Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]


Very troubling post. A lot of peeps here in Poland today would have been a damn sight more wealthy if there hadn't been war visited on them, then 45 years of communism.

And you people did precisely nothing, because as you so state, it was self-preservation - and you are talking about material facts?
Disgusting.

Polonia / Let's talk about Sweden and other Scandinavian countries [236]

moved from another thread

Mmm - let's get this straight Player. Did I hear you say that you are Swedish? If so, your statement has a degree of temerity in it that I find staggering. In that the Swedes did precisely nothing to negate that cruelty offer than accepting refugees, which by convention they, as a "non-combatant" nation, were morally required to do.

I put those words in parenthesis because....

Sorry Player - your grandparents' friends were cowards. Everybody knew what was going to happen. Swedes everywhere should still hold their heads in shame, and there was no excuse to be pacifist, for the SECOND time in one century - those are the facts as some see them, if we have to talk at all about what happened 70 years ago.

"We are all in the Common Market now, and everything should be forgotten. Let's all be friends. " The words of the immortal forementioned Basil Fawlty (a John Cleese creation)

I will put it another way Player. Would you fight to protect your country? I am 57, but if there were no nukes, and Britain were threatened, I would walk there - today - to help preserve my people's way of life.

What did you Swedes preserve? You lost your integrity, your being. Better to die.

Life / Why do Silesians hate Poland? [41]


I refer you to my earlier post frd.

There WERE no "profits" - and Silesia today does have its' local budgets. So autonomy today is a concept in name only and the huge majority would vote against it.

Life / Why do Silesians hate Poland? [41]


What do you do for a living NotPolish? Just asking, because I sometimes tell other Americans to F off on this forum after a few sherberts.

Have you been drinking in this heat? :)

I have and am, but am still quite pleasant. That may change if you don't behave:)

Life / Why do Silesians hate Poland? [41]


Actually, the OP did have a historical point.

Katowice people hated the communist regime for their centralised government. It was felt that Silesians did all the work in the mines and foundries, while Poles elsewhere buggered about in the fields or in white-collar jobs, and that Warsaw robbed and redistributed the wealth.

All utter nonsense of course. There never was any wealth.

Hard coal earned vital foreign currency while it lasted, but lack of mining machinery, gross miss-management, and huge economy of scale in utterly useless heavy industrial product meant money was wasted on an epic scale. If it weren't for the IMF's 30 billion dollars in loans, there wouldn't have been a "modern" industrial infrastructure to be restructured.

Of course older Silesians who don't understand the market economy hanker back to the politics of the certain level of autonomy that Katowice and the area enjoyed in the inter-war period, a state that was to be restored to the region, because today it has it's local spending budgets and economic power base anyway, separate of state control.

Life / What is Poland's view on obesity? How healthy, fit are Poles? [166]


Really Delph? Scientifiic data to back that up? I go swimming in the sea most days, and while I generally keep my mouth shut, except when taking in air, it tastes OK...... certainly a lot better than swimming pools!

I don't suppose the fish would enjoy the latter either. The flatfish does taste disgusting, but I like Baltic cod :)
On the subject of obesity, some Poles should try the cabbage diet - al dente - not their slime version. A (large) friend went three weeks on this diet (cabbage and water) and lost 8 kilos :)

Cheap too!

Law / Buying a USED CAR in Poland, my personal experiences and TRAPS to avoid !! [133]

Sorry but I don't buy that.

After 23 years living here I am still a guest myself, but if anybody, in the UK, or Poland, I don't give a ****, tries to rip me off, like this guy, he isn't going to be big enough. I have never cared about the consequences, and neither should you.

Otherwise these slimeballs will think they can get away with it. Front them up and back it up with the promise of violence. That is the only language they understand.

Normal people don't steal, and you are allowed to change your mind on a purchase.

