Evil exercise
Jan. 8th, 2004 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueDon't do exercise. It's bad for you. I have proof.
I came back from the gym, went to check credit card balances and paid money.
And then ended up paying 400 quid to BT, rather than my CCard company.
(actually, now I remember, we owe BT money, but it's a sensible amount this time since the phone is fucked. I don't see a need to do anything about it, because ... well I have a mobile, which is what I use, cos I get oodles of free minutes. Of course, this will probably make it harder to solicit contributions. "I didn't make any calls". "Line Rental?")
Thankfully, the nice man on the bank help line with a "yeah, we get that a lot" deleted the pending transaction.
Unfortunately, this means that my credit card bill over christmas hit 400 quid (well, actually went a little over due to some imprudent book buying.).
Sigh, guess it means that due with the SG/1 and scope are going to have to wait.
But anyway, on to what I was _going_ to post. Has anyone noticed that the european union, that seems to have the ability to issue more and more edicts these days, is basically run by people I didn't vote for?
I mean, there's the UK MEPs but the _rest_ of the european parliment are foreigners. Don't get me wrong, I rather like foreigners, but I _don't_ want some political hack from a different country decide what's best for me.
I mean, take the recent Euro debacle. Loads of countries in the EU decide it's a really smart idea to shackle their economies together. And then they find that france and germany start to take the piss, and just neglect to follow the rules, and there's really not a lot to be done about it. After all, they didn't really think about how one would go about _leaving_ the Euro...
After all, _justice_ requires an authority, and ability to enforce the punishment. When talking about countries in the EU, what can any other member _really_ do to make france etc. toe the line. Go to war? I don't think so.
Bollocks to it. Comittees never work anyway. Parliment is a bit of a cluster fuck too when I think about it. I think I'll have to stage a coup in the UK and just be emperor. Then things'd be fine.
And invade france too. I could probably pursuade them that french fries were an evil french WMFB (weapon of making fat bastards) and thus they needed a good shoeing.
Oops, kinda lost the thread there.
Maybe I'll just stand for MP for Coventry next election. Or maybe I'll just spout bollocks, criticize and whinge, because that's the national pastime.
(Edited bitchy rant about bills. It can't be PMT or hormones, so I guess it must just be january blues)
I came back from the gym, went to check credit card balances and paid money.
And then ended up paying 400 quid to BT, rather than my CCard company.
(actually, now I remember, we owe BT money, but it's a sensible amount this time since the phone is fucked. I don't see a need to do anything about it, because ... well I have a mobile, which is what I use, cos I get oodles of free minutes. Of course, this will probably make it harder to solicit contributions. "I didn't make any calls". "Line Rental?")
Thankfully, the nice man on the bank help line with a "yeah, we get that a lot" deleted the pending transaction.
Unfortunately, this means that my credit card bill over christmas hit 400 quid (well, actually went a little over due to some imprudent book buying.).
Sigh, guess it means that due with the SG/1 and scope are going to have to wait.
But anyway, on to what I was _going_ to post. Has anyone noticed that the european union, that seems to have the ability to issue more and more edicts these days, is basically run by people I didn't vote for?
I mean, there's the UK MEPs but the _rest_ of the european parliment are foreigners. Don't get me wrong, I rather like foreigners, but I _don't_ want some political hack from a different country decide what's best for me.
I mean, take the recent Euro debacle. Loads of countries in the EU decide it's a really smart idea to shackle their economies together. And then they find that france and germany start to take the piss, and just neglect to follow the rules, and there's really not a lot to be done about it. After all, they didn't really think about how one would go about _leaving_ the Euro...
After all, _justice_ requires an authority, and ability to enforce the punishment. When talking about countries in the EU, what can any other member _really_ do to make france etc. toe the line. Go to war? I don't think so.
Bollocks to it. Comittees never work anyway. Parliment is a bit of a cluster fuck too when I think about it. I think I'll have to stage a coup in the UK and just be emperor. Then things'd be fine.
And invade france too. I could probably pursuade them that french fries were an evil french WMFB (weapon of making fat bastards) and thus they needed a good shoeing.
Oops, kinda lost the thread there.
Maybe I'll just stand for MP for Coventry next election. Or maybe I'll just spout bollocks, criticize and whinge, because that's the national pastime.
(Edited bitchy rant about bills. It can't be PMT or hormones, so I guess it must just be january blues)
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 04:05 pm (UTC)/me hands you the European Court of Justice.
Too tired to argue Europe now - though it's very interesting. You should talk to
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 12:59 am (UTC)I'm sure the point is arguable, but at the end of the day, the UK gets lots of directives from brussels, set by Euro MEPs.
Bah, I think I was just grumpy yesterday.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 02:28 am (UTC)The EU pass a directive that says that is it good idea to have some laws regarding Health and Safety. How this directive is implemented it down to the civil servants in the individual countries.
Whitehall see the EU as a threat to their power, so the implement the directorate in the most draconian way possible. Then they ensure that the press blame the EU on these stupid new laws. Ensuring the the British public tells Europe to sod off at every turn.
I am not saying that europe is a good thing, I do not like it one bit. The part I hate is that the un-elected part of our government is cutting our nose off, to spite Europe's face.
I must stop reading Private Eye and watching DVDs of Yes Minister :)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 02:29 am (UTC)Says it all really.
It's not cynical when you're right.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 08:54 am (UTC)You need a lesson in how the EU works - this'll have do for starters:
There are three 'bits' involved in making decisions:
The Council - made up of concerned ministers from the member states (so when it's a transport issue the transport ministers make up the Council etc)
The Commission - two members from each member state who are full time bureuacrats eg. Neil Kinnock and Chris Patten (IIRC) responsible for different areas.
The Parliament - MEPs elected in each member state.
Legislation can start (nowadays) in any of those three places - and gets passed around a bit between them before being passed.
There are different types of legislation - eg. directives are only one type, regulations are another - regulations bind member states without any need for enactment by national Parliaments. Directives are supposed to be implemented by Parliaments, but can, in some cases, bind directly.
John's really the expert on these things though.
My take on it all is based rather closely on Prof. Craig's viewpoint which is that without the EU what would we have? The answer is probably that without the EU we'd have a series of international/bilateral treaties between the countries which are member states. While there is a huge democratic deficit in the EU, it is, in many ways, the least worst alternative - since in the UK at least, the power to make treaties vests in the executive not Parliament.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 08:58 am (UTC)Directives have to be turned into UK legislation - generally secondary legislation like Statutory Instruments before they come into force (sometimes you can rely directly on the directive itself, but not always).
So, it's not up to civil servants to implement them in that sense.
Admittidly, it is quite irksome to visit other EU countries to find they haven't implemented directives as they should have done/measures aren't taken to enforce implementation.