This blog has been slumbering for a while so it needs a reignition. And a clear purpose.

The democratic deficit in the European Union is worth following. Ordinary citizens are not represented by the European Union, instead national politicians take decisions in ways that are difficult to follow. Wikipedia has an article about this democratic deficit which is rather good at explaining the situation.

Personally I remain critical that the Treaty of Lisbon would do anything to improve the situation, but some think it is a step in the right direction. The treaty, which is currently in the process of ratification, would modify the following elements which have been mentioned in relation to the alledged democratic deficit:

- The codecision would be established as the standard legislative procedure, hence increasing the Parliament’s ability to shape and propose legislation.
- It would require the Council (meetings between national governments) to meet in public at all formal meetings.
- It would ensure that national parliaments receive draft legislation earlier from the Commission.
- It would give national parliaments a new power to send any proposal back to the Commission for reconsideration.
- It would confirm the principle of subsidiarity as fundamental to the Union.
- It would create a new citizens’ right of initiative, obliging the Commission to consider any proposal for legislation that has the support of 1 million EU citizens.

They say Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, I’m now inclined to believe Washington is also a kind of Wall Street for poor people. They play around with other people’s tax money.

The latest example is the so called bailout plan to save the financial industry. I remain critical.

I recently applied for a new job and went through a rather extensive process with interviews, personality tests and some logical tests too. After going through my papers also my employment references were contacted. A final salary discussion followed upon which I was presented with the final agreement, ready to be signed. I would like to add that I don’t do manual labor, I work in the IT/IS field.

The agreement included a clause about a mandatory health check. I have never experienced this before in my professional life. I can see why a company may want to do drug tests, but a full one hour health check with fitness evaluation on excercise bicycle, heart check up, blood samples, etc, is just too much. I’m scared of those needles… How common is this? They originally told me they’d only be checking my vision and hearing.

At this time of year quite a large part of the European population is busy thinking about their summer vacations. In Europe a four or even five week vacation period is quite common. It doesn’t happen at the same time all over Europe though, which is a bit of a problem in international companies. The Scandinavians tend to go off on early vacations around their Midsummer period (June 21 is the year’s longest day in case you did not know). People further south take their vacations later.

Another aspect of taking vacations is the financial impact it has on your family. A fair amount of families are financing their travel and other consumption with borrowed money. The quick loan industry is booming (for an example see snabblån, a Swedish site) and money is now no further away than a text message from your cell phone.

The flip side of these quick loans is the cost of taking one. They’re convenient but very expensive.

A friend just pointed out to me that Google loves this blog. At least compared to some other blogs. The thing is my Critical Citizen Blog has received a page rank value of 4, visible to anyone using the Google Tool Bar. I can’t quite figure out why, though.

There are other bloggers around that are a lot more serious about their blogging. This Projektledare blog, for example, has been around longer than mine and written more frequently. Still it’s stuck at a page rank value of 2. Could it be the language, that Google loves English? Or is it the internal linking within wordpress.com that causes blogs here to get better page rank? I’m not sure, but I think I’m onto something here.

Amazingly, politicians never seem to learn. Another juicy sex scandal has sailed up, this time it’s New York governor Eliot “the spritzer” Spitzer, previously known for his tough stand on immoral behaviour. This is truly amazing – how can anyone lead such a double natured life, speaking of morals daytime and sneaking off with expensive prostitutes at night? If he hadn’t been caught on FBI tape he’d probably have kept it up indefinitely.

I can live with politicians getting their invoices mixed up from time to time, but this is a true scandal. Sort of like catching the pope during his night time job as leader of the Church of S_a_t_a_n!

As you may have noticed I haven’t written much about my jogging lately. This is due to pain in my legs that I am trying to combat. With too much pain there’ll be no jogging. So – I invested in a new pair of shoes from Nike.

The shoes are a big improvement. I’ll get back to you on the long term effects, but so far it’s looking better for my jogging.

This is yet another post about my new hobby, jogging. I’m an absolute beginner. Actually, I’m so new to jogging that I dare say that if I can take up jogging then probably anyone can.

What did I know about jogging before starting up? Nothing, basically. It seemed boring and I would never ever have come up with the idea if a physiotherapist hadn’t told me it would help my back pains go away.

So what’s the secret I’m about to reveal?

First of all, jogging seems to be boring the first 3-4 times you do it, but from then on it gets better. It’s a bit like eating sushi – I didn’t like that either the first few times and now it’s a favorite. Jogging gets better with time.

Secondly the first 20 minutes are the hardest to jog, once you’re past these first 20 minutes it gets easier. Probably due to endorphin production.

The third secret is to slow down when you feel tired, but keep jogging. Many beginners give up now and then, stop, or start walking instead, but if you really want to jog remember this is possible – just keep jogging! It’s always possible to jog even slower than your current slow pace, so slow down a bit. It doesn’t really matter that your jog is in fact as slow as a walk, to keep jogging gives you better self confidence and helps you pick up your pace once you feel up to it.

As you can see I seem to be hooked on jogging. And remember what they say: jogging is an excellent means of improving cardiovascular health, bone density and physical fitness!

Having received the verdict that I have back problems and need to start jogging in order to strengthen muscles in the general back region I gave jogging a try. And hated it. Which was sort of what I expected.

So I needed expert advice on the subject and I had a talk with a friend. He has run the Berlin Marathon so he should know how to overcome the general bore of running and his recipe was: an mp3 player with good running music. But what is good running music?

I decided to load my player with Ibiza style club music. It did work a short while, my jogging picked up speed and my face looked much happier. If you’re not familiar with my term Ibiza style club music I may need to tell you that it’s dance club music, and that turned out to be the general problem as well. After a few minutes of listening to the moaning girls on the dance floor my jogging started to feel extremely boring in comparison. Again. So I desperately need new tips on what jogging music to load into my mp3 player! I’ve been out jogging 4-5 times now, and the result is basically an enormous longing for Ibiza, which wasn’t the idea.

I’ll keep trying, there should be some way of getting this project rolling… All advice appreciated.

If this blog is a sort of online newspaper there should be sports pages too. So far we have none, and the main reason for this is my interest for sports which is quite low.

This needs to change for my own personal fitness. Having spent half my life in front of a computer it has come to my attention that I have back problems. It wasn’t evident that the problems where back related though, I got the idea that I had something wrong with my shoulder since that’s where I was experiencing pains.

In order to strengthen muscles in my back I need to start jogging. That’s the verdict. I can’t say it made me enthusiastic… jogging! I can’t imagine anything more boring.

I set off for my first jog, a 3 km (2 mile) course. It was just as boring as I had first thought, but I did manage to complete the whole 3 km jog which impressed me a bit. Maybe I wasn’t in such bad shape after all?

In order to make jogging more interesting I had to call an expert. I had a chat with a friend of mine who had recently run the Berlin Marathon. He advised me to get a good mp3-player and music that got me in the right mood.

Let’s see if this works… (to be continued)