POLAND: The Sad State Of Roads As New Projects Are Cancelled Lacking Cash.

POLANDIAN/  Commentary by SCATTS/
With MAPS/

  With some of Eastern Europe's worst roads, there is bad news.
  Almost half of Poland's planned road construction may be canceled.
   "As many as 20 of the 41 outstanding projects could end up  “frozen,” leaving Poland with a patchwork of roads scattered around like leftover spaghetti," writes Scatts.
   "I love the way the new road network pretty much ignores the capital city, Warsaw, and puts Łódż at the centre of the universe.
    I also adore the way the roads in general are being built in a completely random way that does not actually result in many useful stretches of useful highway in any part of the country except perhaps if you want to go from Germany to Krakow. Łódż to Poznan is also complete but having traveled on that two-lane piece of crap I’m not going to get excited about it."

POLAND: Bullet In Head Story Feeds Classic Stereotype.

POLANDIAN/ Jamie Stokes aka island1/
    "This story, from Reuters, is making the rounds of the world’s media sites today. It’s a classic, end-of-the-news chuckle that manages to hit almost every Polish stereotype in less than 200 words:
A Polish man living in Germany went about his business for five years without noticing he had been shot in the head because he was drunk when it happened. Police in the western city of Bochum said on Tuesday doctors found a .22 caliber bullet in the back of his head after the 35-year-old went to have what he thought was a cyst removed. Presented with the 5.6mm projectile, the man recalled he had received a blow to the head around midnight at a New Year’s party “in 2004 or 2005,” but had forgotten about it because he had been “very drunk,” a police spokesman said."

POLAND: Government Silent About Clemency For Akmal Shaikh.

POLANDIAN/
"Akmal Shaikh is the first EU national to be executed in China in more than 50 years. Akmal spent quite some time in Poland, was married to a Pole and is survived by two Polish children. The question was therefore raised as to why Poland did not join in the call for clemency?"

POLAND: Rear Krakow Window.

POLANDIAN/ Amusing speculation about tenants in nearby apartment building/

"I never regarded voyeurism as a vocation, I just kind of drifted into it. Having a designated smoking window that looks directly onto a dozen brightly illuminated flats on the other side of the street didn’t help. I’m sure you’ve seen Hitchcock’s Rear Window as many times as I have. The difference in my case is that most of the people in the flats opposite are clearly up to no good. Also I don’t have a broken leg. What follows is my report on the suspicious behavior I have accidentally observed through my binoculars over the past two years. If I don’t turn up next week call the police or something."

Hypocrisy In Poland Over Pedophiles...And Polanski's Treatment?

POLANDIAN/
"What a very strange coincidence! Just a few days ago, our last post looked at the nation’s outrage at crimes against children under 15 and the plans to legalize chemical castration for offenders. A very clear moral stance taken by Mr Tusk and the nation as a whole.
Today I’m reading this: Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is considering asking President Obama to pardon Roman Polanski, the director now in a Swiss jail awaiting extradition to the US."