Nigel Farage... the only person in the EU with a brain

Nigel Farage might be the rudest man in Europe as he rips Von Rompey a new ass

MEP and UKIP leader Nigel Farage on Wednesday delivered another major tirade against EU President Herman van Rompuy during a debate in the European Parliament. Farage highlighted the undemocratic fashion in which van Rompuy came to power and the effect he’s had on Europe since.

He noted, too, that Greece has been reduced to nothing more than a “protectorate.” Farage added that Van Rompuy had the “charisma of a damp rag” and the appearance of a “low-grade bank clerk” and asked by what process he could be removed from office.

Belgium managed to run itself as dysfunctional as usual without a government for almost nine months. That tells you all you need to know about politics.

Just asking.....but has anybody ever seen van Rompey and a Goleb from Lord of the Rings in the same room?

EU Directive Madness

Compare and Contrast:

Pythagoras - His theorem used 24 words

The Lords Prayer 66 words

Archimedes Principle 67 words

The Ten Commandments 179 words

The above were all world-changing events.

But our new EU Directive for the sale of cabbages, comes to, twenty six thousand, two hundred and fifty three words. 26,253!

WANTED: MEPs who want 12 weeks holiday, plenty of perks and little accountability

An article in the WSJ looks at the elections and writes: "Wanted: 736 Europeans to earn $120,000 a year with 12 weeks off, plenty of perks and little accountability." It goes on to say, "For a job with such sweet terms, getting elected isn't all that tough. Election turnout is so low - as low as 20% in some countries - that winning election can require little more than getting on a large party's ticket or appealing to niche constituencies."

The article also looks at the EP's Europarl TV channel, launched last year at a cost of $13 million, and only available on the internet. When asked how many hits it gets, an EU official is quoted saying, "You won't get me to answer that".

READ WALL STREET JOURNAL

Hilary feasts on Belgian Chocolates

BRUSSELS: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confessed on a visit to Brussels on Friday to having a soft spot for Belgian chocolates, vowing to "ration" visits to resist the temptation.
"They're the best, they're' so delicious," Clinton told privately owned Belgian television channel RTL-TVI. "I was given samples from some of the leading chocolatiers in Belgium."

"I have to ration how many times I come to Belgium because I love chocolate and I can't eat too much of it."
The former First Lady and US presidential candidate was in Brussels Thursday and Friday for talks with NATO and EU officials as well as members of the Belgian government.

Two months into the new administration....and the Clinton lies have started. One look at Hilary's weebil ass, and we can see she has no intention of rationing chocolates. They're MINE!

Hillary Clinton Rewrites History in Front of Puzzled Europeans

Members of the European Parliament in Brussels were shaking their heads after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton incorrectly said U.S. democracy is older than Europe's.

Clinton compared Europe's multi-party political system to our two-party version: "It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution, and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy."
Europeans trace their Democratic tradition back thousands of years to the days of classical Greece. Later Secretary Clinton raised eyebrows again when she mispronounced the names of two of her EU counterparts.

How to make a million in five years (become a Euro MP)

Evidently the downturn in the world economy has not affected the Euro MP's much. In fact, business has never been better.

In the small studio's near the EU Parliment.....Belgians call them les cinq à sept (five to sevens) because people using them, leave work at five and arrive home to their wives at seven. They seem to have been enthusiastically adopted by some members of the nearby parliament for daytime hanky panky, or as the above video from the movie "Anchorman" shows..... "afternoon delight"

How can MEPs afford the luxuries these tough times? Well, Brussels is a bubble that has escaped the recession, thanks to the many millions that European taxpayers pour into the pockets of Euro-parliamentarians and Eurocrats alike, for adventures like this.

The Euro fatcats enjoy allowances that enable them to save £1m during a single parliament election, and vastly outpace the British for sheer effrontery, and they do so without having to account for themselves.

Read the investigative report in THE TIMES

Vaclav Klaus denounces the EU

President Vaclav Klaus, a well-known skeptic about grand ideas for the European Union, on Thursday indirectly compared the union to the former Soviet Union, saying that there was a similar uniformity of thought.

There is an “uncriticizable assumption that there is only one possible and correct future of the European integration,” he told the European Parliament in Brussels. “Those who dare thinking about a different option are labeled enemies.” .......would that be kind of like Al Gore and the global warming moonbats.

