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tomislav20

Listed below are comments made by tomislav20 between Wednesday, 15th April 2009 and Tuesday, 2nd June 2009.

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Mawhinney tackles the big issues 6:24pm on 02 Jun 2009 joe_scott01 at post #41 wrote:

"What I would want to hear is about the closer relationships with the Football Association and the develop of children and young players at grassroots. Holland - with a population similar to that of Wales - consistently produces more world class players than GB and EIRE put together."

By 'Holland' I assume you mean 'the Netherlands', which has a population of 16.5 million.
Wales has a population of 3 million.
Even if you were being crafty and you really did mean 'Holland', then its population of 6 million is still significantly more than that of Wales.

Given that you've made one wild assertion which has just been shown to be incorrect, I'd like to challenge you on the second. Perhaps you would care to list the names of those players from Netherlands whom you consider to be world class? Then I'll see if I can think of the same number of world class players from the UK and Ireland. To keep the lists short, let's stick to current players.

Or will you do the honourable thing and retract your wild claims?
A greener Germany 2:01pm on 22 May 2009 Mr Mardell, I believe you have only touched on one part of the Freiburg story. While it's true that it is a green and pleasant town with fine universities, stories from people I know who have studied there suggests that crime is a problem.
Not crime for profit, but crime for "fun", perpetrated by the bored and dunk sons of middle-class families who amuse themselves by mugging individuals. The purpose of the mugging being to attack somebody violently not to make financial gain.
A greener Germany 1:55pm on 22 May 2009 At #6 and #9:
Threnodio, although I agree with your comments in post #5, I believe your answer in #9 is not quite what Mathiasen meant.

". . . but is my impression correct that green politics and border-crossing environmental problems play no significant role in the general British understanding of the EU?"

I would say Yes. The general British understanding (and focus) of the EU concerns bendy bananas and erosion of sovereignty. A coordinated, international approach to environmental problems is a good thing and hence under-reported and of little interest to the euro-sceptic. People read the news not to be informed of something new, but to have their existing conceptions confirmed.
Keeping track of expenses 6:49pm on 23 Apr 2009 To Karolina001 at post #9 (and #8, #10, #11 and onwards.)

In response to your reply to post #1, I would like to refer you firstly to post #17 where I believe your answer to the first question asked by jr4412 would have to be "No". :-)
I would then refer you to post #1.

I wonder if your disillusionment with the political process stems in part from reading what you want to read rather reading what is written? That must surely lead to repeated disappointment, and from there to disillusionment.

Btw, my salary is low but I neither accept bribes nor sell drugs. You'll have to find somebody else. :-D
Keeping track of expenses 12:24pm on 23 Apr 2009 I'm a bit embarrassed to make the first few comments on this blog but it's rare that I have more than one thought per day so I thought I would share it.

I didn't know MEPs could make so much money! Does this explain why all the politicans who were elected on an anti-EU platform tend to keep rather quiet until it's time for re-election? ;-)
Keeping track of expenses 12:18pm on 23 Apr 2009 No doubt the usual anti-EU brigade will be regurgitating their usual remarks about how corrupt, evil, pointless and wrong the EU is, and how the world would be a better place without it, or - secretly - if they themselves ruled the world. :-D

Politicians in many poor countries do not earn enough to live off the local salary of an MP. They supplement their incomes through other means: fiddling expenses, passing laws which benefit their private businesses or wealthy supporters, or simply by accepting bribes.

Which model would citizens of the EU prefer?

Given the debate in the UK and elsewhere about MP's expenses, it seems a model commonly used is to pay MP's a middling amount which can be supplemented through generous expenses. From time to time the public professes outrage at this, but it seems to be easier to stomach than awarding higher salaries (and no or minimal expenses). Would people prefer their MPs to earn a salary of, say £60,000 which can potentially be doubled or tripled through expenses? Or would they prefer their MPs to earn £110,000 with expenses kept to a minimum of £10k/year?

Alternatively we could pay them salaries of £20k and hope, as Mark says, that people will become politicians out of the goodness of their hearts.

Which leads me indirectly to a question: for all the people who regularly read this blog and post comments and have an active interest in such things: are any of you politicians? And if not, why not? Is your current line of work more interesting and more profitable? Would you have been tempted into politics if you knew how much you could earn? :-)
Picking out pirates 1:16pm on 15 Apr 2009 Buzet23:
Imagine you woke up one night to find your house being burgled. You could phone the police. But what if the police did not come? Maybe you could try to stop the burglars yourself, but what if they are stronger than you? Your possessions are stolen. There is no court that will help you. Local law has failed you.

A week later, the same thing happens again: the police do not come and you are unable to defend yourself. More of your possessions are stolen. Local law has failed you again.

If you know the police and the law will not protect you, sooner or later you will either move home or you will find a way to defend yourself.

For the Somalis, this is what has happened. But it is not their house, it is their country. Their waters were invaded, their fish stolen. How will the fishermen feed their families? Many have indeed moved home: visit Cardiff and see how many Somalis live in that one city! Some have chosen to stay and to defend themselves. Most ships they attack are fishing boats which have no right under International law to be there.

Now this piracy becomes a lucrative business: no merchant vessel is safe. And I agree, this is wrong. But maybe if countries had upheld international law in the first place, instead of abandoning Somalia to its fate, this piracy problem would not have arisen in the first place/

Ask not what International law can do for you, but what you can do for International law. ;-)
Picking out pirates 1:06pm on 15 Apr 2009 Aziz Sarhan's is the first comment on this blog to think about the problem. Somalia is a desperate nation, without a functioning government for many years. A recent BBC interview with Somali pirates revealed that some of them turned to piracy as a way of protecting their waters. With the exception of some recent high-profile cases, most targets are foreign fishing vessels who were fishing in Somali waters, in defiance of International law. With no government to protect them, what should these young men do? Ask the foreign fishermen politely to leave?

It would be nice to a solution which solves the problem, not the symptoms.
Picking out pirates 1:01pm on 15 Apr 2009 Over 2 hours and there was no comment from Marcus Aurelius. I was getting worried. Was he ill? Or had he perhaps finally found a job?

Sadly he persists with his monologue whining about the powers-that-be. No constructive comments, no suggested solutions: Mr. Mardell's blog is MA's soapbox from which he declaims all he surveys.

I am interested to know MA's proposal. What, I wonder, would he wish his President do? Maybe he would like to see a full-scale invasion of Somalia? It may have happened a few years before his majority, but MA would do well to consider what happened when troops from his country landed in Somalia in the early 90's.

It is curious that he criticises Obama for subordinating American shipping interests to international law. Strange; isn't this the same MA who criticised Bush for subordinating international law to American interests when invading Iraq? It makes his hypocritical accusation of Hillary Clinton's "double-standards" all the more amusing. :-)

P.s. Karolina001, we are missing you today. Have you not yet found a reason to blame Somali piracy on the evil machinations of the EU? :-D

P.P.S. MA, do not be offended. Please don't stop your diatribes, they almost always make me chuckle.

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