Snot and brexit

I haven’t written a blog post for ages, the reason being that I’ve been feeling rotten for about a week. It all started last Wednesday. I was not feeling great and decided I needed to get out of the house and do some exercise so we cycled to Newton Dee. The effect of this was to make me feel even worse. I was obviously fighting a virus of some sort and ended up giving it the upper hand by wearing myself out. In the days since then I’ve produced a swimming pool’s worth, or thereabouts, of snot, and have been surviving from one ibuprofen fix to the next.

The kids are back at school this week and were not very happy about going back. I guess that means they’re normal. Daniel told me that he will continue going to school until he finishes primary school but after that he wants to do home school. I’m not sure who he’s expecting will teach him because I can’t do it. I asked him why and he said that high school is hard because, “I’ll need to be able to tell the time”. Now I feel like a bad parent for not teaching him how to tell the time, so we are in the process of rectifying this.

Over the last week I have started changing my mind about Brexit and am leaning towards voting to leave the EU. This might come as a bit of a shock and it’s possible I’ll change my mind again but here are my reasons:

Did you know there’s a president of the EU? I didn’t. Can you tell me who it is without looking it up? I had to look it up on Wikipedia and apparently there are three: president of the European Council, president of the European Commission, and president of the European Parliament. Doesn’t it seem strange that people in other countries are making laws for us? It doesn’t matter that on the whole I largely agree with those laws; what if I didn’t?
40% of the EU budget goes on farm subsidies. We pay tax to rich land owners like Prince Charles. This is like something out of the middle ages when serfs paid the lord of the manor to work on their land. I also think this is contributing to keeping poor countries poor because there’s a barrier for them to trade their produce with the EU. And so probably it’s not helping the refugee crisis very much although I have no evidence for this. It’s just speculation.
The EU got rid of the chief scientific advisor, Anne Glover. Why did they do that? Does this mean they’re no longer using scientific evidence as the basis for policy? This is something Tony Abbott would do.
George Osborne gave his testimony about all the dreadful things that will happen if we leave the EU with about as much sincerity as Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in their apology to Australian biosecurity:

I love that clip 🙂 You don’t get special treatment in Australia for being famous. Jack’s as good as his master.

Posted

April 19, 2016

Journal

Rachel M

Tags:

Brexit, EU, European Union, sick, virus

Comments

15 responses to “Snot and brexit”

cindy knoke

April 19, 2016

I saw this message. They remind me of smug teenagers on detention for smoking in the bathroom. They give it this much seriousness. They clearly have no concern whatsoever for Australia’s fragile and unique ecosystem and the one of a kind in the world animals that have evolved on this isolated island continent. The smugness and the above-the-law gestalt offends me.
Hope you feel better~

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1. Rachel M
  
  April 20, 2016
  
  Yes! They look exactly like smug teenagers and probably think that someone should be paying them to do it. I don’t think rich people and celebrities are above the law. They should have to follow the rules like everyone else.
  
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Steve Bloom

April 19, 2016

Hmm, isn’t it clear that if Brexit happens, Scotland will leave the UK in turn and then join the EU?

If you think a Tory government won’t continue to favor rich landowners, maybe think again.

The Glover business was about her over-enthusiasm (IMO) for GMOs. IIRC there are other channels for getting science advice.

Re laws imposed by foreigners, my impression is that lots of Scots see UK laws in much the same light.

Re Osborne’s lack of sincerity, who could argue? 😉

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1. Rachel M
  
  April 20, 2016
  
  Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scotland has another referendum after a vote to leave the EU but I don’t think the leave vote will win.
  
  You might be right about the Tory government but at least I can choose not to vote for them and I won’t be voting for them in the next election.
  
  I heard about Glover and GMOs and that just annoys me more. I’m not against GMOs.
  
  Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favour of freedom of movement throughout Europe but New Zealanders and Australians can move between the two countries without Australians in Australia being governed by New Zealand law and vice versa. Why do we need another layer of bureaucrats in a completely different country creating legislation for us? It’s mind-boggling.
  
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Steve Bloom

April 19, 2016

“They clearly have no concern whatsoever for Australia’s fragile and unique ecosystem”

So then why are they not in the present government?