He said that people in Eastern Europe had “lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives” and that “with no opposition, there is no freedom.” He declined to say whether he would sign the Lisbon Treaty, which would create a permanent European president and foreign minister.

For a great read on this topic check the Belmont Club

European Commission demands a single, standard phone charger

Here's an idea whose time is way over due. The European Commission is getting ready to force all mobile phone companies to use a single connector on their chargers, in order to eliminate the mountains of e-waste generated by switching chargers every time you switch phones. Transformer bricks with esoteric connectors are the most common form of electronic crap you see on street-vendors' kiosks around the world.... and given that they all put out nearly the same voltage and amperage, it really is a huge waste.....and ripoff to boot.

The European Commission plans to force mobile phone manufacturers to manufacture one mobile phone charger for all mobile phones, according the European Commissioner for Industry, Gunther Verheugen in an interview with the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

European officials warned of 'interns trading sex for secrets'

Somebody's been up late watching too many James Bond movies....or in the case of Eurocrats, more like Austin Powers.

European Commission officials are being told to beware of the charms of Mata Hari type interns, who are accused of trading sex for the innermost EU secrets....like how to draw a huge salary as a Eurocrat without actually doing anything.

Paranoid Brussels security officials fear that Eurocrats might be susceptible to the attractive guise of the "pretty trainee with the long legs and the blonde hair". I'm sure they spent about three million euro's studying that....not including hotel rooms.

Every year hundreds of "stagiares", or interns, work at the Commission's Berlaymont HQ in Brussels. Many of them are young, female and some, it has been claimed, are engaged in espionage. Rumour has it that Monica Lewinsky has just been hired as Barasso's personal aide!

"I think men working here in boring jobs would love to believe that sexy women spies were after their bodies and their secrets. I personally think it is unlikely," said Petra, a 24-year old stagiare from a Baltic country.

STORY IN THE TIMES

Europe loves Obama......but not "that" much!

European Union leaders are holding their annual attempt at pumping life into the EU economy, trying to make it the most competitive in the world by 2010.

The EU today threatened legal action and retaliatory measures against the US if the Obama administration enshrines a "Buy American" clause in its multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package.

The Euros are now discovering what that "change" part, of the Hope and Change, was all about.

It's a little bit hard to swallow this rhetoric from the European Union to express outrage at American protectionism, when that is typically their forte.

Last summer, PepsiCo was thought to be interested in buying up the French dairy company Danone. The French went apeshit.
Soon after, the French government came up with 11 strategic commercial sectors that should be protected from foreign takeovers. Economic patriotism was the new rallying cry.....Buy French. FINANCIAL TIMES

EU considers new rules to limit banking secrecy

Banking secrecy should not stop European governments from swapping information on possible tax evaders, the EU executive said Monday, backing French and German efforts to clamp down on tax fraud.


The new measures, if approved by all 27 EU nations, would affect EU residents trying to avoid taxes at home by opening accounts in Luxembourg, Belgium and Austria, which have laws allowing for a high level of banking confidentiality. Low taxes in tiny Luxembourg also attract many investors from neighboring Belgium, France and Germany......that would be me.
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Art imitates Europe, and its not very pretty in Brussels

Bulgaria as a toilet? Romania as a Dracula-themed amusement park? Europeans are finding little amusement in an art installation intended to celebrate a unified Europe.

Why didn’t anyone realize right away that there was something seriously weird about the new piece of art in Brussels?

An art installation by David Cerny, commissioned by the Czech Republic to mark the start of its six-month presidency of the European Union, has angered some by depicting stereotypes of the member countries. The 172-square-foot, eight-ton installation, titled "Entropa," is located in Brussels at the European Council. France was shown with a banner emblazoned with the word "strike" draped across it.....sorry but i don't call that a stereotype, it's more like reality.

READ NY TIMES

It's time for Belgium to call it quits..

Belgium is a little country sandwiched between France and Holland. It disappears periodically, whenever Germany goes on a shopping expedition for territory.

It was, in short, a Petri dish in which where the EU concocted its formula for the new Empire of many and diverse nations living within a large and happy federal state. So confident were the Eurocrats of their coming success that they made Brussels their capital on the assumption that everything else would just fall into place. WRONG!

