Category Archives: Paul

Police brutality – Unique to the USA?

It has been impossible to ignore the cases of severe police brutality from departments all over the USA. Any reasonable person would wonder, after reading about this for the second, third, or even fourth time in the same year, why US police departments do not learn from previous examples. After all, how hard can it be? Continue reading →

PrisonLAW

In de recente pers werd melding gemaakt van een gerechtelijke dwaling in de zaak Jaitsen Singh, de Nederlander die al tientallen jaren vastzit in de USA. En, zoals het er al lang naar uitziet, voor iets dat hij niet gedaan heeft. Een grove gerechtelijke dwaling derhalve!

Helaas is zijn geval niet uniek; hij is niet de enige Nederlander die onschuldig vastzit of vast gezeten heeft. Bovendien geldt hetzelfde voor gevangenen in andere landen dan de USA en met andere nationaliteiten dan de Nederlandse. Continue reading →

ChatGPT…

After a recent contribution by fellow columnist Eef, suddenly a lot of articles in the Dutch and Swedish press about this AI were published – did they read Eef’s column? As usual with the presentation of any new AI, the articles vary from handy tools for the curious, via a new don’t-have-to-do-any-more-homework trick for students, to the latest threat for AI to take over our jobs and ultimately the world.

Finally, I got curious and decided I had to try the thang for myself. Continue reading →

Domestic terroristm

When I wrote about terrorists a few weeks ago, I only briefly mentioned the domestic variety of terrorists or terrorism. According to trusty old Wikipedia, domestic terrorism can be simplest described as:

Domestic terrorism or homegrown terrorism is a form of terrorism in which victims “within a country are targeted by a perpetrator with the same citizenship” as the victims.

At the same time, Wikipedia mentions that there is no universally accepted definition of this phenomenon, leaving it to each country to set its own definition. Continue reading →

Podcast “De verdwenen SS’er”

Toen ik in 2020 begon te schrijven aan wat een jaar later als mijn eerste boek ‘Nuremberg’ gepubliceerd zou worden, leek de hoeveelheid informatie en publiciteit over SS’ers die hun straf ontliepen summier. Hoe verging het hen, waar ontspoorde de juridiek?

Groot was dan ook mijn verbazing toen ik een week geleden bij toeval tegen een krantenartikel over een recent verschenen podcast aanliep. Het artikel noemde de titel van de podcast, ‘De verdwenen SS’er’. De krant in kwestie was het Dagblad Kennemerland. Continue reading →

tɛɹəɹɪst

Say what…?

That spells terrorist, or tɛɹəɹɪst if you want to know its correct English pronunciation. The word is on the lips of everyone in presidential office, in each government, on police forces and in military all over the globe. It is used by democracies, dictatorships, military juntas, and autocracies the like. Anyone my age may remember that such was not the case for thirty or forty years ago. What happened? Continue reading →

The Nord Stream blowout

Nordstream:

As was reported yesterday on international news, and perhaps even more in detail out here in Scandinavia, there seems to be some serious trouble with both Nord Stream pipelines since yesterday. Both seem to be showing all the signs of massive leaking. While Nord Stream 2 was not yet deployed, even that has been blowing bubbles since yesterday. Continue reading →

‘Referendum’ in Ukraine

As no one can possibly have missed, russia is in the process of organizing a referendum. The fact that they organized it in another country makes it more unique. The fact that the subject is whether the folks voting in the referendum want to join the russian federation makes it even more unique. Note that my use of the word ‘unique’ is not to be interpreted in a positive manner. Continue reading →

Pricing issues

As much as I like helping others, giving away my books for free makes no sense to me. As it turned out, at bol.com I virtually did just that.

Due to the excessive amount that bol.com takes off my profit, I was giving away each book at €0.60 per copy, which is a steal on their behalf as I see it. As a result of this, I decided to no longer sell my paperbacks via bol.com but only at bravenewbooks.nl. Obviously, sales of ebooks and pocketbooks continue via amazon.com and bravenewbooks.nl (Nuremberg, The Big Day, The Deep, and De Grote Dag).

That said, I am reconsidering the pricing for my ebooks. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Paul
2022-09

Click here for all essays on books and writing this site

Det Svenska valet – 2

Med några dagar sedan valet återkommer jag till mina tidigare kritiker på det Svenska valsystemet. Jag konstaterade tidigare följande briser:

  • Vid ingången, dock utanför, står folk från lokala partier för att uppmana rösta på deras parti
  • I ingången där man tar de små papperslappar finns en vakt som ser till att allt går rätt till där
  • Kuverten man använder att lämna in lapparna har mellan 1 och 2 cm stora håll. Valkommittén ser vad det är du röstar på
  • Man får inte själv stoppa sitt kuvert i valurnen, det ska en i valkommittén göra

Continue reading →

Det svenska valet – 1

Svenska valet innan 2022

Jag tror jag har nämnt det Svenska valet och valsystemet förut, och om jag gjorde det så var det inte  med lovande ord. Som icke Svensk medborgare får jag inte rösta i Riksdagsvalet, dock bara i kommun samt länstyrelse valen. Jag deltog några gånger i de första valet sedan vi flyttade hit, sedan började jag granska systemet lite mer kritiskt och slutade rösta. Istället gick jag till vallokalen för att kolla upp läget, kommentera och sedan överklaga mina synpunkter till relevanta myndigheter. Continue reading →

Educate russian tourists?

Since the unprovoked invasion of and war from russia* against Ukraine, relations between the EU and russian federation have been at a historic low, at least since the cold war ended about thirty years ago. Many rich russian folks, certainly those aiding and supporting the putin** regime, have found travel restrictions to the EU and US. Continue reading →