News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

I'm reading this thread and I cannot help thinking that everyone is just making up those spy thriller stories not to admit to themselves that what happened was simply an example of stupidity and lack of common sense. Things happen to people. Bad things happen to stupid people. Obviously, as a nation, Poland cannot stand up and say to everyone else, Ok, we messed up and killed half our our government in a dumb accident. No, there needs to be KGB involved, and the mafia, and neo-nazis, and Americans. Who knows, maybe even Mexicans! Give me a break! Oh, wait, yes, the laptop disappeared! That proves it! You know the laptop would disappear if the plane crashed over any other country, and probably even quicker if it crashed in Poland.

News / RUSSIA TO MAKE PUBLIC THE KATYN FILES... [274]


Well, what would you call it? As much as people are trying to make him a legend, I think it only shows that Poland is rather short on true "legends," because he definitely wasn't successful in retrospect, and his authoritarian style of government only led to political divisions afterward, and while Rydz-Smigly and Moscicki were busy bickering, the Soviets and the Nazis were plotting how to divide Poland between them. If that's not being clueless, I don't know what is. Way to go!

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


I'm sure they do, and I'm sure the president's plane wasn't the first of it's kind to crash either. It's precisely because there aren't any important people on board that we don't hear of those, so they don't come to mind as a reality check. I bet Russia could be posting daily statistics on soviet-era flying deathtraps crashing somewhere between Moscow and Vladivostok.

I say Russians should start selling those old planes to Montana. If they run so well, maybe they would make good family vehicles. Although it would still be probably illegal to have sheep in the cabin without a chaperone.

Life / I saw Polish nationalism today [249]


it's a big country. there are also people who believe in aliens and people who believe the blair witch project was for real or that evolution is a hoax. it doesn't mean any of that is popular here.

Life / I saw Polish nationalism today [249]


that's an interesting statement. meaning both groups despise Jews, non-whites, and homosexuals? I never thought that football hooligans have much of a political agenda.

Life / I saw Polish nationalism today [249]

That's an interesting way to look at things. I would agree that more education translates into more tolerance of other people who are different from you.

I've always wondered how people who cannot live with differing opinions and lifestyles can emigrate to another country. They must be either perpetually miserable, or sorely unsuccessful.

Tolerance is related to resilience and adaptability, and you have to adapt when you move to another country. Even learning another language is a way of starting to look at things in a brand new way.

Life / I saw Polish nationalism today [249]

ok, people, I want to know why the most popular threads here are the ones where people throw sh*t in each others faces, and the ones that ask for intelligent exchange of information die down quickly.

I mean, I pushed your buttons yesterday (sorry, but some of you were just asking for it) and I mangled some of you pretty badly (that means you, ShortD*ck; btw, about the last few pictures, did your mother know you took naughty pictures of her?), and I got a storm of responses. Today I'm being nice and stuff, and it's crickets...

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

The problem with the way of thinking that there is no other way than relying on family is the immediate conclusion that it's your family's obligation to help, rather than an option to do so. I guess the biggest thought leap is to realize that you're ultimately responsible for yourself, that there is nobody going to be there to bail you out when you f*ck up, make a bad decision, or not plan for the unexpected.

As for elderly people living with their children, I don't think it's comfortable for anyone, I think the older people would be much happier on their own with some type of domestic help and the children would feel less burdened, too.

Again, back to relying on yourself, I fully expect to be old and incapacitated one day, but I would NEVER expect that it's going to be my children's obligation to take care of me. I'm planning to retire independently, and not be a burden. There is nothing unexpected about getting old. If you can't plan for it, you're an idiot.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]


This is an overdramatized example, but once you get over the emotion in the statement, it's simple, again, it's not the mother's responsibility to put her kids through college. It's an option. There are ways of financing your own education. Besides, honestly, if you can't support yourself and have to live on welfare, you shouldn't have kids.


how do you think it happens in other countries? do you think you can get a good job right after high school in the US? you need to be resourceful about finding a job, going to school and everything else in life.


so what's your solution? give up? hit mommy and daddy for cash? or the government? yes, the creative and strong-willed and resourceful get ahead. everyone else works minimum wage jobs.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]


lol, no, nothing's more pathetic than a poor old man who expects his kids to wipe his a$s

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]


YES! when you're 13, it's your job to go to school and make sure you study and do your homework and don't f*ck off and don't get in trouble.


dude, are you high? this is hilarious. we're talking about personal responsibility, not having a contest who can come up with the most pathetic situation that's not your fault. Yes, if you have a family, you need to prepare for the event you get hit by a bus tomorrow and your family is provided for. That, my friend, in "my world" is called life insurance.


if you're too stupid to compete for the same job with illegals who barely speak the language, then I don't have an answer for you. You're a loser.


