News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


I'm not going to waste time trying to prove a negative to someone who won't listen anyway.

Prove that fetuses are children by a list of non-genetic features.

A possible boundary - needing another's life processes to exist.

Fetus - pre-viability - yes

Fetus - post viability - no


Dude, the sperm and egg are both alive, so how can life 'begin' at conception?

Implantation is a better benchmark . About 50 per cent of all fertilized eggs (human beings to you?) fail to implant and the women is never technically pregnant.

Life / Cheapest Marlboro White and Lambert&Butler cigarettes in Poland [17]


I have the impression that buying by the carton is really uncommon in Poland (compared to many other countries).

Life / Cheapest Marlboro White and Lambert&Butler cigarettes in Poland [17]


No idea as I don't smoke, I'll let the hacking cough brigade answer that one...

Life / Cheapest Marlboro White and Lambert&Butler cigarettes in Poland [17]


Maybe for someone who knows what they're doing (that is knows how to find the people who transport them illegally, they won't be selling them for half the local price out in the open.....

Most things are cheaper in Eastern Poland so you don't need to mess around with the border, just go to Lublin or Sandomierz or somewhere like that and they'll be cheaper than in Wroclaw or Poznan (both of which are on the more expensive side within Poland).

Life / Cheapest Marlboro White and Lambert&Butler cigarettes in Poland [17]


Neither Ukraine nor Belarus is part of Schengen or the EU so you will for sure be checked at the border and 100 cartons sounds like more than you would be allowed to bring into Poland.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Once the world catches up to your insights, the issue will be settled.......

Odd, I keep thinking that when the world catches up to my insights the issue will be settled.

Meanwhile it is not logical or irrefutable that fetuses are "children"

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]


Sowa and Kandulski are both top tier and produce amazingly good stuff.

I've had some excellent Polish homemade cakes too but the best cukiernias are anything but bland substitutes.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


he doesn't even hide it anymore.... they let him down by refusing to be on-demand baby delivering machines

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Rotsa ruck on that, your party has already destroyed the constitution and rule of law in favor of PRL style rule of party leader.

It's interesting that Polish TV doesn't even bother with Duda or Szydło and now just asks JK what's going to happen.


hey women, just do your job and have babies and if you're not good at it then just die (message from Polonius to women).

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]

Commercial torte I love is truflowy from Sowa:

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

That's kind of a dumb law (and at what age of development?)


There's a difference between needing care (even lots of it) and needing to essentially feed off of someone else's body and life processes for survival.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Well during the labor process (which can last much longer than 10 hours) if a choice has to be made I'm in favor of choosing in favor of the woman. After birth no such choice is ever necessary.

And after 6 months or so I'm personally very against abortion except in cases where the mother's health is jeapordized.


Infants are socially parasitic not biologically. they're very good at convincing adults to take care of them but they don't requie a human host to breath for them (for example).

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Children are no moral agents but they have a kind of protected status.

Birth is the rubicon upon which a fetus gains the rights of personhood, I'm willing to partially grant personhood rights to viable fetuses (that can survive naturally outside the womb) and make abortions at that stage difficult to acquire (only in cases of the mother's health being seriously threatened).

But I simply cannot understand the concept of embryos or fetuses in the first half or so of pregnancy as possessing personhood since they are essentially parasitic in nature and you can't grant them rights without grievously impinging on the rights of women.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


you want to compromise on something you supposedly regard as murder?


beats me I'm not going to pretend to you, my gut feeling is that the beginning of human life is a process and not an event

conception, implantation, various stages of fetal development (with viability being a very important point), birth, post natal development.... IIRC human babies are born before they're really ready (in comparison with other animals) because of the size of the female pelvis.

My own feeling would not be about absolute moments and abortion regulations would be oriented around natural viability (the ability of the fetus to survive outside the mother naturally).

My proposal would be that abortion should be easy early on and harder later. But no one wants to discuss that.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Written like a member in good-standing of the He-man Woman Haters Club.


