Giving Assad the finger

Color it purple as soon as possible, please.

'There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads.'
(Charles de Gaulle)

(Yeah, I know he was French, but nobody's perfect.)

22:38

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Welcome, Retecool visitors

No, I am not having any children. This Retecool item is only the result of me having to write an article about parenthood tests for a national newspaper, which resulted in some Googling.
Thankfully, no kids for me. I have a cat. That provides me with more than enough to look after. (He has since recovered. Quite well, I might add.)

17:47

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Syria starts feeling the heat

It is bound to attract some attention when Assad hands over 30 thugs from the ranks of Saddam Hussein to the newly elected democratic government of Iraq - thugs that, I might add, are every bit as Ba'athist (or: an Arab version of nationalistic socialism) as the government of Syria. And whereas it's not exactly noteworthy that Sharon threatens Syria, a Dutch news broadcast reported that even the Palestinians seem to be losing their patience with Assad. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a secondary source on this, and therefore it should be considered apocryphal for now.

23:13

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We won a Dutch Bloggie!

That would be a major (and the only) Dutch blog award. By 'we' I'm referring to the people behind Quotenet. That's Edwin, Godfried, Marza and yours truly. Read the full story here (in Dutch).

19:43

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Heart to heart with a Muslim

The good thing about living in the precinct of Amsterdam that has the most Muslims of all is that I often get the chance to actually talk to one, unlike most Dutch who seem to be content with regurgitating prefabricated leftist ('it's all a matter of perspective') or right-wing ('Islam is incompatible with democracy') views.
Yesterday I had an extensive conversation with a Muslim in the sauna at my local gym. Our little talk struck me all the more since our stories seemed so similar. I've been raised an orthodox Christian: purchasing anything on a Sunday was a sin, sex before marriage as well, and living your life by the rule of the Good Book might not save you from an eternal stay in pits full of brimstone. There was praedestination (thank Calvin) to make sure you were kept on your toes.
I broke with Christianity at the age of 19. It was a long and very painful process, which kept me awake many a night during the year that the exorcism of orthodoxy took. Unlike many former Christians I know, I feel no need to make fun of my former beliefs. I remember how it felt when I believed, and how much it comforted it me to have a personal connection with God (which my former brand of Protestantism calls 'bevindelijkheid'. I'm not sure if there's an English word for that).
At age 19, I decided I would still consider myself a spiritual person, but I couldn't uphold the orthodox doctrines of my branch of Christianity any longer. I left my church, and up until this day I stand by my decision.
When I got my first serious girlfriend, she moved in with me very soon. Needless to say we didn't just hold hands, and equally needless to say, this was much to the dismay of my father. He used to be an elder in my former church, and still is a devout member.
Image my surprise when I heard the Islamic guy in the sauna tell very much the same story. If I can believe him, at this very moment, the same conflict me and my family went through is currently an issue in a lot of Muslim families.
Although I know how painful the process of secularization can be, this has made me hopeful. Deo volente or insha'allah, a more moderate form of Islam will rise, and perhaps even a new branch of humanism, to help rid the earth of the scourge of fascist thugs who abuse religions for their own political goals.

10:33

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Friday is moron day

• First there's Vladimir Putin, the guy who's well on his way to change Russia back into the dictatorship it has been for most of its history. According to reader Gerald, Putin managed to state that the Netherlands is not a democracy, but a monarchy. Yeah, and my car doesn't run on gasoline, but on premium unleaded. Hello, Mr. Putin?! The Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy, in which the king or queen has a largely ceremonial role, and in which the prime minister is directly responsible for all actions of the members of the House of Orange. Anyway, I guess I should thank Mr. Putin for pointing out the virtues of democracy: at least we can vote our retard leaders out. (Update: read the transcript here.)
• Bert Koenders, a member of the Dutch Labour party PvdA and connaisseur of expensive restaurants. Today the Dutch government made the very wise decision of sending 165 Special Forces to aid the American and British troops in Afghanistan who are combatting terrorists there. Koenders, knowing full well he'll have to chat up Labour babes on Saturday night (admittedly, they tend to be pretty), put on his most impressive face and went on television stating that he wasn't too sure he wanted Dutch Special Forces to participate in 'kill and destroy missions'. Mr. Koenders, I'm sure the word 'kill' goes down well with your largely anti-militaristic electorate, but they are called search and destroy missions. The 'destroy' part usually takes care of the 'kill' part, and unlike the Dutch Labour party, the military tend to be efficient.

