News / Microsoft Poland whitens a black face in its advert [130]

Here are some more flubs besides Microsoft's:

abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=8425991

Life / Culture Shock Since Moving to Poland - Anybody Dealt With This Before? [52]

Winter depression? You might have SAD - seasonal affective disorder.

You may want to try light therapy. It works for some people.

Travel / Tatry Mountains Poland / First Snow [29]

It would have been nice to enjoy the snow for a little bit, but frankly, I'd rather have the beach and sunshine. :-)

Travel / Visiting Warsaw: [Travel Video] Days One, Two and Three (Now Complete) [30]

Sweet! I thoroughly enjoyed this video.

Food / Polish food is making me fat [49]

Well, my wife does pretty well cooking. The problem is that we are both busy, so we normally just end up eating frozen food or a Subway sandwich. It's really nice to have her mom over and cook for us. Heck, she also cleans the house some more even though we told her to just relax and watch some TV Polonia.

Tonight she made some really nice soup with parsley, carrots, potatoes, and some meatballs. She also poured a little cream into the soup, so that made it taste pretty good.

History / Katyn - the Polish movie [29]

Does anyone have an English subtitle to this movie? The other half does not like translating while watching the movie.

USA, Canada / New USA visa regulations [19]


If your famous around the world, shouldn't your story be making headlines by now?

I really doubt the US would be kicking a world famous physicist out of the country. In fact, I know of other not-so world famous colleagues in engineering research who were granted permission to stay in the country permanently solely because of what their minds had to offer.

USA, Canada / Health care, USA is messed up what about your country? [33]

A totally free healthcare system is not good as well as a totally privatized system. In my opinion, the best system is a hybrid between the two. I believe the government should provide free coverage for preventative care, health screenings, some medicines, etc. Partial coverage should be offered for the other stuff. The rest should be covered by private insurance that is affordable to everyone. There should also be a subsidized form of extra insurance for the people who truly can't afford it.

If preventative care is given to everyone, then many will be able to take actions against diseases or ailments that may haunt them in the future. Really, preventative care is just a re-enforcement of healthy living. If a person really gets sick, then government subsidized insurance and private insurance kicks in.

There also needs to be changes in the laws that govern medical practice. Part of the reason why so many operations and medicines are expensive is due to costs associated with liabilities brought by malpractice suits. There should also be some form of tax credit given to R&D companies that bring about new medicine or technologies. These firms also suffer from copy-cat competition that offer an unbranded form of their products at a much lower price.

Life / Please help me find this Polish song (moja droga ja Cie kocham)! [15]


Wow! The YouTube user who posted that video has some other interesting Polish videos. I'm a sucker for other cultures' music videos. It's a great insight tool.

Law / Under contract to teach and fraud, is there a fine to leave Poland? [35]

I don't understand why you contacted the Polish authorities first. In my opinion, you should have gone to the US embassy and find out what kind of assistance they offer to US citizens. Heck, if you're lucky, you might be able to hitch a free ride with a C130 back to the US.

Life / Do Poles believe in supernatural stories? [14]


Normally, the closer you are to the rural areas (e.g. isolated mountain regions) the better the stories. For some reason, city folks are too busy to experience the supernatural. However, common among the city folks, there have been stories about a manifestation of the baby Jesus showing up to help people especially during January.


Whats gendarmes?

In my search for some Polish movie titles that has some supernatural theme, I only found imdb.com/title/tt0089823/. The main character's name is Dupah. Then, again I don't think I'm searching for the right terms.

Life / Threadmill Bicycle - popular in Poland? [7]


As far as momentum will take you... Many of the courses that I've seen have a slight downwards slope. I guess that this ball is tricky to roll going up unless you've already built up some speed.

Life / Threadmill Bicycle - popular in Poland? [7]

It will mostly be used for a novelty sport similar to Zorbing. The great thing about this is that you can easily jump off the threadmill bike compared to a traditional bike.

Life / Threadmill Bicycle - popular in Poland? [7]

Someone said that it is the stupidest invention ever. But I think it has some potential.

USA, Canada / 12/10/07 The Days Hotel Boulder, CO is having an early WIGILIA 12/13 [5]

I wish there was a similar event in Tampa. Well, at least, the in-laws just sent us some Oplatek in the mail.

USA, Canada / US Citizen Marrying a Polish Citizen [17]


After you get married, file the necessary immigration forms (e.g. Form I-485) to switch her status from J-1 to Pending. While she is in the Pending status, she is allowed to stay in the country until her application is either denied or approved. However, she cannot leave the country during this waiting period unless you file an emergency leave form or until she gets her conditional green card.

