News / Citizen-led Initiative on Abortion Law in Poland [50]

here is another question (or a few):
those people so vocal about banning all abortions, not matter what -
are they as vocal about initiatives to improve sex education in schools? probably not.
are they promoting access to contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies? highly doubt it.
are they going to chip in to build facilities for low-income pregnant women and new mothers? that's probably a no.
are they going to volunteer their time or money to provide day care, so that the women can go out, get a job, and support themselves and their babies? nope.

are they going to petition their priests and nuns to do that? not really - although they should, they do nothing useful all day long anyway, the least they could do is babysit

will they do anything to help provide 24/7 care to all those disabled children? wouldn't hold my breath eihter.

it's just so much easier to be all self-righetous and hypocritical and blame the victim.

News / Citizen-led Initiative on Abortion Law in Poland [50]

not to mention if she gets raped. is it still her fault and her responsibility?

what if it's an ectopic pregnancy. they're not that uncommon. it's extremely dangerous to the mother and the fetus cannot survive anyway.

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]


LOL


I thought you wanted people to have a civilized discussion. So I'm asking why you feel they shouldn't be able to raise children. I really don't know why. Why would anyone accept your opinions if you can't argument your point of view?


I think I'm in a good company:
gallup.com/poll/147824/adults-estimate-americans-gay-lesbian.aspx

no, I didn't make a typo, but thanks


last time I checked, 1% is 1 out of 100. but that's ok, Llama, nobody expects you to get it. go on, say something about militant someone or other. you haven't said anything new or insightful for two days, why start now.



you're right, there is nothing more to say...

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]


why?

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]


1. she might live in Australia, but she's Polish nonetheless
2. nobody seemed to be jumping in at the time to contradict that gem of tolerance, as far as I remember


everyone is free to express their disapproving opinions but if their goal is to use those opinions to limit the freedoms of other people, on the grounds that they disapprove of those other people, based on who they are, then there is a problem.

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]

so now we're away from the "great economic opportunity for communities" to "someone needs to employ our unemployed and homeless"

if there is anything that walmart is good at, it's employing the elsewhere unemployable. now, I understand that science is all devil's mumbo-jumbo to you, but earlier today I pointed out the fact that the net job creation by walmarts is actually negative. so people lose retail jobs, albeit low-skilled and poorly paid, by being forced out by walmart, only to be "saved" from indigence by the same walmart to be given an even sh*ttier and less-paying jobs.

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]


I can find a few posts here about how being gay is the worst thing that can happen to a human being (and this is verbatim, not a paraphrase).

I know people who are gay who left Poland because they couldn't live there openly, between their family and their "tolerant," church-going neighbors. I know gay people who got married so that they would avoid the stigma. I know about single people living by themselves that their neighbors just suspect of being gay (because why would they otherwise be single) and ostracize them just based on that. See, everyone in Poland is ok with gays, as long as they hide and don't make it obvious they're gay. And it's not just my words, read some of the past posts.

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]


even the most conservative, right wing Christian think tanks estimate the size of gay population at 1% (that's compared with anything between 3-25% by non right wing-nut sources).

that means, unless the town M was talking about had a population of 100, there had to be more than 1 gay person.

unless we're talking Iran. because everyone knows there are no gay people in Iran.

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]

oh, I remember a whole thread going on about how NOBODY is poor in Poland. surprise, surprise, there are enough poor and desperate people to staff a couple of walmarts... who would have suspected that

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]

and you're automatically assuming that I know nothing about Poland, or that I know no gay people who have lived there, and you're also assuming that living in poland gives you those magical powers of knowing anything about life whatsoever. like I said before, if Polish dirt is supposed to be this pixie dust of wisdom, it ain't working for a lot of people.

it doesn't take an einstein to know that it's statistically impossible to have one gay person in a population of a town, however small, per decade.

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


oh, I see, so it's just jobs for the poor, unskilled, barely literate, maladjusted to the society, unintelligent, socially challenged, ____(fill in the blank) that walmarts offer to the local population. I'm sure that's exactly what Poland needs right now. but hey, at least you can spend your minimum wage paycheck on cheap food and flannel shirts there, right?

that's just a f*ckin great opportunity for Poland, isn't it?

