September Madness

I found this mildly amusing. Not sure if credit should go to Seeking Alpha or Ockham Research.



Note they misspelled "Barclays."

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Snow On Mars

(from Flickr's Fooishbar. Deep fried Mars bars with powdered 'snow' sugar on top).

I repeat...how many damn times will they report that there is water on Mars?

(from geenstijl)



I mean, really.

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CONFIDENTIAL PROPOSAL

Dear Mr Solomon Okoro:

You have been recommended by an associate who assured me in confidence of your ability and reliability to proscecute a highly confidential financial transaction on behalf of my partners.

I am a high-ranking official in Treasury Department (DPOTT), Republic of America. We hold a sizeable sum in US Federal Bank awaiting remittance into a foreign bank of our choice.

However, by virtue of our position as civil servants, we cannot receive this money in our names.

I have been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues to look for an overseas partner to whose account we would transfer the sum of $700,000,000,000 (SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS).

We have agreed to share the money
-20 percent with the account holder (YOU)
-80 percent for us (THE OFFICIALS).


Please reply so that I can respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully

Rev,Mr. HENRY Paulson

1125 15. TH. Street, NW. Washington, DC


(the american roadside)

No, I didn't think of this first...
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Zoobreak!

(this photo is copyrighted by Bert Bohlmeijer and AT5. Guys: I think I know someone who'd like to buy it, if you get in touch quickly...)

From the AP:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Amsterdam police say 15 camels, two zebras and an undetermined number of llamas and potbellied swine briefly escaped from a traveling Dutch circus after a giraffe kicked a hole in their cage.

Police spokesman Arnout Aben says the animals wandered in a group through a nearby neighborhood for several hours after their 5:30 a.m. breakout.

The animals were back at the circus later Monday after being rounded up by police and circus workers with the assistance of dogs. Aben says neighbors fed some of the animals — which he said was a bad idea — but they were tame and nobody was hurt.

Says Aben: "You have to imagine somebody rubbing his eyes first thing in the morning and saying, 'Am I seeing things or is that 15 camels walking past?'"

Speaking of Swine, the big cull in the Hoge Veluwe is supposed to start tomorrow. I wonder if the Party for the Animals (political party) is going to go ballistic...

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The journalist's ode to a ship hijacked by Somali pirates

A journalist's ode to a freight ship hijacked by Somali pirates somewhere in the Gulf of Aden on a sunny Sunday in May:

The Lady Amiya Scan
is a ship in a jam
and could use some help on the double.

She's a freighter you know,
with an oil rig cargo,
in deep multicultural trouble.

Owned by the Dutch but chartered by Danes,
she was pinching the pennies but risking the flames,
crewed by four Russians and five Filipinos.

She set sail from Kenya last week,
her flag Panamanian (not Greek),
due in Romania today, mas o menos

But somewhere in the Gulf of Aden,
Somali pirates struck yet again,
outmanning her crew oh so greatly.

Said Cap. Pottengal Mukundan,
an (Indian) expert based in London,
"It's been happening quite often lately."

What do you think, do I make a chance at getting into Versal?

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Rocks' Rocks!

My son is shocked by this "punctuation."

(end of post)
Easter egg:
http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com
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Queens' Day 2008 Amsterdam / Guest Post / Bearing It All

Here is a series of late breaking photos from some friends of mine who witnessed an amusing incident near the Nieuwmarkt: a guy in a teddy bear outfit with an enormous foam-spraying penis got arrested by the cops.

WARNING: this is not exactly safe for work.
On the other hand, it took place about 100 yards from the Red Light District, so I don't think the locals would have been offended.













No more than two beers per person, no fake penises, what's next, no insulting the royal family?
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Wait...what? Amsterdam forgets its 200th anniversary

(davesag)

According to De Telegraaf (Dutch), The city of Amsterdam has forgotten its own 200th anniversary as the capital city of the Netherlands.

Fill in requisite "smoking too much weed" joke here.

Note that this is not the anniversary of the city's foundation or anything, just the day that Napoleon's second cousin (or whatever) declared it would be the national capital. Back on April 20, 1808.

Wait, you say, isn't The Hague the national capital (you know, parliament, prime minister, etc.)? Nope, it's the seat of government. Sheesh don't you know the difference?

(vpzone)


Well, never fear. They're still going to have a celebration, when they get this all sorted out at next week's city council meeting.

In 1908 they had a week-long party. Be afraid, be very afraid.

(darkpatator)
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Allochtonen enter Free at Zwarte Cross Metal/Motorcross Concert

How cool is this?

The organizers of the Zwarte Cross heavy metal and motocross festival have offered to allow any "allocthonen" enter free.

Definition of Allocthoon here.

This is, let it be understood, a festival that appeals predominantly to "white" Dutch, the primary consumers of metal music, motocross, and beer in this fair land.

I distinctly recall images of young Dutch men and women, uh, rolling around in the mud in liplocks at this festival last year.



The press release:

"Under the motto 'if only all of Holland was so hospitable', the Zwarte Cross festival is fighting the hardening .... of public debate around integration and minorities." This is "a funny, positive action to give some perspective against figures like Geert W(ilders) and Rita V(erdonk)."

The press release says all you have to do is show a foreign passport to get free entry. I guess that means I qualify as an American?

