Being on various lists concerning EU software pattents that have been effectively warning me to raise my voice in the past, has falsly put my mind to rest. So much is indicated by the big surprise showing from some messages reaching me this morning:

I couldn't help wondering where the various Flemish political formations were when this was happening, so I made my round of the main f o u r and just asked the question... I'm quite sure at best this will be a test for how e-responsive they all are. Will keep you posted.

In the mean time I found it quite ammusing to check what their servers are running :-) Of course this is probably just their ISP's choosing, and hardly to be seen as a political statement, but hey :-)

• sp-a - vld - cd&v - vb

Anyways, a special message to my special pick, the Flemish socialists: "it will obvisouly, boys and girls, not suffice to be putting pro open source slogans in Humo in the runner up of the next ellections"... Gosh, I'll have to vote Solidarnosk next!

Anyways, I see the efficiency of the OSS machinery at work already (more messages!). Just guessing, but there is a fine share of european officials to be getting loads of email today :-) Mine is under way, yours would help as well.

Finally: I'm instantly considering to go on vacation in a Polish rural area this year! Thanks dudes.

update Follow up on the reactions from the political parties on my question via email: (my mails went out Fri 21/1 11h (am)

1. 13:12 from cd&v: administrative reply, partly standard friendlyness but also indicating it's been routed to the appropriate persons in the european fraction.
2. monday 24/1 15:56 from vld: same kind of reply indicating it's being dealt with by the administration of Minister Verwilghen, who they transferred my message (he already received my fax, hope that doesn't confuse him too much ;-))
3. tuesday 25/1... still waiting on the two parties that proclaim to be closer to the vox populy...
4. tuesday 25/1 15:11 the message-routing-person of vb lets me know that their eu representative Philip Claeys is reading my message now.

I blogged about Pieter Gaudesaboos before. But this exceptional talent went at it again.

• Hoe oma plots verdween is his third book in this first series, I (and my kids) hope to see a lot more by his hand.

By now there is quite a lot more coverage out there (of course carrying a name with absolute googlejuice helps :-) ), and even some graphical teasers upfront. Still no translations though...

Giving the proclaimed religious 'funding' of some acts of terror dominating the world's modern history, there seem to have been top-religion-diplomatics gathering here and there.

In Belgium Catholic and Islam top got together some weeks ago and abused the event to state how well we all get together and how much better it could yet be if only the other party were a bit more liberal :-). And on a larger (European?) scale Switserland hosted representatives of just about any religion coming to a very striking observation: "since we all get allong mighty well, and find so much resemblance and joint vision we are truly left to believe that the real danger to this world is the (potentially) growing number of non-religious (unbeliever, kafir, heiden!) people."

Do you feel the same kind of dissapointment, as I did?

For sure I am no match for all the gathered whisdom. So assuming their conclusion is the honest truth, I keep feeling it is not complete.

I know my dissapointment comes from the fact that this is only a new version of the immensly old mantra 'you need to join our club". And while I recognise that the rule is just dictated by the human social nature (so a given thing) I only see the missed opportunity to loosen up more of the boundaries of their club.

So let me share my own view. Thanks to reading a load of wrong books The ZAAMM - Enigma - The dutch only "Meneer Albert", Frank Vermeulen - but even the more popular The shelters of stone. I've come to realize the true separating 'human' thing in this respect is to be looking for meaning and that, put in a historical context from before religion became an institute, this effort was lead by those who were practicing art, science and yes: mystics.

Why and when did those 3 become a specialization in their own right? With their proper purpose of existence? So strange to see that people can't cope with those 3 being different aspects of essentialy the same quest (be it discovering or creating, passive or active) for meaning. (might be scary exercise: what is the meaning of not allowing female priests? what is the meaning of letting your wife/doughter wear a burka, or grow your own beard :-) , what is the meaning of discouraging condom use in Africa?... and I'm quite sure it's equally scary for fundamental science: what is the meaning of 'succesfully' dropping a box on a 1.2 billion km distant moon of Saturn while a big part of our own planet gets washed over by a tidal wave?)

There is just much to be discoverd in tying the three together again: imagine that sunday's Mass got replaced by your priest doing a thorough explanation of the concepts of Kurt Goedle's work, or another good choice: a Woody Allen movie? Of course in Belium it means priests would no longer be payed by the ministry of Justice, but rather would need to file requests for goverment funding and prizemoney like artists and fundamental research groups. Hm, starting to like it more and more: the ministry of meaning.

Seems like a fairly long road ahead to get back to the essentials, no?

Trying out the other fun from Rik's blog out with my own name:

Made me remember the local variant:

Only nerdy observation to make: the URL of the US variant has a higher REST-ness ranking :-)

Getting an information request from rikskeflikske (can't wait to see google pick this up... anyways, honest answers are likely to let me turn out pale on the music-lover rankings...

1. Total size of music files on my laptop: 0Bytes. Why? Should I? The kids have a rough 150MB section on theirs, they own the mp3 player and use it for the accidental large travel sections (started on the sa trip last year) I'm an absolute Radio lover.
2. Last bought CD: Strange Fruit, Trijntje Oosterhuys (live with Amsterdam sinfonietta and the houdini's), blue note records. Impuslive buy in Holland somewhere in May. Instant classic in our jukebox. Been enjoying each play of the album.
3. The last song heard when receiving the estafette-stick? Didn't write it down since the always true answer is "Whatever was playing at Radio 1" at the time.
4. 5 songs that I often listen to, or mean a lot to me: Piano Man (Billy Joel), La promesse (Roch Voisine), Send in the clowns (from the 1973 Broadway musical, "A Little Night Music.", I like Barbra Streisands version on the album 'One Voice') [yes, having a definit musical-sweetspot], anything by Arno Hintjens (home city grown TC MATIC! world class artist), or from the other Belgians you should know: Jacques Brel, Toots Tielemans. Ending up in the more classic region: Mozart's Requiem and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (Summertime | Oh Lawd,I'm on my way | It ain't necessarily so,...)
5. Passing on the honors to tomk.