No beer? No lunch, says Belgian parliamentarian (Reuters)

A lunch meeting between a leading parliamentarian in Belgium and counterparts from Iran has been cancelled because the beer-loving Belgian could not stomach a ban on alcohol.

Never mind then!

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-06-30T110907Z_01_KWA040141_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-BELGIUM-IRAN-ALCOHOL.XML

Supermarkets 1: parking spaces

In prevision of my dear wife going back to work, having sorted the childcare, I went to the supermarket this morning to do the weekly shopping chore. Looks like I need to be trained again to pick the right goods :-)

I went to Tesco this time, way cheaper than our local Sainsbury (and at least their fish counter doesn't stink).

But there's something they seem to overdo: parking spaces. There are about 10 for people with children (usually taken by singletons in 4x4's) and 30 for disabled. I don't have anything against it and by all means everything that can be done to make disabled people's life a little easier (including lifts in the London tube and in train stations, an all too rare sight in the UK), but I would ask something:

Is there really 3 times more disabled persons in the UK than families?

My de.li.cious bookmarks

Social bookmarking is great: check this

http://del.icio.us/lludovic

This allows to pick up new trends quickly through a collaborative filtering process, or the aggregation of what masses of peope read, tag (categories are so passé) and bookmark.

France says no to EU constitution referendum

At the time I am writing this, it looks almost certain that French electors are voting NON to the EU referendum.

But why?

After all, France (at least its farmers) has always benefited a lot from European funds and other apects. And the constitution has been drafted under the lead of a French politician, Valery Giscard d'Estaing (he was president of the republic in the late 70ies) to fix the broken Nice treaty (a half botched compromise adopted at the end of the French rotating EU presidency in 2001).

It instigate a more democratic functionning of the European Commission and clearer decision mechanisms, much needed to deal with the EU expansion -new members can mean gridlock under a qualified majority voting system.

So why say no this time?

It looks as there are several non's:

• Some left wing intellectuals like Laurent Fabius think the referefdum should be renegotiated
• More to the left (the ex. trotskysts) and the extreme right both think the constitution is too liberal and should be ditched
• But most electors just dislike the current president, Jacques Chiract (one of the most notably corrupted EU leaders) and its PM Raffarin. So instead of answering the question, they're telling their dislike of the current leadership. Annoying for the 122 millions of European who have already voted YES.

Check also those blogs if you speak French:

publius.fr : les déraisons de mon non

You shoud appeal if you're clocked with a handheld speed camera!

Interesting article from BBC South: the net net is that handheld laser speed metering devices are not accurate.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/south/series7/speed_cameras.shtml

Google deletes Europe....

... the Register accuses W (aka Dubya) to erase non-compliant nations. In fact, in Google's world, there's only US and UK, nothing else from Europe!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/29/google_bush_map/

Was Spain on Google's lights before they finally saw the light?

PS: check this site www.democracynow.org/

"Pentecôte"

The French government is probably one of the most prolific when it comes to creating new taxes. The last trick from those ENA boffins is to abolish a bank holiday (they picked a Catholic celebration called "lundi de Pentecôte" (aka Withmonday in English), make employees work for free (guess what, unions are not happy and will call strikes for a change) and allocate the taxes for that day to a fund aimed at providing benefits to poor pensioners. This is in fact a knee-jerk reaction to the 2003 "canicule", when 11.400 people, most of them pensioner were killed in a heat wave that scorched Europe. They just have won the the gold medal for stealth tax creativity! The greatest irony, is that in 2000 the socialist governement abolished the car tax that was initially first levied in 1956 tomeant to fund... the pensions! Check also this link on the subject: libres.org

TGIF: office-humour.com

Fridays.....

A link for my cousin Sté :

One for my folks: http://www.office-humour.co.uk/item.cfm?itm=2932

This one for the Brits: http://www.office-humour.co.uk/item.cfm?itm=2939

And lastly, if anyone on the planet still thought W had some form of intelligence: http://www.office-humour.com/content/files/mov/sovereignty.mov

Spin Bunny

Can you gag a blog? Well, some have tried, with no luck thankfully!

Great attitude Spin Bunny!

Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.

Great blog by Dan Gilmour, a SanFran based journo, aimed at "encourag[ing] and enabl[ing] more citizen-based media".

• Links to a 90% crud blog post on how Apple screws its customers by removing features from iTunes. Don't you hate that too?
• Good collection of links and a detailed wrap-up on Apple vs. ThinkSecrets, or how BigCorpsInc are making their best to dismantle what's left of the First Ammendment. On that subject, this c|net article is not bad, but just stops short of a conclusion. Mine is that most of the news we read is pre-digested, planted or even created by the big corporations and governements.
• And a great "draft" on the "End of Objectivity".

The Randy Register

Hey, welcome to my blog!

Now you thought enlargement spams were gross, wait till you read the punchline from that Register paper....