Eideard

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

A year and a day after she set out to sail single-handed around the globe, Dutch teenager Laura Dekker finished her 27,000 mile voyage on Saturday night.

Miss Dekker, who is 16 years and four months old, has cut six months off the unofficial record set in 2010 by Australian teenager Jessica Watson, who was days away from her 17th birthday when she completed her own non-stop voyage…

“There were moments where I was like, ‘What the hell am I doing out here?,’ but I never wanted to stop,” she told reporters. “It’s a dream, and I wanted to do it.”

Miss Dekker has had to cope with weeks of solitude, ocean storms and a fear of pirates while navigating and sailing a 38-foot yacht called Guppy, all the time trying to keep up with her schoolwork…

Miss Dekker fled abroad in 2010 when Dutch child welfare authorities took legal action to try to stop her making the voyage. She later won a 10-month court battle, promising judges she would buy a bigger boat with advanced navigation equipment, take courses in first aid and coping with sleep deprivation, and enrol in a special correspondence school…

Unlike other youthful round-the-world sailors, Miss Dekker made several stops at ports to ensure her vessel was properly maintained, and to brush up on her studies…

On Friday night she wrote: “I do not want to be totally negative about Holland, I know I have many supporters there. I feel sad for them that I am not sailing into either Hoek van Holland or Ijmuiden. That would have bene a great party for everyone…”

She now expects to go back to school, Mr van Erp said, though not necessarily in the Netherlands.

Miss Dekker said in blogs written during her voyage that she was so tired of the controversy it had aroused in Holland that she might move abroad. She holds a New Zealand passport as she was born in New Zealand waters – on a boat – during a seven-year voyage made by her parents. She also hopes to work for conservation, after using her voyage to raise funds for the charity Sea Shepherd.

Bravo! The aura of money that surrounds her sport doesn’t minimize her courage or her apparent ability to communicate with the world about what she does and thinks and feels. Though I endorse government’s responsibility to aid safe and nurturing environments for all children – I don’t think that requires bureaucratic opposition to the spirit of adventure.

Dutch Ambassador Tjeerd de Zwaan throws petals over graves at the Rawagede Hero Cemetery

The Dutch government formally apologised Friday for a 1947 massacre on Indonesia’s Java island, in an emotional ceremony on the anniversary of the executions by its colonial army.

Dutch troops swooped into a village in the town of Rawagede during Indonesia’s fight for independence and executed men and boys as their families and neighbours looked on. Dutch officials say 150 people were killed, but a support group and the local community say the death toll was 431.

“In this context and on behalf of the Dutch government, I apologise for the tragedy that took place in Rawagede on the 9th of December, 1947,” the Netherlands ambassador to Indonesia Tjeerd de Zwaan said.

He then repeated the apology in the Indonesian language, to the applause of hundreds of people attending the ceremony, some of whom broke down in tears as they listened in front of a marble monument commemorating the dead.

In a landmark ruling, a Hague-based civil court in September found the Dutch state responsible for the executions and ruled in favour of eight widows and a survivor of the massacre who lodged the case. Two of the widows have since died, and so has the survivor, Saih Bin Sakam, who passed away in May at the age of 88…

One of the widows, 93-year-old Anti Rukiyah, said she was relieved to finally receive an apology, and would use the compensation money to help her children buy a home…

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa praised the Dutch government for making the apology.

I live in a land where fools in one political party condemn members of the other as unpatriotic cowards for “apologizing for America”. Slavery and genocide never happened in this Land of Liberty – if you listen jaw agape to the pronouncements of Republicans, Kool Aid Partygoers and the Blue Dog flavor of spineless Democrat.

Someday, no doubt when I will have shuffled off this mortal coil for a century or two, American education will have progressed sufficiently to produce a generation or two of adults who embrace an ethical view of history.

Creil, the Netherlands — Modest farms, 90 acres or less, dot the region here, most of them raising grains and vegetables, some the occasional sheep or cow.

In the midst of this idyllic scene a few years back there appeared what residents now call “the pink invasion,” three huge hog barns each with 10,000 or more pigs in the fields that skirt the dike that protects the region from the Ijsselmeer, once known as the Zuiderzee.

“Some people don’t like the idea,” said Dick van Leeuwen, 65, who walks his dog Thor along the roads leading to the largest of the barns. Local people feared that the pig farms would stink, while bringing an unwanted increase in truck traffic, he said, delivering feed for the thousands of pigs or hauling away manure or grown hogs for slaughter. But their complaints fell mostly on deaf ears.

The Netherlands, a country of almost 17 million people, is home to a pig population of 14 million. Despite its status as one of the smaller countries in the European Union — about half the size of the state of Maine — the Netherlands has long been Europe’s leading exporter of pork and pork products, though that ranking has been contested in recent years by wurst-loving Germany.

