June 20, 2004
Party for the Animals
In the Dutch media there was lots of attention for Europa Transparant, whose election was a remarkable feat, but another remarkable feat didn't get the attention it deserved. The Party for the Animals got 3,2% of the vote, which would be translated to 5 seats in the dutch parliament if it had occured during the national elections. Sadly in the Netherlands a party needs about 3,7% of the vote to be elected into the European parliament. Had it happened before the enlargement and with the four seats the Netherlands lost in the parliament due to the enlargement the party might have gotten it's frontwoman, Marianne Thieme, in. Just for reference with 5 seats in the dutch parliament the party would be bigger than the small christian right-wing parties SGP (website unavailable on sundays!) and ChristianUnion, almost as big as the Democrats '66 and not that far away from the Greens, Fortuyn's party and the Socialists, who all have eight seats in the national parliament.
June 02, 2004
European Parliamentary Constituencies
I've produced a map of the constituencies for this year's European Parliament elections. Click it to see a bigger version.
The purple areas use the Single Transferrable Vote (STV). The green areas use ordered party lists. The yellow areas use pary lists with some way of indicating candidate preference. The numbers, of course, show how many MEPs the constituency elects.
Some of the boundaries are not entirely opaque. In Italy, if votes for a party in one constituency are insufficient to elect any candidates, the votes are transferred to a constituency where they are. In Poland, there are district lists, but the country is treated as a single constituency. Parties in Germany can propose lists for individual Länder, but votes are counted on a national basis.
For random trivia, read on...
May 25, 2004
Northern Unitary Authorities
Today, the Boundary Committee for England released its final proposals for unitary authorities in the north of England. The three northern regions are due to have elected regional assemblies, pending a referendum. In order to justify adding a tier of government, the government feels they need to remove an existing one. This involves abolishing district councils and their parent county councils and replacing them with a single council with all the functions of their predecessors. It's no big thing - the vast majority of northerners live in areas where this has already happened.
Continue reading "Northern Unitary Authorities"May 10, 2004
Britain-wide EP list
I've made a nifty little Java program for calculating the results of d'Hondt elections. This should be useful for guessing at the seat allocations based on the exit polls before the official count. Here in the UK, votes will be cast on the 10th, but counting will only start on the 13th. From what I can tell, only the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland use a system other than d'Hondt (STV). Italy appears to use a d'Hondt/AMS combo, so it should be possible to use this program to work out their results if you have the patience. Also bear in mind that Germany ignores parties that get less than 5%. There may be similar arrangements in other countries.
As you wouldn't want a Java program loading every time you viewed the main page, click below to investigate.
May 06, 2004
Stats 'n' Stuff
Israel has somehow managed to beat Hong Kong in the blog's stats - without there having been any additional hits from Israel. They're both on 3, but the Semi-Autonomous Region always used to beat the State in the listings.
I'm proud to say that Canada has beaten Luxembourg, meaning this blog actually has readers other than the authors. In the past we've had visits from at least three universities, the Government of Alberta, and the U.S. Navy. Neat.
So now I know that there are readers out there, how about some suggestions for a blog name? I've been thinking of things that Frank and I have in common.
Maybe something to do with William of Orange (a.k.a. William III), who was simultaneously Stadtholder of Holland, King of Scotland, and Grand Duke of Luxembourg. He's also a pretty bad choice of topic in Northern Ireland.
The Flying Euromen? There's a Flying Dutchman and a Flying Scotsman, and I will go on about the EU.
Vote ELDR?
Technicolour Rabbits?
May 03, 2004
Number of Protons in Mn
I was watching a video when the clock struck 11:00. Of course, I later realised Cyprus was in a different time zone, and I found out the Baltic states where too. But it's not as if there were any public celebrations in Edinburgh that night.
The next day there was abit of a do in the central park. Which was nice, except for the excessive accordion music. Now I'm pretty convinced you can't have a new country join without all new ridiculous traditional dress. And I stayed out in the sun a little too long. How was I to know you could get sunburn in Scotland?
But a pretty satisfying day nonetheless. A friend tells me that down in Warwick, nobody even knew about the accessions. Gotta love Britain.
April 26, 2004
Along the same lines...
