March 18, 2008

The dollar drops and droops

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:24 pm
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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar’s value is dropping so fast against the euro that small currency outlets in Amsterdam are turning away tourists seeking to sell their dollars for local money while on vacation in the Netherlands.

“Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here,” said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. “It’s hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office.”

That’s because the smaller currency exchanges — despite buy/sell spreads that make it easier for them to make money by exchanging small amounts of currency — don’t want to be caught holding dollars that could be worth less by the time they can sell them.

The dollar hovered near record lows on Monday, with one euro worth around $1.58 versus $1.47 a month ago.

(Link: reuters.com)

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March 13, 2008

Segway use on roads being debating today

Filed under: Automobiles,General by Orangemaster @ 9:34 am
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“All the other countries around us are using Segways, why can we?” Because we aren’t forerunners when it comes to innovation, we’re the ‘wait and see’ type. And all the other countries around can buy Segways, but not necessarily use them at will. Germany, Spain, Belgium, Austria and the UK sell Segways, but this doesn’t mean they are legal there or even will be.

However, if – and that’s a big if – you can believe what Wikipedia says about bans in other countries, the Netherlands is far from being alone. Australia, Sweden, Canada, and many US states have problems and proper arguments against using Segways.

Today the Dutch government will be debating trying to impose a licence for Segways like on other motorised vehicles, a process that could take another 1.5 years and possibly see Segways legally on the road/bike paths by 2010. As for ‘countries around us’, Denmark has classified the Segway as a moped and Germany is still conducting local pilot projects, but has not made it legal yet.

However, Segway Nederland says this is all a huge delaying tactic (no kidding), which is not only hurting their business and frustrating users, but defeats the purpose of ‘going green’, a major plus point of the Segway. And what’s really annoying to Dutch Segway fans apparently is that EU rules just say let local government regulate it, we’re OK with that.

We’ll have to wait and see as well then.

(Link: emerce.nl)

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March 10, 2008

Director fakes rampant racism, gets sacked

Filed under: General,Religion by Branko Collin @ 2:20 pm

Last week, a director working on a fake TV news item about racism in the Netherlands got caught with his pants down because a competing station happened to have a crew nearby filming the whole thing. The director had set out to film a piece exposing rampant bigotry by showing that people in Amsterdam will not stop and help a woman in need if dressed in a niqab.

In order to measure this bigotry, the crew’s reporter would drop a bag of oranges and see who would help her pick them up. After a while she would change to a niqab, a garb worn by some Muslim women that covers everything except the eyes, and repeat the exercise.

And it seemed the crew got exactly the sort of result they expected. When dressed as a Westerner, people would help the reporter pick up her oranges. But the moment she switched to the niqab, help was no longer forthcoming. The cold eye of the camera registered a forlorn woman, crouching in the middle of the street amidst her belongings, while passers-by took a wide berth around her.

Except that it was all staged. Local TV station AT5 was there, and filmed the whole thing. People who wanted to help the woman in the niqab were shouted at by the director who told them to move on. Even then that did not stop some of them to actually help. After 101 had streamed its program, AT5 contacted them for commentary. Originally, the youth channel denied that anything shady had been going on. They thought the attention was exaggerated, and that people only started to help when they saw the AT5 camera crew. But the station must have smelled a rat, because it later examined raw footage, after which it came out with a full retraction. Apparently, people had been trying to help the niqab-clad woman the whole time. “We ended our collaboration with this director,” the press release concludes.

Even in the 101.tv segment there are hints that not everything is as it seems. The host says that she herself has family members who wear a burqa except of course that she is not wearing a burqa but a niqab.

Via Wij blijven hier (Dutch). Source images: AT5 and 101.

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March 2, 2008

Buy a bankrupt theme park’s attractions online

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:11 pm

Photo by Tuppus, some rights reserved.

Fairy tale theme park Land van Ooit (Land of Someday) has gone bankrupt, and its attractions will be sold during an online auction on Monday. Located in Noord-Brabant near Drunen, Land van Ooit pretended to be a country where visiting children were considered to be knights and knightesses. The park originally employed a lot of actors to make the theme come alive, but in later days when visitor numbers dwindled it resorted to fast rides to attract customers.

Online auction house Troostwijk will start receiving bids on Monday. The auction closes March 10. Troostwijk fear that a lot of people will use the viewing days (March 8 and 9) for a day out to a theme park. “Children will only be allowed in under supervision, and the rides may not be used,” according to Troostwijk’s Karel van Schoonevelt in DagjeWeg (Dutch). “There is a lot of interest in this auction,” he added. “It rarely happens that a theme park goes bankrupt.” The company will also charge an entrance fee of 2.50 euro.

Among the artefacts being auctioned are giants, giant furniture, dolls, the electronics to make it all come alive, lots of actual furniture, and so on.

Auction 1: Playground and catering equipment
Auction 2: Costumes and clothing accessories
Auction 3: Amusement park various

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February 28, 2008

Hiding child pornogaphy instead of stopping it

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am
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According to Dutch columnist and publicist Karin Spaink, the KLPD (National Police Services Agency) have a list of Dutch child pornography sites in their possession and are not really doing anything to shut these sites down. Instead, they point to Dutch ISPs saying that they should filter these sites. That still doesn’t sound like shutting the sites down.

Although the list was secret, Spaink managed to find out that four Dutch websites were on the list, with hosters in Utrecht and Haarlem. After looking at the sites, the KLPD agreed that at least two of the sites clearly hosted child pornography, while the other two are still being investigated. According to spokesman Ed Kraszewski of the KLPD, their list only had foreign sites – before Spaink got a hold of their list.

Here is a list, readily available online, taken from the Finnish police. You just need to scan to see all those Dutch sites.

