So it sounds like these guys posed as investors, schmoozed politicians, and got them on tape agreeing to do corrupt stuff. The recordings were then released to influence voters.
The thing about this is, the response to it will depend on who the politicians were. For example, if it was the "far right" politicians caught on tape, there wouldn't be the same furore about election interference. The recordings may of course be edited to be misleading.
The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.
I'm from Slovenia and it is very obvious what is going on behind the scenes. It's a public secret at this point that both the parties in charge (especially the people in/around Gibanje Svoboda) and the various people "from behind" take their cuts at big infrastructure projects.
Just to be fair, this is not unique to the current government. We've had several similar corruption scandals throughout several governments; it was almost always related to infrastructure projects.
A few days prior to this leak there was a separate one posted on Facebook (that I sadly can't find anymore; it has been covered by several media outlets here [1]), in which the former GS secretary reveals who gets what % and that they have to "set our own people to the right places, as (2023) floods cleanup is where the most money flows".
It is also not a secret that the mayor of Ljubljana, Janković, is able to bypass all laws to issue building permits in exchange for a 20% "donation" to city-ran sports clubs, which are ran by his friends. This was revealed in the case of an Austrian investor and his luxury flats at Celovška cesta, Ljubljana, a few months ago.
It's also plain obvious that the state media (RTV SLO) is trying hard to shift the conversation towards the origin of the leaks rather than the supposed corruption revealed in them. The practice had usually been to investigate the content first.
This skips over what the article actually describes. Švarc Pipan's account isn't of politicians getting caught, it's of an entrapment operation. The fake investors "seemed to know nothing about data centers," kept pushing her toward suggesting a bribe, and paid a €500 tab in cash. She says she refused to lobby and told them she was legally barred from doing so at the time.
There is no direct proof that Janša is linked to them, however plausible it seems.
(the parent comment has been edited to remove this claim shortly after I made my comment responding to it)
SOVA has only been able to confirm that an unlabeled Israeli charter landed at Brnik and that a taxi ride with two businessmen was made from the airport to the street in Ljubljana where SDS is headquartered.
This could have also been any two legit businessmen, who might have come with any other flight, for any other purpose. It’s not confirmed whether they entered the SDS building either.
It’s also anachronistic - the videos appear to have been filmed a while ago (given the statements made and the held positions of the people in them), while that flight has only happened a few weeks ago.
Švarc Pipan also didn’t refuse to lobby, she just brushed it off by saying “it’s not lobbying” after bring told it indeed was, right after bragging about lobbying.
She then goes on to explain that she kept arranging things from behind, after resigning from her position because of the Litijska corruption scandal about a year into her turn.
I removed the first half of the comment because I acquired a -2 and felt it was linked to pointing out the article claims they went right to the far right party hq after landing at the airport. I assumed that was because people felt it was unfair to them, and I realized the rest was sufficient for showing the article wasn’t exactly…reflective of the claims made in the comment I was replying to. Didn’t see your reply beforehand. Cheers
Just more cultural appropriation. Black Cube, Blackrock, Blackstone... And not a black person in sight. Someone even took Blackstreet which was already ours. /s
> The god El is commonly associated with Saturn and commonly referred to as Saturn El.
This is demonstrably false; see Liber 777 cols. I, II, V, and VII.
Saturn is assigned key scale 3 (col I) and is associated with the Name of God "Tetragrammaton Elohim," while "El" is traditionally reserved for the fourth sephira, representing Jupiter.
Six is a solar number, attributed to Christ and Ra (though also Osiris; but see the associated key scale and its myriad attributions). Jupiter, again, is ascribed number three, not six.
Black is indeed the Queen scale color associated to Saturn, though just as commonly attributed to Earth, as the final receptacle of all the other "colors" of creation (see key scales 3 and 10 in cols XV, XVI, XVIII).
Only if you consider Crowley to be the alpha and omega.
Wikipedia cites Brill's New Pauly, which I found a copy of online, and that in turn just cites a German article from the early 20th century. I don't read German and have to stop there, but I do have to wonder how well the assertion is actually supported.
Or you could just reference Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity) which claims numerous associations between Saturn and El. Or you could conduct an internet search for Saturn El and find a plethora of additional resources that confirm the association between the two.
And Steve Jobs priced the first Apple computer at - $666.66
The influence of the Kabbalah and the occult sciences on Silicon Valley and the world at large is quite obvious if one is looking and doesn't brush these subjects off as woohoo / conspiratorial (which most people do).
Yes, the kabba is also a nod to Saturn (which is why I said all Abrahamic religions incorporate some Saturn worship into them), and the people walking around the kabba make the rings of Saturn (if you employ some time-lapse photography of them walking around, it's quite obvious). Saturn has a hexagonal shaped storm on its north pole (and the all-seeing eye on its south pole). If you collapse a cube into two dimensions, you get a hexagon.
Not observed and yet depicted in symbolism by different cultures dating back to Babylon. Quite the mystery indeed... I'm sure you have an explanation for how the Dogon tribe knew more about the Sirius star system than we did until relatively recently as well.
It's quite egotistical and foolish to assume we're more advanced and know more than our ancient ancestors, or that what is written in our history books is objective truth.
> I'm sure you have an explanation for how the Dogon tribe knew more about the Sirius star system than we did until relatively recently as well.
I have a hypothesis, which incorporates the fact that the Dogon were not reported to have such knowledge until the 1930s, well after the discovery of Sirius B.
> depicted in symbolism by different cultures dating back to Babylon
A bit of searching is coming up short, beyond a claim about shackles on the ankles of a Roman statue of Saturn (the god) symbolizing the rings; I find this less convincing than the idea that they symbolize shackles (the ones with which he was bound in Tartaros).
