Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]

I apologize if I post redundant information - I don't have time to browse through previous pages. You may find my own experience useful.

1. As for a handgun - technically, if you have a permit in Poland, the law does not distinguish between concealed or not. The social expectation would be that you actually carry concealed.

Getting the permit, however, is next to impossible. Poland's laws are extremely prohibitive, compared to the rest of Europe. You need to provide a compelling reason (e.g. receiving threats).

2. There is a loophole with respect to long guns though. If you have a hunting license in the U.S., you can apply for a membership in the Polski Związek £owiecki, without the normally required 1 year training period - foreign hunter licenses, per PZ£ regulations, waive this requirement. You just need to take a hunter education class (a few months), pass an exam, and you will be free to bring your long guns to Poland. This is costly, compared to hunting in the U.S., but at least doable.

3. The process is NOT friendly, in any case. Actually, a couple of years ago I tried to return to Poland after some 8 years in the U.S. All the problems with bringing my guns to Poland constituted about 30% of the reasons why I gave up and moved back to the U.S.

History / Lithuanians hate Poles? [156]


Poles, interestingly, have generally negative attitudes toward Russia, but positive feelings for Russians.

Life / Polish pride. PL stickers, flags and the white eagle! Where does our obsession come from? [79]


My only bumper sticker reads "Ron Paul 2012". :)

USA, Canada / Where can i find Spirytus Rektyfikowany in the USA? [77]

1. Buy a bottle of vodka and a bag of dry ice.
2. Pour vodka in some plastic or metal container, to make the process safer.
3. Adding isopropyl alcohol (any pharmacy) to dry ice in a plastic bowl makes a nice freezing bath. Use it to freeze the container with your vodka. Water from vodka will form ice, and the remaining liquid will be concentrated ethanol. Pour it out an enjoy. This is the Gummi way. ;-)

A warning: some plastics may become brittle in such low temperatures.

Life / Why is Prostitution still legal in Poland? [106]


Perhaps because Poland was never a theocratic country? There is a space between what is socially desirable, and what is penalized. This space is called freedom.

Love / Malaysian Girl with Polish Guy... any chance together? [16]

Now I am going to make a guess. If you guys come and leave the United States so easily, then I am assuming that your socioeconomic status is relatively high. Scientists? Engineers? Students? Things like real racial prejudices among such people are extremely rare. So, I suggest that you stop worrying about "because I am an Asian".

It's rather a regular boy-girl issue, and one of the possible factors may be that some people cannot properly appreciate things that come their way too easily. Your boyfriend may have such a problem. Inviting him in an "I only moderately care" way would be a good idea. He should chase you, rather than you chase him. (I can't believe I am writing such things; where is my sense of solidarity with other men???).

Love / Malaysian Girl with Polish Guy... any chance together? [16]

niana

I am Polish, my wife is an ethnic Chinese. I can tell you with a substantial certainty that there are no fundamental, cultural factors preventing Poles from developing inter-racial or inter-faith relationships. Cultural differences do exist, but their impact is minor. Maybe he just wanted to live alone?

All the best to you.

News / Amnesty to Illegal immigrants in Poland [102]


Absolutely. I am wondering if the "blood" advocates have heard about the Polish national anthem played by Artur Rubinstein, or about the Tatar DNA in Henryk Sienkiewicz.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rubinstein#Polish_affinity

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


Ah, the light becomes to dawn. Now scroll up to #55, please, and note that it had been referenced precisely as "a source of showing the sick mind of Herr Streicher and others", in the context of discussing the causes of the Holocaust. NOT as "a wellspring of historical fact" regarding Jews. And this defines your rant #56 alleging my anti-semitism as unjustified, offensive, and arguably as just a manifestation of deeply rooted anti-Polish resentments. Face it: you expect anti-semitism so much, you are on such a short fuse, that you interpreted as an attack on Jews something that clearly wasn't one.

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


Absolutely! Nevertheless, this does not nullify the significance of Der Stürmer, its authors, contents and readers, for the understanding of the attitudes toward Jews in Germany.

