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Posts by jon357  

Joined: 15 Mar 2012 / Male ♂
Last Post: 2 days ago
Threads: Total: 76 / Live: 25 / Archived: 51
Posts: Total: 25274 / Live: 15229 / Archived: 10045
From: Somewhere around Barstow
Speaks Polish?: Not with my mouth full

Displayed posts: 15254 / page 34 of 509
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jon357   
22 Jun 2025
News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

parliament is not a synagogue.

Nor is it a church, mosque or temple, yet it's not unusual for communities' holidays to be celebrated.

If he didn't like that, make a formal complaint. Instead of making a díck of himself by destroying something.

Oxbridge

Not exactly easy universities to get into. Better a degree (ideally an arts degree) from there than the way they do it in France. And of course there's no real reason for a politician to have a degree at all. Some of the best of them didn't.

Anybody that can make a decent salary being a barrister or a banker, would never enter the British civil service

The civil service aren't politicians. The people at the top of it are, by the way, very often "educated generalists" something that works well.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

coming from the best public schools, old boys' networks

That so often just gives mediocre people some polish and connections.

spotting and nurturing talent

There's talent there, however rarely in politics.

Some U.K. politicians are disappointing when you meet them. In Poland that is squared; there are some truly appalling people in the Sejm, some of them known to me.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

Just another day in the surreal slapstick comedy that is Poland.

The place where one party leader held a press conference and waved a dildo on camera and a former president ran a party political broadcast dressed as a court jester under a banner saying "everything is black and white".
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
History / Why didn't Britain declare war on USSR for invading Poland in 1939? [103]

Stick around.

Welcome to Bedlam!

their own brands of ketchup

Most such things are identical however in PL they like high sugar content.

Same with Jogobella. Some Polish shops in the UK sell it. It's just ordinary yoghurt, albeit heavily sweetened. Masmix too; identical to any similar product.

I even know a shop there that sells Apap. Basically pound shop paracetamol at premium prices.

This is all a bit off topic though.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

You have an old man that is on tape having sex with children

Something as serious as that really does need acting on if true or partially true. Even as things stand, it needs independently investigating.

We've all seen the numerous pics of him and Epstein. I wonder what the truth is.

elected itself a Caesar and America turning itself to a Empire

Caesar could hold a military parade without thousands of empty seats.

It's interesting to guess what will come next in Iran.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
History / Why didn't Britain declare war on USSR for invading Poland in 1939? [103]

Tyrannical Empires (while being one itself of course

That's the key. He was a tyrant.

Britain didn't mind Europe turning Tyrannical

It's more that he tried to invade the U.K. and of course he had the Vatican under his thumb and "interesting" relations with Spain. Both of those parties also wanted to invade. Fortunately the Spanish hated him however it was a close call.

Fortunately he was defeated at Waterloo.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

I don't really peg Trump

Very wise.

the rest is up to the Iranians themselves.

It's not going to be easy, unfortunately.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
History / Why didn't Britain declare war on USSR for invading Poland in 1939? [103]

invite

All foreign combatants including The Netherlands and France were there.

Your appraisal is a good one and very very close. There were also issues with the Polish government-in-exile (in fact both of them, since there was a split) which played a role.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

Democrats

Trump

Nothing honourable about Trup...


  • IMG_2468.jpg
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
Travel / Traveling! What to do in Warsaw and Krakow? [39]

Saska Kępa

I'd not call that hipster. More wealthy boomer.

There's parts of Stara Praga which feel better. Classic hipster; mediocre bars opened with family money.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
History / Why didn't Britain declare war on USSR for invading Poland in 1939? [103]

Our war ended in 1939

In some ways it ended in 1989.

When your country was having pogroms even AFTER the Holocaust,

Remember, pogroms are easy to whip up and take on a life of their own. I'm far less critical of those caught up in the Kielce pogrom after seeing how easily people were whipped up into pogroms (and they were pogroms) after the misinformation about the Southport killings.

stag pom parties in krakow

Better still, beat up the (Polish) organisers who advertise such tours in the worst places with vodka and títties in the ads.

