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Martijn

Listed below are comments made by Martijn between Tuesday, 27th January 2009 and Monday, 7th December 2009 (16 Hours Ago) .

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Tough World Cup draw for African challengers 5:25pm on 07 Dec 2009 "Cameroon 1990 because of comical goalkeeping by Higuita"
Don't forgot that if it hadn't been for the team's inexperience they would have beaten England in the quarter finals that year. And as far as I know few teams have ever won the World Cup without a fair share of luck. England in 1966 being no exception!
Woods image battered but not beyond repair 2:30pm on 04 Dec 2009 Maybe Tiger's wife isn't all that nice a person herself? What do we know? Why would we care? I have worked in 'the media' for almost 30 years and I have seen them and my former colleagues go down the drain through drivel like this. 'Infotainment' is what they call it, I believe. Pandering to the lowest and meanest aspects of the public is what I call it. Of course the British media (not excluding the BBC, in spite of the many good journalists who work there) is top of the bill in that regard.
Woods image battered but not beyond repair 10:59am on 03 Dec 2009 Vespa: "tiger you do the crime you do the time, welcome to the world the rest of us live in"
Has anybody recently reported on transgressions in Vespa's private life? I'm getting mighty curious about that.
And as far as razorblades are concerned, what with Henry's handball we're now probably just waiting for Roger Federer to slip up in some major way...
'Senseless tragedy'? 10:42pm on 09 Nov 2009 "The phenomenon is not unique to the US, but it is perhaps aggravated by the relatively easy access to firearms."
Perhaps?
Boxed in 08:34am on 09 Nov 2009 It would be a good thing if people in general and politicians in particular started to realize that 'economics' is not a science but a form of primitive shamanism on a par with the belief in paranormal phenomena. There will never be a rationally based economy as long as economists keep clinging to outdated 18th and 19th century social, psychological and mathematical models. The 'law' of supply and demand is about the only truth economic so-called science has ever managed to discover and even that is easily manipulated because advertizing manages to create demand for supply even if there is no real need for what is being supplied. Mobile ringtones are a recent example that springs to mind. A good start would be the abolishment of the 'Nobel' prize for economics, as it serves no purpose whatsoever other than giving economists a totally undeserved sense of grandeur.
'Senseless tragedy'? 08:18am on 09 Nov 2009 Had this happened in a civilized nation we would all be surprised and shocked. As this is America, where this sort of thing happens on a regular basis, I don't see any reason for either. The fact that the perpetrator is apparently a muslim is imo irrelevant. Lots of devout Christian Americans have gone on similar rampages without mention of their religion in the media. Unfortunately this incident will undoubtedely make life harder for other Americans who adhere to islam.
Healthcare plans: a threat to freedom? 3:28pm on 07 Nov 2009 Our American friends seem to be losing more marbles with each passing day. They have been so brainwashed by decades of capitalist agitprop that their capacity for rational thought has disappeared altogether. What could possibly be wrong with a national health care system that actually provides healthcare for everyone, not just for those who are fortunate enough to be able to pay for it? And don't tell me that your private insurance companies have very simple, easy-to-understand policies without small print that allows them to wriggle out of actually paying for essential healthcare services. This national madness would be sad or funny, depending on one's state of mind, if it weren't so downright dangerous, considering all the weapons of mass destruction they have at their disposal at a time when their whole system is rapidly going down the drain through sheer social and economic stupidity.
American power lives on 1:50pm on 27 Jan 2009 "Al-Quaeda is the organisation that uses the poorly educated, easily indoctrinated youth as its footsoldiers. "
As a matter of fact many Al Qaeda members are highly trained professionals, starting with Osama bin Laden himself. But is is easier to assume that its followers are 'poorly educated' or 'easily indoctrinated'. 'Easily alienated' wouild be a better word maybe, but whose fault is that?
American power lives on 1:28pm on 27 Jan 2009 democraticOath, as a "caucasian" (a meaningless adjective at best) I feel slightly racially abused by your post. It is true that white men have perpertrated many a crime over the centuries. That the USA was based not only on a Constitution which promised freedom for all but also on genocide and slavery is a painful fact that America hasn't really come to terms with yet. But don't forget that western culture is also the first in history that is actually capable of reflecting on its own shortcomings in a more or less objective manner. That is why we have been able to make any social progress at all over the last two centuries, however slow and painful the process may have been. Long live the scientific method! Now let's finally start to apply it to economics, because what they teach as the "science" of economics in universities is not scientific at all, merely an attempt at statistical justification of ideological beliefs. And it has been seriously holding us back for too long.
American power lives on 12:40pm on 27 Jan 2009 "Except I cannot think of any civilization which has persisted without being able to regulate the influx of alien cultures. Failure to be able to control the rate at which members of the alien culture arrive so that they can be assimilated will just as surely see the destruction of the civilization as if it atrophy, which seems to be Toynbee's view of how civilizations peter out."
Maybe as we are all on the way to one kind of "world civilization" or another this whole point is irrelevant. The fact that all of us are having this discussion makes our time different from all that went before. Lack of understanding stems mainly from lack of communication. At least in theory we are now more able to communicate than ever. At many more levels, too. We Europeans may sometimes disagree with some of the more irrational aspects of American life and vice versa, but the fact that we discuss them, forces us to think about them to come up with a response in the discussion. Which is never a bad thing.

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