The United Christian Confederation of the Mediterranean

So, the EU and the Euro are doomed, they say. But this doesn't necessarily mean that economic trade zones between similarly placed nation states was a hopeless or bad idea, does it? Whoever thought Germany and Greece were a heaven-made economic match must have been smoking something very interesting, but is there something wrong with the basic idea of economic trade zones?

I've been thinking lately about what is going to happen after the EU slides into the metaphorical sea. Maybe a single currency and the lumbering EU Leviathan-Superstate were a bad idea, but what about smaller more subsidiarity-minded countries in similar regions, with similar economic factors, getting together and hammering out smaller agreements to foster mutual support and similar interests while actually respecting (instead of paying sneering, patronising lip service to) national sovereignty?

And why does it have to be limited to state bodies? Why not regions? And why limit it to economic interests? Why not promote similar cultural interests?

Just thinking out loud here, but what about, for instance, a confederation of Christian Mediterranean states and regions like Malta, Greece, Sicily, Spain, Cyprus and Croatia? I'm reading an interesting book about the physical, anthropological, economic and political history of the Mediterranean, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time that the various places around this ancient basin have banded together for mutual help. (Of course, we've occasionally had to call this "banding-together" things like "the Roman Empire" ... but I'm sure we could manage something useful without all that palaver about elephants and triremes this time.)

And I'm pretty sure we're going to have to start thinking very hard and realistic thoughts about the defence of (what's left of) Christendom, quite soon. It is precisely these kinds of hard and realistic thoughts, thoughts that do not easily accommodate utopian nonsense, that the EU is famously good at not having.

The EU's thesis that a heavily regulated economic superstate will eliminate the ancient political and social tensions ("tensions" being their polite word for mutual, violent loathing and lust for conquest) and bring an endless, fluffy, pink-tinged peace and prosperity are going up in the noxious smoke of torched cars and tear gas canisters. We know that the sudden resurgence of what the papers like to call "extremist nationalist groups" has been due at least in part to the attempt by these (*cough*ex-soviet*cough*) Eurocrats to reboot their youthful utopian dreams. And it seems to be going the way of all utopian dreams.

But is anyone working on ideas for what to do when the inevitable comes?



~

Like, OMG! Science! n' stuff...

Witness the incredible mind-control powers of our Dread Overlords


This is a video made at the request of the European Commission to encourage dumb floozies women to get into "science".

The video, they said, had to "speak their language to get their attention." Cause, see, they're wearing glasses. So that shows they're like, smart n' stuff, y'know?

Hydrogen!

Nail Polish!

What could go wrong?!


* ~ * ~ *

EU vs. the Natives


It's the EU's idea of a propaganda piece about "unity" and errrmm... international relations ... I guess...

And I was all worried that they were way smarter than us.



~

Glub..glub...glub...

Uh.
Oh.

!!!

Update:





*

Let's play a game!

The EU hath decreed that all young women will now be charged the same amount for their car insurance as young men. It's going to mean that young women are going to pay as much as £362 more per year.

Guess why.

Come on...

guess.

(No, I'm going to post the link later. I know you guys are a pack of shameless cheaters!)



~

Obstacles

“[T]he rise of the extreme right through elections has become an issue that cannot be countered.” Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Well, the solution is obvious isn't it?

It's those damned elections we've got to get rid of...

Never fear Jihadis, the EU stands behind you in that noble effort.



~

What do the EU, Mad Cow Disease and Stradavarius have in common?

Thought you'd already thought of all the ways the EU is ruining everything?

Think again.

Musicians have warned that the works of Purcell, Handel, Vivaldi and Bach may never again be heard as their composers intended – because of EU rules to stop people catching "mad cow disease" from their instruments.

~

Subsidiarity a natural part of human society?

I think I've said before that when the Superstate dies, as it will soon, people and local institutions will step in. Human beings are naturally tribal/herd animals. I have long thought that it is socialism and Statism that has created a kind of artificial callousness that will evaporate the instant it becomes again an unavoidable necessity for people to start looking after each other.

And I think it has already started. In Greece, the EU-imposed "austerity measures" may (or possibly may not) have resulted in the government rebalancing the books (we are talking about the Greeks, after all) but it has effectively put a stop to the common use of the Euro in parts of Greece where people have learned that if they want to keep eating, they have to do something else. This really does illustrate the wide gap between what the EU oligarchs want and what the actual people who live in the countries they rule need to keep their daily lives running.