Anyway, Krakow is old hat now.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
History / Why didn't Britain declare war on USSR for invading Poland in 1939? [103]

bloke makes a statement that disagrees with your national martyrology and you start talking about giving him a beating.

They like to argue that black is white and white is black. You should see what some of them say about Jedwabne; they don't believe it themselves but desperately want to.

The 303 squadron was denied marching at the victory parade.

Nobody was "denied". This has been covered here many times before.

show us ....invitation

Someone once posted a screenshot of the relevant papers from the national archive here. Perhaps you missed it. It's probably findable. The Ambassador also made a statement about it to dispel the myth.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
History / Why didn't Britain declare war on USSR for invading Poland in 1939? [103]

Churchill DID come up with plans to attack Russia, and as far as I know it was the USA that didn't want any part of it

This is true.

It suited the PRL though to pretend that the western powers were against Poland.

That is also partly the origin of the myth about them not being invited to the victory parade.

To the extent that this joker just said our war casualties - a war we joined when Poland was invaded - were 'laughable'.

Someone (who had spent a month in Preston) once said to me that the U.K. wasn't bombed at all. In fact Lancashire was heavily bombed and members of my family died in the blitz there. He probably didn't appreciate that the level of infrastructure and built environment was high and if, say, 25 or 50% were lost, there would still be a lot left.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
Life / What do Poles really think about cats? [470]

@WarSore
Yep. And one of them may well be mine. It's a nice borough. Stare Mlociny (theoretically in Bielany) is cat central.

dogs

My late downstairs neighbour had 6 collies in a flat that can't be more than about 100sqm. He was a surgeon and was out all day leaving them to bark. Nice doggies, but they deserved a bit more freedom.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
Travel / Traveling! What to do in Warsaw and Krakow? [39]

In the sense that one fetishises and eventually colonises the other, maybe.

A bit of ironic graffiti, glassware that looks like jam jars and tatty old furniture does not an 'alternative' venue make.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
Travel / Traveling! What to do in Warsaw and Krakow? [39]

There's always Kreuzberg

Hipster and touristy in some parts. Run down and suburban in others.

Not "taken over" by anyone though.

Warsaw suffers because of the number of students there. That and "sloiki" who just want shiny and modern.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
Travel / Traveling! What to do in Warsaw and Krakow? [39]

There's still the old(ish) Warsaw if you know where to look. It's been an eclectic city since it was rebuilt though. So many were killed that relatively few Warsovians have their roots there.

I have my favourite places to eat and drink, most of them old fashioned however they're not to be mentioned here since I persona prefer them to stay as they are.

Kraków is a tourist hell, at least in the centre. Disneyland with schabowy.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

This tells me there's simply no way in hell that we'll see US soldiers marching over the Zagros Mountains.

That was never going to happen. They would all die on day 1.

So again - without troops - how much can you expect to do through aerial and missile strikes?

A lot.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
Travel / Traveling! What to do in Warsaw and Krakow? [39]

Or at least it used to.

Used to.

Tachele's an upmarket shopping and office, Kopi is a few old age pensioners. They were always a bit too organised and German, at least by 2000.

acting like they live there.

They probably do.

how many sushi places does Warsaw need?

As many as there's zlotych to be laundered. Some of those places barely get a customer a day.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

now it's happened

No surprises. The "next two weeks" thing was a sort of feint.

What's interesting is what will come next.
jon357   
22 Jun 2025
Off-Topic / Energy-free rail from North to South? [54]

they traveled to the moon (about 220K miles distance from the Earth) and BACK, without any GPS and navigation systems

Yes. A huge achievement.

Just as people circumnavigated the globe without any technology at all. Just the stars to navigate.