18:04

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Verdonk means business

Although I can't imagine why some of her admirers call her a 'babe' (take a look at this picture, she's the not so fragile woman in the middle), I can't say I mind our immigration secretary Rita Verdonk cleaning house in several Dutch mosques. Four Wahhabist imams are slated to have their residence permits withdrawn. One of them didn't live here anymore, but nevertheless: good riddance, and don't let the door hit you on your way out.

The fine gentlemen and -women of this law firm (previously known to have defended Pim Fortuyn killer Volkert van der Graaf, suspected Al Qaeda member Mullah Krekar and Kurdish PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan) will make an attempt to appeal at least two of Verdonk's decisions. I am all the happier for it. It's a good thing to live in a country where people who would gladly deny everyone rights to due process, nevertheless retain the right to a hearing with an impartial judge themselves. Or make that 'judges', as they will have the right to appeal their appeal as well, and after that to appeal the appeal to their appeal (yeah, I'm getting a headache too) in Strasbourg at the European Court of Human Rights.

Excessive rights of appeal? Not really. If democracy is to fight these bigots, this is the only way to do it, lest we become what we are combatting.

(BTW, this is the lawyer who will do the honours. Luckily he doesn't come across as slightly overbearing in the picture.)

10:52

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All hail the smoking doctor

Not only is Battlestar Galactica (BSG) the highest rated show ever since the inception of the SciFi Channel, and not only have their brass decided to give BSG a second season after only five eps of the first had been aired; now it turns out the second season will consist of an impressive twenty episodes. (That is impressive if you consider the first season only has thirteen eps, the final one consisting of loads of very frustrating cliffhangers.)

Slainte mhath, or: here's to a show that will make it acceptable, and perhaps even fashionable, again to say you like scifi.

For our Dutch readers: drop me a line if you know of any Dutch tv stations that have purchased the broadcasting rights (or are considering to do so).

22:39

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Norwegians research Van Gogh murder

Blogger TigerHawk reports on research by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. This defense institute tries to dispel the notion that Mohammed Bouyeri might have been a lone gunman. Not exactly the scoop of the century, but interesting nevertheless. Read the full thing here (no worries, it's in English).

(Thanks, Jen.)

19:35

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Opening moves in Syria

I'm probably not the only one who is trying to make sense of what seem to be the opening moves of a possible confrontation with Syria. As you all know, former prime minister Rafik Hariri was murdered on Monday. Subsequently, the USA have withdrawn their ambassador from Syria 'for consultation'. It seems that the time for silent diplomacy is now well and truly over.
Of course, the USA have a number of reasons to be displeased with Syria, as its Ba'ath party does not exactly have a healthy influence on the state of affairs in the Sunni Triangle in Iraq. But up until now, the USA never bothered to bring the conflict out in the open, which makes me wonder what changed.
As I see it, there are a number of possibilities:

a.) The USA is hoping to capitalize upon anti-Syrian anger currently rife amongst the Lebanese (and perhaps Syrian) opposition. The current momentum of anger, fueled by the moral support of the USA (and the French, see below), may very well provide the Lebanese opposition with enough of an incentive to rise up against the Syrians themselves.
b.) By withdrawing their ambassador, the USA are trying to scare the Syrians into cooperation. This would be corroborated by implicit French support of American policy. Yesterday, during the Hariri funeral, France once again reiterated its position that Syria should remove its troops from Lebanon. France previously supported a Security Council resolution demanding just that.
c.) It's not a bluff; the whole Hersh/New Yorker story about a possible attack on Iran as well as the unmanned drones story were all diversions. In reality, Syria is the next target. This would make strategic sense, as Syria is costing the USA, the Lebanese, the Israeli's and the Palestinians. I can't imagine any sort of peace between the latter two without Syria moving out of the way and stopping to fund the Lebanon-based Hezbollah. The downside is that American forces seem so overstretched I can't imagine them occupying a third country (besides Iraq and Afghanistan). (Of course, a pending Syrian invasion may be the precise reason the USA hasn't been willing to greatly increase its troop numbers in Iraq.). Nevertheless, I also find it hard to imagine the French going along with this.

There probably are other scenarios which I haven't thought of. Considering the current weirdness - Syria and Iran joining up 'against common threats'; a strange explosion in Iran - I'd like to hear them all. Also, does anyone know if there are any websites tracking American troop deployments?

8:45

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Eason Jordan and the partisan French response

I stumbled upon this posting on the Eason Jordan affair by a guy named Bertrand Pecquerie, who is the director of the World Editors Forum. Pecquerie tries to read proof for what seem to be his personal political views in the fact that Jordan resigned his post as chief news executive of CNN. Pecquerie needs five points to 'prove' that there's more to the Jordan resignation, and it's done in a way that I've noticed to be quite common here in Europe: by propagating the myth of the absent American left, pretending right wing ideas are the only thing you'll find in the USA.

