Cogs can think.

Today, I have encountered what could very well be the Dutch patient zero. I saw an emo. In Alkmaar. An emo in The Netherlands.

You know what this means right?

It has found a way to cross the Atlantic. It has found a way beyond the border of the United States, into Europe. No longer is the emo issue a domestic American problem - oh no. This is now an international problem.

Where is the Threshold plan when you need it? I want Molly!

Peter R. de Vries. A horrible man, an attention whore, with a disgusting voice, and the ability to annoy the living daylights out of just about anyone. I don’t like the man, but, I have to admit: he has been able to capture criminals and murderers that the ‘ordinary’ police couldn’t get. And for that, he deserves respect.

And now, he claims to have solved the Holloway case - you know, that white blue-eyed blonde haired drunk whore innocent perfect little straight-A girl that got America all so worked up because, well, she was white. And had blue eyes. And probably was head cheerleader too.

She vanished on Aruba, and the last person to have seen her was Joran van der Sloot - a rather annoying (but not more annoying than other boys his age) white (not black! America mustn’t have liked that bit) boy who claimed to have left her on the beach - or something. Anyway, no evidence supporting his involvement was found.

A few weeks ago, Joran and his parents went on a late-night talkshow to finally close off this chapter - but guess who was there. Our friend Peter R. de Vries, who taunted Joran so far (you’re guilty! You did it!) that Joran threw a glass of wine in Peter’s face. Fully deserved, of course, and anyone who saw the entire show (like I did) can fully understand why Joran did it. Armchair psychologists (read: the people who make me not like democracy) were quick to deduct that throwing a glass of whine makes you a murderer (I’d have to tell that to Nina Persson), and so, he must have done it.

However, that was by far not the most interesting moment of the show. That moment came a few seconds earlier. Joran asked Peter, “If it all comes out and it turns out definitely that someone else did it, are you man enough to offer your apologies?” Peter stared him straight in the eyes and said, “What do you think?”. Joran looked straight back, and replied, “I don’t think so.”

“We’ll see.”, was Peter’s tantalising response.

To me, it seems that yesterday’s news can mean two things. One, the most obvious one: Joran turns out to be guilty after all - not of murder, but of getting rid of the body. Rumour has it that Holloway died of an accident, and Joran disposed of the body. Unlikely, but hey, we don’t know the inner psyche of Joran.

The second possibility is more tantalising, and not at all far fetched: Peter and Joran cooperated. They were in it together all along: put the blame solely on Joran, so that Peter could investigate another suspect in relative peace - the other suspect would feel safe seeing how Peter so squarely accused Joran. Sounds black helicopter-y to you? It’s considered a real possibility by many. The “We’ll see” actually fits this story - since it referred to offering apologies, and not the guilty/innocent question.

Sunday, we’ll know. I can’t wait.

I just had one of the weirdest experiences ever.

Here I was, watching the evening news/discussion program, about the Dutch military effort in Afghanistan. At the same time, I’m browsing OSNews, reading/making comments. All of a sudden, my ears pick up some faint static - the static a radio produces when it is in AM mode. My ears are extremely keen, so even the faintest of noises make it to my brain.

Anyway, the static turned louder, and all of a sudden, I heard voices. I could clearly hear a German woman speaking about “Korea”. It was difficult to make out individual words, but from the woman’s intonation I could make out it was a news programme. I immediately muted my TV, and located the sound from the speakers of my Apple Cube (my main computer). My first response was to see if there were any audio ads in Safari - but I was browsing OSNews, and we don’t run audio ads (I’d go on strike if we did).

I grabbed the (non-cordless) remote control to my Creative iTrigue speaker set, and max’d out the volume. The static and the woman’s voice undulated, from loud, to faint, and back again, for a few times - until it disappeared. Flabbergasted, I sat there. In the back of my head, that Mythbusters episode about that woman receiving radio signals through her teeth popped up. I swiftly fired up Google, and it promptly gave me a reply.

Thank you Google, for reassuring me I’m not going crazy.

Our former Secretary of Finance Gerrit Zalm (one of the best secretaries, in any field, we ever had; great guy, too) summed up pretty well why I simply do not believe miracles, crop circles, alien visits, conspiracy theories, or other forms of mass hysteria. He said it during a discussion about a popular TV program here where people who have experienced miracles can tell their tale.

There are 16 million people in this country, 365 days, each of which has 24 hours. Coincidences are bound to occur.

Well said, Mr Zalm. Six billion people + enough time = a whole lot of nonsense.

I’ve fcuking had it up to ^here with this whole hypocritical Live Earth and Al Gore crap. Seriously. They can kiss my shiny metal ass.

Wake up call. Driving hybrid cars won’t stop the destruction of our environment. Using three LED lamps in your home doesn’t stop the cutting down of our vital rainforests. Not putting your TV on stand-by at night won’t stop the useless mass killing of wildlife. Buying 10% of your meat intake at responsible farmers won’t stop the barbaric mistreatment of animals in the bio industry. Watching a promotional marketing film documentary about manbearpig global warming doesn’t make you a concerned citizen. And so on.

All these things are marketing ploys. They are here to sooth your conscience. Ecofriendliness is a serious market now, people, and you are all deceived into believing that a car with two fcuking engines is actually more environmentally friendly than a modern car with one small petrol engine, that a chicken with two A4 sheets of paper to live on is actually happier than one living on one A4 sheet, that not putting your TV on standby will make a fcuking difference in the grand scheme of things, and so on. Ecocrap sells, but does it actually make a goddamn difference?

