The Z-religion.

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.

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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.!!!

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.

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???

We're running out of toiletpaper.

It seems like everyday we receive warnings in the media of how the economic rise of the superpower China will deplete the world's resources. Most fear oil shortages but how about this newswire as food for thought?

February 15 - UPI: "An official from the Shanghai Paper Trade Association said China's consumption of wood pulp for toilet tissue was worrisome, China Daily reported... Wood pulp used to produce various kinds of paper has become China's third largest import after petroleum and steel... The country consumed 8.2 million tons of wood pulp in 2004, of which slightly more than 6 million tons were imported. 'While I am happy to see many young people adopt paper tissue for its convenience, a sign reflecting our social development and helping improve our industry to some extent, I am beginning to worry about our large wood consumption,' Wang said."

So that's why Japan has those hightech WCs with sprays and fountains. They were planning for the toiletpapershortage all those years!

Don't believe the hype!

Barroso and many fellow politicians (Bolkestein, Blair, McCreevy, Verheugen, Kroes, Van Rompuy, Daems, Berlusconi , Balkenende, the list goes on & on) want the European labor market to take their cue from the U.S. because it's much more dynamic and flexible. After all, the official unemployment rate in the euro area is 8.8% , compared to only 5.5% in the U.S .However, the official figures are painting a rosier picture than the actual job market situation:

• the number of Americans without a job for more than 6 months has more than doubled over the past 3 yrs to 1.6mln
  
• the share of unemployed without work for more than 6 months has stayed above 20% for the past 18 months.
  
• The U.S. manufacturing sector has lost 2.8mln jobs over the last year
  
• Since spring 2003 the average duration of unemployment is 19 weeks, the longest since 1948!!
  
• 5.5% is the official unemployment rate but over 12% of Americans live below the poverty line; many people need to take up 2 or even 3 jobs to keep their heads above water, they are called the 'working poor'.
  

Economic liberals rightly claim that it is not fair if people are on welfare and they don't have to work because they live off the fruits of labor of all the others. But what about all those people who do work in the U.S. and who are still poor? Isn't that even less fair??

The article below by George Monbiot illustrates that the wellfare state canbe effective, as the example of Sweden shows.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/01/11/punitive-and-it-works/

Nuclear energy

Politicians in Europe have put nuclear reactors back on the agenda now that Kyoto has gone into effect. Granted, a nuclear reactor does not emit CO2 but it happens to produce an even more lethal byproduct for mother Earth. Until he/she can answer the following questions, no politician is allowed to discuss the relaunch of the nuclear industry in my vicinity!

1. What are you going to do with the millions of tons of nuclear waste, with its cute radioactivity that lasts for a kazillion years? Oh, and shooting it into space is not an option.
2. What if uranium runs out in say 50 years?
3. Do you really want to have nuclear reactors spread out all over the European mainland, offering an inviting canvas to airplane flying terrorists?

I wonder what the solar energy industry would look like today with the kind of funding the nuclear industry received over the past 50 years.

Philosophical Joke

As the buddhist said to the hot dog vendor:
'Make me one with everything'

Sorry Dutch speakers

as of today I am switching from Dutch to English. I have a feeling there won't be many complaints, since only 1 person sofar has commented on my posts. Maybe it says more about the knowledge of my mother tongue than my English, but I feel more at ease using the language of Shakespeare as opposed to the language of Hendrik Conscience.

Rice on the Rise

Nu dat Condoleezza Rice gepromoveerd is tot Minister v. Buitenlandse Zaken komt ze nog meer voor de camera's. Misschien ligt het aan mij, maar 'that woman scares me!'. Ze ziet eruit als een kruising tussen Rob de Nijs en Whoopi Goldberg. Ik verdenk haar ervan synthetische verjongingsdrankjes te nemen want ze lijkt 15 jaar jonger dan haar ware leeftijd (geb. 1954). Naar verluidt heeft ze een huizenhoog IQ waarmee ze baas geworden is van Stanford University vóór ze voor GWB ging werken.

Ze hebben natuurlijk wel wat slimme mensen nodig in het Witte Huis om het gemiddelde peil omhoog te trekken wanneer George thuis is. Zouden ze veel lachen met hem als hij er niet bij is?