There is no society-wide consensus on the moral status of a fetus, especially in the first half or so of pregnancy. That's the argument that you're trying to short circuit. Make a cogent, non-religious argument on fetuses as moral agents and then we'll talk. Instead you want everybody to accept your argument by assertion. Not gonna work.


So you want to charge doctors who perform abortions with murder and women who receive abortions accessory to murder? Would this be retro-active?
If this is a moral position for you why are so reluctant to make it clear what punishments you want for those involved in abortions?

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

So you're in favor of letting those who hire hitmen off?

Or do you simply not regard women as moral agents capable of making their own moral decisions?

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


irrelevant to the question of abortion unless you want to retroactively lock up any woman who says she had an abortion.


and a majority of the country wants no changes to the current law as the ruling party finally figured out...

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Don't use words you yourself don't believe. If abortion is murder, do you want women who get them to go to prison?


There is no societal consensus on the moral status of fetuses, especially in the early stages of pregnancy. The question is does one segment get to force their opinion on people who don't share their moral judgements or not?

By all means try to convince people to not have abortions, but what right do you have to make decisions _for_ them in an area where there is no broad agreement on the moral ground rules?

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]


In America, I was told that torte is a cake made without flour (or only a minimal amount). I'm not sure if that works in the British Isles. Large amounts of food vocabulary is country specific in English- I used to like to watch Come Dine with Me (BBC version) but found much or most of the terminology to be very weird from an American perspective.

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]


Different languages draw different semantic lines. Instead of comparing Polish food terminology with the British Isles (and its very different cooking traditions) it probably falls more in line with German cooking traditions (with some Russian influence).

The one that always gets me is czereśnie and wiśnie which are as different as apples and pears to most Polish people (while I cannot reliably tell them apart).


I think wet dough can be 'masa' ciasto sounds drier to me (could be wrong).

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

There was no rational reason to give the anti-woman petition any more consideration than the pro-woman petition got. Instead the pro-woman petition got the bum's rush and the misogynistic petition got the VIP treatment. That's why so many women were out on the street protesting.

A big false step by the ruling party which was reduced to damage control (which is not their strong point).

Language / The "end piece" of a loaf of bread in Polish [80]


I would say:

pod Krakowem 'near/around Krakow'

spod Krakowa 'from around Krakow'

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Is this a quote from the book: "Things very corrupt people say?"

If PiS really is about transparency (ha!) and against corruption (double ha!) they would make the process of appointments more open to scrutiny and make it harder for people to appoint their cronies.

But if it was good enough for the PRL it's good enough for PiS seems to be the general rule.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Do you touch people with those lyin' fingers?

PiS took the crackpot abortion ban petition _far_ more seriously than there was any need for. It could have considered it for 30 seconds and rejected it (as any normal government would). But it decided to play for what it hoped were crowds of religious crazies. It reaped what it sowed.

Your repeated attempts to make PiS look less incompetent in this whole debacle aren't taken seriously by anyone.

PiS screwed up on its own initiative. They finally realized that and backed down and no amount of inept spin doctoring from you will change that.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


In the People's Republic of Poland, a majority of the citizens supported socialism...

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


And for the women who get abortions? If it's _really_ murder then you don't let off the person who hires the hitman.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

Then you want no difference in prison sentences for hitmen and those who hire them and doctors and women who pay them to have abortions. Is that correct?

Why aren't more anti-abortion people proclaiming that they want to put doctors connected with abortion and women who get abortions in prison?

A surefire vote getter!

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

you don't seriously think that abortion is murder (unless you want women who get abortions thrown in prison for murder).

if you do, then at least you're consistent (if a terrible human being).

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


I think those are going to quietly go away. The super-religious have never been a mainstay of PiS's support and catering too much to them alienates too many swing support that they'll need if they want to serve out their full term this time.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Don't get too happy, too fast. This was a very big miscalculation on PiS's part who underestimated the probable backlash from catering to extremist weirdos. I'm assuming they'll drop the whole business ASAP, the longer they fiddle around with it the bigger the losses are likely to be and I don't think JK is stupid enough to ignore that.

Many people on both sides are unhappy about the current laws, but trying to change them is a political third rail.