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

Stormtroper

...damn, I can't tell which one's not Poland.

lrdgck

Belarus is the last. Did you expect it'll be this one?

glennmagusharvey

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

The guy who founded the Rent Is Too Damn High Party is...a Florida Man >=D

lrdgck

Meanwhile in Poland: weather forecaster fired for sporting charity fund logo on air

edit: oh fug. It would appear they removed the day's forecast from their website. Like, this is a screenshot, I went there to check:



Take a look if something is missing.

glennmagusharvey

hahahahahaha
nice stealthy omission

was the dark-haired lady fired

lrdgck

I can't say for sure, but I think the fired one had fair hair. I think they were meant to alternate. Anyways, she worked there for twenty years and now the TV says her contract just accidentally happened to ran out the day she showed up on air with the little heart sticker the charity gives out to donators. Apparently it ran out so hard it erased her from the record.

lrdgck

Meanwhile in Poland: state-funded video game about John Paul II helpful in biology, geography lessons, ministry states

glennmagusharvey

BTW, have you heard of this?

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

I only learned of this because it was used a part of the theme for the 2019 MIT Mystery Hunt.

lrdgck

Yeeeeah, I did. Surprisingly, Boston. But that was when the centre for crazy shit was further north than today.

Stormtroper

I think I learned about it through Cracked or something similar.
I just learned about Pedrinho Matador, a Brazilian Youtuber known for his wholesome videos on Christianity and spirituality, and for murdering nearly a hundred people (mostly inmates) and doing things like biting off the heart of his abusive murderer father.

lrdgck

Some things you can't quite make up.

lrdgck

Meanwhile in Poland: Council for Polish Language officially discourages use of the word "Negro"

It's an interesting matter. (Also, this is about the least silly way I could have worded that title. I admit, I had to struggle against my natural impulses.) The word does not carry the baggage of slavery or anything, like its equivalent terms in e.g. English, but it found its place in a number of sarcastic sayings, such as "a hundred years behind the Negroes" (behind the times or backwards) or "to be somebody's negro" (to perform unpaid or undesirable labour in somebody's stead, to do the dirty or physical work for someone), or "Negro did the job, Negro can go" (to have performed some labour that is now not considered up for compensation by the benefitting party). The word sometimes is capitalized in these phrases, sometimes not. (Mind you, these are not strictly negative; one could successfully argue they do recognize the plight of these people, instead of just plain making fun of them like you'd expect from a racist term.) In addition to this, there is the matter of the perception of the word in comparison to other languages; as my own post here shows, the English word that is considered the direct translation is generally not the most politically correct. As a result, people of African or African-diasporan extraction who live in Poland tend to disfavour the word. With that in mind, the Council decided to take the courteous side in the debate.

glennmagusharvey

Meanwhile in Alaska:

Interbake Foods of Richmond, Virginia, produces most, if not all, of the commercially available hardtack in the United States, under the "Sailor Boy" label. As of January 2015, 98 percent of its production goes to Alaska. Alaskans are among the last to still eat hardtack as a significant part of their normal diet. Originally imported as a food product that could endure the rigors of transportation throughout Alaska, hardtack has remained a favored food even as other, less robust foods have become more readily available. Alaskan law requires all light aircraft to carry "survival gear", including food.[20] Therefore, the blue-and-white Sailor Boy Pilot Bread boxes are ubiquitous at Alaskan airstrips, in cabins, and in virtually every village. Unlike the traditional hardtack recipe, Sailor Boy Pilot Bread contains leavening and vegetable shortening.[21]

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

Stormtroper

I wonder what they taste like. I like eating crackers with no accompaniment so I'd probably like having these around.

glennmagusharvey

I'm curious how they taste too.

Might just taste like crispy communion wafers. Which themselves are super bland.

lrdgck

Savory biscuits, I'd guess. One figures they kind of lose their appeal after a month at sea. No wonder sailors were so keen on grog.

