News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

Admittedly PO is the perpetual poll-leader, but the percentages vary. In a TNS Polska poll taken in the fiurst half of September (presumably when the odium of the Amber Gold scandal finally hit home), PO had a backing of 28% and PiS trailed behind with 26%. SLd – 7%, and Palikot & PSL each 5%.

This is not the first time. In a May survey by MillwardBrown SMG/KRC PO enjoyed 29% and PiS 28%. It all depends what the situation will be like (economic crunch, new scams and scandals, etc.) as the election approaches.

For lanmguage practiuce: Gdyby wybory odbyły się w pierwszej połowie września, największym poparciem cieszyłaby się PO (28 proc.), a drugie miejsce zajęłoby PiS (26 proc.) - wynika z najnowszego sondażu TNS Polska. Do Sejmu weszłyby też: SLD (7 proc.), Ruch Palikota (5 proc.) i PSL (5 proc.).

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

Cant argue with that. The constructive no-confidence vote being proposed by PiS might succeed because it enjoys the support of Palikot and SLD, but only if some PO members abstained, voted for the measure* or called in sick. The problem would be to assmble a governent afterwards. It is supposed to be non-political and techocratic cabinet, but in Poland that sounds highly unlikely. If Solidary Poland (Ziobro & Co.) had 12-15% backing, that might make a difference.

For instance if in the 2015 election both PiS and PO got 32% and SP got 15% that would constitute a PiS-SP coaliton of 47% and those two parties could form a government . If the PSL got 5% (as currently) that would give a PO-led coaliton only 37%. If they were power-hungry enough they might attempt adding the SLD (7%) which would give them 44%. If they also added Palikot that would push them ahead of PiS-SP with 49%. However, Tusk may be slippery but he's no fool and would probbaly be wary of an exotic coalition, mindful of the headaches it caused PiS (with LPR and Self-Defence).

*Anyone know if the Sejm monitors how whic M P votes, or is it truly secret balloting?
** Zdolność koalicyjna - what would that be in English -- coalitionability?

They would have SLD got 7 and Palikot 5 then the PO-led ci'+oaltiuon would have. , of the vote*Does anyone know whether the Sejm monitors how which MP votes, or is it truly a secret abllot.

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News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

That's the problem with a 2-party system. Neither cnadidate is any good. Still I prefer a Mormon to a poser who attended church every Sunday with his fmaily during his campaign when the TV cameras were whirring away but after getting elected spends Sunday mornings at the golf course. How's that for hypocrisy? And many of my countrymen suspect him of being a crypto-Muslim. Something far worse than a Mormon.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

CNN has repoted it on several occaisons over the years. I don't recall the exact dates. But do you doubt it? Are you saying Obama is a devout Christian who never misses a Sunday in church and deny that he used it as a vote-getting gimmick to gain respectability?

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

This has been noticed by many Americans: ca.answers.yahoo/question/index?qid=20120820063129AABthTU

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

Delph is wrong again. Veteran White Hosue reporter Keith Koffer, who knows the ins and outs of American politics far beeter than you or me, made teh following oibservations:

Obama Heads to Church – Again
by Keith Koffler on January 15, 2012, 12:16 pm

President Obama and his family headed out to church this morning for the third time in a month, the latest sign that the president may be using religion to boost his image as the campaign heats up.

Obama has rarely gone to church since becoming president. But last month he and his family walked across Lafayette Park in front of the White House to attend services at St. John’s Church. They attended Christmas services at a Marine Base in Hawaii and today were at Zion Baptist Church in DC.

While it’s possible the trips to church a part of some kind of renewed personal religious commitment, they are also consistent with Obama’s increased use of religious imagery as part of his public profile.

During two recent annual events – the televised Christmas in Washington gala and the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, Obama invoked specifically Christian themes he had shunned in the past.

The Christian narrative is appealing to a key demographic that fled Democrats en masse during the 2010 midterm election – white working class voters. Obama will need to bring as many members of this group back into the fold if he hopes to prevail in critical swing states like Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and other must-win states in the Midwest and the South.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

Your game is the curve ball or red herring -- start talking about soruces, evidence and various peripheral things without ever addressing the question. May seem clever to you but it's highly transparent and banal. You rarely provide a counterargument -- in this case 'proving' or providing the iron-clad evidence you demand of others that Obama is a weekly churchgoer and never prefers golf to Sudday worship. Unable to do so, you latch on to peripheral issues as to how the information was presented and who presented. It must be the common trait of those who idolise the GW clique.

I recall the GW gang criticisng Glemp a while back: 'The Cardinall is again attacking the West' they wsrote and provided a few of his quotes. Like Delph they preferred to ignore the merits of the argument and latched onto who was doing the criticising. That way they got off the hook (or so they thought!) and did not have to analyse whether the cirticsm was justified or not. It's enough to empahsise that a churchman or republican blogger was the source to completely skirt the issue at hand. If it had been a demcoratic blogger that would have made him credilbe, right?

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

PRINCETON, NJ -- Just 34% of Americans think U.S. President Barack Obama is a Christian, while 44% say they don't know Obama's religion and 11% say he is a Muslim.

gallup.com/poll/155315/many-americans-cant-name-obamas-religion.aspx

The Washington Times wrote:
American Catholics are mobilizing for the biggest campaign of mass civil disobedience since the end of segregation. U.S. Catholic bishops are calling on Catholics to defy the Obama administration's contraceptive mandate. This comes in addition to numerous lawsuits launched by 46 plaintiffs from dioceses, universities and hospitals against the administration's order that compels religious organizations to subsidize birth control, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. The mandate is an unprecedented assault upon the Catholic Church's conscience rights and religious freedom, blatantly usurping the First Amendment.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

It's their country. What right do aliens have to say what's good for America?