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]


LOL!!!
if Poland is anything like the rest of the world, and everyone here gets their pitchforks ready if one dares to say otherwise, there's not chance in hell a town would have ONE gay guy per generation. so the rest are hiding (and who would blame them for doing so), and the one that everyone knows about is trying to suck up to the rest of the town by organizing trips to Czestochowa... that's pretty pathetic

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]

like I said, I don't think the free market is going to suffer if Poland has no Walmart stores. it hasn't had any so far, and yet the western civilization survived somehow... unless you're saying that a country cannot be properly capitalistic without a walmart, LOL!!

if so, there's the first piece of social criticism in this thread for you, and it hasn't come from me.

if you and bzi think walmart is such a great effing company, why don't you go work there??? i mean, they're great for local communities, right? and they have management jobs or something? I bet this is the last place in the world you'd send your resume.

so who is being hypocritical now?

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


except when it comes to walmart, free market is never really free. i'm all for free market, but you can't have unfair competition. walmart making the taxpayers shoulder a lot of its responsibilities for the healthcare of their workers, the infrastructure of the towns, and the impact on the environment simply creates unfair competition. the cost of cheap t-shirts and cheap food is really high.

and if you think they can't ship milk or produce from china, you're deeply mistaken.
i just hope Poland has regulations against lead, toxins and antibiotics in their milk....

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


LOL!!
well, after a date at McDonald's, all you need to do is get your engagement ring at walmart, and you're happy as a gopher in soft mud... or whatever the polish equivalent of a gopher in soft mud would be


somehow I don't think that the survival of the free market economy in the western world would depend on a walmart stores being opened in Poland. if they can still stop them from coming in, they should try doing it. as someone pointed out, they already have big discount chains already.

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]


these are the rules you as a person can choose or choose not to live by. you can't impose them on anyone else. hence they should not be legislated or considered in public discourse.


it's quite interesting that the only two options in your mind is either be Christian or be an essentially immoral person.

it may surprise you that there are plenty of non-Christians who honor their parents or other people who took care of them, do not kill, do not steal, do not deceive, not because they belive in some mythological figure that will send them to hell for disobedience, but because they know, too, that these things are wrong

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


it did? do you know if they have the insane Trenta size, too? do people go there like an everyday thing?

I'm curious what else they got, and how American brands are viewed there. A while back (like 10 years ago) someone was telling me about the Pizza Hut in Opole that was considered an expensive restaurant, with white table cloth and such. And a Levi's store in Katowice that was more like a museum - you go there, you look, can't touch, and wouldn't buy anything because it was way too expensive. And there was a KFC in Bytom - same story, most people found it too expensive for casual meals on the go. Not to mention the craziness over the first McDonald's in Warsaw.

I hope it changed.

I bet sephoras are all over the place. And I saw T.G.I. Friday's are listed by Yahoo as one of the best restaurants in Warsaw. That sucks.

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


I guess it's too late for that.


yes, how true, and how sad

well, let's face it, walmart is not going away. i wouldn't say they didn't innovate, they created a whole new paradigm for chain retail stores. but they have just grown too big and powerful for any meaningful competition in the US. There is nothing that compares to Walmart here.


that's very true. but it's not always about if you do something better (in that respect, they'll never have a larger selection or lower prices than Walmart), but about the new, unique value to the customer. It's the same story with any kind of business, retail, banking, car manufacturing. If I were the store owner next to the future walmart site in Poland, I would start thinking about strategy, and what I can offer to the customer that Walmart can't.

I shop at a grocery store across the street from walmart. they are a chain, too, with higher prices, and you can't get sweatshirts or WD-40 there. But I go there because they recognize me, their stuff is always fresh, the people are ridiculously helpful and attentive, they have a better wine selection, the people who work there actually know something about what they sell, whether it's wine or seafood, there are sanitizing wipes containers all over the place and their carts are always clean (which may not be important for a lot of people, but it is for me).

so it's all about competing in a smart way.

here is a very funny blog by my favorite Brit in Poland, about the competition between modern supermarkets and mom & pop stores, and how it relates to customer service:

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


here we go again... you forgot to say militant. fixed it for ya.