I've always voted Democrat. I pay taxes, and donate to many charities, including food banks. I hope you liked the green beans...


it is six figures, trust me. PF is all for entertainment. Would be better if it was for learning about new ideas, but there are few to be found here, instead just a bunch of half-wits making excuses for their sorry lives.

Again, what's your solution?

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]


that's cute. did you ask him about his plans?

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

I'm not angry. What made you think I was angry? In fact, I'm all happy for you, but I hope you realize that where your son's mindset is right now when he's 20 is not going to be the same a few decades down the road. He might have his own family by then to worry about, or live half way around the world. Or any other of literally dozens of scenarios that do not coincide with your expectations to be cared for.

Why are you falling into a false-choice mistake? Not everyone living independently when they're old is lonely and miserable, and not everyone "surrounded by family" is happy or feels appreciated.

I hope it's not news to you, but your kid is not always going to be there for you and I'm just pointing out the selfishness of expecting he'll live his life to make you comfortable and revolve his future around you.

I'm not saying I don't want to see my family when I'm old. I'm saying I hope I won't HAVE to rely on their help.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

ok, you're missing the point. A kid who is 13 is his parents' responsibility (even though he's old enough to be responsible himself for a few things). A kid who is 21 is not.

Are you 13?


missing the point again. that's fine. we can go over it again, slowly. you go first: give me an example of something specific where there is no way out, only whining and blaming others for. and don't give me that twin towers teary-eye crap.


if you don't have money to buy life insurance, you shouldn't get married or have kids.


what, too smart for your expectations for women?


Unless you're living in our attic (sorry, no basement), you have no way of knowing. I do.


it's out there. it's called internships. but you have to compete for those, something you have apparently trouble processing. nobody is going to call you and hunt you down to give you a job or training. you have to show you're worth the trouble.


I never said any of that. I did say, however, before, that you must be high. Apparently you are. You're seeing things...


seeing things again...


i rest my case about you seeing things.

now, about taxes, seriously - there is something I do believe in, which is a social safety net. For people who truly cannot help themselves. Like the disabled, for example. It's not for people who don't feel like doing anything. Are you disabled? Mentally perhaps? If not, and you're still hoping to get some of my tax money, you are a slacker.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

it's a nursing home. I know, it can be a sad situation when the elderly feel abandoned and not wanted. but it doesn't have to be this way and nursing homes do not have to be sad places. I know of many that people actually enjoy because they have other people their age there, and they do trips and other activities, not to mention they have on-site medical care that their family cannot provide. and there are are retirement communities where people live quite independently in apartments etc. and have domestic and medical help available.

bottom line, it's not a rule that a nursing home equals misery

I still feel it's extremely and inexcusably selfish of anyone to expect that others will organize their life around them. It might be common (again, common, not mandatory) in countries like Japan, which is small, or Poland, where I hear people don't move around from place to place and, evidently, it's common for multiple generations to live together. But here people move from place to place multiple times in their lifetime, and they simply might not be anywhere near where their parents live.


it's a bad habit to draw conclusions based on faulty assumptions. there are high schools in the US.

convex is right, though. there's no point in ******** that low-end jobs are gone, or whatever. if your qualifications don't match the market, and there is no demand for what you can do, you have to adjust. you can't expect the whole world to adjust to you. that's why it's called a job MARKET, people, it's all about supply and demand.

I just got a flyer in my door about a "food taxi" service. You can call them, order anything from any local restaurant, and they'll go, pick it up for you, and deliver it to your home or office. That's brilliant. You don't need skills, or higher education, just a cell phone and a car, and you can make a few bucks. But that would require creativity and effort, while it's much easier to sit and complain.

My family didn't have money to pay for my college, I worked three jobs while I went to school. Everything is possible if you really want to do it.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

what's medlunek?

as for my husband, I'm not going to write a book. the crux of his story is that his family had very limited means (not to mention rather low regard for education) and there was no way they'd pay for his college, so he had to work very hard and be very resourceful to pay for his school, which he did, and I'm very proud of him.