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

What do youi mean by interfere? How are American citizens of Catholic persuasion 'interfering' in democratic processes when they are using their democratic right to lobby, redress greivances, protest and put pressure to bear on the authorities to back their demands through legal means unlike those groups that resort to violence.. An alien is a non-US citizen in this particular ontext. Anyone from a place like the UK would do well to exercise a bit of humility and first clean up their own coutnry's act before smartt-arsing about how other countries should run their affairs.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

Again define terms -- what is meant by involved? I would think that means joining a Polish political poarty, stadnign for publici office and the like, and my answer would be No. That right is reserved only for citizens.

Aliens in Poland or anywhere else are guests and should nto try to take over. Those in Poland in refugee centres or working legally or illegally have no right to engage in Polish politics unless they acquire Polish citizenship. Same in the US. Unfortuantely, many illegal aliens act is if they should have unlimtied rights and the Gringos should leave them alone.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

It's a passing thing. The EU will soon collpase anyway (good riddance!), so it's not worth making a fuss about. It was anotehr utopianist experiment which did not work. Thank goodness Poland did not let itself get roped into adopting the euro. Long live the złoty!

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

Commenting is not interference. You are even free to say what an a*sehole Obama is. As long as you don't try to vote in the USA.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

delphiandomine: the Złoty has been around for what, 17 years?

Your grasp of Polish hsitory is getitng better by the day. The złoty has been around for 350 years.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

KOSIECKI: probably a topo nick from the village of Koski in the Podlasie region. The toponym may have been dervied from kos (blackbird) or kosa (scythe).

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

Gowin would say he's got letter-of-the-law nitpickers like you 'w nosie' (if not 'south of the border' -- you probabyl won't catch that!)).. Every currency has changed in value, appearnce, and certainly buying power due to poltical events, wars, etc. but in historical terms a penny, guilder, franc, schilling, lira, złoty or whatever has been around ever since the term was first coined (no oun intended).

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

Poles call them 'szkiełko i oko'* types -- all calculators, columns of figures and e-gadgets but no heart or soul.

There was once a bloke called Mickiewicz, but you wouldn't know about that.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

delphiandomine
I heard you and rejected your sophistic (as always) justification. It'd be like saying the British monarchy began with Elizabeth II. Some hair-splitting nitpicker could surely find some minor points and peripheral reasons to allege that the preceding monarchies were different and therefore it really all began in 1950s.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

I'm clinging to the złoty heritage going back to the 1660s. The Soviet-installed communist episode was but a passing nightmare.

Following, observing, expessing opinions or covering events in a given country is not interfering. If you lay down Rejtan style in the road to block Saturday's Freedom Marrch that would be interfering. But just praising that crook Tusk is simply stupid, but not interfering.

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

A chat site means knocking about, ideas, opinions and impressions, not evidence. bibliiographic note and suchlike.. Sign up for a scholarly seminar, symposium or officiual discussion panel if you need solid evidence for every time someone breaks wind. Most people just their noses!

Language / Burak or redneck? [36]

Here are some of the traits American stand-up comic Jeff Foxworthy has listed. You are a redneck if:
**You have lost at least one tooth opening a beer bottle,
**Your boat has not left your driveway in 15 years,
**Jack Daniels makes your list of 'most admired people',
**You have a special baseball cap just for formal occasions,
**There is more dishes in your sink than in your copboards.
**Your wife has a beer belly and you find it attractive.
**You think the stock market has a fence round it,
**You think mud rasslin' should be an Olympic sport,
**You list your parole officer as areference,
**There are more fish on your walls than pictures...

Language / Burak or redneck? [36]

Are the Kiepskis regarded as buraki, or are they urban lumpenproles?. In the US we also have the term trailer trash (people living in caravans parks) and hillbillies (to northerners all southerners are sometimes called that). Interestingly, a southern accent means just the opposite in the US and UK.

Language / Burak or redneck? [36]

I don't but some New Englanders and Midwesterners do.

Language / Burak or redneck? [36]

So basically your are saying a redneck is an underclass regardless of accent or geography, more of a state of mind and personal values, habits and standards than anything else. Do you believe it to be synonmous with trailer trash, white trash and hilbilly?

So what about some of the speicific traits of Poalnd's legendary 'burak'?

Language / Burak or redneck? [36]

Actually,. come to think of it, there are many similar dergotory terms besides hick -- not all of them too current -- including hayseed, yokel and rube -- usually referring to backward farmers. Hence hick town.

Language / Burak or redneck? [36]

The term underlcass is loosely used by many Ameircans to mean, for instance, people like slumdwellers -- those who live in 'dangerous' neighbourhoods where drugs (crackhouses), prostituion and crime are rampant, tenants are way behind in theri rent, many have had utilities disconnected for nonpayment of bills, most kids are school drop-outs, very few know who there father, and drug dealers and rappers are looked up to as role models. There are neighboruhoods like this in every American major city (in other countries as well), but we are discussing the American underclass here.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

SZMYD: Polish respelling of German Schmied (Smith).

News / The Political Circus of Poland [306]

He thought he would improve his grip on power by winning more votes than in the 2005 election.