Eideard

Does Europe have too many people paid as political and financial journalists?

Journalists in the main media hall at the European Union summit in Brussels, October 27, 2011.

There are plenty of times everyone feels the European Parliament is roughly akin to a Roman circus. They’re not feeding xhristians to lions or staging phony sea battles in their shiny coliseum – but, the attention paid to the smoke and mirrors that passes for planning, that imitates serious well-thought-out legislation, is as much of a joke as the content of that legislation itself.

Peering in at row after row of people paid to report on these events as a serious record of history somehow reminds me of the scribes covering Roman holidays before the obligatory crucifixions.

Some folks are prepared for carjackers

A Belgian couple on holiday in Spain spotted the armed criminals who had carjacked them at gunpoint a month previously in Liege, 1,200 miles away.

The unnamed pair saw Luc Jadoul, 47, and his girlfriend Gaëlle Deloge, 20, on a beach in Alicante.

Mr Jadoul and Miss Deloge had threatened the couple with a gun and hijacked their Nissan SUV while making a dramatic escape from a Belgian courthouse just four weeks before…

…The crime victims were amazed to see Jadoul and Deloge sunning themselves on the Torrevieja beach last weekend.

Incredibly, the stolen car was also parked nearby, just yards from where the carjackers were sunbathing.

Keeping their heads and showing a “sangfroid” praised by the police, the holidaymakers let down the tyres on the car and called the authorities, who made an “easy” arrest.

A firearm was recovered from the stolen vehicle…

Both are being held in Madrid before their extradition back to Belgium.

Jadoul was the subject of an international arrest warrant. Before becoming a fugitive, he was in prison and has multiple convictions for prostitution of a minor aged 13, violence and pimping…

“No one – certainly not the criminals – could have expected an ending like this,” said a police source. “There must be more chance of winning the lottery.”

If this occurred in the UK, the coppers probably would have arrested the Belgian couple along with the carjackers. They’d leave them in custody in the same jail while they spent a week sorting out legal opinions over them being mean to the crooks.

Unless they were Black or Mexican, of course.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

A year after his resignation plunged Belgium’s Roman Catholic Church into a crisis, the former bishop of Bruges provoked almost universal condemnation on Friday, this time by admitting that he had abused a second nephew – and insisting that he was not a pedophile.

In a television interview late Thursday that reopened deep wounds, the bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, 74, recounted with apparent lack of contrition events leading up to his resignation as bishop of Bruges last year, when it emerged that nearly 25 years ago he had abused a boy who was later revealed to be one of his nephews.

Those revelations prompted hundreds of people to come forward, claiming that they, too, had been victims of priests, and forced Belgium’s Roman Catholic Church into its deepest crisis of recent times.

In a broadcast from a location in France, Bishop Vangheluwe, dressed in an open-neck shirt, suggested that the 13-year relationship revealed last year had not been opposed by his nephew, and, in an unexpected new twist, he admitted having abused a second nephew for a much shorter period…

Bishop Vangheluwe is not facing criminal charges because of Belgium’s 10-year statute of limitations, and the Vatican says he is receiving “spiritual and psychological treatment” outside Belgium…

During the interview, to which Bishop Vangheluwe had agreed only on the condition that it would be broadcast live, he denied that he had been driven by sexual motives…the abuse had been restricted to the touching of genitals…

Um, the Pope said – well, the Pope said nothing. When the abuse became public he condemned the police for searching church property and took the Bishop’s fate into his own hands. Since then – well, the Pope said nothing.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

What does it take to form a government?

Belgians are not sure, but a lighthearted mood prevailed Thursday as Belgium overtook Iraq’s record in trying to form a government: 249 days and counting.

To mark the occasion, 249 people planned to strip naked in Ghent (though apparently only about 50 people got down to their underwear), while students in Leuven tucked into free frites and downed beer — Belgian, of course.

After general elections last June 13…the political deadlock has increased fears that Belgium, made up of French speakers in the south and Dutch speakers in the north, may actually split apart.