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scifihammy

April 20, 2016

No I did not know the EU had a President! How much more is left untold?
And I understand Australia needs to protect its unique flora and fauna, but arriving in the country as a visitor can be daunting. My daughter told me about when she visited: no leather (what about her purse and shoes?) no food (the left overs from breakfast on the plane that she has taken to eat later?) etc
I do hope you start to feel better soon 🙂

Reply
1. Rachel M
  
  April 20, 2016
  
  Yeah, I doubt you can take the left-overs from the plane into Australia or New Zealand which also has the same strict biosecurity rules. Unopened food is usually ok though provided you declare it at customs. Leather shoes and handbags are totally fine and you don’t have to declare those.
  
  I took my two dogs to New Zealand on the plane and had to declare them. It was totally fine because I had the paper work from me vet in Australia about the required vaccinations, I declared them, and we were allowed in. It’s not rocket science.
  
  Reply
  1. scifihammy
    
    April 20, 2016
    
    For sure. It is just a lot more strict than other countries, so can take a visitor by surprise. Still, well worth it to see those countries, I should imagine 🙂 My daughter certainly loved Australia.
  2. Rachel M
    
    April 20, 2016
    
    Customs officials aren’t usually the most friendly people either.
anniegoldfisher

April 20, 2016

I really don’t have an educated view on Britain’s membership of the EU. However, I did read somewhere that Rupert Murdoch wants Britain to get the hell out of it. My reaction was to think that Britain might be better bowing to the EU’s laws rather than Rupert’s whims. http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/this-terrifying-rupert-murdoch-quote-is-possibly-the-best-reason-to-stay-in-the-eu-yet–WyMaFTE890x

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1. Rachel M
  
  April 20, 2016
  
  Oh Rupert is just the worst and if it was a decision between him and the EU then I’d choose the EU definitely. But at least I can object to bowing to private interests like that and vote for a different party.
  
  Reply
guthrie

April 20, 2016

Well, firstly, hardly anyone knows who the politicians in Holyrood and London are. I certainly don’t.

As for the legislation thing, it’s complicated. Firstly there are the various iron laws of bureacracy, and merely leaving the EU won’t deal with them at all, rather there’ll be more bureacrats needed here, because do you think our farmers will be able to get by without subsidies. etc etc. Of course subsidies can be improved, but still. Rich landowners should be taxed properly, but that isn’t going to happen under a neoliberal government. Moreover, the laws that do get passed are decided on by the council of ministers, i.e. representatives of your government in London, as well as voted on by the parliament, so it isn’t as if there isn’t a democratic layer. Think of it as a big experiment, so far the democratic bit isn’t proving as easy as people thought it would, but that doesn’t mean we should just go home.

As for scientific advice, the EU is just doing the usual silliness, which is endemic to all politics. Given the large amount of science and cross border scientific co-ordination and practise done by the EU or using the money from the EU, it seems an overreaction to suddenly support an exit because politicians are being politicians.

As for Osborne, he’s a demented fuckwit. He’ll say whatever will benefit himself and his friends. Unfortunately for the leave campaign, they’ve got Boris Johnson, George Galloway and Nigel Farage on their side, and none of them lose out to Osborne for demented egotistical monomania.

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1. Rachel M
  
  April 20, 2016
  
  Yes, I think there’s an argument to be made for staying in the EU just because it’s not what Nigel Farage wants and so it must be the right thing to do 🙂
  
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Chaitanya

April 20, 2016

Hope you will get better soon.

Good luck teaching time to Daniel.

Politics…meh.

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astute angle

April 22, 2016

There’ll be hell, fire, damnation and plagues of locusts if leave the EU; or maybe not. Perhaps what is now the EU will unwind and democracy be restored to the nation states, just as the UK will eventually unwind for a similar reason, though the UK does have a common language, culture, history and numerous family ties to bind it together. Maybe the ‘Greens’ will actually go back to being an Ecology Party by realising that a political project based on the mass migration of cheap disposable migrant labour across the continent really isn’t very ‘Green’.

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