What's Next For Poland's Neighbor?

A home school advocate is helping a German family who is seeking asylum in the United States.

Mike Donnelly is a staff attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and says home schoolers in Germany are under great persecution. He also notes many German families home school in secret, but if they get caught, they can face fines in the thousands of dollars, lose their personal property, get thrown in jail, or even have their children taken from them.

One family, according to Donnelly, has suffered so much persecution that the HSLDA is now helping them seek asylum in the United States. The Romeike family was faced with thousands of dollars in fines and the potential loss of their five children if they did not comply with the demands of German social workers who wanted to put their children in government-run schools.

"And so they were able to get here to the United States," he explains. "They relocated to East Tennessee where they have been warmly welcomed by home schoolers in that area, and they are just so happy to not have to be looking over their shoulders wondering when the social workers were going to come and try to take their children or when they were going to get another letter in the mail saying they were going to have to pay another couple thousand Euros or dollars to the German government for home schooling."

Other German home school families have followed suit, and Donnelly says they have hired an immigration attorney as they seek political asylum. He is hopeful that asylum will be granted in these cases.

Source: onenewsnow.com

Hillary & Biden something in common with Kaczynski?

Unlike liars in politics who claim they've been under fire (Hillary and Biden), but were not ---

This just in from Georgia:

Russian military personnel on Sunday, November 23, fired shots at a motorcade carrying Polish and Georgian presidents Lech Kaczynski and Mikheil Saakashvili from the airport in Tbilisi to a settlement near the Ossetian border where they were to visit a refuge camp constructed after the Russian invasion.

I'm glad there is youtube -- I can hear Hillary and Biden over and over anytime I wanna hear a good big fat fib. I can't find the one with Gore claiming he invented the Internet anymore.

Down on the farm

Rising consumer affluence in Poland and changing eating habits are leading to greater quality expectations among Polish consumers Yet, the ability to upgrade production systems is limited. Nearly 60% of farms are small family operations less than 5 hectares thus producing low income.

According to estimates only some large farms, responsible for a quarter of the arable land are able to make investments to increase production capacity.

The contribution to Poland's Gross Domestic Product by agriculture is around 4.5 per cent with the sector employing around five million people. That in itself is a gross imbalance. 18% of workers in Poland farm for a living and produce less than 5% of the GDP.

Harvest by hand on small family farms


Young Polish farmers (below 40 years) are able to apply for subsidised credit in a bid to encourage new and skilled entrants to farming. Potential Polish farmers have been paid direct payments since European Union accession in 2004. Around 1.4 million farmers are granted 8.6 billion Polish zloty (£2.15 billion).

Potential for growing food in the country is highlighted by recent EU production statistics. Poland is currently the third largest cereal producer in the EU and, along with Germany, the main potato producer. The two countries are also responsible for 80 per cent of the EU's rye production. Poland produces around 15 per cent of carrots and 18 per cent of the EU's total apple crop. With almost 477,000 livestock holdings, Poland produces around 230,000 tonnes of beef and two million tonnes of pig meat annually. EU figures for 2006 suggest Poland contributed 6.7 per cent of the total European milk production compared to 10.5 per cent for the UK.

Farming in Poland needs economies of scale -- bigger is better in this instance, because "small" just can't keep up. The family farms will end up like the U.S.'s big three auto makers... On the ropes.

Now We Want Your Missiles

Poland voted for it, before they voted against it, before they now vote for it. Tusk, tusk, tusk.


DEFENSE: Eastern Europe to U.S.: Wait, Wait, Now We Want Your Missiles!
By Nikola Horejs

Public Integrity, DC November 21, 2008

The controversy over the missile defense system the United States plans to build in Eastern Europe has taken almost a 360-degree turn recently. Until November the Bush administration had been courting our "new Europe" pals, the Poles and Czechs, offering planes, missiles, discounts, and other goodies to help smooth the way for the Star Wars installation. But on November 4, the tables turned. Polish and Czech ministers have been touring Washington in recent days, quietly meeting with advisers to Prez-Elect Obama and encouraging him to maintain Bush's plans – though they're being tight-lipped about it. "I can't tell you whom I've met; I am not a fool," Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Vondra told PaperTrail after his closed-door meeting at the Brookings Institute on Tuesday. Poland's foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, spoke the next day at the Atlantic Council of the United States. Poland will "wait until the new administration makes its assessments, " he said, but "we would like to see the project continue.

