het actuele weer

Reageren op ikjes. Hier kunt u reageren op het ‘ikje’ dat vandaag is gepubliceerd op de Achterpagina van het NRC Handelsblad. Op de NRC-site kan niet meer worden gereageerd op het stukje dat door de lezers zelf wordt ingezonden.
Het alternatief op drasties. Is uw ikje niet geplaatst door het NRC dan kunt u het publiceren op drasties in de categorie Trots Op Ikje. Opsturen via ‘contact us’

Een bizar ongeval vond plaats in Istanbul (Turkije) waar een vrachtwagen op een voetgangersbrug botst. Hier de korte youtube versie.

Zie hier de persoonlijke observaties van de Amerikaanse expat Isabella over supermarkten in Nederland. Ze vergelijkt ze met winkels in de Verenigde Staten. Ik licht al vast een tipje van de sluier op… daar zijn ze groter.
In het commentaar vertelt Isabella dat ze sinds ze dit stuk heeft gepost er achter is gekomen dat er ook hypermarkten zijn in Nederland. Best groot dus ook.
Ik mag haar stuk hier op drasties posten, dus dat doen we. Het kost wat maar dan heb je ook wat.
Wel brood meenemen voor onderweg, want het is een hele ruk.
Isabella, A Touch of Dutch: “I will never forget when my mother-in-law first stepped into an American supermarket with me. She was dazzled by the thunder sound effect used to caution customers that the mist was coming on. As she walked by the endives [Dutch: andijvie] and kale [Dutch: boerenkool], she turned to me and said happily, “If I lived here, I could still make stamppot andijvie and stamppot boerenkool!”"

The American supermarket and the Dutch supermarket

These are my comparisons between the American supermarket and the Dutch supermarket. You can click on all images in this blog entry to view them larger in a new window.
First of all, this what I’m sharing about the supermarkets is all strictly my opinion based upon countless observations and experience while living here in the Netherlands, comparing to my own experiences while growing up in America. Secondly, I don’t mind at all the smaller choices in the Netherlands at the supermarket. As long as they have in stock the milk, bread, eggs, butter and whatever else on my list, I’m happy.
read on>> (more…)

Press TV - A Nazi death camp survivor slams Israel over its occupation of Palestine, drawing an analogy between the Israeli army’s indignations and the conduct of Nazi forces during World War II.
“The Israelis tried to dehumanize the Palestinians, just like the Nazis tried to dehumanize me,” said Dr Hajo Meyer, 86, who survived 10 months in Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp in Poland. The comments by Meyer have provoked a fresh outcry of “anti-Semitism” by hardline Jewish lobby groups. However, Meyer, the Dutch-based author of three books on Judaism, the Holocaust and Zionism, dismissed “anti-Semite” labels hurled against him.
“Formerly an anti-Semite was somebody who hated Jews because they were Jews and had a Jewish soul. But nowadays an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews,” he stated. A spokesman for the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, of which Meyer is a member of, backed the remarks.

Een Indonesiër haalt Fox News. Waarom?
Wel, Heru Nugroho zit op één lijn met de rightwingers. Ook hij moet niets hebben van president Barack Obama hebben. Daarom wil Nugroho dat het standbeeld van ‘Kleine Barry’ uit Menteng Park in Jakarta wordt verwijderd. ‘Kleine Barry’ is Barack Obama die als kind even in Jakarta heeft gewoond. En zelfs de uitleg van de Indonesiër is Fox News op het lijf geschreven.
“Obama heeft alleen gegeten en gescheten in Menteng.”
De facebook pagina waar de oproep staat, krijgt veel steun van Indonesiërs en aanhangers van de FoxNews-cult.

Yesterday there was a brief segment on Special Report with Baier about a Facebook page set up to call for the removal of a statue in Indonesia honoring President Obama. Barack spent several of his childhood years there. Obama’s mother was an anthropologist who spent much of her adult life in Indonesia:

Barack Obama has yet to make a significant contribution to the Indonesian nation. We could say Obama only ate and s— (expletive) in Menteng. He spent his subsequent days living as an American.

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Turunkan patung Barack Obama di Taman Menteng is on facebook.
Category: Common Interest - Beliefs & Causes
Description: Republik Indonesia adalah negara berdaulat, negara yang memiliki jati diri sebagai bangsa yang merdeka

Take Down the Barack Obama Statue in Taman Menteng Park is on facebook
Category: Common Interest - Politics
Description: Take Down the Barack Obama Statue in Taman Menteng Park

little barry

Jakarta Governor Fauzi lets court decide if little Obama stays
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta - Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo has said the administration would remove the Barrack Obama statue from Menteng Park, Central Jakarta, if ordered to do so by a court ruling. His statement came in response to a recent class action on the establishment of the statue, filed by a group of citizens to Central Jakarta District Court. read on>> (more…)

Op de, door de Amerikaanse president geautoriseerde, hitlijst van terroristen staan ook Amerikaanse burgers, blijkt uit dit verhaal van Glenn Greenwald. Voor de Nederlandse regering misschien toch een idee om eens uit te zoeken of er ook Nederlanders opstaan.
We roepen even professor Tariq Ramadan, voorheen werkzaam voor de Eramus Universiteit in Rotterdam, in herinnering die door de Amerikaanse autoriteiten werd beschuldigd van het helpen van terroristen. Daarom mocht hij onder de Bush-regering de VS niet in. Nu is dat door Hillary Clinton teruggedraaid. Het geeft aan hoe weinig accuraat de beschuldigingen van terrorisme door de CIA soms zijn. Vandaar dat - het is maar een suggestie van JdeW - het nuttig kan zijn om, alvorens mensen te doden, een proces te houden om uit te vinden of mensen werkelijk schuldig zijn.