Eigenlijk zouden ze ipv oorlog te voeren tussen naties op de ouderwetse manier, de zaken kunnen oplossen met kwisavonden, waarbij verschillende teams tegenover elkaar gaan zitten in het decor van de Pappenheimers. Maar dan wel met de huidige regeringen en niet met de beste kwissers van het land.

Die kerel van NoordKorea zou goed scoren in vragen over Hollywood, en Putin in vragen over de Berlijnse underground new wavescéne. Berlusconi weet alles over Frank Sinatra en Las vegas van zijn dagen als crooner op een cruise schip.

De Belgische regering zou haar mannetje staan me dunkt. Verhofstadt mag je alles vragen over sport en wijn. Vandelanotte en Landuyt zijn degelijke allround kwissers maar articuleren is de boodschap. Zeker in de finale. Aan Waalse zijde , zal het vooral moeten komen van Rudy Demotte. We kunnen winnen van Holland met onze vingers in de neus.

En wie gaat er de finale winnen denk je?
Mijn geld staat op Zweden.

Citaat in Humo nr. 3358

Sven Nys, wereldkampioen cyclocross (veel leuker woord dan veldrijden): 'Mijn zoontje Thibau doet mij gewoon vergeten dat ik voor het ogenblik de beste veldrijder van de wereld ben'. (Thibau was zeker niet aanwezig bij het interview)
Als Sven niet langer de beste veldrijder ter wereld is , hoop ik voor hem dat Thibau dat ook doet vergeten.

Fact of the day

75% of Icelanders believe in elves, but only 40% will admit to it when sober.

Topsport is ongezond.

Welke sporttak in de V.S. wordt het meest geplaagd door chronische kwetsuren na het beëindigen van de actieve sportloopbaan?
Niet football of boksen zoals ik dacht maar wel cheerleading.
Volgens mij zijn het die high kicks die het hem doen.

NBA fans

Hoi,

aan alle NBA fans met een gevoel voor humor: check deze column van Bill Simmons van ESPN! http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050111
Bij sommige passages moest ik zoveel lachen dat het pijn deed. En dat van een Amerikaan die niet Michael Moore heet! In de column geeft hij trouwens toe dat Dirk Nowitzki de MVP van het moment is in de NBA maar hij stelt ook dat een niet-Amerikaan niet kan in aanmerking komen voor de officiële MVP titel. Quelle chauvinisme. Stel je voor dat wij de Gouden Schoen telkens aan een Belg moeten geven.

Undercover marketing.

Nieuw voor mij dit begrip, undercover marketing. Het gaat om een marketingtechniek (in de VS natuurlijk, where else?)waarbij reclamebedrijven acteurs betalen om in de nabijheid van potentiêle consumenten te 'stoefen' met een produkt. Bij de lancering van een nieuw drankje (Blue Bull bijv.) worden een paar 'leaners' in een trendy club losgelaten, die aan de bar ostentatief vragen naar Blue Bull. De andere klanten kennen dit natuurlijk niet en informeren de 'leaners' naar het nieuwe drankje. Zo wordt er een hype gecreeërd en twee uur later drinkt de helft van de aanwezige fuivers Blue Bull.

Je zal natuurlijk zeggen dat het bij ons nog niet toegepast wordt maar ondertussen ben ik wel wantrouwig geworden van vreemden die in mijn buurt een produkt aanprijzen.

Spiders on drugs.

Hoi fellow bloggers,

de titel van deze blog is geïnspireerd door mijn favoriete TV-kwis 'QI' op BBC2. Als je het nog niet gezien hebt, zeker doen. Eén van de vragen betrof een experiment uitgevoerd door NASA op spinnen, meer bepaald onderzocht men wat er gebeurde wanneer je spinnen drugs toedient en dan een web laat weven. De resultaten zijn op zijn minst verrassend te noemen en kan je bekijken op www.missblackwidow.com/drugs.html. Vooral wijlen Timothy Leary zou trots zijn op het feit dat onder invloed van LSD, de spinnen quasi perfect geometrische webben weven. Het slordigste web (de vliegen lachten zich een breuk) kwam tot stand met caffeïne, de meest gebruikte drug in de wereld. Misschien moeten we die koffieautomaat op ons werk maar vervangen.

Nagedachte: welke drugs hebben ze uitgedeeld bij NASA dat ze op het idee komen om zoiets te onderzoeken?