Dutch ban on sex with animals

Dutch Minister of Justice Ernst Hirsch Ballin informed the Tweede Kamer (Dutch Parliament) today that Sex with Animals would be banned officially starting from January 1 2009. For those who understand Dutch, click here for more information.

I thought that this was forbidden but no, till end of the year Sex with Animals is not a crime as long as the animal in this case doesn't experience pain. What kind of regulation is this current one anyway? It is ok when the animal doesn't get hurt but hey, how can we analyze this? If you are Anglingdarma (a king from Javanese legend who speaks and understands languange of all animals) I can imagine it is a piece of cake, you could just ask the poor animal.

What kind of people prefer to have sex with animals than with humans anyway? Sick people I think or people who turn to be beast.

This short post ends here.

Reunion Online

I don't know whether this is a coincidence but people from my junior and senior high school have been adding each other in Facebook the last two weeks. You all know how it goes, news spreads really fast.

So, there is a group created for my graduating year. I joined this, to my surprise there is a girl (ok, perhaps a bit exaggerating, we are now 36 years old), a person, who attended my wedding party back then in 1995, uninvited! She did this while she never invited me to her parties!!!! I only knew her from the dancegroup, PKC.

Wedding parties at that time (at least wedding parties of my fellow students/classmates) were an onofficial reunion. So, there I was, busy taking best wishes from my guests (for Indonesian standards, my wedding was quite intimate), then she came up. I told her bluntly in front of other ex classmates, that she was not invited (as I only invited 16 people I really knew from my SMA-time).

Call it childish reaction, I don't care, never did actually, even if my guests saw me as a bridezilla back then.Now I wonder, does she still do this? Uninvited coming to a party while she only invites her own inner circle to her own parties.

Prinsjesdag 2008

Every third Tuesday of September Dutch governement presents the (concept) budget and the financial plan for the coming year (in Indonesia is comparable with RAPBN). The Queen read the plan in front of the whole cabinet & her royal family yesterday. It is a Dutch royalty show every year with loyal fans. Even the ministers are keen to be part of this tradition, as the female ministers are obliged to wear a hat, so on this matter Prinsjesdag is comparable with The Ascott race in England.

Queen Beatrix and her son Willem-Alexander en his Argentinian wife, Maxima arrived in a golden chariot at the Binnenhof (Dutch Parliament's building, in the middle of city center of The Hague). Other son of Beatrix, Friso and his wife, Beatrix's sister Margriet and her husband arrived after them, also in a chariot but an open one.

As a foreigner living here, I find it rather fascinating, partly because of my job and my private situation as a tax payer. I mean, when I lived in Indonesia, I was never ever interested in the RAPBN cause I kept being sceptical, nothing would change whatsoever! But here, due to the economy crisis in the USA, the Minister of Finance (or is it Minister of Treasury), decided not to apply the raising of VAT (taxes) with 1% as planned before. As a working mother I also profit from the regulation concerning childcare costs and so on and so on....The day after, today, the opposition parties revised this budget concept & showed how they would have planned it.

Hereby, the impressions through the pics I found in http://www.nu.nl/, some of the pics are from ANP.

Red carpet laid on the Binnenhof (parliament's building in the Hague)

The ride in the golden chariot through The Hague city center.

The wave to the folks at the Nordeinde Palace's balcony

This last pic reminds me of the middle age when prince and princess would wave just to satisfy to curiosity of ordinary people.

Fundraising Time

The fundraising time has just begun. Yesterday, G came home with a booklet of coupons from Jantje Beton. She must sell 10 coupons à € 1,50. Her opa and oma bought one coupon. The rest must be sold out within 14 days. As I wrote above, the fundraising has begun, so there is not much chance left for G to sell out all 8 coupons left these days as other children in the neighbourhood have to sell them too. She asked me to help her by selling these at my & her dad's office, poor G, she needs to reach her target :-(.

Starting in September, the time of Collecte (Dutch for Fundraising) begins. The form of this vary, you can buy coupons from Jantje Beton and Kinderpostzegels or donate money in the box for other organisations. Around 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening (most people are at home for dinner as the Dutches eat their dinner quite early), my homebell would ring ca. 3 à 4 times with children (some with their mom or dad) in front of the door carrying a collecting box. I will do the same thing with G this week end (hoping that then the peak of children collecting money would decrease, I expect that my neighbours would give more :-D).

In connecting with my previous post, there are several causes here in NL which raise the Funds annually by collecting money door to door, such as KWF Kanker Bestrijding (with news of the day, ex cancer patient, Lance Armstrong will ride his 8th Tour de France next year!), Astmafonds, Kinderpostzegels to name a few. These organisations are so well-known, people recognize the logo immediately which is positive. KWF and Astmafonds have adults vollunteers to collect money, Kinderpostzegels and Jantje Beton ask children of Secondary Schools to do the fundraising. This is arranged by the board of the school itself.

Till the next two weeks I need to keep my wallet filled with enough cash (€ 1,- coins) to support these causes.