If Belgium goes the way of the dodo, then so may the EU. And would that be such a bad thing? Those Eurocrats have been ramming their nonsensical legislation down throats for decades now with an incredible sense of determination and destiny. And as the Irish recently found out, these are not people who take no for an answer. FUNNY VIDEO EXPLANATION

Taxation in Belgium is the highest in Europe

Expatriates and Belgian citizens suffer from one of the highest taxation rates in the EU. In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development revealed that Belgium has the highest tax burden - including social security - in Europe at 55.4% for a single earner.

This compares to an average 42% in Europe. An expatriate working in Belgium will typically be liable to Belgian income tax. STORY IN EXPATICA

EU HOT AIR

A man in a hot air balloon over the Belgian countryside realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. Descending a bit more he shouted, "Excuse me, can you help? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don't know where I am". The woman replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above the ground, between 40/41 degrees latitude, north, and 59/60 degrees west, longitude".

"You must be a middle-grade Commission Official!", said the balloonist. "I am", replied the woman, "I'm a Grade A*8. How did you know?" "Well", answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct but I have no idea what to make of your information and the fact is, I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you have delayed my trip."

The woman below responded, "You must be a Senior Commission Official!". "I am," replied the balloonist, "But how did you know?" "Well," replied the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault"

Sent to me by Aleksandra at the commission

EU borderless zone to be extended to airports

At midnight on Sunday ( March 30) the enlargement of the EU's borderless zone to eight Eastern European countries and Malta will be completed through the lifting of air border controls between them and the 15 countries already part of the area.

Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania still have to meet the necessary requirements. It is not yet known when they will join Schengen, but Cyprus is expected to do so around 2009, while Bulgaria and Romania are hoping to follow suit by 2011. STORY

EU forces passengers on and off the buses

They just can't help themselves. In another effort to justify their being, the EU now wants Bus passengers who travel along a route of more than 30 miles, to get off the vehicle midway through their journey to comply with new EU laws.

How long before they do it on planes?

The driver is obliged to pull over and ask everyone to get off before the route number on the front of the vehicle is changed, and all the passengers are invited back on board.

“Often it’s in the middle of nowhere. The passengers think we are crazy. “All they do is inconvenience the passengers who have to keep getting on and off. It’s like an Ealing comedy.” STORY

Brussels is going to fine you for speeding in all countries now.

I've always thrown away my speeding tickets in other countries, because they've never followed up on them, but now Brussels is going to fix that for us, under the guise of safety with this little piece of utter bullshit.

The executive body of the European Union has launched a proposal for a law that aims to improve road safety, it said, by enabling cross-border prosecution of traffic offenses. "Road safety is everyone's business and a priority for the Commission," said Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot in a statement.

As things stand today, a driver committing an offence under the highway code in a car registered in another country of the European Union evades prosecution, with very few exceptions, because of the difficulty of identifying them or of being able to check the address to which the vehicle is registered.
The proposed Directive will cover four types of road traffic offence: speeding, drink-driving, not wearing a seat belt and failing to stop at a red light. These four offences are the leading causes of accidents and road deaths: they are involved in almost 75% of all road deaths, according to the commission.

I'm sure it's just a huge coincidence that those offenses are huge revenue generators for said countries.

Microsoft fined €900 million by Brussels

Talk is cheap. Flouting the rules is expensive...

The new European investigations come as Microsoft finds itself in danger of seeing EU governments effectively ban its software to create documents. The European Commission and its member states have been mulling a mandate that all government documents be created in the Open Document Format (ODF), an open source competitor to the proprietary format used in Microsoft Word. STORY IN BUSINESSWEEK

Brussels to ban Patio Heaters....hey it's Global Warming!

Freezing smokers, thrown out of pubs thanks to the smoking ban, have taken to huddling by outdoor heaters. Obviously, it's time to ban those.
A vote in Brussels today is expected to call on the European Commission to abolish the heaters to help to tackle climate change. Such a move could cost the pub and catering trade dear.
Pubs spent about £85 million on patio heaters after the smoking ban was introduced last year. Besides forcing smokers into the cold there is concern that a ban on patio heaters could bring a significant cash loss to pubs, cafés and restaurants.

Here's a thought: If you want to build a movement against climate change, it's probably best not to make a nation of smokers desperate for a bit of global warming. I think Brussels must be afraid of the competition for producing 'Hot Air'?......Smoke 'em if ya got 'em. STORY IN THE TIMES