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

Natural Medicine

Natural medicine propaganda is based on the assumption, that if it's natural it must be good, while non-natural things are definitely bad. Moreover classical medicine is accused of being "chemical" and focused on money-making. I wonder how these “prosecutors” drink water. It's so chemical! It consists of oxygen and hydrogen! Both of these two elements are really flammable, so its combination is probably what hell is made of. H2O is dangerous and should be avoided at all cost, if we're serious about shunning chemistry. As for the money-making issue you should see the prices of all that so-called "natural" meds. It's definitely not free, and the hidden cost is what you really should consider.

The "nature is oh-so-great" argument is seriously wrong. After all these years of living in civilization, most people don't realize what nature really is. Do you know how nature solves problems like sick/lame/challenged baby? It kills the baby. So you have a broken leg? Sorry, die. What do you prefer? Living in the building or in the forest? Do you like spaghetti or perhaps you prefer raw meat instead? Would you like to hunt in the woods, dismember and flay the carcass with your bare hands or just buy the fillet in the shop? And if you fail to hunt anything, would you accept the natural starvation?

So why the hell would you even consider using some suspicious herb from some Granny the Healer instead of legit drug from a pharmacy?

If your body needs some substance, you can get it from eating something that has it or just take a pill. If you'll choose the pill, you'll have some sort of guarantee, that you've really taken the right substance, proper amount of, and nothing else that you don't need.

The "natural" approach means that you don't control anything, specifically:

1. You don't know, if you have taken any substance. If the meal has been incorrectly prepared or stored, substance could be deprived of its healing properties. Granny the Healer doesn't have any medical or pharmaceutical education. In Poland you can't even sell a condom in the pharmacy unless you're at least a pharmaceutical technician, which requires 2 years of studying and passing an exam.

2. How much did you take? Precision is a vice of chemical, money-making drug industry, while overdose or underdose is so very natural.

3. What else did you take? Real drugs are cleaned from anything unnecessary to avoid conflicts and possible allergic reaction. But aren't allergic reactions natural? So is a death from anaphylactic shock.

4. All real drugs are carefully tested for side effects, but aren't that uncertainty natural and precious? Granny the Healer probably didn't care much for blinded placebo-controlled studies.

Ignorance is anything but bliss in this case. The most natural effect of using natural medicine is a natural death.

Poland's Most Hated Acronyms

1. ZUS, responsible for all kind of pensions. Irresponsible in the way it handles money, and totally crazy in the way it purchases IT systems. ZUS subsidy is the biggest budget cost in the country. 

2. GDDKiA, responsible for national roads, including expressways and highways. They are constantly ridiculed for not anticipating the snow every year [1]. Complaining about Polish roads is a significant part of our culture; it's performed regularly country-wide. People are so used to complaining about it, that many of them seem to be blind to all the actual improvements in this field. 

3. PKP, responsible for nearly all the tracks, most trains, most train stations. It’s a state-controlled monopolist, extremely ineffective. It owns enormous amounts of land in Poland, that thing alone with proper management should make PKP very rich. Obviously, it’s not. 

4. PZPN, responsible for Polish Football. Poles love football and hate PZPN, so politicians officially hate it too, but as soon as Polish National Team is playing in any kind of championships, every last one of them is wearing a red-white scarf posing for the camera along with all the critics, journalists and fans. 

5. TPSA. Long-time monopolist in the telecommunication market, responsible for impeding the development of Internet in Poland, ridiculed for poor customer service. TPSA is not a monopolist anymore, so the hatred towards it seems to be fading lately.

[1] Obviously it's not the case. The case is that snowplows don't grow on trees, and people who demand that every road in the country should be black 5 minutes after the fall of snow are being deliberately stupid.