Poland brings it, rockets up the standings

For some reason, Poland has been bringing the heat in recent months, breaking into the all-time top 10 for home country of visitors, and even moving past Sweden to be No. 9 on that list. Well, winter in Poland must be pretty damn cold and they have nothing to do but cruise the internet, because we have a whole lotta Poland in the house.

Yesterday, Poland was by far the most common country of origin for Eff You visitors, with more than three times as many Poles coming by as Americans. This surge blasted Poland to No. 8 in the country-of-origin standings, easily moving past Canada.

Sure, it's a stupid traffic post, but what do you want from a man who spends barely any waking moments at home?

Traffic update

Poland has overtaken Sweden for the No. 9 spot on all-time country of origin for Eff You visitors. Closing in on Canada as we speak.

Emperor Barry the Lame ignores his Cuban Missile Crisis

Once upon a time, Democrat presidents responded when Russia made threatening moves toward the United States. When the Soviet Union put nuclear missiles in Cuba, President John Kennedy responded with a naval blockade of Cuba and forced the Soviets to back down. Pretty ballsy, all things considered.

Well, Emperor Barry has been presented with a similar situation and chosen to pretend nothing has happened. Finally, he has been able to move from Emperor Barry I to Emperor Barry the Lame:

Late last week, Vladimir Putin went all-in and executed the brazen geopolitical move of transporting nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea north of Poland that’s surrounded by NATO countries.
As I told you on Friday, the Kremlin’s deployment of Iskander missiles, what NATO calls SS-26s, into Kaliningrad is a direct challenge to the Atlantic Alliance, since it puts all of Poland and the Baltic republics into range for a sudden nuclear strike. An Iskander’s flight time from Kaliningrad to Warsaw is just two minutes, so NATO would functionally have no warning.
In military terms, this is a game-changer for the Baltic region. Politically, it’s deeply destabilizing too. It’s nothing less than a regional version of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Moscow placing nuclear missiles close to the Western camp for strategic advantage.

Our allies are just a little concerned, to paraphrase Bob Uecker:



Seriously, the countries in the region that are our allies and are now within range of these nuclear capable missiles are a little worried, to say the least:

Poland and Estonia expressed concerns Saturday that Russia has moved nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missiles into Kaliningrad, a Russian region on the Baltic Sea, with one official saying Russia appears eager to dominate that body of water.
Russia, meanwhile, says the missiles are being deployed as part of regular military maneuvers to Kaliningrad.
The development comes amid heightened tensions between Russia and the West over Syria.
"It seems to me that this is yet another step in the general context of escalation that we see, at least in rhetoric," said outgoing Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, according to Estonian broadcaster ERR. Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said Poland considers the matter of "highest concern" and is monitoring the situation.

We -- and by we, I mean the administration in general and the so-called president in particular -- have not even publicly mentioned that the Russians have made this highly provocative move. Warsaw, one of our closest allies, now is 20 minutes away from a nuclear strike, and we can't even be bothered to pretend the move even took place, much less that the threat is real. It doesn't have to be a nuclear warhead to destabilize the region. The mere threat of a nuclear strike is enough -- as would be an actual conventional-warhead missile strike. Russia has always viewed Poland as a vassal state. Russia fucking invaded Ukraine, toward which it has always taken a similar view, and we did nothing. Think Poland or the Balkans are feeling safe right now?

Emperor Barry the Lame apparently is determined to make Aethelred the Unready look good.

Goodbye UK, hello Poland

Poland has been busting it in recent months as a source of Eff You visitors. Last night, Poland kicked the United Kingdom out of the all-time Eff You Top 10 list, nailing down the No. 10 spot that the U.K. and Latvia have been playing takeaway with. The U.K. retook the 10 spot a couple months ago, but no more. I guess the U.K. needs to up its count of internet searches for "porn" and "hot naked babes." Eff You doesn't actually feature these topics. but we sure get a kick out of using the words. Traffic is traffic, kids.

