This thread is about new members entering (e.g. Croatia) and old members leaving (e.g. Britain) the Union, as well as other moves and changes in the European collective collective.

Dear readers it is obvious to grey cell users that Luxor is trying to give the impression of being satirical and like many in his corner as unable to be definitive about anything. So the superficial is in his case not and is instead an inability. The Guardian and the National pontification in hard practice and practicality shows the snobbish lean and part of what is supposed to be modern liberal thinking.  In hard factuality it is a snobbish and slightly ignorant thing which dismisses anything outside of those two publications as sniffy.  Those of us here who can give a stance can of course sigh and be glad we are not related to him but his education seems to have been wasted.......  

        

Just considered by Fitch Rating Agency as similar to Italia. Meaning Above you.
You're Going to suffer a lot and we are going to laugh a lot.

By the way, ever thought abut the British expulsion and property nationalization by the "the third country>" from the "British"?
Advantages of idiotic Brexits...

Looking for real nice properties right now, only problem the Northern smell...

Re Northern Ireland. One problem with that matter has been the uncooperative attitude if the EU. That, with Ireland and the UK have obligations to support the Belfast agreement but have refused to offer tangeable support, claiming that the UK caused the problem and should solve it by itself. A semantic nonsense: if one has a responsibility one should attempt to support it on some way, not play a blame game.

At the moment there is a fuzzy situation, with alignment with EU regulations for those specific areas related to the Belfast agreement which acts as a diplomatic placebo for tthe Irish but that is, in the end, secondary to reading a good overall agreement. Alignment, by the way, does not mean identical, it means equivalent.

Incidentally, I support rjh on this, the DUP were right to object and saw things clearly when others didn't.

The argument to be used by the UK is clear --- if Northern Ireland can have, effectively free trade with thd EU then so can the rest of the UK.

In the event that there is no deal, the approach by the UK can simply be to declare, unilaterally,  on their side an open border between The UK and Ireland, while again unilaterally, that all goods not more than 90% made in EI shall be tagged for later application of tariffs or summer confiscation. There will be some leakage, but who really cares. As for the free mivemdnt part, that would be civered by other means since no-one not from Ireland eould have a valid vusa.

Of course, the Irish or the EU could put up a birder, but that would be their problem, but I doubt they would shirk their responsibilities to that extent.

Re the Airbus thing. I don't think the Chinese option is viable, at least not in the short term. Working practices are set up and agreed, jigs are made and (blast it) the pound has evaluated by around 30% which offsets a bit of tarif.

The Airbus cooperation had it's roots in the inter-European cooperation fostered by ESA in the Space Industry where groups of companies got together to his against competing pan-European Groups. Such things don't  spring magically from thin air.

But the most import and comment on this sort of cookery is that nothing has yet been finalised and until it is all of that stuff is pure speculation.

Anyway, last time I looked, China was not in the EU, nor was the EU in China to put the proper perspective on it.

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Back with a bump!

As for the free mivemdnt part, that would be civered by other means since no-one not from Ireland eould have a valid vusa.

Of course, the Irish or the EU could put up a birder, but that would be their problem, but I doubt they would shirk their responsibilities to that extent.

Your keyboard is throwing a tantrum, worse than RJ's. You probably need a new one.

I recommend the Motospeed Inflictor CK104 Gaming Mechanical Keyboard.^[1] The font is not ideal and I'm not into back-lighting, but the typing feel about equals that of keyboards three times the price like mine.^[2] Of course when I bought mine five years ago it was a significantly more niche product, so there was no cheaper option.

(But seriously, my typing looks a lot more like that in my laptop... you easily mis keystrokes on worse keyboards if you're not careful and you have to ram the keys down. Very unpleasant. )

¹ For example, from here.↵

² They're Cherry MX Blue (or Red if you wish) equivalent China switches. They feel almost just like real blues.↵

I recommend the Motospeed Inflictor CK104 Gaming Mechanical Keyboard.^[1]

It would be a great buy, but I already have Cooler Master Devastator, which I believe has somewhat equivalent tactile response, even though it's not mechanical and does not offer changeable keys and has one single modest mode of backlighting.

