Professor Froward's Slough of Despond

Proud purveyor of flawed generalizations and vacuous tautologies.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Thank you, ancestors, for leaving Europe.

Oh, goody: The EU "seeks to regulate television on the net":

Brussels is considering regulating areas such as taste and decency, accuracy and impartiality for internet broadcasters.

I don't give a rat's ass about "taste and decency"; they're not my field. But "accuracy and impartiality"? What does that mean, exactly? If you've got a better guess I'd love to hear it, but to me it looks like some media outlets will be required to pretend that "reality" is whatever the EU says it is. What kind of "accuracy" will they want to enforce when it comes to reporting on the EU itself? This is unhinged. Do they already have laws like that for other media? If so, the excuse will be that they haven't been abused yet, or at least not abused very outrageously, or some such thing, but that's howling, gibbering bullshit of the first order: You don't want government to abuse excessive powers? Simple: Don't give them excessive powers. What they get, they'll abuse, sooner or later. It may take decades, but it will happen.

But then they throw in a laugh-line, just for fun:

...the rules for websites will be less strict than those currently applying to the BBC...

No comment.