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


Pardon me, but are you advocating purposefully excluding available relevant, historical materials from the research? Then this is not research aimed at discovering the truth, but rather at confirming presumptions.

I understand that Der Stürmer is a particularly vile propaganda that may offend some sensitivities, but this is the very propaganda that had created the receptive environment for the Holocaust. This is the factor responsible for the fact that most Germans preferred to look the other way. If you ignore these sources, you will be condemned, like Lyzko, to creating unsupported sociological constructs, based on what your biased mind considers correct, rather than on what really happened in the 1930s Germany.

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


How can you consider yourself a historian if you are emotionally unable to use appropriate sources? If you want to research the minds of WWII-era Germans and their rationale for wholesale murder, then you MUST refer to sources like Der Stürmer! If you plainly REFUSE, then you are a quack, not a scientist. But you do more than refuse - you dare to attribute materials someone else wants to study personally to the researcher, and this is precisely as rational, as refusing to shake hands with an HIV researcher, because you may get infected. Got it?

Naturally, the world is full of imbeciles. The professor who studies propaganda (with the focus on WWII German and GDR political propaganda) and who posted these reference materials, sometimes receives equally idiotic comments.

calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/faq.htm


Normally, I am quite tolerant to people from the left side of the bell curve, but you, my friend, claim to be a historian and this raises the bar a little.


No, he just waited for an excuse to proclaim this again. The evolution of this thread is a PERFECT reference material for the study of virulent Jewish anti-Polonism - a relevant to the discussion, legitimate reference, clearly (and even redundantly) marked as a quote, serving as a lame excuse to start and anti-Polish rant in #56...

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


Well, as for Jews, wasn't this the Nazis' rationale for genocide?

calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sturmer.htm

Some quotes:

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]

Actually, guillotining is an antithesis of "liberty, equality, fraternity". Your analysis of the reasons for the Holocaust genocide involved lamenting the different fate of the "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" principles in, respectively, France and Germany. I just pointed out that the fate wasn't so much different...

History / In Memory of victims, who had their lives cruelly taken at Treblinka Death Camp in Poland [104]


I'll play a devil's advocate: what about the concept of the guillotine that accompanied the previous three?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution#The_guillotine_as_a_symbol

Perhaps WWII Germany was just following and "perfecting" that tradition of disregard for human life?

UK, Ireland / Polish is an official language in the UK? [68]


1. Open a beer
2. Turn on the TV, put some good movie in the DVD player. In English. Turn the English subtitles on.
3. Enjoy
4. Repeat the process every evening.

Food / Borscht - Zurek / Bialy barszcz recipe [153]

Vinegar and starch? It's barbarity! :) (no offense, please!)
This should be made from the same fermented stuff that is used for making bread (sourdough, just a little diluted). Other ingredients: sausage (either raw or smoked, sweet Italian sausage available in US grocery stores works fine), a potato cut into cubes, a bullion cube, some garlic, black pepper, marjoram, a bay leaf. Just before serving, add a spoon of sour cream.

Names for this soup: żurek, zalewajka.

I have never tried making this with vinegar, but quite conceivably using fermented rye flour produces a "milder" taste (this should be no surprise to any winemaker).

UK, Ireland / Polish is an official language in the UK? [68]


I completely agree! After all, if Poles decide that UK is a better place for them to live than Poland, then it doesn't make much sense attempting to transform the said UK into another copy of Poland. Assimilate (nobody is expecting a 100% assimilation though) and be respectful to the culture of the host country!

Life / Is parity the answer for Polish women? [262]

Parity, just as other implementations of affirmative action, will have the following effect: it will be harder for competent individuals belonging to protected groups to qualify. How so? Because where competence counts, others with subject them to a tougher scrutiny, to verify that they are indeed competent, rather than just piggybacking on AA policies. Where competence does not count so much, they will be crowded out by legions of those, whose competence is defined solely by belonging to protected groups.

