News / PiS spokesman steps down after Poland's CBA find undeclared cash in his bank account [22]

There was a time when it was popular for certain groups of people to be Anti-Pis, along with embracing all the memes and laughing at mistakes of the late president Kaczynski. Maybe delphi joins this notion of thinking.

As for the topic, it pretty much shows there are rotten eggs in every basket. Not long ago there was a commotion surrounding PO party buying votes for jobs. I'm happy though something like this happens to PiS because I don't like them.

Life / Conflicting views about life in Poland? [45]

IT jobs in Poland actually pay really good, they can give you salary to payments ratio similar to the one in Ireland or UK and quite high quality of life factor in bigger cities like Warsaw, Cracov or Wroclaw.

Travel / Getting from Krakow to Warsaw [99]

I know several people who used blablacar.com both as drivers and passengers and were very fond of the service

Travel / A traditional Thanksgiving Dinner in Wroclaw? [16]

Are you talking in terms of restaurants? The only american themed restaurants in Wrocław serve burgers and steaks from what I know ; o

Life / Broadband internet in Wroclaw (AeraAer Network vs Netia vs Dialog) [4]

I'd also check Multimedia Polska and Vectra - they are similar to dialog, both started as cable tv providers, hence the cables they use are cable tv cables, and speeds are quite good, definitely better than netia.

Life / Video games centers and culture in Poland [22]

I'm not sure what the median is in Poland , but I think the oldest gamers are in their 30s right now. What was quite different from US in the introduction of gaming in Poland was that gaming consoles such as nintendo or sega mega drive and so on were much less popular. Poland was all about computers such as Atari, Commodore 64 or Amiga. From what I know that's how it was in most of the europe.

Additionally poland was quite delayed with electronic entertainment, mostly due to the iron curtain with years of communism. Every game was released with a 2-5 year delay in that times. Due to the lack of anti-piracy laws in the 90s most people bought their pirated games at market stalls.

I remember quite vividly buying them - something along - "Please could you give me 16 disks of video games". We didn't even know the titles. You could get 4 games each on 4 disks or 16 games, it was all quite random.

Because of that computer games piracy we always quite a problem in Poland, and supposedly because of that many gaming services such as xbox live are introduced here with delays. But it's getting beter :)

Life / If I'm agnostic, deist, atheist - can I say that to Polish people in Poland? [72]


How often do you show your ID to random people? Likelyhood of showing your ID to a simpleminded police officer is negligible. I really think it's making a storm in a teacup.

Life / If I'm agnostic, deist, atheist - can I say that to Polish people in Poland? [72]

I wonder what's the thinking behind this thread. I mean, you usually don't talk religion with people you've just met. I can't imagine a situation where you casually walk up to people tellng them what's your choice of faith or lack of it. And people you know longer are your friends or colleagues, they shuold not care about your choice of fix...

News / The cross in Polish parliament - Does it bother you? [100]

I'm an atheist, and I think they should just leave it. I'm against both throwing it out, and laying down the law to guard its place..

News / Poland Parliament elections in October 2011 [944]

Everything can still change, I remember PiS winning overnight despite the exit polls... but if it's really the truth I'm happy for PO winning over PiS, and Palikot getting the amount of votes he got.

Law / Those of us in Sterling GBP are having our backsides kicked [35]

It wasn't so long ago when I was a small kid buying Warhammer minatures, they all had prices in pounds here in Poland and it was soo expensive... it still is but not to that degree...

News / Poland's Kaczynski blames Russia for brother's death [30]

I'm not saying PO won't pull something similar from their sleeve to get the attention of the great unwashed. But the whole leveraging of nationalistic feelings and the deep rooted hatred towards Russia is just way over the top, it will get them only the most right wing votes.

News / Poland's Kaczynski blames Russia for brother's death [30]

Let's hope it's gonna be his downfall and another PiS campaign that backfires...

News / Conservative-liberalism (Laissez-faire liberalism), another utopia for Poland? [99]

Most ideas of Janusz Korwin-Mikke looked good on paper. Sounded good when they were spoken in a huge crowd of young people. His target audiance are young people with no political backbone, who soak in these ideas with no hesitation. It's not that they are any different from people who follow the populism of some other late poiticians, The thing about JKM and UPR is, that most of their agenda is just that. Btw. what I mentioned is what I think about current JKM.

News / Achievements of the Tusk's Polish government [532]


I'd say a PIS comeback would be possible, if some kind of a big disaster hit Poland. That's the only chance for Kaczynski to get more votes, by preying on people who are in distress. And any gov that raigns during the time of distress is automatically getting a thumb down from the hoi polloi.

News / Achievements of the Tusk's Polish government [532]

Kaczynski would declare war against Russia, that's what you call "strong politics", god forbid him from getting to reign over Poland.

