Life / Activation of purchased Poland Orange/T-mobile/Play mobile data / SIM card? [19]

It can take longer than 10 mins as there are often queues. Try and go in the daytime when most customers are working.

News / Tusk turning his back to idea about Intermarium (New Commonwealth), seeing only EU as future for Poland [119]

How is Putin protecting Christian values ? By invading, theiving, killing and jailing opponents and secreting illegitimate kids and pilfered billions in Switzerland ?

And alltimegreat how swiftly you have moved from asking about golonka to deciding that we would be better off here under Russian rule - that has in our lifetimes been marked by military occupation, keeping Poles in dark poverty and with all liberty suppressed.

As for Germany being better off under Russian rule I suggest you run that by the local population - would they prefer some Turks or Iraqis cleaning their hotels and working in KFC or would they rather have many divisions of drunk rapists building a wall alomg the border with the rest of Decadent Europe.

News / Charles Crawford on PiS just after the 2015 election [28]

That was a quote from Kaczynski made last October to PAP.

He seems to have changed his mind in an April interview.

News / Charles Crawford on PiS just after the 2015 election [28]

Kaczynski position was that even if the foetus would die it should be carried to term and then they could have a little baptism and a little coffin. Shows the empathy of a person with no kids basically.

My own poisition is that shared by about 35 percent or the Polish population - I am pro life but for healthy births. However I am not sure of the governments need to legislate on an issue with personal ramifications. I.e. I need some convincing that the state owns the womb and the unborn child.

The PiS position of total ban is an extreme one - held by only 11 percent of the population.

News / Charles Crawford on PiS just after the 2015 election [28]

Ridiculous answers on here - only whataboutery and attacks on PO rather than addressing any of the issues.

I see a new lie being peddled that PiS was only joking when they vote unanimously to send the abortion bill to a second stage. Both Szydlo and Kaczynski supported it. The reason for this is that they are religious zealots.

News / Charles Crawford on PiS just after the 2015 election [28]

Written two years ago so worth to consider some of his assertions

Do they really stand for robust and honest state institutions? Their MO is more TKM and treating the shareholders of state companies money as their own.

They are not religious zealots ? But they attend Radio Maryja functions, funnel millions of taxpayers money to religious institutions and tried a total ban on abortion.

A square deal for pensioners and state employees ? Yeah right - the daily stream of Dezubekizacja stories worth takes no into consideration

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]

I have the book and my kids like it - but at my youngest's preschool there is one mixed race kid, dad from Tanzania I think. I very much doubt that the teacher would read that book aloud to the class - if she did that would not be sensitive.

The reasons why it is still accepted are nothing to do with slavery - Sweden, Switzerland or Canada never had colonies but I doubt they would use such language and consider it normal. It is to do with Poland being more isolated during communism and taking time to catch up with normal discourse.

this afternoon I saw a Polish singer with her face painted black pretending to be Imany on prime time TV - that is more shocking to me than the Murzyn thing.

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

But the current government aspires to a kind of politics that is closer to Ukraine, Belarus or Venezuela.

Life / Tap Water quality in Poland [44]

There has been a huge ongoing project to improve the water system in Warsaw.- with almost 200m euro of it paid by the EU i.e. 200 euros per household.

I drink the tap water whenever I am there and it is fine.

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]

Well some people hate him for that, and others don't like him because he is vain, idle, greedy, foolish, goes out of his way to make enemies and has no empathy for any fellow beings - even those who were loyal to him, he is a man who in the space of six months fired all of his closest advisors.

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]

Ways to describe people you don't like ?

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [957]

No - it is not a zero sum game about inflows and outflows of state money. Much of the benefit comes from opportunities for Polish citizens and for Polish businesses - to trade and invest freely in the worlds biggest market. The funds for building infrastructure is only half of the story.

You can ask Brexit Britain how it is going - they might save a few hundred quid per head in EU contributions but at a terrible and permanent cost to their business sector, including trashing their biggest industry.

Work / Business ideas for Poland [63]

Franchising with a proven concept makes more sense especially in a risky area like retail - a properly executed pound shop would work but you need hundreds of stores, a big warehouse, millions of working capital and great logistics.

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

It is clearly within the EUs remit under the basic law and the accession treaty. All details can be found in the EU's many press releases and explanatory notes on the issue. Poland was a willing signatory of these.

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

Simple answer to that - the govt is not following the rules it agreed to when it joined, and which bind the other 27 members. Having the judges and the prosecutor report to the same person is a clear breach of EU rules

German terrorism is a totally unrelated issue.

Life / How are electric cars doing in Poland? [413]

Why does each car increase losses ? Isn't the marginal profit per car positive ?

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

What would be prudent about removing everybody with experience immediately ?

How many of the judges were in situ in 1989 ?

