Great service for Swedes, not living in Sweden! Applying for a new passport or identity card has the trivial cost of 150 €, compared to doing it in Sweden for 50 €.
This is absolutely ridiculous. I would also say a hinder for the free movement of people in Europe!
2010-08-05
2010-06-17
Stupid decisions from the EP
Renate Sommer and Peter Liese, MEPs, has just introduced new regulation (see here for a summary in swedish), which strangely passed, where food package markings in joule will be removed, the only marking left will be the kcal (a completely arbitrary unit).
The definition of calories also varies between:
- Kilogram calorie, also written Calorie or Cal (with a capital C). The energy needed to warm up one kg of water by one degree C.
- Gram calorie, cal with small c. The energy needed to warm up one gram of water by one degree C. One thousand of these are written as kcal.
- Pound calorie, which is the energy to warm up one pound of water by one degree C.
So, by forcing away the joule, they are adding confusion to the food labelling (which calorie are they referring to?) and they are assuming that the Unions citizens are stupid and do not understand what a joule is.
Further, why is it difficult to know that a man needs 10 MJ of energy and a woman 8 MJ (as compared to 2500/2000 kcal (or should we say Cal to add to the confusion?))?
What is next? Will Renate Sommer want to dismantle the metre and revert to national foot and inches?
It would be better if they just decided to ban the use of kcal, Cal and cal on the packaging completely. People are not stupid and will adapt, especially if you consider that most people managed to switch to the Euro without to many problems.
Peter Liese also writes [en] that the regulation will not patronise the citizens, but that is exactly what they do when they remove the branding in joules. I and the rest of the citizens are apparently to stupid to understand what a joule is according to Peter. Thank you for not patronising us!
2009-07-02
Stupid Media and Honduras
Why do media keep on insisting on using incorrect terms, for everything that has happened in Honduras the past week?
The last thing on DN use the word decree for something that they also write is approved by the Honduran congress. A decree is an order from the head of state taking the form of law, similar to an executive order in the US. But, in this case apparently a lawfully elected congress can issue decrees, I really do not follow.
The second part is of-course how quick everyone was to react and condem the ousting of the former Honduran president, calling it a military coup d'état. While it is true that the military carried out the ousting, this was done after order from the supreme court that issued the order after the former president Manuel Zelaya. It seems many states and organisations had a knee-jerk reaction with trying to condem the event without knowing what it was about (including the EU), many others (the OAS, US et al.) keep on with trying to punish Honduras for their actions that seem to have been conducted according to the Honduran law.
The rule of law is central to a civilized society and I am actually a bit shocked that the OAS now require that the Honduran supreme court decision should be declared null and void, and that the safeguards in the Honduran constitution that prevents presidents from becoming dictators should not have been acted on.
There have been several recent developments that are worrying in Honduras, such as arrests and extended curfews, but this according to media here. Considering that the DN article (linked above) use the term opposition when they refer to street-protests, I do not trust a single word from Swedish media about this. Other technically legal problems are of course that Honduras for example does not seem to have a defined procedure to impeach or get rid of a president that is breaking the law. Flying the ex president to Costa Rica was probably not the smartest thing, and the ex-president should have the right to be tried in a court, but even the presidents party members in the congress voted to get rid of him, which would at least say one or two things about the president himself.
In general, what I think is that the fact that the congress and supreme court is able to dispose a misbehaving president is probably a good thing (most European states are parliamentary democracies, meaning that the head of state must have support of the parliament), while most of the American democracies have directly elected presidents that rules over a cabinet or the government (European presidents/kings/queens typically have no real power, and the governments are headed by a prime minister).
OK, enough ranting for now... sorry for not putting more work into the entry.
The last thing on DN use the word decree for something that they also write is approved by the Honduran congress. A decree is an order from the head of state taking the form of law, similar to an executive order in the US. But, in this case apparently a lawfully elected congress can issue decrees, I really do not follow.