News / Dumbing-down in Polish schools and the Matura [185]

I partially agree. I remember that several years ago, the matura exam's difficulty level was varied across different regions of Poland due to these region's difference in education. For instance rural areas close to the east borders had it easier. Of course the main goal was for schools in different regions of Poland to have appropriate average scores.

I also remember from when I was younger, that there were special classess for kids who were better in certian subjects. They even created special groups for these better kids. Later on I heard that the idea got abandoned and that supposedly it's better to have a mixed children class.

News / Achievements of the Tusk's Polish government [532]

Interesting read pawian. The problem is you won't change anyone's mind. And to have a sensible conversation with somebody who's a tenacious pis voter is a no can do. I wonder where are the roots of this hatred Poles tend to guide towards each other.

Real Estate / Stan deweloperski vs stan surowy [developing or undeveloping property state] [36]


You probably know about it, but just to remind, remember that some houses might have their prices lowered because of the fact of being places in a flood plain or near river. Taking into consideration recent floods it is good to think about the surrounding land and rivers, especially if you were thinking about house near the Odra river.

News / Achievements of the Tusk's Polish government [532]


I meant it in the opposite way. They avoid these costly blunders, as you called them, but in the same time they shun important (and costly) "difficult" reforms. They avoid reforms which could lose them votes. Tusk understands that huge junk of electorate thinks about now rather than later, hence he will prefer taking money from OFE over the reforms of KRUS or public service sector workers to name but a few. It's a very slow walk of making small and often pointless reforms and preserving the electorate.

I'm afraid that in the current situation, whoever wins the election will not have enough votes to push through difficult reforms. The moment they form the gov they'll think how to extend their time onto next and next elections in the years to come.


bottoms up!! ;)

News / Achievements of the Tusk's Polish government [532]


Costly blunder and big reforms at the same time, which is a big downside of his gov, imo

News / Achievements of the Tusk's Polish government [532]


Me neither. I just remember some highlights, I know there were more but I'd have to google and look for them, I like watching the news every now and then but I'm not someone who read every political blog and newspaper and learns by heart every political fact. All these threads change to "who googles a political fact first" arguments anywyas ; o

News / Achievements of the Tusk's Polish government [532]

To be fair, I think it was Ewa Kopacz who had the largest part.

And from what I remember PiS members were crying about how swine flu is going to roll through Poland. (acting along the good old pis rhetorics to oppose everything po does)

News / Achievements of the Tusk's Polish government [532]

Not succumbing to the swine flu plot.

Feedback / Why PolishForums? Give us your stories! [60]

I was and still am intersted in other people's outlooks on Poland. The second goal would be to catch some new english words here and there.

News / Kaczyński wants a people-friendly Poland [64]


To be honest it's nothing new to PiS, they have already been there, LPR is a good example. Taking into consideration that they had neo-nazis in their ranks, who are often intermingled with football hooligan moves.

Another piece of the puzzle are far right-wing nationalist voters from Poland and supporters from the US. Xenophobia and racism, witch-hunteresque anti-communism are all a type of hooliganism, the one that prowls our streets, households and media. I'd say football hooligans are a briliant clay for PiS demagogy, and an easy target for most of their catchwords and slogans, mostly uneducated, lowbrow boors.

News / Kaczyński wants a people-friendly Poland [64]


Well Kaczynscy bros were always bad mouthing SLD, they often referred to them in sarcastic ways that covered their anti-communist emotions towards SLD. They tried to back out of it a bit and smile to the left-wing voters in the presidential election, when Kaczynski called Olksy "left-wing mid-old generation politician" which was a joke taking into consideration how they though of him as traitors and commie hard-hat.

What do you need examples for? If you lived in this country for the last year, this is all general knowledge for anyone...

News / Kaczyński wants a people-friendly Poland [64]


Seeing as he grabs everything ( for instance the last football game ban mentioned by Tusk ), he will use everything he's got. I think the Smolensk plot is the pylon for his most conservative and old electorate, the one that will hang on with PIS whatever happens. He'll never draw the line between them. And they don't care about the social policies. He'll probably try to compromise.

News / Kaczyński wants a people-friendly Poland [64]

people-friendly -> social
Social sells well as an election phrase, especially when they stay silent about where from the money comes and how it will impact future generations.

people-friendly -> no difficult reforms
At least until the "social" parts of the policy requires more money... as is PO doing right now with OFE.

It's all garbage and we will never have meaningful reforms because of politicians and because of the poor and undereducated who think about now instead of later.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


Saying "Backed up by others" is just a huge generalization, by mentioning some unmeasureable, imagined amounts as an example. There are as many uptight people in Poland as there are anywhere else. Same with control freaks. It's easy to label people and omit those who act against said idiosynrasy