Another WordPress weblog by Enno ter Keurst
The MAC is switching to the Intel platform. In an article in the New York Times John Markoff makes a good analysis of what is really behind this move. It looks like IBM isn’t able to produce faster and less heat producing Power chips.
From now on, the MAC is just another Windows machine with a different look. I think within no time it will be able to run all the Windows applications.
With two clear “No’s” from the Netherlands and France and some unsure upcoming results in Denmark and other EU members, it seems as if war has broken out in Europe.
Recently the Netherlands went to Brussels with the message “we want to pay less”. Now the France and the UK are bickering about the EU budget as a whole. The UK is threatening to use its veto right if the discussing about the EU budget is limited to the £3bn annual rebate the UK receives. The UK only wants to discuss EU budgets and the £3bn annual rebate if the whole of the EU and its spending is discussed.
They have a point in this. Forty percent of the [EU] budget goes on CAP [the common agricultural policy’ – which has 5% of the population and less than 2% of the output of the EU.
The EU members apposing a possible change in this policy are the members receiving a lot of money from the EU, e.g. France.
The Italian minister of reforms, Roberto Calderole, wants to introduce a new national currency called the Lira. The currency should be linked to the dollar. Roberto is a member of a small fraction within Italy, Lega Nord.
Interesting point is that the European Committee has started a procedure against Italy because it has failed to keep its budgets deficiency below 3%.
Question: How would the EU Consititution have helped?
On Monday the American Supreme Court has declared the use of marijuana on doctors’ prescription illegal. With that decision the court rejected laws in Ten American States that allow the use of marijuana for medical reasons. Thousand American patients use the anaesthetizing means as a painkiller. Some time ago two serious ill women from California accused the then minister of Justice John Ashcroft, in an attempt to get permission of the judicial power to smoke, to grow and to buy marijuana. When they received the permission of a lower court of Law, the authorities went into appeal.
Six of the nine judges of the Supreme Court decided that opponents of the marijuana ban should address this issue at the Congress and not at court.
In 1996 Californians accepted a law that allowed men in the state to grow, to smoke and to buy marijuana if they were in the possession of a doctor’s explanation. According to the constitution, the American Congress may meddle with the economic activities of states, if these activities the cross state border. The American authorities based their case on this definition.
It is generally presumed that in the case of the two women, the marijuana was grown in California, was free of charge and was not exported to other states.
A handgun that Saddam Hussein was clutching when U.S. forces captured him in a hole in Iraq last December is now kept by President Bush at the White House, Time magazine reported on Sunday.
Military officials had the pistol mounted after it was seized from Saddam near his hometown of Tikrit last year, and soldiers involved in the capture gave it to Bush in a private meeting, Time said.
The magazine quoted a visitor who had been shown the gun, which is kept in a small study off the Oval Office where Bush displays memorabilia. It is the same room where former President Bill Clinton had some of his encounters with former intern Monica Lewinsky.
So France said ‘No’. 45% in favour and 55% against the new EU Constitution. Will this change anything for the result of the Dutch referendum?
The Dutch politicians in favour of the EU Constitution have changed their message during the weekend. Up to the weekend they emphasised that the EU Constitution would improve our position in the EU, give us more power of control, more jobs, a bigger fist against the US and Asia, more and better. Now they have changed their tone of voice and are telling us now that a ‘No’ from us would mean that we would be isolated in Europe. Together in the corner with France and the other European countries are going to decide what to do with us. Without us being able to do anything against it!
What a bullshit!
Today polls show hardly any movement in the Dutch opinion. About 3% of the people have switched sides.
So it’s probably going to be close, I guess 53% will say ‘No’ and 47% ‘Yes’.
Today the F1 race the Germany ended with a bang. In the last lap the front suspention of Kimi Raikkonen gave in after he flat spotted his right tyre some six laps before.
How disappointing it was for Kimi and his (my) team, this is how racing should be. In spite of the risk of crashing, McLaren and Kimi decided to go for the win. Way to go!!!
Tdavid wrote an excellent piece on the rant between Adam and Dave. The comments are exceptional.
Read them, I’m sure there is more to come.
Today the KNMI (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute) registered a
temperature of 30 degrees Celsius in the middle of the Netherlands. In the
south of the Netherlands the temperature even went up to 32 degrees. This
weekend the temperature will go down again to a normal 20 degrees.
Tonight the chairman the European committee was on TV (Mr. Barroso).
Guess what the message was: If you vote “No“, we will punish you! Look what happened to the others who tried it after the Nice treaty (Ireland and ..). We just went ahead and we changed nothing in the treaty, so just roll over and play dead.
Today (May 26 2005) Dave Winer posted a reply on the pileup between him and Adam Curry.
In January Adam went to Florida to meet up with his friends to talk about the future of podcasting. Among those friends was Dave Winer who had been talking with Adam for weeks about going into podcasting business. After those meeting Adam made a sightseeing podcast where he sounded really frustrated. Something had gone wrong and Dave’s podcast sheds a different light on the matter.
Jummy.
The remarks about the referendum are getting better and better these days.
Lately the politicians are getting more nervous about the possible outcome and are covering their ass by making remarks like: “There is no problem because 80% of the house of representatives wants the new European Constitution” and “You cannot blame the people because the question is to difficult for them”.
Furthermore, I’m really surprised that the politicians haven’t thought of a procedure in case somebody doesn’t agree with the proposed Constitution. We might be too stupid to understand the question but I think we are smart enough to understand that there might be a possibility that someone doesn’t agree with it.
This morning another crack showed up in the EU castle. The UK, the wealthiest country in the EU, with the best running economy, refuses to become a normal paying EU member. Since Thatcher the UK is paying less (they got a rebate because they didn’t use that much agricultural subsidies) than everybody else and they want to keep it this way. So now the new EU members are paying even more than the UK.
So how would the EU Constitution have changed this situation?