Prices have been slashed, but customers are few.

Fisherman Christos Xegandakis laughs bitterly. He says business is so bad, it's time to start swapping goods.

"Give me two kilos of potatoes, and I give you a kilo of fish," he says. "Why not?

Indeed, many in debt-ridden Greece — where radical austerity measures have led to soaring unemployment, business closures and a credit crunch — are doing just that: turning to a simpler form of commerce, bartering.

~ * ~ * ~

And here's a little afterthought.

In a few places in Greece the barter system has evolved rather quickly into a system of local small currency that may end up replacing the national adherence to the Euro. It's kind of reminiscent of the Greek plays actually. The Eurocrats forced the Greek government to accept the colossal bail-out package on acceptance of economic controls and "austerity measures". This was in order to "save the Euro" and to prevent Greece from falling back into its previous economic ways and reinstating the Drachma. In what might be a perfectly Greek irony, this action has forced local governments and small businesses to effectively abandon the Euro as the functioning currency.

Volos is also one of several Greek towns with a more formal type of barter network, which uses a currency called Local Alternative Unit, or TEM in Greek. One TEM is equal in value to one euro.

People sign up for free on the barter network's website, where they can post ads on what they can offer or what they want. Members exchange goods and services — for example, English and computer lessons, baby-sitting and plumbing repairs, medical visits and car-pooling — amassing TEM credit into an online account.

Some shops also accept TEMs, in the form of vouchers that function like checks.

Optician Klita Dimitriadis explains how it works. On a pair of 100-euro glasses, she'll take 30 percent in the alternative currency. She needs the 70 euros, she explains, in order to pay her employees, taxes and rent.

Dimitriadis then spends her TEMs at a monthly open-air farmers market, or in exchange for other services.

Over the past year, TEM members in Volos have grown from a few dozen to more than 500, and the movement has attracted Athens' attention. In September, parliament passed a law giving barter networks nonprofit status.

The Volos municipality also actively encourages the TEM network. Mayor Panos Skotiniotis says initiatives like these are particularly valuable at a time when the economic crisis is dismantling so many social benefits.

"This is a substitution for the welfare state, and that is why this municipality is encouraging it and wants it to grow," he says.

It looks like the vast EU superstate is coming to a premature end, and the more it tightens its grip, the more local systems will slip through its fingers. Its balloon of hot rhetoric and leftist Fantasy bursting before it is really off the ground.

At the same time, the European population is generally aging, and fast. Italy's overall fertility rate has leveled off at about 1.3, the death-spiral, lowest-low rate from which, historically, no society has ever recovered. Ever. And while all this is going on, European countries are still wrapped in the warm, fluffy, all-embracing welfare state, a system that cannot survive the demographic implosion that has already begun and is now irreversible.

Could it be possible that the principle of subsidiarity, the idea that people will look after their own and their neighbours if they have to, is really a universal aspect of human society that is inherent? That has been artificially suppressed by the growth over the last two hundred years of the overweening State? One that is now re-asserting itself as that system collapses?

The spectre of the failure of the Welfare State is something that really exercises the mind of the left. Universal abortion, the use of economic coercion to enforce sterilisation programmes on brown people in the developing world, tax penalties for families in which one parent stays home to look after the kids, the state throwing parents in prison who want to teach their children at home... none of this bothers them in the least. But the impending collapse of the Welfare State has them all in a tizzy. And rightly so, indeed. What will happen to our indigent poor? What about the older people who are retired but not rich, who live in council housing and rely on a government pension to keep them in tea and biscuits? And (here's the biggie) what about health care?

I've had a few conversations with doctors recently about the system of universal "free" medical care in Italy. In this country there is a two-tiered system, a phrase that fills Canadian leftists (ie: "Canadians") with terror. "A two-tier system?!! But that means The Rich (faugh!) will get better health care than The Poor (me)!" But in fact, the system works pretty well in this country with private care serving to siphon off a lot of the pressure on the public system.

I actually appreciate the double system quite a bit. My private GP gives routine discounts to people who are wholly without private insurance, as I am, and has given me several consultations for nothing where I've gone in to ask for his opinions and advice on medications and treatments. In the early part, when I was enormously stressed at the diagnosis, I woke up one morning with my back completely seized up. He gave me a prescription for lorazepam to control panic attacks and get my sleep back to normal. And then he offered a discount on an accupuncture treatment to fix my back. He's been a huge support and I'm more than happy to pay cash for his invaluable services. I figure if a guy spends 15 years in university learning ways to help people, he pretty much deserves to be paid.

