Travel / PKP (Polish National Railway) is a turn off [47]

Personally I would dissolve PKP XX and start again... nevertheless PKP Intercity is quite ok. PKP PR is different story though. PKP as whole is amalgam of issues, problems, etc...

As far as I know you can basically brake the issue into
1. PKP IC - expensive but usually with relatively good quality of service (it is train operator though so they are not responsible for tracks state)

2. [PKP] PR - inexpensive with very low quality of service, basically all what was bad was putted to that company
3. PKP PLK - basically tracks operator, seems to be unable to efficiently use funds for tracks modernization
4. various regional operators

Basically the idea with PKP PR was, that it would operate regionally, so mostly on not profitable routes but due to public importance partially funded by regional govs. Inability of PKP PR to give proper quality of service triggered formation/grow of regional operators for example Koleje Mazowieckie or Koleje Dolnoslaskie. Anyway I see the light in here. On the other hand I don't see how PR can survive in the long run when one by one voivodeships (main stakeholders in PR) are forming their own operators...

PS. actually I've learnt funny thing: PR is no longer PKP, it is company entirely belonging to voivodeships and it current name is:

Przewozy Regionalne Sp. z o.o.

News / Die Welt-Poland and Germany are the economic driving force of Europe [239]

Why so surprised? geography matters. Even Poland is bigger trade partner for Germany than Russia. But I understand that popular view about it is somehow different because of:

- they sell resources -> important
- when the sell resources then those are big deals in TV in prime time with prime ministers
- they have big luxury market...

Life / The rising costs of food and fuel in Poland and the effects on disposable income/economy [177]

Well, lets look at this from different perspective: in case of global fuel and price inflation Poles are better prepared because of less suburbia and more small agriculture ;-)

Seriously less suburbia thing can be an answer for you, regardless of still growing city crawl Polish cities are rather tight. Bright side of it is that if you don't use a car for whatever reason there is no problem to get where you need, at least in bigger cities.

Secondly, commieblocks are not so bad... ;-) House is nice things, but so many thing to care for... including a car...

Work / Teaching Architecture in Poland [23]

Not related directly to your question but if you are interested in Polish architecture then sign up into skyscrapercity.com forum and go to Polish section. Every project worth to notice is there and is discussed sometimes by people working with it.

Real Estate / Best Investment Deal In Poland Wroclaw !? [9]


I kind of agree with that. That is why I wrote that I support legal ways of stopping this construction.

Frankly speaking I suspect the origin of this misunderstanding. The guy in the movie said, that "studium" permits buildings with max 4 apartments. I bet "studium" creators had in mind just simple one level flats up to 50-70 square metres. This kind of buildings can be found it that area. What investor wants (judging by the graphics in video) is to build high building (three floors with a big roof, so almost four floors. I bet apartments there would be way beyond 100 square metres. I suppose devil lies in the details here.

PS.
Hm.. I digged a little more and some things don't add up here. In the video investor said that "studium" permits 4 apartments per building. The plot they bought suppose to hold two buildings (correct me if I'm wrong). Which means they suppose to build there max 8 apartments. But on their site:

izyckilee.com
it clearly says they would like to build 16 of them...

Hm.. after a little more digging the bottom line is that putting legal procedures of getting permit aside it looks like entire street is fighting with that investor. The issue with "Studium" is that investor is walking on the edge of it, and for example base on that "Studium" city conservator office denied permit. It also seems that opening post is a part of greater media campaing which aim is to put pressure on city in order to get permit before "Studium" for this part of a city will change and all hopes for bulding block of flats there will vanish...

Real Estate / Best Investment Deal In Poland Wroclaw !? [9]

Well, I watched and it doesn't look so obvious to me.
On the one hand investor could assume that he can build apartment building because the plan for that area at the time admited that.
But on the other hand Zacisze is the area of detached houses and the idea of building even small apartment building there is not very good in the first place. It is a quarter of a city wich conserved it's character regardless of war damages and as such is treated by many people in Wroclaw as a gem worth to preserve. I'm really sorry that plan for that area wasn't strict enough and could somehow mislead the investor. Nevertheless, I'm sorry but if there are some legal ways to prevent it to hapen then as a city inhabitant I'm in favor of it. There are many other places in Wroclaw designed for apartment buildings.

I understand that you are one of the investors in that movie and again I'm sorry for your loss. I hope that you will manage to settle issue with a city and recover your money. But in the same time please try to understand that this area has it's charm which shouldn't be spoiled with big apartment buildings.