The second part is of-course how quick everyone was to react and condem the ousting of the former Honduran president, calling it a military coup d'état. While it is true that the military carried out the ousting, this was done after order from the supreme court that issued the order after the former president Manuel Zelaya. It seems many states and organisations had a knee-jerk reaction with trying to condem the event without knowing what it was about (including the EU), many others (the OAS, US et al.) keep on with trying to punish Honduras for their actions that seem to have been conducted according to the Honduran law.
The rule of law is central to a civilized society and I am actually a bit shocked that the OAS now require that the Honduran supreme court decision should be declared null and void, and that the safeguards in the Honduran constitution that prevents presidents from becoming dictators should not have been acted on.
There have been several recent developments that are worrying in Honduras, such as arrests and extended curfews, but this according to media here. Considering that the DN article (linked above) use the term opposition when they refer to street-protests, I do not trust a single word from Swedish media about this. Other technically legal problems are of course that Honduras for example does not seem to have a defined procedure to impeach or get rid of a president that is breaking the law. Flying the ex president to Costa Rica was probably not the smartest thing, and the ex-president should have the right to be tried in a court, but even the presidents party members in the congress voted to get rid of him, which would at least say one or two things about the president himself.
In general, what I think is that the fact that the congress and supreme court is able to dispose a misbehaving president is probably a good thing (most European states are parliamentary democracies, meaning that the head of state must have support of the parliament), while most of the American democracies have directly elected presidents that rules over a cabinet or the government (European presidents/kings/queens typically have no real power, and the governments are headed by a prime minister).
OK, enough ranting for now... sorry for not putting more work into the entry.
2009-03-30
Time to Rethink the EP Elections
In June we will have new elections for the European Parliament, the only directly elected institution of the Union. As usual, we can expect that the participation will be low.
This year I will vote in the Netherlands, though I am not sure which party yet, but I have some rough ideas at least. This is a fundamental issue, a citizen has the right to vote in the state where he is registered as resident.
In the interest of further integrations, I believe that it is the duty of every citizen that lives outside their home-state to vote in the local elections.
The problem that I can see now, is that the parties in the European Parliament are not very clearly laid out to the citizens. For most Dutch voters, they will go and vote on the same party that they voted for in their national elections. This in terms mean that the questions that will be brought up in the elections will be very specific to the state itself, that is certain questions will be debated in Sweden, some others in Netherlands, but there is no uniform election platform.
I believe that it is time for change, we should ban all national parties from participating and enforce that any party that signs up to the elections must be represented under the same name in at least several of member states. This would prevent voters from thinking nationally wen they cast their vote and start thinking European.
This year I will vote in the Netherlands, though I am not sure which party yet, but I have some rough ideas at least. This is a fundamental issue, a citizen has the right to vote in the state where he is registered as resident.
In the interest of further integrations, I believe that it is the duty of every citizen that lives outside their home-state to vote in the local elections.
The problem that I can see now, is that the parties in the European Parliament are not very clearly laid out to the citizens. For most Dutch voters, they will go and vote on the same party that they voted for in their national elections. This in terms mean that the questions that will be brought up in the elections will be very specific to the state itself, that is certain questions will be debated in Sweden, some others in Netherlands, but there is no uniform election platform.
I believe that it is time for change, we should ban all national parties from participating and enforce that any party that signs up to the elections must be represented under the same name in at least several of member states. This would prevent voters from thinking nationally wen they cast their vote and start thinking European.
2008-09-19
Ryssland
Nästan ingenting i media om Unionens gemensamma agerande mot Ryssland. En liten artikel på DNs huvudsida som snabbt blev ersatt med utländska nyheter om det USAianska presidentvalet.
I England fick the Telegraph in rubriken: "Brown fails to make EU punish Russia" . Ganska intressant eftersom Storbritannien aldrig ville ha några direkta sanktioner och att EU faktiskt bestraffade Ryssland med att avbryta samtalen och att skicka 200 observatörer till Georgien (de 200 observatörerna är en bestraffning i den meningen att det bör få Ryssland att skämmas en hel del).
