News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]


Actually it is - people have a right to choose which country administers their territory.

No argument at all. The geopolitical situation seven hundred years ago is irrelevant today.

You know, Ironside, you often write very good sense here. But this isn't. By the same logic of your 'argument' Poland could be partitioned again between Germany, Russia and Austria. After all, you don't think the nationality of the residents is a "barrier" to lack of sovereignty and if Kalingrad being Polish seven hundred years ago is a reason for it being Polish today, you should remember that there is a clear and more recent precedent for Poland to be divided as it was from the end of the Eighteenth Century right up until 1918.

I know that's wrong, you know that's wrong, so why wish it on the people of Kaliningrad?

News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]

Check out those links. It's interesting what you say about tax revenues and I hadn't heard that before; though in PL at the moment there isn't that feeling of recession, vacant High Street shops, depressed property prices, general lassitude that is visible elsewhere in Europe.

News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]

Check out some of these:

polishmarket.com.pl/document:24593,EC+Polands+economy+to+expand+by+41+in+2011.en.html
businessweek.com/news/2011-01-28/poland-s-economic-growth-quickens-investments-lag.html
stat.gov.pl/gus/index_ENG_HTML.htm

All pretty positive.

News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]


The second one, that the residents of Kaliningrad aren't Polish is sufficient on its own.


The map of Europe seven hundred years ago is no basis for international borders today. Otherwise Britain would have a claim over half of France.


Everyone else calls it growth. Why do you think Poland's economy isn't growing, despite the views of economists?

News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]


The above reasons are straightforward. Kaliningrad has no greater historical connection to Poland than Calais has to England, the economy there is poor and the residents are not Polish.


They were invaded by Germany and fought back at a cost of millions of lives.


You can only rgain something if it was actually yours.


Check the figures - it is one of the few places in Europe that is experiencing growth.

News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]


So why take on another crumbling post-industrial city with no great links to Poland for centuries?


Tough. They won it fair and square.

News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]

What would be the practical purpose of taking on a city like Kaliningrad when Gdansk etc is crumbling economically? Why shouldn't Russia keep it?

News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]


Maybe, but is there really any great sentiment for it? I've never heard any Pole say it should be incorporated into Poland, unlike, say, Lwów, Wilno, Grodno etc. I understand Lithuania also feels they have a claim.

News / What are Poland's optimal both real and virtual neighbors? [81]

Does Poland really want it? There's already access to the Baltic Coast and Kaliningrad isn't exactly an economic powerhouse.

Study / Polish language schools in Krakow [30]

It doesn't seem especially cheap - about average prices as far as I know, but certainly looks OK and you could probably do a lot worse than go there.

Here are a few in Krakow - I haven't been personally, but they all have a decent reputation:

Instytut Studiow Polonijnych

uj.edu.pl/polonia

Poliglota

poliglota.pl

International School of Polish Language and Culture in Cracow

polishcourse.org

Accent School of Polish

polishforforeigners.com

Study / Polish language schools in Krakow [30]


To learn Polish?

History / Nowa Huta and other achievments of PRL (People's Republic of Poland) [79]


That's right - 3400 wouldn't be great to live on in Lublin. Plenty have to, but it wouldn't pay for more than life's basics.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]

The last thing I heard was at least a couple of years ago.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]

Just a bit! One of the issues (among several) about that was to do with meeting the very stringent funding regulations. Personally I'd have been happy if they'd done it, but the Polish government were expected to underwrite the project which very likely would not have met the funding criteria. In which case the EU wouldn't stump up and Poland would be left with the bill.

Geothermal (and its heat-exchanging variants) are very much the way forward.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]


It's a great idea - needs a lot of support from each member state to work.


I've only come across very large companies doing it in the UK. Great that your brother did it.

I like passive houses too - it really looks like they're the way forward.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]

Interesting, but it doesn't ring true somehow. The issue in hand is what Poland can do to develop sustainable energy. It seems to me that the first step is to convince people that it is neccessary in the long term.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]


Yes, thereby reducing the incentive to cut energy use, and requiring a supply of cheap generation that they fill by burning fossil fuels. Both bad.


I wonder why - makes little sense.


Which is all the more reason to develop newer, cleaner sources as soon as humanly possible so it can be shut without undue delay. AFAIK they haven't even got a schedule for decommisioning it - though I'd be more than happy if someone here knows of one.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]


Yes. As soon as humanly possible. It is a disgrace. Mind you, Poland isn't alone in having coal-fired power stations, but brown 'coal'? Best left underground.


But many times cheaper in the long run than having to operate coal mines.


Providing they meet the conditions for funding there shouldn't be a problem. And the conditions are published and straightforward enough for other countries to follow.


See above.

Life / Health care services in Poland (Wroclaw) - Queues and doctors availablility [5]

They advertise in the small ads section of the newspaper. Either the local Wroclaw one or the Wroclaw edition of GW.