News / Die Welt-Poland and Germany are the economic driving force of Europe [239]



Hm... it seems that source of your graphic is here:

They have cool map/graphic here with three years history: ims.destatis.de/aussenhandel/Default.aspx

In German, but still informative.

Travel / Seven Secret Wonders of Poland [17]


It started in 2001 when the statue for Orange Alternative movement was erected:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Alternative

And as you've already found out, the little guys started to pop out since 2005.
Anyway, dwarfs hunting goes well with kids, here is the map:
krasnale.pl/mapa

I wouldn't put it to the wonder list but nevertheless it is a nice outcome of one of the opposition movements legends and some individual feature for quite fine city.

USA, Canada / Think you're Polish (and live in the USA)? [161]

Wow, what a crazy thread :-)
I think that someone mixed ethnic origin with citizenship (which because of Poland homogeneity tends to be treated as the same thing when in fact it isn't)...

Well those are not clear concepts but the closest concept to me is:
-> citizenship it is a role in a social deal between the rulers and society, close to the contract, you sign up, you get the rights of society member, but you can sign off and make new deal in another society if they need you :-)

-> ethinc origin - in the biggest picture blood and genes but also cultural genes... anyway here is the part when some betrayal accusations can be applied... On the other hand I didn't come by on concept in Polish culture of condemning emigration (with exception of war or other emergency states...)

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]


That is just unavoidable ;) If I understand correctly it is not only moving from USA to Poland but also from relatively small town to not so small agglomeration. If I were you I would rather go for a flat as close to your parents as possible, close to the boy school at the same time. Otherwise traffic will kill your spirit fast... I mean USA is kind of culture derived around car. In Poland you need to switch off to strategy the less you need to use the car the better.

PS. by "close" I mean in walking or worse in public transport range.

Travel / Where would Poles (from Poland and abroad) migrate in case of rapid coming of new Ice age? [27]

To The Moon, Mars, other galaxy, you name it ;-)
Frankly I would be surprised if humanity manage to survive another 1000 years on this planet without full scale WWIII this time with nukes... With global nuclear war there will be post-nuclear winter everywhere including Serbia so nowhere to escape really... We better start to build this Slavic escape spaceship ;-)

Travel / Whats the cheapest way to get around Poland... train or bus? [25]

train timetables and fares in english
rozklad-pkp.pl/?q=en/node/143


time: between 2:30 and 3 hours,
prices between 40 and 110 zł depending on the train company and quality


Doable but exhaustive.

News / Hydraulic Fracturing in Poland. [14]

I'm not up to date with recent developments in the topic but a few months ago the info was as such: for next couple of years it will be only test drills to asses if this shale gas is really there. If so, the full scale commercial drilling will be possible up to 8-10 years from now.

It practically means two things:
1. LNG terminal in Swinoujscie will be operational in a few years, so Poland would be able to buy liquid gas from USA and Katar rather than spoil Polish environment

2. in ten years I suppose current controversy about the drillings method in USA will be settled one way or another...

So I say let them search and document possibilities, it will not hurt.
Taking into account environmental restrictions in EU and Natura2000 network I'm rather calm about it.

News / Y Shaped high speed rail line Poland [78]


You know, a bit of irony was intended there ;-)

News / Y Shaped high speed rail line Poland [78]

And they say that Poles are a specialist in everything ;-) I'm not a specialist either, but as far as I know tunnel in £ódź (which means underground station) is one of optimal choices due to factors like building tracks in highly populated aglomeration, closenest to the city center, various constraints originating in specific of high speed rails (soft curves). As far as I know the initial idea was that not every train suppose to stop in £ódź in order to maintain high speed between Wro-Poz and Waw-Wro. Building high speed bypass can be equally expensive. Anyway there is a lot of contradictory factors in place here so a tunnel sometimes can be a good option.

As for Warsaw Central, yeah maybe it is ugly there but in the same time it is very effective communication solution. The problem is not that it is underground but a PKP way of maintaning place clean...

News / Y Shaped high speed rail line Poland [78]

I hope I will live long enough to use it :-) Current 5 to 6 hours between Wroclaw and Warsaw sucks. It seems that this project changed category from "fantasy" into "long distant future". As far as I know currently feasibility study is in the making by some Spanish company. The only thing I pray for is that gov. will create dedicated entity to lead that project because I fear that if PKP takes it we can forget about whole thing...


