News / Roman Polanski accused of unlawful sex with a minor [403]


Let's ask the grandfather of all knowledge, the wiki elders

"Polanski pleaded guilty to the charge of "Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a minor"

aka "statutory rape" a 13 year old girl cannot legally consent to sexual activity (maybe in France....)

For the record, I don't think he should be extradited to the US, but I see no reason for him to ever set foot out of France. He raped in in his bed, let him sleep in it.

News / Roman Polanski accused of unlawful sex with a minor [403]


Perhaps this is just meant to be a message: Stay out of Poland, you filthy child rapist! Stay in your country that supports child rapists!

News / Roman Polanski accused of unlawful sex with a minor [403]

Does Polański actually maintain Polish citizenship? Dual nationals are required to enter and exit Poland on Polish documents only (kind of moot since Schengen).

But generally dual citizenship doesn't apply when the person is in one of their countries of citizenship (how it generally works in practice no matter what the laws say).

I think Polański is an above average film artist (not great but above average), a loathesome human being and if he never sets foot in Poland again it'll be too soon. The French want him? Fine he can stay there for eternity. There's no reason whatsoever for him to travel internationally.

And I'm pretty sure the Americans really don't want him, it's more or less common knowledge that Hollywood is full of pedophilic and other sexual predators and I'm sure he knows where some bodies are buried (I mean that literally).

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


That's a litany, for each one in a single sentence explain who was trying to get what/or had gotten what how.

For example:

Watergate: The President's staff was trying to get information about their opposition by illegal surveilance.
Rywingate: Rywin asked for a bribe (presumably in the name of the ruling party) to have a law changed.

That kind of thing. In my experience if a scandal can't be summed up neatly and succintly then it's ... not.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


You're complaining that PO is a political party.

Give me one sentence summaries of these 'scandals' .... (if it can't be summarized in one sentence it's not a scandal).

And do you really think PiS is going to deliver on all its promises?

The same old tired faces is a good point (but I notice a lot of JK on the tv recently). I hope that's not going to be a daily occurence.

Work / Poland seeking more natural English speakers [54]


My original claim was based on someone who told me he'd been homeless in the UK (after his business failed) and then trained (as part of a government program) to be an English teacher. I haven't had contact with this person for many years.

Another one strongly hinted at coming to Poland after being homeless in the UK and a couple more displayed typical behavior patterns of people who had been homeless (according to someone who had done social work with homeless people).

None of them were stupid or illiterate but they didn't really..... thrive in Poland.


They are country specific, the most extreme left wing policies in the US would be moderate right in Europe (and they don't work at all for Poland).

Life / Halloween or Andrzejki - which is more popular in Poland? [14]

A few bits and piece of Halloweenalia can be found here and there, but there's no widespread popularity or any signs that it will become more popular.

In terms of American Halloween (my favorite holiday as a child) helicopter parents seemed to have ruined it for kids, going around in the day and hovering over their poor offspring every second. When I was a kid there is no way we'd trick or treat in the day or allow our parents to be too close.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]

Just watching Brudziński on tvn24 doing a singularly unconvincing job of dispelling rumors that Szydło will be pushed aside. Anyone who knows politics would assume from listening to her that the decision has already been made....

True to PiS form he's managing to make it sound like PiS are an endangered minority threatened by ominous forces......


to him, sorry for misgendering you Panie Joachimie!

Work / Poland seeking more natural English speakers [54]


One person (who was educated but had fallen on hard times after losing his business) claimed that was his case. A few others I've known definitely seemed like they could have come from similar backgrounds.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


For a self-described patriot you sure do dislike an awful lot of the population of the real country Poland (and not the fantasy construct in your head).

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


I'm hoping they do go it alone, that way they either own their success or failure and not be able to blame it on anyone (ha ha ha ha, like they won't blame other people no matter what happens.... I slay me)


When did they say anything about creating jobs? They're about big government handouts, not job creation.

Work / Poland seeking more natural English speakers [54]


IIRC the UK had a scheme (as they call it) to export homeless people as English teachers (I knew one person that ended up in Poland for that reason and another one or two I suspected). I'm talking more about people with some level of education.


Of course. I can explain Polish grammar to learners far better than most natieve speakers of Polish can. Someone teaching a foreign language needs a type of conscious knowledge that natives don't need.

Work / Poland seeking more natural English speakers [54]


The problem is that it's also still an ethnic language (with distinct native varieties used by different language communities) and it's essentially impossible to serve the interests of native speakers and non-native speakers equally well.

For native speakers their variety is a core part of their identity (and they will be more interested in aesthetic and/or expressive features of usage) while non-native speakers it's a tool that they don't have much emotional attachment to and as long as some grammar book or standardized test says it's okay then it's fine.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


As long as they're not living and paying taxes in Poland it doesn't mean much. People with no direct experience of a PiS government are very much in favor of them.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


That too, but there's basically nothing PiS can do to improve those situations. PO was complacent and lazy (like any long ruling party) so a change is on schedule but PiS's economic policy is voodoo and smoke and mirrors and is bound to fail.