In different living&working locations I have different keyboards. Cooler Master Devastator is probably the fanciest one, while some weird flat thing with bluetooth is the most expensive one. I bought it to see how usable it is with smartphones and tablets. The conclusion is that it isn't really.

¹ For example, from here.
↵

My apologies for all the spelling mistakes. It's  due to me typing on a virtual keyboard whichvsedms which seems to have a mind if it's own. The least pointing error and it goes off on a rampage. The rest is poor lighting, poor eyesight and laziness in proof reading.

Must try harder.


A mechanical keyboard  is much better

It would be a great buy, but I already have Cooler Master Devastator, which I believe has somewhat equivalent tactile response, even though it's not mechanical and does not offer changeable keys and has one single modest mode of backlighting.

From glancing at this review and Reddit it seems to be some kind of weird contraption that's good for a rubber dome. Which is not a bad thing but I'd get a real one.

It's  due to me typing on a virtual keyboard...

Ah, typing on a phone, are we...

weird contraption that's good for a rubber dome. Which is not a bad thing but I'd get a real one. 

Sure, if you say so. I'm happily ignorant in this area - I have no idea what a rubber dome means in this context and what is real and what is not. I don't demand much from a keyboard:

- what goes down, must come up (ever noticed how particularly the spacebar tends to stick with some very cheap keyboards?)
- full size keys (basically, the size I am used to, smaller is bad)
- the common or standard layout of the midsection keys (Ins, Del, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn, etc.)
- long horizontal Enter key, not the all-too-usual crooked thing
- backlighting preferably around the keys, not in them

The first two are requirements, the rest are nice-to-haves. I have touched a few mechanical keyboards, as well as keyboards on both electronic and mechanical typewriters. I am not a connoisseur enough to desire anything beyond Cooler Master Devastator.

Sure, if you say so. I'm happily ignorant in this area - I have no idea what a rubber dome means in this context and what is real and what is not.

It's a question of whether you have to completely press down a key to the very bottom or whether you have to press it down, say, 70% (actuation levels vary). You don't realize how much it's secretly hurting your hands to do so until you've used a proper mechanical keyboard for a while. There's no "I pressed it down and it didn't register".

Also, mechanical keyboard can last over a decade. Rubber domes need replacement after a couple of years. (Okay, you can use them for up to a decade or so but after a couple of years even good ones have degraded into mediocre to bad ones.)

- long horizontal Enter key, not the all-too-usual crooked thing

Unfortunately this Enter key (which I too prefer) is the US-ANSI standard and the bad one is ISO.

I am not a connoisseur enough to desire anything beyond Cooler Master Devastator.

That's where the keyboard I recommended comes into play. It takes away the price distinction.

I am not a connoisseur enough to desire anything beyond Cooler Master Devastator.

That's where the keyboard I recommended comes into play. It takes away the price distinction.

I'll see in about a decade if I need it. Meanwhile I found a review in some sort of colonial French.

some sort of colonial French.

What accent is that? Québécois? I'm actually surprised that I'm able to understand it reasonably well, though I suppose given the point and speak nature of the video the same might apply even if you don't speak French.

I've attached a bad picture of my wife's customized color scheme.

What accent is that? Québécois?

The About page of the youtuber says
- Country: Canada.

In the event that there is no deal, the approach by the UK can simply be to declare, unilaterally,  on their side an open border between The UK and Ireland, while again unilaterally, that all goods not more than 90% made in EI shall be tagged for later application of tariffs or summer confiscation. There will be some leakage, but who really cares. As for the free mivemdnt part, that would be civered by other means since no-one not from Ireland eould have a valid vusa.