Poland alone maybe not, but it seems gov is not stupid here. It seems that this Y is perfectly inline with European TENT network which means EU money. They started to talk about it also with Germans and Czechs to plan fuuuuture connections Warsaw-Poznan-Berlin and Warsaw-Wroclaw-Prague. If you add to that recent problems with planes in Europe, when trains became the only option then I think it is a good moment to direct some money on railways in 2014-2020 EU budget projection. Guess who is at the head off budget commision in EU ;-)

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]

^^ as I said it was just another speculation theory.. But in more broader light money from visas are going into Bilion area globally. I can imagine that somewhere in Washington there is a bold accountant, who already lost a lot because of VWP, and now some people want him to give up another 100 mln $ or more... Some internal bureaucracy frictions can be in place here. On the one hand general deficit can be $1.3 trillion, but in practice every department has it own deficit, where those 100 mln $ can have a meaning.

Anyway, EOT from my side, I said what I wanted to say. Some numbers just don't add up, some are missing, and frankly I don't care about visa, I'm just angry when I read about some granny who cann't visit her grandchildren, I suppose exactly in the same way when some of you are angry because of some Pole who illegaly crossed US-Canadian border ;-)

Personally I was thinking about going to The States once when $ was so chip a couple of years back. I thought that maybe seeing Yellowstone or Grand Canyon would be cool thing to do on the vacation, but when I read that I would have to take a day off, go to Warsaw, stay in the long queue, pay 100$ and have 2 minutes with some clerk who can refuse me visa without any explanation I thought "f..k it, it is not worth it" and I went to Montenegro instead (great place btw.). Those visa thing make me just think that USA is kind of unfriendly place. Thats it.

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


actually the number is 107752 * 9,8 % ~ 10560. The speculation is with your 50% effectiveness of refusals, don't pretend you don't know what I meant ;-)


Is it a moment I should start to laugh? This discussion has no end, I will only say that it is funny to observe when US citizens are complaing about quality of their gov with internal issues and at the same time they praise them on external ones which not directly concerns them. Excuse me my doubts, but every time when I see bureaucracy making decisions based on lucky guess red light starts to burning in my mind. That seems to be the case with visa issuance here. I perfectly understand that every sensible gov. in the world makes money on visas and I have no problem with that. But if that is the case then don't expect me to belief that VWP has anything to do with some artificial out of thin air threshold, when in fact it is a purely political decision.


In Poland alone money from visa are easily above 100 mln $. That is probably enough to pay for embassy here. I understand of course that those profits can go into cost in another department, but the thing is that it don't concerns State Deparment which has a direct influence on refusal rate simply by setting US clerks attitute toward applicants. As with every gov. one hand eats the other.

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


That is the moment when we are back again when we started. Pure speculation. In the same manner I can ask such a question:
What if that Krakow/Warsaw was.........0,5% accurate in their denials? That would mean that they prevented almost 12000 innocent people from enjoying The States and robbed them from time and money at same time...

Is that a lot?

Well in my opinion that kind of argument is pointless... Personally I think that the whole idea of excluding from VWP based on refusals not factual overstaying/violation is plainly stupid from the start because refusal is a number from a thin air not from reality.

You know, I can always in speculation go into conspiracy theory area valid with any bureaucracy in the world like: "They need a high refusal rate in order to have a job and money from it"... But it is just another speculation... Frankly speaking it is a good question:

- where money from global visa issuance go? to US Department of State? I wonder how much in their budget visa money are... Just imagine globally milions of visas a year about 100$ each. We are getting into billions area here ;-) In Poland millions of $. Probably my fellow citizens are paying for US embassies in Poland simply by making visa applications, cunning americans ;-) Heh, one of the oldest way of making money, build a barrier on the bridge.

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


Well, we were talking about Poland aren't we? Besides those numbers are in publication I linked... I've added "from Poland" precisely because it hit me that maybe you didn't check that publication :-)


Both tourist and bussiness visas are under VWP program. Both can be violated. So I see no difference here regarding obtaining "illegal alien" status. Anyway most of data you can find in that link:

dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/yearbook.shtm

Among others you can find there:
Nonimmigrant Admissions
* Data tables (including supplemental tables):
dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/YrBk09NI.shtm
and in that:
Supplemental Table 1 Nonimmigrant Admissions (I-94 Only) by Class of Admission and Country of Citzenship: Fiscal Year 2009 (XLS, 163 KB)

Where there among various others is a category:

B2 Temporary visitors: for pleasure 107 752
Which the most probably stands for tourists. Regardless of my belief that in order to get proper ratio we should use whole admissions number, calculation with 107 752 gives about 0,2% ratio which is still very low...

