History / Why are Jews pestering Poland for "proper" WW2 monetary restitution/reparations? [750]

According to an older co-worker the brutal savagery of the Ustasha even grossed out the nazis.... that is an achievement of sorts.

Feedback / Will this forum be available in Europe if Article 13 passes? [30]


Or course I know the real Irish (for lack of a better word) aren't responsible for the division and I think brexit is a great chance to tell the inbred scots to get used to living in the united Poblacht na hÉireann or swim back to scotland (assuming they'd be taken back, which is I guess not so obvious....)


you realize of course that creators are almost never the copyright holders, don't you?

Feedback / Will this forum be available in Europe if Article 13 passes? [30]


The job of the government is to act on the expressed will of the population (where not prohibited by binding laws) and not to protect the citizenry from themselves.


Oileán amháin tír amháin!... solved! You're very welcome! United Ireland forever!

Getting back to Article 13, I think the biggest difference between our positions is that you inherently trust EU institutions and I'm always a bit skeptical (of course I trust you, but I'm going to count the change anyway!)

And again, Article 13 is not in response to any problem expressed by the citizenry so no need for the EU to act at all....

Feedback / Will this forum be available in Europe if Article 13 passes? [30]


It's actaully a perfect example of what happens when the government is so divorced from the people that it can't understand the most basic of messages and thus cannot implement the people's will no matter how clearly expressed.

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]

Is it just kind of outisde and in back of the museum? I was with a group of schoolkids on a field trip and we stopped there and it looks a bit familiar...

Does it have a series of figures that kind of come out of the wall and parade by? (or am I confusing it with somewhere around Licheń?)

Feedback / Will this forum be available in Europe if Article 13 passes? [30]


She is not going out gracefully and seems to be determined to leave as many stink bombs behind her as possible.... not that I'd expect anything else by now. She did an okay job years ago but is long past her due date and is in position to only do damage by now.


Exactly, this is not in response to any expressed need by EU citizens (quite the opposite).

Feedback / Will this forum be available in Europe if Article 13 passes? [30]

Actually the negotiations have been going on behind closed doors and many report that supposedly exempt sites won't be exempt at all.... None of the information that I've found is reassuring at all on that front.


Germans are mostly pretty smart, so I'm not surprised. But it's a testament that the EU keeps on persisting with this.... thing despite overwhelming citizen opposition (at least among those who understand what it could do...)

One of the big problems of the EU is that it often gets the idea that it needs to do something when the best response is to just sit there.

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]


Is it a funeral or coffin portrait? I saw a museum exhibition with them some years ago and it seems a bit similar....

My first answer was going to be that it was Vlad the Impaler's fail son, Ivan the Poker, known for the way he jabbed his index finger in people's chests when he was talking to them...

Travel / Visiting the Polish Balitic Sea coast in the Winter [30]

I wrote in a hurry and that should be:
"He thinks" instead of "He think" and "who's" rather than "whose" (I am literate and I only use non-standard verb agreement for humorous or other effect)

Travel / Visiting the Polish Balitic Sea coast in the Winter [30]


For me, like many Americans in Poland, my first contact with... unsifted British people in terms of behavior and langauge was in Poland (they act very differently in the US) and for me, like many Americans in Poland the impression was not.... overly positive (to be a little diplomatique...)

My pet peeve used to be the way they would react to my extremely American language they would often.... I dunno.... correct? me...

Me: I think the parking lot's closed.
Brit: Oh.... you mean the CAAAR PAAARK? (loud and slow as if modelling the word for a child)

Me: He think he left his pick at the party....
Brit: P-p-pick?
Me: You know, to play the guitar... (mimes strumming a guitar while holding a pick)
Brit: Oh.... we call that a "Pleeeeccctrruuummm" (gives me a look like they want me to repeat the word)

Anymore I only really have weekly contact with one British person (whose very sane and is fluent in Polish) so I don't know if they still do that...

Study / What do Poles think of a foreign person who tries to learn Polish [47]

In Poland most Polish people like it when foreigners learn the language (if they stay in the country long enough without doing so the reaction is definitely negative). Language is the absolute key for foreigners to be able to thrive and those who neglect it end up ranting and raving about everything and turn into bitter miserable wrecks until they end up leaving.

Outside of Poland they don't think about it much one way or the other (or might be a bit bemused).

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


I've never heard of a single Pole who actually believed it wasn't the Soviets - there were things said in public, but even during my first visit (1980s) I was told it was the Soviets. I know of no evidence that Poles ever believed anything else...

Life / Poles against gay marriages. Really? [120]

I've noticed in recent years that some male students who are gay are pretty matter of factly out (I'm sure there are still some closet cases but openly gay students who don't make a big deal out of it are certainly a welcome innovation).

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


Where were you when the commission was up and running? Why did they overlook your valuable testimony?