Law / Buying a USED CAR in Poland, my personal experiences and TRAPS to avoid !! [133]

There are A LOT of threads here istannbullu. Never, EVER buy a used car here for under 30,000 - meaning - roads are poor - cars are damaged - it's a sellers' market - which is a joke. Poles are absolutely not to be trusted on this subject, as their post-communist economy was built on buy cheap, sell for inflated prices (buying from them is their worst character, maybe their really only one).

Buy used cars in Germany/Holland/Belgium.

Over and out.

PS Go back mob-handed and offer him out on the street and get your money. Do not involve the police or lawyer. If you try to be decent you will lose your money. Threaten him badly and he will pay up on the spot, little ******.

History / Future of Kaliningrad Oblast - is it possible to annex by Poland or will it become an independent country? [137]


This one : Dokumentation zur früheren deutschen Provinz Ostpreussen

Others will have to brush up on their schoolboy/girl German though :)

History / Future of Kaliningrad Oblast - is it possible to annex by Poland or will it become an independent country? [137]

Anyway.....

Kaliningrad is a tragic story. And now Russia would protect their "gift in war reparations" with nuclear weapons. They really don't need to as nobody would want to take it from them. From being the most beautiful city on the Baltic, the area is now a concrete living hell for those Russians who have the great misfortune to live there. They have subsidies and cheap flights to Russia, but it is a militarised zone and I would have thought everybody who could, must have married a Pole et al years ago to get out.

History / Future of Kaliningrad Oblast - is it possible to annex by Poland or will it become an independent country? [137]


Stop feeding the racist, Jon. I think he came here for an argument. This is not the argument clinic, is it? And anyway, he's had his 5 minutes :)

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


Talking sense as usual I see Delph - but the government couldn't possibly countenance cutting back on the state bureaucracy.
Half their families are employed as nepotistic ZUS governing bodies and management.

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


Yes, of course. But the number of people it affects are so small in the scheme of things they just put up and pay up - thinking they are helpless.

In the UK there would be mass disobedience and rightly so.

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


AS before Harry - I do not, and will not, EVER pay another SINGLE zloty to the "company" known as "ZUS". I am covered RE: the health service by being employed by my wife, and others can work legally for an "organisation" for a 400 zloty monthly fee. I humbly suggest the rest of the country's self employed follow my lead, if they care about ******* up the system and forcing change.


Ah.....

Let immigrants in?


(ZUS for self employed...) 1,300.............. at the last count, when I said goodbye to the jokers.


Cimoszewicz said the same in a BBC "HardTalk programme" interview in 1999...promising that the SLD government recognised the problem, and that ZUS payments were excessive and that "restructurisation", cliched as the word was, was a priority. And words they were.......

It baffles me why the self employed continue to pay and don't revolt.

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


Yep - I was shocked when one of my students flagged that this is her aim in the nearest future. She works for an institution and apparently will get 100% of her salary paid in full for that time.

Can that be true?

News / Poland's indecent junk capitalism? [53]


If I don't get the offer and promised remuneration that I think I am worth, I stay at home and walk the dog. Unfortunately, there are some who think it worthy to work for scum wages. Funny, innit?

News / There is no Poland without the Church! [178]

Thanks Delph! A mine of information as usual. I was threatened twice by the Krakow cops like that when I went to visit daughter at uni, and they sounded very believable. Lying little scum. Krakow cops see a Katowice number plate and say "Let's have some fun." Words can't describe, but then...... I can think of two.

News / There is no Poland without the Church! [178]


Now now Polonius - behave. The amount of bureaucracy in Poland has nothing to do with communism. That dies 27 years ago. The Polish authorities absolutely love their power of unnecessary auditing and aren't going to give it up.

It's alright for you to deny the fact that paperwork here is an absolute scandal, living there in the US of A.

Sorry - that was aimed at Polsyr....