England, the US and the Netherlands. What was the argument for filtering these sites again? “The sites can’t be shut down by the police because they are often in countries with no legislation for this kind of thing.” (Taken from Webwereld, 23 maart 2007). Since when is Haarlem and Utrecht somewhere in Russia or Eastern Europe?

Just filtering sites is not enough. And UPC, the only Dutch ISP that actually bothers to filter child pornography sites, has a filter that doesn’t work, if we can believe the many comments left by UPC clients on Spaink’s blog who found out first hand what kiddie porno really looks like.

(Link Karin Spaink’s blog)

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February 26, 2008

Murder on the border

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 8:30 am

Photo copyright 2001, Jérôme. Distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

Imagine two detectives working on a murder case, each having to solve the same crime independently, with each only having access to half the clues: it sounds like a great recipe for a mystery novel. Unfortunately, the murder in the Noord-Brabant town of Baarle-Nassau last week was anything but fictional. Early last week a 26-year-old Belarusian woman was found dead in a former bank building straddling the border. Police detectives from the two countries each had to look for clues in their own half; they feared that if they literally overstepped their boundaries, any case they might have against a suspect could later be thrown out on a technicality.

Nevertheless, the Dutch Departement of Justice said last Friday that the cooperation with its Southern neighbours had been excellent, forgetting for a moment that the Belgians had let the main suspect escape, the victim’s 26-year-old husband. The Dutch DoJ then issued an international arrest warrant against the Dutch man who is still on the run with the couple’s four-year-old daughter. The case is now fully in Dutch hands because the body was found in the Dutch half of the building, and the main suspect is Dutch.

Although there are many more buildings in the world built across borders, the Baarle-Nassau case is special because half of the town, called Baarle-Hertog, is a Belgian enclave within the Netherlands. Wikipedia says that the municipality of Baarle consist of 22 Belgian exclaves in the Netherlands, and 5 Dutch ones in Belgium.

Via BN/De Stem (Dutch) and Brabants Dagblad (Dutch).

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February 25, 2008

Smoking pot using a balloon, the latest trend

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:56 am
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After 1 July 2008 smoking will be a thing of the past in Dutch cafes and restaurants. This also means that smoking anything in coffeeshops will also be banned. We already reported about one coffeeshop who jumped the gun and banned smoking as of 1 January 2008.

Local Amsterdam television station AT5 has already claimed that the new hype to circumvent the ban is smoking using a condom-shaped balloon. Pot is evaporated and placed in a balloon that really does look like a condom once fully blown. Using the ‘smoking condom’, one can take a toke without anyone being bothered by it. None of the reports say anything about exhaling the smoke though… we’ll keep you informed.

(Link: blikopnieuws.nl)

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February 23, 2008

Rotterdam ethnic radio makes a comeback

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:05 pm
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Ethnic minorities living in Rotterdam will soon be able to tune back in to their favourite local radio shows if the five local ethnic minorities radio stations get it right this time. After having been pulled off the air due to a lack of funds, the stations will be receiving additional grants from the SLOR (Stichting Lokale Omroep Rotterdam), coordinator of the local stations in Rotterdam.

The SLOR is prepared to give a one-off grant to the five local radio stations, which went off the air from cable last summer due to financial difficulties. The grant comes from leftovers of an amount that was reserved for beginner TV programme producers. Nos Raïs (Antillian), Atlantico (Cape Verdean) and Arabica FM (Moroccan) can now pay off their debts. Voz de Cabo Verde (Cape Verdean) and Ebony (Surinamese) will still need to find extra cash.

Why bother when there is enough Dutch radio to go around? According to Brahim Bourzik of Rotterdamse Allochtone Media (Rotterdam Ethnic Minority Media), communication in their own language is important, especially since the city of Rotterdam estimates that 60,000 Rotterdam residents cannot be reached by traditional media. Bourzik estimates that together Rotterdam’s ethnic minority stations reach some 20,000 to 30,000 people a day.

(Link: wereldjournalisten.nl)

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February 15, 2008

24 sour grapes – biaised news from behind the dykes

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am
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For those of you out there looking for news to complain about or who are appalled at media bias, this one’s for you.

The badnewsfromthenetherlands blog is the initiative of a strategic consultant from Israel Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld to show that negative media coverage really can harm a country’s image. He is currently working on a book about the Netherlands as part of his research on anti-semitism and anti-Israelism, and, during his research, he was struck by the negative portrayal of Israel by the media.

The blog gets its daily “bad news” updates from Dutch newspapers like NRC Handelsblad, Trouw and De Volkskrant. Gerstenfeld only chooses the articles about negative situations in the Netherlands. They might look like normal news to Dutch citizens, but for someone who doesn’t know anything about the country, it certainly doesn’t give the most positive view of the Netherlands!

Note the author’s misplaced enthusiasm, like they found mould in their fridge and finally know what that funny smell was. It sounds like an interesting experiment, and there is a whole series of these blogs covering the media in countries from around the world.

(Link: radionetherlands.nl)

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February 14, 2008

Statistics Netherlands uses Google maps for local numbers

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 9:00 am

Statistics Netherlands (CBS, Centraal Bureau voor Statistiek), the government agency for statistical research, has launched a website called CBS in uw buurt (CBS in your neighbourhood) that is exactly that: it shows detailed statistical information about your neighbourhood. The data are shown superimposed over a Google map, and the site lets you compare the data of your neighbourhood with that of others. The types of statistical data available are pretty limited: things like income, housing, and demographics.

Webwereld reports (Dutch) that housing site Funda has been providing a similar service for a while now, but doesn’t operate at the neighbourhood level.

Via Dagelinks (Dutch).

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