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Kim Chong-il Look at Things plagiarized
Someone in the Czech Republic is evidently well aware of the success of the website entitled Kim Chong-il Looking at Things. So they created its Czech analogy which follows the public appearances of the Governor of the South Moravian Region, Michal Hasek. Pure immitation, if not plagiarism. There is a Czech saying “A repeated joke is not funny“, sorry, guys (I think I know at least one author of this website).
Video chat: when Czech pornographers lie
Since the global crisis started, students have had big problems finding temporary after-school jobs because companies have been laying off people and if they really do need part-timers, they will offer these jobs either to former employees or to their children. Among the companies which are hiring students on a continuous basis are videochat/livechat studios. Their banners and advertising boards can even be seen at the biggest public transportation intersection in Brno – at the main train station. According to a companies directory at the Seznam.cz portal there are about ten of them in Brno, and slightly more in Prague.
There are two interesting things about this type of business.
One, the form of advertising. The banners feature a smiling 20-something girl and a slogan along the lines of “Do you want to make your dreams come true and be independent?” I really do not think that any Czech woman dreams about dirty webcam talk with complete strangers in a foreign country. Evidently the whole concept of independence is based on possible earnings. Some employers claim to offer as much as CZK 50,000 per month (EUR 2,000).
Two, the employers try to convince job applicants that the servers are not accessible from the Czech Republic (e.g.: http://www.r-models.cz/index.php?page=koho_hledame&language=en), which means no friends, family members or neighbors will accidentally meet them during a videochat session. Of course, this can be true. However, videochat girls have their own discussion forum where they voice their concern about privacy, or lack thereof. Some employers often join the discussion and say that working for an American website means that foreign IP addresses are blocked. This issue is particularly important in the case of nude chats.
What the pornographers (not all of them are, let’s say many of them) do not say (and there have been several scandals in the Czech Republic when a certain starlet’s past got revealed this way) is that any session can be recorded and uploaded onto just any server where it can be found by a Czech porn lover. Just like when Czech porn stars work for a foreign producer who claims that the videos are only sold in the United States and not Europe. Of course, American customers like to grab videos from DVD’s or paysites and share them on the Internet with the rest of the world. Several Czech men who are somewhat famous (e.g. a BigBrother contestant or a son of the Mayor of a certain Czech town) found out the hard way because they had worked for a U.S. company and the videos eventually surfaced in the Czech Republic.
The Czech government has recently started amending Czech tax laws in an attempt to improve the state budget income from taxes and the legalization of prostitution was among the issues discussed. Some MP’s of the governing Civic Democrats support it, some don’t. They would like the taxes, but they do not want the state to be the pimp.
Firefighters without high school diploma fired
Some time ago, men who wanted to be firefighters did not have to have a high school diploma, which is associated with the passing of a complex leaving examination. Due to some recent changes the qualification requirements have changed as well, so any prospective firefighter must have a high school diploma. The problem is that the conditions were changed retroactively to apply to all active men in the force. They were granted a grace period of ten years, during which they were obliged to “go back to school” to complete their secondary education. Many schools offer “evening” or “weekend” classes for this purpose because there are many adults who realize that they need to have the diploma. However, the firefighters who have failed to do so were fired on December 31, the Liberecky denik daily writes.
No school teaches split-second decisions. There are no classes in willingness to risk one’s life to save other people’s lives. There are men in the force who had been firemen for decades when they were laid off and the absence of their high school diploma has never been a problem. Yes, they saw it coming and they knew they had ten years to do something about it, so the fact that they had to leave did not come as a surprise. However, professional website Pozary.cz (Fires) tells a story of a firefighter who could not enroll and complete his secondary education because of family-related issues. Even though he wanted to. He had to leave the force after twenty years of service!
There are specific cases where retroactivity in law should apply (and it often does) and there are other cases where it is strictly forbidden and/or unconstitutional. The latter shall apply to professions like firemen. (Photo: Hasici Liberec)
Vaclav Klaus talks about the crisis
Czech President Vaclav Klaus talks to Croatian Globus Weekly about the financial crisis (translation into English posted on the website of the Office of the President of the Czech Republic.
