Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Those Damned Democrat's -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (1259)	6/22/2003 2:00:17 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1604

Euro censorship Old Europe has come out against the new economy. Last week, the Council of Europe (COE) agreed to a program to control content on the Internet. The council — an institution that spends its $200 million-a-year budget concocting new regulatory ideas to recommend to its 45 member-states — officially endorsed a law that would force a "right of reply" on Internet news sites. If enacted, this would mean that any online outlet that mentions any name or organization would have to then provide space to that individual or group to respond. Predictably enough, the European press has heralded the new Internet controls as being in support of free speech. You see, according to European scribblers, the council is trying to mandate that everyone be able to voice their opinions anywhere. We view it differently. Right of reply rules take control of content away from publishers and hand it to government. In black-and-white terms, regulations control what, where, when and for how long an outlet can publish certain information — in this case, replies. Under guidelines currently supported by the COE, opponents of a site's material could hijack the outlet by flooding it with responses holding the counterpoint. The government reach is long, as proposed regulations would encompass all aspects of electronic media, including news and opinion sites, blogs and even chat lines. Earlier draft proposals had limited the regulation to "professional" sites, but COE bureaucrats overruled that as being too loose, or, perhaps more to the point, too free. Individual provisions of the COE proposal dictate the exact details of an opponent's so-called reply right. For example, as the plan states: "The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place for a period of time at least equal to the period of time during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in any case, no less than 24 hours." If a site keeps stories archived, it must keep the replies available in perpetuity as well. The COE also is against any limits on lengths of responses, meaning disgruntled parties or mischief-makers could dominate a topic on someone else's platform. All these concessions to "the other side" add up to significant handling duties for anyone offering an opinion on the Internet. The new regulations are not the only trouble the Euros have in mind for the worldwide Web. They also have plans to tax it. Last month, the European Union approved a COE recommendation to tax sales over the Internet at a rate of between 15 and 25 percent. This tax would not only apply to online sales through e-stores such as Amazon.com and EBay but also to services and downloaded material, such as music and software. On Tuesday, Sen. George Allen, chairman of the European Affairs Subcommittee, will hold hearings looking into the effects the European tax could have on U.S. businesses. Recent limits on Internet communication across the pond are hardly surprising. Europeans have an age-old soft spot for censorship. In deliberations to draft a governing document for a pan-European democracy, framers frequently have referred to the U.S. Constitution as a model. Unfortunately, they don't seem poised to copy the First Amendment. URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20030621-110801-7711r.htm

To: calgal who wrote (1259)	6/22/2003 2:05:13 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 1604

Re-post: What happened to Tony Blair? By Cal Thomas BELFAST, Northern Ireland. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who stood fast with the United States in the Iraq war, is suffering a sharp decline in poll numbers and support among some of his own government ministers. Sounding Churchillian in his pro-war statements, Mr. Blair is now experiencing the kind of drop in public opinion that affected Winston Churchill's political future following World War II (and the first President Bush following the Persian Gulf war). Last week, Mr. Blair reshuffled his Cabinet in an effort to turn things around. One Tory Member of Parliament told me Mr. Blair is beginning to suffer from "Margaret Thatcher syndrome," suggesting that, like Mrs. Thatcher, Mr. Blair has stayed too long on the political stage and people are growing tired of him. An indication of how serious things may be for Mr. Blair comes in two polls commissioned by the Times of London. One shows that one-third of the British people no longer trust Mr. Blair as a result of the way he handled the Iraq war. The peculiar thing is that the poll also shows a huge majority still believe military action was justified. Part of this double-mindedness can be blamed on the British media, which have been far more critical of their government than the American media have been toward the Bush administration. The British press openly disbelieves Mr. Blair's claim that intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction was accurate. It questions whether Mr. Blair made it up in order to "drag" Britain into the conflict. While similar questions are being raised in some American media about the role of the CIA and whether President Bush accurately and honestly interpreted intelligence information he got (and whether that information was tailored to support a policy the administration wanted to pursue), the most intense American criticism is mild compared to what the average Brit hears and reads. The second Times poll published June 17 found that for the first time Conservatives are gaining on Labor. This poll put Conservatives at 33 percent approval, just 4 points behind Labor. A Times editorial (June 15) noted that while "Mr. Blair is a long way from the turbulent waters that engulfed [former British Prime Minister and Thatcher successor] John Major ... there is plainly the risk of a drip-drip-drip effect on the image of his administration." It isn't just the fallout from the Iraq War that concerns the Blair team (most Brits still believe Saddam did possess weapons of mass destruction), it's a lot of other things coming all at once. The National Health Service remains in need of reform as complaints about long waits for treatment and poor service at many hospitals continue. There is also a continuing debate about the euro. Mr. Blair and his economic team had promised a rather quick decision on whether Britain should dump the pound sterling and tie its economic future to the euro. Now, Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, has delayed a decision until a possible referendum next year. At a news conference, Mr. Blair acknowledged that he faced a political battle to overturn widespread public antagonism toward closer relations with Europe. According to the YouGov poll, a strong majority (61 percent) of the public would vote against the euro were a referendum held now. That's up from 51 percent opposition a year ago. Worse, for Mr. Blair, the poll reveals 55 percent would trust Gordon Brown to tell them if, or when, the time is right for Britain to shift to euro, while just 12 percent would trust Mr. Blair's judgment on the matter. All this turmoil for Mr. Blair has Conservatives salivating. The leader of the Conservative Party, Iain Duncan Smith, seems to have gained new confidence as Mr. Blair's troubles have escalated. Mr. Smith's debating points are rammed home with more assurance during the weekly "Prime Minister's Question Time," and he smiles more often than in recent memory. Mr. Blair may be in some political difficulty, but he is a politician of considerable talent. The British people don't like political infighting, and since the Thatcher days, infighting has been the chief characteristic of the Tories. If those conservatives can get their act together and if the members of the Labor Party continue to cannibalize each other, the Tory Party could have its first chance at power in more than a decade. Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030621-110804-6672r.htm