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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: werefrog who wrote (60201)	7/29/2001 10:52:00 AM
From: dybdahl	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

The European Commission (http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm) consists of a number of Commissioners and their departements. Officially, the EU heads of state appoint the president of the Commission. As far as I know, they have to agree on the choice - it's not just a majority vote, but I might be wrong on that. The president of the Commission then finds 19 other members of the Comission - two from each of the bigger countries, and one from each of the smaller countries. The countries and the president cooperate in finding the right people. A Commissioner is both a kind of minister because he/she has one or more directorates, but a Commissioner is also one of the votes in the political body "The Commission". If you want to read more, they have good explanations on their role: europa.eu.int A good example on the difference between US and Europe is probably patents. In Europe, it's hard to get a patent, but when you get it, it's yours. Nobody should be able to take it away. In USA, it's easy to get a patent, but you can risk being sued about the patent, and you might end up sueing somebody else in order to get it enforced. USA simply uses the courtrooms a lot more. The laws in Europe still vary a lot. Germany is a lot like USA and has a lot of lawyers and a lot of judges, unlike Denmark, where law-suits are seldom in business. Catholic Ireland has prohibited Abortion, unless there has been a crime. It's also clearly one the most religious country in Europe. Most other countries in EU allow abortion - Germany is divided by having some member countries not allowing abortion. But you can always cross the border to another German state and have it done... In Denmark, abortion is allowed until 12'th week in the pregnancy, but in special cases until 18'th week. Special cases could be danger for the mother's health, if the mother would not be able to take care of the child, if the child's health is at risk, or has a handicap. Something that is also being discussed right now is the rights for gays to marry. In Germany and Denmark it is allowed - but one member state in Germany wants to have it moved from the city hall to a lawyer in order to make it less official. In Denmark, on the other hand, Gays often get married by priests in the Churches. It's still a debate, though, if the state should pay for artificial insemination of women who marry women (or if they should pay for themselves), and whether they should be allowed to adopt. And then there is Euthanasia (mercy killing). It's legal in Netherlands and being practiced in several countries, and will probably get more widely accepted during the next decade or two. Population registration is also very different from country to country. In Denmark, we all have a unique number, with which we can be identified, and a central database, in which you can see lots of things, like who has used which kinds of medicine. This database is very often used in international medicine science because of its accuracy. It also registers families with problems, vehicle identification, bank accounts etc. You don't have to tell the state about how many stocks you own - they already know. The number of people living in Denmark are "select count(*) from people". But we don't have any ID that we must carry around like the Germans. No police officer can demand that you carry an ID. In Germany, on the other hand, they must all carry an ID, but they have no central registration of license plates for cars, no central registration on where people live etc. In England, they have neither. If you want to disappear, move to England. I have made several systems that integrate with the central database. It's extremely easy, and makes addresses etc. update automatically. For instance, we made a system to take care of troubled families in a danish Country, and the system even updates family relations automatically, when new children are born, parents die og children get adopted. A new-born child must get their unique number within a couple of days after they are born. The parents can wait up to 6 months before they decide on a name, and the name must be on the positive list. Names like "Morten Nissov II" or naming a girl "Chris" is not allowed. The first is reserved for royals, and the latter makes it difficult to determine the sex by the name. Lars.