Yesterday was full of pure politics in the traditional sense.
I always start off the day by reading the local newspapers, and there was a short article about Irena Degutiene, the Parliamentary Minister. She wrote a letter to John Boehner complaining about Belurussia's plans to build 2 nuclear powerplants, one being 50 km from the capital, Vilnius. Lithuanians are complaining, but Lithuanians also want to build their own nuclear powerplant. According to p. Rasa, a person working for p. Simenas whom I respect, said "So Lithuanians think that our [nuclear powerplants] are safe and good, but theirs are not safe and aren't good. Haha."
Then there was going to be a marathon of committee meetings. The first meeting was about CO2 burial again. This time, there were a few more officials in the meeting that belong to the environmental protection committee. One read the newspaper the whole time, another left after he signed in and stayed for five minutes, many drifted in and out just to sign in, and another wwas clearly hungover. Some of these people who drifted in and out were still voting during the meeting though and even overrode the votes of the three who did participate. Apparently their parties told them to vote a certain way. During the CO2 meeting, it was brought up that nobody could provide the numbers for how much CO2 burial would cost for companies, nobody knows who will pay for the award for burying CO2, the CO2 will have to be buried forever, but nobody knows if that is possible, and there's question as to whether or not CO2 burial will be legal in the near future. P. Simenas proposed experimenting with CO2 burial, but that proposal dissintegrated. The only reason to bury CO2 is the meet the EU standard of reducing CO2 by 20% by 2020. That's why this idea is still on the table. I wish I could participate in the meetings, but I just sit and try to talk to p. Simenas' staff afterwar the meeting. Afterward, a flock of men walked in to the room with one attractive female who was a secretary in Parliament. The same official who was hungover I'm pretty sure was taking pictures of her pretty blatantly with his iPhone. There were 14 proposals to be accepted by the committee. All the wanderers/non-participants kept urging p. Simenas to hury up with accepting everything. There was a lot of intimidation in the room the horde of men and from the other officials. While the proposal seemed decent with few faults, I felt like it was not carefully reviewed and it was rushed to be accepted.
Then there was the third meeting, which had another wanderer walk in. A lady who I noticed was outspoken during the general Parliamentary meeting walked in. I'm not sure what the meeting was supposed to be about, but the same association that brought up the CO2 burial and three other associations were present. The lady kept saying that the committee already rejected whatever was being proposed several weeks prior. P. Simenas kept saying that since more associations showed up with new ideas, they should be listened to. After a half-hour of this constant arguing, the meeting was tabled for next week. I'm still not sure what it was going to be about.
Then I had the great opportunity to make copies for p. Rita for a while. This was for a case from 1993, and there were over 200 sheets to be copied. We brought the case to another committee, and we collected the DVD's that reported on p. Simenas' controversy. We watched those and looked for any lies. I didn't find any, but I feel like they all put p. Simenas under a bad light and I wouldn't be surprised if p. Simenas loses his position because of the reports. There isn't much we can do because the country is now suspicious. P. Rita and I sat around until 4:30 when there was going to be a party meeting. She talked to her son on skype who is now studying in Korea and I talked with him for a bit. He showed me pictures of Korea and it's a cool country.
The party meeting was fun too. There was a proposal to provide a 15% discount for TV's in Lithuania. This would help the economy supposedly. I don't understand what makes TV's more special than other products. Many people became extrememely passionate about the issue and started to yell at eachother. Remember, this was just a proposal for the party to propose this TV discount to Parliament, and people were angry with eachother. After 45 minutes, I decided it would be a good time to leave and meet up with the Buitkai.
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