Veering away from May 1, what about today? The Iraqi governing council has approved a new flag. Want to know what the last new national flag was? Yep, one for Cyprus. But I doubt anybody's going to see it flying outside government buildings in the near future.
What a Bunch of Twerps
It suddenly clicked this morning. May 1st. Accession Day is May Day.
April 22, 2004
I Pondered Lonely As A Cloud
Yesterday I found myself wondering how wise it was to vent my opinions in such a permanent and easily available way medium. Anyone wiht a proper internet connection can access this page. Years into the future, archival services will have the blog stored in its databanks, even if the original has long since gone offline.
April 19, 2004
Scotland in the EU
What would you say if state that had only just come into existence claimed it was an EU member?
The SNP, Scotland's seperatist party, has claimed that if a new Scottish state is formed, the country will remain in the EU without negotiation. Romano Prodi has claimed that this is a load of rubbish.
March 19, 2004
I feel alone
Like a pit bull biting someone without warning - xavier
I had already stopped hoping for intelligent debate about George Bush and the war on terror from most of the left side of the political spectrum. Now most of the right-wing pundits are busy spreading the revolting 'Spain is made of cowards' meme, proving they've gone completely wacko, I guess I'm pretty much alone now in this blogosphere, except for the few moderate-leftist and moderate-rightist blogs that exist like Bonoboland, and those of Micheal Totten and Frans Groenendijk, which are really in a huge minority.
I was already getting sicker and sicker in my stomach from the idiocy and terrible insult of this meme, so it was just waiting for the final drop. It could've been any post or comment but eventually it came in the form of this comment to a Bird Dog post:
JZ is in power thanks to AQ and he knows it.There are a lot of bloggers who I still have faith in. Mostly the people who have fallen for neither the majority left's nor the majority right's memes. But I guess I've pretty much lost my faith in the intelligence of the majority of the political blogosphere. Simplicity, generalisation and mind-reading are now key tools in debate.
He will now be looking over his shoulder everday wondering if something he does will be interpretted by AQ as 'betrayal' of their 'truce' terms.
The Spanish people came to a fork in the road and they took the one that France took long ago....and France is now being threatened with terror attacks because Moslems are unhappy about banning headscarves on Moslem girls at school.
The Spanish Sunday gave the terrorists sedveral inches. Now they will take miles and miles before they are finally defeated.
Spain was on the list of targets for AQ long before 911, and still is. The Spanish people made a fool's choice: act weak in front of vastly weaker enemy.
EdPosted by ebnelson at March 18, 2004 04:01 AM
In Spain eleven million people march against terror, but when Aznar loses the election because of many complex reasons Spain is a nation of cowards.
Is there any reason not to disqualify for political discourse the pundits who are spreading this meme?
March 07, 2004
Population stress and conflicts
In an interesting post Dave Pollard looks for a correlation between population density and growth, and human conflict and finds it. It doesn't really matter wether he is right or not in stating a correlation, it's a interesting enough thought and a good subject for a debate.
I'm still wishing people in the blogosphere would debate less about wether John Kerry is a French traitor, wether Kim Jong-Il would vote for him had he the chance and wether George Bush went AWOL or not, and more about policy and all the problems the world faces, the conflicts, lack of sustainability and lack of (healthy) democracy. Of course this might be hypocrit for me to state, seeing that I barely blog and lack good knowledge of those subjects.
(Thanks to Roel Groeneveld for the link)
March 05, 2004
Alsatian Headscarf Row
Is there a country in Europe that doesn't have an overly complex constitutional structure?
I recently discovered that Alsace-Lorraine has separate laws from the rest of France - and, given the recent headscarf row, one major feature of the region stands out in particular, which is the lack of secularism. Not that I'm saying the headscarf row really had anything to do with secularism. I view it as more of a state-enforced atheism.
But I digress. The point is, in stark contrast to the rest of the French Republic, Alsace-Lorraine is non-secular. It sticks to the jurisdiction of the 1801 Concordat between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII. Though this may suggest that only Roman Catholics benefit, the Lutheran, Calvinist and Jewish establishments are also subsidised. And Jacques Shirac can name bishops, based on the suggestions of the pope. Which just goes to show how strange the constitutional makeup of Europe is: While this clearly shows he outranks bishops, he is also co-prince of Andorra with the bishop of La Seu d'Urgell (Catalonia, Spain). Andorra is, then, another non-secular area over which Shirac is head of state.
