Oh Those Crazy Cloggies – Page 12

More government bullying of coffeeshops

Published on January 5, 2011

prerolled joints for sale

I’ve posted before about the “wietpas“, the current Dutch government’s attempt to slowly strangle the coffeeshops by depriving them of foreign customers, but that’s not the only measure they want to introduce. Another proposal doing the rounds right now is the idea to close any coffeeshop that’s too near a school, for the sake of the children of course. Exactly what is too near a school and which kind of schools will fall under this new proposal is still unclear. The only thing we know so far of the plans is that the governments wants to ban all coffeeshops in a range of 350 metres distance from a school, but not how this will be measured — as the crow flies, or based on the shortest route from a given school to a shop. That last measurement would probably the least harmful to existing coffeeshops, but even then almost sixty percent of coffeeshops in the Netherlands would have to close, according to the NRC newspaper.

They looked at the fourteen municipalities with ten or more coffeeshops within their borders, who together account for 442 out of the 660 shops in the country. Judging by the most positive interpretation of the proposed law, some 57,9 percent of these shops would have to close — in Amsterdam it would mean 187 out of a total of 223, including the world famous Bulldog. Combine that with the restrictions on selling to tourists and it would basically mean the end of the coffeeshop as we know it.

It’s an absurd measure, supposedly meant to protect children from the dangers of drugs, but the idea that teenagers looking for dope would bike 350 metres but not 351 metres to go to the coffeeshop is silly. What’s more, it’s already illegal for coffeeshops to sell softdrugs to people younger than 18 and the decent ones do check, as I know from my own experience. They have to, because if they do get caught selling to underage kids, it means they’ll lose their license and are barred from owning any coffeeshop.

Nobody, — coffeeshop owners, police, city councils, social workers or even the government themselves — thinks this measure will actually solve anything, especially considering the Netherlands is doing quite well already anyway, with one of the lowest addiction and hard drug use rates of any western country. The truth is that this government has an ideological hatred for soft drugs, partially from Christian moralism on the part of the CDA, partially from the “fact” that the pseudolegalisation of soft drugs in Holland is a leftwing legacy of “the seventies” and this government puts great pleasure in destroying “leftwing hobby horses” just for the sake of it.

Snowmageddon!!1!

Published on December 17, 20101 Comment

traffic chaos on the roads around Amsterdam due to snow

We always make fun of it when it happens in England or America, that a bit of snowfall completely disrupts the country, but pride comes for the fall. Today we got our turn, as more snow fell down in a single day than has been seen in years (more or less). Road traffic ground through a halt all through the west of the country, the trains stopped running and here in Amsterdam all the buses had to be taken off as well because it was just too dangerous for them. At the office this morning all the talk was about how and if people would get home, the various weather and traffic were largely unavailable and in general a mild and somewhat pleasurable sort of panic reigned.

Of course, for those unlucku sods out in the provinces who had come into work normally in the morning, it was a problem getting home, as every other fscker in a car decided to leave early and “beat the rush”, the trains stopped leaving and the public transport in Amsterdam itself slowly wound down as well. But still, for me at least it wasn’t all bad. The trams I needed were all running and yes, there were some delays but I was warm and dry and with an unread book so all the eseentials were there. What’s more, the walk home from the ferry because the buses had been cancelled was quite peaceful, especially with this on the headphones. Yes, I was surprised too.

Common heroics

Published on December 16, 2010

The above public service broadcast ad annoys me everytime I see it. Produced by Postbus 51, the government’s moralistic propaganda agency, the voiceover explains how the guy in the wheelchair would’ve been helped better if people had prevented the assault on him that put him in there in the first place. I always found it a bit harsh on the people actually in the video; they couldn’t help it, they weren’t there. But it is a symptom of our supposed selfish times that the government feels the need to put up videos warning us to do our civic duty, unless we want to see more train conductors in wheelchairs. But are so selfish, or is our discomfort with contemporary society and its mores based more on a moral panic caused by a few well publicised horrible incidents?

One clue is what happened on my way back on the hospital, when a woman went into epilectic shock a few seats behind me. Before I could do anything, or even think about what to do, it was no longer needed. One American woman, either somebody with a nursing background or just generally competent, was immediately helping her to not hurt herself, another, Dutch woman was calling the emergency number for an ambulance and getting advice on what to do, an Italian (?) tourist was helping to lower the victim to the floor in the position the emergency people recommended, others were offering coats and such for her, and so on. A tram full of people wrapped up in their own affairs in a matter of seconds rallied around to help somebody none of them had ever seen before. Nothing really heroic, nothing you could brag about on tv, but people still did it as a matter of course, because they were concerned and wanted to help.

Fair restores your faith in humanity.

Wikileaks saved Afghan asylum seekers from deportation

Published on December 15, 2010

Wikileaks logo

If you look at the criticism leveled at Wikileaks in the wake of “Cablegate” as well as the earlier leaks of the Iraq and Afghan warlogs, it usually boils down to two points, often made at the same time: the leaks don’t tell us anything we didn’t know before and at the same time, they endanger (American) lives. Both are of course fairly opportunistic claims, usually made in bad faith but effective enough they’ve been repeated over and over again with each new round of leaks. So it’s good to learn about a counterexample that disproves both, as it turns out the revelations in the leaked Afghan warlords have made several Dutch judges decided to disallow the expulsion of Afghan asylum seekers.

Normally when judges decided whether or not a given country is safe enough to send asylum seekers back there, they depend on statements given by the ministry of foreign affairs. In the case of Afghanistan however no less than five judges found that Wikileaks’ Afghan warlogs proved that the country was not secure enough to force people to return there. When this became known, it lead to questions in parliament today, as government party CDA found it “remarkable” that judges would sooner trust Wikileaks than their own government, while opposition party PvdA wanted the ministry to start using the Wikileaks revelations in their statements, something the minister said was already going to happen…

So there you have it: positive proof Wikileaks is important.

White thrash, Dutch style

Published on December 6, 2010

The trailer for the movie version of cult favourite comedy series New Kids, sort of kindof like a Dutch Trailer Park Boys. The context might be slightly different, but I’m sure y’all can recognise the universal white thrash stereotypes. More to be found at 24 Oranges.