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POLAND’S CONSERVATIVE LAW and Justice party won a landslide in yesterday’s general election on anti-refugee rhetoric and welfare promises, ending eight years of centrist rule in a victory that risks inflaming tensions with the EU and Russia.
The eurosceptic PiS led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski garnered an outright majority, according to projections from partial results by local television channels, ousting leftist parties from parliament for the first time since the fall of communism in 1989.
“This is the first time in the history of Polish democracy that a single party has scored (an outright) majority” in the Sejm, the lower house, Kaczynski said in a victory speech after Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz conceded defeat.
He also paid tribute to his twin bother, the late president Lech Kaczynski, who died in a 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, western Russia, saying: “Without him, we wouldn’t be here today. His spirit is stronger than his body. We must keep his memory alive.”
Kaczynski did not run for prime minister but is expected to call the shots in the next government, which he has signalled could be headed by Beata Szydlo, a coalminer’s daughter who ran a victorious presidential campaign in May.
His push for power preyed on fears arising from Europe’s worst migrant crisis since World War II and analysts said a PiS government was likely to reverse Kopacz’s decision to accept refugees under an EU quota plan.
Kaczynski claimed refugees were bringing “cholera to the Greek islands, dysentery to Vienna, various types of parasites,” in comments that critics said recalled the Nazi era.
He insists Warsaw should financially support EU efforts to tackle the crisis, but not take in refugees — a view surveys suggest is shared by nearly 60 percent of Poles.
“After eight years in opposition, Kaczynski is making a big comeback,” Warsaw political analyst Eryk Mistewicz told AFP.
Poland has become an east European heavyweight after a quarter century of explosive growth and vastly-improved living standards since the demise of communism.
But although the EU member’s economy is forecast to expand by 3.5 percent this year and next, and joblessness recently fell below 10 percent, many voters are fed up, believing time and money have been wasted.
The governing Civic Platform (PO) also never recovered from a 2014 eavesdropping scandal that discredited high-profile government ministers, analysts say.
The departure last year of party leader Donald Tusk to the post of EU Council president set the centrists adrift.
“The Poland we leave to the election winners” is one of economic and social progress, Kopacz told supporters in Warsaw as she conceded defeat after two terms in office.
Local television channels predicted the PiS scored 238 out of 460 seats in the lower house of parliament, ousting the PO liberals, who took 135 seats. Smaller parties including the anti-establishment movement of rocker Pawel Kukiz took the rest.
Turnout was 51.6 percent, a record high, according to an exit poll.
Szydlo, 52, has pledged to lower the pension age, introduce generous family benefits, and impose taxes on banks and foreign-owned hypermarkets while cutting taxes for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Her populist-oriented promises targeted the core conservative electorate in the poorer, devoutly Catholic east and public sector workers, but critics warn the moves could destabilise robust public finances.
The right-wing PiS last held power in 2005-7, when Kaczynski governed with his identical twin.
That era was marked with internal political turmoil, triggered by the brothers’ combative style and international tensions brought on by their anti-German and anti-Russian views as well as a row with the EU over Poland’s weighting in the bloc’s decision-making.
“We might now see a ‘Kaczynski 2.0′,” Mistewicz told AFP, signalling the PiS leader may tone down his politics.
“Rather than aggressively locking horns with the EU, he will look for ways to extract maximum benefit from it. With Russia, he may also forego confrontation,” he said.
Analysts agree the PiS will still anchor Poland’s security policy in NATO and strong US ties as a buffer against any threat from Russia.
It will seek ways to continue heavy reliance on coal at upcoming global climate talks, and joining the eurozone will remain a distant prospect.
Some warn Kaczynski’s return could relaunch a political dynamic tinged with authoritarian overtones.
“If PiS end up governing alone with an allied president, Poland will become another Hungary,” Polish Academy of Sciences professor Radoslaw Markowski told AFP.
- © AFP, 2015
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“Dark matter’s existence is inferred from the motion of objects affected by its gravitational pull.”
We can deduce this from 65 million light years away!
Does anyone else think they’re just making it up as they go along?
@wrong side: Dark Matter, matter.
@wrong side: It’s not too hard to get your head around it if you think centrifugal force.The faster a galaxy spins, the more likely it is that stars will fly out, unless there is something we can’t see that is gravitationally holding them back.
