holystove

woops my bad. .. just saw that on twitter and didn't remember seeing it on here

don't agree with the sentiment of this article but it does clear up a couple of facts. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/3748166e-3151-11e6-ad39-3fee5ffe5b5b.html#axzz4Bk2BWkAm

Might be true, I don't know. Greece definitely cooked their books. I was just responding to John's statement that Greece were" forced to join the eurozone by the undemocratic EU elite", which holds no basis in reality.

Well this is a new low. Greece wanted very much to be in the eurozone but wasn't allowed to ("by the EU elite..") because they didn't meet the Maastricht criteria (neither did Belgium at the time). However, because it was the (democratic) wish of the Greek people to join the euro, they were allowed to. Even in the midst of the euro-crisis in Greece a vast majority of Greeks wanted to stay in the euro. So the undemocratic thing would have been not to allow them to join in the first place or to throw them out now. It is also a complete fallacy that only Germany benefited from the euro. It is however indeed a currency for strong economies, that's why the Maastrichts criteria are there; a country can only join the eurozone if it meets those criteria. Belgium, the Netherlands, .. all small countries who have benefited greatly from joining the eurozone. -- (seperate point: what happened in Greece is actually an argument for more involvement of the EU. they got a lot of EU money but mismanaged it and got into a lot of trouble. If there had been more EU oversight over how they spent the money, this might not have happened.. )

Initially the European Coal and Steel Community, °1951, was created to have economic alliances between the countries of Europe so there would never be war amongst them again. The EU, °1992, was never only intended to be an economic bloc because it was established after the complete integration of the internal market. One of the fundamental principles of the EU is the evolution towards an ever closer union in every aspect (political, cultural, ...). So in essence, yes the EU should tell member states what to do. - If you view the EU as a group of member states who each want to get the best possible deal for themselves, then by all means you should vote leave, both for yourself and for the betterment of the Union. The way I see the EU: - brings peace throughout Europe - allows me to have a voice in a globalized world (EU is at the forfront of the fight against global warming, EU fights for human rights, ...) - is the best opportunity for less wealthy European nations to get a better standard of living - it protects me from unlawful actions from my own government

I'm sure there's plenty of provocation. If Russia is disqualified, England and Wales are a near certainty to go through to the knockout stage.

Italy earned this victory (very professional team) but it could have just as easily been 1-1. Lukaku really should have scored. I'm only willing to put up with all the ball bouncing from his shins, because he normally finishes the chances he gets. If he starts missing those, everybody will go hafnia on him. Origi should have scored aswell, but at least he offers something else besides goalscoring. Looking at Belgium's players, at the very least they should be fun to watch; they're not though. To me, this is down to the manager. Conte looks like a brilliant tactician. Think Chelsea will do very well next year.

Clinton is 68, Trump is 69, Sanders is 74 and Biden is 73. And they're running to become President for 4 years.. I don't get it. 1) why don't they just retire and enjoy their last days 2) where do they get the energy? My mom's 64 and she's exhausted after watching my kids for a couple of hours..

Indeed, the Commission is the main executive branch. But as I wrote, its President is chosen from the biggest political party in the EU Parliament. The President then chooses his various commissionars (one per member state). Also, the Commission doesn't decide policy, they implement what the Council and EP decide. I agree with you about the complexity of it all and the need to overhaul. But as with any consensus between 10+ parties, the end result is not always straight forward. And, as stated above, I wholeheartedly agree that a Brexit offers the best chance for this overhaul (in the way I'd like to see it done). If that's the reason you vote Leave you have my gratitude .

Yes. Not his real account. Says a lot about Trump that you could almost believe it though.

Donald J Trump ‏@DonaldTrumpp 24 Sep 2015 People say my wall idea is crazy. China built a wall, and guess how many Mexicans they have. Checkmate. 158 retweets217 likes Reply Retweeted 158 Liked 217 More

By voting directly for the European Parliament, I meant that you can cast a vote for someone who if he or she gets enough votes will be a member of the European Parliament without any input/interference/.. from any national authority... Don't know if it is the correct term in English . I don't know if you have to register to vote for the European Parliament in the UK; it depends on your country. Where I live, voting is compulsory so no registering required for any election (local, regional, federal or european).

