Comments for THE HONEYBALL BUZZ

Comment on Cameron faces more problems with the Eurosceptics by Sue

Sue — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:57:49 +0000

“It would be foolish to claim all is well with the EAW”
I really wonder how complacent you would feel if you had been arrested for say plane spotting in Greece and slammed into a Greek prison without representation…. not quite so enthusiastic would be my guess.

Even the ECHR won’t return asylum seekers to Greece for fear of them being treated as less than human.

Then again, you are on the EU gravy train and the welfare of those “FERAL” Eurosceptics can’t be considered.

Comment on European Parliament makes strong progress on outlawing counterfeiting by Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:20:38 +0000

Frank Fielding has made the points that I wished to make. I would go a little further though and say that the whilst we, the public and smaller businesses are fed little scraps so we can get indignant and rant a bit about privacy and the invasion thereof,underneath is a raft of empowering legislation that is there to be abused by corporate interests when they so choose.

It seems fairly clear from Mary’s post that MEP’s have, in the case of potential infringements of personal liberties, done what they can to modify this part of the act. But what of those parts of the act that deal with other issues and matters?

This bill is about as good for consumers and a free and just society as the Patriot Act is good for the rights of American Citizens. It has every appearance of being a very dangerous piece of legislation indeed, in the interests of furthering the multinational corporations relentless encroachment on human and societal values.

Let us have a clearer exposition of why the UK government has signed the Agreement, and what the position is over ALL the provisions of ACTA, not just the privacy issues.

Comment on Cameron faces more problems with the Eurosceptics by maryhoneyballmep

maryhoneyballmep — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:20:37 +0000

I have corrected the mistake. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Comment on Cameron faces more problems with the Eurosceptics by Um

Um — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:22:06 +0000

You’re 96 short on the number of Conservative seats in the House of Commons. If you can’t stir and check, choose to check.

Comment on European Parliament makes strong progress on outlawing counterfeiting by Frank Fielding

Frank Fielding — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:25:23 +0000

Hi,

Thank you for taking on some of the extremes of ACTA, but just because of these improvements, the legislation is still not acceptable to me & millions of others. The issue of generic drugs is completely unaddressed, ACTA would make many generics asn offense to sell, increasing health care costs for the very poorest.

Seed patents are another cornerstone of this legislation, giving more power & control of our food to corporate agribusiness giants.

But it is the multitude of issues which would effect the internet, you touched on a couple, ACTA introduces a concept of ‘illegal software’, making ISPs liable for free, open-source software, which circumnavigates Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes. Free, open source software, has been one of the gifts the Internet has managed to spread, and should be protected at all costs. Would this poart of ACTA effect Linux? It is unclear, the language is, maybe intentionally, vague.

ISPs would still be liabel for the content that they deliver, meaning that all it would take is a complaint from a business (with no court order), for the ISP to feel compelled to remove the site, ie. block it. Internet blocks are incompatible with democracy, which demands a free & functioning flow of information to thrive.

ISPs would also be compelled to hand over user details to any party which suspected the user of online fringement. Again, this would be a matter carried out without the courtsd, on the say so of a media company, many of which have been caught lying already, for them only tio be given more powers.

ACTA cannot be voted for by anyone who truly believes in freedom, democracy, openness & expression. It is the enemy of the people, created by corporations & is little more than a power grab. Please reconsider your opinion on this matter, this really coiuld be a definiing piece of legislation of the 21st century.

Thank you,
Frank,

Comment on European Parliament makes strong progress on outlawing counterfeiting by jolyonwagg1

jolyonwagg1 — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:26:37 +0000

Thats all good and well, but the EU institutions, thats both the Commission and the EP are terrible at communicating to all us mere mortal European plebs? There was a thunder storm on twitter over ACTA, thinking it was the European version of the US SOPA?
The EU institutions burying themselves under a mountain of jargon, that no one can understand what the hell they are saying any more?

Comment on Busting a new ‘Euromyth’ – the EU is NOT demanding its logo at sporting events by Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:37:47 +0000

Just on a technical point (and yes, I am a geek!), the blue flag with yellow stars does not originally come from the European Union – it was actually designed for the Council of Europe in the 1950s and then adopted by the European Community at a later date.

I’m sure Switzerland and Norway can rallying around the flag as well

Comment on The “veto” that never was and the ire of the Eurosceptics by Martin

Martin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:23:08 +0000

Great minds think alike…

“The veto that never was”
Brian Denny, Morning Star, 14th Dec 2011
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/113172

What a coalition! Mary and the M* …

Comment on The “veto” that never was and the ire of the Eurosceptics by Ken Hall

Ken Hall — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:07:00 +0000

Whilst I agree that a country of our size and history should be much more influential in Europe and agree that our current position of impotent sideline gazing does us no favours, I disagree that we should integrate further into the EU until and unless the people of this country vote specifically to do so in a binding, in-or-out referendum.

The people of this country should now be given a choice. Do we wish to lead in the EU and play a full role in its further integration? Or do we wish to pull out and set our own course in the world as free-traders setting our own laws and rules to serve the people of our land?

The current “this far and no further” position of the government is a negative and untenable position. The people should be given a choice, one way or the other.

Comment on The EU must object to the lack of women in Hungarian politics under Orban by Somacescu Iulian

Somacescu Iulian — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:29:20 +0000

For political equality between women and men there is one very simple and innovative solution to implement.
In international law on human dimension is called “proportional representation”, which means assigning with the electoral competition, a number of seats for women in proportion to the number of women registered at the last census of population divided by the representation. Just for men.
Colleges / constituencies will be in common locations, but with separate boxes for women and men.
Women candidates vote of women. Men could vote between the candidates men.
How about this democratic innovation from a man?
Somacescu Iulian, innovative researcer (see IDEAS) – Romania (www.eurotehnoconsult.eu)