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Posts by jon357  

Joined: 15 Mar 2012 / Male ♂
Last Post: 1 hr ago
Threads: Total: 76 / Live: 25 / Archived: 51
Posts: Total: 24914 / Live: 14869 / Archived: 10045
From: Somewhere around Barstow
Speaks Polish?: Not with my mouth full

Displayed posts: 14894 / page 462 of 497
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jon357   
12 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

but one cannot change one's DNA

So are you suggesting that DNA determines character?

Probably all the Jews who served mankind's No. 1 butcher Stalin were atheists

So were all the others.
jon357   
12 Mar 2015
Law / USD shooting up so high for PLN [76]

Yes - the weak USD hadn't been doing much for them travelling however this may well change as it is likely to for Brits with the strong pound GBP/PLN. I suspect that most who come spend many times more than 4x the spend of an average domestic tourist.
jon357   
12 Mar 2015
Law / USD shooting up so high for PLN [76]

Quite opposite. The money of few American tourists which will come to Poland because of strong USD

Not so much - remember they have a far higher spend per head than locals. And the strong Pound will hopefully attract more British visitors. All of the local holidaymakers aren't going to suddenly desert Poland though - their spending power hasn't increased that much.
jon357   
12 Mar 2015
Law / USD shooting up so high for PLN [76]

But you wrote that expensive USD is good for Polish tourist industry.

The strong USD/PLN is very good if it encourages visitors from the US.

Most of tourists are Germans, and for them it became more expensive as you showed.

Tourism patterns fluctuate. This summer it's good for Americans and British who want to visit Europe. Hopefully some of that mony will come to Poland.

For Poles vacation in eurozone became little cheaper so that also bad for Polish tourist industry

That makes little difference - their average spend is lower.
jon357   
12 Mar 2015
Law / USD shooting up so high for PLN [76]

wrong. price in euro is not changing much

Even a tiny change in the exchange rate has a significant effect on large scale industrial production - I know whereof I speak. And dropping from 4.35 in December to 4.15 yesterday has had its effect.

There are also significant raw and processed material imports realised in GBP and USD and of course all petroleum based products are traded in USD.
jon357   
12 Mar 2015
Law / USD shooting up so high for PLN [76]

Great for American travellers to Europe however.

The low zloty is great for Poland's tourist industry too (and the GBP/EUR rate is great for British tourists going anywhere in Europe). Also good for Poland's agricultural/food exports (all those oven fries/pot noodles, yummy, plus jam, gherkins, mustard, flax/linen, sugar) and other things PL produces a lot of, plaster, ceramic tiles etc.. Not so good for other exports where all or part of the raw materials are bought in Euro but lower labour and other running costs will partly mitigate that.

Plus of course the remittances from Poles working in Britain and elsewhere.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

The King gave the Jews special rights etc, rights to settle lower taxation if i remember correctly.

It's all detailed on the previous page of this thread goof.
This:

the King was the face of Poland, its head to be more precised and thus yes we can claim that were a tolerant country.

doesn't sit well with:

This is spot on and you can still hear the echoes of that today.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Id say that they have leraned some stuff from the people that oppressed them over 70 years ago tbh.

Not that most people there have roots in Europe, but don't let facts cloud your bigotry. And don't assume that the oppression in Poland (or indeed elsewhere in Europe) started only 70 years ago

Very sad when someone falls into a negative stereotype.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

its quite .. enriching to our view of a certain group of people ;)

I was waiting for the racism to become explicit and bingo, I didn't have to wait long.

You could even go a step further and suggest that there are character traits among that

certain group of people

which have some bearing on their experiences over the centuries in Poland.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Poland is a country of tolerance i will not be sorry for what happend over 600 years ago.

Both tolerance and intolerance play their part in its history. If you read the thread, you'll see it explained that people today are not responsible for the crimes of the past. Poland is very fortunate though to have a centuries old liberal tradition.

and about the jewsn. Ever heard of the occupation of Palestine ?

No.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

The past of jews was so terrible in Poland because of the German invasion

The history of Poland didn't start in 1939 - before then there were both good times and bad.

unlike the Uk for an example calling them hooked nosed demons etc.

Do check out the pogrom mentioned in this thread - it makes sad reading.

be it Polish with the rise of ONR, Ukrainians with Bandera or the Jewish

Don't forget that some Poles are also Jewish. Interesting that you mention ONR.

As a country of Poland, I belive that our land should be protected against western interests, rich people and big bussiness, its our land and we should never sell it any Germans e.g privatisation of the forests which nearly went through in the parliament last year.

Remember Poland voted to join the EU (and has done extremely well out of that) - one of the central tenets of that is freedom of capital.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
Life / Polish people are the most ignorant people in the world! [335]

I wonder why you think that the English don't know where Berlin is?

