Christians believe that God created the world in six days. Zoroastrians* believe it took Him 3,000 years.
*: Zoroastrians are the followers of the first revealed religion of mankind taught by a great thinker (Manthran) known to Greeks as Zoroaster and to the Persians as Zarathushtra. His teachings span back to the early dawn of civilization some 3500-3700 years ago. His was an enlightenment of a life of Good Conscience (Daena Vanghui) that in time was encoded into a Divine doctrine.
If you tried Christianity, took a stab at Judeaism, dabbled with Islam? why don't you give the Z-religion a go? Their God is called Ahura Mazda. Cool stuff.
Zarathushtra was the bomb far back in the days, and quite a leftwinger too. In essence the basic ethical tenets of Zarathushtra were/are:
# To think Good, (Humata)
# To speak Good (Hukhta)
# To act Good (Huvreshta)
Easier to remember than the 10 Commandments.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Monday, March 14, 2005
California behind bars.
California's jails house a total of 163,000 prisoners, which is more than France, Germany and the Netherlands combined. More than 30,000 are serving life.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Big Man in Dallas.
In Belgium, there is a lot of buzz surrounding DJ Mbenga , the first 'Belgian' player to play in the NBA. He's not a factor yet with his team, the Dallas Mavericks, but give him some time.
My personal favorite 7-footer is the superstar of the Mavs, German Dirk Nowitzki. Read the entertaining linked article about him.
www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/mavericks/2005-03-10-nowitzki-unstoppable_x.htm
This is my favourite excerpt : 'On Being ambidextrous: "I can knock down six of 10 16-footers left-handed, but I don't have the confidence yet to shoot those in a game."
Creepy stuff. 16-foot is only one step inside the European three-point arc.
My personal favorite 7-footer is the superstar of the Mavs, German Dirk Nowitzki. Read the entertaining linked article about him.
www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/mavericks/2005-03-10-nowitzki-unstoppable_x.htm
This is my favourite excerpt : 'On Being ambidextrous: "I can knock down six of 10 16-footers left-handed, but I don't have the confidence yet to shoot those in a game."
Creepy stuff. 16-foot is only one step inside the European three-point arc.
Picanol: the dirty numbers.
Remember Patrick Coene, the ex-CEO of Picanol NV, who was paid roughly €25mln in three years on the job, which is about a quarter of Picanol's listed stock value?
Well, PriceWaterhouseCoopers finished their audit of the company and it seems that old Coene just took his cue from the owners of Picanol, the family Steverlynck, which he already knew from his college days at the Vlerick School.
Here is what De Tijd, the Belgian business newspaper reported on the audit which ran from 2001 to mid-2004 (11/03).
Annual wages (all gross amounts)
Patrick Steverlynck:620.000€
Michel Steverlynck: 322.000€
Yves Steverlynck: 174.000€
On top of this fixed payment they receive 3099€ per meeting of the Board of Directors plus a bonus dependent on Picanol's results.
Now comes the really disgusting part, the personal expenses of the family paid for by
Picanol: a whopping total of 1,227 million € (yes that's 1.2bln€) including 220.000€ for hunting trips (that's a lot of duckshooting!). Patrick also receives €300.000 per year for the 'accueil' of customers in his mansion. (Note: he pays Picanol a ridiculously low rent of €327 per month for the stately mansion)
€150.000/year for the house of the elderly Emmanuel Steverlynck (who lives in another house in Switzerland by the way).
Last week the new CEO Van Nevel announced that workers would receive a one time gross amount of €250 + two extra holidays to compensate for all the hassle surrounding the company and the PwC audit. Wow, thanks very much. That didn't make me puke yet, but the reaction of the labour unions at Picanol caused me to regurgitate my lunch stante pede.
The spokesmen of the so-called socialist ABVV and the christiandemocratic ACV both hoped that the newsstories surrounding the Steverlyncks would not cause their departure because they are necessary for keeping jobs. Unbelievable!!!!!
Who will foot the bill for this fraud? (which in all likelihood will not be punished as harshly as the social fraud hated so badly by Rik Daems )
1. the employees (who are worried about their job and who haven't seen any decent pay hikes in ages).
2. the shareholders (although I only feel sympathy for the smalltime investor)
3. last but not least the taxpaying citizens.(Picanol can deduct the €1.2bln from their profits and they don't have to pay VAT (=BTW) on those amounts).
Ofcourse the mainstream media wants you to believe that Picanol is an anomaly (just like Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat etc). All the other family-owned companies are squeeky clean!!
