4 ms·
> "the measurement, in millimetres, of the thickness of a transverse section of the fruit between the lateral faces and the middle, perpendicularly to the longi
by claudius 13y ago
> "the measurement, in millimetres, of the thickness of a transverse section of the fruit between the lateral faces and the middle, perpendicularly to the longitudinal axis"
Oh, look, a good definition in a legal document. Don’t people normally complain about ambiguous laws leaving interpretation open to the courts[0]?
> Regulations over the official ingredients of jam
So that consumers can buy jam everywhere in the EU and get more-or-less the same rather than (possibly annoying) surprises. The problem here arose because the word ‘jam’ (or more precisely, ‘marmelade’) was used differently in different parts of the EU prior to regularisation. I am happy about it.
> battles over who has the right to make certain types of sausages
Everybody can make any type of sausage, what they cannot do is claim that said sausage was made somewhere else. What exactly do you find unreasonable about that?
> It's harder for legal systems other than the common law because of the way they work but I'm of the opinion that we should at least trial putting a word count limit on the total body of law and regulation.
So you prefer to have such regulation spread not only over a defined body of laws but also over each and every court decision made within the last n hundred years? On the contrary, I would argue that civil law is inherently superior to common law, as it puts the legislation where it belongs (the legislative, i.e. parliament, and, by extension, the various ministries) and gives consumers and businesses security that, if they follow said legislation, they have a reasonable chance of doing everything correctly, rather than having to take into account court decisions on the other side of the country or hope that the court in question will invent new laws according to the way they want, rather than their legal opponents.
There is absolutely no reason to impose a total word count limit on the body of laws. There is a reason to keep that body of law reasonably organised, accurate and easily understandable, which is usually the case, and more so in the EU than the US (otherwise, legal fees would be much higher in the EU, as people would require more help understanding the law, right?).
> A more depressing tale of regulatory woe, given the rocketing suicides and unemployment in Greece, is that of the bookstore/café that can't sell coffee and frequently can't sell books.[3]
Well, that’s what you get for becoming less and less competitive and instead extending bureaucracy more and more to accommodate more and more public officers, paid for by cheap credits, assumed to be backed by more sanely operating economies. Greece’s fault, you could only blame the EU for allowing them in.
[0] Or are you just annoyed that this is measured in millimetres rather than imperial attolightfortnights or similarly ridiculous unit?
- jkldotio 13y ago>Oh, look, a good definition in a legal document. Don’t people normally complain about ambiguous laws leaving interpretation open to the courts Yes you have a "good definition" in the law there, but what is the law for? It can't have been too important if they repealed it and some people deny its existence. >Or are you just annoyed that this is measured in millimetres rather than imperial attolightfortnights or similarly ridiculous unit? The anti-British sentiment in this thread is astounding (I use metric by the way). The sausage name is shared across regions due to a historical legacy, people who have traditionally enjoyed it should not have language and culture taken from them for the purposes of profits. See my post above on the feta rule being historical and linguistic vandalism.
- claudius 13y ago> but what is the law for? Ensure a given standard of quality in a consumer product. > The anti-British sentiment in this thread is astounding Britain has in the past been perceived as a nation first bullying its way into the EU and then hindering any further integration. That such sentiments crop up in a thread on EU regulation (a pet peeve of Britons, apparently) is not surprising. > (I use metric by the way). Yay you! And really, I was just looking for something that could be considered wrong with that sentence you found so amusing. > The sausage name is shared across regions due to a historical legacy, people who have traditionally enjoyed it should not have language and culture taken from them for the purposes of profits. See my post above on the feta rule being historical and linguistic vandalism. Firstly, let us clarify that the sausage case has been resolved, with Slovenia having their (Slovenian) word protected, and the German analogue accepted for the sausages in Austria, cf. [0]. Secondly, I agree that feta is somewhat of a edge case, were I would prefer to see the recipe rather than the place of origin protected, as the latter is not immediately obvious from ‘feta’ (contrary to Champagne, for example). However, even then does the idea of ‘regional trademark’ make some sense to me – but, as I said, this is an edge case and doesn’t really have to do anything with the thickness of bananas or the hygiene requirements of chicken. [0] http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/economist/766208/ http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/economist/766208/
- danmaz74 13y ago