NOTE: I am not a lawyer, so don't take what I'm saying as legal advice.

USA, Canada / Green Card Marriage ad leads to arrest [18]


I actually heard of a related story. A lady marries a guy and tricks him into thinking that their relationship was real. After marriage, the lady starts acting in a manner that causes a lot of frustration in their relationship. She files for abuse and gets some sort of an amnesty.


I have been seeing a lot of PolishForums.com post show up in my Google searches. I'm not sure how long Google stores that information in their system, but it is scary to know that any posting could be stored in another location for a long time.

USA, Canada / 2008 U.S. Presidential Election according to Polish and foreign people [90]


I really like Ron Paul's stance on many issues. He is one of the only candidates who oppose the war in Iraq, and he is really getting a lot of people interested in his cause. The question is: well he win in the Republican primary?

USA, Canada / Green Card Marriage ad leads to arrest [18]

I remember that one thread on this forum asking for the same thing. There was also another topic where the guy was an illegal alien having a relationship with a Polish girl. I think he was from Mexico.

The point is some people feel comfortable to share their plight to break the law in terms of immigration. They really need to watch out what they are saying.

Life / Why are Poles attracted to animals? [53]


Didn't I ask in my first post if "bestiality" was a Polish word? ;-) You guys/gals could have easily answered that it could have been "bastiality" and that would have ended it.

Well, off to Google Trends to do some more fun searches. Btw, did you know Ireland is fond of searching for "polish girls" followed by the UK? However, "polish men" are not getting enough search volumes. I guess the men have a lot of catching up to do. :-)

Life / Why are Poles attracted to animals? [53]


You can only know for sure if you do extensive research and survey. However, I doubt anyone will admit to the fact that they are actually searching for bestiality. Since you are in Poland, try asking around in the streets. Or better yet, contact a local anthropologist and ask if they have done any current survey or research related to the subject.


Google Trends specifically only works for certain search terms. For example, if you search for bestialite, bestialiti, bestialitee, or even bestialstwo, you will get no results. Plus, if the search volume for a specific term is low, Google will not display it.

This is how Google explains their Language ranking:


So, you see, Region or city data is not as meaningful without including the language ranking. If Google Trends just shows region and city data, then it's possible that an IP address from Germany or Czech Republic could be mistaken as a Polish IP address.

Also, even if one person is searching for the same term over and over again, it will not put Poland's ranking at #2 since that data is compared to all other search data from that specific region. In other words, the number of searches for bestiality is compared with all the other searches for any subject in that specific region.


Probably so, but I wonder why this specific search term. Poland is the last place on Earth that I expected to show up in the search results. The possible answers for this is infinite. For instance, maybe a visiting professor of psychology visited a local university and discussed about humans and animals. The term was mentioned in the lecture and it spread via word of mouth. Or maybe a popular song or movie had a phrase that sounded like "bestiality" and thus, many Poles tried to spell it out phonetically. The bottom line is that it is difficult to know at the moment. But the curiosity is there.


This is probably the best explanation. One could easily misspell bestiality with bastiality. I for one do this sometimes when I search for Polish; at times, I end up typing Polosh.

Life / Why are Poles attracted to animals? [53]

I believe I would have gotten the same response if I were to title it "Why is Poland #2 in bestiality searches on Google?". How else would you describe a person searching for bestiality? Besides the fact that a person like that is most likely sick in the head, I would say that a person searching for that phrase either enjoys looking at humans co-mingling with animals. The attraction of looking at a taboo subject of humans and animals is there. Hence, the question: Why are Poles attracted to animals?... or for your clarification Why is Poland attracted to animals?.

This is not a generalization. It is simply stating the data that there is a majority of users in Poland searching for this term. And why they know of such a term is another curiosity. Couple that with the fact that Poland does not have such a high foreign in-flow compared to other countries in the list, then there is a high probability that (without knowing additional data) a majority of the searches came from Poles.

Look at the Google Trends results once again. Which city is #9 on the list? Chicago, IL, USA. What is Chicago's connection to Poland? Many know the answer to that question. But to jump to that fact is a generalization on the subject, so lets leave that off. However, look at the Languages section. Which language is #1? It is Polish followed by Italian and French. This is simply Google's way of saying that most of the searches came from their localized website: Google.pl, Google.fr, and Google.it, which suggests a familiarity of the native language.

I am in no way trying to sensationalize this subject. I'm simply pointing out the results. Since I've been a member in this forum, I've read a lot of good things about Poland. I also have my own praises of the country and culture after my vacation there. I don't see why a bilateral view of Poland cannot be discussed here. I say talk about the good and bad.