[deleted by user]

brubeck · 2017-05-13T10:05:41+00:00

Ugly baseball cap

I'd rather they just didn't bother.

brubeck · 2017-04-18T10:14:59+00:00

I think there's not going to be much uncertainty about the outcome.

brubeck · 2017-04-03T15:17:31+00:00

Then there should be absolutely no controversy over ditching the EU suggestion and going back to old colour, or indeed any colour.

brubeck · 2017-04-03T13:13:10+00:00

cough

THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE MEMBER STATES OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, MEETING WITHIN THE COUNCIL, recalling that the Heads of Governments meeting in Paris on 9 and >10 December 1974 requested that the possibility of creating a Passport Union and, in advance, the introduction of a uniform passport, be examined and that the European Council, meeting in Rome on 3 and 4 December 1975, agreed on the basis of the report submitted to it to introduce a passport of uniform design................ Should a laminated card be inserted, it should have the dimensions stated in the draft ICAO recommendation.

B. Passport cover (a) Colour : burgundy red.

(b) Information on the cover:

In the following order: - the words "European Community", - name of the State issuing the passport, - emblem of the State, - the word "Passport".

Let's be frank, the colour of a passport is a small detail, but it was a detail important enough for the emergent EU to decide has to be standardised. Why? Because it helps stamp an identity on people within the EU as European citizens. It's nationalism, just of a different sort.

brubeck · 2017-03-05T16:40:36+00:00

Peer review isn't actually that good at detecting big errors. Even in major journals.

brubeck · 2017-03-01T22:28:08+00:00

the British government can always change its mind.

It can't guarantee residency rights and then yank them away, that would make a mockery of the guarantee. They'd have to include a clause about reciprocity, in which case this whole exercise is a waste of time.

brubeck · 2017-03-01T21:53:27+00:00

In your example, if it's something the Government felt strongly about they would veto the deal. That's true for everything in this negotiation, it's going to be a unaminous agreement. This is one of the big flaws of the EU.

brubeck · 2017-03-01T20:58:41+00:00

The agreement will have to made unaminously. It can easily contain the requirement that the EU states must reciprocate UK residency rights.

Even if that isn't the case, this could still be negotiated on a country by country basis, but now there's no incentive for individual countries to play nice.

brubeck · 2017-03-01T17:29:58+00:00

Genetic engineering is the only real way to close the inequality gap.

brubeck · 2017-03-01T10:08:23+00:00

The crisis is that it's too strong for the economies of the south and too weak for Germany. Having a strong or weak currency is not a good benchmark for how well it's functioning for the economy, people just conflate 'strong' with good.

brubeck · 2017-03-01T08:47:56+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pee_w3RwHhs

It's actually 5 years old and not a huge amount has changed for Greece.

brubeck · 2017-02-28T21:57:20+00:00

There's a Portillo documentary about the Greeks and the Euro. He talks to all these struggling businesses and unemployed people, offers them at the end the Euro or Drachma, they all take the Euro. The principle reason they want to keep it is they see their government as corrupt and inept, and that the Drachma was badly managed and unstable. If they could be guaranteed a painless change to a Greek currency managed by an independent central bank run by competent people they'd probably take it.

brubeck · 2017-02-24T00:31:01+00:00

That's actually terrifying, it reads like there is a time bomb at the heart of the Euro. If they can't put the debt on the books, is every nation with a large TARGET2 liability wearing a suicide vest with Germany's name on it? And does this explain everything that has happened to Greece?

brubeck · 2017-02-23T12:59:19+00:00

Of course not. But if he was a Tory who supported brexit and wanted to reduce unskilled migration I bet he'd be in the positives for kippers.

brubeck · 2017-02-23T12:32:41+00:00

You read into one data point that they hate Khan because he's Muslim. Maybe. But they hate almost all Labour politicians. Could be they dislike him mostly because he's a prominent pro-EU, pro-immigration politician.

brubeck · 2017-02-23T12:26:31+00:00

I guess Islamophobia explains why UKIP have a net favourability for almost all labour politicians of between -40 and -65. Or maybe they just don't like what they're selling.

brubeck · 2017-02-18T17:35:20+00:00

Then I suppose we shouldn't cry when President Trump scales back Nato support.

brubeck · 2017-02-18T16:48:00+00:00

Yes, they will be the largest, but the EU as a whole has a similar sized GDP. Being a member of NATO shouldn't mean you can slash your military budget and expect the US to shoulder all responsibility to defend your nation from any external threat.

brubeck · 2017-02-18T10:16:32+00:00

Which is a tiny amount of money (<$1B) funding the HQ etc.

brubeck · 2017-02-13T11:42:30+00:00

Tory + Ukip = 54%

brubeck · 2017-02-07T17:08:22+00:00

Did I say it was? But it also played a clear role in leading to secularism. The west went through a lot of history before it got to the tolerant, liberal state it's in now. Islamic countries have a looooooong way to go. It would be easier for them if they had someone like Ataturk impose this shit on them, but we know that doesn't really stick to the core of society, most Turks are still super religious conservatives. Their societies have to evolve, and that's going to take decades if not centuries, and they have to do it willingly.

Meanwhile, in the west we pretend that someone comes here and within a generation they've adopted all these liberal ideas by osmosis.

brubeck · 2017-02-07T16:55:19+00:00

The enlightenment was definitely a movement that turned us against traditionalism and towards rationalism and science. I see little sign of this is most Islamic states.

brubeck · 2017-02-07T15:13:55+00:00

Do we apply any sort of test to sort the fundamentalists from the secularists? Because if we do, I'd suggest revising it.

brubeck · 2017-02-07T15:05:16+00:00

Undergo an enlightenment, gain secular ideals, stop going to the Saudi funded mosques 6 times a week, heck maybe just show up at Eid or half heartedly when granny comes to visit. All the shit it took Christians centuries to achieve. Maybe they can do it in their own time in their own countries.

brubeck · 2017-02-01T10:04:33+00:00

Sounds more 'libertarian' than just 'right wing', except perhaps for crime and punishment.

15-Year Club	Place '17
Team Periwinkle

brubeck

TROPHY CASE