Forming a government has proved so difficult because Flemish nationalists want a new constitutional settlement to give regions more power over issues like the economy. In Flanders, the more prosperous part of the country, many voters hope to limit transfers of cash to subsidize Wallonia.

Historically, French language and culture have dominated Belgium and Dutch speakers once suffered discrimination, a fact that overshadows relations between the country’s two main groups…

Analysts believe that new elections are coming and that the issue of dividing Belgium will move up the agenda.

Jean Faniel, a political scientist in Brussels, said that, despite the crisis, it was important to Belgians to keep their sense of humor. The stripping, beard-growing and beer-drinking protests bore a distinctive Belgian character, he said. “Here we have an acute sense of self-mockery.”

You might be a redneck…?

A senior Belgian police offier drunkenly crashed into a ditch on Belgium’s “night of traffic safety”.

The crash happened on the night of a high-profile national campaign against drunk-driving

Marc Guillemin, a Flemish police chief, lost control of his car at the weekend, after visiting friends, on the night of a high-profile national campaign against drunk-driving.

He has been forced to withdraw his application to run Ghent police, one of the top police jobs in Belgium. The job became vacant after its previous incumbent was sacked after drunkenly causing an accident and then trying to get junior officers to cover it up.

Mr Guillemin, 50, the head of the Flemish maritime police, was not injured in the crash, which did not involve other people or cars. When breathalysed he tested positive…

“You keep replaying the movie all the time. But that does not help. It’s no use crying over spilled milk. It was stupid and avoidable. But regret only comes after the sin.”

I didn’t realize Belgian coppers are so into dichos.

Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, a special commission said…

”Reality is worse than what we present here today because not everyone shares such things automatically in a first contact with the commission,” he told reporters.

Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who has worked with trauma victims for 23 years, said nothing had prepared him for the stories of abuse that blighted the lives of victims.

”We don’t just talk about touching. We are talking about oral and anal abuse, forced masturbation and mutual masturbation. We talk about people who have gone through serious abuse,” Adriaenssens said…

Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard said he would react on Monday to the report. The Vatican had no immediate comment.

But Tournai Bishop Guy Harpigny, who deals with the issue for the church, praised Adriaenssens’s work and told VRT television that ”now, the time has come to listen to the victims…”

Spend time considering the ethics of an institution which sets itself up as a leading judge of everyone’s morality – historically incapable of ethical standards in day-to-day behavior.

Friday’s report said 507 witnesses came forward with stories of molestation at the hands of clergy over the past decades. It says those abused included children who were two, four, five and six years old.

Family members or friends said 13 victims committed suicide that ”was related to sexual abuse by clergy,” the report said. Six other witnesses said they had attempted suicide…

The number of those coming forward with their stories and testimonies, however, could be only a fraction of those actually abused, Adriaenssens said.

RTFA. None of this should surprise a thinking, observant reader. But, the information is useful to anyone considering what their personal attitude should be towards so-called organized religion. A misnomer if there ever was one.

A British man has died following a sado-masochistic sex session with a woman who claims to be “Europe’s most perverted dominatrix”.

The 58-year-old client, who drove a BMW car, collapsed in a shower after an “intense session” with prostitutes calling themselves Mistress Lucrezia and Mistress Juno, at their villa near Brecht, Belgium…

They have been arrested and charged with assault and battery leading to death, without intent to kill…

Mistress Lucrezia, 46, has a website which says she considers herself a “Creative Artist Perverted Sadist” who offers “bondage, humiliation, torture, education and cross-dressing”.

It says: “Sessions can last from one hour, and even up to three days.

“I specialise in extreme medical and long sessions. Beware, I am not a softie.

“I’m sadistic, intelligent and perverse. In my nature, I’m a sadist of the worst kind…”

A female neighbour: “This is a quiet street where families live. But after her arrival here there were suddenly all these expensive cars arriving, many with foreign license plates.