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

From a poll by Millward Brown, commissioned by TVN. If you have an alternative source of info as to support for this measure then you can post a link to it it here.

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

Why is a Swedish far right site a good source ?

The German govt does not select judges. Already discussed.

I have no idea about Sweden - says that the govt picks them but I don't think they can fire them. In any case the Swedish system has been. In place since 1840 and thus presumably independence is guaranteed.

This is a key reform, supported by only 29 percent of the population. It was introduced In a rushed way, full of errors and contractictions with existing law. It simply cannot be compared to any system in the EU, Canada, America etc. If you want to find comparisons try Belarus, Saudi, Venezuela, Malaysia.

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

You realise it is possible to be a practicing catholic and still be strongly opposed to those anti democratic, middle of the night actions ?

38 million are not in favor - in a single issue opinion poll by TVN only 29 perc not thought the president should sign this law. There are many decent PiS voters who oppose it, including at a guess some of the poor secretaries and assistants of the sitting judges who will be out of a job as a result of Jarek's desire for revenge.

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

@gumishu
Might be an interesting electoral strategy given that it's about a third of the Polish workforce who work for some branch of the state.

Why shouldn't judges, many of whom could have earned far more in private practice, not be covered by labour law ?

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

Amusing article in the Kosher Gazette that Solidarnosc boss Piotr Duda has noted that firing all the judges and assistants and interns breaks the Kodeks Pracy - precisely the type of legislative error you get when so called lawyers start work half cut at 9 in the evening.

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

If economic growth is 3 percent then there are many factors that can drive gas sales higher - increases of 3 percent in household income can often mean a increase of say 10 percent in your spare family money - discretionary income. This is often channeled into second cars, or upgrading to a bigger engine new car, or more leisure time driving. It is well known that while most of the 500 plus money has gone into clothes, English lessons etc a good amount has gone into the car industry.

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

I have no idea where you get your figures from regarding akcyza rising 20 percent in gas sales. Last info I saw (in June in the kosher gazette) said gas sales were up 13 percent and akcyza from gas sales up 5 percent. Both figures are believable and mainly due to increased economic output.

The tax dodging thing is one of the founding myths of PIS but Poland's poor tax compliance did not start in 2005 and it did not stop in September 2015. It is deeply ingrained in society - the result of an anti authoritarian streak, punitive taxes seems as unfair, straightforward poverty, poor collection mechanisms and technology and yes some corrupt officials .

Many of the collection initiatives currently adding to the govt coffers were started under PO. And by the way I am not really a fan of PO's economic management either - they are simply the lesser of two evils and they don't deliberately try and wreck democracy or proclaim Jesus to be the King of Poland.

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

anybody hear about Kaczynski saying the constitution can not be sovereign because it is only a small book.

Of course I can appreciate the Cartesian logic of this but it again is straight from the Erdogan or Putin playbook. The difference should be that Poland is a functioning and sincere democracy. I hope now most people can see this is just about revenge for his brother's decision to land in heavy fog or as Atch says to write a chapter rather than a page of Polish history. Either way he clearly has some personality defects and the more sensible members of PiS must do some soul searching (just as more sensible Republicans have in the US this week).

Good luck to those on the demo - I will attend next week if they are still on, I hear Soros pays quite well and there will be free bagels all round.

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

In the same way that Brutus was mainly responsible for the death of Caesar ?

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

This is more than a few frank words - he called people murderers, many of whom were not even involved in politics in 2010, during a debate about legal reform.

Food / What's your favorite Polish coffee? [73]

Lipton has 33 percent of the market, next biggest are Tetley and Herbapol.

Poland has 3rd highest tea consumption in the EU after Ireland and U.K.

Why can't you check google ? The above took less than 2 minutes to find.

My experience is that most rural Polish households will have Lipton and some other cheaper black tea bags - often a supermarket own brand. Loose leaf tea was common 15 years ago but dying out.

In towns then quite a lot of better quality tea is bought in small specialists in shopping malls as loose leaf, by the gram.

@harry - will give that a try when I am in Muranow. One of the best value for money is the new cafes that Carrefour are testing - excellent espresso is 5 or 7 for a double and croissants are 3. They are both the same quality that you would get in Paris.

News / Dodgy PRL-holdover judiciary finally reformed [420]

Well it's difficult enough to prove libel even if the libeller is not the judges boss !

It just shows how ridiculous he is - many opposition MPS were not even elected in 2010 when a series of human errors and poor preparation by the Presidents staff caused the plane crash.

News / Dodgy PRL-holdover judiciary finally reformed [420]

How could so many paid thugs make it on to the street at one days notice ? There would not even be time for the bank transfer.

Hilarious watching Kaczynski this morning - he should not stay up so late, it's bad for his health