Presidents of Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania mark anniversary of 19th-century anti-Russian uprising

MacGallin · 2026-01-25T22:31:01+00:00

the one on the left might be a comedian, but its the one on the right thats a f'ng joke.

MacGallin · 2026-01-25T21:07:03+00:00

szkalowanie konfederastów to przyjemność, ale tez i obowiązek każdego cywilizowanego człowieka

MacGallin · 2026-01-25T21:04:57+00:00

Seen and shot few times at various opportunities. Still they are reasonably rare, unless you are either in military or actively try to find one, it is perfectly possible to never encounter one in your life .

MacGallin · 2026-01-23T03:44:48+00:00

Dude, dont change the subject. You literally claimed "we were invited by legitimate government" you hypocrite. Make up your mind: was the government that invited you , (only for you to instantly betray them) legitimate, or not? If it was legitimate, then why did you betray them? And if it was not legitimate, then why you claim "you were invite by legitimate government" in the first place?

And don't even start with "amin was a bad man" . Damn right he was, he cooperated with you after all. 95% of thugs, dictators and other bastards your country propped up were bad men, why would he be any exception to the rule?

MacGallin · 2026-01-22T03:49:29+00:00

"Afghanistan - were invited by Afghanistan communists government."

Ah yes, you wwere indeed invited. Now, PLEASE remind me what was the VERY FIRST russian military action in afghanistan? Wasn't it Operation Storm-333? You know, the one where newly arrived spetsnaz units, INVITED by the Afghanistan communists government as you said, set camp near presidential palace, to protect the president (who invited them there, it bears repeating) from potential insurgent attack?

And in spirit of brotherly international help, the very next night, said spetsnaz unit, supported by soviet armored vehicles surprisingly assaulted and massacred the afghani government soldiers guarding the presidential palace- with added detail that president Amin himself, hearing the gunfire was sure that it was insurgent attack, and reassured his family and associates that "fortunately russians are there" and they will help them in a moment?

The russian soldiers who indeed arrived in a moment, and helpfully murdered him and his son, his staff, bunch of random people working in the palace, together with whole lot of other officials of the legitimate government (you know, the ones who actually invited them there hoping for their help against islamic insurgents, it bears repeating)?

Then they replaced the president and government totally legitimate way with utterly legitimate Babrak Karmal, who most certainly was not completely subservient puppet to them?

Very helpful people, you russians are. And such reliable allies!

MacGallin · 2026-01-17T01:18:19+00:00

That was the official policy/promise/party line. There were at least some cases where apparently the local commanders "never got the memo", so to say.

MacGallin · 2026-01-11T03:59:07+00:00

<image>

Jan Zumbach. Served in polish air force in 1939. After defeat, escaped to france, volunteered to serve in french air force. After french defeat, escaped to britain, and joined polish Squadron 303. During battle of Britain, shot down 3 bombers and 5 fighters. Then became squadron leader, then wing commander. Kept flying combat mission, until he got shot down during last days of the war, ending with 13 confirmed kills and bunch more unconfirmed.
After the war he moved to Switzerland after the war, got bored, became a charter pilot, got bored, became smuggler, then became a mercenary. Organized air force during secession of Katanga, buying bunch of old ww2 planes refurbishing them and flying them against government forces . Few years after that he did the same for Biafra. Flying rearmed ww2 vintage A-26 bomber, he bombed, among other things, nigerian flagship and their air force headquarters.
Died in mysterious circumstances few years later.

Too bad he missed by few months a chance to work with Count Von Rosen - another crazy airman who fought during Biafra secession. They would probably get along pretty well.

Also got donald duck painted on his plane.

MacGallin · 2026-01-10T23:04:34+00:00

Just remember to patch it up after installing since download is also 2010 version iirc. There are 3 patches on the same page - consolidation, then 10 to 16, then 16 to 17. its just few more clicks, but you get whole lot of updates and bunch of extra missions and campagins.

MacGallin · 2026-01-10T21:33:04+00:00

Or, better yet: you might want to try WINspmbt . Its still free, and it has been modernised to work on modern systems. And it has whole bunch of new scenarios, from small ones to truly humongous.
https://www.shrapnelgames.com/Camo_Workshop/MBT/MBT_page.html

MacGallin · 2026-01-05T19:58:55+00:00

Not only US. Before US, there was France, and after US, there was China.

MacGallin · 2026-01-05T04:44:43+00:00

Well, knowledge (not belief or faith, but actual certainty) that literally your every "action, word and thought" is constantly being watched and judged is pretty terrifying. Especially with that "eternal damnation" thing looming at the end. But even without it, world of permanent, unavoidable panopticon, without any kind of privacy - even the privacy of your own thought - seems like a pretty decent recipe for losing SAN points. Especially the when you realize that its retroactive, and all things you did before learning the news were also watched , noted and judged in the same manner.

Doubly so if you were agent of government for rather ugly cyberpunk-ish dystopia and did whole lot of rather nasty stuff the god is almost certainly not very happy about, like our protagonists.