I always proclaim that the people are stupid (I mean, look at democracy); however, I would really like to be proven wrong, but damnit, you aren’t making it any easier for me. The mass deception that is called ecofriendliness and carbon-neutral really proves once again that we are, in fact, stupid. The Romans already knew (panem et circenses), and little has changed since then.

If we want to save our planet, we will need to do some massive, massive changes. Contrary to what your government and Toyota want you to believe, driving hybrids and eating low-fat food won’t save the world. We’ll need to make serious and unpopular changes that none of our pansy politicians dare to force upon us.

Sadly, the people put in power by the people are barely worth enough to use as ass wiping paper.

On the National Geographic Channel I’m watching this documentary about how aliens have supposedly sparked the early civilisations of man. Because, how on earth were the Egyptians capable of building those pyramids? How did the large pyramids in South America get built? I mean, they were savage, stupid beings, right?

No, you arrogant morons. The ancient Egyptians were exactly the same as us. They had the same brain size, the same mental capabilities as we have. They were not “dumber” than we are today. A Homo Sapiens Sapiens is a Homo Sapiens Sapiens, whether it lives now, or 4000 years ago. This means that if we can grasp something, so can they. I find it highly arrogant to think that our ancestors were too dumb to build the pyramids.

Imagine 5000 years from now. Archeologists discover the Petronas Towers. I can just see the nutjobs of that era going, hey, how did they build that with their limited technology? Aliens must have helped them!

Pathetic.

PANIC!!!! PANIC!!!!

Get the flashlights! Turn on CNN! The west is under attack! Islamocommunists are out to kill ten billion people! Head on in to the convention center! It’s coming! Global warming started by fascist men with scarfs around their faces! A plane sure don’t fit in that hole! Bush is behind it all! Black helicopters, aliens, they did it!

PANIC!!!! PANIC!!!!

I want to talk to you about a scientific principle from the 14th century. This principle is called Ockham’s Razor, and it explains that if you have two different theories capable of explainging the same event or phenomenon, the simplest one is usually the correct one. Most people (including myself, actually) got to know this principle via the film ‘Contact’.

Yesterday was 9/11. There are two theories concerning this event. One says the attacks were staged by the United States government, meaning the US gov. has been working for years, with thousands of people, companies, airlines, explosives experts, controlled demolition experts, politicians, the military, etc. without any of them ever leaking any kind of information to the outside world. The US gov. would be willing to kill thousands of innocent people in order to justify going to war with Iraque.

The second theory says that a bunch of brilliant idiots came up with the relatively simple plan of hijacking a few planes and fly them into important buidings, causing mass hysteria and terror.

Back to Ockham’s Razor. You get my point?

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Of course I’m not even going into the fact that almost all claims made by our black helicopter-loving friends have been refuted [.wmv] using scientific research, in particular research by Dutch controlled demolition experts, aeronautic engineers, and scientists from the Technical University in Delft.

A random set of exmaples: the black helicopter people say that the turn the plane that crashed into the Pentagon made was impossible, the plain would fall apart. Nonsense; aeronautic engineers in The Netherlands put inexperienced pilots in Boeing 757 simulators, and made them do the turn; they all succeeded. Scientists from the TU Delft calculated that the maximum amount of G forces experienced during this maneouvre did not surpass 1.5G. You experience more in your car.

Secondly, the claim that controlled demolition was used to destroy the WTC: the controlled demolition experts explained that the building started coming down EXACTLY where the planes hit; it did not look like controlled demolition AT ALL. The fact that the tower who got hit later came down first was because that plane hit lower, meaning more weight of the tower pressed upon the sore spot of the tower, making it come down earlier. The scientists from the TU Delft calculated that the amount of energy of the planes and the crashes were enough to bring down the towers.

And so every argument was torn apart by people who actually know what they are talking about.

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People who believe in these 9/11 conspiracies, as with all other conspiracies, are moronic idiots. “omg wtf lolololol theres a movie on t3h 1nt3rnet, it must be true roxx0rs!”

Look boys and girls, I detest the current US gov. as much as the next guy, but they will not kill innocent Americans like this. To even think that, is completely moronic, and if you believe in nonsense like this, you are ripe for the men in white coats.

Let me state once and for all: yes, I believe know there is life outside of our planet; in whatever form that may be. Just do the math: our universe is believed to be infinite, this means that there is an infinite amount of galaxies, which together contain an infinite amount of stars, which in turn together are encircled by an infitie amount of planets, of which an infinite amount, therefore, can sustain life. It’s fairly simple mathematics (I mean, even I can understand it).

On the other hand, I know they do not come here to visit us. Besides a few redneck and/or sensationalist Americans people, there is no real proof they ever have.

Until I see about it in “Nature”, they have never set foot on this planet.

Update: various comments again falsily attributed to me. The real posters have started a serious discussion on IP addresses, and Kelly is no wpretty much exposed for the Apple whore that he is. Expose Kelly McNeill page updated accordingly.

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Laptop: $700
Windows MCE: $199
Firefox webbrowser: $0
Seeing others telling Kelly McNeill the truth: priceless.