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Posts by jon357  

Joined: 15 Mar 2012 / Male ♂
Warnings: 2 - OO		 Last Post: 8 hrs ago
Threads: 74
Posts: 22,204 		From: In the Heart of Darkness
Speaks Polish?: Tak

Displayed posts: 22272 / page 736 of 743
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jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / Recommended ISPs (moving to Gdańsk) [12]

Wow! If I hadn't been at work that day, I could have had it even quicker. Because the cabling is fitted to each floor of the apartment building, all they have to do is switch it on and staple some wires to your skirting board.
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / "Protestant" or Non Catholic communities in Poland [18]

I googled it and couldn't find, however I know the priest from Warsaw was going up there once a month. Your best bet is to mail them through the contact page on their website or (sine I think they're in an interregnum) give them a call.
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / "Protestant" or Non Catholic communities in Poland [18]

I've yet to find anything in Gdansk/Tricity

The Anglicans have a monthly Eucharist in Gdansk and there are various sorts of evangelical gatherings there.

Here's a link: anglicanchurch.pl
I didn't see anything on the site about Gdansk, so you'd have to contact them to check the details.
There's also: gracechurchgdansk.org which looks like an American fundamentalist organisation. There are also Polish speaking protestant churches there plus the Jehovah's Witnesses.
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / Teenage Pregnancy in Poland [108]

I did not write that no one is ever helped,

So at least you concede that state involvement has its value.

never claimed to know what the answer is but I definitely know what the answer isn't and reality has proven this.

No and that's the problem - you claim to dislike the existing provisions made by society, making patently untrue statements like

People who get jobs in these areas have a FINANCIALLY VESTED INTEREST IN maintaining the problem.

however you don't ever go beyond that cynicism to say what you'd like to see instead.

If you're trolling me then congratualtions on wasting my time.

No trolling, but it would be nice to have discussed this with someone who is a. not as ill-mannered as you are or b. is able to see the bigger picture without resorting to hollow libertarian rhetoric and bizarrely claiming that democratically controlled organisations who have to fight to get a budget in the first place have some sort of vested interest in not actually doing their job. Odd logic...
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Law / "Good" Polish Bank ? [19]

Yes. You can use a token. I preferred to use a one time pad though.
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / Recommended ISPs (moving to Gdańsk) [12]

If you're in an apartment building, there are usually stickers somewhere. I don't know of any tools. Aster City is the other main one, as is Neostrada (whose speeds are sometimes excellent, sometimes terrible depending on area). There's one called, I think, NT - but that's only in certain cities. Anyone in the building will know the one they all have and as soon as you switch a laptop on the list of people's wifi names should give a clue. Installation is quick - the last time I did it was in an aster City area and from visiting the shop, I had it all set up within 24 hours.
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Law / "Good" Polish Bank ? [19]

Nordea is not bad,

I never had any problem with their internet service - you can do a lot on it and the pin codes are optional - they offer a choice of authentication methods.
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / Teenage Pregnancy in Poland [108]

Those aren't actual examples. Those are broad concepts that mean nothing without concrete examples.

OK, perhaps I should get the phone book out and give you the address of the local Child Protection Unit, where the police and other professionals intervene in the most tragic cases, the city's Mother and Baby Unit where young women in a bad situation without the support of a loving or responsible family are saved from the gutter and the Street Workers who hepl women who've fallen into drugs and prostitution not fall any further.

But I suspect it would be a waste of time, since you seem to believe they:

have a FINANCIALLY VESTED INTEREST IN maintaining the problem

That is a non-sequitor.

It is entirely true, and you know it.

I am advocating not going with a PROVEN LOSING FORMULA

So tell us what's a PROVEN WINNING FORMULA.

Maybe the problem is that there shouldn't be anything wrong with being a teen parent in the first place. Maybe the problem is that society is at odds with biology. Maybe we need to change how we think and operate. Until then, teen parents are more likely to raise teen criminals

That doesn't really make much sense.
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / Recommended ISPs (moving to Gdańsk) [12]

In Poland it usually depends on whichever firms have the cables to your area.Mostly there's just one firm per area, but if you have a choice, use UPC - they are usually excellent.
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / Teenage Pregnancy in Poland [108]

Does this mean you can't come up with any examples?

I gave you three!

So government funding will never be enough to fix socially contrived problems but you advocate going ahead and trying it anyhow?

Of course - without society we just end up like the third world.

It's in the interest of Social Welfar officers' and counsellors' families to never fix the problem in the short or long run because then they would be out of work.