I checked my transcript. It varied, I had between 16 and 23 hours of classes per week.

the food taxi was just an example of doing something nobody else has thought about and people would actually pay money for. I don't know the realities in Poland but I'm sure if there is a niche to be explored, someone creative will find ways to make money. my point was, if what you can do is not in demand any more, find out what is in demand and how you can use it to your advantage.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]


that's grossly over-generalized. it's also a topic for another discussion, one that has been taking place in this country for decades, and we're not going to be able to say anything new on this forum.

the link about meldunek is in Polish.

maybe I missed it, but is there an identified source of the statement that 20% of adult Poles live with their parents? did they mention the age bracket, or any other details? I'm curious because I can't figure out if it's true or not, actually.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

oh, I see.
it would still be interesting to read the whole article about the 20% of people living with their parents (and what is young? 20? 30?). particularly because of the other part of the statement, that 20% of young adults are single. does it mean that 80% are married? that would REALLY be shocking, imo.

there just isn't enough information to form an honest opinion.


I can understand how a communist country would like to track their population, but now I'm curious about the rest of Europe. is there a valid reason for doing it?

Z:
oh, I guess you finished your post before I finished mine.
thank you for the statistics, but it won't be a few hours till I'm able to ask my husband about it.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

not necessarily. it would have that meaning in the colloquial sense, but when it comes to a census or tax-related issues, single would mean unmarried, or a single head of household kind of thing, not whether they have boyfriends or girlfriends.

either way, 80% is very high, whether we're talking casual relationships or marriage. Does either of the articles actually say that?

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

it's rather difficult to comment on something that hasn't been defined precisely, but let's say we're talking marriage. I think only 40 or 50% of adult people in the US are married. I'm sure it varies from country to country, but compared with the US, 80% is high, and therefore cannot be normal for most of the world. if anyone has statistics on what's typical in other countries, I could change my mind, I just don't know much about it.

Love / 20% of adult Poles are single and live with Mummy! [241]

well, yes, I understand this is what YOU mean, but the people who compiled those statistics had to have a definition of "single" in order to measure how many people out there are "single." I'm curious if either of those articles mentions their definition.

80% of people you happen to know might very well be in a relationship, but it's not a representative sample of the population.

Love / Polish women are the most beautiful in the world! [1718]

dude, too many words, too little meaning...

and who are you? Ryan Reynolds? Don't tell me Brad Pitt is hanging on out PF now...

I think if that VS model got within 200 yards of your zitty teenage ass, you'd sh*t your pants. In fact, I think you'd do that if any female got within 200 yards of you.

Why don't you go find your playboy collection, your magnifying glass, and do what you normally do in the evening.

News / CO2 emissions in Poland. Should Poland go nuclear or stick with clean coal technologies? [59]


are those the same people who crashed Kaczynski's plane, faked the moon landing, covered up the real UFO, are keeping Osama alive in the basement (with Elvis!), and are taking all the Polish women away from you?

If I were you, I wouldn't be advertising that I know so much about all this. One day you might be flying an old Russian plane in a fog, god knows what they can do then!

Love / How do Polish men feel about gender equality? [780]

From what I hear from my husband and his Polish family, women in Poland are not really treated equally at all. They're usually delegated to "women's" tasks, which mainly means they're expected to take care of the household and children, and it's really unheard of for the guy to stay at home while the woman works. Women's unemployment rate is higher, they earn less money, and they're virtually unrepresented in management positions, not to mention there are professions that are considered "not for girls," like engineering. Women are mainly supposed to be teachers, or nurses, or work in retail, or do some general administrative support. Anti-gender discrimination employment laws exist on paper but not in practice, so it's ok for an employer to ask women to wear makeup or high heels (although I hope this part is really not true any more...)

So, the question about how MEN feel about gender equality is irrelevant, women shouldn't be in a position to have ask the guys for approval to be equal. Women ARE equal, and guys should just learn to live with it (unless we need help with fixing things or carrying heavy stuff :)

Love / How do Polish men feel about gender equality? [780]

Zimmy, you have it all wrong.

It's true that that the pay gap has narrowed since, say, the 50s, but it's still there. The very fact that you mention gender separation in certain occupations (like, some professions are predominantly represented by women versus men), is a vestige of discrimination, because women tend to work disproportionately in lower-paying fields. Also, the gap is wider for minorities than for Caucasian women.

Why do women take time off for kids? Because in the majority of households, it's the woman who makes less money. (And it's not true that women take more sick days. Perhaps they take more time off to care for children, but it's still the same reason - the guy makes more money). If you ask yourself why, there is no logical explanation - the women are not less intelligent, the children don't need a mother - they need a parent/caretaker, so other than the "gender role," there is nothing to explain that.