Feeling the love from Poland

And Polish isn't even one of the 10 languages in which I used to be able to order a beer and ask where the bathroom is. Nonetheless, Poland is driving our traffic today here at Eff You, running only slightly behind U.S. visitors. Must be because I love kielbasa so much. Certainly it couldn't be because of my use of the phrase, "smoking hot naked Polish chicks," because I just used that for the first time in this sentence. And I hope it helps drive even more visitors here from Poland.

Also, Happy 75th Anniversary of Germany Invading Poland to Start World War II Day

Not sure if anybody calls it that. I didn't call it "Krauts Invading Poland" out of deference to Germany being the third-most-frequent visitor to this blog, although I think it's just spambots seeking porn and so no one would be offended. But I digress.

Seventyfive years ago today, on September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland and started World War II with Operation Fall Weiss. The last Polish forces, overwhelmed by a German invasion from the west followed shortly by a Soviet invasion from the east, surrendered on October 6, 1939. It was the beginning of a long, shitty period in Polish history, with the Nazi occupation followed by the Soviet occupation from 1945 through 1989 or so.

Today, Polish and German leaders gathered to mark the 75th anniversary:

German President Joachim Gauck is to join his Polish counterpart, Bronislaw Komorowski , on the Westerplatte peninsula in Gdansk on Monday, for the main ceremony to mark the beginning of World War II.
The two heads of state are to place candles at the graves of soldiers who lost their lives in the battle that marked the outbreak of the war, before laying a wreath at the memorial to the defenders of the Polish coast at Westerplatte.
. . .
The fighting began in the early hours of September 1, 1939, when the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired on the Polish fort of Westerplatte. The first battle of the Second World War quickly ensued.
The attack on Poland by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime led Britain and France to declare war on Germany two days later.

Get ready for a lot of these anniversaries. Just because the U.S. didn't enter the war for more than two years doesn't mean it wasn't going on. It was. And with what Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine, anybody who thinks it could never happen again is whistling in the wind.

Damn if we don't have some Poland

Got our first visitor from Poland a little bit ago. Poland, while famous mostly for getting curb-stomped by the Germans in 1939, is, of course, the birthplace of the late Pope John Paul II. Poland, as I'm sure the erudite readers of Eff You are aware, is bordered east and west by Ukraine and Germany, with a couple small countries like Lithuania, Belarus, and the Czech Republic scattered around it as well. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1065, and the current Republic of Poland was formed in 1989 in 1989 when the Poles told the Soviet Union to fuck off. In between, Poland was batted around by various European powers and generally had a hard time of it. The great astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, was a Pole.

Interestingly, Poland retains much of the wildlife that the rest of Europe killed off centuries ago:

Many animals that have since died out in other parts of Europe still survive in Poland, such as the wisent in the ancient woodland of the Białowieża Forest and in Podlaskie. Other such species include the brown bear in Białowieża, in the Tatras, and in the Beskids, the gray wolf and the Eurasian Lynx in various forests, the moose in northern Poland, and the beaver in Masuria, Pomerania, and Podlaskie.
In the forests, one also encounters game animals, such as red deer, roe deer and wild boars. In eastern Poland there are a number of ancient woodlands, like Białowieża forest, that have never been cleared by people. There are also large forested areas in the mountains, Masuria, Pomerania,Lubusz Land and Lower Silesia.
Poland is the most important breeding ground for European migratory birds. Out of all of the migratory birds who come to Europe for the summer, one quarter breed in Poland, particularly in the lake districts and the wetlands along the Biebrza, the Narew, and the Warta, which are part of nature reserves or national parks.

For those who don't know, this is a wisent:

Looks a hell of a lot like an American bison, doesn't it?

There's lots more interesting stuff about Poland, but this isn't a foreign cultures blog, except when it is. Anyway, visitor from Poland, welcome to the Eff You family, and bring your friends next time.