Last night the pre-final of the Song Contest was held in Finland. Of all the countries who had a change to go to the final only the Eastern European ones went through.
Back luck Edsilia.
The Dutch in Uruzgan
Great serie on Dutch TV about our people in Uruzgan [link to website]. I should have watched it more. Gives a another view on the matter.
The Queens birthday, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Eindhoven, 30 april
Where have all the Bees gone?
It is some thing I noticed recently. There are hardly any bees? Summer has not yet begone but the report in the New York Time is alarming. [link]
Take a look in your neighborhood a count the number of bees you see.
Going once, going twice, given away!
[link]
So the deal between ABN AMRO and Barclay has finalized. €67 billion looks like a lot of money, and it is of course. But the price that is being paid for this ‘merger’ is way to high.
This is not a merger but a sell out. If you look at what ABN AMRO is getting out of this deal, that is nothing. The brand ABN AMRO will probably exists for a couple of years but the remainder of the company will be stripped. The new CEO is from Barclay but the headquarter will move to Amsterdam. That is most likely a move for one or two years because everybody knows that London is the financial place to be.
23.000 people are losing their job just to satisfy the short term needs of some ‘investors’. An economist in the Netherlands wrote; ‘hedge funds should be banned because their business has nothing do with running companies in a social and economical responsible manor’.
I agree.
Picture of a sick person
No comment.
Bidding war over ABN AMRO
[link]
Another company being ruined by pure and simple greed. The link with Barclays is something what I can understand because the markets the two operate in are different and complementary.
The link with the three other firms does not make any sense other that they can do it and it means one more competitor less, but they are not out of the hot water because ABN AMRO devided into three is not that significant.
New and improved
The government does not know what to do anymore
Apeldoorn Amersfoort is thinking of taxing anybody who wants to enter their citycenter. I think they have lost it. Do they really think their problems are as big as that of London (congestion tax).
Technorati tags: congestion tax, road pricing
Summer is comming!
PvdA in hot water
The PvdA is in hot waters after the elections and after their decition to take part in the new Government with the CDA and CU. Part of the problem is the SP and the other part are the overrated expectation of the party members and the public.
The public (the voters) expect instant change and expect that any ellection promise will be filled in. The PvdA is part of a coalition and that means that vou always get what you want. The SP is doing well in this situation, they walked out of the negotiation to take part in the government, they can bash the PvdA about the promises they make during the elections and get away with their support of Geert Wilders around the double nationality issue.
The PvdA party members want Bos to either to drop his function of partyleader or get out of the government. I think he should stay where he is and get to work. The party members should focus on how to win back the voters and shut up.
I drumped Norton
Afer the last update of Norton Internet Security software I couldn’t send and receiveany email anymore. That was not the first time this happened.
After some hours of trying to get to work I decided to dump to product and move to McAfee. Happely I had just 28 days left on my Norton 2006 before it expired.