You are confusing the EU Council with the Council of the European Union.
No head of state was involved in the discussion we are having today.
By the way my personal opinion is that the confusing names are by design, to give the appearance that head of states are involved in decisions that have nothing to do with them, democracy in the EU is just an illusion.
How are we going to change it? They are simply going to pass a second-reading on a proposal to bring it back and use the same trick over and over again. All it takes is for one person to be "sick" at home for them to get it their way.
The EU voters have practically gifted their future to a bunch of technocrats. Over time (decades), it will get worse too, as inevitably power corrupts them more and more.
The EU is simply never going to represent the EU voters when it goes against their agenda. Want proof? They just did it.
Literally the voice of the EU voters has been suppressed on this matter despite the Parliament (elected by them) voted twice on denying this full proposal.
By any definition of the term, this is not a democracy and it's a technocracy at best.
The Council of the European Union - that pushed this forward - is composed of national ministers that are directly elected to the Council itself and are simply there because they are appointed as ministers under their own country's constitutional system. Ministers are appointed, not elected.
Unlike the European Parliament which is directly elected by EU citizens. Conveniently, the EU citizens have been silenced on this matter despite the Parliament denying this full proposal not once, but twice.
From the last article: "The Council position will now be examined by the European Parliament, under second reading.". Note that this is technically accurate under absolute majority rules for rejection (not for approving), but practically is where the "cheating" happens - as described in my original parent comment - because of the perverse procedures of the EU that are designed to basically make it almost impossible to go against the agenda.
The Commission did not withdraw it: no source because it stayed "pending".
The EU procedures are maliciously designed against the Parliament while preserving the technicality of plausible deniability. How do we call this architecture in software? We call it a "backdoor", except this one is embedded in the EU legislative process.
The Commission refused to withdraw the proposal after Parliament rejected it, leaving it on the table. The Council disagreed with Parliament’s rejection, formally forcing a second reading.
Both the European Commission and the Council itself are not DIRECTLY elected EU bodies. Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto.
The EU is a farce, an undemocratic virtue signaling organization, and this is why:
- The Parliament voted against the first reading of this proposal twice in 2026, the first time they only supported limited cases for it, while the second time they actually defeated it fully.
- The Commission didn't care, and kept the proposal on the table by refusing to withdraw it.
- Once the Commission does that, the proposal goes on second-reading (despite the first-reading having defeated it) and it is established in a very PERVERSE way in EU law that to AVOID passing the proposal in second-reading you need ABSOLUTE majority which is incredibly hard to pursue (you would think that we would need an absolute majority to PASS a proposal that was previously defeated on first-reading, not instead needing absolute majority to DENY a previously defeated proposal that was again forced to the table).
- Furthermore, absences in practicality count as "No" on the rejection. So of course they scheduled the vote in the summer when notoriously there will be many absences.
By never withdrawing a defeated proposal they can effectively and in practicality pursue any agenda they want (it requires a massive mobilization effort to find absolute majority to defeat any proposal, especially when absences for any reason effectively count against rejection).
In PRACTICALITY, the Commission can pursue any agenda whenever and however they want, and throw the votes down the drain.
Function over form, or form over function? The endless debate.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you but I understand the merits in cherishing “form” in a world that is - for the most part - devoid of beauty and taste.
You can physically cut off fuel without pulling the thrust lever to idle, because the two are separate controls.
However, it’s against procedure to do so - even dangerous. Throttle should always be at idle before pulling the cutoff switch, because otherwise excessive pressure can be created in the fuel system.
Essentially this is just a best practice, but there is no interlock between throttle and fuel cut off.
Then I got intrigued by your comment in case the throttle encoder fails. Turns out there is double redundancy on the throttle encoder (if one computer fails, the next one takes over), and if both fail the airplane will run on the last known setting at which point the only possible action that can be taken is to cut off the fuel (or keep it running with the last known throttle level).
In this regard both Boeing and Airbus follow the same implementation and there is no difference whatsoever between them.
Perhaps something they I have learned is that cutting off fuel during max throttle position (take off) may have damaged the fuel system of the Air India airplane because of big pressure in the lines and that may have interfered with the restart of the engines when the fuel valve was opened again.
0.1% of airline pilots fly intoxicated, and probably many more fly hangover which is an undetectable condition.
There is speculation that in the Air France flight 447 that crashed into the ocean en route to Paris, one or the pilots only had 1h of rest because of partying the night before. Of course it’s all speculative, and however unlikely it is, eventually it’s bound to happen that we get pilots with poor mental clarity in charge of large Boeings with hundreds of lives on board. Unfortunately it only takes one lapse of judgement to compromise the flight profile of a large airliner, even if corrected after a few seconds.
Tipping has lost its meaning and it is simply a money grab these days in many establishments, as your experience demonstrates. Like tipping for food to go.
I only tip when I sit down and good service is actually provided.
To be fair this strategy will work if other countries cannot tolerate tariffs for long enough to come up with non-USD trade that is accepted by everyone. Which to be fair may take them a very long time.
If they fold and remove tariffs on the US (so the US can drop the tariffs on them) before coming to an agreement because the economical pressure of tariffs is too high, then this will result in the largest market expansion the United States has ever seen.
My point is: yes lots of negatives can happen, but let’s also look at what happens if it works out so we are intellectually honest about what’s going on here.