down at the end of your road

Mile in 9 minutes. 1.5 miles in 14.5 minutes. But damn, man, that was uneven. And wow did I feel sick afterwards.

But. Exercise! And sleep and proper food, and I feel so much better today than yesterday. One and a half hours of study was also achieved, which felt a lot longer than it sounds. Trust me on this. The library, it makes me go zzz. So to do the books, when they are the type to say the whichness of the whatever, however, and blah blah paragraph-long-boring-digression.

My resolution not to stay up and read Shadow Unit last night, I broke it. I ended up awake till four am.

Yeah. So I slept in till midday, which is partly why there was only 1.5 hours of studying.

The weather's back to summer heat, which worries me. I kinda preferred the blowy rainy days we had - all three of them.

Long weekend this weekend. The Dublin Docklands festival's on. Maybe I'll crawl into town Sunday morning and see me some tallships, maybe even put in another hour of study in college. (It turns out, the library's not actually closing, except Monday. Just the Stacks Request system and the lending counter. Stupid library.)

Also, I would like to state my utter disgust in the way the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign has been run from both Yes! and No! sides.

For the record: I don't like the idea of a federated Europe; I don't like the idea of putting more power in the hands of already too-powerful people; I don't approve of the layered bureaucracy; I don't approve of the political spin that this is right, good, and inevitable, and I particularly don't like the sense I have that the European Union? Is in the main an extended chumocracy, run by Big Business and Big Government for themselves and their pals.

It's nice to have a Europe more interested in cooperation that in invading their neighbours once a generation. I mean, to that extent I think the former EEC was an excellent idea, and the opening of the borders a fine thing to do, and the principle of a Europe whose nations have equally high standards of justice, enviromental concerns, and human rights is unobjectionable. Laudable, even.

But. But but but. It's not about that, really. The EEC was a much more honest thing to call it, because it's about economics and self-protection, and really always has been. And now it's about making the unstoppable juggernaut of pan-European centralisation even less stoppable. The Lisbon Treaty isn't about making Europe more democratic. It's about paving the way for the EU to become less democratic and the individual nation states less independent, until we end up with a 'democracy' that looks like America's. To whit: far less representative and more oligarchic than it presently is.

I like having a European Union that does things by increments and by (really large) committee. I don't want an (or a more) efficient European Union. A more efficient European Union would make decisions. Take stands. And the idea of a Union with the ability to make binding decisions and the power to enforce them on all member states, quite frankly, frightens me. Governments are oppressive and incompetent enough as they are. I do not want to see another layer of government above them, with the autonomy and power to screw up mightily.

I mean, it exists already, right? But it's presently wound about with sufficient ... not exactly safeguards, but obstacles, that I may not be happy about it existing, but I'm okay with it, because it screws up slowly enough that people can maybe see it happening and stop it.

Except that's not happening here. The Lisbon Treaty is very similar to the 'draft constitution' that the people of France (among others) rejected already. And yet. Lisbon Treaty. Ireland, as far as I'm aware, is the only country to send it to referendum. (France didn't. Passed in parliament. Are we surprised they didn't ask the people?)

So, I'm not happy. And yet, the last time the people of Ireland rejected a European treaty (the Nice Treaty) the government (same government, practically. This is what happens when you re-elect a Fianna Fáil majority for three goddamned terms) waited a year and asked again. Somehow, the second time they managed to get a different answer.

So I get the feeling that ultimately, the will of the people of Ireland, as expressed by direct vote in a referendum, matters very little.

And that really depresses me.

down at the end of your road

Mile in 9 minutes. 1.5 miles in 14.5 minutes. But damn, man, that was uneven. And wow did I feel sick afterwards.

But. Exercise! And sleep and proper food, and I feel so much better today than yesterday. One and a half hours of study was also achieved, which felt a lot longer than it sounds. Trust me on this. The library, it makes me go zzz. So to do the books, when they are the type to say the whichness of the whatever, however, and blah blah paragraph-long-boring-digression.

My resolution not to stay up and read Shadow Unit last night, I broke it. I ended up awake till four am.

Yeah. So I slept in till midday, which is partly why there was only 1.5 hours of studying.

The weather's back to summer heat, which worries me. I kinda preferred the blowy rainy days we had - all three of them.

Long weekend this weekend. The Dublin Docklands festival's on. Maybe I'll crawl into town Sunday morning and see me some tallships, maybe even put in another hour of study in college. (It turns out, the library's not actually closing, except Monday. Just the Stacks Request system and the lending counter. Stupid library.)

Also, I would like to state my utter disgust in the way the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign has been run from both Yes! and No! sides.

For the record: I don't like the idea of a federated Europe; I don't like the idea of putting more power in the hands of already too-powerful people; I don't approve of the layered bureaucracy; I don't approve of the political spin that this is right, good, and inevitable, and I particularly don't like the sense I have that the European Union? Is in the main an extended chumocracy, run by Big Business and Big Government for themselves and their pals.

It's nice to have a Europe more interested in cooperation that in invading their neighbours once a generation. I mean, to that extent I think the former EEC was an excellent idea, and the opening of the borders a fine thing to do, and the principle of a Europe whose nations have equally high standards of justice, enviromental concerns, and human rights is unobjectionable. Laudable, even.

But. But but but. It's not about that, really. The EEC was a much more honest thing to call it, because it's about economics and self-protection, and really always has been. And now it's about making the unstoppable juggernaut of pan-European centralisation even less stoppable. The Lisbon Treaty isn't about making Europe more democratic. It's about paving the way for the EU to become less democratic and the individual nation states less independent, until we end up with a 'democracy' that looks like America's. To whit: far less representative and more oligarchic than it presently is.

I like having a European Union that does things by increments and by (really large) committee. I don't want an (or a more) efficient European Union. A more efficient European Union would make decisions. Take stands. And the idea of a Union with the ability to make binding decisions and the power to enforce them on all member states, quite frankly, frightens me. Governments are oppressive and incompetent enough as they are. I do not want to see another layer of government above them, with the autonomy and power to screw up mightily.

I mean, it exists already, right? But it's presently wound about with sufficient ... not exactly safeguards, but obstacles, that I may not be happy about it existing, but I'm okay with it, because it screws up slowly enough that people can maybe see it happening and stop it.

Except that's not happening here. The Lisbon Treaty is very similar to the 'draft constitution' that the people of France (among others) rejected already. And yet. Lisbon Treaty. Ireland, as far as I'm aware, is the only country to send it to referendum. (France didn't. Passed in parliament. Are we surprised they didn't ask the people?)

So, I'm not happy. And yet, the last time the people of Ireland rejected a European treaty (the Nice Treaty) the government (same government, practically. This is what happens when you re-elect a Fianna Fáil majority for three goddamned terms) waited a year and asked again. Somehow, the second time they managed to get a different answer.

So I get the feeling that ultimately, the will of the people of Ireland, as expressed by direct vote in a referendum, matters very little.

And that really depresses me.