News / UN threatens ''Poland's windows of life" [24]

NorthMancPolak
You're quite right on that score. If everyone was a Cahtolic that truly practised their faith, scrupulously obeying the 10 Commandments and 8 Beatitudes, all the world's ills would disappear!

News / Overcoming (or fostering) political hate speech in Poland? [15]

Merged: Talking heads on hate speech

The hate speech issue was raised and thrashed out by the participants of Sunday’s 'talking head' public-affairs shows. The main problem was defining hate speech, and depending on their political preferences, participants provided examples of slanderous and provocative language by representatives of different parties. The discussions were kicked off by film director Grzegorz Braun’s remark that things would improve in Poland only if a dozen Gazeta Wyborcza journalists and TVN reporters were shot. In a similar development, PAP on Sunday reported the Media Ethics Council as criticising former Polish Radio president Krzysztof Czabański for what he wrote on his blog. Czabański used the expression 'bold and pushy *******' to describe a number of leading liberal and left-leaning journalists whom he named. They inlcuded Tomasz Lis and Janina Paradowska.

News / UN threatens ''Poland's windows of life" [24]

The problem in Poland with adoptions is the red tape involved. However, international organisations insist it is necessary to prevent trafficking in babies and infant body parts. What a beautiful, 'modern', greedy, immoral and hyper-commercialised world we live in, innit!?

News / UN threatens ''Poland's windows of life" [24]

In Poland a woman can leave an unwanted newborn at the hospital where it was born, however, within 6 weeks she must appear in court and officially renounce her parental rights. Many women have qualms about doing so and prefer the window of life option. The flasher is only to alert the nuns that a baby has been left. Otherwise it might have to stay for a long time unnoticed.

Food / Sernik Wiedenski [15]

Use full-cream (pelnotlusty) twarog and either mince it fine in a mincer (manual ro electric) or sieve it. Philadelphia will make it taste like an American cheesecake, not a classic sernik.

News / Palikot - too liberal/modern for Poland? [197]

Merged: Palikot- Mr Hate Speech!

In an interview for Gazeta Wyborcza on Saturday Janusz Palikot, Poiland's 'Mr HAte Speech', said: “I’ve got to be boorish. If I said only wise things I would get only 4% support… I’ve got no choice. Otherwise we will be eternally doomed to Tusk and Kaczyński... I said we should shoot, gut and skin Kaczyński and sell his hide in the Majewski comedy show. But OK , I can retract it ." He added thta one of the things people have remembered the longest was that he once called justice min. Gowin a fag (ciota).

History / People the Soviets planted in Poland [75]


So why did he and his sidekicks keep denying it? He not only made it passive (they should be murdered) but actuallysaid 'if WE murdered', therefore including himself amongst the wannabe murderers. Just say you're sorry for the gaffe, slip of the tongue or getting away and be done with it.

News / PO-PiS again neck and neck [248]

Kaczyński's no fool, but he lost his cool over Smolensk. Perhaps permanently. There may be fools in his inner circle but there are also Brutuses just waiting with dagger in hand....

Life / How a Pole can contribute to the homeland? [27]

Some PolAms have sponsored young Poles (often cousins or otehr relatives) to come over here, study and/or acquire valubale job experience in America they can take back to the Old Country.

Life / You are Polish if... [433]

Merged: What does it mean to be Polish?

This University of Buffalo site raises an interesting question on Polish ethnic/national identity. Are you Polish becasue you speak the language, hold Polish citizenship, are Catholic or know how to dance the Kujawiak? Or maybe just feel Polish? What do you think?

info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/roots.html

Law / what is well-off in Poland [13]

I should think so, considering the average monthly wage is now around 3,000 złotys ($937), but the largest group of wage-earners are e closer to 1,500 - 2,000 zł a month.

Dunno if this arithmetic is right, but $800,000 translates into 2.5 million złotys, In a 5% account that should generate an annual gain of 125,000 złotys or more than 10,000 zł a month.

Food / How common GMO Food in Poland is? [25]

In theoryy yes, but nowadays scientists, academics and other 'authroiteis' can also be on the take in our hyper-commercial world. BTW. I was informed that Herbuś once said she would never do anything she wasn't paid for.

Food / How common GMO Food in Poland is? [25]

We are told this is the 'information society', but in many cases an apter term might be 'information buzz society'. The GMO issue is a good example. A farmer was shown on Poilish TV holding an ear of maize and showing where a pest (a certain species of caterpillar) had left a chew mark. According to him, eating such contaminated maize can even cause cancer, but the pest cannot thrive in GMO crops. At the same time celebrities Doda and Edyta Herbuś took part in yesty's Warsaw demo saying they would never feed GMO-contaminated food to their families. Today a prof. Golik (if I recall the name correctly) authoritatively stated that years of research had not produced a shred of evidence that GMO is harmful to people's health of the environment.

