Our most widely read article so far was the story of Victor de Bruijn, the Dutchman who recently “married” two women, Mirjam and Bianca, in one go. We explained in the article that in the Netherlands, as in Belgium and in Spain, homosexuals are allowed to marry, i.e. in a regular marriage which has been given the same legal value and follows exactly the same procedures as a regular marriage between a man and a woman. No pseudo-marriages or so-called “civil unions” are needed for this.

When more than two people are involved marriage as such is not (yet?) allowed in the Netherlands. Citizens who want to formalize their relationship with multiple partners can opt for what the Dutch call a samenlevingscontract or “cohabitation contract,” which is the civil union that some in the US are proposing as a pseudo-marriage for gays. This is what Victor and his women did when they went to a notary in their wedding outfits to exchange rings.

Here are two approaches to post-hurricane public policy.

Two adjoining building lots with beautiful views of the Gulf of Mexico were for sale. One was purchased by Mr. Charles Ant, an engineer, and the other was purchased by Mr. Teddy Grasshopper, a lawyer. Each lot was 6 feet above sea level. Scientists had calculated there was a 10 percent chance of a 5-foot storm surge, a 5 percent chance of a 10-foot surge, and a 2 percent chance of a 15-foot surge along that section of the Gulf coast in any given year.

Mr. Ant decided to raise the level of his lot and build his house on pilings so that the bottom floor was 18 feet above sea level. In addition, he built his house of reinforced concrete with hurricane-proof windows. Mr. Grasshopper built his house at sea level using a light wood frame and siding construction. They spent the same dollar amount to build their houses, but because Mr. Grasshopper built a less rugged structure he was able to build twice as many square feet as Mr. Ant.

An official multinational body has decreed that the surname of Jesus Christ should be written without a capital as from August 2006. That is, if you are using the Dutch language. Though today Dutch-speakers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Surinam write "Christus", next year they will have to change their habits and write "christus".

The change is part of a new spelling norm, to be published in a new edition of the so-called "Green Booklet". Previous spelling reforms date from 1946 and 1996.

The Swedish Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a 39-year old Swedish man who donated his sperm to a lesbian couple has to pay child support for their three children. Three sons were born to the lesbian couple between 1992 and 1996. The man had donated his sperm to the couple on condition that he would play no role in the children’s upbringing and that the two women would be their parents. He had signed a document, however, in which he acknowledged to be the children’s biological father.

When the lesbian couple “divorced” the biological mother demanded that the man pay for his sons’ upbringing. He refused and took the case to court, losing in the district court and the appeals courts and finally before the Supreme Court in Stockholm, which upheld the previous rulings stating that biological parents are required to pay child support for their offspring.

An important battle about who will control the Internet is currently being fought. On the one side is the USA, that wants to keep the status quo and has the support of most of the global Internet community. On the other side is an amalgam of states who want to exercise as much control as possible in order to limit the Internet’s power to undermine their own political regimes. This group comprises Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, Venezuela and... the European Union.

A few weeks before the UN sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, the EU is seeking international backing for a proposal to “internationalize” control of the Internet. Currently the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the body in charge of managing the Internet. The US Department of Commerce has a vetoing power over ICANN’s decisions.

Today, 80 years ago, on October 13, 1925 Margaret Roberts was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire. At the age of ten 10 she worked for the Conservative electoral campaign. She won a place at Oxford to study chemistry in 1943 and two years later she delivered the first political speech in a local market square. In 1951 she married the late Dennis Thatcher. All the rest is history: in 1959 she was elected for the first time, in 1975 she became the leader of the Conservatives, and from 1979 till 1990 she was Prime Minister of Great Britain.
 

Due to several comments received after this post showing the U$D amounts spent by various governments on healthcare per capita for their citizenry, a follow-up. Below are selected health indicators found on the World Health Organization’s website. These indicators are topline figures for general comparisons between countries. As a tribute to Raymond van het Groenewoud, Belgium has been added to the mix of data:

Source, WHO

One must admire the Estonians. Despite silly suggestions from some of their politicians the Estonians were the first to launch the flat tax revolution and they are also leading the world in the field of e-government and mobile government.

E-government means that most government paperwork is eliminated and government operations are conducted through the Internet and in electronic form. Estonia’s ministers come to the cabinet meetings with their laptops and authorise documents with an electronic signature. This is said to have already saved the government 200,000 euro in paper and photocopies.

What you see here is an advertisement for the Belgian radio network "Radio 1", operated by the public broadcaster VRT. Its tagline "meteen mee" means "get it right away" or "get it at on(c)e". To illustrate this slogan, the ad shows six pictures of president Bush. On the first one he is smiling, and the caption reads:

2002. When things are not going well on the domestic front, divert attention and start a war abroad. In Iraq for instance.

On pictures two through five Bush looks more and more worried and the captions read:

Iraqi resistance is persistent. There are more victims than we expected. It is costing more than we had budgeted. And then, the levees break and New Orleans is flooded, while the National Guard is in Iraq.

In the last picture Bush is smiling again and saying:

When things are not going well domestically, divert attention and start a war abroad. Maybe in Iran?

Lo, the small kingdom of Belgium has brought forth a messias who will save the EU. At least, that is how Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt seemed to see himself yesterday as he presented his “state of the union” speech for the opening of the Belgian Parliament’s year.

Verhofstadt, who was France's and Germany's candidate for President of the European Commission last year, warned that Europe is in danger of being left behind in the changing world of the 21st century. “The negative outcomes of the referendums in France and the Netherlands have plunged the Old World into a crisis”, he said. “The failure of the European Council to agree on budget for 2007 to 2013 has served only to reinforce this crisis.”