world

For non-Dutch speaking readers: this is about a petition seeking to limit what information communication providers should retain in accordance to the EU Data Retention Directive.
It is only useful to sign this petition if you actually live in Belgium.

Voor al wie enigszins met z'n privacy begaan is: gelieve hier de petitie tegen algemene bewaarplicht voor internetproviders te gaan tekenen.

This week brought some really nice weather. Too nice already for some people, it would seem.
While most people would likely enjoy a ride home on a sunny afternoon, for certain hotheaded ones the temperature appears to set their brains and blood boiling and remove the inhibitions for juvenile behaviour.
Driving home I encountered a truck driver hanging out of his window having a heated argument with a car driver standing straight up through his sunroof. I couldn't hear what they were arguing about, as it happened a few cars before where I stood, but in the meantime they were blocking the two lane drive. I'd almost be surprised if it wasn't one or the other accusing his adversary of doing exactly that, blocking his trajectory.
Luckily the scene didn't take too long and they drove on before others could join in on the argument.

One pattern that I've observed so far in all incidents of traffic aggression that I witnessed, is that at least one of the parties was accompanied by a female passenger. I have to wonder if female company is in fact an influencing factor…

Yesterday I noticed two particular headlines standing out in the financial news. The oldest, which was actually from tuesday, read that the European Central Bank was again injecting money into the financial markets. The other one was that home confiscations in the US were way up.

I think the ECB is sending a very bad message to financial institutions here, not by intervening in the market in the first place, but by continuing to provide shelter after a couple of weeks: “act however irresponsibly that you wish to, we'll help you out if you get into trouble anyway.”

While they bear a large part of the responsibility by financing the US mortgage crisis in the first place, big institutions will get out largely unharmed in the long run. At the same time real persons — often lured by overly bullish financial news undoubtedly — will get burned, together with some of the smaller lenders who cannot get enough money back in time.

Capitalist protectionism, at its worst.