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Showing posts from January, 2013

Condolences to the Brasilian people

My thoughts are with the Brazilian people. It is a real tragedy that more than 230 people died in a nightclub fire while many clubbers are wounded and in hospital. But it is an even greater shock when one realises the number of people who died could have been smaller when there were stricter laws concerning the number of fire exits, or when strict laws existed, they would have been implemented. It seems there was only one fire exit, and thus many people were not able to escape. It is also unbelievable fire is still used in areas with large numbers of people. And was it not known the ceiling could burn? Even cigarettes can cause fire, let alone fireworks inside a building. But even in shows on TV we see firework within buildings, certainly during New Years eve, thus it is normal we sometimes forget about the dangers as mostly nothing happens. When fire is used during shows, it should be sure ceilings, walls and furniture are at a large distance and fireproof while there should be p...

(12e) China and its pollution

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The Chinese capital Beijing is at present covered with smog and people need mouth pieces and air purifiers. But not only China has problems, also many other cities all over the world, although there are places were air quality improves. Here a comparison between London in the past and Beijing now and it seems to show our impossibility to learn from the past to prevent disasters. Past: London It is unbelievable: in China the pollution is about as bad as it was in 1952 in London when that air pollution, known as the Great Smog , killed about 4,000 people within a month, mostly young and old people while 100,000 people became ill due to respiratory problems , resulting as some researchers say in a total of about 12,000 fatalities. This was due to a rare weather event (creating windless conditions) but this weather event only made clear what was known for many years but ignored, and that was the large amount of air pollution. First one believed it was one of many smog events (so n...

Marriage and its partner ... divorce.

Marriage, something many children dream doing when they are adults: the girl in a long white dress and next to her guy who is dressed like all other guys in black or grey so all attention goes to the girl, and he is happy everyone admires her. The dream wedding. Except, it has become all so confusion for some people: the original marriage between man and wife but also gay marriage, civil partnership, LAT (Living Apart Together), many together or all alone (although that means of course for many people: poor guy or girl, not able to find someone and thus certainly unhappy although they pretend the opposite while they are getting unhappy because no-one want to believe when they say they are perfectly happy alone (then of course people will think of them as being selfish people who don't want to share and don't manage to live with others ). What is the problem when people decide to live in communities with 26 other partners, to stay within a relation with one person with or...

Gerard Depardieu and Brigitte Bardot

Gerard Depardieu The French actor Gerard Depardieu is angry because he has to pay more taxes than less wealthy (or even poor) French people and he finds that unfair because he works very hard for his money (and thus he seems to suggest others (such as nurses or street cleaners) work less hard and thus should earn much less). Indeed, a tax of 75% for people earning more than €1 million is exaggerated but then they probably can find many ways to reduce this. In protests against these taxes he moved to Belgium, even trying to become Belgian while he could make suggestions to the French government how to implement a fairer tax system so everyone is more or less treated in an equal matter. Although after becoming Belgian he will have to pay Belgian taxes as a Belgian citizen and no longer as a foreigner. And Belgians know their taxes are one of the highest in the world, up to 50% when only earning above €35,000. (Although if I think about it, this is incorrect for those with lots of mon...