Well, let's deconstruct Mr. Pecquerie's statements. (Press 'Lees verder'.)

More...

19:44

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I wonder what genius came up with this product name

This is how they sell cough drugs to the Dutch.

15:00

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Go see 'Team America'!

One of the upsides of being struck with fever is finally having the time to view some slightly less than legal DVD's containing films which haven't yet been released in Europe. (Am more than willing to pay - just not to wait four frigging months.)
Definitely the best thing about Team America are some of the songs. 'Freedom isn't free' is a country song which is ever so slightly over the top, and constantly made me reminisce of Darryl Worley. Can't say it's satire of Shostakovich quality, but it's more than adequate for movie music. And so is 'America Fuck Yeah!', which manages to take the piss at excess patriotism without becoming overtly cynical at the same time. (I liked the slavery line.)
Oh, and I never really liked Alec Baldwin, but any remaining positive feelings towards him have been completely dealt with after seeing this flick.

(The Team America March is going to be my ringtone for the next month or so. David Arnold meets Sousa. Just to piss off liberals.)

Click here for some (legal) samples.

15:22

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A healthy fat guy

The good news: I had a weight loss medical on Friday which showed (a) I have a very high oxygen uptake for a heavy guy such as myself (4215 ml / minute), (b) I have very low cholesterol (4,0 mmol) for a heavy guy such as myself, (c) I've got a very good recovery rate after intense exercise for a heavy guy such as myself.

The bad news I must have made myself vulnerable to some nasty piece of (m)RNA. I'm back at the almost same fever I had about a month ago: over 39 degrees Celsius (that's a 102 degrees Fahrenheit for you).

Updates might therefore not be forthcoming.

Off to bed now, after having downed two longdrink glasses of grog (brandy with lemon juice, grapefruit juice, tangerine juice and cane sugar). God bless America for selling stuff like Tylenol Flu (illegal in Europe because you can make drugs out of it. God knows there's no drugs here, no sir.)

22:20

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Not too bright

I have to review Bright, a new tech magazine which will be launched tonight. (One of the upsides of being a freelancer is that you can work from the comfort of your home, even when you're ill.) The publisher told me I could download a preview copy from his website. Well, I suppose in theory you can. Either there's several hundred journalists out there trying to get a copy as well, or Bright has a rather limited data pipe for a tech magazine. I made this screendump after Firefox had been trying to download the preview copy for 15 minutes.

10:39

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Hoarse, of course

Much to my own chagrin and to the joy of everyone else, vocalizing my thoughts requires considerable effort today.

9:57

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Learn Dutch!

If only to be able to listen to this brilliant piece of radio by former colleague Michiel V. (not a criminal, a DJ. Granted, the distinction is rather blurry).

And also because you'd be able to understand the part below:

Voor ons Wing Chun-clubje (da's knokken) zoeken we een trainingsruimte op de zaterdag, liefst net buiten de ring van Amsterdam. Daar kunnen we namelijk gratis parkeren. Onze eisen zijn laag. Een leegstaande garage is al heel mooi. Of een groot afdak ergens buiten. De compensatie die we er tegenover kunnen stellen is dienovereenkomstig bescheiden. Gratis zou mooi zijn.

We hebben nu een trainingsruimte maar die is enkel op de dinsdagavond beschikbaar. Graag zouden we een tweede trainingsmogelijkheid erbij willen hebben. Mail me als je wat weet.

22:35

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Growing old

I don't remember how afraid I used to be of big, older guys when I was just 3. I do know that the little boy who was making a tremendous noise in the staircase this afternoon looked absolutely petrified when I came out of my apartment to check where the racket was coming from.
When I saw the boy, and the look of terror in his eyes for having been caught, I couldn't help but smile, but this did nothing to alleviate his fears. On the contrary. When I thanked him for stopping banging his umbrella against the staircase, he turned around and started staring at the concrete.
There is nothing special about Dutch concrete. As we know since the murder of Theo van Gogh, it doesn’t even absorb blood very well.
I thought of buying the boy’s and my peace of mind by offering him a candy bar. Unfortunately, because of dietary concerns, I didn’t have those available and I seriously doubted whether he would settle for cat candy. Not to mention the kind of trouble this would have gotten me in with Ender. So I went back inside.
Maybe I’ll buy an umbrella tomorrow.

18:06

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