Presidential assassinations of U.S. citizens

The Washington Post’s Dana Priest today reports that “U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people.” That’s no surprise, of course, as Yemen is now another predominantly Muslim country (along with Somalia and Pakistan) in which our military is secretly involved to some unknown degree in combat operations without any declaration of war, without any public debate, and arguably (though not clearly) without any Congressional authorization. The exact role played by the U.S. in the late-December missile attacks in Yemen, which killed numerous civilians, is still unknown.
But buried in Priest’s article is her revelation that American citizens are now being placed on a secret “hit list” of people whom the President has personally authorized to be killed:
read on>> (more…)

Waar komt het geld voor de Republikeinse Partij vandaan? Het wisselt een beetje afhankelijk van hervormingsvoorstellen van de Democraten. Nu de hervorming van de gezondheidsstelsel wat op de lange baan lijkt geschoven, is het vooral de hervorming van de banksector die een geldstroom oplevert naar de partij die de belangen van de industrie en de industriëlen behartigt.

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) will give the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union response tonight. For his speech, McDonnell has prepared an elaborate rally in the Virginia House of Delegates, a website, a live webcast of the event, a live twitter feed, and other social media tools. The online platform to broadcast the speech was launched this morning at “soturesponse.com.”
The website, as well as the rally, is funded by McDonnell’s political action committee, Opportunity Virginia PAC. According disclosures provided by the Virginia Public Access Project, the vast majority of the money for the PAC has been provided by the financial industry.
When McDonnell opposes Obama’s proposed efforts break up big banks, regulate the financial sector, and impose a financial responsibility fee to financial institutions which helped cause the current recession, it should be noted that the very industry McDonnell is fighting to defend underwrote the platform on which he is speaking, both virtually and in Richmond.

het actuele weer

Reageren op ikjes. Hier kunt u reageren op het ‘ikje’ dat vandaag is gepubliceerd op de Achterpagina van het NRC Handelsblad. Op de NRC-site kan niet meer worden gereageerd op het stukje dat door de lezers zelf wordt ingezonden.
Het alternatief op drasties. Is uw ikje niet geplaatst door het NRC dan kunt u het publiceren op drasties in de categorie Trots Op Ikje. Opsturen via ‘contact us’

Omdat ik onverwacht moest overwerken, kon ik een belangrijke wedstrijd van mijn favoriete voetbalteam niet zien. Dus had ik mijn moeder gevraagd de voetbalwedstrijd op te nemen. Dat bleek nog niet zo eenvoudig, want ik moest per telefoon haar stap voor stap uitleggen wat te doen. Toen ik thuis kwam, vroeg ik of het gelukt was.
“Ik denk het wel” zei ze, “ze…”
Voordat ze verder kon gaan, viel ik haar in de rede.
“Ik wil de score niet weten, mam.”
“Oh dat komt dan goed uit”, reageerde mijn moeder, ”want er is niet gescoord.”

Han Vredeker

COC Nieuws, [not Church of Christ], 29-12-2009 - De politie in Malawi heeft twee mannen gearresteerd op beschuldiging van ‘openbare onzedelijkheid’. De mannen hielden een chinkhoswe, een traditionele trouwceremonie. Tiwonge Chimbalanga en Steven Monjeza waren het eerste homopaar dat op deze traditionele manier kenbaar maakte met elkaar te willen trouwen in dit conservatieve zuidelijke Afrikaanse land.

malawi newspaper - the nation

Malawi gay movement gets 15, 000 euros from unknown Dutch source

Nyasa Times, Malawi - The underground Malawi Gay Movement (MGM) will receive 15 000 Euros from their Netherlands counterparts (name withheld) to help in establishing the movement in the country.
According to MGM official, who declined to be named fearing the government wrath, some of the money will go towards bringing all the gays and lesbians together and build a powerful force.
“We want to have a powerful movement which will enable us to get settled in the country. We want to be recognised just as any other social groups. Currently it is threatening in the country to come out and say you are gay just like what happens to Malawian friends.
“We are also going to use the same money to help this couple in legal fees. They are our friends and groundbreakers, they have done us proud and we cannot leave them,” said the source. read on>> (more…)

saab

Exotic Dutch supercar manufacturer Spyker Cars has come to a last minute binding agreement with General Motors, saving Saab Automobile and securing its future as an independent company.
Spyker will pay GM US$74 million in cash and exchange US$326 million in preferred stock to acquire the Swedish brand, with Saab to exit its orderly wind-down process before the transaction is closed in February.
Spyker CEO, Victor R. Muller, said his company was looking forward to being part of the next chapter in Saab illustrious history. read on>> (more…)

