This week a 14 year old boy was found murdered in the woods near Urk, the Netherlands. Within a day two boys were arrested, one of 13 and one of 15 years old in relation to this murder. Bit by bit the story is coming out in the press. It seems that the 14 year old victim was in love with a 16 year old girl from Urk as well. The 13 year old was also in love with the same girl. The love sick 13-year-old is supposed to have said that he would kill the 14-year-old when he heard about the love triangle.
For now the story is under investigation, and we’ll probably hear what really happened within the next weeks or so. I can only speak out my condolences to the family of the 14-year-old and hope that the guilty get the punishment they deserve.
It’s amazing that a 13 and 15-year old would batter a friend, because that’s what the 14-year old was of them, to death over a puppy love. Because, even though it may seem like real love, at 14/15 there’s plenty of time to change that feeling, and it would probably have. There are just not that many people in the world who are still with their childhood sweethearts when they grow up to be adults..
A shame.
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Popularity: 9%
Recently the Dutch government passed regulation to start implementing a so-called km-tax. This means that instead of the old fashion road-tax and taxation on buying a new car, the taxes will be paid based on the milage you make with your car. To do this, every car will get a small system built in that measures the distances travelled, routes taken and sents that information to a collection agency. The collections agency aggregates all that info and then sents you a bill.
There are some pro’s for this way of collecting taxes:
- You pay for the usage of the roads, not for owning a car.
- The prices of cars will go down
However, there are in my opinion very big issues with this system. The most important being the privacy issue which is currently being downplayed a lot by the Government. At the end of the day the information of all your travels will be registered somewhere. There is absolute no guarantee that this information will not be used for any other purposes than billing somewhere in the future. Allthough the Government may say that this will only be used for billing, we all know that as soon as they find another reason for it, this information will be used. There is absolutely no way that the regular Dutch civilian will be able to influence a decision like this later on.
The other big issue is that a lot of the road taxes were given to the states. When these road taxes are no longer taxated, the states will receive less income. And that is something that they are absolutely not willing to do. The first ideas about other forms of taxation to compensate the road taxation have allready been heard. Possible forms can be a resident tax or some other form. If these residents taxes are implemented, that will mean that we’ll be double taxed instead of, as the Government says, a tax-neutral change in taxation. You’ll be taxed for living somewhere, and you’ll be taxed for the use of your car. This is a flagrant disregard of everything that has always been promised regarding the new form of taxation.
So to recap:
- You’ll be followed everywhere
- You’ll pay at least double what you did before…
Well.. good plan, or not? I’m sure it will be a good plan for the Government, but for the Dutch civilians, this will be another way to just increase taxes, without getting anything in return.
A clear example that the Dutch government are really out of touch with what their constituents want….
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Buma/Stemra has backed down. Last friday Buma/Stemra announced that because of all the commotion regarding it’s plans to invoice bloggers absurd amounts for embedding content on their sites, it has decided not to go ahead and sent out invoices.
Besides all the bloggers reacting to these amazing plans, even political the Netherlands got involved. Even the minister of Justice did not agree and was “shocked about the plans” and is glad that the plans were stopped.
This must have come as a big suprise and shock for Buma/Stemra who thought they had found a way to win back all the money they lost in the stock markets in recent years.
However, the big question is still not answered: can someone like Buma/Stemra invoice bloggers for embedding content that is held on a different site like YouTube. That question is still not answered. We’ll have to wait and see how this turns out.
Until then: you can see what Dries Roelvink, a dutch singer has to say about it: Movie here [dutch only]
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After some bad news on the dutch blog Geenstijl regarding the questionable antics of Buma/Stemra they have found a new way.
What does Buma/Stemra do? They collect licensing fees for music productions played in the Netherlands. These licensing fees are supposedly collected on behalf of producers, musicians and other people who own these rights.
They used to collect from companies that played music in canteens, bars, but also for using music in advertising and such. But hey, times change. People are using music in different forms. And the geniusses at Buma/Stemra have now found a new source of income.
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