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Zwaar verlies koopkracht door invoering euro
[Quote:]
- De gemiddelde werknemer in Nederland heeft sinds de officiële overstap van de gulden naar de euro begin 1999 een koopkrachtschade geleden van ongeveer 164 procent van het huidige inkomen.
Indien er geen compensatiemaatregelen worden getroffen, bedraagt de koopkrachtschade voor volgend jaar 27 procent van het huidige inkomen.
Dat heeft de Stichting Wisselverlies.nl dinsdag gemeld. Zij begon 21 juni een nationale actie. “Wij willen ons geld terug. Alleen samen staan we sterk.”
Het doel van actie is compensatie te krijgen voor de door Nederlandse burgers, bedrijven en organisaties geleden schade als gevolg van de omwisseling van de gulden naar de euro.
Volgens Wisselverlies.nl was de gulden tussen de 12 en 20 procent te goedkoop toen de munt werd ingeruild voor de euro. De ‘wisselkoers’ was 2,20371 gulden voor 1 euro.
Ik verwacht dat we die tegemoetkoming tegelijk met het kwartje van Kok krijgen…
Cartoons
Virginia unveils ludicrous new rules for the road
[Quote:]
Well, it’s Sunday morning, July 1, and you know what that means? It’s time to check your tires.
Starting today, driving on bald tires could cost you $900 under new Virginia driving laws created to pay for road improvements.
That’s right, Virginia legislators too spineless to raise the outdated gas tax to pay for highway maintenance have cast themselves in the role of road Nazis.
NEW “CIVIL remedial fees,” also called “abuser fees,” will raise an estimated $65 million over the next three years to pay for transportation fixes that should have been made 10 or 20 years ago when equally spineless legislators failed to do their jobs.
The new laws mostly apply to serious driving crimes, such as DUIs, manslaughter and driving on suspended licenses.
But Virginia Code 46.2-1042 makes it a Class 4 misdemeanor to operate a motor vehicle with below-standard tires. To be fair, it’s always been a misdemeanor to drive on bald tires, but now you have to pay an additional $300 each year for three years to keep your driver’s license.
SO HOW does one define “below-standard tires?” According to the Virginia Code, tires must meet the minimal standard set forth by the Society of Automotive Engineers.
I wish I were making this up. It gets worse.
It also will cost you $900 – above and beyond normal traffic fines and court costs – if you display any obscene images visible by other motorists.
THE VIRGINIA Code defines obscene as anything that appeals to the prurient interest in sex and includes “excretory functions.”
Does this mean I no longer can play that potty DVD for my 2-year-old during road trips in our Honda Odyssey? (The DVD player is a lifesaver.)
Such videos are excellent potty-training tools. One of ours has a catchy tune: “She is a super dooper pooper … she can potty with the best … no more diapers to get in the way … she is simply the best.”
THE VIDEO shows little kids making pee-pee and poo-poo. My question now is, will showing it in the minivan land me in deep doo-doo?
It’s simple - with laws this vague everybody is a criminal, and all they need to do when they need money but don’t dare raise taxes is start picking random people off the street.
Sony Promotion Lets Students Hide PSP Play
[Quote:]
Sony in Italy has distributed to Italian students FAKE BOOKS WITH FAKE HANDS that make it appear that they’re reading Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” at school when in fact they are playing a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP). The inside even includes the “Cliff Notes” version of the book, so PSP slackers are armed with basic information about the book they’re not reading.
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At the Edge of Victoria Crater
Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, Cornell, JPL, NASA
We’re going in. The robotic Opportunity rover currently rolling across Mars has been prowling around the edge of the largest crater it has visited since landing over three years ago. It has been studying Victoria crater and looking for a way in. Now scientists on Earth have decided to take a calculated risk and plan to send Opportunity right into this ancient Martian crater over the next few weeks. Pictured is Cape St. Vincent, part of the wall of Victoria Crater next to where Opportunity will descend. The wall itself appears to contain clues about the Martian terrain before the impact that created Victoria crater, and so will be studied during the daring descent. Above the crater wall, far in the distance, lays a relatively featureless Martian horizon.
Doonesbury
Bush commutes Libby’s prison sentence
[Quote:]
President Bush commuted Monday the prison term of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, facing 30 months in prison after a federal court convicted him of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators.
A commutation is distinct from a pardon, which is a complete eradication of a conviction record and makes it the same as if the person has never been convicted.
Bush has only commuted the jail term, which means that the conviction remains on Libby’s record and he must still pay a $250,000 fine.
Commutations are rarely granted, says CNN’s chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin. A commutation is a total right of the president and it cannot be challenged by any attorney or court, he said.
It’s the fourth time Bush has issued one.
Earlier Monday, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that Libby could not delay serving his sentence, which would have put Libby just weeks away from surrendering to a prison.
So perjury is fine if it isn’t about a blow-job? And Libby can continue to appeal, allowing the White House to continue to refuse to comment on an “ongoing legal process” and Libby can still take the 5th amendment when dragged before congress. (and the stated reason is 30 months is too harsh?)
I bet the Republican presidential candidates are all beating their head against the wall right now. Bush just keeps reminding voters why they shouldn’t vote Republican in 2008, unless the Americans find inspiration in what the Romanians did with Ceausescu.
[Poll: 73 Percent Of Americans Unable To Believe This Shit]
According to the latest Gallup Poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday of this week, nearly three out of four Americans can no longer believe this shit.
In addition to the 73 percent of poll respondents who described this shit as “beyond belief,” 9 percent said they could “hardly” believe this shit, with another 5 percent “just barely” believing it. An additional 13 percent said they “couldn’t give a flying fuck about the whole goddamn thing.”
The poll also found that the National Shit-Credulity Index (NSCI) has hit an all-time low, with only 2 percent of Americans describing themselves as “fully confident of [their] capacity to believe this shit.”
“The American people have had to deal with this kind of shit for years,” Gallup Organization president Lee Sanderson said, “but now, for the first time, it appears that the vast majority of them just can’t fucking believe it anymore.”
Wat ik niet terug kan vinden op die wisselverlies website is waar de geclaimde “juiste” wisselkoers op gebaseerd is.