Of course, the Irish or the EU could put up a birder, but that would be their problem, but I doubt they would shirk their responsibilities to that extent.

There is a catch: More delusions on the Irish border

As the weeks pass, so the ideas get sillier. One circulating among certain Brexiters at the moment is that the UK could gain the upper hand over the Ireland issue by simply leaving the Irish border open after Brexit, charging no tariffs and making no inspections, and dare the EU to be the first to put up customs posts. Would this actually work in the real world? No, for many reasons. At the most it is likely to be a crude blame-shifting exercise aimed at getting the British public to point the finger at the Irish when the border inevitably goes up. For a post-Brexit UK to charge no tariffs on imports from the EU would be a massive breach of the rules of the World Trade Organization, which operates on a "most-favoured nation" (MFN) principle of equal treatment. This can be overridden if two or more members sign a formal bilateral or regional trade agreement among themselves. But it will take years for the UK to agree a trade deal with the EU: Britain cannot simply pre-empt it by holding tariffs at zero from the off.

Another thread,

The EU is moving inexorably towards a Federal State.

Individual countries are becoming irrelevant, and relics of yesteryear, curious cultural enclaves gradually losing distinction and individuality and submerging into enforced uniformity.

And that is why in another thread here I have condemned that as don't want to be in a US of Europe.

Yes i dare say that GB could leave the Irish Border open and we have been very good to them south of it loaning them billions at low interest as a help. The Irish Republic unfortunately has never been capable of proper running itself hence the kind of "acceptable" begging bowl attitude re Brussels. The country has completely about turned from decades of mixed ignorance. It is far better educated and the Roman Church been stopped from pulling the strings for generations. The general closeness between Gt Britain the Republic is positive and trust that continues as crossing the border is a lot less inconvenient than decades ago when I was young. However my regard for Ireland does not mean that we can have our strings pulled! 

Re the border. Yes I do believe it is quite feasible, not optimum certainly but feasible. We could expect many squeaked and moans but in the end if this country agrees to free passage from Ireland there's little that others can do about it.

Britain leaves the EU next year and will not impose border checks; if there are border checks it will be on the Irish side manned by Irish Border Guards or the EU Army () troops for all I care. One can be sure of that. What is not so clear yet is the laws which would accompany that: They are unclear because there are many options, for example

o An interim open border until blah blah blah ( wait it out or take it slow)
o All products imported into the UK must have their country of origin available to non-contact sensors
o All non Irish products are considered illegal in the UK unless and until they have passed through a central clearing house
o Illegal products will be confiscated

One could go on, but it's  necessary to remind ourselves that this is in the context of no-deal from the EU.

There is a practical point there about the Border as we have made it clear we are content with an open situation. The Irish Government for all it's sense has also been harping I am afraid and what happens after we leave the Euro club it IS Ireland's problem as they will still be in that Union.

Bregrets? Why Britain has had few over Europe

The most likely reason for the steadfast opinions, however, is that the referendum scrambled political identities. Ipsos Mori's fascinating "Shifting Ground" survey shows how the UK's political tribes have been reconfigured. Before the referendum, supporters of the Labour party sat on the left side of the economic axis, favouring tax and spend policies. The Conservatives were towards the right, advocating free market economics. On social issues, the Tory tribe flirted with authoritarianism while Labour voters floated towards liberalism. Crucially, there was substantial crossover on all these issues -- in the political centre ground. 

But Brexit has laid waste to that. The survey shows that the crossover between Leavers and Remainers is much smaller, and that these tribes are more starkly divided on social issues such as the death penalty and the pace of cultural change. Brexit has become a form of identity politics. And healing the divide is going to be difficult.

Much of the working class are Brexiteers so good for them. Labour is a question mark over the whole Brexit thing. One Shadow Cabinet member saying one thing and another the opposite. They really have a farce snapping at the Tories but the hard fact is that Labour is going round in circles. The media goes on and on repeating the same boring stuff as they do to the point of boring people stiff.