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I found some data on the first names parents gave their children in 2004 (data from statbel.fgov.be). It should come as no surprise that passe-partout names (used in both Dutch and French) dominate the first names hitparade.
Here are the top 10 per province for the girls:
Continue reading ‘Emma, Marie and Julie’
If your (Belgian) parents or grand-parents want to buy a cheap PC to get started on the Web, tell them to hold back for a couple more days. The Federal Government – through FEDICT – has set up a program to sponsor a complete package of PC + software + broadband + training for a sharp price. The title of the project: IVI or “Internet voor Iedereen” – the launch is planned for next week, April 18th.
Continue reading ‘IVI: Internet voor Iedereen’
I’ve written a post on the BMI (Body Mass Index) of the candidates for Germany’s next Top Model and I have been mentally bugged ever since. Not by images of thin girls, but by the formula of BMI: weight(kg) / length(m) ^ 2. Why the square of the length?
If it were weight/length you can attach a mental image to that: if you took horizontal slices of the body, how much would a 1m high slice weigh? For weight/length³ you can have an image too: kg/m³ or density of the body. But BMI is kg/m² or something like ‘pressure’ (multiply it with gravity 9.81 m/s² and you get the unit of pressure: Newton/m² or ‘Pascal’).
Continue reading ‘BMI is not perfect’
A number of influential international writers, journalists and intellectuals have just released a manifesto: “Together facing the new totalitarianism”, stating that we need to protect the universal rights (freedom of expression, equality of man and woman, …) from attacks by militant muslims.
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.
(…)
We reject «cultural relativism», which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.
Jyllands Posten via michellemalkin.com
The authors are the following 12 people: Ayaan Hirsi Ali (NL), Chahla Chafiq (FR), Caroline Fourest (FR), Bernard-Henri Lévy (FR), Irshad Manji (CA), Mehdi Mozaffari (DK), Maryam Namazie (US), Taslima Nasreen (SE/US), Salman Rushdie (UK), Antoine Sfeir (FR), Philippe Val (FR), Ibn Warraq (US).
Continue reading ‘Together facing the new totalitarianism’
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