@wrong side: Information is information, no matter how far back in time you view it. E.g. stretch out your hand and look at it. Did you know that you are looking at how your hand looked like in the past, albeit only a tiny fraction of a second in the past. But, even though you are looking into the past, the information is still there so your brain deduces that it is viewing your hand. Or, do you doubt the existence of your hand too? Likewise, when we view the Sun, we are not looking at it as it is now, but as it was just over 8 minutes ago. Again, we can deduce that the Sun exists because, even though we can only view a past version of it, the information (light waves including ultraviolet, infrared and everything in between, magneticism, gravitational effect, etc) is still there.
@Denis McClean: Or that our theories of gravity – Einstein’s general theory of relativity and Newton’s inverse square law, need modification to reflect the observations, in line with the scientific method.
@wrong side: I believe Dark Matter’s
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Whatever that has to do with ‘invisible’ dark matter that, as the quote said, is ‘inferred’, from 65 million light years away, only you can know! It often seems to me that an awful lot of this type of science is just words that make sense to those using them, but really don’t add up to anything concrete. So we see things with a time delay, but we still see them. We don’t ‘infer’ their existence!
@wrong side: Sure, and they also tell us there is ‘Dark Energy’ whatever that is supposed to be.
@wrong side: As I said in another comment below, you cannot see wind. You can only observe its effects on its surrounding environment. A phenomenon known as wind is simply inferred from observing how it affects things like leaves, water, etc. Likewise, while we can’t see dark matter, we can observe its effects on surrounding observable phenomena. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp.
@Johnny Bellew: you don’t know what dark energy is, Johnny, because you never bothered to look it up. There is a wealth of information on both dark energy and dark matter readily available for all and sundry. Stop rejoicing in ignorance. You’re just making yourself look lazy when the answers you seek are available on the same device you used to post that comment.
@Denis McClean:
I’m not a scientist so I’m actually finding it hard to get my head around at the moment but you might actually help me a little here.I think the logical question is why are the stars not flying out of DF2?
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Brian, stretch your hand back and then slam it into your face as hard as you can. The pain you experience is from a past event that you can no longer influence. Now repeat the process continually and enjoy the enlightenment.
@Jimmy Ryan: These guys are bluffing and act more like echo chambers for theorists.
We are on a galactic carousel so some of the stars you see are in front, some behind, some closer to the Galactic centre and further out than we are. If you were on a normal carousel you would see the same thing so as soon as you give some attention to this you can forget the ‘big bang’ nonsense which tries to equate time with distance.
Pubs are open today!
@wrong side: They are making it up as they go along that’s what a hypothesis is, observations confirm or deny the hypothesis. The only truth in the universe is mathematics just because we have found 1 galaxy without dark matter doesnt mean it doesnt exist. Its fairly obvious there is more “matter” in the universe than we can see. If I punch you in the back of the head you know something hit you, just because you cant see it doesnt mean something isnt there. Just the baba jesus
@Gerald Kelleher: 1) When you make a claim, you should be able to prove it. So, prove that these guys are bluffing. 2) You don’t understand the article at all seeing as you are talking about our place in our galaxy while the article is talking about a completely separate galaxy altogether. 3) Time is related to distance (or space) and this has been demonstrably proven. Even a lay person such as yourself can easily prove it. If time and space were not related, then everything, from the clock on your wall, the speedometer in your car to GPS, satellite communication, etc would not be possible.
@Alfred Pennyworth: That kinda make sense.
Does the 1 galaxy without dark matter (assuming it exists) now suggest that there is another type of matter at play, let’s call it super dark matter? Should we now infer super dark matter?
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Sit your ass on a carousel Brian and you will see some of the horses are in front, some behind and some closer to the centre than the others. Now apply it to the local stars in relation to our solar system and the Galactic centre.
Say goodbye to the mental fluff of ‘big bang’.
@Gerald Kelleher: Wow. You highlighted your own stupidity and ignorance there, Gerald. Read this slowly, please: the article is not talking about our position within our galaxy; it is talking about the composition of a completely different galaxy. Now, when you’ve that done explain how, and prove that, the scientists are bluffing. Finally, explain how a speedometer works and then try telling me there is no relation between time and space.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: The theorists make idiots of themselves by trying to make timekeeping look like time and it has been that way since Sir Isaac tried to define a timekeeping facility called the Equation of Time for as absolute/relative time
“Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the equation of time. For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used for a measure of time; astronomers correct this inequality for their more accurate deducing of the celestial motions…The necessity of which equation, for determining the times of a phænomenon, is evinced as well from the experiments of the pendulum clock, as by eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter.” Principia
In the early 20th century they made a song and dance about this called relativity without actually knowing what Newton was doing even though I do.