Mosques, however, do not have special status in Alsace-Lorraine. But can students in Metz wear headscarves? As of the start of the next academic year, no. The "secularism" law made it through the Senate on Wednesday, and thus is backed by the whole Parliament. And just because the area has separate laws, doesn't mean French legislation doesn't become law in the area.
Alsace-Lorraine is a pretty important part of Europe, accommodating, as it does, the European Parliament. Sometimes. And then there's the whole Germany thing. Oddly enough, Alsace-Lorraine is not made up of Alsace and Lorraine, but of Alsace and the Lorraine department of Moselle, so a more accurate title would be Alsace-Moselle. Or even Rhine-Moselle, as Alsace is made up of the Upper Rhine and Lower Rhine departments. Ah, the wonders of politics meeting geography. Tune in next week to find out why the Falklands are more British than the Isle of Man, why Brazil has a border with the EU, why Brussels both is and isn't in Flanders, and where to find the elusive Bessarabia, Moldavia, Moravia, and Wallachia.
February 24, 2004
Greens are good for you
Last week, as expected, Green parties from across Europe came together to fight the European elections under one banner. Germany's Die Grünen is very much the top dog of this group. They're in government, for one thing. They have, however, been slightly outdone in this respect by Latvia, which just brought us Europe's first Green Prime Minister. But what of Great Britain?
Prior to devolution, the Greens weren't much in the UK. Nowadays, 3 seats in the Greater London Assembly and 7 seats in the Scottish Parliament are held by Greens. There are two separate parties at play here: the Green Party of England & Wales and the Scotttish Green Party. Both of them are members of the new European Green party (despite the euroscepticism). They used to be one party, but split up amicably for the sake of devolution. The Green party of Northern Ireland also broke away. For whatever reason, they aren't part of the new pan-European party. Not that it would make much difference. Northern Ireland gets 3 seats in the European Parliament. One of them will go to the Ulster Unionist Party, one of them will go the Democratic Unionist Party, and the third will go to either Sinn Fein or the SDLP. The Greens don't stand a chance.
Elsewhere in the UK, the Greens do stand a chance. They already have two MEPs, one representing London and one representing the South East. Both areas will have one less seat this time round, but I wouldn't be surprised if they keep their seats. Scotland is a different matter. The Scottish Greens are a significant party in the Scottish Parliament, but they don't have an MEP. Scotland will have 7 seats this time round (down from 8). The existing members should be working hard to keep their seats, in the knowledge that one of them must go. I predict a Conservative loss, but that's just me.
At the Scottish elections last May, the Greens got about 6% of the vote. They'll need to double that if they want a shot at one of the seats. In fact, it's even more difficult than that.
The Scottish election system favours smaller parties more than the standard d'Hondt method. It's not because of a specifically minority-favourable seat allocation system. It's because of the way people vote as a result of the seat allocation system. How the d'Hondt system works is that your vote goes towards the first candidate on the party list. If the candidate gets enough votes to take a seat, your vote goes towards the next candidate on the list, but it counts for less. Now, nobody wants their vote to count for less. But for Holyrood elections, you get two votes. Your first vote goes towards a constituency MSP. Your second vote goes towards a party list candidate. If a candidate for your second vote's party wins a seat, your second vote counts for less. So if you want your second vote to count for the most, you go for a party that's less likely to win, but at least has a good chance. Enter Robin Harper. After he won a list seat in the first Scottish election, his party seemed like a reasonable thing to spend your second vote on. The Greens capitalised on this, running a "2nd vote Green" campaign, which resulted in a further 6 seats for the Greens.
In the European elections, we'll only have one vote, and because there are no constituency seats to be won, people will be voting for the mainstream parties. The Scottish Greens don't stand a chance. And having met Robin Harper, I'm tempted to say that's not a bad thing.
February 21, 2004
It's been a big week for the EU, hasn't it?
But if you'd rather play pacman, click here.No, they didn't pay me. In, fact, neat though it is, I'm surprised they charge you for it. I like the demo, though. More pointless links next week!
