Flooding in Central Europe

Photos of the terrible weather and its effects.  #13 especially caught my eye.

Ave atque Vale, Tadeusz Sawicz

Hail and farewell to the Polish fighter pilot who engaged the Nazis over Poland, France, and England.

LOL: Poland's Death Metal Political Ad

The translation is here, here is some snarky commentary, and the ad itself is embedded below for your delectation, gentle reader:

History Lesson: Women in World War II

Take a look at this remarkable collection of photos. 

Some of the women you will have heard of, others not.  The first one you meet is Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Russian sniper who racked up 309 confirmed German kills and so became the killingest female sniper in history.  The second photo gives you the infamous Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.  Elsewhere in the photo collection you will see, in moral and historical terms, the good, the bad, and the ugly from every aspect and location of the war.  (The "you go, girl" tag is obviously only for the good ones.)  In an historical event as massive as WWII, one tends to forget that it was composed of individuals.  This photo essay is a reminder of those individuals and the many roles they took.

Awesome: 8000 Paper Lanterns Over Poland

Beautiful!

Quote of the Day: Czech-US Relations

Here's a telling comment by a Czech lawmaker on Obama's approach:

"...the current administration doesn't take the Czech Republic seriously."

Oh, dear.

Monday Therapy Geek Fun: Meet Zenek!

Check out Zenek, the geekily adorable mascot of the superconductor laboratories at at Lublin University of Technology in Poland.

What Fresh Hell Is This? European Nations Going After Private Pensions

The horror, the horror!  I'm not surprised, though.  

Quirky Euro Files: Poland's 30-Foot-Tall Snowman

His name is Milocinek.  The news story says that some bored Poles decided to build a snowman and didn't stop until it had become a giant.  Bored?  I'll say!  But brilliant too.

Latest Weird History Nerd News: The Theory That Columbus Was a Polish Prince

Um ... what?

Quote of the Day: "Never has there been a worse time to be a US ally."

It's no surprise. I've been banging on and on about foreign policy for a while now (just click on the tags "HopeChange Chronicles" and -- duh -- "foreign policy"), and if you want a real MM rant, you'll get one if you ask me about how the Obama Administration treats our friends and allies. His foreign policy seems to be, in a nutshell, "coddle our enemies and screw our friends." It's nonsense on stilts. And horrifically dangerous.

ANYWAY, Daniel Hannan has his own rant this time, and it's a good one. I give you the bit about foreign policy, but you really should read his entire rant.

His fondness for the EU is matched by his disdain for the United Kingdom. It’s not the diplomatic snubs that bother me: the dissing of Gordon Brown, the insulting gifts, the sending back of Winston Churchill’s bust. It’s not even the faux-anger towards the company he insists on calling “British” Petroleum. (No such firm has existed since the merger of BP and Amoco nine years ago. Thirty-nine per cent of BP shares are American-owned, and 40 per cent British-owned. The stricken rig in the Gulf is owned by Transocean, and the drilling was carried out by Halliburton, yet Obama isn’t demanding compensation from either of these American corporations.)

All these things are minor irritants compared to the way the Obama administration is backing Peronist Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands – or, as Obama’s people call them, “the Malvinas”. British troops were the only sizeable contingent to support the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have fought alongside America in most of the conflicts of the past hundred years. Yet, when the chips are down, Obama lines up with Hugo Chávez and Daniel Ortega against us.

Not that we should feel singled out. The Obama administration has scorned America’s other established friends. It has betrayed Poland and the Czech Republic, whose Atlanticist governments had agreed to accept the American missile defence system at immense political cost, only to find the project cancelled. It has alienated Israel and India. It has even managed to fall out with Canada over its “Buy American” rules and its decision to drill in disputed Arctic waters. Never has there been a worse time to be a US ally.

(How do you manage to tick off Canada, that famously easygoing, friendly nation?)

"Never has there been a worse time to be a US ally"? Never have we needed our friends and allies more.

Hannan, by the way, had backed Obama during the 2008 campaign, but he has since stopped drinking the Kool-Aid. I guess this now means he's a gun-clinging, Bible-thumping, bitter, racist teabagging retrograde hater like the rest of us, heh. (Wake up, rest of you Obamaniac Europeans.)

Here's Hannan's parting shot: "His policies are serving to make his country poorer, less free and less respected. And that is a problem for all of us." No kidding, sir!

Forgotten History: Captured British Troops at Dunkirk

We remember the 200,000 British and 140,000 French, Polish, and Belgian troops who were successfully evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940-- and we should.

But recall too, the 40,000 British troops who did not make it out and were captured by the Nazis. A recent British documentary tells their story.

MM in the Kitchen: Polish Sweet Bread

Yummy! Besides, nothing makes a house smell like a home more than bread baking ...

The HopeChange Chronicles: Golf 1, Poland 0

*Sigh.*

Poland, Russia, and the Curse of Katyn

The always-excellent Arthur Chrenkoff has a few thoughts.

The HopeChange Chronicles: Foreign Policy Analysis In 1 Sentence

Here it is, short and sweet:

For the first time in a long time, the president of the United States is not trusted by our allies or feared by our adversaries and is respected by neither.

How often have you heard me saying so?

Human Rights Spotlight: the Geneva Summit

Maggie's Farm offers a reminder that the Geneva Summit is beginning today.

Here is the WSJ blurb about the meeting:

The Geneva Summit -- organized by groups such as U.N. Watch and Freedom House, and chaired by Poland’s Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel -- will bring together political dissidents from China, Iran and Burma, rights activists for the Tibetan and Uighur peoples, a survivor of the North Korean gulag, plus a former Sudanese slave named Simon Deng who plans to speak about “the gross human-rights abuses by radical jihadists and the Islamic government in Khartoum . . .

I should clarify that the full name of the meeting is the "Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance, and Democracy." (Yes. Democracy.)

Contrast, my darlings, with the rogues' gallery that is the UN's Human Rights Council.

Top 10 Apologies Obama Hasn't Made Yet

Now these are apologies I would not mind hearing. HOPECHANGE!

Quote of the Day + Your History Lesson of the Day: General Casimir Pulaski

The quote:

"I came here, where freedom is being defended, to serve it, and to live or die for it." -- Pulaski in a letter to George Washington

The nobleman from Poland was recommended to Washington by Ben Franklin himself, and he subsequently fought and died in the American Revolution. He has now been made an honorary citizen of the nation he helped to create. (Honoring Pulaski is, I dare say, probably the only decent thing that this Congress has done recently. But I digress.)

Did you know that Pulaski's also called "the father of the American cavalry"? He died at the age of 34 in 1779 from wounds received in action in Savannah, Georgia. Before he came to the New World, he fought for Polish freedom against Russia and Prussia.

Ave atque Vale: Marek Edelman (1919?-2009)

The last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has died in Poland. This obituary quotes Vaclav Havel's praise of Edelman as "an example of a true Pole, the authentic personification of all that is best in Poland."

The 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in occupied Poland was the largest act of resistance by European Jews against the Nazis during the Holocaust. (Don't confuse it with the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.)

Here's a quote from Edelman reflecting on his participation: "It was easier to die fighting than in a gas chamber."