Could have endorsed Gary Johnson (not that he ever would); I quite like him. Would be interesting to see if libertarianism works in practice (in another country).

Thanks for following up John. First of all, the general direction of the EU and the major issues are decided by the European Council in which every president/prime minister/bundeskanselier/.. is represented. Secondly you have the Council, which groups ministers/secretaries according to the policy area to be discussed; for example envirmonmental, judicial, interior, ... Who sits in both these Councils is decided by national elections. If you want Corbyn to be in the European Council instead of Cameron, you can vote for Corbyn and hope he becomes prime minister. If the UK government is exclusively Labour, then all the Councils will only have policitians from Labour. Who sits in the EU Parliament, which, together with the Council, is the main decision-making body of the EU, is decided by elections every five years. You can vote directly for your candidate of choice. If the party you vote for wins the election (EU wide), it will be a member of that party who is elected Commission President. The Tories are part of the "European Conservatives and Reformists", Labour is part of the "Socialists and Democrats". As you see, in principle it is quite the same as the situation you described regarding national elections. Main differences: - in the EU you are 1 of 500 million, while in the UK you are 1 of 60 million. - the EU is a supra-national organisation (not a country) therefor you have institutions like the Council whose members are decided by national elections per member state instead of EU wide elections. Hopefully in the not so distant future, members of the Council will be chosen from the European Parliament.

Every five years there's an election for the EU Parliament? After the elections of 2014 The European People's Party remained the biggest in the EU Parliament and therefor it was a member of their party that became Commission president. (Juncker). If the socialists would have the most votes, it would have been a socialist; etc... Many times the position has switched parties. The only thing that might be perceived as undemocratic about how the Commission president is chosen, is that the EU member states have a big input; but I assume that's not a problem for you as the British PM has at several times blocked a candidate the UK feared was to progressive. During the 5-year term of a Commission there is Parliamentary oversight; for example in the 90's The Santer Commission was forced to step down by the EU Parliament. Not saying you should vote IN, but it seems to me your biggest problems with the EU stem from a lack of knowledge of procedure. I'm happy to clarify other such issues you might have.

I saw parts of the Cameron - Farage debate. Cameron wants to stay in so he can block further integration and so he can scale back where integration has already been achieved - he calls this reform. (this reaffirms my point that if Britain votes to stay in, the rest of Europe should get a vote on whether Britain should be allowed to stay in). If he's only going to talk about everything that is wrong in Brussels, ofcourse people are going to say "then we should just leave".. some campaigner this guy. Farage wants out because he doesn't want it to say EU on his passport, it should say Britain ... I do wonder about how the EU leaders (or the EU elite if you will ) will respond to a Brexit? Will they be petty and take protectionist measures? Will they aim at making sure it was (economically) the wrong decision to warn other eurosceptic governments? What if Scotland is hit very hard (economically) by a Brexit? Will a Brexit lead to a break-up of the UK, seeing how the Scots would like to stay in the EU? You'd almost want a Brexit to happen solely for academic purposes.

how did seaman not stop that? would have been more underwhelmed with De Boer; I guess Koeman is okay. His name literally translates to Cow-man.. so there's that.

I'd go for : courtois meunier alderweireld vertonghen lukaku nainggolan fellaini debruyne hazard carrasco origi wouldn't put hazard on the left side because he tends to go to the middle anyway and then he's just in the way of De Bruyne. would start fellaini ahead of dembele aswell.

which presumably don't count

Just wanted to point out that by your logic, Janssen has scored 0 goals in his carreer. Why would you spend 28m on that?

So is Simeone.

has an agreement with Sevilla.

Good post. Still hoping Leave wins it, primarily for the reasons explained in this article by a London School of Economics professor : https://www.socialeurope.eu/2016/02/why-the-european-union-will-benefit-from-brexit/

Or Batshuayi. He started ahead of Lukaku against Finland. Probably not a lot of evertonians are going to agree with me on this but I'd take Benteke at Everton any day. - It wasn't a difficult goal. The point is that he was in the right spot, where he seems to be quite often. So other than a horrible first touch and his head stuck up his ass, he has great instincts of where to be in the box.