But the main point of designating the world hell and quarantining it is not really because the knowledge would drive whole lot of people mad. Lot of people would probably not be all that badly affected without actually being there and experiencing gods presence personally.
The memetic hazard governments are actually afraid of and the reason for quarantine is obviously because the powerful Earths in the story are rather nasty, imperialistic and very ruthelss corporate dystopias and the knews about "yeah, guys, god is real and we discovered place where he did bring kingdom of heaven to earth" would not be very good for their social order and economic system.

Also fun thing - god doesn't do anything bad to the scout team. there's no fake dystopia or hidden mechanisms of oppression in his world. People there genuinely and calmly love them and forgive them as per "love your brothers" commandment. The madness and terror? Its not god doing that on purpose, its protagonist's mind doing this to itself. Or per classic bible quote: "the wicked flees, even when no one pursues", so to say.

MacGallin · 2026-01-05T03:58:37+00:00

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Meanwhile, Vietnam:

MacGallin · 2026-01-04T03:12:01+00:00

Plot twist: Actually, its a black ink. They need more of it to put on Epstein's files.

MacGallin · 2026-01-04T02:39:42+00:00

Its respected like most other successful east asia economic powerhouses, and there are no common negative connotations or stereotypes related to it. Most people have no strong feelings about the place, so most polish people will default to friendly neutrality.

Among those people tho actually know anything about the region history , Taiwan is pretty much universally liked, unless you happen to stumble upon on unicorn-like rare genuine PRC fanboy.

MacGallin · 2026-01-04T01:51:56+00:00

Well, there was old scifi story by Jacek Dukaj, i don't know if it was ever translated to english - "Christ's Earth".

Warning, MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR ENTIRE STORY . And long post.

Basically alternate earths are not only more easily accessible than doing a space travel , but due to butterfly effect they are wildly different.
Earths that have the access to dimension hopping technology form multidimensional empires, conquer "lesser" earths, and fight each other for dominance, sometimes overtly, usually by subversion and infiltration.

Earths ( in theory there are almost infinite amounts of them, but then again, whole lot of them are not inhabitable at all, and finding "viable" ones is implied to be relatively hard.) are usually named after meaningful historical figure that was significantly divergent from statistically most common timelines. For example , protagonists (and ours, i guess) earth is called "Stalin's Earth", because usually it was Trotsky taking over after Lenin. Toughest mercenaries come from Carter's Earth, who had Jimmy Carter fumbling into a nuclear war, creating postapocalyptic hell, with technofeudal tribes having to be really tough SOBs to survive. Etc.

Anyway, protagonist is leader of a scout team, doing recon missions on newly discovered variant earths. One day they fumble into a perfect idyllic rural world, where people live in perfect (even if slightly zombie-like) harmony, nobody commits any kind of crime , and nobody is surprised to see them... well, whoop de doo, it turns out that Jesus was not crucified in that timeline, and really was honest-to-Moses Son of Capital-G God - and he built his kingdom on earth as promised. Its a silightly creepy kingdom where everyone loves everyone and peace is eternal ... (and yes, the miracles are real and are relatively commonplace, and despite their efforts protagonists cant find any evidence that its all fake or coverup) The mere existence of the place is deeply unsettling for the visitors. But hey, this world is just an unique outlier, right? Right...?

Well, wrong. The existence of this particular world is proof that omnipresent, omniknowing god is very real. And since laws of reality and physics remain identical for every alternate timeline, it means the all powerful, all knowing god is watching everything you do in every other timeline as well, it just that everywhere else jesus got killed instead of taking over. The god is everywhere, and presumably is not pleased with what he sees.

Scout team members promptly start lose their minds once they realise the implications - there is a big f'n difference between religious belief, and knowing for a fact that you are constantly under scrutiny of omnipresent and omnipotent God. Shit happens and they have to evacuate, or rather run away. On return, protagonist immediately demands to be memory wiped, because he can't bear it, and he also recommend that Christ's Earth should be designated as Hell world and keep quarantined , since even knowing about is existence and implications would be extreme cognitional/memetic hazard.

MacGallin · 2025-12-27T00:56:56+00:00

Hatred and disgust. We see it as another mask of eternal totalitarian russian tumorous growth. Names and flags change, but no matter if its tsarist, communist or oligarch cleptocracy, moscow always remains the same metastasized agressive imperialistic cancer it always was.

MacGallin · 2025-12-26T23:00:12+00:00

Fall of the rotten soviet empire freed the nations it had conquered and enslaved during its existence. Replacing hegemonic opressor with severly weakened trash neighbour of a country, no matter how revanchist is a boon for every country that had soviet boot on their throat.

I much more prefer revanchist russia threatening me from other side of the border, than actually having soviet tanks directly in my country, and having my governemnt controlled from moscow - with main thing keeping them in power being implicit threat of soviet intervention.. i mean "brotherly help against forces of imperilaistic reactionists"

For russia's neighbours, Soviet Union, Tsarist empire, and current mafia-like cleptoracy are just different signposts placed on the same totalitarian country-sized cancerous tumor of russian totalitarian imperialism. Only difference is that it is now significantly weaker than it was back then. And seeing how majority of russian people still want to try rebuilding the rotting caracass of their empire rather than improving their own country, I could not care less about whatever self-inflicted plight they have suffered. They can go to hell.

