Cowardice in Amsterdam

What do you do if someone desecrates the Theo van Gogh memorial? Well, you restore it with a slogan you hope will no longer incur the wrath of vandalizers.

I'm not sure "what Theo would have wanted", but I'm pretty certain this isn't it.

22:06

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Anonymous sources and journalism

I wrote an extensive article about this subject for Netkwesties, which you can read here (in Dutch).

21:27

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Found it!

Galactica's episode The Hand of God had a seemingly Gaelic victory song which I absolutely loved. Well, I found it. Turns out it's in Hindi, and not Gaelic, but nevertheless, here's your new ringtone. (Actually, I just remembered something from the grand total of two Gaelic lessons I've had in my life: there is indeed a connection between Gaelic and Hindi. Did some Googling, and voilà. The lyrics of the song I linked above can be found here, by the way.)

21:07

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Thanks, Tim

EU Rota was kind enough to nominate the 'Nuclear Winter' story by 'Lucasdelinkselul' ('Luketheleftwingdick') about the EU constitution to British blogger Tim Worstall. The latter chose to include it in his weekly Britblog Roundup #14, even though I'm as Dutch as stamppot. Which provides all the more reason for a thank you.

20:57

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Do you like the Autobahn?

Enjoy it while it lasts. The EU's energy commissioner has suggested a 100 km/h speed limit for all of Europe. And here I thought Europe wanted to prevent another war with Germany.

14:33

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"Dutch PBS censors 'no' proponents"

According to Jan Marijnissen, leader of the (Maoist) Socialist Party (SP), a debate today in Buitenhof, the leading political tv show on Dutch PBS, was cancelled to promote the European constitution:

'Buitenhof has cancelled a debate in which I was to participate. They'd rather talk to Fisher, the German secretary of Foreign Affairs. You guessed it: a staunch proponent of the European constitution. (...) Next week, Buitenhof will have the prime minister as its guest.'

Gee, I wonder how he will feel about the constitution!

12:59

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Crash course in voting 'no' on the constitution

In three hyperlinks.
• The reasons of The Economist
• The reasons of Elsevier (whose editor Arendo Joustra, by the way, is a staunch pro-European)
• The reasons of this blog.

I'm not against the EU. Not even against a constitution. But I won't support this monstrosity. There's no going back if we adopt this constitution, ever. But the Dutch government can negotiate a better deal, as Denmark has in the past, if we force them to by voting 'no' in ten nights.

9:58

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I love continuity

Just returned from my high school reunion. The hot blonde girl from my year was still a hot blonde girl (though she really shouldn't be wearing glasses), the guy who used to make all the dry remarks still made them, and the dirty history teacher still spent too much time laying his hands on women less than half his age.

So if nothing ever changes, why have reunions to see whether it has?

(Correct, or sensible, answers will be rewarded with a magical spell to ward off history teachers and/or attract hot blonde girls. Offer void where prohibited.)

3:28

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