Well, PriceWaterhouseCoopers finished their audit of the company and it seems that old Coene just took his cue from the owners of Picanol, the family Steverlynck, which he already knew from his college days at the Vlerick School.
Here is what De Tijd, the Belgian business newspaper reported on the audit which ran from 2001 to mid-2004 (11/03).
Annual wages (all gross amounts)
Patrick Steverlynck:620.000€
Michel Steverlynck: 322.000€
Yves Steverlynck: 174.000€
On top of this fixed payment they receive 3099€ per meeting of the Board of Directors plus a bonus dependent on Picanol's results.
Now comes the really disgusting part, the personal expenses of the family paid for by
Picanol: a whopping total of 1,227 million € (yes that's 1.2bln€) including 220.000€ for hunting trips (that's a lot of duckshooting!). Patrick also receives €300.000 per year for the 'accueil' of customers in his mansion. (Note: he pays Picanol a ridiculously low rent of €327 per month for the stately mansion)
€150.000/year for the house of the elderly Emmanuel Steverlynck (who lives in another house in Switzerland by the way).
Last week the new CEO Van Nevel announced that workers would receive a one time gross amount of €250 + two extra holidays to compensate for all the hassle surrounding the company and the PwC audit. Wow, thanks very much. That didn't make me puke yet, but the reaction of the labour unions at Picanol caused me to regurgitate my lunch stante pede.
The spokesmen of the so-called socialist ABVV and the christiandemocratic ACV both hoped that the newsstories surrounding the Steverlyncks would not cause their departure because they are necessary for keeping jobs. Unbelievable!!!!!
Who will foot the bill for this fraud? (which in all likelihood will not be punished as harshly as the social fraud hated so badly by Rik Daems )
1. the employees (who are worried about their job and who haven't seen any decent pay hikes in ages).
2. the shareholders (although I only feel sympathy for the smalltime investor)
3. last but not least the taxpaying citizens.(Picanol can deduct the €1.2bln from their profits and they don't have to pay VAT (=BTW) on those amounts).
Ofcourse the mainstream media wants you to believe that Picanol is an anomaly (just like Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat etc). All the other family-owned companies are squeeky clean!!
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
White House cries Wolf
At our workplace we can read the Financial Times. Some of the stuff in there is quite funny, like this excerpt from today's issue.
"The news that Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary and neo-conservative hawk, is a leading contender to head the World Bank has sent a frisson of fear down the spines of development experts across the globe.
So great is the predicted backlash that one might almost suspect he is only there to secure Europe's acquiescence to a rival candidate.
It also points to a worrying trend. Wolfowitz would not be the first Pentagon alumnus to go from bombing bridges to building them. In 1968 Robert McNamara, Lyndon B. Johnson's defence secretary, went straight from spearheading the Vietnam conflict to a lengthy stint as bank president.
And Wolfowitz's regime change policy could work wonders: instead of vainly trying to alter the approach of corrupt rulers, why not simply topple them?
There is the thorny issue of whether the World Bank's charter precludes such direct political action as, say, invasion. No doubt Alberto Gonzales, the US attorney-general, will find a way round it: perhaps by dubbing the interventions "coercive aid projects" rather than combat operations.
"The news that Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary and neo-conservative hawk, is a leading contender to head the World Bank has sent a frisson of fear down the spines of development experts across the globe.
So great is the predicted backlash that one might almost suspect he is only there to secure Europe's acquiescence to a rival candidate.
It also points to a worrying trend. Wolfowitz would not be the first Pentagon alumnus to go from bombing bridges to building them. In 1968 Robert McNamara, Lyndon B. Johnson's defence secretary, went straight from spearheading the Vietnam conflict to a lengthy stint as bank president.
And Wolfowitz's regime change policy could work wonders: instead of vainly trying to alter the approach of corrupt rulers, why not simply topple them?
There is the thorny issue of whether the World Bank's charter precludes such direct political action as, say, invasion. No doubt Alberto Gonzales, the US attorney-general, will find a way round it: perhaps by dubbing the interventions "coercive aid projects" rather than combat operations.
Posting comments.
As of now ANYONE can post comments on my blog. You don't have to register anymore. That's especially for you, Steven R. and Peter M.!!!
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
The Human Polar Bear
I take the train to work every weekday and there is one guy I see on the platform who is freaking me out big time.
He's the first human being I know who wears exactly the same clothes in the summer as he does in the winter. For several days now it's been freezing: at 7.00am this morning I reckon that the 'feel' temperature must have been something like -10°C (officially it was -4°C today but this doesn't factor in the chilly wind). Everybody is wearing a heavy coat or anorak, mittens and hats and still shivering like hell, but the guy - I call him the Polar Bear - is wearing a shirt with the top unbuttoned and a flimsy blazer and that's it! What really scares me is that he never flinches even when a gust of Arctic wind rips across the train platform in Deinze.