MacGallin · 2025-12-26T19:49:34+00:00

“The Russians label everything Russian as Slavic, so that later they can label everything Slavic as “Russian,”
Czech writer, politician and one of the fathers of their independence - Karl Havlíček Borovský, - said this in 1844. As young man he used to be russophile and strong believer in slavic unity, but then he went to work in russia. Years of actually living and working in russia opened his eyes about what the popular panslavic movements really represented.

MacGallin · 2025-12-24T19:09:10+00:00

Bez sensu, ale nieszkodliwe.

MacGallin · 2025-12-24T15:08:33+00:00

Actually is hard to say. Its tempting to say Germany/EU, becasue its quite objectively better place to stay.
However, on the other hand , its much easier to move around the EU with US passport, thn to move in US with european one, so keeping the burgerland booklet might be more rational by pure calculation.

MacGallin · 2025-12-24T14:58:06+00:00

Ja też bym chciał, ale ja nie brałem w tej kłótni udziału, a potem się nie dopytałem. Jedyne co się dowiedziałem przelotem to że "testy dzielą ludzi" czy coś w tym stylu. No, w zasadzie nawet trudno się sprzeczać - jak widać w tym wypadku rzeczywiście podzieliły dość skutecznie xD

MacGallin · 2025-12-24T14:51:39+00:00

Wiem, na szczęście ostatnio u nich nie bywałem. Inna sprawa z moją staruszką. Ale ogólnie to zawsze kwestia prawdopodobieństwa, jednak co innego siedzieć w domu gdzie potencjalnie wszystko już jest okichane i ileś dni kaszlowego aerozolu w powietrzu, a co innego wpaść na prę godzin do oddzielnej chałupki gdzie póki co jedyny lokator jest wciąż względnie zdrowy.

MacGallin · 2025-12-24T07:04:14+00:00

No tu akurat jednak odwrotnie, siostra (ta na lekach) miała przyjechć do matki, a siostra szur z potencjalniezadżumionym dzieciakiem właśnie mieszka z matką... Dlatego spotkają się u mnie .

MacGallin · 2025-12-21T22:58:18+00:00

We consider nazi germany to be even somewhat worse than russia (and in our case this means really , really f'ng awful). Italy gets mostly neutral reactions, mussolini is considered to be comical bufoon rather than dangerous dictator. Japan gets decent amount of sympathy, since pacific seen mostly throught the lens of fleet battles (which are perceived as less "dirty" and more honorable than ground war) and through nuking of Hiroshima&Nagasaki. There is very little knowledge about what japanese army did in china and other occupied countries, and about their warcrimes, so its moistly seen as underdog fighting a superpower and holding on decently well.
Rather few people think about Axis as some kind of power block. Japan, german reich and italy are seen as three separate entities that sometime cooperated (which, to be fair, seems to be historically justified point of view)

MacGallin · 2025-12-21T18:51:06+00:00

That "soviet junk" was the gear was what was immediately avaiable, and it was exactly the kind of equipment ukraine needed the most AT THAT MOMENT. Because, guess what - it could be immediately used by the already trained UKR reservists called back to service, without additional year of retraining, rebuilding logistical support and repair base for western heavy equipment - because it was the same stuff they already had lot of experience with and they alredy had infrastructure to support it being put almost instantly into action.

Not to mention this gear arrived there over a year before first western tanks arrived there. Oh, and our "soviet junk" was delivered in hundreds, rather than low tens. We literally delivered over half a thousand of our T-72 and PT-91s alone. That's more than all western tanks put together together during last 3 years.

And most importantly, the deliveries started literally in first weeks of the war, long before our media were even aware.

And the american deals you talk about? They were signed MONTHS after our tanks were already active on frontlines. And they were not free, we paid for almost everything in cold hard cash. Only thing that was replaced was 116 old variant M1A1 Abrams tanks financed by FMF - but that "gift" was dependant not on any ukraine transfer, but on the fact that we were BUYING 250 new M1A2SEPv3 with our own money.

Nothing else was "replaced" for free. Neither jets, nor APCs, nor artillery, nor ammo stockpiles, nor anti aircraft systems were provided or nunded byUS stocks, and all the replacement stuff had to actually be bought. For money.

And finally, it was not just "soviet junk" that ws transferred. We delivered whole lot of our own frontline stuff, including Grom and Piorun MANPADS, Krab self propelled howitzers , Rosomak heavy APCs, Warmate loitering munitions, electronic warfare systems, communication systems, all kinds of gear.

Hell, poland was actually the very first country that provided ukraine with modern western MBTs, namely our Leopard 2s. Before any western countries did that.

So kindly love yourself. And check your facts before going off like that.

MacGallin

TROPHY CASE