Don't be silly - that is cynical and untrue.

posturings

a FINANCIALLY VESTED INTEREST IN maintaining the problem.

Paranoia.

government safety nets encouraged more teen pregancy along with other social breakdowns.

You're suggesting society shouldn't provide 'safety nets' for those who need it?
jon357   
26 Apr 2012
Life / Teenage Pregnancy in Poland [108]

give examples of the "shared action"

It's called society, public institutions, civilisation.

You, very likely, are the kind of person who allies himself with one party regardless of the issue.

Not really. I always used to vote for the same one but do so no longer.

Perhaps government funding is contributing to the problem.

I don't think so - government funding is never quite enough, and whenever there are any genuine initiatives, there are always people sniping about cost.
jon357   
25 Apr 2012
Life / Teenage Pregnancy in Poland [108]

handing over responsibility to some state department.

Or taking responsibility in the form of shared action.

That's the problem! That is THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM! Read this in your outside voice nice and loud: GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS AND BUREACRATS ARE LESS ACCOUNTABLE IN EVERY SENSE THAN THE AVERAGE CITIZEN.

That's just bizarre.

I have given you real world examples of how that is patently false!

You haven't. You've just ranted about 'big government' and suggested that families should deal with problems, without giving a thought to whether or not they are able to or who will sort out the fallout further down the line.

Perhaps there has to be more funding - if a problem is growing......

MANDATING financial responsibility for other people's personal decisions costs the middle class and fails every time.

And the middle class are precisely the people who benefit because they (in the form of the state) keep a lid on the worst of the squalor and deprivation of the poor. Including the fallout from teenage pregnancies.,#

Amazing how angry and aggressive impotent right-wingers get when allowed near the internet. Trying to take a thread off-topic because of some sort of off-centre political view (usually anti-statism) is pretty typical too.
jon357   
25 Apr 2012
Life / Teenage Pregnancy in Poland [108]

I haven't assumed anything except that the Government is completely incapable of managing family affairs in this country.

Since we all have to pay for it in the end, it's better the state intervene quickly in dysfunctional families rather than let society pick up the pieces later. A stitch in time...

If you never had sex as a teen then you can cast judgement but for most of us, we simply got lucky in that we didn't become parents in our teens.

Hmmm

Are you trying to express the idea that the difference between a 3rd world and 1st world nation is the need for an alternative to personal accountability? If so, that is complete and utter horsesh*t!

The difference, as you well know, is that in developed countries there's no need to put the burden of fixing problems on families.

Personal accountability is the long term solution

And when someone isn't accountable? You'd let them and their kids suffer and compound all their problems in the future? Not how we do it in Europe.

throwing money at the problem is just going to cost more and more every year

Pay a little now or pay a fortune later.

And the people who are employed to take care of the problem will make sure it never goes away so that they always have a job. That is how it is.

Nonsense. You are beginning to sound like a faux-Ayn Rand libertarian. Every man for himself.

You know I once heard a particularly f*ckwitted person (Polish as it happens) saying that paying taxes and providing state support for those who need it was like two people on a desert island, one hard-working and the other lazy, with the hard-working guy having to pay cash to the lazy guy. A particularly sill analogy, but to carry it further - the daughter of the hard-working guy, privately educated, healthy, well-groomed - who's she going to marry?
jon357   
25 Apr 2012
Life / Scars of Communism on Polish culture. [55]

No, darling, it is simply a sign of cultural behaviour in this part in Europe (it also exists in other Eastern countries e.g., Russia) to take off your coat in certain public institutions.

Exactly. The weather and the fact that more people use public transport rather than warm cars have a lot to do with this.

Even if the original post is stupid... I think the topic is interesting, can't we just talk about it? ;)

I agree - however I'd say that the thread title is somewhat loaded - as if everything that came from the PRL was negative and everything in the US which he compares things with is positive.
jon357   
25 Apr 2012
Life / Teenage Pregnancy in Poland [108]

Generally, if the teenager has fallen for a bairn they're doing something wrong anyway. And you mistakenly assume that all or even most families are in a position to do that. Poland isn't the third world, where there is no alternative to the family, however crap the family may be.

"the government"

The government or 'all of us', society as a whole...
jon357   
25 Apr 2012
Life / Scars of Communism on Polish culture. [55]

i give this thread just a few more hours till it turns into a Poland vs. USA thing (even though the OP isn't American).

It isn't. The values in the US may (or may not) suit the US, but in Europe we are different.
jon357   
25 Apr 2012
Life / Teenage Pregnancy in Poland [108]

Families must focus on younger people and keep the government OUT OF FAMILY LIFE!

