Lubos Motl

Lubos Motl

22p

4 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0

8 years ago @ RTE Ten - Czech in - Irishman\'s... · 0 replies · +4 points

Thanks, our Celtic brother. It's a song that this contest likes. Just to be sure, I don't like that style too (and most Eurovision songs) much, it's pretty cheesy. Gabriela is hot and her voice is amazing. I hope you will vote for the Irish songs in the finals, too. Greetings from Pilsen, Czechia.

8 years ago @ Musings - Columbus sought South ... · 0 replies · +3 points

Yup. It's really a rewriting of the history. Europe and America have some roots, some historical interests they considered important, and India was undoubtedly an example. Columbus was interested in India, he was trying to reach India, and when he reached what he did,he and others naturally called the inhabitants Indians. In Czech, we use the word "Ind" for a person in India and "Indián" for a Native American. No one has revealed any plans to change the language so far, thank God. ;-)

Today, India is one of many countries on that subcontinent but it is still a defining country of the civilization that is meant to be dominating over there. Needless to say, this suppression of India isn't just a terminological game. It's also a part of these people's vision about the future in which the subcontinent largely or mostly belongs to the Muslim regimes. India is too democratic for them, too Westernized at some legal and political level. The same thing is occurring to Europe although these folks haven't proposed a renaming of Europe yet. Maybe Orobpa could be better for them, the term on the Daesh maps?

8 years ago @ Malay Mail - My name? Make it simpl... · 0 replies · +1 points

Just a minor correction (from a big promoter of the name "Czechia"). The photograph isn't from Prague. It's from Pilsen, 60 miles Southwest from Prague and my hometown, the city that gave pils - the most widespread type of beer in the world - the name (after the brand Pilsner Urquell, 1942).

Pictured is the Pilsner Synagogue, the 3rd or 4th largest in the world, and larger than any of the 21 synagogues that have ever existed in Prague. The 3,000 Jews out of (today's) 170,000 Pilsen's inhabitants were almost totally murdered by the holocaust. Behind the synagogue, you may see some glass buildings of the Czech National Bank and other non-people banks. Behind the synagogue, the west-of-center-of-Pilsen, it used to be the Jewish Quarter of Pilsen.

In the very background (top strip of the picture), you may see the beginning of Škoda Works, once the largest factory in Austria-Hungary. It's producing turbines to reactors in power plants, streetcars and trolley buses, trains, but has a record of weaponry, tanks, and lots of other things. It's not the place where the Škoda cars are produced. Those are made in Mladá Boleslav, some 20 miles North of Prague. That car company, originally named Laurin and Klement, was bought by Škoda Works of Pilsen in 1925. The factories were redivided when they were nationalized during communism. In 1991, Volkswagen bought the carmaker and paid some $10 million to Škoda Works for sharing the brand Škoda and the ingenious logo.

Škoda Works is still important enough - and a source of pride because this company isn't really run by Germans but it's still doing successful business - but the Škoda carmaker became much more important for the economy.

9 years ago @ Malay Mail - Islamophobia on the bo... · 0 replies · +1 points

Come on, you can't compare the ongoing Muslim invasion to the mostly Europeans who established the new civilization in the U.S. Those were Europeans - and the U.S., whether you like it or not, is largely just a branch of the European culture.

We have several black (sometimes from Islamic countries) soccer players in our Czech teams and similar spots. But this is just a very special elite. The problem isn't a few people; the problem is the mass invasion. Most of those will stay unemployed. We have a much more accurate precedent to predict what would happen - the Islamic minorities in Western Europe. Algerians in France, and so on. Among those communities, the unemployment rate is universally around 75%. They are very expensive, increase the crime rate hugely, and force the countries to accept proliferating no-go zones where the original Western laws no longer apply and where decent people can't dare to enter if they hold their lives dear.

We also have a minority that integrated OK to the economy, the Vietnamese. But we have the opposite experience with the Romani folks, too. And we have a rather good idea whom the Muslims are closer to. We are not constrained by the political correctness run amok that would suggest that all nations are the same. They are definitely not. We know something specific about the Muslims etc.

And by the way, as ex-president Klaus recently said on Russia Today, a better comparison of the invasion to the American immigration is a comparison to the first European settlers 500 years ago who largely destroyed the Native Americans in the New World. We just don't want to be in the role of the Native Americans. One could also talk about the Migration Period 1500 years ago. It was a huge problem for the civilized Europe, for the traces of the Roman Empire, and so on. At the end, Europe recovered but one could argue that it took 1,000 years. This is not a trend that a sane person living on the "target" territory could actively support.