Wedensday saw a senior German economist claim that the new EU states would enjoy a burst of economic prosperity akin to that experienced by Germany after WWII. One small problem here - they predicted the same would happen to East Germany after it joined the Federal Republic, and the German economy has been going downhill for years. I tend to see German reunification as a miniature version of this year's enlargement. Hopefully we'll learn from their mistakes.
Continue reading "It's been a big week for the EU, hasn't it?"February 10, 2004
TW3
Interesting week, last week.
There was a show in the sixties called "That Was The Week That Was", commonly abbreviated as TW3, just to clear up the post title.
One part of the mathematician in me wants me to say 3(TW) would be more accurate. But this merely gives us TW+TW+TW, when in fact we want TWTWTW. The other part of the mathematician in me, therefore, wants me to write TW3 = TWTWTW. The HTML coder in me is not satisfied with this, as it takes longer to type. He is very lazy.
Continue reading "TW3"February 02, 2004
Apathetic Euroscepticism
It's pretty reasonable for Britons to be opposed to the European Union. After all, it's taking certain powers further away from the people. I don't happen to view it as a particular threat to British democracy, but I can see why there are those who oppose it on these grounds.
And I can also accept why people don't vote. It's not just apathy. It may simply be a dissatisfaction with the parties or even the whole party system.
What I don't understand is why, in the land of the Europhobes, only 9% of the population think Europe is important. Surely if it's such a great threat to our sovereignty, that it must be opposed at all costs, it's important?
But according to a survey from the UK office of the European Parliament, this is the case. I try to believe that most Euroscepticism is rational, but this pretty much ruins that view.
The survey also revealed that 20% believe EU legislation dictates that all bananas sold in Britain must be straight.
It would be tragic if it weren't so funny. Or vice versa. I just don't know any more.
February 01, 2004
Income Tax and Equality
The rate of income tax in the UK is as follows:
Starting rate 10% (income less than £1,960)
Basic rate 22% (income between £1,961 and 30,500)
Higher rate 40% (income over £30,500)
Should the Liberal Democrats form a UK government (though let's face it, what are the odds?), they would introduce another band: a 50% rate for income over £100,000. This would raise £4.7 million. And I should mention that this would pay students' tuition fees, among other things. That is, assuming there are no top-up fees.
Of course, you've got to bear in mind that opinions vary within the party. So much so that one guy said yesterday that he didn't believe in variable income tax on the grounds that it wasn't treating people equally. I didn't agree, but as far as I could see his principle was sound, so I said nothing.
Later it occured to me that the principle was, while honorable enough, not the only way of looking at the issue. If you charged 100% tax on all income above minimum wage, then surely everybody would be being treated equally? Of course, that's a pretty communist way of looking at it, and while the Liberal Democrats may be many things, they are not communists. Many of them are, however, social democrats (the party was the result of a merger between the social democratic party and the liberal party). Clearly some sort of compromise is in order, which is exactly what variable income tax is.
And keeping tax lower for the majority is a vote grabber. Which is what it's all about at the end of the day.
January 26, 2004
Devolution and Top-up Fees
Tomorrow, MPs will decide on whether or not to introduce top-up fees for higher education. Not that this will have an impact on the money I have to pay for my tuition.
It's a perfect example of how the Scottish Parliament has actually had an obvious, positive impact on people's lives. While English students have to pay a standard fee of £1,125 per year to go to university, Scottish students and students from other EU countries (like me) don't have to pay until they graduate. Even then, they only have to pay the Graduate Endowment charge when they can afford it. Scottish universities get to charge the Scottish Executive £1,125 per year per student. When I graduate, I will have taken £5,625 from the Executive and will be paying them £2,092 back. I get £3,533 free money. This is all thanks to legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament. Hurrah for devolution!
And then the idea of top-up fees came along. Under this ingenious scheme, the top English universities get to charge up to £3,000 more! To be fair, they don't have to cough up until they've graduated, just like in Scotland. But they do have to cough up the whole amount. I wouldn't have much of a problem with having to pay the full amount once I graduate. After all, taxing everyone in order to fund a few people who want big salaries is hardly a fair system.