***************************


Discrepancy can have two sources. One, that your source states:
"*FY2009 data is preliminary and is subject to change. Any changes would not be statistically significant.", whereas US HS data seems to be final (their publication is from August 2010). Secondly, isn't it the case that one can apply for a visa in any US embassy in the world? If so then I wouldn't be surprise that for example many applications were processed via London embassy, well that I must say is just a guess.

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


Ehh... it seems that you don't read my posts at all... again:


for more data look into that link, page 83, table 28.

PS. now, when I look closer at this publication I see that in my calculation I should use rather page 74, table "NONIMMIGRANT ADMISSIONS (I-94 ONLY) BY REGION AND COUNTRY OF CITIZENSHIP: FISCAL YEARS 2000 TO 2009", for Poland 157116, which would bring aforementioned ratio to 0,14%.

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


Yeah, and imagine how easy it is for Britons... but wait damn accent :-) Come one, you are a victim of Polish propaganda, from those 10 mln people of Polish origin small minority actually speaks the language. But let it be that it is easy for those who want to vanish. The issue is how many wants:


216 out of 133591 is about 0,16%, or to put it the other way 1 in about 618 Polish citizens in USA has a chance to become "deportable alien"... You have a better chance that you DNA test will be the same as a some murderer (which supposedly is 1 to 500).

So, based on above 216 is very low, I would say in neglible category. (PS. mind that 133591 is only a tourist visas, we should probably add other kind of visas which would bring our ratio even lower).

To asses it properly we can also make comparision with crime rate in USA. According to this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States


Even if those 216 are in those 7225800, they do not infulence much that 3.1% ratio.
3.1% is much more that 0.16% :-)

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


That is our question for you, because it seems that it is based on nothing but a lucky guess of US clerk.


Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy: MANIPULATION! I caught you! :-) You are certainly aware that Poles migrated to America the same way like any other European nation. You might as well complain that there are milions of Britons there... You also should be aware what was the aproximated number of illegal Poles in USA in 1996 because I gave you this number in another thread:

Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. - page 2


Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. - page 5

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]

@FUZZYWICKETS, different "visa thread" the same attitute, speculations without any meaningful statistical foundation. We might as well speculate what if Martians invade earth tommorow. There is no value in such discussioin only fancy rhetoric. I'm not begging for numbers, I found some and give some, and made logical argument based on that. I'm not begging, I'm expecting the other side to do the same, otherwise any discussion is pointless. But, what the hell, lets see through your question. But first some word about your method of discussion wich I cann't accept:


Heh, that statement is somehow disqualifing... The whole idea of real numbers is to make an assement based on them not the other way around. Otherwise it is close to making the judgment without a rationale. Actually that is the point: I had no idea or personal agenda before I engaged in this visas threads. But after some discussions and data research I come to conclussion as stated before, that main fault here lies on US clerks at embassy. I can be proof wrong easilly with valid data about overstaying and other violations. You just have to make an effort and bring something against this:


Last but not least, Your questions:


As was stated before in fact overstaying is not directly connected with refusal (excluding those who overstayed and apply again), but a possibility of overstaying. The problem I have with it is like this:

1. is it at least in part an mathematically calculated possibility and statistics about it do exist?
2. or is it just a lucky guess of US clerk?
So far it seems that it is rather number two, because data from US HS don't add up with 10% refusal rate, at least to me.

AND FINALLY THE ANSWER! It depends... ;-) :
The answer depends on the idea of 3% threshold. If the idea is that theoretically US clerks are 100% effective then refusal rate is equal to people who would overstayed. If that is the case then if 1% in fact planned to overstay, then it is below 3% threshold which means that in such situation Poland should be included in VWP.

The same with 1% who actually overstays, it would be still below hypothetical 3% threshold. The other conclusion from your hypothetical situation would be that US clerks are highly ineffective because with 10% refusal rate and 1% actual violations they would exclude 9 innocent people in 10. If that would be the case something should be done to increase their work effectiveness or fire them and get better ones ;-) After all it is not Poland who loses something but USA tourist industry. Well, I'm aware that this are peanuts but not long ago I saw some american guy on CNBC crying that they have great services but since USA become besieged fortress they are lossing bussiness. Your choice :-)

PS. I assumed that by:


You meaned 1% out of 100% visa applications NOT 1% out of 10% refusals.


