Out of the Simplicity of Abstraction come most unimportant dicta, here’s one I notice every time I read, well anything: fear is the most important motivator in any decision. It may well be the only motivator. The decision to sell stock. The decision to carry on the latest hype…

I’ve always said that the Dutch are the Americans of Europe: loud, shallow, arrogant and stupid. In a particularly stupid move, they’ve decided to open an electronic file on every child, starting at birth. I knew they were heavy on the bong, but what are they slipping now? E.g., check out this scary quote:
“Child protection [...]

Yukos Simplifies Corporate Structure:
Group Menatep, Yukos’ main shareholder, said it has hired former European Union internal markets commissioner Frits Bolkestein to join its international advisory board.

Als meerwaardezoeker, die we allemaal wel eens pretenderen te zijn–maar feitelijk is het uit pure wanhoop over de schrale kost die elders in prime-time wordt gedumpt, zijn we al wel eens aangewezen op Canvas. En omdat de driejarige tussen zeven en acht naar bed moet, wisselen we de routine van Jip & Janneke wat graag [...]

Black market organ trade is Baghdad’s new growth industry
Who didn’t see this one coming?

Georgieboy is to name Paul Wolfowitz to lead the World Bank. Obviously we are in a heap of trouble if he does replace Wolfensohn. -sohn may have been a fanatic neoliberal, -witz is a rabid idealist, and high-ranking among the Straussian cabal. He was an original member of Team B, who are in no [...]

Free trade working too well
It’s a race to see who can impose the restrictions first: China or the EU/USA. So if you are wondering why your clothes were cheaper for a couple of months before they became more expensive again, this is the answer: because countries are competing over trade barriers, not on products and [...]

Don’t Blame Wal-Mart
I do blame Wal-Mart, for being so low they need a periscope to see above the muck.

Poland: 25 years after Solidarity
Second, the spoils of war from the Polish government’s involvement in Iraq didn’t materialize. One of the expected benefits was the abolishment of entry visa requirements for Polish citizens traveling to the United States. The U.S. Congress decided to not lift these restrictions, fearing a large number of possible violators.

Onlangs besliste de Belgische regering om een extra taks te eisen voor firmawagens, op basis van de CO2 uitstoot. Dit lag zwaar op de maag van heel wat patrons.
Niet langer! Het Europees Hof van Justitie heeft beslist dat werkgevers voor de voordelen van alle aard (waaronder firmawagens vallen) voortaan niet langer BTW moeten betalen op [...]

False Pride of the “super outlaw state”
America is a country built on genocide, slavery, exploitation and war. In America’s short and bloody history there have been millions murdered by extremist politicians and profiteers, usually in the name of freedom and democracy.

Slum Politics
De Soto, a free marketeer, wants to release the “dead capital” that squatters’ property and entrepreneurship represents by immediately granting legal title deeds. Then the credit cards and consumerism will come. Marcuse, looking from the left, surprisingly seems to have rather less hope for squatters. As a result of their selfish pursuit of their [...]

Why Generation X couldn’t get serious
Perhaps this is what really stood out in Generation X, their refusal to delude themselves — at least for a while. The important thing to notice is that although the Gen X outlook has been rejected, it’s very questionable which of its beliefs have actually been reasonably rejected, and whether [...]

Rafik al-Hariri and the Syria Blame Game
Meanwhile, the political results of al-Hariri’s assassination are going exactly in the direction desired by the Likudite-Strausscons. “The two most immediate dimensions are internal Lebanese politics and the Syrian-Lebanese relationship,” reports the Lebanon Daily Star. “The third dimension is the relationship between Syria and external powers ” the U.S. [...]

Bouw kantoren op Kievitplein in A’pen gaat door
Alcatel are a bunch of capitalist assholes. They pressured the city to approve their project by threatening to pull away all jobs from Antwerp. Four years ago, I was working for these bastards. I think I even have stock (although I can think of a place where they [...]

Vatican offers exorcism lessons

Microsoft bent my Danish prime minister:
Bill Gates told the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen that 800 jobs would go if the country opposed the European Union’s proposed directive on software patents.

Some school in Dover Pennsylvania has been in the news recently, because, next to the theory of evolution, they will start teaching a theory called ‘Intelligent Design’. This particular theory claims that, since the universe is so complex, it had to be created by an ‘unspecified’ guiding force. Adherents of this theory proclaim it is [...]

Not new, but interesting nonetheless: U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their [...]

Henry Kissinger described the Bush doctrine as “revolutionary,” pointing out that it undermines the 17th century Westphalian system of international order and of course the UN Charter and international law. He approved of the doctrine, but with reservations about style and tactics and with a crucial qualification: it cannot be “a universal principle available to [...]