Like pork producers everywhere, Dutch farmers are fighting rising costs by resorting to ever bigger herds and barns, a trend that is reinforced by the petite size of the Netherlands…As the big barns become more common, the government has begun to respond to public complaints about industrial farming and cruelty to animals. Officials are now discussing ways to curb the size of barns like those in tiny Creil, with its 1,600 people in trim brick homes, much to the chagrin of the new generation of farmers who see industrial-scale husbandry as their only means to compete…

Critics of the pork industry argue that enormous pig barns damage the environment because of the immense amounts of manure they produce, threaten people’s heath because of the antibiotics used liberally to avoid sickness among the animals and disregard the welfare of the animals by confining them to barns…

Pig farmers like Mr. Vowinkel insist that they can compete only if they keep costs and the price of their pork down. “Some disappear, others get bigger, to lower production prices,” he said. A fellow farmer, Sietse van der Meer, agreed. “You grow bigger, or you stop,” he said.

Politicians feel the pressure of the environmentalists and animal rights groups. In December, Parliament will begin discussing a possible restriction on the size of farms and a ban on antibiotics, two steps the farming region of Noord-Brabant, in the south, has already taken on its own.

RTFA. The arguments of the Pig Farmers Association seem specious to me. They argue that the diminishing number of pig farmers is proof of their inability to compete because of regulation. They sound like Wall Street Republicans. But, the enormous expansion of the size of farms, number of pigs produced at lower prices is as likely to be the cause for small farmers being forced out of business.

They’ll never be able to compete with pork produced in nations with an excess of arable land – from China to Brazil – and their natural market is the citizens of the Netherlands and Europe. The rest – especially reliance on antibiotics – is the same sort of propaganda we get from members of every greed-driven guild in the world.

A Dutch psychologist has admitted making up data and faking research over many years in studies which were then published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Diederik Stapel, a psychologist working at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, said he had “failed as a scientist” and was ashamed of what he had done, but had been driven to falsifying research by constant pressure to perform. The respected journal Science, which published some of Diederik Stapel’s work earlier this year, issued an “expression of concern” editorial in which it said it now had serious concerns about the validity of Stapel’s findings.

NSS. Part of the point of peer review is questioning in material and scientific analysis – not just accepting results as rote. Certainly in many other vocations that is the case.

Stapel was suspended from his position at Tilburg University in the Netherlands in September when an investigation was launched by the university into his work.

“The official report … indicates that the extent of the fraud by Stapel is substantial,” Science’s editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts wrote in the journal’s online edition Science Express…

The process of peer review, in which other scientists are asked to critique and analyze a paper before it is accepted for publication in a journal, is designed to minimize the risk that false data will get through, but it is not infallible.

As I said above, regardless of how a paper is vetted beforehand, a critical part of the process is investigation after the fact. Cripes, there are discussions in archaeology, paleontology, astronomy which have been in progress for decades.

 
A broadcasting tower in the Dutch town of Hoogersmilde has collapsed.

The 200-metre high mast came down following a fire in the building…

Large parts of the Netherlands have been left without reception on their radio FM frequencies as a result of the fire.

Wow! Lucky no one was seriously injured in the fire or the antenna’s collapse.

The Dutch lower house of parliament has passed a law effectively banning the ritual slaughter of animals…

The legislation states that all animals must be stunned before being killed. But the Islamic dhabiha and Jewish shechita methods of ritual slaughter require them to be fully conscious.

The legislation was proposed by an animal rights party with two MPs, which argued that failing to stun the animals subjected them to unnecessary pain.

But debate over the matter swiftly became a focus of animosity towards the Netherlands’ 1.2 million-strong Muslim community. The country’s Jewish population is comparatively small at 50,000.

Following months of debate a last minute concession was offered – the Muslim and Jewish communities will have a year to provide evidence that animals slaughtered by traditional methods do not experience greater pain than those that are stunned before they are killed.

However, observers say finding such proof will be virtually impossible.

The bill must still be approved by the upper house of parliament before it can become law…

In a rare show of unity, the Muslim and Jewish communities condemned the legislation and said it infringed on their religious freedom…

To make meat kosher for Jews or halal for Muslims, animals must be slaughtered while still awake, by swiftly cutting the main arteries and veins in their necks with sharp knives, and then allowing the blood to drain out.

Overdue.

Giving way to religious ritual 3000 years out of date is neither democratic or reasonable. So, of course, our government gives way in the United States.

President Olafur Grimsson
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Icelanders rejected a depositor claims accord with the U.K. and Netherlands, forcing an international court battle that the island’s government said will probably last a year.

A final count showed 59.7 percent of voters said no to the so-called Icesave agreement, while 40.1 percent said yes, with voter turnout estimated at 75 percent…

… Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said in an interview with broadcaster RUV, immediately after the first results were published. “We will, of course, defend Iceland’s interests vigorously in this matter.”