Er is een land dat meer uitgeeft aan het leger dan alle andere landen in de wereld bij elkaar. Een angstig keizerrijk in permanente staat van oorlog. Glenn Greenwald besteedt aandacht aan de verbluffende cijfers over het Amerikaanse leger en hoe de VS zijn belastingcenten besteedt. In deze cijfers zit overigens niet de militaire hulp aan landen als Israel en Egypte. Gisteren maakte Obama bekend dat Amerika zal gaan bezuinigen. Op alle fronten, behalve op het militaire.
Toch is er ook goed nieuws. Onder president Obama gaat de Amerikaanse defensie fundamenteel anders worden. Eerder liet minister van defensie Robert Gates weten dat nog slechts aan drie soorten oorlog geld zal worden besteed. Die oorlogen zijn: conventionele (50 pct), alle typen oorlogen (40 pct) en abnormale oorlogen (10 pct).
Andere oorlogen hoeven zich niet te melden.

The sanctity of military spending

Administration officials announced last night that the President, in tomorrow’s State of the Union address, will propose a multi-year freeze on certain domestic discretionary spending programs. This is an “initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit,” officials told The New York Times.
But the freeze is more notable for what it excludes than what it includes. For now, it does not include the largest domestic spending programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And all “security-related programs” are also exempted from the freeze, which means it does not apply to military spending, the intelligence budget, the Surveillance State, or foreign military aid. read on>> (more…)

The ongoing U.S. militarization of its foreign affairs has spiked precipitously in recent years, with increasingly expensive commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. These commitments grew from many specific political factors, including the ideological predilections of the current regime, the growing need for material access to the oil-rich regions of the Middle East, and a long-term bipartisan emphasis on hegemony as a basis for national security. The domestic economic basis for these commitments, however, is consistently overlooked. Indeed, America’s hegemonic policy is in many ways most accurately understood as the inevitable result of its decades-long policy of military Keynesianism.
During the Depression that preceded World War II, the English economist John Maynard Keynes, a liberal capitalist, proposed a form of governance that would mitigate the boom-and-bust cycles inherent in capitalist economies. To prevent the economy from contracting, a development typically accompanied by social unrest, Keynes thought the government should take on debt in order to put people back to work. Some of these deficit-financed government jobs might be socially useful, but Keynes was not averse to creating make-work tasks if necessary. During periods of prosperity, the government would cut spending and rebuild the treasury. Such countercyclical planning was called “pump-priming.” read whole story here>>

het actuele weer

Reageren op ikjes. Hier kunt u reageren op het ‘ikje’ dat vandaag is gepubliceerd op de Achterpagina van het NRC Handelsblad. Op de NRC-site kan niet meer worden gereageerd op het stukje dat door de lezers zelf wordt ingezonden.
Het alternatief op drasties. Is uw ikje niet geplaatst door het NRC dan kunt u het publiceren op drasties in de categorie Trots Op Ikje. Opsturen via ‘contact us’.

hfc haarlem failliet

After a long-running soap opera played out over many months, the KNVB (Dutch Football Association) has been forced to take the step of removing Haarlem from the Eerste divisie. The club had been playing under the cloud of serious financial troubles of late and will most likely be declared bankrupt later this week after curator Rocco Mulder filed for banktrupcy on Monday.

New York Times - Banks have gotten so big that they can unleash havoc and bill us for the pleasure. Big Oil is so big that Royal Dutch Shell is the world’s 25th-biggest economy, bigger than Norway. Four -fifths of the chips in the world’s PCs come from Intel. In the United States, AT&T and Verizon account for over half of all cellular phone customers. Big companies are likely to become even bigger. Between 2003 and 2007, the number of big mergers reported to American antitrust regulators doubled to 2,201. Though merger activity fell during the financial crisis, it is expected to rebound sharply. There is already another behemoth lumbering toward consumers: Big Food.
The latest news is Kraft’s planned purchase of Britain’s Cadbury to create a mac-and-cheese-to-candy-bar megalith with combined worldwide sales of nearly $55 billion. It comes on the heels of Heineken’s purchase of the beer operations of Mexico’s Femsa to create a $25 billion megabrewer. read whole story here

integration

Ali Hassan al-Majid, the cousin of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, has been executed in Iraq for crimes against humanity, a government spokesman said.
Al-Majid, nicknamed “Chemical Ali”, received his fourth death sentence last week, for ordering the gassing of Kurds in the Iraqi village of Halabja.
“The condemned Ali Hassan al-Majid has been executed by hanging until death today,” spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Monday. In March 1988, Iraqi jets swooped over the village of Halabja and sprayed it with a deadly mix of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX. read on>> (more…)