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European Parliament All But Rejects ACTA
An anonymous reader writes "European Parliament today adopted Written Declaration 12/2010 which basically tells the Commission to all but drop the negotiations. From the article: 'Citizens from all around Europe helped to raise awareness about ACTA among Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) by collecting, one by one, more than 369 [of the MEPs'] signatures. With Written Declaration 12/20103, the European Parliament as a whole takes a firm position to oppose the un-democratic process of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and its content harmful to fundamental freedoms and the Internet ecosystem.'"
EU has been impressing me lately. They seem to actually care about good governance sometimes. That's one hell of a lot more than I can say about the USA and the "land of the free".
I noticed that too, but I'm guessing that it refers to the amount of MEPs who got somehow involved. That would be 369 out of 736 MEPs, a significant number. Since this is EU stuff, there's always the possibility that anything you read has been hastily translated from another language, adding additional noise.
I hope someone who isn't ignorant like me can clarify the signature thing though.
"copycounterfeiting"? They even go after people who make copies of copies? That's just... wow... ;)
He is popular, but his adversary is almost as popular as he is. But that's why the first guy won, and the second didn't.
As I understand it, the EU parliament now has a bit more authority and can stand up to the commission. not sure though, so don't quote me.
As a European I am glad to read this. However, I am no sure if this is over yet. The cynic in me says: there wasn't enough money flowing to some representatives or some representatives want to advance their own agenda a little bit more. I guess it is time to negotiate behind closed doors a little bit more until we reach an agreement.
A democratic institution representing the desires and best interests of it's electorate?
What gives?
Too many people to effectively bribe.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Now let's all just watch the commission ignore the requests of the parliament. Unless it's really not important at all, of course.
Power in the EU is not with the parliament, but with the commission. Even after the treaty both executive and legislative power remains with the commission, and they threw in a part of the judiciary to match.
Is it Christina Hendricks? 'cos I would totally take back the other wishes. All of them.
There's no shortage of socialist or nanny actions in Europe, nor bad policing although I lean towards incompetence there and not plain fascism. We steer clear of some of the problems that exist in the US, but there are still countless similarities to our parts of the world.
You've got Mexifornia, we've got Eurabia. You complain about taxation? Try Europe, it's no fun here either. You complain about No Child Left Behind, we struggle with declining education as well. Compared to your ghetto's our problematic neighbourhoods might seem decent, but we too face severe disparities in living standards and safety levels in certain environments as well. We might be a bit more relaxed about softdrugs, televised breasts or people claiming to be atheist, but we have no shortage of conservative and/or religious people up to the highest levels of government trying to ban whatever they can and they succeed often when it coincides with the goals of nanny state socialists. And plenty of celebrities and non-celebrities doing the complete opposite. Extremist nutcrackers, from just plain weird to dangerous to society? Check, we both have plenty.
Or the short version: we've never diverged that much with regards to freedom and opportunity. And as continent with relatively many and quite fluent speakers of English, I don't think we soon will. We can speak the same language and therefore our interchange of ideas is excellent. The only reason we seem to think we're so different is because we're so close that we take the similarities for granted.
Mexico is no better. If they would have any balls they would have legalized drugs just to get rid of the anarchy they have now.
We tried, more than four years ago. Your Señor Booosh wouldn't let us. We will either remain a client state, or be "liberated".
And please, don't blame us for your bad habits. If business wasn't so good, we wouldn't be in it.
But what was he doing? Studying & living blissfully in a relatively expensive place, financed by his family at home in the position of public authority, on a curse leading to a diploma which will be useless (just for a paper; while cheating) - but with a position in a public institution at home virtually assured after his return.
Minus the cheating bit, your description could really apply to any somewhat privileged middle-class Western individual. In that sense it probably covers you, me, and the vast majority of Slashdot posters as well.
It sounds like your issue with this gentleman is the fact that he's enjoying his status on the backs of his own less-fortunate countrymen, while blaming their problems on someone else. But don't kid yourself that you're somehow morally superior to the guy. Those of us who are lucky to be born into a wealthy country are basically doing the same thing, we're just doing it on the backs of some other country's less-fortunate folks (and many of our own countrymen too).
Political campaign spending is severely limited in most EU countries (in the UK political parties can't advertise in the media, which means parties are not in need of corruptive donations from corporations).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.