“I finally complained to the police after scantily-clad people were turning up on my doorstep because they had got the wrong house.

Har!

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Belgians vote in a parliamentary election today for a government that could move toward breaking up the country and that will need to curb the third-highest debt ratio in Europe.

The Flemish separatist N-VA (New Flemish Alliance), which advocates the gradual dissolution of Belgium, is forecast to be the largest party in Dutch-speaking Flanders and possibly the country.

“The ballot box question is not whether but by how much the N-VA will win,” said Dutch-language newspaper De Morgen…

This is the first federal election from which a party advocating the end of Belgium could emerge the winner, although the N-VA were allies of the Christian Democrats in 2007.

The party’s lead in opinion polls has triggered a nationwide debate about the possible break-up of the 180-year-old nation, with Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia going their separate ways…

In the midst of a euro zone crisis, with financial speculators ready to attack budgetary laggards, Belgium, a country of 10.6 million people, can ill afford drawn-out coalition talks.

Belgium’s debt-to-GDP ratio, set to rise above 100 percent this year or next, is behind only Greece and Italy…

Some 7.7 million Belgians are eligible to vote. Voting is compulsory, with first-time offenders risking a fine of up to 55 euros.

Wow. Try that one on in some of our lazy-ass primaries.

UPDATE: Flemish separatists were the biggest winners in the election.

A Belgian parliamentary committee has voted to impose a nationwide ban on wearing face-covering veils in public…The ban includes any clothes or veils that do not allow the wearer to be fully identified, including the full-face niqab and burqa.

If passed, the measure would be the first clampdown of its kind in Europe…

With the governing parties and opposition in agreement, officials expect the full house to easily endorse the draft law…

“This is a very strong signal that is being sent to Islamists,” said Denis Ducarme, a French-speaking deputy from the centre-right Reformist Movement that proposed the bill. Ducarme said he was “proud that Belgium would be the first country in Europe which dares to legislate on this sensitive matter”.

“We have to free women of this burden,” said his colleague Corinne de Parmentier.

The vice-president of the Muslim Executive of Belgium, Isabelle Praile, warned that the move could set a dangerous precedent. “Today it’s the full-face veil, tomorrow the veil, the day after it will be Sikh turbans and then perhaps it will be mini skirts,” she said.

Well, the question as proposed to parliament is one of identification. I’m not certain mini-skirts are hiding much of anything – including recognition.

If endorsed, the vote would see the ban imposed in streets, public gardens and sports grounds or buildings “meant for public use or to provide services” to the public.

Exceptions would be allowed for certain festivities like carnivals if municipal authorities decide to grant them.

I think it appropriate to place all religious symbolism in carnivals.

Google is operating a data center in Belgium without chillers (which augment cool air to help keep the data center at the right temperature and use a lot of electricity), according to Rich Miller over at Data Center Knowledge. However, what’s most noteworthy about this is that Google appears to have the means to automatically shift its data center operations from the chiller-less data center if the temperatures get too high for the gear. The ability to automatically and seamlessly shift data center operations and tasks is a key element in building out data centers that can operate on renewable energy or merely more efficiently. Miller calls it a “follow-the-moon” strategy because a company with a larger number of data centers could shift computing around the globe so processes are completed at night when the temperature is lower and cooling costs are cheaper…

I wrote about a similar scenario last July, only I said data center operators would follow the sun with their workloads so they could use a renewable energy like solar power to provide electricity for their operations. When the sun sets, or on cloudy days, the workload moves to where another power source is available. Regardless, moving data center operations isn’t an easy process, and it requires a lot of bandwidth between the data centers. As Google masters this, expect other companies to follow suit, not merely because they can save on power, but because it makes cloud computing much more reliable in that when one data center experiences a failure, a cloud provider can redistribute operations around the globe.

Interesting concept. Maybe this also explains all the Dark Fibre Google bought up a few years back?

Back in the day, Microsoft did a study that showed this was impossible. Was that then? Or was it Microsoft?