np237

This is it. We know the faces of people who will count in Europe during the 2009-2014 period. And we can count on them to make the EU weigh even less than it did until now.

José Manuel Durão Barroso, president of the European Commission. For 5 years, this ultra-liberal brought in his fanatic views of the free market, leading to unprecedented removals of regulations and legislations that could prevent large corporations to extort money from citizens. He holds a non-negligible responsibility on the (still unsolved) bank crisis of 2007. Yet, citizens voted en masse earlier this year for the EPP all across Europe, leading to his renewal. You get the commission you deserve.

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council. This is no secret that this transparent non-leader was the choice of Sarkozy after Tony Blair turned out to be an unsustainable choice. Yet, none of the 26 other members of the Council dared to raise a single finger against this choice. Sarkozy has completely lost his credit in France, but that doesn’t prevent this council of cowards from trusting him, apparently. It’s not as if there weren’t good candidates, like Jean-Claude Juncker or Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga. But having a competent, Europe-friendly president who actually knows his files and speaks many languages would have cast shadows on those who don’t (see below).

Catherine Ashton, foreign ministry of the EU. If there was any worse possible choice, I don’t know which. This was the only position supposed to be affected to a socialist. And since the Labour party is still member of the PASD, despite their insane liberal economic policy and their full-scale paranoia leading to unprecedented freedom hunting in the UK, the position was given to someone from this party. And among them, they chose a person with a reputation of sloppiness and incompetence, who doesn’t speak correctly a single foreign language. It is probable that, just like Van Rompuy’s going to be Sarkozy’s puppet, she’s going to be the UK Foreign Office’s servant. And we continentals all love the Foreign Office’s policy, which is often in complete opposition to what the rest of Europe feels like.

Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament. You don’t know him? Neither do I. A weak parliament goes with a weak parliament president. This way, the European Council has its hands free for behind-the-curtains arrangements, rather than letting the citizens’ representatives take action.

Martin Schultz, president of the PASD group at the European Parliament. In order to ensure his place as president of the Parliament for the second half of the period, he betrayed his own people, and accepted any rotten compromise the EPP would propose for the key positions. Socialists have never been so weak in Brussels, and the total absence of leadership has something to do with it.

Makes you proud to be European, heh? And of course you already know the real faces of Europe for the next years.

Sarkozy, Merkel, Berlusconi, Brown. The main leaders from Western Europe, with their rotten governments who swore to slay any of the remaining personal freedoms in each of their countries. What a great image for EU in the world. What a great example to set.

But again, you get the leaders you deserve. That’s the whole point of democracy.

linuxweeklynews

http://lwn.net/Articles/363965/rss

linuxweeklynews

http://lwn.net/Articles/363962/rss

sethg

http://ropine.com/yesh/article/sit-stay-do-your-homework

According to the New York Times, my indispensible source of yuppie trends, some parents have adapted the techniques of Cesar “The Dog Whisperer” Milan to train their own children to obey them.

Why is this news? People adapt training techniques from one species to another all the time. Of course it’s possible to take this kind of thing too far.

thinkgeek

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/cd9b/?cpg=wnrdf