I should, just for the fun of it, send you the quotes of people calling me a cold-hearted republican not so long ago...

either way, I just quoted a study that says exactly the opposite. I guess they must brainwashed by the Leftist Media, too...

thanks god for Llama, as always sharp as a mashed potato, consistently revealing the Leftist Media conspiracies...

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


I'm sure it looks this way, but Walmart does not take risks. They're not moving into communities out of the goodness of their heart. They have selecting locations for their stores down to a science. So, chances are, your city council, or you mayor, or whoever, decided to spend a lot of government-subsidized money on bringing in new retailers: new infrastructure, tax breaks for new businesses, etc. Once Walmart got the news, they probably negotiated a very good deal with the city, that again involved some taxpayer money, on setting up shop there. All the other big stores came in because of a policy decision, and most likely because of some financial incentives from your city council, not because of Walmart. Then it was just a matter of time before the rest of the vacancies on your strip mall filled up with hair and nail salons, pizza huts, and hallmarks. Some new population probably moved in, too. This tends to happen when you have a lot of low-skilled jobs available all of a sudden.

I saw it happen to at least two places we used to live in - the first time Walmart just moved in, too, the second, Walmart was already there, but was now expanding, due to a tax break.

Again, it's the fiscal decision of a township that starts the whole thing, not Walmart, that makes it happen. Obviously, in some places it works, in some others it doesn't, because of addtional factors.

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]

are you saying that Walmart's taxes paid for Target's taxes?

did they pay for the medicare for the walmart employees who don't have insurance? did they pay for the damage to the infrastructure?


I'm sure he did not remain unrewarded for promoting walmart in his town.

so, here's another study: Emek Basker, University of Missouri, Review of Economics & Statistics, February 2005

"This study examines the impact of the arrival of a Wal-Mart store on retail and wholesale employment. It looks at 1,749 counties that added a Wal-Mart between 1977 and 1998. It finds that Wal-Mart's arrival boosts retail employment by 100 jobs in the first year—far less than the 200-400 jobs the company says its stores create, because its arrival causes existing retailers to downsize and lay-off employees. Over the next four years, there is a loss of 40-60 additional retail jobs as more competing retailers downsize and close. The study also finds that Wal-Mart's arrival leads to a decline of approximately 20 local wholesale jobs in the first five years, and an additional 10 wholesale jobs over the long run (six or more years after Wal-Mart's arrival). (Wal-Mart handles its own distribution and does not rely on wholesalers). This works out to a net gain of just 10-30 retail and wholesale jobs, and the study does not examine whether these jobs are part-time or whether they pay more or less than the jobs eliminated by Wal-Mart. The study also found that, within five years of Wal- Mart's arrival, the counties had lost an average of four small retail businesses, one midsized store, and one large store. It does not estimate declines in revenue to retailers that survive."

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]


that's an excellent counter-argument to a scientific study of a nationwide scientific study...

well, guess what, theyactually answered it:

"Wal-Mart presumably does not locate stores randomly. When expanding into a particular region, it may, for example, opt to build in towns experiencing greater job growth. Unless this location selection bias is accounted for, one might compare job growth in towns that gained Wal-Mart stores versus those that did not and erroneously conclude that Wal-Mart caused an expansion in employment. The authors of this study have devised a persuasive method of accounting for this bias."

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]

The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets - by David Neumark (University of California-Irvine), Junfu Zhang (Clark University), and Stephen Ciccarella (Cornell University), IZA Discussion Paper No. 2545, Jan. 2007

"This study presents the most sophisticated analysis to date of Wal-Mart's impact on retail employment and wages. Analyzing national data, the study found that the opening of a Wal-Mart store reduces county-level retail employment by 150 jobs. Because Wal-Mart stores employ an average of 360 workers, this suggests that for every new retail job created by Wal-Mart, 1.4 jobs are lost as existing businesses downsize or close. The study also found that the arrival of a Wal-Mart store reduces total county-wide retail payroll by an average of about $1.2 million."

News / Wal-Mart coming to Poland? [146]

They have low prices but the price to your local economy is going to be very high. The jobs at Walmart are the worst you can get, low pay, no benefits, it's the last resort for anyone.

