Interesting Links for 20-05-2013

[andrewducker]

• EU to ban olive oil jugs from restaurants
  (tags: europe oil )
• What's The #1 Killer Of Girls Aged 15-19 Worldwide?
  (tags: death pregnancy children )
• Scotland's immigration minister opposed to stupid London policies.
  (tags: scotland uk immigration )
• Choosing Minecraft Over Disney
  (tags: minecraft children disney )
• Best Voting Method _Ever_
  (tags:

Comments

[xenophanean]

The olive-oil jugs thing is out and out peculiar. I think it's so specific that a national government should quail on making a ruling on it, let alone a multi-national one. For the EU to be doing so makes them look like they're governed by minority interests, and thus not really fit to govern a continent. It also has some quite alarming implications. It seems to set a precedent which, taken to its logical conclusion, could outlaw anything which isn't presented in a sealed, branded container. (E.g. it seems to imply that by the same logic, draught beer should be outlawed, as it could potentially be faked).

The EU is a massive government, so needs to be extremely careful with what laws it passes. Nitpicking laws, which are also sweeping, and seemingly arbitrarily targeted can only be harmful. This law certainly seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do. If there's arguments that actually totally sensible, I'd be glad to hear them, because this plays so nicely to Eurosceptics.

[bart_calendar]

I'd argue that over the past 4 years the EU has made it perfectly clear they are incapable of running a continent.

[xenophanean]

I see your point, I'm now not at all keen on them. That said, I don't want the UK to leave the EU as I think it'd be awful to both our economy and our personal freedoms.

[bart_calendar]

That's the rub. The EU is run by awful people who do things that benefit nobody but Germany - and will actually hurt Germany in the long term - but at the moment all alternatives are worse.

It will be interesting to see what will happen when either Spain or Greece eventually goes fascist.

[xenophanean]

Although I don't reckon that's inevitable at all, I am worried that it's a possibility. This making of client states of normally powerful countries has had disastrous results in the past, and I'm surprised that Germany, of all nations, hasn't noticed the parallel.

[bart_calendar]

And, in general, in any country where unemployment becomes sky high for extended periods of time dictatorial communism or fascism is the eventual result - something Germany should remember given their experiences after World War 1.

And Spaniards and Greeks have historically not really be that opposed to absolute rulers.

[andrewducker]

The problem is that it's not a government - it's a bunch of finance ministers each trying to promise the smallest amount they can. If it was a proper government, then "Greece" wouldn't owe money - the EU would, and this would have been sorted ages ago.

[xenophanean]

I think it's more that no-one in the public really cares who MEPs are or what they do, so it's terribly open to sub-standard politicians or people who only care about the money they can make. Also, the lack of public interest makes it an excellent weak-point for large corporate interests to lobby for maximum effect at minimum price.

[andrewducker]

I've been coming to the opinion that every law should have an accompanying paragraph or three saying what the problem it's solving is, and listing real cases that weren't fixed by previous legislation. That way you'd be able to see what the legislation was designed to fix, or if it was just a bunch of people meddling because they were bored.

[bracknellexile]

I'd also like a meta-law that compels every scare-mongering media piece commenting on these new laws, to quote said paragraphs in full.

[a_pawson]

More to the point, journalists should be responsible for writing such explanations so that we don't get such sensationalist articles with no explanation of why a seemingly stupid rule was actually brought in.

[bohemiancoast]

UK laws have these, though not with the specific cases; they're called explanatory memoranda. Some of them are quite good, some less so. Often there's supporting notes that do include case studies (though obviously not real cases for departments like my old one, where real cases mean real people's lives). The consultation documents have a lot more of that sort of thing in, too.

Basically; this stuff's there if you want to look for it. In this case, it's perfectly obvious what the legislation is designed to fix; it's just that nobody in the UK (where we don't make olive oil) thinks there's a problem.

But truly, that Defra comment can more easily be translated as 'obviously it's stupid, but we only have the resources to fight a proportion of EU measures and this one is just way lower on our priority scale than pesticides or working time'.

[andrewducker]

aha!

http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/2916498.html?thread=25634194#t25634194

[akicif]

I was convinced that the olive oil thing had to be a misinterpretation - especially when there was a line about containers over 5 litres being permitted - of rules about shops selling olive oil by the jug (which I've seen in France).

But no - the regulations go into the size of type to be used on different sizes of container, going down to 10ml or so.

I was fairly sure that there was meant to be some move away from individually-packed jam and butter portions on green grounds, but this flies totally in the face of that.