One of the doctors on one of my little trips to the Gemelli emergency room told me (after she had assured me, again, that the symptoms I was experiencing were just the normal thing after chemo) that in her 6 hour shift in the pronto soccorso that afternoon, she would see about 20 or 25 people, almost none of whom would have anything wrong with them. She said that most people coming in there on their own steam (not the ones brought in on gurneys, obviously) came there because they knew that under the Italian system, they could see a doctor for free. She said that this kind of abuse of the system is likely to bring the whole thing down. If the people who came to the PS who had absolutely nothing wrong with them were charged just 20 Euros each per visit, it would pay back a huge portion of the costs and would serve to discourage people coming in for trivial reasons. If, she suggested, there really is something medical that needs doing (as there was in my case) then the system should treat that person either for free or with user fees that were scaled to the his income.

It sounded pretty reasonable to me. But the idea that health care and welfare are simply a universal human right that everyone should have for nothing is a big part of the problem in Europe. Everyone really does want the state to be Nanny.

To be honest, most of my treatment has been on the public dime, first with the NHS and now with the Italian national service. If I'd been paying the whole fare for surgery and chemo, I would have had a debt for the saving of my life that would have taken the rest of it to pay back. One that would have made student loans look like chicken feed.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was paying for a lot of doctor's appointments, tests and scans myself and it certainly wasn't cheap. A lot of them were subsidised but the user fee was still fairly substantial, particularly when you're having a lot of them. If the MRI actually costs 1500 Euros and I pay 150, I figure I'm getting a pretty good deal. What do I have a job for if not to pay for things I need? But on the double system, I've been able to take a little more control of things. When we were working out the treatment plan, the Gemelli told me that they couldn't schedule me for an MRI at the hospital. But I was able to go to a private diagnostic clinic and get the tests anyway, and quite promptly.

You guys helped a lot, too, and this is more or less my point. People want to help each other and will when help is asked and when the circumstances make it possible to help. One of the biggest failings of socialism is that it makes it difficult, if not impossible, for individuals to help each other. No one can be allowed to get in the way of the State's interference in and control of the lives of its subjects.

I don't really know how it would work without some kind of government-paid health care system. I know that in the US the problem is not a small one. Back in the days when national governments were thinking about putting in national systems, health care was not nearly so expensive. We didn't know how to treat cancer and a lot more people died of it and things like chronic heart disease, diabetes etc. My great grandfather's brother died in the 1890s after a horse stepped on his foot and he developed septicemia. It doesn't need to cost as much as it does and there is a lot of waste in health care these days, particularly when it is run by government and the money just seems to flow for nothing from some magic source up in the sky. But the fact is that our modern "miraculous" medical interventions are expensive. Chemo costs a bundle.

In the 1930s, I'm thinking that even the arch-commie (and eugenicist, by the way) Tommy Douglas didn't think that his nationalised health care system was going to eat so much of Canada's GDP as it does today. No one envisioned it.

But I think apart from the Big medical expenses like chemo and heart surgery, people really can pay for a fair bit of what they get from doctors. Maybe the collapse of our massive, top-heavy national welfare systems will force local solutions that national, centralised governments are constitutionally incapable of conceiving. I, of all people, have no desire to see only wealthy people cured of cancer, but the reality is that the system we have now, that everyone seems to think of as some kind of birthright, is going to end. And soon. It seems to me that a solution can be found only when we are absolutely up against it and are forced to find one.

And I do think that such a subsidiar-ized, ground-level solution will be found because, exceptions notwithstanding, people actually do care about each other and want to help.




~

A punto...

It's an old standby. Whenever there is a huge, distracting, celebrity-saturated news story going on, watch Parliament especially closely...

With British attention distracted by the phone-hacking scandal, this week the European political elite hurled another £96 billion at the ailing Greek economy, desperate to stave off a financial meltdown that could plunge the entire European project into disaster.

~

One nation, under...

A while ago, an Irish friend involved in politics told me that the EUrocrats are going to be taking full advantage of the instability created by the economic crisis to solidify their plans to abolish the nation state in Europe and unite the EU member states into a single socialist European superstate.

Apparently, that happened on Wednesday, while no one was paying attention. Which, in my experience, is the way really big things are brought about by politicians who know the public doesn't want their really big things. It is an axiom among lobbyists: if there is a huge news story breaking, it is wise to watch with extra care that day what the government is doing in Parliament.