If all the theorists were put together in a room for twenty years they still wouldn’t be able to do what is fairly easy and straightforward for those who want to enjoy astronomy .
@Gerald Kelleher: I honestly think you’re insane, Gerald. You go off on such crazy tangents about things completely unrelated to the topic. The topic is the composition of a particular galaxy, and not what Isaac Newton or other scientists observed or theorised about rotation. Why are you completely incapable of sticking to a topic?
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: The theorists in the beginning of the 20th century hadn’t a clue what Isaac did and how he used timekeeping facilities like the Equation of Time -
“This absolute time can be measured by comparison with no motion; it
has therefore neither a practical nor a scientific value; and no one
is justified in saying that he knows aught about it. It is an idle
metaphysical conception.” Mach, Analyse der Empfindungen, 6th ed.
The astrophysical airheads don’t have a balls notion how the Equation of Time factors into the ‘scientific method’ which appeared to give Sir Isaac the result that predicting astronomical events is the same as predicting experimental results -
“That the fixed stars being at rest, the periodic times of the five primary planets, and (whether of the sun about the earth, or) of the earth about the sun, are in the sesquiplicate proportion of their mean distances from the sun…. for the periodic times are the same, and the dimensions of the orbits are the same, whether the sun revolves about the earth, or the earth about the sun.” Newton
The first guy in this thread was right, astrophysics is based on conjuring up fantasies on fantasies , illusions on illusions as announcing them as facts of importance. The main thing is that 300 year rampage through astronomy has a beginning that can be explained whether people care to know it or not.
Not surprised at this at all. Science can never explain the magic of The Lord’s power of creation
@Patrick Sage: So the magic man did it then lol. Clutching at straws Pat, the answers are not in Genesis or any other holy book.
@Guy Incognito:
Very difficult to explain something that never happened
@Guy Incognito: and on the 8th day he created a galaxy without dark matter…
@Patrick Sage: Who said anything about atheists? You do know one of the largest organisations involved in scientific and astronomical inquiry is the Roman Catholic Church, right?
@Patrick Sage: well that’s the great thing about the scientific method, theories keep getting refined as more data becomes available.
As opposed to your approach: “This all happened by magic. The end.”
@Guy Incognito: so he created billions of galaxies,with trillions upon trillions upon trillions of stars just for us?A small tiny planet in an ordinary galaxy.Ignorance is truly bliss..Before you comment again open you tube and type in size comparisons in the universe….
@Patrick Sage: This isn’t a story though. Its a scientific ecdience-based discussion.
@Patrick Sage: it also tells us to rape and pillage.
So now the Earth is flat again!
@Patrick Sage: I understand why people today assume Christianity had no astronomical heritage when it counted among its congregation some of the leading innovators in history . The early Church did try to prevent its participants from running away with themselves using poetic language but even today that advice is ignored to the loss of Christianity and its natural spirit for investigating the celestial arena -
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.” Augustine
I honestly think the others mocking Christianity on your account are much better due to what they themselves understand of astronomy, its methods and insights but at least they know it is nothing like what you profess.
@Guy Incognito: The Dark Lord,from the Lord of the Rings?
@Guy Incognito: You guys make this too easy sometimes.
Yet the journal has a file photo
@patrick boland: Its top secret.
@patrick boland: The file photo is pro ably far more up to date than any photo that could be taken of a system from 65 mullion light years away.
So they have proven that something they can’t see isn’t there?
@Alan Pike: When you stand and look at leaves lying motionless on the ground, you can say there is no wind. When you see them blowing around the yard, you can say there is wind. In both instances, you cannot see the wind. You can only observe the effects that wind has on its environment. So, yes, they can prove that something they can’t see doesn’t exist by studying the effects, or lack thereof, of the object being questioned.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: the wind, being God you mean. You can’t see it, but you know it’s there, and you see it’s effects. Is that what you are alluding to?
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: You been taken to school Alan
@Jonathan Nolan: You have to prove God exists, but you can ‘infer’ that something invisible and 65 million years away exists and it’s science! Having their cake and eating it!
