As I think I've told you, Lisbon and Porto in Portugal and the smaller cities across the land all look like they came from Disney Inc. -- every old town town has a collection of 500 year old churches and Moorish and Christian forts on the highest hilltop, plus some Roman or even Etruscan ruins. It's why I encourage Trump to conquer Portugal instead of Greenland. https://clips.substack.com/p/dear-king-donald-buy-portugal-instead?utm_source=publication-search
The United States is the size that it is today because Alexander II and Napoleon I concluded that from their seats in Europe they would be completely unable to defend Alaska or Louisiana from attack.
Napoleon, at least, is thought to have had pretty good judgment on this kind of question.
Russia had strategic alliance with the Northern states during civil war - so I don't think Britain would have attacked Russian Alaska. Same for Japan in 1905 because of the Monroe doctrine. But then, who knows?
I have a professional interest in all things horological and built to ediface scale. I just hope the mesh over that clock was to protect it from birds, not vandals.
I'll have to do an analysis of the most popular classical music pieces in Prague. About a half dozen orchestras each night play a medley of 300 years of greatest hits in about an hour for the class trip trade. Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Pachebel's Canon rank up there.
As Sheldon Cooper once said, a happy accident. I actually had not heard the term "Kafka Trap" before. Now that have, I love the idea of a "Kafka Tourist Trap". You know those people who travel and brag about not doing the standard tourist stuff? Like they want to do what the locals do, and experience life there as the locals do. They aren't those clueless Americans with the ill fitting cargo shorts looking up in stead of where they are going. They are better than you.
Denying you are a tourist is something only a tourist would do-- the Kafka Tourist Trap.
I think there is still room for growth in tourist experiences in Prague, like ziplining out the windows of the various defenestrations of Prague up through Masaryk in 1948.
I suspect that 20 years from now the Prague tourist experience will be even more developed, with animatronic Vaclav Havel's narrating his fable of the greengrocer for anti-Communists and animatronic Kepler's explaining astrology for astrology fans.
I hadn't done the reading and teacher called on me. Why had the defenestrated survived. I quickly edited the joke in my head and said something funny but clean. Teacher told me after class that he caught me! The worst part was that my original filthier version of the gag would have been correct.
I told you, loved Prague but not the tourist spots. There are neighborhoods with working class bars playing some decent jazz and serving the best goulash ever. About half the price of the tourist spots and no one speaks English. Maybe we can call your experience, The Trial.
I'm sure he doesn't like Zelenskyy's war of striking deep into the Russian interior either.
Two sides to every coin, you know.
Are we to take it that with the Astronomical Clock, Good King Wally Over the Top courtesy from the Disney Dynasty, Kafka Kandy, etc. that Prague is where Steve decided to spend his summer vacation?
These are not the same sides. Ukraine targets military sites and some refineries. That is fair game in any war. Targeting civilian neigbourhoods and hospitals - that's the way of Ivan the Terrible and his Muscovite heirs.
Contrary to what the Deep State would have one believe, there are two sides to every coin. There've been also civilians killed in Russia from these targeted hits from the ex-Nazis.
Also, there ethnic Russian civilians killed in the Donbass by the government in Kiev. But kinda left that part out.
Muscovite heirs...who learned from their heirs in Kiev. Thank you very much.
Again, two sides to every coin.
Also, it's not the US's problem, is it? Both nations are thousands of miles away and don't pose a direct threat. In the case of one, it hasn't posed a direct threat since the Cold War ended.
Unless the US is agitating to re-start the Cold War and/or is agitating to get into a hot war with Russia.
Most nations here in Central Europe have experienced Russian rule, and the majority view is "never again". Being terrorized and robbed by that decrepit empire is a nightmare. Current Russia is the closest that you have to the Nazi Reich, with torture, summary executions, barbaric air attacks on cities, brainwashing of schoolkids for mass human sacrifice and "filtration camps" where starvation is a regular occurence. I hope the regime eventually collapses in a similar way and Putin shoots himself in his bunker.
I agree that the US may not care, though. This is our problem to solve.
Terrorized, robbed, etc referring to Russia or to Ukraine? Because those adjectives can just as easily apply to either one.