Love / Do Polish women fight about everything? [39]

Women DO fight, especially during the pre-menstrual phase of the estrous cycle. Conversely, during the estrus she will be sweet to you. Amuse yourself by plotting the emotional changes against time. It's biology that shaped them this way: when a woman does not get pregnant, it is evolutionarily preferred if she attempts to switch partners (by being a b.tch to the current one). There was an article in The Lancet some time ago about this mechanism. Now, it is about your luck if your particular specimen can keep this more or less under the control of her brain, or not.

History / Question about land of former Poland/modern Belarus [11]


It does not have to be true in 100% of cases. However, generally it is true that organized resettlements were done along the lines I described. Lwów -> Wrocław, Wileńszczyzna -> Pomorze. The latter applies to part of my own family; they have been resettled from a village near Nowa Wilejka, a region that now belongs to Belarus, to Kashubia. Conversely, there is a running joke (not devoid of merit) among Polish scientists that Wrocław University is actually a renamed Lwów University.

USA, Canada / Where do most Polish-Americans identify on the political spectrum? [142]


They consistently tend to vote Democratic, although after what Roosevelt and his party did to Poland this is just a proof that Polish jokes are not without merit.

Personally, I am a libertarian, and a Ron Paul supporter.

News / Polish Doctor Burzynski finds a cure for incurable cancer [22]


I assume graves of the people who didn't survive are not presented, to balance the message?
The efficacy of a treatment is not measured by PR stunts. It is established by clinical trials. Antineoplastons have failed such trials, as far as I know.

Life / Why are Polish people so obsessed with race? [160]


Personally I don't care. I am married to an East Asian.

Study / Racism in Czestochowa? I'm a black student from France. [14]

Go ahead, educate me. While waiting for your revelations (especially with regards to different races allegedly involved), I will go to the kitchen and make a bag of popcorn.

Work / (English and teaching in Poland) Help needed urgently re a VISA [13]

Maybe this is a naive advice: you are a British citizen, so dealing with the immigration bureaucracy in Britain will be probably easier for you. If possible, marry her, get all the British paperwork for her, so she can come to Poland as a Briton, without worrying about visas, work permits etc.

History / What proportion of the Polish population collaborated with the Nazis? [125]

Pretty close. Similar traits that define individuals as criminals are responsible for the exceptionalism of groups/ethnicities.

History / What proportion of the Polish population collaborated with the Nazis? [125]

There is a huge difference between patriotism and exceptionalism. Patriotism is not based on the principle of denying others their fundamental rights. Exceptionalism makes the rights of others outright subordinate to the needs of the group that considers itself exceptional.

As for "uniquely bigoted" and examples from other faiths: absolutely! Mullahs from Iran and Pakistan immediately spring to mind.

History / What proportion of the Polish population collaborated with the Nazis? [125]

Lyzko: as I already have illustrated (post #88) with an example from contemporary America, it is Jews who don't want to assimilate, and who treat assimilation as an antithesis of Jewishness. Definitely, such attitudes slowly vanish, but this has nothing to do with the basic observation: Jews in the past didn't want to assimilate at all, and the cultural bias against assimilation is so strong that to this day it produces uniquely bigoted opinions from rabbis in America, such as the one that I quoted in #88.

Jews in larger urban centers were less dominated by religious factors, and thus more open to assimilation (prominent examples, in re: #106, include the already mentioned mathematicians Tarski and Ulam, also Artur Rubinstein, Julian Tuwim, Jan Kiepura).

Study / Racism in Czestochowa? I'm a black student from France. [14]

This is usually not racism per se. This is simply a reaction to someone different. Folks in big cities are used to foreign students and employees of multi-national companies. Conversely, for people from small towns a black or Asian person is still something exotic, and there is some small chance that you may draw some looks and comments that definitely are insensitive, and may be perceived as racist. Please be advised, however, that there is no cultural background in Poland for REAL racism (i.e. the sense of inherent inferiority of certain races). No history of slavery, colonialism and so on. So, the best advice I can give you is: be tolerant to country bumpkins. :)