That presupposes that every family is competent to manage their own affairs.
jon357   
25 Apr 2012
Travel / Anybody VERY familiar with bars in Warsaw? [22]

It's called Klaps in particular, in the pawilony

I know the pawiliony and will be there in a week or so. If you like I'll have a look at Klaps (though doesn't look much like Klaps to me) and confirm if it's there.
jon357   
24 Apr 2012
Life / Why is circumcision not practiced in Poland? [701]

women that grew up in countries where it isn't practiced.

No. Even where it isn't practised, you find the odd one, and even where boys and men are routinely mutilated you find people lucky enough not to have bits cut off them. I speak from experience ;-)

women that have boyfriends/husbands with unsnipped ones that are obviously going to be partial,

Not necessarily. Most of them are probably dreaming of an undamaged one.
jon357   
24 Apr 2012
Life / Why is circumcision not practiced in Poland? [701]

in particular the HPV which can cause all sorts of awful things.

In the UK they're offering vaccination now for teenagers - HPV is nasty, and the vaccination seems to be the best solution.
jon357   
24 Apr 2012
Travel / What do you know about Torun, Poland? [30]

Truly I loved the town, gothic medieval place with the beauty of nature, the longest river and very beautiful architectures

The old centre is beautiful (watch out for the police there though - they are not beautiful) however a lot of the rest is uninspiring. The river is nice, as is the area across the river near the station.

You'll find a great and very cheap pizza restaurant there - all the locals know it.
jon357   
24 Apr 2012
Life / Scars of Communism on Polish culture. [55]

More Polish people live outside of Poland than inside Poland.

40 million?

Creative thinking was a threat and punished

If anything, they had to be very creative indeed.

In many government and public buildings across Poland.

A lot of that was there before.

There are four or six cashiers at KFC and in other fast food places, and people still get in one communist line. What's up with that.?? If someone takes a risk and gets in that line, then there is a chance Jacek could be served before Agata. That would be capitalist.

Actually that's fairly recent - and a much fairer way.
jon357   
24 Apr 2012
Life / Why is circumcision not practiced in Poland? [701]

Witam, Peter and Jon !

That's mot my quote.

Canada, USA, Israel, South Korea and Philippines?

One for religious reasons, one a developing country, the US isn't as advanced or civilised as outsiders assume it to be and in Canada it is by no means universal.

First of all, multiple case studies involving different countries and tens of thousands of men -- gay and straight, uncircumcised and those circumcised as adults and those circumcised before puberty. The ones in all the countries, who were circumcised as children, had significantly lower rates of AIDs and HIV.

Nonsense. There was a study that showed it was (in the short term) 1.3% more effective at preventing HIV infection. No study was done about long term events and there were 3% complications from the procedure. The full study is cited elsewhere in this thread.

One of the main reasons it is not practiced in Poland is due to the long history of anti-semitism perpetuated by Catholics.

Nonsense. It just isn't done in Europe because it is a pointless and destructive mutilation.

The Center for Disease Control confirm this

Some foreign thing - certainly not in Europe.

just one site

An Islamic religious site.

I live in Poland,

Me too. Permanently.

second oldest constitution in the world, and the second oldest University in the world.

No (the fourth constitution) and no, nothing like the second oldest University. Not even the second oldest in Europe.

in their minds, it's still connected with Jews.

NO. It isn't done much in Ireland either, where historically there have only ever been a handful of Jewish people.

Interesting that the only men defending it are those who've had the misfortune to have it done and have nothing to compare it with and no argument except stuff they've seen on the interwebs.
jon357   
24 Apr 2012
News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [853]

An early candidate for the most idiotic political post of the year.

Really? Check out who votes for Ruch Palikota and where they poll the most.

Polish experts excluded the possibility of any man-made explosions on the plane. They had a full access to the wreckage and examined it with professional equipment.

Exactly. The matter was sad but straightforward, however conspiracy theories get those attention-seeking buffoons Kaczynski and Macierewicz the airtime they crave.
jon357   
24 Apr 2012
Travel / Anybody VERY familiar with bars in Warsaw? [22]

Pruderia is one of several bars very close to each other. If my memory serves one of them (obviously not that one) is women only. They are all some way off the main road in an old military fortification called Fort Mokotow. The address is Racklawicka 99. The others include Club Rock (Bikers Place), Reverbnation, Mroowisko, Balsam and Klub Klinika, however that isn't a full list and places come and go.