VIDEO: Illegal fireworks detonated in downtown Brno
Czechs like to celebrate the start of a new year with fireworks. Every city has a few public places where people who have purchased fireworks like to gather and detonate their rockets and all kinds of other pyrotechnic devices. Many of these people are extremely dangerous because they do so while intoxicated. Just like these young men (and I think I can see one girl there) in Brno who are seen detonating an illegal device which can only be purchased by a licensed specialist. In addition, it can only be detonated in a special protective “bucket”.
The police are investigating the incident because these idiots could have seriously injured or killed bystanders. According to a January 1 police blotter paramedics were dispatched on December 31 to treat a 31-year old man who sustained serious injuries after a pyrotechnic device detonated in his hand. Of course, most of these devices can only be purchased by adults, but since “adult” means 18, which is the age of essentially all high school seniors, any kid can ask an older and irresponsible friend to make the purchase.
UPDATE Tuesday afternoon: The suspects have been identified thanks to testimonies by people who know the suspects personally. They were summoned to testify this afternoon. The public prosecutor will decide whether to prosecute them or not based on expert reports. If convicted, they may spend eight years in prison…
Czech town to fine clients of street prostitutes
The town of Chomutov, Czech Republic has had huge problems with street prostitution since the 1990’s. As of the first day of this year it has had a municipal ordinance in force, pursuant to which anyone caught soliciting a prostitute will pay a fine. Before the ordinance was adopted, only the street prostitutes could face fines if caught. Deputy Mayor of the city told a local daily newspaper that the city administration hopes the ordinance will discourage most potential clients and the women will disappear from the public streets and places. According to the ordinance, the soliciting of a prostitute is a misdemeanor “of a very sensitive nature” which is “investigated” by the municipal authority, i.e. something most men would prefer to avoid.
In addition, Chomutov Municipal Police decided in 2008 to publish photos of drivers soliciting roadside prostitutes near main roads, where doing so resulted in road rule violations and related problems. However, since the applicable law did not allow the immediate identification of the drivers (clients), this measure proved ineffective.
Most women in the Czech Republic who offer sex for money have their own tiny apartments (sometimes shared by more girls/women). Naturally, they pay no income taxes because there is no way of proving that their encounters with men actually constitute prostitution. Chomutov is near the Czech-German border where foreign truckers and German citizens were the most common clients of the local prostitutes. In the recent years, however, the demand for these services has decreased rapidly.
New book about Havel, 9 days after his death
Former Czech president Vaclav Havel died on December 18 at the age of 75. Nine days later, a first book about his life and “career” was published. A very thin book by Jiří Heřman and Michaela Košťálová was in stores today. It is a very thin biography containing mostly photographs from the Czech News Agency and a short high-school level text about Havel’s notable achievements and key points of his presidency. The authors added a short list of sources, just like students do in their term papers. The sources include news servers and other biographies. In other words, it is just a compilation of something other people have written. The interesting thing is that a disclaimer includes a sentence which says that the information in this book has been obtained at “publicly accessible news servers”. It does NOT say, however, that it was used with a prior consent of the respective authors.
More books are expected in the upcoming weeks.
Communist TV show on the day of Havel’s funeral?
Czech TV station TV Barrandov is known for airing pre-1989 communist TV shows. In today’s terms, they would be called TV drama series. Usually they tell a story of a prominent communist who has to deal with “everyday problems”, which include people who are not true communists. These shows were produced by an order of the pre-1989 party leadership which controlled everything. Twenty-one years after the Velvet Revolution, some people still live in the past, mistakenly believing that life was better back then. And they watch these programs, even though they glorify injustice, oppression, censorship etc.
On December 23, the day of the late Vaclav Havel’s funeral, the station aired one of the worst examples of the above, a series entitled Muz na radnici (A Man at the City Hall) despite the fact that three days ago Czech PM Petr Necas asked media to alter their program to reflect the three-day national mourning period and the funeral.
True, TV Barrandov did alter their program by observing the minute of silence at noon and by airing a special documentary. These two changes were “proudly” announced in a press release on Wednesday. The management had enough time to plan and implement one more change. It could have been Havel’s favorite movie… or just anything… but the commie show was aired anyway. It is like airing a terrorist flick on a 9/11 anniversary.
The Czech Daily Word 