Eindhoven, 20:00 hours
Racist or ….
Kuifje: Racist or Cartoon
Wilders: Racist or Idiot
McLaren bashing in Hungary
Strange things are going on in Formula 1.
First there is the spy case between McLaren en Ferrari and now there is the situation during the qualification in Hungary.
The outcome of the first case was as expected. There is no direct proof that McLaren is using Ferrari technology.
The second case is even more ridicules. The team is screwing up their qualifying by keeping Alonso in the pits so long that Hamilton couldn’t make his last run anymore. Result: The stewards penalize McLaren, they can run in this GP but cannot gain any World Championship points and Alonso is put back five places on the grid.
I get the feeling that somebody thought ‘let’s give them a heavy penalty, McLaren will object, the penalty will be reduced but at least we got the for the spy case with Ferrari’.
House Black Bird
Europe: New Treaty
From the website Open Europe:
“The analysis finds that only 10 out of 250 proposals in the new treaty are different from the proposals in the original EU Constitution. In other words, 96% of the text is the same as the rejected Constitution.” [link]
From the Former President of Germany Roman Herzog about the European Union and the constitution:
“People have an ever increasing feeling that something is going wrong; that an
untransparent, complex, mammoth institution has evolved: divorced from practical
problems and national traditions; grabbing ever greater competences and areas of
power; that the democratic control mechanisms are failing – in brief, that it cannot go
on like this.” (Die Welt, March 2007)
The Romans are coming
Growing pain for the SP
From an article in the NRC newspaper, section Hollands Dagboek.
Elma Verhey describes what happened in her week and writes that at the last day of the week she is finally called by one of the top-brass of the SP (probably somebody in the house of commons). They have a conversation and I thought one line was very striking.
“How can you live with the party culture (within the SP). By keeping your head down at the right moment and gamble at the brittle health of Jan Marijnissen“.
Growing pain for the SP
It seams that the political party SP is having problems keeping all members together. A recent conflict about the election of a member to the ‘eerste kamer’ (house of lords) has escalated into the suspension of the editor of the party newspaper. The editor had written a critical piece about the election procedures in the SP. Party officials did not like the piece and asked her to retread it. Main argument was that the article was to one-sided.
For Dutch readers, the article can be found here [link].
Global warming debate on Dutch TV
After the worldwide Al Gore/Music show and the movie “The unconvenient truth” the Dutch TV program Reporter is showing a program of the opposition (the Great Global Warming Swindle), the one who is doubting whether mankind is (fully) responsible for the global warming effect. The program will be followed by a discussion.
On Dutch radio some journalist reacted to this saying; “This is a bad idea, it will only confuse the public and we know that the story of the other party is wrong, …”.
I think that last reaction is a very narrow minded. I would like to hear Al Gore’s story and the story of the opposition. Yes, I think we are responsible for most of the global warming but I am also sure that there are some other factors having a bad effect and I would like to know what experts think of that. The last thing what journalist should be doing is deciding for us what is the truth. That will only lead to people thinking this is just another hype.
One day later. I saw the program and I followed the discussion. What did I think of it, am I confused now as the journalist feared or am I in the Al Gore camp now or in the other camp?
Well, I think it was a good program and they should have shown this. The discussion was a bit pressed on time but they had the right guests and they asked a lot of good questions.
No, I am not confused quite the opposite it is a lot clearer.
Yes, we need to do something about our energy consumption, waste production, greenhouse gas production, more sustainable way of living, etc. And yes both sides have twisted the truth in and used scientific research order to get their message across.
No, science does not have the conclusive evidence. There are a lot of things which are contradicting and there are a lot of questions about the models being used.
Summer job
iPhone
One week after the introduction of the iPhone the excitement has lowered to a more normal level. Prices on Ebay have dropped as most people now understand that the iPhone is a nice gadget but it is not worth paying twice the market price.
What can be said about the iPhone.
It does most of the things it was promised to do. Most of the people who bought it like it, some of them don’t and have even returned it. But the conclusion is, it still is a GSM phone which has a nice User Interface. Dave Winer [link] wrote on his blog ‘iPhone is a Tablet PC’, which it is. Engadget [link] already reported of somebody who wrote some routines on a Smartphone which gave it exact the same look and feel and User Interface.
So what will happen.
The iPhone will reach the market share it was aiming for. Other manfacturers will copy the user interface and produce simmular devices for half the price and more importantly more open and custumizable.
Connexxion sold
Recently the Dutch public transport firm Connexxion was sold to the French company Transdev. Connexxion was sold because it was owned by the Dutch government and we want competition on the transport market. So, now it is sold to a French company which is owned by the French state.
Who thought of that???