And by the way, as I've said before, this is an unfortunate thread - no single nationality is especially ignorant - ignorance, like fanaticism, is a very individual trait.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Fortunately, Poland throughout its history has not been an "exclusive ethnical (sic) enclave" - it has always had a multicultural tradition, nor has sovereignty been vested in one ethnolinguistic group of Poles to the exclusion of another. Though there are unfortunately those who would prefer that not to be.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

You are being a little ambiguous in your answer.

Rightly so in a matter of so many ambiguities.

Do you claim exclusive rights over your house or a land? Do you feel particularly attached to the idea your money are your money?

Do you claim exclusive rights to restrict the nationality of anyone else who owns property in your street or feel,attached to the idea that certain people rather than others can spend or use the same currency?

Does that explain why for 90% of the time that Warsaw was the capital of pre-1918 independent Poland Jews were forbidden from living there? .....
the abduction of a Jewish child will be considered to be theft. In what kind of country did it need to be written that stealing Jewish children was not OK?!

Indeed. And the statutes (like so much else in those parts and in those times were honoured more in the breach than the observance. Unless the Poznan Pogrom was just an illusion.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Were there any comparably sized minorities of comparable population density in the region and were the pogroms elsewhere (for example the Poznan Pogrom) any less vicious?
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Know of any statute, law, constitution, treaty, accord or other man-made agreement that was ever enforced 100%?

That would depend how egregiously it was broken.

Considering your riposte, the question was apparently somewhat ambiguous. Have any Jewish scholars, leaders or others ever regretted that the Jewish people in the middle ages and later did not choose some other, more Judaeophilic country for mass settlement? If so, which country would that be and why didn't they go there?

A non-question.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Have you heard any rueful Jews regret that they didn't move en masse to some other European land?

Have you heard of any Poles, whether Jewish or Gentile who were alive in those times?

1. ...

Those statutes were very enlightened for their times. Just a shame they weren't always enforced.
jon357   
11 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Does that possibly not suggest that somehow things were a bit less horrible there?

Doubtful. More to do with chance and circumstance and location. Plus King Boleslaw and his need for an educated and literate class had a bit to do with it.

Remember also that the territory wasn't always Polish-ruled and was sparsely populated and circumstances changed many times over the centuries.
jon357   
10 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Indeed, both equally illogical but only one is common and both a distortion of the other.

The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has turned down a request to support the renovation of a historic synagogue in Przysucha in southern Poland.
Between 2012 and 2014, the Foundation obtained from the Ministry of Culture financial assistance that allowed it to perform necessary rescue work on the Przysucha synagogue, including securing the foundation and roof restoration to protect the synagogue from building catastrophe. The synagogue's poor condition is the result of of post-World War II decades of neglect.
The total estimated cost to renovate the synagogue is $52,000. The Foundation requested $43,000 from the Ministry of Culture.

Nothing can make amends for the tragedies of the past and Poland as a state is not responsible for those tragedies. Nevertheless, Poland's Jewish past is worth cherishing. The cost of renovating this important building is peanuts - and it is very much part of Polish cultural heritage. It could generate tourist income and provide employment too.


jon357   
10 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

The two concepts are not contradictory as long as we understand history is never black and white. One can celebrate the achievements of Marie Curie without apologising for the pogroms that occured during her lifetime. Unless some evidence turned up that she led or encouraged a mob herself.

If of course we do not acknowledge those pogroms, any celebration of Marie Curie's achievements is necessarily compromised since we have intentionally debased the historiography of that time.
jon357   
10 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

An irrelevance.

There is little point in either beating yourself up about the deeds of others or trying to erase chapters of history in order to control a national narrative. The idea of historic national guilt is as unhealthy as the idea that any one group have exclusive rights over a territory.
jon357   
10 Mar 2015
Off-Topic / Eurovision - Today I will be ashamed to be Polish [580]

I didn't know straight people watched it these days. After all, three drag artistes have won in the past few years (and Poland's Isis Gee could pass as one).

Trashy music, corrupt voting from certain states, utter kitsch. But the Finnish entry sounds good, last year's bearded lady was fun and it does seem popular in places (like Poland) where they enjoy comparing themselves to their neighbours.
jon357   
10 Mar 2015
Life / Barking Dogs in Poland [65]

Dogs in Poland (Warsaw anyway) are the topic of much discussion, disagreement and arguments in apartment buildings, some very much justified and some not.
jon357   
9 Mar 2015
History / Terrible past for the Jews in Poland? [930]

Records of long-distance Jewish slave merchants date at least as far back as 492, ......

You think people should apologise for issues that happened over 1500 years ago? Perhaps King Arthur should apologise for fighting the Saxon settlers and Alfred the Great for burning the cakes...
jon357   
9 Mar 2015
Real Estate / Getin Noble Bank / Dombank - it is possible to cancel mortgage agreement in CHF? [41]

And now speculators want to be compensated - doubtless at the indirect expense of the more sensible and less greedy.

I do feel sympathy though for those who wanted to buy a home to they live in and could only afford the cheapest mortgages. For property speculators I have a question. AstraZeneca shares have just fallen in value - do you think the stockbroker should be forced in the courts to exchange them for GlaxoSmithkline shares?