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Burgemeester van Vliet,

U was het die Amersfoort in de steek liet.
U keerde de rug tegen de liefde en gaf gehoor aan de haat,
U was het die de stad Amersfoort angst aanpraat!
U koos voor de kant van het geweld,
Dat is wat u ons gisteren heeft verteld.
Naast dhr Hadjipour voor aan de stoet,
Met gebalde vuist TEGEN geweld dat moest.
Durf naar het kwaad te kijken,
Want na gisteren begint het er op te lijken.
Dat u bang bent voor uw stad,
Waardoor u al die liefde die er wel was vergat.
Wij waren niet bang voor het kwaad,
Want liefde kent namelijk geen haat.
Liefde durft oog in oog met het kwaad te staan,
Liefde zal dit alles overwinnen voortaan.
U had moeten staan voor in de stoet,
Want het is niet het kwaad maar:
De familie, de Vrienden, de Kennisen, betrokkenen
DIE ZIJN HET DIE U PIJN DOET!!!
Liefde zal het geweld overwinnen!!!!
IK BEN TEGEN GEWELD!!!!

Judith Klein Meulekamp

Last weekend a 16yr old boy got shot in Amersfoort. The shooter couldn’t handle the fact that his girlfriend broke up with him and that she was hanging around with the boy who got shot. So he got on his scooter together with someone else, drove by and shot him, in broad daylight, in the middle of Amersfoort, while lots of people were doing their weekend shoppings.

Unfortunately my girlfriend was one of the ones that gave him first-aid, although it didn’t help. He died in her arms. Damn …. Respect goes out to Babak. My condoleances goes out to his mother and father, all his family and friends and everybody who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hope the fact that the killer has been arrested will ease the emotional damage done to you a bit.

The people over at jigsaw.com pay you for the contact information of others. Even worse, you can sign up there and get that contact information. There doesn’t seem to be a way out of it, eg, you can request your information to be removed, but it will just flag it and not actually remove it. In their privacy policy they say:

“This privacy policy covers how, when and why we collect, use and share information about our users…This policy does not apply to our collection and use of data about companies and contacts contained in our database system.”

Right …… Avoid this site like the plague and be careful with your contact information.

Sometimes you can find really interesting nuggets of information in between the slashdot comments. Take this one for instance (made by Anonymous Coward):

“One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.
The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.
“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”
“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.
“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”
“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”
“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.
“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog’s back.
“I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

This is a story often told in psychology classes. To understand the immutable nature of something is vital. There is no point intellectualising, making excuses and analysis, sometimes something just is what it is.

For humanity it is necessary to recognise the intrinsic nature of capitalism . It is an unfettered force which puts the value of money and profit above life itself. There are too many examples and stories from reality which prove this time and again that we would be fools to ignore this force. Unless we take steps to moderate the present capitalist system a few unlucky people will be left sitting on a vast pile of gold upon the smoking remains of a planet .