Also, I'm curious if they taste well with pemmican. That's another all-American survival staple.

glennmagusharvey

Meanwhile in Taiwan:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/taiwan-salmon-chaos-name-change-free-sushi-14436118

brb, paging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Salmon

glennmagusharvey

glennmagusharvey

https://twitter.com/ilpomodoro2/status/1373466490628943873

lrdgck

If all at once, this is going to be an interesting story.

Meanwhile in Poland:

Abstract

Liturgical calendar for Mars
This article presents problems related to creating liturgical calendar for Mars colonists, assumed to land on Mars (accordingly to Mars One Project) in year 2024. It consists of five parts: why to colonize space; brief history of Earth calendar; deep correlation of liturgical calendar (e.g. fests) with astronomical events; last two parts present idea of civil Martian calendar and list difficulties related to extraterrestrial liturgical calendar.

Keywords
Mars, liturgical calendar, extraterrestrial calendar, Easter, Christmas, canonization

Marsjański kalendarz liturgiczny. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305952666_Marsjanski_kalendarz_liturgiczny [accessed Mar 22 2021].

It's actually an interesting read, if on the trivial side, although only the abstract is in English. If treated as an entry-level article, it provides a decent summary of calendar-related matters, and this kind of topic was quite in vogue for our sci-fi for a good few years.

In other astronomy news, meanwhile in Russia: town bans watching Moon for fear of political agitation

glennmagusharvey

https://la.curbed.com/2015/9/3/9924196/squirrel-battle-east-coast-west-coast-los-angeles

Wikipedia articles, for reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_gray_squirrel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_squirrel

For what it's worth, the squirrel I keep seeing around here in south Florida isn't either of those, but this one instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_gray_squirrel

lrdgck

Near where I live, there used to be classic red squirrels, but for quite a while already most of the squirrels I see tend to be black or sort of dirty-blackish-brown. There is an edgy joke somewhere in there, but for those uninterested in it, I remember reading somewhere that the dark ones are some sort of regional mutation that's currently expanding.

glennmagusharvey

https://www.fox13news.com/news/photos-car-pierced-by-utility-pole-on-w-sligh-avenue

lrdgck

I saw photos like this one, but there always was the assumption that the tree grew through an already abandoned car.

Also, I saw this on the website you posted:

Tenn. woman sentenced to nearly 20 years for child porn, sexual assault of family dog, DOJ says

glennmagusharvey

https://www.ksat.com/news/weird-news/2021/04/29/alligator-cow-delay-houston-traffic-turn-commute-into-zoo/

lrdgck

The weirdest recent piece of news from Poland is probably that one about the pope offending the religious feelings of Poles.

See, somebody took enough offence at a rainbow flag with the words "God loves you as you are", that there is now an official investigation (the state prosecution announced they have requested an expert opinion on the matter). The fun fact is that there are words of Pope Francis, who spoke them to a homosexual person, so you'd be hard-pressed to wring them into anything that could be considered out of context.

glennmagusharvey

Poland, explain yourself

glennmagusharvey

more "GMH posts about Poland"

noob2243
1 year ago

English: sticking a curse word inside an adjective

Meanwhile, me in Polish: Meh, that's nothin'! Have you ever heard about sticking a curse word into another curse word... zaje-kurwa-biście!
(Well, as a general rule, Slavic languages are more expressive when it comes to swearing, soo...)

lrdgck

I'm not so sure about the quoted text, since, you know, English does have such a construction as "abso-fucking-lutely", while the quoted Polish is a bit clumsier. I however agree with the basic thesis. Like, remember when I tried to translate the Great Improvisation by Zbigniew Stonoga in Memes101? I had to struggle, since he used several words in a row that all translated to "fuck". (I used "buggered" IIRC.) Then, there is also the joke that the k-word functions as a comma.

glennmagusharvey

https://www.ocregister.com/2013/08/27/chinas-orange-county-represents-a-lifestyle/

no
please don't do this
please don't develop a suburbs fetish