If it’s Central Europe’s problem to solve as you state, then by all means let them solve it on their own, as no one is preventing them from doing so. The US cannot be the world’s global police force any longer; it’s time for the US to attend to its own domestic problems within its own borders.
There is no comparison, but Americans seem to be very gullible marks to contemporary Russian propaganda. I give this to the Russians - they produce very convincing lies, and their lies work in distant nations that have no direct experience with Russian reality. Unfortunately, they managed to convince a nontrivial portion of the global audience that they are somehow in the right, or at least that "the two sides of the coin" are equal.
There was a lot of violence in Ukraine of 2014, but by February 2022, it was a frozen conflict in which less people died in a year than now die in a freaking hour. IDK what precise bullshit they are feeding you, but the Donbass was a static situation with barely any shooting going on.
Anyway, this is a Russian imperial project and indeed it is upon us to thwart it or contain it. You have decided to throw away your international credibility, your choice. Last time you did that (Viet Nam), the consequences were serious for other people, but you are insulated enough by the oceans to afford it.
That said, your internal problems are going to get worse from this. The US benefited enormously from a network of well-functioning global trade. The likelihood that you can go to autarky and prosper is basically zero, everyone who tried it failed. I don't think Americans are interested in the sort of jobs that cheaper countries are now doing for you. I grew up in a coal mining city; these are very dangerous jobs, how many 20somethings in a developed world will do them now?
My company recently hired a few dozen trainee linemen. A dangerous job, I’m sure you’ll agree. They received 1200 applicants for those few dozen jobs. Why? 60.00 an hour is why.
OMG more "Russian misinformation" nonsense. How may times does that have to turn out to be a lie for people to click?
There is massive US propaganda, almost none from Russia.
For example - who told you that Zelensky many times in 2021 declared the Ukrainian intention to attack and militarily take back Donbas and Crimea. Was that Russian disinformation? Or even Russian information? Or are the basic facts of the war just filtered out of all conversations in the west?
It is a Central European problem, but lets not pretend it is not wholly US caused. The Ukrainian Nazis have been breed as trouble makers from the 1940s by CIA and UK's MI6.
This has been a US proxy war from the start - as many US politicians have admitted openly.
Trump sent weapons to Kiev in advance, just as Biden did.
Historian A.J.P. Taylor visited the Czech president Benes in Prague in 1946: “Taking me to the window, he said, ‘Is it not beautiful? The only unspoilt city in central Europe, and all my doing.’ When I raised my eyebrows, he added: ‘By accepting the Munich settlement I saved Prague and my people from destruction.’”
If he could have transplanted spines into Chamberlain or the French PM, top German generals were supposedly ready to remove Hitler to avoid war. Courage is infectious.
That part of Europe has an immense concentration of beautiful cities. Krakow is outstanding in the centre and Budapest is very pretty. Locals have also done a great job in Dresden (and they're not finished)
Krakow is almost perfect for the first-time visitor: beautiful and historic, a manageable size, reasonably-priced compared to many European cities farther west, and full of unexpectedly good-looking people.
As I think I've told you, Lisbon and Porto in Portugal and the smaller cities across the land all look like they came from Disney Inc. -- every old town town has a collection of 500 year old churches and Moorish and Christian forts on the highest hilltop, plus some Roman or even Etruscan ruins. It's why I encourage Trump to conquer Portugal instead of Greenland. https://clips.substack.com/p/dear-king-donald-buy-portugal-instead?utm_source=publication-search
The United States is the size that it is today because Alexander II and Napoleon I concluded that from their seats in Europe they would be completely unable to defend Alaska or Louisiana from attack.
Napoleon, at least, is thought to have had pretty good judgment on this kind of question.
Russia had strategic alliance with the Northern states during civil war - so I don't think Britain would have attacked Russian Alaska. Same for Japan in 1905 because of the Monroe doctrine. But then, who knows?
Steve Sailer=homo risens
Guffaw index=10
Ridens.
I have a professional interest in all things horological and built to ediface scale. I just hope the mesh over that clock was to protect it from birds, not vandals.
Are you there now? Have you heard any Bohemian rhapsodies?
I'll have to do an analysis of the most popular classical music pieces in Prague. About a half dozen orchestras each night play a medley of 300 years of greatest hits in about an hour for the class trip trade. Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Pachebel's Canon rank up there.