European politicians have developed the same superstitious attachment to the single currency. They are determined to persist with it, no matter what suffering it causes, or however brutal its economic and social consequences.

There is only one way of sustaining this policy, as the International Monetary Fund argued ahead of yesterday’s summit in Brussels... Admittedly, the IMF should not be regarded as an impartial arbiter. Theoretically, its responsibilities stretch around the globe, but it has become the plaything of a reactionary European elite, of whom its latest managing director, Christine Lagarde (a dreadful and backward-looking choice), is the latest manifestation. However, the IMF was entirely correct when it pointed out that the only conceivable salvation for the eurozone is to impose greater fiscal integration among member states.

This advice was finally being taken yesterday – and it is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of the decision which European leaders seemed last night to be reaching. By authorising a huge expansion in the bail-out fund that is propping up the EU’s peripheral members (largely in order to stop the contagion spreading to Italy and Spain), the eurozone has taken the decisive step to becoming a fiscal union.

So long as the settlement is accepted by national parliaments, yesterday will come to be seen as the witching hour after which Europe will cease to be, except vestigially, a collection of nation states.

It will have one economic government, one currency, one foreign policy. This integration will be so complete that taxpayers in the more prosperous countries will be expected to pay for the welfare systems and pension plans of failing EU states.

This is the final realisation of the dream that animated the founders of the Common Market more than half a century ago – which is one reason why so many prominent Europeans have privately welcomed the eurozone catastrophe, labelling it a “beneficial crisis”.

~

Meddlers

The EU, a pack of busybody, and extremely silly old ladies, bustling about telling everyone else what to do. They're like the little old ladies who have notions about how the world ought to be run, to save the precious dolphins because they're just so cute, but who have, for reasons inexplicable, been given the power to make everyone else implement their silly witterings.

Why is fish expensive?

Why is it expensive even if you live within a stone's throw of the sea?

Well, this is one of the reasons: EU fishing quotas policy results in fishermen dumping 90 per cent of their catch back into the sea. Yep. It's the rules, you see, because of errm...well, overfishing. Fishermen aren't allowed, under EU regulations, to sell all the fish they catch. But the fish don't know not to get caught in the nets that are only meant to catch the sort of fish the EU allows to be sold. This results in millions of pounds of the "wrong sort" of dead fish being thrown overboard every season, and it is close to bankrupting the British fishing industry.

Now, instead of addressing the problem, their ridiculous fishing quotas, the Eurocrats say they're going to "ban" the practice of dead fish dumping. Because, everyone knows, it's all the fishermen's fault.

It reminds me of the absurdities of the Canadian government saddling the Newfie fishermen with heavy quotas on cod fisheries. But the Newfs weren't the problem. It was the Spanish and Portuguese industry trawlers that came over the Atlantic and sat just outside (or as often as not inside) the 200 mile limit and fished the cod out. But of course, the Canadians were much too nice to do anything about that. We're so desperately proud of our unarmed coast guard and it's just so much easier to destroy the Newfoundland fisheries. After all, the guys out there in the little dories don't shoot back.

Hey, I've got an idea, let's dump the damned EU overboard, every man jack of 'em, and let 'em swim to shore.



~

Yep, that about summs it up...

Pat Condell is one of those people with whom I don't always agree (religion, obviously) but I've never heard any of his stuff that didn't say at least something that was absolutely spot on, even about religion.

Except that I'm not really a supporter of "democracy" (whatever that is...), he's got the bead on the Irish problem and "Europe".

I've never claimed to be Irish in the sense of belonging on any way to it as a country, but I'm Irish down to the bottom of my genes, which for practical purposes is probably more important for day-to-day doings. Fightyness, and whatnot. Maybe Pat's right. Maybe the Irish character is the solution to the European problem.



~

Thank God for the EU!

Did you know that the EU invented cognac? (Cheese too, apparently, but I think it's probably too humble to mention it.)

France's new Europe Minister Laurent Wauquiez ... told a meeting of the National Interprofessional Bureau of Cognac (which, it must be said, is a fantastic name) that without the EU there would be no....cognac. Mr. Wauquiez said:

Europe has protected cognac. For example, on the Chinese market, Europe has allowed us to force the Chinese to recognise cognac and protect it [...] If Europe hadn't been there, there's no doubt that we would no longer have cognac.

That's right, no EU, no cognac.

Because market demand has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with whether a product gets made and distributed...

You're letting the Belgians run Europe?

Yeah.