The point is the average person cannot be as botanist, entymologist, parasitologist, etc., so whom should he believe? This applies to many controversies, not only in the GMO, food and health fields.

Those churning out information and/or disinforamtion are mostly lobbyists, advertisers, PR experts, political agitators and others promoting some product or agenda. Unfortunately many media people are also on somebody's payroll.

Life / Czas honoru (Time of honoru) TV serial [38]

Tonight they showed the last instalment of the curent Czas Honoru series. It was a rather far-fetched plot about Polish ex-AK freedom-fighters outwitting and outshooting the NKVD in Warsaw. But still it's nice to see a poltical thriller set in Polish surroundings for a change instead fo all that banal Bondesque nonsense that surrounds us.

News / €80 billion for Poland new EU budget [166]

Someone on PF said that if the EU turned off the tap, Poland couldn't make a go of it. In that context an interesting and unusuallyl pro-Polish article appeared in

today’s German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. PAP quoted some excerpts which called Poland 'Germany’s strong neighbour' and France its 'weak neighbour'. The article refuted the claim that Poland got to where it is thanks to EU funds by saying that 'by 1995 Poland had trebled its real earnings and today EU funds account for only about one-seventh of the national budget... Over the past two centuries Poland’s dear neighbours prevented its development, but now Poles are doing what all Europeans do most eagerly – studying, working and buildings houses.” At the same time the paper referred to France as a country basking in its past achievements, but for quite some it hasn’t been doing too well in that department to mention only cafe au lait, democracy and unique-looking cars.'

Love / Polish couples living out of wedlock? [108]

Know of any country these days that is not a chaotic mess? Switrzerland? Liechtenstein? Certainly not Poland, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Mexico or the US!

News / Stiffer traffic rules in Poland? [32]

As I see it, speeding and tailgating (niezachowywanie odstępu) are the two main Polish offences.I won't mention drink-driving, because that's so obvious.

One way to deal; with it is to resist being bullied by tailgaters who want you to speed up. If I am going 70 in a 50 km/h zone and some bozo thinks that's not fast enough and is on my tail, I slow down forcing him to overtake. Also keeping a 1-car distance from the car ahead of you for every15 km/h you're travelling at is very helpful.

Food / How common GMO Food in Poland is? [25]

Merged: Farmers protesting v GMO

Several hundred farmers from all over Poland are demonstrating outside the presidential palace, TVP INFO rerpots. They want President Komorowski to veto a GMO bill which they say effectively introduces GMO seed in Poland. They argue the bill has been purged of the president’s own proposals and does not require seed producers to clearly label their seed as GMO-free. Last year Komorowski vetoed a GMO bill, but the Sejm later passed a modified version forced on Poland by the EU. “GMO sieje zło” (GMO sows evil) said one of the protesters’ placards.

What's your take on the GMO controversy?

News / Stiffer traffic rules in Poland? [32]

Years ago I heard it said: a Polish motorist doesn't drive -- he aims! Some attribute 'dynamic/aggressive' Polish driving habits to the swashbuckling spirit of a cavalry charge.

News / €80 billion for Poland new EU budget [166]

Of course Poland is a net recipeint, in fact probably the largest net recipient of EU funds. My qeustion was why don't emerging countreis like Lithuania get at least as much per hectare as Denmark and Holland so they can catch up after years of Soviet mismanagement, backwardness and poverty?

Also, as regards EU budget cuts, why don't they start with themselves: slim down the structures, boot half the eurocratsd out of Brussels and halve the salaries of those that remain. Instead, before deciding that the last summit was a fiasco, European government heads feasted on gourmet delicaices and washed them down with wine costing £120 a bottle (according to the Globe).

News / Stiffer traffic rules in Poland? [32]

Has anyone else noticed that many Polish pedestrians who have placed one foot off the kerb proceed to cross without bothering to look if any car is coming. Both pedestrians and motorists should fucntion in a mode of limited confidence towards road co-users.

News / €80 billion for Poland new EU budget [166]

Why is it that the EU bankroll W. European farmers at a superior rate than those tilling the soil in emerging post-communsit or post-Soviet countries? I've heard that Denmark, which has a highly developed, high-yield farm sector, gets more money than backward Lithuania. Polish farmers also get less per hectare than those in Germany and France. That doesn't sound like solidarity, does it?

Love / Polish couples living out of wedlock? [108]

Anglo-Celtic penury is a well-known fact: My taxes, my money, my penny-pinching this, that or the other thing...
But if we are to play that game, some Americans complain that their tax dollars are going to bankroll (male-bashing) gender studies, (Pole-bashing) holocaust studies and many other PC-slanted ideologies at state universities.