Rob Paravonian (2006) on Pachebel's Canon
https://youtu.be/JdxkVQy7QLM
IMHO it's all great.
Love the application of Kafka candy. Their tourist traps are so much more sophisticated than ours.
Do they have anything for the Golem of Prague somewhere in the ghetto?
“Kafka” and “trap.” Please tell me it was intentional.
As Sheldon Cooper once said, a happy accident. I actually had not heard the term "Kafka Trap" before. Now that have, I love the idea of a "Kafka Tourist Trap". You know those people who travel and brag about not doing the standard tourist stuff? Like they want to do what the locals do, and experience life there as the locals do. They aren't those clueless Americans with the ill fitting cargo shorts looking up in stead of where they are going. They are better than you.
Denying you are a tourist is something only a tourist would do-- the Kafka Tourist Trap.
For a hundred euros, they'll show you how defenestration works.
That and Jan Hus are about all I know about Prague.
From the original window? Might be worth it.
Have a good, short flight.
I think there is still room for growth in tourist experiences in Prague, like ziplining out the windows of the various defenestrations of Prague up through Masaryk in 1948.
I suspect that 20 years from now the Prague tourist experience will be even more developed, with animatronic Vaclav Havel's narrating his fable of the greengrocer for anti-Communists and animatronic Kepler's explaining astrology for astrology fans.
I hadn't done the reading and teacher called on me. Why had the defenestrated survived. I quickly edited the joke in my head and said something funny but clean. Teacher told me after class that he caught me! The worst part was that my original filthier version of the gag would have been correct.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kafkatrap
Steve. If you have a chance, visit the Museum of Alchemy at Hastalaska 1. You'll enjoy the secret door and the catacombs!
Thanks. It was a lot of fun.
Then maybe the central Western and Europeans along with the US shouldn't have started that war.
Don't slap someone and then play innocent victim when you get slapped in return.
I told you, loved Prague but not the tourist spots. There are neighborhoods with working class bars playing some decent jazz and serving the best goulash ever. About half the price of the tourist spots and no one speaks English. Maybe we can call your experience, The Trial.
I am sure you are right.
"Putin’s war on Ukrainian cities."
I'm sure he doesn't like Zelenskyy's war of striking deep into the Russian interior either.
Two sides to every coin, you know.
Are we to take it that with the Astronomical Clock, Good King Wally Over the Top courtesy from the Disney Dynasty, Kafka Kandy, etc. that Prague is where Steve decided to spend his summer vacation?
These are not the same sides. Ukraine targets military sites and some refineries. That is fair game in any war. Targeting civilian neigbourhoods and hospitals - that's the way of Ivan the Terrible and his Muscovite heirs.
Contrary to what the Deep State would have one believe, there are two sides to every coin. There've been also civilians killed in Russia from these targeted hits from the ex-Nazis.
Also, there ethnic Russian civilians killed in the Donbass by the government in Kiev. But kinda left that part out.
Muscovite heirs...who learned from their heirs in Kiev. Thank you very much.
Again, two sides to every coin.
Also, it's not the US's problem, is it? Both nations are thousands of miles away and don't pose a direct threat. In the case of one, it hasn't posed a direct threat since the Cold War ended.
Unless the US is agitating to re-start the Cold War and/or is agitating to get into a hot war with Russia.
Most nations here in Central Europe have experienced Russian rule, and the majority view is "never again". Being terrorized and robbed by that decrepit empire is a nightmare. Current Russia is the closest that you have to the Nazi Reich, with torture, summary executions, barbaric air attacks on cities, brainwashing of schoolkids for mass human sacrifice and "filtration camps" where starvation is a regular occurence. I hope the regime eventually collapses in a similar way and Putin shoots himself in his bunker.
I agree that the US may not care, though. This is our problem to solve.
Terrorized, robbed, etc referring to Russia or to Ukraine? Because those adjectives can just as easily apply to either one.
If it’s Central Europe’s problem to solve as you state, then by all means let them solve it on their own, as no one is preventing them from doing so. The US cannot be the world’s global police force any longer; it’s time for the US to attend to its own domestic problems within its own borders.
