About our queen

Today is Queen's Day in the Netherlands. It's not a celebration of being queer; it's a national holiday. Granted, those two need not be mutually exclusive, but in this case, they are unrelated.

On Queen's Day, we celebrate the birthday of our queen, Beatrix. Never mind that she was born on Januari 31. April 30 is (or rather, was) in fact the birthday of her now deceased mother, Juliana. Since it is decreed by law that it nearly always rains in the Netherlands, although slightly less so in April than in January, it was decided to hold on to April 30. Don't believe it when someone tells you that Beatrix made this decision to honour her mother.

Since I am a proponent of a Dutch republic, I don't really fancy writing a long analysis about Beatrix. Fortunately, Pieter has already done so in this excellent article, although I think he's too mild on her when it comes to her actions after Van Gogh's death (i.e. virtually non-existent, except for some orchestrated 'let's-cuddle-Moroccans-whilst-ignoring-the-parents-of-Van-Gogh' charade in a youth house in Amsterdam).

If you're not so much into the heavy stuff, you can read here how the Dutch tend to celebrate her majesty's birthday. (Scroll to item 26.)

19:29

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May the cutest mut win

Kitten War.

16:13

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So you want some voting advice on the European constitution

Good news! There's two websites that offer advice on how to vote, and chances are that at least one of them will tell you what you want to here.

On one of them, indirectly sponsored by the Dutch government, misleading statements manipulate visitors into an advice which is almost always positive towards the constitution. So if you are mindlessly pro-European, which you would have to be if you're willing to support this monstrosity of a constitution, go to Stemwijzer.nl and have your opinion reinforced.

If on the other hand, you are not in favour of the European Union, you can go to this site, which was built by the radical anti-globalist collective EuroDusnie. Here, misleading statements manipulate visitors into an advice which is almost always negative towards the constitution.

In my case, I actually got a 'vote no' advice on the pro-European website, and the other way around, which indicates how much of a smartass I am. It's a good thing at least my cat loves me.

Incidentally, EuroDusnie is also subsidized by the Dutch government, which goes to show the grants department has gone completely bonkers. These are the same guys that regularly threw cakes into the faces of dignitaries.

(Now I agree that some of those dignitaries actually looked a lot better after the procedure, but I don't think it's the business of the government to subsidize cosmetic improvements.)

15:00

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