The rate of exclusion is clear, above 3% refusal rate of visas. I have no problem with that threshold. I don't agree with the way refusal rate for Poles is made, which is a lucky guess of US clerks who don't have to support their decisions with anything. I think that their attitude originates in inertia and previous behaviour of Poles, but it has not much to do with current situation. I just feel sorry for people who paid a few hundred zlotys, went half of Poland and get 2 minute interview and refusal without any valid reason. I would say it is veery bad service.

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


The real numbers, not ifs, maybes and lucky gueses. Basically what I would like to see are hard data which confirm accusations and speculations made by many on this forum that Poles en masse are:

overstaying visa
or work on toursit visa
or make any other serious violation of tourist visa constraints.

Sorry, but what I've found so far incline me to the view that refusal rate greater than 3% at USA embassy in Warsaw is based only on US clerks prejudices. This numbers from USA Homeland Security just don't add up with this popular view that Poles en masse violate tourist visa constraints. As I said I didn't find precise data regarding overstaying to confront it with USA HS data. Maybe there is not much to look for... I thought that with so many eager propagators of visa restrictions toward Poles, there would be at least one native who will be able to support his claims with some hard numbers. No luck so far.

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


I would really like to see statistics about overstaying... It is kind of a myth that high refusal rate (close to 10%) for Poles is because of overstaying. For what I know refusal of a visa is basically a lucky guess of a US clerk. He don't have to support it with anything.

The hard data are like this:


Lacking data about overstaying and contemplating above I see alternatives as below:
1. US clerks are like precise weapon
- don't make me laugh...
2. US immigration securities are not good
- hm.. ok, maybe they are not very effective. But on the other hand let see statistics for Mexico:
6,156,298 tourist visas and 528,139 deportable aliens. It seems that they are much more effective with Mexicans... Or maybe, just maybe Poles don't overstay their visas en masse?

Sorry but it seems to me that it is a problem with US clerks at ambassy in Warsaw not with Poles here. Actually I'm not suprised that when clerk has a power to deny a visa because he don't like a colour of someone eyes then he uses that power...

Of course I must add that if someone will repair my failure and find some recent data about overstaying then I will withdraw my critism about US bureaucracy ;-)

USA, Canada / Getting a VISA to USA by a Polish person nowadays [339]


Please give some numbers to support that statement. Because so far as usuall in this visa's threads there are no hard data only a speculation...

UK, Ireland / Irish Times: Irish workers warm to Poland [24]

^^
I'm not quite sure it is a good idea. It seems that Poles just learned how to stop drinking in the right moment... All that Irishmans would take us back to the "vodka in glasess" culture again ;)

News / What should Poland do with the problem of Belarus? [1694]

Poland should do all that what was done to Poland during communism by western countries, which is:
- support opposition
- support external alternative media (in Belarusian language)
- speak loudly about political prisoners (it really helps sometimes to that people to not spend most of the time in jail)

The thing with dictatorship is that you never know when it fail. From outside it can look solid as a stone, every outsider can have an impression like for example "all old people love dictator" but reality can be totally different. Dictatorship is run by fear, that fear hides true society from external world. It is hard to say if it is by analogy with Poland 70', 80' or 88' in Belarus, but make no mistake thinking that Lukaszenko can beat and inprison people and that it will be forgotten. That is not the case, Belarusians will remember that, just like Poles remembered 70' or 80' and when time comes, they will again hit the streets. But whenever it happens it must be by their will, any external force would only split society in half.

With Belarus it can also go another way. It is a country feed by Russia. Everytime West make pressure on Lukaszenko he turns to Russia and sell some piece of economy for support. That was the case this time, when a few days before elections Belarus signed custom union with Russia and Kazakhstan. Sooner or later his ability to please Moscow will end. On the other hand someone said that Belarus to Russia is the same thing as North Korea to China. Both small countries are pain in the ass, but valuable as a geopolitical inconvenience for respectively EU and USA.

Life / Poles lead Dutch in e-nonsense (social websites) [9]


You tell us, after all you are very active chatter with almost 3200 posts here ;-) Do you think that posting on PF is any better than posting in facebook? the same s...t but with pictures :-)

Hm... delph and southern beat you though...