The Verdonk shirt is finally here

Kay and I had a lot of trouble finding a good printer who could deliver on demand within Europe, but we found one.

Order the Verdonk shirt here.

Let us know what you think about the Spreadshirt service. We might make more shirts with them, so your input is valuable.

All proceeds of this shirt will go to charity.

16:04

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No man is a hero to his subeditor

But Bert van Rijswijk, a subeditor at news weekly Elsevier, was a hero to me. Sort of. When I first came to Elsevier as an intern back in 1997, a cocky kid feeling rather out of his depth being in a building with some of the best journalists in the country, he put me at ease.

Bert was a wonderful human being.

So of course God, in his infinite wisdom, decided to bring the guy home. Nice work, God. Couldn't you at least have comforted him a bit before taking him in?

10:45

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For (absent) friends

Yesterday night, we had a little party in Tig Barra, an Irish pub in Amsterdam, to celebrate the fact that Leiden University no longer has to deal with a bothersome student. To all of you who were there, and to all who wanted to be there but couldn't make it: thanks for a wonderful evening.

Now, back to my Lemsip.

21:06

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Gotta love Google Earth

15:11

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Dutch SpecOps in the field

A snippet from a documentary about Dutch commandos in Afghanistan, teaching the Taleban the finer points of clog-dancing. The full documentary can be found online as well.

13:34

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Survey: US immigration officers are a bunch of pr*cks

I've said it before and I'll happily repeat it: I love (going to) the United States, but I dread the employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as they manage to make a German shepherd on acid look quite friendly by comparison. In short, even though I did apply for a Green Card, I would rather eat three bowls of Special K soaked in gasoline than encounter one of those rather frustrated sons of a gun that pass for government employees on American airports.

Fortunately, I am not the only one who thinks this way. In fact, visitors to the US now dread the DHS more than terrorists. Money quote:

US immigration and customs officials are viewed as "arrogant, rude and unpredictable" by foreign business travellers in a survey by the Discover America Partnership, a group of US business leaders concerned about the impact on the economy.

(...)

"We deliberately sampled an elite group of business travellers who are more likely to feel positive towards the US than most people in their own countries," said Geoff Freeman, the director of Discover America Partnership. "All they are asking is to be treated with respect, professionalism and courtesy: they are not asking for America to reduce its security measures."

Respect, professionalism and courtesy are three words I have never, ever associated with US immigration officials. How can a country which harbors such a friendly people hire such rude a**hats to extend the first welcome?

Update 21 November, 2006, 19.47: Rogier wasn't too happy about the INS either, when he decided to become a citizen.

22:17

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Mission failed

All of a sudden the emergency session of Parliament about the alleged "torture" of Iraqi detainees by Dutch soldiers has been postponed until after the elections. According to MP Timmermans of the PvdA social democrats, he doesn't want people to think the PvdA is milking this issue for electoral reasons.

Right.

Now, exactly why would people think that? And furthermore, what harm would there be in that if the PvdA could simply show there's a very good reason they are doing exactly that, namely because they can show that Dutch soldiers have engaged in torture?

9:20

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Dutch torture, with or without quotation marks

Yes, I know we're the nation that invented waterboarding, a gruesome method of coercion in which the victim gets the sensation of drowning.

But if Dutch soldiers have indeed done what left-wing newspaper De Volkskrant has literally called torture of Iraqi insurgents, then I wonder what else happened, except (a) turning on the radio, (b) putting ski goggles on them, (c) spraying them with water. Question: wouldn't keeping water away from them in that climate constitute torture? Or does throwing some water all of a sudden rate on the same scale as waterboarding?

I am not trying to be a right-wing stoneblind Fox News hack here. I distrust the government as much as anyone - it is exactly why I tend to vote towards the right of the spectrum.

I'll admit it is downright dodgy that secdef Henk 'The Tank' Kamp all of a sudden has announced a full investigation into what happened back in 2003 and which was supposedly adequately dealt with by the Dutch military police at the time. I agree with Pieter that keeping quiet about it was a huge mistake. Perhaps the free-market VVD party would do well not to let Mr. Kamp return after the elections.

But it is important to separate the issue of political incompetence from the matter of torture. After all, if torture has been willingly and knowingly committed by Dutch soldiers, Mr. Kamp has committed nothing less than criminal negligence by not acting sooner, as the current uproar makes Dutch soldiers serving in Uruzgan prime targets for the Taleban. Furthermore, these soldiers, and possibly some brass and perhaps even the secdef himself, would then be war criminals and should be treated as such.

But first, we need proof.

Mr. Kamp's investigation may be explained in one out of two possible ways: (1) he's stalling, as something really happened, and there's an election on Thursday, (2) he's not stalling, but wants to look thorough as well as diffuse the uproar from the Dutch left, as there's an election on Thursday.

Until I get enough information to be able to determine whether this was (a) a deliberate matter of torture driven by the need of military intelligence organization MIVD for information, or (b) a matter of prisoner mistreatment that the secdef was stupid enough not to inform Parliament about, please forgive me I am withholding judgment on a story which was broken by de Volkskrant, a newspaper with a history of 'October surprises'.

After all, there's an election on Thursday.

Oh, and dear Labour voting countrymen? There's plenty of scandalous behavior left the Dutch government will readily admit to. Such as a proposed ban on burqas. Which will never fly, but I am surprised there isn't more upheaval about a freedom-infringing law proposal. Next stop: prohibiting army boots since they tend to be worn by skinheads? I'm sure that will discourage them from being racists. In fact, if only Hitler had had a dress code, the Second World War might never even have happened!

(In case anyone is interested: I'm voting for this guy anyway - hey, what can I say, he's my neighbor, and he likes '24' as well... Just watch the vid on his site - I think the nukes are a bit much though.)

14:18

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Party time

On Friday, November 24th, I'll host a little graduation party in an Irish pub in Amsterdam.

I've already sent out quite a few invitations, but if you haven't received one yet and feel I must have forgotten you (or a spam filter interceded unwarrantedly) please drop me a line. The address is somewhere else on this page.

Beer, wine and minerals will be free from 1800-2300 or at whatever time my funds run dry.

Those of you who don't live in the Netherlands: email me anyway, as all invites until now have been directed at Dutch nationals.

22:43

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Gifts for twits

Yay! Mensa, an organization for people who think they are seriously afflicted because they're smarter than 98 percent of the general population, have published their holiday gift guide.

I doubt there's anything in it their most sexy member would appreciate, though.

(Yes, I am an apostate.)

11:25

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