You can still have your car impounded if you're not carrying the car docs with you for instance - whereas in fact - and I have tested this - on a simple call to the kommisariat by the traffic cops, within seconds they have your address, your driving record, your job, your status, proof of your name and all details that go with it, criminal record, political leanings, your addresses over the last 20 years, financial details, tax details and the like, obviously your on-line behaviour, and personal **** ( they delighted in spilling some of the beans to my daughter, who was with me..so if you wish to avoid such a scenario that might be just one reason to carry your docs :((

In other words - there is no purpose to be served in carrying your docs - but your governments' power trip. And general paperwork as Polonius says is NOT decreasing anything like fast enough.

As the American guest famously said to Basil Fawlty in the legendary "Fawlty Towers", and I misquote "If you don't get a Waldorf Salad right now, I'm going to bust your ass".

I agree with the American guest. Some asses are long overdue for busting here - and they are big fat Polish ones.

Law / Weed laws in Poland [25]


Weed is not "legal" in the vast majority of enlightened countries InPolska, but "tolerated"- a little like pornography. What one chooses to indulge in to the non-detriment of others.... and all that jazz.

My hound has an (imagined) dog-eared copy of "Miss labrador" and enjoys the whiff of a good herbal evening. But don't tell those do-gooders!

Poland is the Britain of the 1950s. Everything is available, and permitted - for the elite.

News / There is no Poland without the Church! [178]


Hello InPolska

We can only hope that their peers will have a word and those nippers will see the light and remember that a vote for anybody but PO is a vote against the rights of young people.

News / There is no Poland without the Church! [178]


Laughable. I am the poorest man on my street, and according to that "table" I am in the top half million wage earners :) ROFL

QED: Everybody cheats.

News / There is no Poland without the Church! [178]


Yes I do. Many young Poles don't believe in the value of church nowadays. Many young people are LBGT positive, many Poles don't think of different peoples as endangering their way of life - and want to pay-back for the many years of Polish migration...

...and so on - all views expressed by some on this board.

News / There is no Poland without the Church! [178]


Well, if you were (mistakenly) alluding that Polish public opinion largely mirrors your own Polonius, then it would desperately need to be dragged screaming into the 21st century :)

However educated and younger Poles who live here are moving with the times, thanks be to God! ( I spoke to him just the other day, and He is very relieved with the way that things are going here generally)

History / Lech Walesa - Happy Birthday! [21]


Yes - Poles are clueless. They bad mouth Walesa at garden grill parties but they allowed the communist general to live out his natural, and bought his book and made him a rich man.

The Polish nation is very badly ignorant as to the real facts.

News / Poland Sports News [1079]

Have you been following me eh? ? Lol. "Scutinising" is a verb that can get an old boy the nonce title. I do watch the girl athletes for just a minute or two on the beach but then fortunately the dog drags me away :)

Cracking stuff this Polish summer - but not as good as the English cricketing summer :( Back there on retirement :)

News / Poland Sports News [1079]


Cracking :)

News / Poland Sports News [1079]

Yes. I get to enjoy it live from the beachfront bar in Gdynia - so that doesn't count.:)

News / Poland Sports News [1079]

Merged: Any absorbing sports in Poland worth watching?

I feel sorry for you Poles. Watching the Ashes. Google for it. It's called cricket.

Do you actually have any sports worth watching? Not on a wind-up.......

Law / HELP: ALLEGRO... Do most Polish buyers at allegro.pl use PayPal? [33]


The ONLY way to do any business on Allegro is to send by courier and COD - meaning that I, the buyer, will only pay for the goods when I have them in my hand.

I will never again pay for goods electronically in advance. Way too often on Allegro people are scammed. It reflects badly on the huge majority like yourself who are bone fide and on the level.

News / Russian criticism of Poland - Soviet war memorial removal [325]


Mmm - those are of course sacrosant Smurf - but I don't agree I'm afraid about protecting those ludicrous Soviet "memorials" all over Silesia and Zaglebia. Firmly in the right-wing camp on this one - those edifices with mock tanks and the rest are not memorials but (failed) triumphalism.