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[martinuzz]

Today the case against Geert Wilders is finally seeing court. He's facing hatemongering and racism charges for inciting an audience to scant 'we want less moroccans'.
Geert Wilders himself announced that he will not be present in court, as he regards the case as a political trial and refuses to take part.
If he gets convicted it would probably mean the end of his political party (it's a one-man party, and once you get a criminal record law forbids you from leading a political party), and mass riots (his populist party is the largest party in polls for quite a while now).

Wilders has seen court before. The previous case against him was acquitted because the judge ruled that even though his statements of that time (specifically him saying 'a tsunami of islamisation' were hurtful and grieving, they were not discriminating any specific group.
This time however, he specifically targeted Moroccan people, so that argument won't fly.
Judges and jury start the case somewhat pissed. They snarked about having to learn that the defendant would not be joining the court session from the newspapers, instead of through his lawyer.

EDIT: wow, that trial is getting quite some international attention. There's more foreign reporters than Wilders-supporters at the court.

[Loud Whispers]

source pl0x

[Loud Whispers]

volkskrant is none other than the people's truth Covenant, it is a bastion of freedom and impartiality in a sea of capitalist pigdog news

[Antioch]

volkskrant is none other than the people's truth Covenant, it is a bastion of freedom and impartiality in a sea of capitalist pigdog news

Volkskrant is a fine newspaper, in fact most Dutch newspapers are very impartial relatively to newspapers in the rest of the world.

[Loud Whispers]

nice bants

[martinuzz]

source pl0x

Did you really have to go and make the board of Volkskrant investors call me to post the link LW, you could have just PMd me 

http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/live-aangifteproces-tegen-wilders-verliep-rommelig~a4405838/

[martinuzz]

The Dutch government can be so dumb sometimes.
They announced that in 2020, they will get rid of our physical system of air raid alarms. It will be replaced by messages on mobile phones and the internet.

Guess what one of the first things is that will go black if a major conflict would break out present day.

"Sound the air raid alarm! Enemy bombers are approaching our cities!"
"Sorry, no can't do, we're being DDoSsed."

Still, the current system has it's own sillyness. Every first monday of the month, at exactly noon, the air raid alarms go off for a minute for testing purposes.
If ever war breaks out, all the enemy has to do is launch the offensive on the first monday of the month at noon, and no one will notice the air raid alarms.

[Sergarr]

I'm trying to think of a scenario where having air raid alarms can actually help Netherlands, and failing.

[sprinkled chariot]

I'm trying to think of a scenario where having air raid alarms can actually help Netherlands, and failing.

Mad scientist genetically engineering pigeons with explosive shit?

[Erkki]

Those alarms can be used for warning about other things too, such as fire, smoke or chemical hazard... They'll surely at least make people turn on TV and radio for more information. Good to have redundancy and systems that wont fail in case of software issues, electric power blackout and so forth.

Month's first Monday here too, though the test is always very brief and ends in a recorded "this is a test" notification.

In Belgium, it seems that they've arrested this fellow that was used by UN and YK as a consult exprt in firearms matters: http://www.brusselstimes.com/rss-feed/6819/weapons-proofhouse-of-liege-arrest-warrant-issued-for-director No wonder he lobbed for more strict laws, as he had black market business of his own.

[TheBiggerFish]

They should vary the testing dates.  :v

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

But either it's hard to remember (everybody always thinks it's not a drill, or everybody always thinks it's a drill, because they cannot remember the dates) or it's easy to remember (then the attackers can easily tell which day to attack on).

[hops]

The Dutch government can be so dumb sometimes.
They announced that in 2020, they will get rid of our physical system of air raid alarms. It will be replaced by messages on mobile phones and the internet.

Guess what one of the first things is that will go black if a major conflict would break out present day.

"Sound the air raid alarm! Enemy bombers are approaching our cities!"
"Sorry, no can't do, we're being DDoSsed."

Still, the current system has it's own sillyness. Every first monday of the month, at exactly noon, the air raid alarms go off for a minute for testing purposes.
If ever war breaks out, all the enemy has to do is launch the offensive on the first monday of the month at noon, and no one will notice the air raid alarms.

They better be fukken' glad they aren't at war with Israel.

[martinuzz]

But yeah, the air raid alarms are pretty useless anyhow, since there either are no bomb shelters, or there are and no one is informed about them. No one ever asks. We did have them in ww2 (I actually owe them my existence, cause the house my poor grandma was hiding in from the Germans was bombed by the allies, she would have been dead if not for air raid alarms and bomb shelter), but they have never been mentioned since. I guess in my town, the underground particle accelerator ring structure at our technical universty might very well be the only thing even slightly resembling a bomb shelter.

[Helgoland]

You could always try to run out of town and into the fields. Nobody's gonna bomb a couple beets just because they might hit a civilian.

Well, except the Russians maybe.