101 Techniques To Improve English... Technique #2: Write A Blog In English

Well. You got me.

Actually there's a lot of ways to improve your writing, but it’s not like I was joking about that 101 techniques, so I can't release all of it at once.

If you don’t feel like you’re ready, start with joining some forum or Usenet group.

Crawl, walk, and then run.

What Babies And Politicians Have In Common

1. They do all these stupid mistakes, but it is I who has to pay for it.

2. They don't listen when spoken to.

3. Whenever they want something, they scream until they get it.

4. They are completely egotistical, self-centered, who don't care about anything but them.

5. They're kind of know-it-all, but their actions show loads of ignorance.

6. They want the most expensive toys available.

7. They want to buy all kind of stuff, but guess with whose money?

8. They only make nice when they want something from you.

Zero Tolerance For Simpletonism

I don't believe in effective simple means of crime reduction. But the world seems to be riddled with believers.

Let's state some simple facts:

1. Some crimes are committed under the influence of either alcohol or narcotics.

2. Some criminals are mentally ill.

3. There is such thing as kleptomania.

4. There is such thing as crime of passion.

5. And many more. :-) The point is that there's a variety of motives for committing a crime and it seem impossible to kill all these birds with one stone.

There's only a very small part of the population that actually calculates the risk/gain tradeoff and decides whether to be a good citizen or maybe go rouge. And these are white collar crimes anyway.

Most just do their stuff, and worry about consequences later, if ever. Most just hope to never get caught. Those who calculate the risk/gain tradeoff decides rather how to commit a crime without being caught, not whether to do it at all. Flipping burgers at McDonald's is not an option for most of them. It's rather get rich or die trying.

I propose two arguments against simple brute-force tactics:

1. China holds a word record in capital punishment. Yet, their criminal stats still suck. If brutalizing and killing criminals would be really effective, they should have one of safest communities in the world. Obviously it's not even close.

2. During WW2 at Poland you could get killed without any trial for hiding a Jew or even helping in the process. People hid them anyway.

So if even the most violent regimes couldn't enforce their laws by brute force, how it's possible in the democratic country?

Zeno's Paradoxes In Poland: Will The Train Outperform Tortoise?

Poland has world's biggest Railway Museum. It involves vast majority of the rolling stock in the country, most train stations and tracks. Actually you can't use any of the rail services outside the Railway Museum. O course unless you're willing to go to Dresden.

Last time I used PKP services we just stopped in the wood and waited for an hour so the other train could pass. Another time the train was running so slow, that it was overtaken by several pedestrians, including lady with a baby carriage.

PKP Intercity's trains have names, like "The Miner", "Panorama", "Slowacki" [2] and so on. How come none is called "Lame Snail", "Turtle On Drugs" or "Wounded Frog"? No-one should be surprised when it's delayed. You've entered "the lame snail", what did you expect?

Maybe one should be called "Toilet paper", so that passengers would know, that's the one that actually have toilet paper (most others don't).

There's so many things in Poland that has developed significantly in the last 20 years, railways unfortunately isn't one of them.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_State_Railways

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliusz_S%C5%82owacki