Walmarts are not like Aldis at all. Aldis are limited a assortment chain, that's how they keep prices low. Walmart is so big, it puts tremendous pressure on manufacturers and producers (think sweat shops in China and grape pickers in Chili), logistics, store employees, everyone. It trumps competition so badly, there is nowhere to hide. And the "jobs" it's going to create will replace the much better jobs in local businesses, so you might save some money on groceries and sweatshirts but the net result to your economy will be negative. Walmart will not buy from your local distrubutors, either, so here's another line of business heavily affected there for ya.

And Des is right. If you ever step in a Walmart, for some reason, you'll see the ugliest, fattest, weirdest people ever. It's got this gravitational field for ugliness.

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]

i can see how it could be fun :)

but seriously, if someone wants to do it, why on earth would I care? I wouldn't expect people to have any business in my choices of wardrobe or who I want to physically close to, would I?

straight people broadcast their sexuality all the time. on parade floats, on TV, in media, in real life...

Life / Homosexuality in Polish Culture [231]

this whole discussion is silly. how can one disapprove of what other people do in their bedrooms who they want to spend time with. 1. who cares and 2. what gives one the right to do so. if one doesn't like guys dating guys, well, don't date one. do gays tell straight people who to date and who to marry, and how to f*ck?

I would have a lot of opinions about who my friends and family decided to date or marry at some point, but it's none of my business and not my place to do so, and I would not broadcast my opinions to the entire world.

USA, Canada / Poles in Philadelphia [9]

czestochowa.us
that's in Doylestown
about 10 years ago, we happened to be in the area and went to the festival they're having every year in September.
the thing I remember most was that a lot of black people apparently come to that church, because "Our Lady of Czestochowa" picture looks like she is black... I guess because the original painting has aged. I thought it was rather funny.

Work / Salary, holidays - questions to employer during a job interview in Poland [47]


the data is free all over the internet... it goes both ways, though. I found that actually a lot of applicants have unrealistic expectations, too, particularly if they have worked for one company for a very long time.

It's ok to ask for a bit more, if you have the skills to support your price, but don't go overboard, you'll appear delusional.


ok, whatever. if you ever had a chance to look at our compensation statistics, the people who were green-circled when hired (they asked for less money than we were ready to pay) consistently get higher rates of salary increases than others. unless they suck. then they don't get anything or get fired.


nope. we usually rate candidates on their communication skills, initiative, responses to workplace conflict, integrity just as on their technical skills, and we're not unique in that manner. Don't kid yourself, even if you're more skilled than god himself, if you lack a positive disposition during the interview, you're not getting hired.

News / Germany provoke Poland using Silesian question. Poland's attitude ? [124]


it must be very limiting to go through life rejecting opinions from people who haven't been to Poland, as if setting your foot on the Polish soil imparted some special kind of wisdom upon you, not available to anyone else... If it is indeed some magic dirt you have there, it sure ain't working for dope...

Besides, how can you assume that someone has never been to Poland? Do you keep a list of all the visitors in the past 40 years?

Who cares of you classify it as a language or a dialect? Apparently there is quite a discussion going among linguists, which is all nice and peachy but I bet even the people who speak Silesian as their native tongue don't give a rat's a$s how you classify it.

With the borders moving back and forth, it's all such a mixture of cultures anyway. Would Ligon, Morcinek, or Szewczyk be offended or insist on correcting you if you called them Polish? If people feel Polish (German/Czech) first and Silesian second, are they not "true" Silesians? Why insist on categories?

Poland and Germany are both in the EU, there won't be a war over Silesia, a fourth uprising, or even another Plebiscyt. Most people are more concerned about living their lives than drawing borders or making up categories.

USA, Canada / Thinking about visiting America? Skip it or get molested and arrested for nothing. [79]


pretty much

I live in a town of 100,000+ people, we had two cases of homicide in the past 10 years. So, for every East St Louis, there are hundreds of suburbs and towns like ours, where people are not afraid to walk alone after dark, or leave their homes and cars unlocked, and a neighbor will let you know you dropped some money on the sidewalk rather than put it in their pocket.

More importantly, while comparing crime statistics across countries you always run into the issue of definition. Polish murder rate excludes attempted murder. The US typically includes it.