@Jonathan Nolan: I don’t know if God exists or not. What I do know is that currently there is no way to prove or disprove God’s existence. There are no scientific equations or theories that either allow for, or negate, the existence of God. If God exists and has a direct effect on the universe, then those effects would be measurable. Based on current understandings of the workings of the universe there are two possible scenarios: God does not exist, hence the lack of any measurable effects on the workings of the universe; God does exist but outside our universe and chooses not to interfere in any way, including “saving” people, speaking with people, etc. which again would explain the lack of any measurable effects on the workings of the universe.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: “If God exists and has a direct effect on the universe, then those effects would be measurable.” Erm … life? Consciousness? Etc, etc…
@wrong side: life and consciousness can be measured and given purely scientific explanations which account for all measurements (excluding the unmeasurable philosophical question of why). The existence of life and consciousness neither proves nor disproves God’s existence.
@wrong side: Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old?
Stephen Hawking would’ve loved this
@Mr_Tuxedo: maybe that’s where his soul passed after death and he is now sending us this new information. The new galaxy should be named Hawkins One.
200 billion observable galaxies, maybe more. The immensity of space makes me feel awed. It brings to mind the words of Christ :
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you,
and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.”
@Rob_Kennedy: Could individual galaxys maybe be heavenly representations of human souls?
That was my Galaxy easter egg !!
As a civilization we know sweet f all and we are very much in our infancy but that will change and accelerate as time goes on.
Do we really think the scientists had a #OMGMoment???
They havent got a clue. We could be possible fungi under someones thumb nail.
“Conventional telescopes are good at finding small, faint objects. Ours is really good at finding large ones,” Abraham said.”
Brilliant.
Dark matter is unobservable when they say they can’t see it I believe them!
Space the final frontier……..etc, etc, etc.
Finding galaxies with no dark matter is not news since it has never been observed anywhere in the universe anyway.
As the article above quite rightly states “dark matter” is inferred and has never been observed. It is a fictitious nonsense contrived by believers to support massive anomalies in both Newtons and Einstein’s theories about gravity. Astronomical observations don’t fit either theories but rather than revise or discard them, believers create another fictitious nonsense to prop up their delusions.
In fact, gravity itself is just a theory. It has never been proven by any experimental evidence. Einstein’s bending of space/time continuum must go down as one of the greatest philosophical deceptions of all time. Space is the absence of an object and time is a concept that exists only in our minds.
“Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality” – Nicola Tesla
@Michael Hunt: what about the discovery of exotic particles ? What about the discovery of high levels is positrons thought to be present after the collision of two dark matter particles. ? Doesn’t anti matter not indicate matter ? Dark matter has been inferred from many observations. Dont get me wrong I am a big Tesla fan but I like to keep an open mind .
@Michael Hunt: essentially, this story is saying that something that has been observed in every galaxy observed to date is missing in the case of this particular galaxy. Up to now, this something (dark matter) has been theorised to hold galaxies together and so it is pretty startling to discover that it is mostly absent in this particular case. I’d hardly call dark matter fictitious nonsense, since any cosmologist you ask would happily acknowledge that all dark matter is is a name for the presence of unexplained mass, ie if you weigh a galaxy, you’ll find that it is heavier than all the observed matter it contains, so whatever is unseen has mass and is therefore matter of some sort. Discovering a galaxy that has almost none of this substance is therefore pretty startling.
@Michael Garvey: Is there a more detailed article anywhere on it do you know ? But still easily readable to us non scientists ??,
@Michael Hunt: “In fact, gravity itself is just a theory. It has never been proven by any experimental evidence.”
What people call the ‘theory of gravity’ is really the beginning of the so-called scientific method which tried to scale up experimental science to the motions of planets through an opinion on attraction – the Earth attracts an apple, the moon attracts the tides, the Earth attracts the moon and the Sun attracts the Earth.
“Rule III. The qualities of bodies, which admit neither [intensification] nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Newton
So how do you equate the fall of an apple with orbital motion and then call its the laws of motion , the laws of physics or some other description ? – the answer is that nobody knew, at least not up until now.
“The demonstrations throughout the book [Principia] are geometrical, but to readers of ordinary ability are rendered unnecessarily difficult by the absence of illustrations and explanations, and by the fact that no clue is given to the method by which Newton arrived at his results.” Rouse Ball 1906
Nobody is going to ask how it was done but they can be certain it ain’t no achievement although it allowed theorists to run amok with astronomy for the last 300 years.