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

This is an old organizational trick, many organizations keep a few bumblers around instead of firing them because they can used to head projects that the PTB want to fail.

"We tried, we put Bob Slobb, one of our best men* on it, but there was just no way to make it work... too bad"

"one of our best men" is often code for:he's an incompetent boob but we don't want him to know what we think of him"

The Smolensk commission was organized to fail (while keeping some low information voters riled up). But it failed to even keep the rabble in a sufficient state of arousal and that's when JK pulled the plug.

News / Ultra nationalist protest at death camp in Poland - serious mistake? [146]


huh? when? not during the PRL and afterward the Polish government has always been ambivalent towards Vietnamese migrants/immigrants (who are not really a source of labor since they mostly come to Poland to do business and not look for work)


No European country has a good track record when it comes to getting muslim residents into official paid employment - there's not enough respect for secular education or secular institutions and heavy cultural pressure to keep women from working (which translates into high unemployment) Turks fare better than Arabs or Kurds but it's a slow horse race....

News / Ultra nationalist protest at death camp in Poland - serious mistake? [146]


Putin can't do that until oil prices rise... I forget what the floor is but his actions track that closely. Why do you think he's so fanatic in supporting the socialist murderer Maduro?

Any revival of the phony baloney 'Novorossija' project would be terrible for Poland...

News / Poland exports 60 million tonnes of meat annually.. but.. [11]


That is a problem and one not helped by the prevailing CW that labor costs should be immune to the normal forces of supply and demand. Find a single government in the EU that isn't maniacally devoted to keeping labor costs as low as possible (maybe Finland?)

There is also the legacy of communism and other totalitarian systems of the past (still). there were so many dysfunctional and/or irrational rules that many Polish people no longer can tell the difference between needed safety regulations and nonsense rules that serve no purpose...

Most people have no earthly idea of where meat comes from of course. I have relatives in the cattle business (in the US) and what used to be the case there was 'three eyed cows (industry slang for animals unfit for consumption but not contagious) were kept with the herd and slaughtered with them (and then the carcass was removed form the food chain) as that was cheaper and easier than trying to separate them out earlier.

Law / Poland's Law: Paying Back Money Instead of Criminal Prosecution [3]


There was a similar situation a few years ago at my workplace... a member of office staff had been stealing (using pass key to get into locked offices and taking money from purses).

A trap was set, this person fell into it but... not much happened besides them not working there anymore. I heard rumors that the person had 'protection' from above and there was an agreement to pay back some money in exhange for dropping it but then... the documents they'd used to get the job were fake... and then someone saw them in town and wanted to call police and they weren't interested...

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

as the ottomans, how they did it....

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


someone's gonna have to fire on those anit-austerity protests, after all... (I'm not the only one to think that's the end game)

Study / Expat kids in schools in Poland [77]

Parents who want to homeschool are usually abusive narcissistic control freaks who don't realize their children are separate individuals and often inflict lifelong damage in a sick effort to micromanage their lives...

homeschoolersanonymous.org/2015/12/14/the-battle-of-peer-dependency-part-1/

No to homeschooling!

Study / Expat kids in schools in Poland [77]


You might be surprised... IME students from Szczecin are far less likely to have had German in school than in other large cities (I've even had more than one student from Świnoujście who knew not a word of Germany and had never been tempted to cross the nearby border...

On the other hand, some people here are trying to make Polish schools seem as violent and disorderly and anti-German as possible for their own reasons (they're not against immigration but they don't like values-based immigration if those values are European...)


IME Polish people don't much are about Trump one way or the other... they're more....bemused than anything else.

Study / Expat kids in schools in Poland [77]

So.... now you're re-evaluating your behavior at school?

Study / Expat kids in schools in Poland [77]


because spitting on a bleeding person is bad luck?

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

So Tusk and Putin conspired to kill a political rival... to grab the mostly powerless office of president or Poland?

The Polish system is a bad compromise between a traditional parliamentary system in which the PM is the main player and American (and other?) pressure for a presidential system (which usually backfires, but that's another issue)

The only really active president since 1989 was Lech Wałęsa who lost after one term for his troubles, all those since have contented themselves with mostly being figurheadish figures who occasionally veto something...

Study / Expat kids in schools in Poland [77]

That's hardly the most ringing (or confidence inspiring) endorsement I've ever read...

Study / Expat kids in schools in Poland [77]

when 8 year olds aren't getting stabbed and told to suck it up....

thegatewaypundit.com/2018/11/8-year-old-german-girl-bullied-and-stabbed-by-arab-child-at-school-teacher-makes-her-stay-in-class-until-school-day-ends-video/

In Germany this was covered by Sat1 a very mainstream broadcaster....

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


Okay, now you're talkin' crazy. Why would there be a conspiracy to eliminate a not very popular president who was all but certain to lose an election in a couple of months?

If you want me to believe in a conspiracy I need a realistic motive...