't have a personal lawyer the way people in American movies do. It's more of a weird-ass thing that rich people do.

Well, I'm bringing it up because apparently, he had. The man hired a lawyer and the lawyer went on a chase against the gossipers on Facebook. There was also a statement to respect the man's privacy, which is fair enough.

Since the man was a son of a politician, you'd be forgiven for assuming they were filthy rich, but his mother the prime minister was a lowly Party functionary from deep countryside who was pushed into the prime minister's seat because of in-Party power games, not because she was important or influential or anything. If they had money for a lawyer, well, you got the hunch the money didn't really come from family savings, if you know what I mean.

(I mean public funds.)

(Also, it probably needs to be noted the lawyer worked for a lot of Party members already, so I guess he's already paid to be the Party attack dog. The more so they got him a cushy post in the State Tribunal.)

Anyways, you'd think it would have been a civil case like any other, but the lawyer reported it as a crime, and - surprise, surprise! - the attorney decided to pursue it as a criminal case. Get it, some people gossip about a random priest on Facebook and suddenly the cops are on them. How often does that happen?

(I'm saying "attorney" because I don't know the proper legalese. Is "public prosecution" more correct?)

After some two years, some journos decided to check up on the issue, and turned out the case was still open, and that the attorney called UK and US to get Facebook to deliver to them some random netizen who posted some mean stuff on some other dude some years back. For some unfathomable reason, the British courts did not understand the gravity of the case, since they apparently didn't even bother to reply.

(By Polish law, a libel/slander case is to be publicly pursued only when there's some deeply invested interest on part of the society at large. Slander a judge, whatever, it's up to him to do the legwork. The catch about the interest of society is usually interpreted as just in case the victim can't do that on their own and it's, like, a hate crime or something.)

Anyways, to open the case and then only pretend anything is done for the next few years is a well-known survival tactic of our justice system whenever they have a political case on their hands.

As an icing on the cake, the hero of this little story left priesthood in 2019... to be immediately hired by a company co-owned by the Party apparatchik who bosses the state oil company and who was also a client of the same lawyer. An odd but perfectly honest set of coincidences, I am sure.



I'm told the case was hung up in December 2021, so I don't quite get from the article as to why it's brought up now. But since it was, I wanted to share it with you guys.




TL;DR people gossip on Facebook about a son of a Party member, Party sics state prosecution on them

lrdgck

As for more up-to-date issues:

Polish cops no longer denied use of electric kettles

...after some two days, the central command of the police relented from their previous decision to forbid the common cop the use of electric kettles while at work. The ban was supposed to lower energy consumption and therefore costs, which is either highly ironic or exactly on point, given that the Party recently spent 250000 PLN of public funds on a medieval sword as a gift for Party-affiliated clergyman.

Note that the chief of said police force managed to fire a freshly smuggled from Ukraine handheld anti-tank weapon in his office, thinking it's either a fancy bottle of vodka or designer loudspeaker, the reports are contradictory.

(For all the red-white-and-blue-blooded Americans out there: actually it's not legal in Poland to own a handheld anti-tank weapon, smuggled or not.)

By the way, it surfaced recently that the sword might actually be a fake. I mean, I'd still mind paying out 250000 PLN for an authentic sword as a gift to a Party benefactor, but at least it would be worth all these 250000.

glennmagusharvey

https://nbcpalmsprings.com/2019/01/25/man-says-emotional-support-alligator-helps-his-depression/

lrdgck

A Pennsylvania man

hey, wait a minute...

...well, I guess, Florida Man would probably find less wholesome use for an alligator.

glennmagusharvey

I feel like I am obligated to report this to you @lrdgck

https://marsey.moe/objects/79f95275-5dd3-4960-833f-8e382afd464a

lrdgck

Heh. You remind me of a minor meme from a municipal election campaign a while before. One of the Party media goons approached the opposition candidate pretending to be a Virginian, unfortunately for him the candidate was legitimately fluent in English.

So, since then we have a new memetic catchphrase, "you sound like a Polack".

--edit--

Also, I have just learned there is a Facebook group of over 45 thousand people, "Poland is a dark, cursed and absurd sitcom, nobody wants to cast in".

But you know what? Every time when I remind myself I could have lived in, like, Syria, it suddenly doesn't suck to be here. It's magic!

fourteenwings

And people in Syria remind themselves they could have been born in Yemen.



Then again at least Yemen isn't on a major fault line.