( I have a boxes of dark matter for sale – €500 a box)
@Michael Hunt: I think you are confusing what scientific theory means.. the theory of relativity is NOT just a theory.. it’s a mathematical explanation of observable and repeatable experimentation.
@Edward Malone: That sounds really cool as I have read about spacetime when it first emerged -
“‘Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space”
Have things changed ?.
@Catherine Sims: Here is quite a good article on the topic https://www.livescience.com/62151-galaxy-dark-matter-physics.html?utm_source=notification
@SteoG: Here is a good book on relativity that could be found on any bookshelf in the 19th century -
http://www.bartleby.com/1000/1.html
People following science fantasy as fact is really,really unhealthy, people making the effort to understand how a formal notion of ‘time travel’ was proposed as fact and being amazed at the sheer scale of manipulation would never want to listen to a theorist again.
@Gerald Kelleher: You are one of the most seriously silly clowns I have ever come across. You put down the hard work of others and spout unintelligible quasi religious pseudo intellectual nonsense as some sort of rebuttal. Fair enough if you had something to fuel the debate, but you don’t. All you have is a nonsensical arrogant attitude and a bee in your bonnet with real people who are gifted intellectuals working for the greater good. It is great that you are rightly proud of your ability to produce heaps of mind numbing unintelligible steaming excrement here on a daily basis. No matter how high you pile it Gerald, all you produce is crap. I am sure your audience of adoring fans may disagree with me.
I could have told them that but nobody asked me.
Does it really Matter!!!
Just shows they know damn all at the end of the day.whole thing turned on its head.remember you couldnt eat butter .oh its allright now.eggs 1 or 2 ,a week.oh we got that wrong as well eat as many as you like.as for the religious just as bad on the complete other side .purgatory oh it dosent exist any more and what about eating meat on friday.oh it okay now.better let all the meat eaters out of purgatory.
So this proves sky fairy is real?
@Daniel Donovan: No.
I haven’t read this article but know it must have taken things up wrong. If scientists can’t prove dark energy/matter exists by looking at it or testing it, how can they say it’s impossible for it not to be somewhere else?
So when are we going for a visit?
Ask Sheldon from the big bang theory he’ll have the answer.
@David Clarke: He probably won’t . He abandoned dark matter to go back to string theory lol
Nice CGI.
#darklivesmatter
In a galaxy far far away, the Jedi won, the Sith lost, and the Dark side no longer matters.
I’ve got a dark galaxy, its held together with duct tape & twine.
So the people who make galaxies don’t know how they make them?
@Kevin Farrell: “Newton’s inverse square law, need modification to reflect the observations, in line with the scientific method.”
There is no such thing as Kepler’s laws and especially not his relationship between the time it takes a planet to orbit the Sun with its distance which at first glance looks complicated and perhaps intimidating for those who see it for the first time -
“The proportion existing between the periodic times of any two planets
is exactly the sesquiplicate proportion of the mean distances of the
orbits, or as generally given,the squares of the periodic times are
proportional to the cubes of the mean distances.” Kepler
When he expands this statement it all becomes fairly clear that it is a fairly loose correlation where the orbits are averaged -
“But it is absolutely certain and exact that the ratio which exists
between the periodic times of any two planets is precisely the ratio
of the 3/2th power of the mean distances, i.e., of the spheres
themselves; provided, however, that the arithmetic mean between both
diameters of the elliptic orbit be slightly less than the longer
diameter. And so if any one take the period, say, of the Earth, which
is one year, and the period of Saturn, which is thirty years, and
extract the cube roots of this ratio and then square the ensuing ratio
by squaring the cube roots, he will have as his numerical products the
most just ratio of the distances of the Earth and Saturn from the sun.
1 For the cube root of 1 is 1, and the square of it is 1; and the cube
root of 30 is greater than 3, and therefore the square of it is
greater than 9. And Saturn, at its mean distance from the sun, is
slightly higher than nine times the mean distance of the Earth from
the sun.” Kepler
All Kepler is doing is comparing orbits with time periods and not explaining the traits of orbital motion but when Newton got hold of it he basically mangled the insight to make it appear that it refers to an individual orbit of a planet.
have your say