Telegraaf article.(Dutch)


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The Sad Tale of the extra lane of the A-1 Highway

Not to prejudice you at the start, but this is possibly the greatest tale of stupid bureaucracy I have ever heard.

The Netherlands A-1 highway _ the name says it all _ has suffered from massive traffic jams for years. So finally the government decided to build an extra lane.

People who lived nearby had sued to prevent it from being built _ and lost. However, once it was built, environmentalists sued to prevent it from being used _ and won.

Or so it seemed, after a Council of State (high court) ruling four years ago.

However, last week *somebody* from the court called the Transport Ministry to say: "I think there's been a little mistake."

It turns out the ruling had actually said that as long as people didn't drive faster than 80kph on the lane, it could be used.

But it was worded in such a confusing manner that everybody drew the opposite conclusion _ and the judges involved apparently never bothered to point out that the ruling had been misinterpreted.

Until, presumably, one of them found himself stuck on the A-1 and gazing longingly at that unused lane.

(dag).



I'm testing a new thing called "Twingly." Story about it here, toward the bottom.

Article in Dutch.

UPDATE: it works! that Dutch article linked back to this blog. I'll be curious whether I get any hits...
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"Don't Destroy Me Tree" Destroyed

It reminds me of the sad tale of the "Jerk-proof busstop" that was destroyed back in October.

A "Don't Destroy Me" tree planted by the children of a town called Moergestel less than a month ago has been destroyed. Burned down by vandals who struck in the night.

(Planting the tree March 5. Screen capture from BD television).

"We hope that those responsible are caught," Chairwoman Hennie van Schooten was quoted saying in the local newspaper Brabants Dagblad. "Let them pull weeds for a year long in Moergestel."

The tree was planted to call attention to increasing vandalism in Dutch society.

"It's a real shame that people have so little respect for our surroundings," said city councilman Joost Wagenmakers. "This is about more than a tree."


(NOT the actual burnt tree. Obviously. Photo: Marthathegoodone.)


I'm testing a new thing called "Twingly." Story about it here.

Article about the tree in Dutch
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Another side of wedding photos

(stacey kaine)

Just for the fun of it...

http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22267/37887



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36

my little sister is quite the humorist MORE

Dutch government spying on GPD press agency, GeenStijl had warned the agency

(photo:moriza)

The AP has a story about alleged spying by the Dutch government on a Dutch press agency, GPD. I for one am shocked by this (if true).

Minister Piet Hein Donner sent a letter to parliament confirming the essence of the accusation — that several employees in his ministry's communications department had been accessing the GPD network since mid-2006.

-AP


But I wanted to translate what I consider a classic letter that the Dutch language "GeenStijl" blog sent the GPD way back in 2003 _ for the pleasure of all non-Dutch out there.

This is just in fun, so GeenStijl and GPD, please don't sue me.

Without further ado, here it is:

PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT AND ANSWER DIRECTLY.

Dear GPD,

Hereby, a very important disclosure: Your website, and all connected systems, are as leaky as a basket. LEAKY as LEAKY can be, LEAKY!

We make www.geenstijl.nl, a weblog. In the whole history of our existence, we have never seen such a shameless excuse for a web site as yours.

Just with a little creative surfing, all your internal hard drives are vulnerable. I don't know where to begin, there are so many holes in your system.

God knows how a professional news organization like yours could have left all its systems open, probably for years! Not a single safety update has ever been installed, and there's no password to keep out someone who bears you ill will. We're not talking about cracks that could be exploited by advanced hackers, but ENORMOUS HOLES that any halfwit can find.

The chance is real that you've been tapped for years, and we can guess without too much difficulty that your email can be monitored as well. We didn't look at it, of course, but given the amount of holes, it's not hard to imagine it happening.

Even though it would be completely legal for us to post all the necessary links (to access your systems), we won't do that. Instead, we will warn you before we publish about this shameful situation. The damage for a news organization would be so great if we just publish the sentence "GPD is Leaky," given that many of our readers will become curious about it, that your business would be in danger. We'd like to avoid that, of course. So, with this note, we make the very emphatic request that you close the holes.

We wonder who your system managers are. It might be prudent to keep these people as far away from all computers as possible and immediately seek a professional security company. These so-called system managers form an acute danger for your organization.

REMEMBER: we're not even talking about hacking here, all anybody needs to do is enter some links in a browser. In order to "hack" there would have to be some security, and there isn't any.

Friendly greetings,

GeenStijl.

(March 11, 2003)



The original Dutch text, if anybody is interested, is here. MORE

>Red Herring

"The newspaper Algemeen Dagblad said Wednesday it has received anonymous threats
against several of its journalists, threatening to kill them if the paper
publishes its 26th annual herring stand review."

-Associated Press


So the first question about this story, is this threat for real, or could it possibly have been fabricated to sell papers.
Secondarily, I'm a little disappointed that this story doesn't prominently moot the theory that a disgruntled fish seller might have been behind the threat. Who else would have motive?

Nonetheless not a bad yarn, as my quality colleague M--- put it.
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Sometimes you just have to take a chance

I found this lady's story inspiring.

"Amsterdam District Court judges Wednesday rejected the claim of Helene de Gier, who said she was traumatized by not winning the country's National Postcode Lottery, which she didn't enter, while her neighbors did."

-Associated Press MORE