2004-03-25

The Dutroux Trial: a big "farce"?

Launched in the town of Neufchâteau, the pedophile Dutroux is in trial for the sequestration and abuse and murder of 6 children, facts dating back to the nineties.

Although widely believed to be a part of a network, no testimonies have proven so far that this is more than just 1 manipulator-madman operating on the edge of society.

However, a couple remarks:

- Dutroux was able to operate for almost 20 years, staying low under the radar for his gruesome cirmes. Although arrested and imprisoned for car theft, the searches of his houses never revealed the caves he specially built to detain his victims -> only ni Belgium
- Dutroux made a spectacular escape back in 1998 , only to be caught by a forest warden. Public Ennemy #1 escapes from prison? -> only in Belgium
- during the trial a couple of "faits divers":

* they found the key to handcuffs in a jar of salt
* the door of the van transporting PE1 doesn't close properly
* they found a razor blade in the van...???

Is this all staged, is someone really trying to liberate this guy? Or are we all victims of our imagination?

2004-03-22

Coffee Voodoo
Just finished Michael Moore's latest "Dude, where is my country".

After the events of 9/11 and 3/11, it appears that the message from the REM song: "It's the end of the world as we know it..." is picking up some momentum.

Check out this timeline of events leading up to 9/11 and the numerous early warnings you can find between the lines. Especially intersting are the following:

- preemptive assassination of Massoud, the Lion of Pashtun
- inside trading on American Stock (especially the 2 airlines,...)
- Israeli's everywhere: Mossad agents on the scene in NY documenting the attacks. 1 very special-forces dude on one of the planes, assassinated before impact.
- the ghost flights of Bin Laden relatives and Saudi Royals in the hours following the strikes
- the USA refusal of a deal proposed by Pakistan to hand over OBL in the weeks after 9/11....

Does it strike you as odd, that 3/11 happened?

And now.... today at 500 AM local time, Israeli gunships fired 3 rockets killing the famous blind and parapleg. Hamas leader... A Gov't sponsored assassination...

Where is this leading?
World War IV for the next 50 years?

Reporting from Paris

Is it time to put up these signs around our houses???

2004-03-12

NY: 11/09/2001 - 4 planes
Madrid: 11/03/2004 - 4 trains

...

2004-03-10

Macao Dragons!

Back in business after +40 000km in the air, travelling from Buenos Aires, over Paris and Hong Kong to Macao and Shuzai in the PRC.

Confiance prédictive vs. Confiance normative

Selon Locke, la confiance est le lien de la société (vinculum societatis). Dans le monde économique, nous pouvons dire que pratiquement toute transaction commerciale, et plus encore, toute transaction qui se prolonge dans le temps, contient un élément de confiance. Martin Hollis distingue deux formes de confiance, "prédictive" et "normative", selon que l'on attend ou que l'on s'attend à quelque chose. Par exemple, dans le premier cas, je fais confiance à mon pommier car je prévois qu'il produira des pommes et non des prunes. Dans le second cas, non seulement, je prédis que vous me rendrez le livre que je vous ai prêté mais encore j'ai le droit de recevoir ce livre en retour et vous êtes en faute si vous ne me le rendez pas. Les obligations "normatives" ont donc une saveur morale (tu dois, tu devrais, on attend que tu ...) que n'ont pas les simples prédictions.
Si la confiance basée sur la prédiction "pure" est suffisante pour une simple coordination car le comportement de l'autre est uniquement guidé par la rationalité, la prédiction "normative" détient la clé de l'énigme de la confiance. La première me force à vous faire confiance alors que la seconde me donne le droit à votre confiance.