> I have a hypothesis, which incorporates the fact that the Dogon were not reported to have such knowledge until the 1930s, well after the discovery of Sirius B.
That's not a fact, because there are several sources / individuals that dispute this claim.
> A bit of searching is coming up short, beyond a claim about shackles on the ankles of a Roman statue of Saturn (the god) symbolizing the rings; I find this less convincing than the idea that they symbolize shackles (the ones with which he was bound in Tartaros).
Well you're pretty terrible at searching the internet then, considering I can type Sumerian saturn symbolism into any image search engine and find a plethora of examples.
I'm not mad, just disappointed. You originally wrote:
> depicted in symbolism by different cultures dating back to Babylon
and I'd (naively) expected you to have known the differences between Babylon and the Sumerians.
But based on your suggestion I did search for "Sumerian saturn symbolism" (sans quotes) and there's more but still a whole lot of nothing. I see a lot of four- and eight-pointed stars, sometimes in circles, and some images of stone seals that clearly have planets with rings but are even more clearly AI generated.
This naming is great compared to their traditional naming. I immediately know that I need a pro max premium if I want the one that compiles stuff fast and is heavy and has the fans running full speed all the time and only technically works unplugged, like my current Dell work laptop (guessing).
I find Kotlin way easier to read back than C#, and for the cases where I would have reached for GDScript for its simplicity, I can use Kotlin and have still a lot of simplicity, while also having type-safety.
They're function calls right? I can't square the "message passing" conceit (implying putting message objects on queues, dequeuing etc) with the claim that Obj-C is just C with some extra stuff.
Absolutely not. It only sends a message. The receiver doesn't have to have a corresponding method and can do with that message what it will. Objective-C is a 'true' object-oriented language, like Smalltalk.
In the end though most of those 'sending a message' actions are just fancy virtual method calls (e.g. an indirect jump), everything else would be much too slow:
IMHO the whole 'message' and 'sending' lingo should be abandondend, the job of objc_msgSend is to look up a function pointer by certain rules. There are no 'messages' involved, and nothing is 'sent'.
> There are no 'messages' involved, and nothing is 'sent'.
The conceptual difference is significant as an object can respond to messages that it doesn't have a method for. You are, conceptually, just sending a message and leave it up to the object what it wants to do with it (e.g. forwardInvocation:). That is, after all, what sets "object-oriented" apart from having objects alone. Optimizations that can be made under the hood don't really affect the language itself.
> can respond to messages that it doesn't have a method for.
Clang produces a warning in that case though (something along the lines of "object might not respond to ..."), I don't think that feature is particularly useful in practice (also because it kills any sort of type safety) :)
And the reason it’s a warning and not an error (like in C++) is that it’s actually possible that the object can respond to such a message but the compiler doesn’t know about it.
It was incredibly useful in the olden days. The NeXT/Apple ecosystem leaned on it heavily.
We have new ways to approach problems nowadays, so it may be fair to say that object-oriented programming is a relic of the past. I mean, it is telling that Smalltalk, Objective-C, and Ruby are the only languages to ever go down that road. Still, if you are using an OO language, then it makes sense to lean into OO features. Otherwise, why not use a language better suited to your problem?
> That is, after all, what sets "object-oriented" apart from having objects alone.
I wouldn't say so, most object-oriented languages don't work like Objective-C/Smalltalk. Today, I think most programmers would agree that inheritance is the defining feature of object-orientation.
Okay, that's what sets what was classically known as "object-oriented" apart.
Understandably, language evolves. If OO means something different today, what do most programmers call what used to be known as OO? I honestly have never heard anyone use anything else. But I am always up for refreshing my lexicon. What did most programmers settle on for this in order to free up OO for other uses?
What would it have to say about it? When "object-oriented" was first told, it was said that what defines it is message passing. Simula does not have message passing. It uses function calling. Simula does have objects, but having objects does not imply orientation.
My YT Shorts experience: absent-mindedly watch a few, eventually think "damn, these things suck", tap the "show fewer shorts" link to reduce the chance of absent-mindedly clicking on them again soon. The format, with all its annoying little stylistic cliches, is just too irritating to be addictive. (modern Facebook is even more absurdly un-addictive).
The first time I walked into a casino I wanted to vomit. I hated everything about it. The lights, the smell, the sound, every sensory input rubbed me the wrong way. If hell exists, this is it.
And yet some people have the opposite response. They get hooked.
I suspect it’s the same here. The tactics that are wildly addictive dopamine pumps for their largest cohort actively repel you and me.
Pokemon Sleep and Pokemon TCG apps (ran by two different companies) are very annoying with this. I had to drop TCG because it was much worse than Sleep with all the menus. The only reason I keep up with sleep is because it allows me to gamify my sleep and it honestly has a pretty good UI with its calendar view of my sleep patterns.
I suppose all "gacha" games use this pattern. I find it interesting that gachapon machines are so ingrained in Japanese culture because it is basically culturally approved gambling.
Then again, the West had similar with sports trading cards, which are less popular now. Then again, again, NFTs kinda brought this back for a bit with the randomized drops.
Facebook has figured out that I really like videos of people removing rust from badly corroded metal. If they don't mess up and show me something else, then it takes some serious conscious effort to stop.
Street protests were an effective tool for suffrage, anti-segregation, labor rights, civil rights, anti-colonialism, gay rights to name a few. It is disingenuous to associate this with the Waco-style idiocy.
The thing about this is, the response to it will depend on who the politicians were. For example, if it was the "far right" politicians caught on tape, there wouldn't be the same furore about election interference. The recordings may of course be edited to be misleading.
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