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Trick Used To Pass French "Three Strikes"
Glyn Moody writes "France's 'Loi Hadopi' — better known as 'three strikes and you're out' — was passed by the National Assembly late last night when only 16 deputies were present (the vote was 12 in favor, 4 against). Most politicians had left because it was expected that the vote would take place next week. In this way, President Sarkozy has sneaked his controversial legislation through the French parliament — and shown his contempt for the democratic process. So now what?"
So now what?
revolution!
I was thinking the same thing... How was anyone at work at 2200 hours? Aren't they all supposed to stop working after 6 hours and only have 4 day work weeks?
It's a joke, laugh.
As a Brit, I hate to have to defend our old adversaries, but I have to step in here, as I think you're being a little unfair. You say the French are lazy, but I can tell you that they are more than willing to work quite hard. As long as it isn't August of course. Or one of their many holidays. Or within 30 minutes of their official close of business. Or anywhere near lunch. And so long as they aren't on strike. But other than that, absolutely nose-to-the-grindstone tireless hard workers for sure.
Oh no... it's the future.
Like the UK.
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Why should a legislative body not require a quorum of some sort to act?
Have you ever watched C-SPAN? Seems like every five minutes, they're having a Quorum Call. It's boring.
Quorums make for bad TV.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for quorum.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
The extra two are in case of Corsicans.
Rule of law is a good thing; but a society heading down the path of "All that is not strictly and precisely forbidden is licit" is too sick to survive.
According to Dr. Egon Spengler, Shandor decided that society was too sick to survive after the WWI.
Kirkland Signature
French rifle for sale. Dropped twice. Never fired.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Hungarian law requires half of all MP's to be present to make any vote legit. I imagine it would have helped here.
For some odd reason, Hungarian law does not apply in France. Something about them being independent countries. Yeah, really.
It's hard to believe the French have no quorum provision in their constitution. If they had one like ours this couldn't have happened.
Article I, Section. 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.
Instead, we just call ours in to vote in the middle of the night and early morning, still reeling from the cocktail circuit, getting them to vote on legislation they haven't read just so they can go to bed before sunrise.
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
Yes, Hungarian law would've helped here, but it would've imposed some significant costs too... not least of which is the requirement that every MP change his last name to include the first letter of his party affiliation, like George H. W. rBush, Hillary R. dClinton, etc.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Damn. Here I was, thinking that at least we had to get our legislators liquored up in order to ram through legislation. Cheap bastids.
Today, I am ashamed.
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
Yes. Then the Americans tried to one-up them . . .
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
- This is TANGO-FIVE-NINER, tracking a joke at 2-3-0. Requesting permission to engage.
* TANGO-FIVE-NINER, permission granted. Bring 'er down.
I thought snare cautery was the job of proctologists.
+0 Meh
Well, I'm English, and I thought I'd better stand up for our much maligned workforce, including myself, getting shown up by the French like that.
Well, I would have. But I was delayed a bit getting into work today. I was going to drive, but it's in the garage, and they're waiting for parts. Since last week. The bus turned up half-hour late, but that's OK as we were got stuck in the roadworks that mysteriously popped up yesterday, but didn't have any workmen on.
I could have worked from home, but my landline was broken by BT last week, and the engineer is a bit behind, so my internet is out of order. But then again, they've just started throttling VPNs, so it wouldn't have been great anyway.
I tried calling in on the mobile, but was out of coverage - I'm sure they'll put up some more towers round here some day.
Well, I did finally get to work, but they'd all gone down the pub for lunch, so they didn't need me anyway. Then I remembered I need to pop down into town to run some errands.
I went to the bank first, but forgot they've just closed the branch - had to make some savings after making dodgy investments apparently. I did get to the post office ok, but they only had one counter open, so I was a bit delayed in the queue.
Finally got down to the council office, but found they'd all gone on strike, some furore over pensions I think.
I would have gone back to work, but since they all knock of at 4.30, there didn't seem much point...
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Right now, everyone aboard the ISS is wondering why Charles Simonyi is chuckling.