The government had hoped an Icesave deal would restore investor and diplomatic relations and end the financial isolation that has stalled Iceland’s resurrection from its 2008 banking collapse. The failure of Landsbanki Islands hf, which offered the high-yielding Icesave accounts over the internet, threatened to leave 350,000 British and Dutch depositors in the lurch. They were repaid by their governments, which are now turning to the Icelandic state for compensation…

President Olafur R. Grimsson said the referendum “enabled the nation to regain its democratic self-confidence and to express sovereign authority in its own affairs,” in a speech yesterday. Three days after his veto, he said he rejected the accord because Iceland’s legal obligation to pay is “unclear,” adding the matter shows that European banking laws haven’t been “thoroughly thought out.”

The result of the Icesave referendum shows most voters agree…

The latest estimates of Landsbanki’s assets “indicate that the estate will be able to pay over 90 percent of claims for deposits,” the government said in a statement. Some estimates even put the coverage ratio at 100 percent, it said.

“Hence, the Netherlands and the U.K. will receive a refund of the funds spent to compensate depositors, regardless of the judicial process which will now be launched,” Iceland Finance Ministry spokeswoman Rosa Bjork Brynjolfsdottir said.

Bravo to the people of Iceland for sticking to their guns. Bailouts, nationalization,TARP programs all had different goals and dramatically different contexts from each other. The people of Iceland see a difference that the bankers and politicians of the Netherlands and the UK don’t see – or don’t care about.

Iceland is a nation I love not only for the natural wonders of the nation; but, their history of fighting for peoples’ rights. They have the longest-sitting democratic parliament in the world – and could offer about a hundred lessons to the Killer Klowns in Kongress.

In a novel bid to combat illegal cannabis cultivation, Dutch authorities started handing out 30,000 cards with a marijuana odour Monday to alert citizens to what their neighbours may be up to.

“Citizens must be alerted to the dangers they face as a result of these plantations, and if they become aware of any suspect situations they must report them,” Arnie Loos, spokesman for a government-appointed working group on cannabis cultivation, told journalists in the port city of Rotterdam.

Yes. Bureaucrats in Holland retrieve that quaint history of informing on your friends and neighbors from the garbage heap of fascism. Will they provide bonuses if those you turn to the police are close relatives?

Though it remains technically illegal, the Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of under five grammes of cannabis in 1976 under a “tolerance” policy.

Authorities turn a blind eye to citizens growing no more than five plants for personal use. Bulk cannabis cultivation and retail remain illegal…

Organisers said the project, a pilot for possible expansion, was a first for the Netherlands.

“If people do in fact call the number listed on the card, we could make this a national operation,” Loos told journalists, standing in the middle of about 200 plants of what he called “green gold” in the attic of an apartment building in Rotterdam.

The ugly vision of morality police working their way through public gatherings, say, in Tehran or Riyadh, should remind voters dim enough to think conservative politicians only represent a fiscal agenda – to peer back over their shoulder at what was constructed in so many lands by a Joe McCarthy, Vidkun Quisling or – Anton Mussert.

Andrés Iniesta breaks everyones’ heart in Holland

A match like many of the World Cup Finals I’ve watched in the past forty years.

Mostly played out in the midfield. Individual attacks, sometimes in pairs or threes; but, never jeopardizing the need for defense. Some of those efforts almost succeeded, should have succeeded. But, that was up to the players on the pitch.

No brilliant field general or Titan of sport. Just twenty-two skilled, talented, disciplined and well-trained athletes giving their all.

I didn’t expect more than that. It was well worth watching.

Netherlands 0 – 1 Spain

Yes, South Africa was a big winner on the day, as well.

The Netherlands has agreed to a Nato request to deploy a submarine off the coast of Somalia to combat piracy…

It will be used for reconnaissance in the vast area from the Gulf of Aden deep into the Indian Ocean where Somali pirates have been hijacking commercial vessels for ransom…

The EU has an anti-piracy mission in the same region, Navfor, which is also tasked with protecting World Food Programme ships carrying food aid to Somalia.

Pirates have in the past succeeded in collecting multi-million-dollar ransoms and the head of the Navfor says there has been an upsurge in attacks recently after a period of relative calm…

With warships patrolling along the Somali coast, the pirates have started to operate further away and have even staged some attacks across the Indian Ocean, closer to India than Somalia.

Efforts to fight piracy are complicated by the lack of a functioning central government in Somalia and the lack of an international legal system for people accused of piracy. It is up to individual governments to put suspected pirates on trial if they are captured.

Last week a Dutch court sentenced five Somali men to five years in prison for attacking a Dutch Antilles-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden last year, in the first such case to come to trial in Europe.

I know they wouldn’t waste anything as expensive as a torpedo on gangbangers like this; but, I’m confident that what passes for small arms on a modern submarine will be used – if needed.

These clowns are dumb enough to attack a military vessel every now and then. I wonder if anyone ever told them about submarines?