Polish Toledo

This blog is associated with www.polishtoledo.com

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Spokesman for Polish Nuclear Energy

Hanna Trojanowska, commissioner for nuclear energy, is looking for a pop culture character to promote nuclear power plants in the country.

Next year, the Polish government is planning to start a propaganda campaign to convince Poles that the country needs nuclear energy and that nuclear plants are not as dangerous as most citizens believe.

The idea is to create a character similar to Homer Simpson, the hero of the popular American cartoon, The Simpsons, who is a safety inspector at a nuclear power plant in Springfield. Also hoping for a TV series the government plans to spend 10 million złoty annually on the promotional campaign, which will last four years.

According to a survey conducted last year by the national Atomic Energy Agency, 47 percent of Poles support the development of nuclear energy in Poland and 38 percent are against it. However, as many as 47 percent of Poles would not like to have an energy plant in their vicinity.

There was no question put to the respondents about the level of credibility Homer has with the populous. Chernobyl, notwithstanding.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Obamanation in Poland

In a move intended to assuage the Polish government, the Obama Administration will send one small detachment of soldiers to Poland next year to man an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) battery intended to guard against a Russian attack. Officials in Warsaw have been clamoring for greater security assistance from the U.S. not only for protection against the longtime adversary from the east, but also as payback for sending Polish troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to help the U.S.

Military analysts called the decision to deploy a single Patriot missile battery from Germany to Poland "symbolic," with almost no significance from a military standpoint. "It's totally nonsense," said Jan Filip Stanilko, an analyst at the Warsaw based Sobieski Institute. "One battery doesn't change anything. It can defend one district (of a city). From a military point of view, it's irrelevant; it won't defend Poland at all." Stanilko added it would take 10 to 15 Patriot batteries to defend all of Poland.

Additionally, the single Patriot battery headed to Poland won't remain there continuously. It will move back and forth from Poland to Germany until 2012, when the U.S. promises to leave it in Poland.

The Patriot deployment is a leftover from the Bush administration' s plan to install long-range ABMs in Poland to defend Europe against missile attacks from the Middle East. President Barack Obama scrapped that idea in an effort to smooth relations with Moscow, while retaining the smaller deployment of the Patriot, which has considerably less range.

Poland steps up to aid the United States in many ways only to be cut off at the knees. What's the point being an ally of America unless there is reciprocity?