"That may be a hard sell. The missile defense project is among the top candidates for Pentagon budget cuts. The system hasn't been proved effective, argue some experts, and it gives angry Russians an excuse to deploy more missiles themselves. Obama's aides have said repeatedly the new president would support the system only "when the technology is proved to be workable.

"The European branch of the system is meant to protect America and other NATO countries from the potential launch of a ballistic missile by Iran or North Korea. But protecting Americans and other foreigners is not exactly a top priority for Poles and Czechs, so their governments have had to sell the system as a security guarantee and a shield against Russian influence. That's worked in Poland, where Washington has faced only minor opposition from the center-left government, but less well in the Czech Republic, where two-thirds of Czechs oppose the presence of any foreign military base. Still, their leaders seem wedded to the idea of hosting the U.S. missile defense program. As Sikorski said at the Atlantic Council presentation: "Everybody assumes that countries that have U.S. soldiers on their territory do not get invaded."

I've blogged too much on this over the last two years -- I'm dizzy.

Tusk gives report

It's the same in Poland as the U.S. Politicians in the spin zone talking out of both sides of their mouth.

Briefing Parliament on his cabinet's year in office Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said his government has registered important successes in foreign policy.

Tusk recalled that thanks to dialogue with Moscow a part of restrictions imposed by Russia on Polish food imports were lifted. Russia trumped up the reasons to stop import of Polish meat in the first place in retaliation for Polish Policies not to the liking of Moscow. In fact, Russia threatened to ban imports of meat products from Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 once these countries joined the EU members. The hardship for Poland and its livestock producers was the credibility issue over healthy Polish meat on the world market. A jaundice eye was placed on Poland because of the Russian boycott. Thus, hurting farm export income. Economic warfare from Russia and nothing less. It should have been dealt with in that manner. The school yard bully will be back with more intimidation.

Improvement of relations with Russia is one of the government's foreign policy priorities, the premier declared. He said his cabinet began dialogue with Belarus, aimed at reinforcing democratization processes there as well as an effective protection of the interests of the Polish ethnic minority in Belarus. If this is so, the anti-missile shield program flies in the face of good relations between Moscow and Warsaw. And swaying Belarus toward democracy??? It's like sticking a needle in Putin's eye. Some American observers say Obama's first test in office will be squarely placed on the Eastern Polish border facing Russia.

Tusk described as revolutionary his government's actions cutting red tape in business activity. Thanks to lowering taxes, as of next year a total of 35 billion zlotys, or over 9 billion euro, will remain in taxpayers' wallets. He admitted that some of these cuts were proposed and enacted during the rule of the Law and Justice party but his party backed those changes and expects that today's opposition in parliament will support projects which benefit Poland. There ya go taking credit for the conservative government plans and actions taken before Tusk took the oath.

Never thought I'd see the day when a French President seemed like the only sane world leader on the planet. The wild & crazy Hungarian guy Sarkozy -- more power to 'im.

In the old days Poland elected their Kings. Sometimes foreign ones. I say make Sarkozy an offer.

Polish jokes are passé

Why Polish jokes are passé and American jokes are in vogue.

There is controversy over this ballot in Minnesota. Franken and the Democrats want it cancelled.


This is real frickin’ easy. Obviously it is an optical scanner read ballot. Directions are offered to the voter. Either the scanner counted the vote for Coleman if enough of the circle was blackened or it did not “see” enough contrast in the circle to have the vote count. Period. Either it’s pregnant or not pregnant. Just my guess, but it looks like the rabbit died. Why employee machines if loons are going to second-guess technology and second guess voter intent. Florida all over again, but with snow this time.

Just let the machine do its job.

BTW, Did you hear the one about the American that went to the voting polls? He was dumber than a voting Pole.