Med andra ord, när Unionen visar sin enighet (och i min åsikt är detta en milsten i den gemensamma Europeiska utrikespolitiken) skiter media I det, för det är inte intressant att rapportera om när Unionen fungerar väldigt bra. Om USA hade gjort samma sak (avbrutit samtal inriktade på ett avtal med Ryssland) så hade förmodligen rubrikerna i både Engelsk och Svensk press varit i stil med "Bush bestraffar Ryssland hårt" eller något I den stilen.
Det som EU har gjort är ju en sak som kan leda till bättre folkligt stöd för Unionen, så det känns som en ganska viktig sak att rapportera om, och medan jag hade förväntat mig att Aftonbladet och The Sun inte hade brytt sig (Anna-Lisas nya silikon-pattar är nog mycket viktigare för att sälja lösnummer) eller att de hade vänt det hela uppochner (som the telegraph, men mer extremt), så hade jag förväntat mig mer av DN och SvD. BBC har dock faktiskt rapporterat ganska nyanserat om det hela.
I England fick the Telegraph in rubriken: "Brown fails to make EU punish Russia" . Ganska intressant eftersom Storbritannien aldrig ville ha några direkta sanktioner och att EU faktiskt bestraffade Ryssland med att avbryta samtalen och att skicka 200 observatörer till Georgien (de 200 observatörerna är en bestraffning i den meningen att det bör få Ryssland att skämmas en hel del).
Med andra ord, när Unionen visar sin enighet (och i min åsikt är detta en milsten i den gemensamma Europeiska utrikespolitiken) skiter media I det, för det är inte intressant att rapportera om när Unionen fungerar väldigt bra. Om USA hade gjort samma sak (avbrutit samtal inriktade på ett avtal med Ryssland) så hade förmodligen rubrikerna i både Engelsk och Svensk press varit i stil med "Bush bestraffar Ryssland hårt" eller något I den stilen.
Det som EU har gjort är ju en sak som kan leda till bättre folkligt stöd för Unionen, så det känns som en ganska viktig sak att rapportera om, och medan jag hade förväntat mig att Aftonbladet och The Sun inte hade brytt sig (Anna-Lisas nya silikon-pattar är nog mycket viktigare för att sälja lösnummer) eller att de hade vänt det hela uppochner (som the telegraph, men mer extremt), så hade jag förväntat mig mer av DN och SvD. BBC har dock faktiskt rapporterat ganska nyanserat om det hela.
2008-09-01
Unity in the Union
I must say that the EU reaction and display of unity against imperial Russia and the support of Georgia is more than I hoped for. Although I would have wanted to have seen harder measures being taken by the Union; I did not expect the Union to show as much unity as they did.
The unity is far more worth than harder measures, so this is very good news indeed. I would like to thank the council for the best action taken in several years.
I wonder what this will do for the Unions approval rating?
The unity is far more worth than harder measures, so this is very good news indeed. I would like to thank the council for the best action taken in several years.
I wonder what this will do for the Unions approval rating?
2008-06-18
FRA Issues
The proposed law of allowing the Swedish national defence radio establishment FRA to scan any internet traffic leaving Sweden has brought up a lot of protests. Today hundreds gathered outside the riksdag in protest against it.
Although I am worried, I have strong hopes in that the European court of human rights will overthrow the law in the end, as it constitutes massive surveillance of all citizens without discrimination. That is, having wire taps on certain internet connections (i.e. all traffic to and from a specific end point IP address) might be reasonable for the police in order to fight crime; but what the law will introduce is generic deep packet inspection and searching for keywords in all traffic bound to a non swedish destination (for example gmail, hotmail or any other site outside the state). Note that interior traffic is in many cases routed past the borders due to the nature of the internet, so spying on foreign traffic only is impossible to guarantee technically.
