[Twilight]

It seems the creation of Belgium was the fault of the British. Guardian (UK)

(Weary sigh) You own a planet, you catch hell. Like everyone thinks they have a service agreement. Americans, I hope you are learning from this.

[Bas]

It seems the creation of Belgium was the fault of the British. Guardian (UK)

(Weary sigh) You own a planet, you catch hell. Like everyone thinks they have a service agreement. Americans, I hope you are learning from this.

Actually, Belgium was added to holland after the French revolution because the English and German states wanted a strong power north of France to counter a possible new French revolution. It didn't work out for several reasons and the Belgian-Dutch union fell apart 15 years after it was first created in 1830.

[basil_hayden]

OMFG, teh thread title should so be changed immediately to EUROPE BLOWING UP!
Got mammal skills?

[Bas]

OMFG, teh thread title should so be changed immediately to EUROPE BLOWING UP! Got mammal skills?

you never were big on reality, were you Basil?

[Andrew_S]

What about Vlaams Belang (sp?) and the immigration aspect? I don't know the party political breakdown but I've heard there's a lot of discontent with excessive immigration.

A different, yet in possibly certain respects similar, political dynamic may exist in the Scots-UK situation. As I understand it most Scots (70%) at present don't want to secede from the UK but certain parties try to talk it up (for any Finns and others who don't know the history, the Scottish king became king of both and about 100 years later the Parliaments in Edinburgh and Westminster voted for the Act of Union which united those two Parliaments and nations - unlike Wales, Scotland was not conquered successfully by the English).

I detect from discussions that some Scots who are pro-secession are motivated in part by anti-immigration sentiment (non-European immigration).

[Andrew_S]

(Weary sigh) You own a planet, you catch hell. Like everyone thinks they have a service agreement. Americans, I hope you are learning from this.

Heehee, understandably because of my location, you may be unaware that I'm British.
I remember an Irish-Londoner saying to me, everybody hates us (British) but we don't care!

[sameu]

belgium is not gonna break apart
It's not a goal for any of the poltical parties who are trying to form a government right now

the deal is, (to make it simple) you've got the dutch speaking community and the french speaking community, each with its seperate government and a federal government
the dutch speaking parties who won the election need to form a federal government with the french speaking; but the dutch speaking community want to defederal some issues like the policy on work.
they don't wanna do this for fun, but they believe, because the southern part of belgium (french speaking) has different needs then the northern part of belgium (dutch speaking), you could do a better job when this field of policy is regional instead of federal

in other words they want to partially reform the federal state
but the french speaking parties do not agree because they fear they will lose money (trough the federal government each year big money transfers happen from the north to the south because the south is the poorer region)

the only thing it has to do with peakoil is the fact it both involves stupid politicians

which brings me to a more interesting topic
the fishing industry here is falling apart, because of the high energy prices it is now economical better to stay onshore then to go on sea to fish
they are demanding fuelsubsidies because the fuel they burn is more expensive they what they can catch on sea

[Bas]

ah, thanks for the inside view Sameu

As for fishing, the seas are almost empty anyway...

[Graeme]

Europeans launch Fuel Cell and Hydrogen JTI in Brussels

Over the next six years, the Commission and industry will plough almost EUR 500 million each into the initiative, with the aim of accelerating the development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies and bringing them to the market by 2020. It is estimated that the JTI's activities will reduce the time to market for these technologies by two to five years.

The new JTI brings together over 60 private companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large multinationals, together with leading energy research groups from across Europe. 'This is the smartest way of working together, moving in the same direction towards a shared goal,' said Professor Kohler.

The JTI will focus its efforts on four main areas: transportation and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure; hydrogen production and distribution; stationary power generation and combined heat and power (CHP); and early markets (fuel cell products that are almost ready for commercialisation). The JTI's first call for proposals, which has a budget of EUR 28.1 million, has already been launched.

h2daily

[Southpaw]

Has there been a change in the viability of an hydrogen economy?

last thing i have read about it is that a hydrogen car will cost
200 000 dollars and that you need natural gas to make the hydrogen right?

so i'm still in favor of an viable EV

or has there been some new discoveries on the viability of hydrogen?

[MonteQuest]

Belgium Government Collapses After Botched Bank Bailout

The government has halted work while King Albert II weighs whether to reject the resignation, call for early elections or explore ways to form a new government based on the current legislature. The crisis effectively freezes all government work.

Link

Greece and Thailand may soon follow suit.

Edit: Merged with THE Belgium Thread.-FL

[smallpoxgirl]

Canada's government hasn't been doing too good here recently either.

[Golgo13]

Belgium doesn't exist, so it serves them right.