But the problem in my view doesn't lie with what people are being charged. It lies with who's getting the money. And it's the universities. You may be wondering why this is a bad thing, so let me elaborate. Specifically, the money is going to the best universities, Where it will be spent on making said universities even better.
It's like the rich getting richer, only nobody really minds if the poor aren't getting poorer. Or aren't they? Just where exactly do you think these rich universtites are going to get the top academics needed for improvement? Why, they'll lure them away from the poorer universtities, of course.
In other words, they'll lure them away from top universities that can't charge top-up fees. In other other words, Scotland can kiss goodbye to its brains.
Obvious answer? Introduce top-up fees in Scotland. But Jack McConnell, the First Minister, has reassured us that Scottish students are safe from the evils of top-up fees for as long as he's in charge.
Tuition fees are a pretty big disincentive to poorer students. Even to richer students. We are talking up to £3,000 here. Still, a gradual repayment is at least better than a graduate tax, where those making the most use of their education pay more than their share and those bumming around pay less. Oh, unless they're bumming around to the extent that they earn less than £15,000, because under the proposed system they don't have to pay it back at all.
So why do we need top-up fees? We have this great system nowadays whereby lots and lots of students go to university, creating an educated workforce that can only do good things to the economy. And yet, universities remain chronically underfunded.
So, what have I concluded from all this? It's a massive centralisation conspiracy. Which are the top two universities? Oxford and Cambridge. Where are they? South of England, just outside Greater London. Which area has benefitted the most from centralisation? Three guesses. So devolution, which was meant to counter centralisation, has ended up contributing to it. How very ironic.
January 12, 2004
Pay it forward
Back40 at Crumb Trail points towards an interesting post at the Cool Tools blog about charities. His point is that charities which empower people levarage the smallest amount of money into the biggest measurable effect, because the people who receive their help can empower other people in their turn. Thus it creates an upward spiral with many people helping others. A 'virtuous circle'.
Think of it as enabling philanthropy: take a minimum of money and aim it at the precise point where it can do the maximum good, multiplied by many generations. Maximum good is measured simply: when you enable someone to enable someone else. That is a virtuous circle.He lists three charities which live up to this criteria: Heifer International, Opportunity International and Trickle Up. Oppurtunity International is a microcredit institution. Microcredit is hailed by many as a very efficiënt way of decreasing poverty by empowering people. More about it can be found here.
Via Crumb Trail.
1973 And All That
As we rang in the new year, secret UK government documents from 1973 became public under the 30-year rule. There's a bunch of interesting stuff in there, as even the Public Record Office is admitting. Quite a few revelations have made national news, so I decided to have a trawl around and deliver this neat little summary. I know, it's a good long time since New Year's, but I was busy.
Continue reading "1973 And All That"January 01, 2004
Let ME introduce myself
Either I've hijacked this weblog, or I've been abducted. Either way, I'll be adding my own occasional writings to this blog. Power in numbers, as they say.
I'm Alister Thomson. I'd also say I was a moderate lefty, though with the current popularity of the two-axis way of looking at politics, I'd go for liberal and economically leftwards.
My opinions are open to debate, and I've been known to chang my views on things as a result. I look forward to hearing from anyone who wants to (sanely) discuss an issue.
I'm a Scot who lived in Luxembourg from 1992 to 2003. Nice European perspective for you. Though I will go on about Scottish and UK politics, so beware.
Happy New Year.
December 31, 2003
December 29, 2003
The art of Yann Arthus Bertrand
It's not really politics, but I just wanted to point people to the site of photographer Yann Arthus Bertrand. Since I've seen his 'Earth from the sky' photographs on an exhibition of his in Amsterdam, I've fallen in love with his work. It hasn't been good for my wallet, but it sure is a great experience.
(Photograph copyright Yann Arthus Bertrand)
October 02, 2003
Will we run out of oil sooner than we expected?
According to research by scientists at the University of Uppsala in Sweden the amount of oil supplies will peak soon after 2010:
Research presented this week at the University of Uppsala in Sweden claims that oil supplies will peak soon after 2010, and gas supplies not long afterwards, making the price of petrol and other fuels rocket, with potentially disastrous economic consequences unless people have moved to alternatives to fossil fuels.While forecasters have always known that such a date lies ahead, they have previously put it around 2050, and estimated that there would be time to shift energy use over to renewables and other non- fossil sources.