P.S.: He drives a huge Mercedes to the train station (which also seems kind of strange)so he can't be too poor to buy winterclothes. I hope I can gather the courage to talk to him one of these days and ask him what his secret is.
He's the first human being I know who wears exactly the same clothes in the summer as he does in the winter. For several days now it's been freezing: at 7.00am this morning I reckon that the 'feel' temperature must have been something like -10°C (officially it was -4°C today but this doesn't factor in the chilly wind). Everybody is wearing a heavy coat or anorak, mittens and hats and still shivering like hell, but the guy - I call him the Polar Bear - is wearing a shirt with the top unbuttoned and a flimsy blazer and that's it! What really scares me is that he never flinches even when a gust of Arctic wind rips across the train platform in Deinze.
P.S.: He drives a huge Mercedes to the train station (which also seems kind of strange)so he can't be too poor to buy winterclothes. I hope I can gather the courage to talk to him one of these days and ask him what his secret is.
Labour's share of the cake is getting smaller.
Corporations in the U.S. and elsewhere have rarely had it this good.
In 2004, after-tax corporate profits in the U.S rose to 14% as a proportion of GDP, the highest for 75 years and in Europe and Japan, corporate profits are the highest in 25 years. That's why you see so many big corporations paying out huge dividends to their shareholders and even buying in their own shares on the stock market. Big banks with pockets full of money like HSBC and Citigroup are looking to use their cash reserves to buy up competitors, probably sparking another wave of 'wealth-creating' mergers (numerous studies have shown that over 70% of big mergers turn out to be economically unprofitable)
What's the problem, you say, this must be good for the economy as a whole, since the employees surely also benefit.
Well, actually they don't. Officially, U.S. corporate profits have risen 60% over the past 3 years, opposed to 10% for wage income. But this does not take into account the fact that extralegal benefits such as healthcare and pension plans have been slashed over the last few years. In certain areas, wages have actually fallen (NYTimes 28/02/05: 'Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade')
The economic theory goes that eventually these higher corporate profits will be syphoned away to the pockets of workers through lower prices as firms compete with each other to grab market share. The problem is that in most sectors, there is a concentration in the making that will lead to less competition, not more.
When you confront a neoliberal economist with a real, actual problem or negative side-effect of the capitalist economy, he always produces the economic theories of Adam Smith, Milton Friedman or Hayek: don't regulate and the problem will work itself out. But they never say how long it is going to take and also conveniently forget to mention that the many assumptions of the classic economic theories (perfect information, perfect competition...) are never fullfilled in the real world.
I have a question for the rightwingers in the U.S.; why is the evolution theory by Darwin only a theory and why are the theories of Smith, Friedman, Hayek considered to be laws of nature???
In 2004, after-tax corporate profits in the U.S rose to 14% as a proportion of GDP, the highest for 75 years and in Europe and Japan, corporate profits are the highest in 25 years. That's why you see so many big corporations paying out huge dividends to their shareholders and even buying in their own shares on the stock market. Big banks with pockets full of money like HSBC and Citigroup are looking to use their cash reserves to buy up competitors, probably sparking another wave of 'wealth-creating' mergers (numerous studies have shown that over 70% of big mergers turn out to be economically unprofitable)
What's the problem, you say, this must be good for the economy as a whole, since the employees surely also benefit.
Well, actually they don't. Officially, U.S. corporate profits have risen 60% over the past 3 years, opposed to 10% for wage income. But this does not take into account the fact that extralegal benefits such as healthcare and pension plans have been slashed over the last few years. In certain areas, wages have actually fallen (NYTimes 28/02/05: 'Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade')
The economic theory goes that eventually these higher corporate profits will be syphoned away to the pockets of workers through lower prices as firms compete with each other to grab market share. The problem is that in most sectors, there is a concentration in the making that will lead to less competition, not more.
When you confront a neoliberal economist with a real, actual problem or negative side-effect of the capitalist economy, he always produces the economic theories of Adam Smith, Milton Friedman or Hayek: don't regulate and the problem will work itself out. But they never say how long it is going to take and also conveniently forget to mention that the many assumptions of the classic economic theories (perfect information, perfect competition...) are never fullfilled in the real world.
I have a question for the rightwingers in the U.S.; why is the evolution theory by Darwin only a theory and why are the theories of Smith, Friedman, Hayek considered to be laws of nature???
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