Wednesday October 5, 2005

Bye-bye Schengen?

• Posted by Rob (#1) on October 5, 2005 14:32 CEST

People who know me would probably classify me as "anti-EU". I can't blame them: I strongly object to European statehood nonsense such as a union anthem, flag and President.

But I do favour free trade and have no problems with the Schengen treaty, allowing free movement of people, goods and money. Schengen is being threatened though:

The largest party in the Dutch parliament, the ruling Christian Democrats (CDA) wants passport controls of passengers from the EU's border-free Schengen zone to be reintroduced at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport to combat terrorism, reports said on Monday.

It strikes me as somewhat awkward that the party that wanted to push down the so-called "constitution" down our throats now wants to remove an essential benefit to the common market called Eurozone. Especially because passport controls and terrorism have very little to do with each other. Fake IDs have been used for decades in order to assist illegal immigrants and alcohol-craving teenagers.

Improving airport security means finding bombs and weapons before they cause any problems. It means dealing with terrorism suspects long before and long after they get near airports. National ID cards and checks are not a solution to these problems and just open a can of worms for abuse. As was demonstrated here in the Netherlands were 50.000 were fined for not carrying ID, most of them solely for that reason, without any significant cause.

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Google extends intelligence network

• Posted by Rob (#1) on October 5, 2005 14:41 CEST

Sun partners with Google, or maybe Google with Sun. Either way, the Mountain View juggernauth is getting scarier every day.

I have said it before: countless people blindly trust Google by using the company for search queries, e-mail, instant messaging and news aggregation. The Sun partnership gives Google even bigger opportunities to spy on people if it desired: an on-line office suite would place a lot of potentially confidential private and workplace information in its hands.

Kim-Jung Il must envy Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

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HorrorPops tour Europe, so can I

• Posted by Rob (#1) on October 5, 2005 14:57 CEST

I doubt anyone cares, but if you do: I have started booking flights for some new trips. I'll definitely see more of the HorrorPops European tour 2005 than the two shows in Holland!

I'll be at the openers in Malmö and Oslo (November 17+18). I will obviously be in The Hague (December 6). The day after I'm seeing Billy Idol (the original Rebel Yell) in Amsterdam and then I'm off for a UK trip to see the shows in Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, Northampton and London (December 8-12). Perhaps Portsmouth as well (December 13). And I'll definitely be in Amsterdam for the last show of the tour (December 17).

That's nine to ten HorrorPops gigs in just one month. I'll leave it up to the reader whether I'm crazy or their webmaster. Probably a bit of both.

November 25 update: Portsmouth confirmed and add Ghent, Belgium (December 5) as well. Bring it on!

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I'd rather eat meat than plastic

• Posted by Rob (#1) on October 5, 2005 16:11 CEST

"Family unfriendly" post: Kinzie got a boob job. I suppose I'll have to find a new favourite porn actress or restrict myself to Zero Tolerance Entertainment. Or stop watching the filth.

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Versatel is run by morons

• Posted by Rob (#1) on October 5, 2005 17:06 CEST

I don't like former monopolist KPN Telecom. Mostly because they overcharged me for all sorts of telephone services for many years but also because they have not been eager to provide a fair playground for new telecom operators on the landline market. As a result, I do not have a landline at the moment. (And as a result, I can't order at Play.com as they require a landline phone for creditcard verification.)

Versatel is a newcomer in the information age market and now offers 20Mb ADSL together with landline phone services and live TV-quality football streams of all Dutch competition matches. Customers no longer need KPN and get the whole deal for a very, very reasonable price. The catch?

They require a working KPN landline or they can't connect you. If I want Versatel, I have to get (and pay for) a 12-month contract with KPN only to let Versatel cancel those services. I can't blame KPN (it's not their requirement), but I sure do think it's a braindead move by Versatel. Losers.

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