Source: Onet (thx pfs)

Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz has recently taken journalists on a railbus trip from Central Railway Station to Okręcie airport. The journey only took 20 minutes, thus prooving that by investing €87,000,000 a regular line can be introduced, allowing crowds of Warsaw citizens, businessmen and toursts to get to the airport quickly. According to the project, such railbus (and eventually a fast, modern train) can run as frequently as five times per hour. And everything would be fine and dandy if not for one detail - Warsaw citizens would make use of this train mostly in case Marcinkiewicz won the upcoming Warsaw election.

Source: Dziennik

Admittedly this concerns Samoobrona and not LPR, but clearly underlying ideas undergo free exchange within the coalition. As recommended by Samoobrona, Sylwia Wiśniowska has been named the director of Andrzej Aumiller’s building ministry’s secretariat. Sylwia replaces long-termer Andrzej Grabowski, who Aumiller sent on vacation. Reporters were directed to the PR department, who weren’t very clued in, when they asked about her qualifications. However reporters know how to join the dots, so the next question went to deputy speaker, Genowefa Wiśniowska. Genowefa admits that her daughter “has not worked for some time”. And later adds “Dear sir, every mother together with fethers (sic) ensure that their children study. (…) later they make sure that this work is done very well”.

Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczyński testified in court about an “attempted bribe of the order of (then) 1,800,000 zloty [€45,000] in Porozumienie Centrum headquarters on Bagatela street”. “Two men came to me and said, that they want to give me this money out of respect, but I found that very hard to believe (…), of course I refused, (…)” – congratulations on the hefty dose of humility, we wouldn’t have believed that someone wants to give the PM money out of respect either. After being accused by the Civic Platform of not notifying the authorities of attempted corruption, the PM declared today: “When I tried to put them into a situation in which they could attempt to offer me a bribe, they immediately backed out. They told me, that they want to give me 1,800,000 (…) out of respect (…) They didn’t demand anything, so it wasn’t an attempted bribe in the strict sense”.

Let us translate. “An attempted bribe” is a mental shortcut. Accusing the PM of not notifying the Police is a semantic abuse inspired by the plot, and entangled in the shady network. And only an educationel can comprehend that.

We’re pleased to announce that an unknown group of con-telligencia submitted our humble site to ComputerWorld’s best broadband service awards. And as the plot has expanded to the far reaches of Poland, we’ve been nominated for the finals by the con-jury. The finals gala and award ceremony will be broadcasted on iTVP at 19:30, Monday night. You’ll be able to check out our representative there too. We’ll be in good company – macdac of Muppet Sejm series will be there as well as two weaker opponents, TPSA with it’s triple broadband service and TVP with the iTVP project. See you there!

The following photo was taken at the Pole Mokotowskie subway station just recently (thx Piotr!).

Source: Gazeta Wyborcza (thx pfs)

We’ve finally found out why the electoral system was changed at short notice. We are of course, thinking about reasons other than helping the united left achieve electoral success. You see, thanks to PiS, Samoobrona and LPR ballot blocking, Marek Goc of PiS was elected to the Szczecin council. If it were not for ballot blocking, his place would have been taken by Leszek Nagay of PO and PO would have a majority on the city council. The 1610 votes obtained by Samoobrona and LPR were not enough for any of their candidates to be elected to the council, but were enough for a small present for PiS’ candidate. One has to admit, this is a big electoral success for the coalition parties, particularly the smaller two.

Source: Przekrój (thx Krzysztof)

A publicist magazine “Przekrój” has recently attempted to review the operation of CBA (Central Anticorruption Bureau), who have already received €17,5 mln for starting out. The journalists first tried to call CBA’s office. It turned out that Poland’s main institutuion for preventing corruption doesn’t have its own telephones and uses temporary numbers leased by the Prime Minister’s Office. The phone information doesn’t know the number, and the only one given on the webpage is permanently unavailable. This is officially explained as given: “CBA staff isn’t yet complete, therefore one person working in the call center cannot answer all calls”. The CBA is said to receive reports of corruption-based crimes “in large amounts on a daily basis”. Whom and what they concern, it is unknown. The only case confirmed to have been reported to the bureau is PO’s report of PiS deputies, whom the Platform accuses of illegal lobbing in favour of SKOK (a kind of social banking institution that features many PiS and LPR deputies as members of its regional departments’ MB’s). For the glory of the fatherland, sponsored by us all.

Source: Gazeta

Deputy Józef Rojek from PiS, suprised by the fact that by winning the local council election he lost his parliamentary seat is now accompanied by PO’s Senator, Elżbieta Gelert from Elbląg, nothern Poland. Mrs. Gelert also didn’t fully read or understood the new electoral law. Just as Mr. Rojek, she lost the presidental election of Elbląg, but she managed to get to the City Council. Yet in case of the PO’s sentaor we have one more amusement. While a deputy of Sejm, having lost his seat is replaced by the next party-mate from the list (the order is based on the number of votes received by individuals), in case of a “missing” Senator a by-election in the appropriate region is necessary. The cost of her recklessness is estimated at 450,000 Euro. We wonder if Jacek Kurski describes it as “PO’s undermining the (abandoned?) >>Cheap State<< programme”.

Source: Gazeta

European Football Championship, 2004. David Beckham approaches to take a penalty kick against Portugal. Instead of converting it, he sends it high to the upper stand. The ball was caught by a lucky fan, who later sold it on eBay for €10,000 (some sources give a £18,000 quote). Our favourite member of PiS, Przemysław Edgar Gosiewski, made someone happy in a similar way. A student who, after some complications, managed to buy a train ticket to Włoszczowa station found out that the ticket that he bought was the first ticket (No. 1!) to the first station of 4th RP. He put it on an Internet auction and with more than 40,000 views and 8 days left till the end of the auction the current bid is 3500 zloty [~ €900]. As this is a one-of-a-kind item, it may get interesting when some richer collectors join in…

When, someday, a museum of duck-realism (analogic to the socialistic realism museum in Kozlowka near Lublin, eastern Poland) were created, this souvenir together with Hubert H.’s court notice and “the scandal tapes” for sure deserves a separate illuminated showcase. Lesiak’s one, for example.

Source: Gazeta

Bronek Wildstein wants his state TV to be the biggest & the best – that’s why he ordered a professional and independent quality analysys of the TVP’s flaghip programme - „Wiadomości” [transl. as „News”]. Prof. Godzic and dr Zbigniew Bauer have been comparing “Wiadomości” with corresponding news programmes “Fakty” (TVN) and “Wydarzenia” [”Events”] of TV Polsat on a one week timeline, as requested by TVP’s programme management board. The final report was passed to Janina Jankowska, the head of the board. She accepted it and further passed it to the head of the Polish TV, Bronisław Wildstein. However, the board hasn’t seen the report so far. Why’s that? Because the report itself is extremely critical about the Television’s news programme. It points out lack of objectivity, supporting the reigning party, too brief approach to important international affairs and poor screening quality. Mr. Wildstein not only abandoned publishing the unfavouring report, but decided to refuse to pay for it. It seems that contracting icons of Radio Maryja didn’t do the state TV good. Better not imagine what Jarek will do when he finds out…