Prepare for a rant:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7412852.stm

If you haven’t heard, a bunch of French fishermen are being wankers. They’re complaining about EU quotas being put on the amount of fish that they’re allowed to catch.

Do these people not realize that these quotas are set for a reason? Do they think that the EU are sitting around in their assemblies having conversations like:

“What do you want to do today?”

“I dunno, fuck with the happiness of French fishermen?”

“Brilliant! Get to the quotas Barry!”

They’re there for a reason; so as to prevent over fishing, so as to prevent certain types of fish reaching borderline endangered species. Arguably they’re there to protect the very industry that these dumb asses are worried about losing.

I’m not saying I’d want to be in their shoes, but their concerns are ridiculous. If they love their job so much why don’t they go fishing elsewhere. The money one can earn from fishing in Alaskan waters is ridiculous and probably on the same level of danger. If they try and pull the “It’s family tradition to be a fisherman,” story they can piss right off. It’s a shitty argument, if someone said “Oh my father was a paedophile, I’m going to bugger small children as well” you wouldn’t feel bad for them. Quite the opposite in fact.

Alright that’s a bit of a tangent as one is clearly detrimental to society and comes from psychological defects, some perhaps genetic and some social but you get my point.

I just don’t see how these fishermen can have the gall to blockade ports, preventing people from getting them from where they want to go. You don’t see English fishermen creating widespread disarray over the fact the French fishing in waters accepted to be British. On top of that we’ve all got it bad at the minute with the credit crunch, inflation and the general state of affairs in the economy. Being a third year student I’m as worried about getting a halfway decent job after my degree as the next guy, but it doesn’t mean I’m gonna start interfering in the running of other people’s lives for the sake of a few fish.

Maybe it’s a case of one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist but I dunno, I still think these guys should accept the government’s promises and stop getting in the way of progress.