Heres a ranking list of ones that some people have said are good: rankinglekarzy.pl/pediatra/Wroclaw/83

USA, Canada / Opening a small shop, and selling many Polish items in USA. Do you think this would work? [32]

A lot of Polish shops have opened here in the UK and some have closed. They tend to sell stuff like Jogobella, powdered soups, Polish margarine, Tyskie, some wędliny etc. The ones that are a success are the ones that have become either 'pan-ethnic' with Arab, Russian, Turkish products - whatever there's a market for or the ones that have becaome more like a general store for the local community which also stocks some products from Poland.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]



Yes useless and a fourth-rate option: to get any decent level of heat off it you need too much raw product. And the levels of pollution from brown coal demand all sorts of procedures to burn off the smoke.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]


Pretty well true. That's one of the various reasons the impetus has to be EU wide - national politicians in PL and elsewhere think exactly like that and tend to be reactive rather than pro-active..


Because it's an inefficient and polluting fossil fuel that is largely indefensible nowadays. In any case, only a very small amount of Polish coal (the anthracite) is actually any good. The brown coal is little more than useless.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]

The wind is stronger there and the Belgian sector of the North Sea has no mineral resources to exploit so it's ideal, as is the Polish Baltic coast. There are also existing logistical resources to service it from the Dutch sector. The windfarms in the British sector of the North Sea are growing exponentially, but as with Belgium this has come about very slowly and only because the government has taken it seriously - Poland is much further behind in this, and doesn't have a sufficient infrastructure base to serve it - they'd need to co-operate heavily with Germany. I won't even mention the Coal lobby.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]


That depends on Poland's ability to play hardball with energy suppliers and get companies (largely by bankrolling them) to set things up. Europe-wide there are targets and projects which Poland is part of. Some European countries are exceeding the targets, some aren't.


Not a good idea. Check out the thread on that. Looks good on paper as an energy reserve, but doesn't work well near inhabited areas.

The key starting point is to better manage day to day energy consumption, building regulations that favour better insulation and penalise bad insulation, incentives for builders of the passiv-haus, far less waste including packaging of retail goods, a reduction in food-miles, an end to multi-car families, disincentives to making long journeys with one person per vehicle, and proper waste management.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]


That used to be true when the concept was new. Economies of scale and technological advances have changed that. And unlike fossil fuels, the wind doesn't run out after a few years, nor do we have to mine/drill for it.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]

I'm not sure if you'd call me top-notch, but energy (the non-green kind) is my field now.

Windfarms etc could lessen but not eliminate Poland's dependence on fossil fuels. Geothermal energy is a good bet too, and Poland has untapped hydroelectric potential.

However:


This is the crux. The infrastructure setup costs are vast, and the finances never look as good on paper as with fossil fuels. The quantity of wind farms etc needed to generate a significant amount of power is vast and expensive to build (though extremely cheap to run). And the energy suppliers are not going to invest in that unless a) their existing income streams dry up, b) they are forced to or c) it somehow becomes worth their while to compete against themselves. None of those things are going to happen any time soon which simply makes the government's role in strategic planning and commissioning more complicated and expensive.

Reduced domestic energy consumption is the essential starting point as well as incentives for solar and wind power (I don't mean windfarms, I mean smaller scale for householders). Self-sufficiency in energy should appeal to some of us - I'd certainly like it. A clever but unpopular move would be to give a very significant tax break for owners of passive buildings and penalties for the owners of the least energy efficient.

edit


I'd rather that than be next to a coal mine or nuclear power station. And BTW, I can see a couple of big wind farms from my window now - beautiful in their way and very, very clean.

The winfarms that @Pol 3 is talking about, however, are miles offshore. Feel free to live next to them.

USA, Canada / Opening a small shop, and selling many Polish items in USA. Do you think this would work? [32]


Try Wawel - it's still good. They do a nice one now with chilli in, and a really good 90% pure chocolate. Better than narcotics.


Kraft owns them both since last year. They have to sell the Stollwerck chocolate factory in Poznań due to anti-trust laws.


Both still in the shops in Poland, though the torcik is a bit of a nostalgic retro product.

News / Poland ready to receive Libyan refugees [159]

Yes - I don't understand why. Algeria next door only seems to be getting worse.

News / Poland ready to receive Libyan refugees [159]


That's a bit pessimistic, but it's true that the rebels' tribes have drawn the short straw for educational opportunities over the last few years.

News / Poland ready to receive Libyan refugees [159]


Fundamentalist in a very different way to the Taliban, though what happens in the future is anyone's guess.


Exactly.

One thing puzzling me is the role (lack of) of the Berbers in this. Gaddafi hates Berber culture, once saying that a mother teaching her child the Berber language is a form of child abuse, yet we don't hear anything about them.

I wondered about Eygpt's role in this. If the rebels form a government they stand to gain from the reconstruction of all the damaged oil installations.


Yes. And the contracts for French companies afterwards. As another poster said, wherever the French are a mess follows.


OPEC members are rubbing their hands with glee and some countries are reparing oil wells they had been about to decommision.