<body><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() { if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) { gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({ url: 'https://draft.blogger.com/navbar/14058325?origin\x3dhttp://croydonian.blogspot.com', where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"), id: "navbar-iframe" }); } }); </script>

Election platform o' the year

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Step up Josko Risa, independent candidate for the mayoralty of the southern Croatian town of Prolozac (there's a joke about lifting depression in there somewhere) :

"A politician running with the slogan "All for me, nothing for you" has made it into the second round of local elections...Independent candidate Josko Kraljevic Risa also campaigned using the slogan "It is definitely going to be better for me, but will be the same for you... "I've promised my wife Karmelita that Prolozac will be like our family business", Risa told the online edition of the daily newspaper Jutarnji List yesterday (Mon)".

I can't place the author of the definition of an honest politician as being one who once bribed stays bribed, which is a shame. Meanwhile, it is pretty tragic that after less than 20 years of independence, democracy and so forth that the Croats are so disillusioned in the electoral process.

Having discovered this nifty source of central European news, I will add this:

"Communist authorities in the former Czechoslovakia planned to build a tunnel under Austria and Slovenia to the Adriatic Sea, it has emerged. Czech media reported today (Weds) that the planned tunnel would have been [255 miles] long running between Ceske Budejovice in what is today the Czech Republic to Koper in Slovenia. The plans date back to 1975 but experts say they never got off the ground for political and financial reasons".

A little light googling suggests that the longest tunnel for human traffic is a Japanese railway tunnel 33.5 miles long, so the Czechoslovaks were hardly lacking in ambition, if rather lacking anything approaching sense or the mastering of the concept of cost / benefit analyses.

Labels: , , , ,

Those wacky Czechs

Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Are going to hold the next presidency of the EU, and I am sure we are quite thrilled by that. Anyway, this is their promo clip:



The Czech Republic's slogan, 'Europe to Osladime' seems to be open to a range of possible translations, but 'we will sweeten Europe' is the one they prefer.

Labels: ,

Of headlesss chickens, shot foxes and other additions to the gaiety of the French nation

Wednesday, August 22, 2007
It looks ever more likely that Sarkozy has played an absolute blinder in backing Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the European candidate for the head of the IMF. In June I asked the following:

"Sarko is backing French Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn candidacy for the leadership of the IMF, commenting, "Could I deprive France of his candidacy just because he's a socialist?". Yes, Nicky, vieux haricot, of course you should.

Admittedly DSK is less neanderthal than some of the French Left, and perhaps Sarko is being a tad smart and trying to remove one of the French socialists with the greatest prospects of dragging the Socialist party into the 2oth 21st century".

The interesting bit is that Libé has asked the French people 'Who would be the best leader of the Left in the years to come?', and among the overall population, DSK leads the way at 30%, with Sego trailing at a frankly dismal 15%, followed by Trotskyite Besancenot on 8%. The contest is rather closer among leftist sympathisers, at 24% apiece for DSK and Sego, with Sego leading among Socialists at 31 to 27 . I am presuming that Gaulists and so on back DSK for reasons other than sheer devilment, otherwise presumably they would be lining up behind one of the 57 varieties of Trots, tankies, greens or other figureheads of the extreme left.

The mouche in the ointment is that Russia is backing a Czech banker as head of the IMF, thus wrecking the united front among we European types. The Czechs themselves are not best pleased and are backing DSK.

From what I can discover about Tošovský, he looks preferable to DSK as an IMF candidate, claims of past collaboration with the Czechoslovak secret police notwithstanding, so perhaps the ideal result is that DSK and Tošovský engage in some manner of fight to the near death which the Czech wins, but leaves DSK so hopelessly compromised that he can never hope to participate in French domestic politics.


Labels: , ,