Old Lizard-face doesn't look too happy...

heh...



~

Better out than in

Someone (other than the British people, that is) is FINALLY saying it.

But did it have to be the Daily Express?

Senior MPs, peers and campaign groups acclaimed this newspaper’s stand against the sprawling Brussels super-state as a turning point in the battle to win back Britain’s independence.
And Eurosceptic critics of UK membership said the growing financial crisis among the euro nations this week – threatening to cost British taxpayers billions of pounds – has overwhelmingly confirmed the case for British withdrawal.

~

Devoutly to be wished...

Angela says the

future of the EU was at stake in the challenges to its monetary amalgamation.

"If the euro fails, not only the currency fails. Europe fails too, [yay!] and the idea of European unification [YAY!!]. We have a common currency, but no common political and economic union [Double YAY!!!]. And this is exactly what we must change [Booo!]. To achieve this - therein lies the opportunity of this crisis."

I really don't get the "unification" mania of these people. I'm not even convinced they really know what it means or what it's really supposed to accomplish.

Oh, wait. Maybe I do.


~

I laff

In a grim, humourless way, of course.

Thursday, 19/11/2009:

21:37 - A BLOW TO EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY:

Our top story this hour:

Extremely low voter turnout turns first election for EU president into fiasco

According to preliminary results only 27 people voted

Don't you worry your little head, there's a dear

Your betters know better than you. That's why we call them that.

From Open Europe Blog on our new president Van Rompuy's deep commitment to democracy:

In his book “Vernieuwing in hoofd en hart : een tegendraadse visie” (Renovation in Head and Heart: a contrary vision, 1998), for instance, Van Rompuy celebrates the fact that the euro was imposed in Germany even though the majority of people were against it.

He says:

“Luckily monetary union has arrived. In a couple of years it would have been too late… In Germany the majority of the population is against the replacement of the German Mark by the Euro, but Chancellor Kohl has stood firm. Monetary union has arrived, despite a large part of the population. That's possible in a parliamentary democracy, a lot less so in a direct democracy.

Later it will become clear what kind of a revolution the euro was and how this project has brought us out of the ‘age of mediocrity’".

(p 61)

Well, I for one welcome our new Cephalopod European Overlords

All blocks to Lisbon now removed:

Mr. Klaus added his signature to the treaty, even as he expressed his continuing objections, just hours after the Czech Republic's high court ruled it compatible with the country's constitution. The move means the Treaty, already ratified by the other 26 members of the bloc, can go into force on Dec. 1.

In related news,

Japanese fishing trawler sunk by giant jellyfish:

A 10-ton fishing boat has been sunk by gigantic jellyfish off eastern Japan.

No, really.

Each of the jellyfish can weigh up to 200 kg and waters around Japan have been inundated with the creatures this year. Experts believe weather and water conditions in the breeding grounds, off the coast of China, have been ideal for the jellyfish in recent months.

"Oh, did I say 'referendum'?

I meant...err...well..."

Open Europe:

Senior Conservatives are now saying that instead of a referendum on Lisbon, they will seek to renegotiate several of the changes it implements. The paper quotes a Conservative source saying: "It is clear that a post-ratification referendum is simply not possible."

"We will look at the parts of the treaty that are not acceptable and seek to renegotiate them."

The Times reports that David Cameron will also pledge to write into law that no British Government will ever again be able to push through a European Treaty without a referendum...

Let's get that barn door closed, once and for all!

Cameron said that once the Treaty is endorsed by all 27 EU members and comes into force, it will "not be a treaty" and will instead be part of European law...

"...so, you know, it won't actually be reneging on my most important platform plank. Cause, if there's no Treaty to have a referendum on, we can't really have a Treaty referendum, right?"

The "heir to Blair" indeed!

If it makes you feel any better,

the Irish referendum really wasn't going to make any difference anyway.

French Europe Minister vows to push on with EU integration, regardless of Irish vote

in an interview with French radio station LCI, Pierre Lellouche, French Minister for Europe, was asked what will happen if Ireland votes ‘No’. He said: “We are waiting very impatiently because the future of 500 million Europeans lays in the hands of 3 or 4 million Irish voters… it is a very uncertain campaign”. He continued: “Whatever happens, Europe will keep on going because we do not have a choice…there is a lot of work to do in the energy, immigration, industry and social fields, and we are not going to stop. So we will find solutions if ever we were faced with such a situation.”

Eurocrats gave up on voting quite a while ago.