Someone on Twitter just sent me a video of conservomonster Bill O’Reilly using his errr… ‘talent’ on Amsterdam. Completely ridiculous, yet so awesome. I’ll let the video speak for itself.
Don’t even mention us again, Billyboy.
Thanks @panciuc.
Tag: amsterdam
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Drugs, Prostitution and Same-Sex Marriage
That’s the title of a 10-15 minute presentation I’m giving soon for my Intercultural Communication classes at Yeditepe University, here in Istanbul. I designed it in such a way that it can also be enjoyed without my vocal explanations and here it is!
The Intercultural Communication course is likely to be the most innovative course I’ve taken during my higher education (sadly — universities should make more use of modern technologies). Every Tuesday, we get into a classroom at 4 o’ clock in the afternoon and have a video conference with a class in Lincoln, Nebraska, US. We present ourselves, our culture, customs, daily lives and our countries to each other. It’s fascinating, because both the Turkish class as well as the American class have students from many different backgrounds.
This part of the Intercultural Communication course, called Global Classroom, has been quite fun so far. We’ve managed to make 2 students from the Nebraskan class dance in front of the camera and they’ve managed to make 2 of our students wrestle in front of the camera (or was it Jiu-Jitsu?).
There’s only a few sessions left, so I hope I actually get to do my presentation, as our lecturer wanted everyone to prepare one, but there will be no time to actually execute all of them.
I hope the presentation has given you an insight into Holland’s liberal policies and if you have any questions please feel free to reply. I love answering questions about these issues.
How about in your countries, how is your government dealing with these issues? What is your personal opinion on these matters? Has the war on drugs failed? Is same-sex marriage morally wrong or is keeping it illegal a form of discrimination? What about prostitution?
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Dutch smartshops take legal action against ban on magic mushrooms
This is a follow-up article on “Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1“.
Amsterdam, Saturday 8th November 2008
The Association of Smartshopowners has been surprised and is disappointed about the decision of the government of last Friday to implement the intended ban on magic mushrooms as from December 1st. The Association will take legal action.
The Association condemns the decision of the Government since both Ministers of Justice and of Public Health refuse to listen to the stream of warnings from the experts, scientists and from the Association. The warnings consistently refer to the increased dangers of unwanted side effects of such a ban. The Association was in regular discussions with the Government over the past ten years in order to properly regulate the market for hallucinogenic mushrooms and pleaded consistently for proper regulation rather than banning the ‘shrooms’. The Association deplores that, by the decision of the government, further co-operation is made impossible and that her members and their customers are facing an accomplished fact in a rather raw manner.
The Dutch Opiumwet (druglaw) requires that there must be a proof of damage to the public health and the community at large. Against a yearly turnover of some 1,5 million portions of magic mushrooms there is only a very small amount of incidents. Moreover, these incidents cannot be traced back to the exclusive use of ‘shrooms’. There has been no scientific investigation of such incidents nor has there been any toxicological examination. The Minister ignores the clear advice of his own advisory body (CAM) and bases his decision on unfounded assumptions and takes his own suppositions for granted.
The members of the Association are feeling highly derogated by this decision and by the clearly unreasonable attitude of the Minister.
A general ban on the sale of shrooms will inevitably lead to the closure of many smartshops whilst the remaining shops will incur a sizable financial loss. This aspect was hardly discussed in the parliamentary discussions about the proposed ban.
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Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1
Dutch Christian Democrat minister of Public Health, Ab Klink, has announced the ban of selling and growing ‘magic mushrooms’, or shrooms, will take place on December 1. This knee-jerk reaction follows a media and political hype caused last year by the suicide of a 17-year old French tourist who was said to be under the influence of mushrooms at that time. It was also her second suicide attempt.
Politicians got riled up as the media started covering every mushroom mishap in Amsterdam. Since nobody really stopped campaigning since the last government was formed – as they’re doomed to fail – they saw this as a good chance to speak up, speak out and win votes. At the cost of liberty and sanity.
Ab Klink, minister of Public Health, previously asked the Coördinationpoint for the Assessment and Monitoring of new drugs (CAM) to research illegalizing shrooms. They concluded that these are the risks involving mushrooms:
- Health of the individual: no risk.
- Public health / society: minimal risk.
- Public order / safety: minimal risk.
- Criminal involvement: no risk.
The CAM advised against a ban on mushrooms for the following reasons:
- The smartshops selling the mushrooms might replace them by substances which carry more risk;
- It will lead to shrooms being sold in tablet-form, like XTC pills;
- Users would pick mushrooms in nature, which could lead to serious problems if they mistake the wrong type of mushrooms for the ones they are looking for;
- Users might switch to other drugs, which might be more interesting from a criminal perspective and possibly carry more risk for usage… Leading to more danger to the public;
- The banning of mushrooms is a rather tough sanction given the current problems its causing;
- Maintaining a ban would bring costs.
What did Ab Klink do? Ban them! Of course. The CAM was surprised as this is the first time a minister has ignored the advice of this advice organ. Minister Klink is obviously tripping. Or maybe he’d like to see the Bible as our lawbook?
Dutch ‘smartshops’ that sell magic mushrooms and other legal mind-altering substances are taking this to court. For updates on this matter you can follow Dutch blog Red De Paddo (Save The Shroom).
Recently a Christian Democrat politician called for the closing of all coffeeshops in Holland and illegalizing cannabis. In a follow-up poll, Dutch citizens expressed their opinions about the Dutch policy regarding drugs. 36% want coffeeshops illegalized, but 34% wants to see them completely legalized. Coffeeshops in Holland are currently in a grey area, more can be read about this in the article below or on Wikipedia. In short the sale of softdrugs is legal in Holland, but supplying coffeeshops of them is not.
Last year I wrote about the pending mushroom ban in several articles, one of which is reposted below, the others can be found via these links:
- Dutch minister of health to ban “magic mushrooms” (October 10, 2007)
- Saving the Shroom (October 16, 2007)
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Below a repost of my article “Dutch government to ban cultural identity“. (more…)
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PhotoHunt: Wrinkled
I took this shot during the Global Day of Action for Tibet on the Dam square in Amsterdam. Besides this being one of the few pictures that corresponded with the theme, I also feel quite strong about the Tibetan issue. If you haven’t already, check out the BBC documentary “Undercover in Tibet” (for free via the link).
To see the whole album of pictures I took during the Global Day of Action, click here.
If you have a wrinkled picture of your own to share and you’re a PhotoHunter, be sure to leave your name and a direct link to the post below! All PhotoHunt posts get Stumbled!
Technorati: PhotoHunt