There is no comparison, but Americans seem to be very gullible marks to contemporary Russian propaganda. I give this to the Russians - they produce very convincing lies, and their lies work in distant nations that have no direct experience with Russian reality. Unfortunately, they managed to convince a nontrivial portion of the global audience that they are somehow in the right, or at least that "the two sides of the coin" are equal.
There was a lot of violence in Ukraine of 2014, but by February 2022, it was a frozen conflict in which less people died in a year than now die in a freaking hour. IDK what precise bullshit they are feeding you, but the Donbass was a static situation with barely any shooting going on.
Anyway, this is a Russian imperial project and indeed it is upon us to thwart it or contain it. You have decided to throw away your international credibility, your choice. Last time you did that (Viet Nam), the consequences were serious for other people, but you are insulated enough by the oceans to afford it.
That said, your internal problems are going to get worse from this. The US benefited enormously from a network of well-functioning global trade. The likelihood that you can go to autarky and prosper is basically zero, everyone who tried it failed. I don't think Americans are interested in the sort of jobs that cheaper countries are now doing for you. I grew up in a coal mining city; these are very dangerous jobs, how many 20somethings in a developed world will do them now?
My company recently hired a few dozen trainee linemen. A dangerous job, I’m sure you’ll agree. They received 1200 applicants for those few dozen jobs. Why? 60.00 an hour is why.
ok boomer, or deep state.
Putin has been in power since 2000. In that time how many nations has he conquered? How many former USSR satelite nations has retaken?
Oh, that's right. NONE
Since Cold War ended, how many former USSR satelite nations has NATO taken over?
Nearly all of them.
But NATO is not attempting in any way to conquer Central/Eastern Europe, or at least to put it directly under its control.
OMG more "Russian misinformation" nonsense. How may times does that have to turn out to be a lie for people to click?
There is massive US propaganda, almost none from Russia.
For example - who told you that Zelensky many times in 2021 declared the Ukrainian intention to attack and militarily take back Donbas and Crimea. Was that Russian disinformation? Or even Russian information? Or are the basic facts of the war just filtered out of all conversations in the west?
It is a Central European problem, but lets not pretend it is not wholly US caused. The Ukrainian Nazis have been breed as trouble makers from the 1940s by CIA and UK's MI6.
This has been a US proxy war from the start - as many US politicians have admitted openly.
Trump sent weapons to Kiev in advance, just as Biden did.
very weird propagandist.
You are in for some serious cognitive dissonance when the war crimes commissions get started on Ukraine.
And the British, and the Americans, and the Israelis, and so on ad infinitum.
No - simply NO.
You bought the propaganda.
13k Ukrainian civilians dead, 1.3 million men in Uniform.
the most civilian friendly war Ever.
Prague is special, I’m glad you made it. Next stop Budapest.
Historian A.J.P. Taylor visited the Czech president Benes in Prague in 1946: “Taking me to the window, he said, ‘Is it not beautiful? The only unspoilt city in central Europe, and all my doing.’ When I raised my eyebrows, he added: ‘By accepting the Munich settlement I saved Prague and my people from destruction.’”
I can see Benes' point.
If he could have transplanted spines into Chamberlain or the French PM, top German generals were supposedly ready to remove Hitler to avoid war. Courage is infectious.
A lot of the smaller cities of the Czech Republic are almost as good and don't have nearly as many tourists. Same applies for Amsterdam/Netherlands.
It is also easy to walk through forests in the Czech republic. Their private property laws are a lot looser.
They also have great crystal glasses. I would recommend picking up an enormous goblet. It looks absurd but enchanting
Ah, Steve in the Czech Republic :)
If you like Prague, you will also like plenty of smaller Czech cities like Třeboň or Kutná Hora or Český Krumlov.
In Poland, Wroclaw and Kraków are the two to go to.
But plenty of ancient marvels have been destroyed in the Second World War.
That part of Europe has an immense concentration of beautiful cities. Krakow is outstanding in the centre and Budapest is very pretty. Locals have also done a great job in Dresden (and they're not finished)
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/the-beautiful-rebirth-of-dresden
Krakow is almost perfect for the first-time visitor: beautiful and historic, a manageable size, reasonably-priced compared to many European cities farther west, and full of unexpectedly good-looking people.