If you want to create jobs, look at countries that are good at creating jobs and try to figure out how they do it. What country in western europe is good at creating jobs?

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


I'm hoping that's a joke, the idea of anyone that spent more than 10 minutes listening to him voting for him is..... not reassuring.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Here's an offer. Move to Poland and live here! If you don't you don't really support PiS after all......

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Oh definitely, PO's association with the EU and Merkel was absolutely toxic.

I think PiS might not be too bad if they can keep the old guard out and let the younger (comparatively) generation take over.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Not if you live in Poland it doesn't. The most fervent PiS supporters here have never actually lived while a PiS government was in power.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


For Poland that's actually pretty high.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]

It looks like PiS will be governing on its own and Kaczyński's first speech is mostly about dead people and revenge.

We'll see how long this lasts.

News / Poland directly threatened by ISIS. Do Islamists planning terrorist attacks in Poland? [390]


Has it always been this way or is this primarily the fruits of the Grand Mosque seizure in 1979? It's an event that people largely forget about but it seems in retrospect to have changed the course of the kingdom from (very, very slow and gradual) modernization to ever more harsh retrograde enforcement of religious rule and attempts (too successful) to export their peculiar version of Islam.

As recently as the 1960s most Muslim intellectuals were in favor of westernization (to some degree or other) and that seems to have changed so radically (and not for the better).

I'm hoping against hope that Tunisia can hold it together (despite the sabotage coming from the peninsula) and become a real functioning democracy (which would be a first in the Arab world).

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


The first is that there's a charisma gap among the leaders and the second is they are partly a victim of success. It's the old story, improving economic conditions don't make people happy they make them impatient for faster development.

There's also the perceived corruption of PO (though most of it seems more based on accusations than proof, and PiS will certainly not be any better if Duda's travel is anything to go by).

The question is will the old guard let the new guard take over or will they be pushed aside for the toxic delusions of the party elders. The success of PiS will largely depend on keeping the older generation on ice.

And.... I think collectively the Polish public is starting to check out on the whole EU idea (Kaczyński needs to send a big bouquet of roses to Merkel for helping him out so much) it seems like it could soon become more trouble than it's worth. I don't think there's massive anti-EU feelings yet but people are kind of ..... cooled on the idea, especially now that many have gotten a first hand look at the state of western europe.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Polish people want structure and predictability (in a world that's too rapidly losing both).


None, though they may cancel a program or two and reinstate it under a different name.

News / Should recent arrivals to Poland, such as Syrian migrants, be required to learn Polish? [10]

Of course all longterm residents they should start learning as soon as they arrive and keep at it until they are at least around b1 or b2 levels (or can deal with the bureaucracy on their own without personal translators).

English is nothing more (and hopefully will never be more) than a useful foreign language in Polish and it's not enough to thrive (or do much more than barely survive) unless a lot of money is splashed around.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Zandberg has been really kept out of the media in favor of Kukiz.....

HAve you actually seen anything he said in the debate rebroadcast? I haven't. Kukiz? Yeah, Korwin-Mikke? Yeah. Zandberg? Big ole nic.

Classifieds / Coming to Poznan in December - Looking for some girl in Christmas times [33]

Hello I'm a lovelier younger Polish girl just 21. I'd love to meet an Indian man and learn about Indian culture but my doctor just told me I have a serious illness. It turns out I'm highly oversexed and I might not be able to pay attention sufficiently to what you say about Indian culture and I might not let you see anything of my town apart from my bedroom (but at least I'm very, very rich so my bedroom is very large).

If I could only remember me phone number I'd tell you to call.... too bad.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Exactly, but you wrote 'seen', every person who's spent more than a few hours in Warsaw in the last twenty years has seen blacks or vietnamese or arabs.

I agree that a large majority doesn't really interact with them.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]

The idea that most Polish people have never seen anyone different from them is nonsense. This means the majority of Polish people have never been in one of the ten or so biggest cities in Poland where there are small but visible minorites.

It's true the most Polish people have no close acquaintance with non-Poles but that's a different question. I know a number of non-Westerners and none of them complain about open hostility as anything but a pretty rare occurence (yes, I know it happens, but it's not like it's a routine daily experience).

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


I'm not an expat, and I don't mingle with the rich. I live in a working class neighborhood in Poznań next to a deska and some probably pre-war buildings. And I have regular direct contact with people living in villages (and used to be in daily contact with one of the poorest populations in Poland).

Yeah, a lot of people are in precarious positions (and some are really desperate) but I'm not registering the horrific conditions (80 % desperate poverty) that you are, maybe your standards are too high..... I dunno. I have noticed greater levels of stratification in Warsaw than in western Poland where I live.

I understand that people have had it with PO (for mostly good reasons) but I don't think PiS is going to do anything for them (and PiS economic ideas could lead to real damage and an increase in the precarious class - what motivation will PiS have to improve things if that means voters being less dependent on them?)