It's true that more women graduate from colleges - still, why is it that they're a minority in management? And, on average, why do female college graduates make less than male graduates, in the same field?

The assumption is that women need less money, because they have men to take care of them. I remember being told about a layoff at a company a relative of mine worked at, where she was told that she had been selected to be laid off because she had a husband who had a job, and the guys who kept their jobs had families to support! That's something she should have sued for, but she chose not to.

And it happens here, in the US. Probably to a lesser extent than in other places, but there is still need for legislation that closes the gap, like the Lilly Leddbetter Act.

I'm not complaining, I have a good job and I get paid well, but to say that there is no pay gap is just ignorant.

(btw, the stuff about women working less hours doesn't make sense, either)

Love / How do Polish men feel about gender equality? [780]


lol... I found the statistics page:

bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm

it just makes Zimmy's own argument irrelevant.

Love / How do Polish men feel about gender equality? [780]

Some companies got into legal trouble because they were assigning overtime to men more frequently than women - which is a form of discrimination... Either way, there is a pay gap in a lot of jobs that employ salaried professionals (and don't pay overtime).

It's not by choice that women lose the "seniority" battle (again, "seniority" is not relevant in non-union jobs anyway, so we're talking about a subset of jobs, not the entire job market), it's BECAUSE they stay home to take care of children, and it's BECAUSE they make less money than men in the first place. It's a catch 22.

Women are getting into professions that have traditionally been predominantly male, but it's very difficult and it doesn't happen overnight, so it's not like we can just "choose" to do so, and in fact, there are things stopping us - stereotypes and glass ceilings!

Well, I don't hear the crowds of guys complaining they don't get enough retail jobs, so perhaps we should put aside the comment on how men are allegedly discriminated against, as settled.

oh, and can someone get Socks his pills again today?

Love / How do Polish men feel about gender equality? [780]


ok, we get it, the death gap... nothing to laugh at but it doesn't explain EVERYTHING.

the overtime gap narrows along with the rest of the overall picture, but it's still there. at the same time, as the economy moves away from manufacturing and other hourly jobs into salaried professions, so goes away the overtime itself.

the excerpt also says that women tend to work more p/t jobs than men, another example of gender separation.

you can't deny the reality.

oh, and here's a visual for you:

Can we move Sucks to Off-Topic permanently? Has he said anything constructive or intelligent in the past six months?

• 
  grgenderearnings6.gif
  

Love / How do Polish men feel about gender equality? [780]


all three of them discriminatory... how can you not see that?

please, no more "death gap" stuff, as I said before, a small sliver of the whole spectrum of what people do (i.e. jobs in hazardous conditions) does not explain the whole phenomenon. I'm not advocating for 50/50 quota. I'm saying women should be allowed to pick their profession and not be faced with stereotypes. You know, some thought they were doing women a favor by not letting them enter those fields at all, as if women weren't capable of making that choice for themselves...

In case you missed my point - women don't earn more money not because they're less capable or don't need or don't want money or because they can't work as hard, but because they're not given an equal chance to do so.


My level?! Sucks-on-d*ck advocates outright violence against women, but when I say that he should be moved to off-topic, it's objectionable?

Love / How do Polish men feel about gender equality? [780]

First of all, I don't think anyone, including governments, should mandate a retirement age for anyone. Two, in many countries (Poland, if I'm not mistaken) women are forced/encouraged to retire sooner than men.

Psychology has a lot to do with social conditioning - if you teach a part of the society that it's not ok to be assertive or ask directly for what you want, you're going to have that part of the society behaving in a less direct, aggressive way. Women can be as vicious as men, as soon as they realize it's ok. The combat example is not very strong, either, because there are armies where women are at the front lines just like men, and underwear has nothing to do with it (and there are pills that eliminate the underwear issue). Criminal activity might have something to do with physical strength, but I still think it's because girls are brought up in a manner that de-emphasizes standing up for yourself, even by families at the margins of the society (at the same time, the "standing-up" would usually involve physical fights, too).

It's all social conditioning. Did you know that before WWII male babies were dressed in pink, and female in blue, because blue was considered the "dainty" choice between the two colors? And why would someone need the "dainty" color to be assigned to girls, when male and female babies are virtually indistinguishable when it comes to appearance, behavior or social interaction?

Women in the 50s were told they're BETTER OFF staying at home and taking care of the kids, because they're not cut out for the tough world out there, and that their largest accomplishment was going to be how "well" they marry. Well, apparently, time has shown a lot of us are not the withering violet type, after all.