Come on, David, you can do better

David Rietveld, the one sane liberal blogger in the whole of the Netherlands (so of course his Green Party won't let him run for Parliament), attacks the conservative VVD party on his blog.

Nice try, but he's not nearly as nasty as he could have been. Take for example this American article about Noam Chomsky's investment policies. Now that's burning someone down to the ground. Come on, David, go west. Surely Dutch political polemics can be equally vicious as their American counterparts?

22:15

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Bluff your way into De Tocqueville

This book review is essential reading for those of you with a grasp of Dutch.

12:16

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Thank you

For your continued support of this blog. Google saw fit to bestow a PageRank upgrade to me (from 5 to 6). This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't continued to visit and link to this blog.

Thank you, once more.

11:14

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Sorry, Elsevier, but they do work

In an article about the illegal sale of Tamiflu weekly Elsevier makes a huge mistake:

'These drugs (Tamiflu and Relenza, ZE) offer no protection against the H5N1 variant of the bird flu virus.'

Yes, they do. The 'N' in H5N1 is short for neuraminedase. Tamiflu as well as Relenza (I've stocked up on both) are neuraminedase inhibitors. That's not news: we knew that at least four years ago. Both offer some measure of protection against H5N1, although there have been cases where Tamiflu has ceased to be effective. Which, incidentally, is why I got a prescription for Relenza as well as I've got no faith in the Dutch government whatsoever to deal with a crisis, should H5N1 mutate into an airborn virus.

I assume the author of the article - none is mentioned - is confusing Tamiflu with a flu shot. The flu vaccine doesn't offer any protection against H5N1, because it wasn't included in this year's cocktail. Still, it's a good idea to get a flu shot annually (I got mine yesterday), even if you're young, because my university says so ;-)

10:30

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