Also, monitoring the traffic into other EU states would be spying on their allies and neighbours. The European integration has bound the states and citizens of Europe together, and more and more Europeans are moving to other states, so the deep packet scans will even if they can be guaranteed to only target foreign traffic automatically pick up traffic between thousands of Swedes (100k living in the UK for example), which was not the purpose of the law.
I will not rehash everything here as so many other bloggers have done that already, but the fact that the law proposal which is inherently unconstitutional and not compliant with European law has made it so far suggests that there are problems in the Swedish law making process.
Firstly, I would say that it is now more important than ever before that a constitutional court is established with the role to try law proposals on their compliancy with the Swedish constitution and European law.
The second item that is of interest is that the parliamentarians that have suggested that they oppose the law is more afraid of the party whip than of the people that have elected them. The entire affair has lead me to see the advantage of a majority based system such as the one in the UK. Not that I like that kind of system in general since it result in a massive misrepresentation in the parliament in the UK. What Sweden need now, is a federal constitution that introduce a bicameral parliament. On chamber would then have proportional representation, and then the second would be a majority elected senate and thus directly responsible to the people. Such a senator would be possible to discharge at any time following a vote of no confidence in the district the person was elected in.
As a side note, despite that the current government is doing a great job in general, I would be happy to see it fall because of this.
Although I am worried, I have strong hopes in that the European court of human rights will overthrow the law in the end, as it constitutes massive surveillance of all citizens without discrimination. That is, having wire taps on certain internet connections (i.e. all traffic to and from a specific end point IP address) might be reasonable for the police in order to fight crime; but what the law will introduce is generic deep packet inspection and searching for keywords in all traffic bound to a non swedish destination (for example gmail, hotmail or any other site outside the state). Note that interior traffic is in many cases routed past the borders due to the nature of the internet, so spying on foreign traffic only is impossible to guarantee technically.
Also, monitoring the traffic into other EU states would be spying on their allies and neighbours. The European integration has bound the states and citizens of Europe together, and more and more Europeans are moving to other states, so the deep packet scans will even if they can be guaranteed to only target foreign traffic automatically pick up traffic between thousands of Swedes (100k living in the UK for example), which was not the purpose of the law.
I will not rehash everything here as so many other bloggers have done that already, but the fact that the law proposal which is inherently unconstitutional and not compliant with European law has made it so far suggests that there are problems in the Swedish law making process.
Firstly, I would say that it is now more important than ever before that a constitutional court is established with the role to try law proposals on their compliancy with the Swedish constitution and European law.
The second item that is of interest is that the parliamentarians that have suggested that they oppose the law is more afraid of the party whip than of the people that have elected them. The entire affair has lead me to see the advantage of a majority based system such as the one in the UK. Not that I like that kind of system in general since it result in a massive misrepresentation in the parliament in the UK. What Sweden need now, is a federal constitution that introduce a bicameral parliament. On chamber would then have proportional representation, and then the second would be a majority elected senate and thus directly responsible to the people. Such a senator would be possible to discharge at any time following a vote of no confidence in the district the person was elected in.
As a side note, despite that the current government is doing a great job in general, I would be happy to see it fall because of this.
2007-09-15
Science...
Usually I do not write blog entries just reporting on other blogs, except if I have something important to add. But in this case I make an exception. One of the better technical blogs out there, Arstechnica, just published an article about the difference between science and pseudo-science. Most important of all, they take up Homeopathy as an example of pseudo-science.
I have always been annoyed that there are homeopathic shops (both in Netherlands and Sweden), and the government is not doing anything about it. You should of-course be able to sell the stuff, but not in a way that gives an impression that it actually have any healing power.
Head now to Arstechnica and read about the the pseudo-science involved.
I have always been annoyed that there are homeopathic shops (both in Netherlands and Sweden), and the government is not doing anything about it. You should of-course be able to sell the stuff, but not in a way that gives an impression that it actually have any healing power.
Head now to Arstechnica and read about the the pseudo-science involved.
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