[ReverseEngineer]

So does this mean we have reached Peak Waffles?

Seriously, along with the Bookie Betting on which City is first to Riot, we could start another betting pool on which country or US State is the next one to be unable to meet Goobermint Payroll and basically have to shut down all Goobermint Services.

This kind of seems like what many people here wanted, Less Goobermint, right? No Tax Collectors even! Now people get to see what Goobermint actually DOES do for you with your Tax Dollar. It provides organization and stability. It cleans up the trash. It keeps Order with Police forces and jails. It fights fires. Nobody wants to pay for this stuff of course when it all seems so peaceful, and they get pissed off if the Sanitation Workers Union goes on strike and go ballistic about Unions.

Goobermint of course has efficiency issues and waste issues, but then so does Capitalism which externalizes most of these costs onto the taxpayer.

If a substitute currency scheme isn't worked up soon, you are going to have quite a few countries devolving into anarchy. Organizing up World War will be quite difficult in such a situation. This would be a very local sort of war for a while at least.

Reverse Engineer

[cube]

This kind of seems like what many people here wanted, Less Goobermint, right? No Tax Collectors even! Now people get to see what Goobermint actually DOES do for you with your Tax Dollar. It provides organization and stability. It cleans up the trash. It keeps Order with Police forces and jails. It fights fires. Nobody wants to pay for this stuff of course when it all seems so peaceful, and they get pissed off if the Sanitation Workers Union goes on strike and go ballistic about Unions.

There are two parts to government.
1) The first part provides basic services like freeways, education, health, and safety...
2) The second part simply just takes money from person A and gives it to person B

If you are reading this then chances are you belong in category "person A".
Which part of government will collapse first? or was that a rhetorical question???

[ReverseEngineer]

This kind of seems like what many people here wanted, Less Goobermint, right? No Tax Collectors even! Now people get to see what Goobermint actually DOES do for you with your Tax Dollar. It provides organization and stability. It cleans up the trash. It keeps Order with Police forces and jails. It fights fires. Nobody wants to pay for this stuff of course when it all seems so peaceful, and they get pissed off if the Sanitation Workers Union goes on strike and go ballistic about Unions.

There are two parts to government.
1) The first part provides basic services like freeways, education, health, and safety...
2) The second part simply just takes money from person A and gives it to person B

If you are reading this then chances are you belong in category "person A".
Which part of government will collapse first? or was that a rhetorical question???

Actually, there is a Category for Person C. Person C is one who makes JUST enough to survive but falls low enough in icnome his taxes are minimal. That would be the nature of progressive taxation. Its only as you make substantially more than this that some of your excess income goes to subsidizing the poorest in society.

What the actual percentage is of taxes going to what you call core Goobermint services versus what goes to subsidies to the poor is open to interpretation. In a sense, operating large Jails and imprisoning large numbers of people is a form of social welfare, sinc ethey get 3 squares a day in the joint.

Society has to maintain a balance, if it generates too many people with poverty problems, you have social consequences for that which are costly, one way or the other. The problem with our society is it generated up too few rich people and too many poor people, and eventually it becomes impossible to support so many poor foks. Or support Universal Health Care, or support Unemployment, or support Social Security, the list goes on and on of course.

Ideally, everyone makes just as much as they need, and just a small surplus of savings for a rainy day. If you make a LOT of money, the only way that happens is by taking that money away from someone else, perhaps by bilking the Low Hanging Fruit on the Stock Market. If you are too successful with this, you will make LOTS of poor people, and you will end up with bigtime social problems as a result, whic only can be resolved through a social welfare system or through a criminal justice system.

As Mr Bill says in his Coda "Society is a Wonderful Invention where everyone lives at the expense of someone else". Your problems with this come when there are MANY more Have Nots than Haves, and nobody can afford the expeses of either one anymore.

Reverse Engineer

[InToWishin]

Belgium doesn't exist, so it serves them right.

OH YEAH??? Then where to Belgian waffles come from, huh? Thought you were so smart.

[InToWishin]

So does this mean we have reached Peak Waffles?

Not to mention Belgian beer, Belgian chocolate and

Belgian malinois puppies

[InToWishin]

Plus A Split Second

[Nickel]

Belgium doesn't exist, so it serves them right.

That stuff is silly, especially the bit about Belgium's internet designation, ".be", being preconceived as forcing people to "think" Belgium into existence by insisting "Be!". "Be" is an English-language imperative, but the Belgians speak French and Dutch, and "be" is not the imperative in either of those languages. This makes as much sense as suggesting ".us" is about "You!" because it evokes "Usted" in Spanish.