But Kjell Aleklett, one of a team of geologists that prepared the report, said earlier estimates that the world's entire reserve amounts to 18,000 billion barrels of oil and gas - of which about 1,000 billion has been used up so far - were "completely unrealistic". He, Anders Sivertsson and Colin Campbell told New Scientist magazine that less than 3,500 billion barrels of oil and gas remained in total.
Dr James McKenzie, senior assistant on the climate change programme at the World Resources Institute in Washington, said: "We won't run out of oil - but what will happen is that production will decline, and that's when all hell will break loose."
Nebojsa Nakicenovic from the IPCC team thinks the IPCC analysis, which estimated that there were 5,000 billion barrels of oil left at the minumum, still stands:
But Nebojsa Nakicenovic, an energy economist at the University of Vienna in Austria, who headed the IPCC team that produced the reserves forecasts, said the Swedish group were "conservative", and that his team had taken into account a wider range of estimates. Dr Nakicenovic added that, if oil and gas began to run out, "there's a huge amount of coal underground that could be exploited".There would be one potential good thing about this news, were it be true: the possible existance of a human influence on global warming would be less of an issue. See this article. At the bottom of the article you'll also see a skeptic's view on this story.
I really hope the Swedish scientists turn out to be wrong, because, well, the year 2010 is quite near, and we aren't yet ready for a world with a shortage of oil.
Here's the New Scientist news item about this.
Vaara has more. The story was found through Fokzine.nl.
Update: I fixed a bad error: The post said the IPCC estimated that there were 5,000 barrels of oil left at the minumum. 5,000 barrels is a well, rather pessimistic prediction. It should have said 5,000 billion, of course.
September 29, 2003
September 13, 2003
Globalisation links
The Cato institute, The American Prospect, The Nation and A World Connected have an online symposium up about globalisation. It features a load of links, pro- and anti-globalisation(or "alternate globalisation"?) essays and a still ongoing debate between Johan Norberg(In Defense of Global Capitalism) and Robert Kuttner(The American Prospect).
Via Reason Online's Hit & Run blog.
Body & Soul also has a few posts up about Cancun and opposition to globalisation.
September 06, 2003
Sufi wisdom
I've been very interested in the culture and religion of Islam for a while, and it's probably been the same for many others.
What is Islam? What does the Koran say? Is it a religion that is totally evil, like people such as Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs seem to think? Or is it a peaceful religion that has been hijacked by extremists?
I must admit I'm a bit of a slacker - I haven't looked into it enough, so I really do not carry a substantial amount of knowledge about Islam. But what I think is that Islam is not, like many assert, a 100% bad and evil religion (I know far too many good muslims, who certainly don't believe in blowing up the WTC, nor anything remotely terrorist-like, for me to believe that, but some would argue that they don't adhere to the Koran), although it surely has a substantial amount of followers devoted to doing very bad things.
That said, every week on Saturday Winds of Change devotes some time to talking about Sufi wisdom:
As militant Islam does its level best to discredit the religion, it's important to remember that there are other voices within the faith. One such is the Sufis, a branch of Islamic mystics who live islam [submission], iman [faith] and ishan [awareness of G-d, "to act beautifully"]. Every Saturday, therefore, we spend some time with the Sufis and their 'crazy wisdom'. Try this aphorism on for size, retold by David Beutel (inspirational hat tip - Kaveh Khodjasteh):"Somebody asked Abu Hafs: 'Who is a Sufi?' He answered: 'A Sufi does not ask who a Sufi is'."
(Note: made some changes in the content of this posting)
September 03, 2003
Let me introduce myself
I am Frank Quist, a 17 year old politics junkie from the Netherlands. I view myself as a moderately left-wing person who tries to question everything. I have had a dutch weblog, irregularly updated, for almost a year now, but that didn't satisfy all my needs. As I surf through the English blogosphere, I more and more often notice that I feel I want to be able to publish my thoughts in English too. For example, when I see there's a meme in the left-wing blogosphere I disagree with, I often want to reply to it . I also sometimes come across something that seems to be ignored that I want to comment on. I have a place for that now.
P.S. My English may contain errors occasionally. I'm still in the learning phase, so try not to notice.
