October 9, 2018

Sending Dutch troops to Norway without winter clothes

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:16 pm

It’s actually front page news that the Dutch military does not have to buy their own artic winter clothes for military exercises in Norway this month. A few days ago, the news was that the Dutch Ministry of Defense did not order winter clothes on time for them, with no explanation as to why they messed up, which probably means someone plain forgot or worse.

The military were asked to buy their own special winter clothes to the tune of 1000 euro per person, which was fronted by Defense. Defense claims it had to ‘possibly’ break its own rules on calls for tender to get the winter clothes on time to the more than 1000 military off to Norway later this month to carry out exercises. However, due to the time crunch, some military already bought their own gear.

What the hell was Defense thinking? Or were they thinking at all? Even Dutch Parliament was “very critical” of the idea of sending military who were given 1,000 euro to buy their own winter clothing. It may be 14 degrees in Oslo today, which is in the South of Norway, but it will be close to -20 soon enough in the North, and forgetting to equip your military is unsafe, dangerous and embarrassingly stupid.

The Dutch military have also had complaints about the quality of combat uniforms and even female military personnel have been forced to travel during work hours just to buy military approved bras.

(Link: nu.nl)

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January 13, 2015

Royal military police have sex in Golden Carriage

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:19 am

golden-carriage-zoetnet

Riding in the Golden Carriage took on a whole new meaning this week as the media reports that young Royal Military Police (Marechaussee) regularly use it as a location to engage in intercourse. The Golden Carriage is to be used by the Dutch royal family once a year to bring the monarch from a palace to a ceremonial hall in order to deliver a throne speech.

The source of the story is the mother of one of the military police who claims photos and videos have been made as proof. The military police’s lawyer says the youth have extremely static and boring work, and so they get extremely bored. He’s not surprised that they act lewdly, as their moral consciousness is not fully developed.

In July 2014 some members of the military police were fired for stealing from a sweets vending machine. Older members of the corps have demonstrated bad behaviour as well when the man who stole a piece of royal carriage admitted to it 50 years later.

(Link: nieuws.nl, Photo by Zoetnet, some rights reserved)

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February 24, 2012

Defense’s meetings online with unchanged password

Filed under: Online by Orangemaster @ 9:15 pm
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The internal video system of the Dutch defense department was and may even still be online for everyone to see with the factory setting password of the system. Exposed by a security expert, various parts of the department work with a Cisco teleconferencing system that uses Internet and nobody bothered changing the factory password. Names, IP addresses and fun stuff were all online as well.

The Ministry of Defense’s counterargument is that the video system is separate from their network, as it was bought by employees without IT knowing about it and that it was not used very often. Interestingly, log files retrieved by the security expert show that the system was used several times a day.

I bet you the IT people are not happy. And if that’s not sloppy all around, I don’t know what is.

(Link: webwereld.nl, photo: cyberbunker)

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December 9, 2010

Life lessons from Elvis at military personnel conference

Filed under: Film,Music,Religion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:52 am

In mid January next year, a chaplan and a priest, both Elvis fans, will be holding a unique two-day conference in Huis ter Heide near Utrecht just for military personnel called ‘I Did It My Way,’ featuring life lessons from the King himself. Lessons will be learned from songs such as “Suspicious Minds”, “Where could I go but to the Lord” and “How Great Thou Art”. Using film and documentaries featuring Elvis, parallels will be drawn with daily life. Oh, and “participation is open to non-fans as well”. Just mentioning that gives me the creeps.

I knew Elvis was a religion for many people after a friend of mine went down to Graceland and saw people crying over Elvis’ grave as if he had been Jesus Christ. We know that there are people obssessed with Elvis, but this is just weird.

(Link: elvismatters, Photo: drbristol.wordpress.com)

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June 3, 2009

Australian troops in Afghanistan complain about Dutch food

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:19 am
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The Australian military fighting in the Afghan province of Uruzgan alongside the Dutch are complaining about the Dutch food they are being served. While Dutch sources say the Australians have called the Dutch food ‘tasteless’, English sources explain that Australians do not fancy European food in general and are used to fresher ingredients. The English source says the Dutch food is ‘generally nutritious’ and ‘has the right amount of calories’, but New Zealand sources say the lack of BBQs and typical Australian food is an issue. Australian sources say the Aussies are ‘fussy’ and ‘there was nothing wrong with the Dutch food, which had sustained Czech, Singaporean, Slovak and Dutch troops without complaint.’

So the Dutch sound offended and the Australians come off as whiners. But this bit in the Australian source trying to make their own troops sound bad is quite revealing: “Fresh yoghurt, cereals, cheese, fruit, and pickled herring is likely to be replaced by more fried eggs, bacon, sausages and “barbeques”, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said.”

So if that last bit is actually true, the healthy ‘Dutch’ food is being replaced by totally unhealthy, greasy pub food. Dutch food is by no means Europe’s favourite, but if the Aussie troops want junk food – because that’s what that is – don’t say ‘typical Australian food’. Last time I checked, fried eggs, bacon and sausages was typical food in the US, Canada, England, Ireland and surely a few more Commonwealth countries.

Any Australians in the room?

(Link: rtl.nl, alertnet.org, tvnz.co.nz, theaustralian)

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August 25, 2008

Warm welcome for Olympic athletes in 1928 stadium

Filed under: Shows,Sports by Branko Collin @ 7:00 pm

The Olympic athletes arrived home today, and they were given a warm welcome at the 1928 Olympic stadium in Amsterdam. I live right around the corner, and decided to take my crummy old digital camera there. As luck would have it, the organizers had decided that the athletes would enter through the front gate, where there is ample opportunity for non-accredited press (i.e. l’il ole me) to climb onto flowerbeds and the pedestals of pompous statues.

Below you see Anky van Grunsven (gold, dressage) being interviewed by famous sports presenter Tom Egberts. It was very hard to get a photo of her not grinning like a maniac, but here she had to be serious for a moment. She was one of the first there, and being a gold medal winner had to wait until the end to enter the stadium, and she was all smiles all the time.

More below the fold…

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