Governmental Idiot of the Week

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@Darkwolf:

Since 1994, I believe, so additional tax is outrageous.

As for odometers and registrations - how are the authorities supposed to be able to tell how many of the distance has been covered in Poland, and not abroad? What about foreign citizens? Will they have to pay the tax as well when they come to Poland? And if not, does the guy even realise what kind of problems that might cause? Most of Poland's borders are now with EU. I would believe most of our neighbours would gladly offer discounts for Polish residents to have their cars registered there. What's the problem with that? We live in the EU, to have a car registered abroad is just a simple matter of going there and registering. Simple as that.

 

Odometers? Here people play around with odometers whenever the insurance guy is to make his rounds.

Is there an ******* of the Week (AotW) plaque for this guy ?
He should also get the IotW plaque. Laloo Prasad Yadav, an ex-CM and currently a minister in the central government, was actually caught on tape distributing money during an pre-election rally . The election commision came down so hard on him, he is now going to be seen only in his former constituency.

 

The (now former) Head of Transit Commitee in Cracow. Three days ago (Wednesday), he did not send out plows and sander lorries to clear out streets. This has caused a massive standstill of the entire city -- mass transit by bus had been completely held, and only some trams (those with grass strip and grass side tracks) were able to move passengers around. Bus stops amassed throngs of people trying to get to their destination. In some cases, delays of over five hours occurred.
Why? Because it 'surprised' the councillor that it would be snowing in the middle of January. Oh, it wasn't much -- some five-six centimetres -- but when temperatures in recent days kept below zero centigrade, road surface was also below the freezing point. Now snow, melted by friction, almost immediately froze to create naked ice surface on the road, which made it impossible to transit -- especially in the outskirts, where there are numerous foothills -- too much for large lorries to pass, so the passage was blocked.
Many collisions occured and it was impossible to drive on the newly created icy surface, even with winter tyres or hastily fastened chains.
When plows and sanders finally took to the streets, it had already been too late -- standstills and traffic jams prevented them from getting to the points of congestion for relief.

Strangely though, the neighbouring towns and cities were very well prepared for the occassion, and in Skawina -- a city of 26,000 inhabitants, 15 kms from Cracow, one which I live in -- roads were kept clear from the first flake of snow.

All in all, this led to one positive outcome. The Transit Commitee Head has been sacked, and is now prosecuted for personal responsibility -- both moral and material -- of what happened in Cracow. He is currently held in custody. Private suits concerning collisions and emergency services unable to reach their points of relief (ambulances were held by the traffic as everything else, the extent of injury because of that is not known at the current time) are expected to follow.

--- added:
At a press conference where he was defending himself after being fired, he has responded that it had beena weather anomaly and that it is the fault of the drivers "who panicked and blocked passage of plows and sanders." Panicked, yeah, they couldn't budge on the ice, and they were "panicked." Besides, the guy stated that plows and sanders "normally" leave 2 hours after it ceases snowing. He "forgot" to mention that "normally" means "after it had already been snowy for a few days and people are well-prepared." Also, he never mentioned that a number of plows should be patrolling the streets in winter -- he neglected his duty.

Either way, I've posted it because the previous IotW had already stayed too long in his place, and my proposition up here also relates to Polish transportation system.

PS: As for rigging the elections in the Ukraine. No, the guy was not an idiot. A liar, a con, a criminal -- yes, but he's not an idiot. He perfectly knew and understood all the implications of such a decision and decided to gamble. He lost the gamble, but it was to be expected -- the same party (as in a loose group of people) rigged elections in Belarus just a few weeks earlier, and gambles like to have even odds.

[ January 22, 2005, 09:39: Message edited by: toughluck ]

 

Chevalier: A California legislator proposed the same tariff back in the 1990's when I lived there. Great ideas never die.

 

Canada's Immigration Minister, Judy Sgro I think her name was, recently got busted helping another campaign worker get into Canada. This one had some nice, shady connections, and she resigned over the issue...