Rondje Irak

Integraal, zodat u niet op die vieze site hoeft te komen…

Sometimes you wonder how Joran van der Sloot could get away with it.

And you have to consider it’s the Netherlands.

Why should that make any difference?

Well, I’ll tell you.

Thursday, we have news from the Netherlands about a wedding conducted and sealed officially by a notary who recorded the civil union.

The wedding was between a man and a woman and a woman.

That’s right. All three of them got married to each other.

Legally and officially.

Here’s how it worked:

Last Friday, 46-year-old Victor de Bruijn from Roosendaal “married” both 31-year-old Bianca and 35-year-old Mirjam.

I repeat, it was a legal wedding and it was recorded as a legal civil union.

Victor has two wives and both Bianca and Mirjam have the same husband.

Legally speaking, I’m not sure if this is a hetero wedding of one man and two wives or a combo of a straight marriage and a gay marriage. It may be an open question whether Bianca and Mirjam are married to each other or both just married to Victor.

Anyway, Victor said: “I love both Bianca and Mirjam, so I am marrying them both.”

For soap opera fans, this is how it came to pass. Victor had previously been married to Bianca. Two-and-a-half years ago they met Mirjam through an Internet chat room. Something happened in that chat room because eight weeks later Mirjam deserted her husband and came to live with Victor and Bianca. After Mirjam’s divorce, the threesome decided to marry.

What does this have to do with the Natalee Holloway (search) story and Joran van der Sloot?

Well, I’ve had a devil of a time figuring out why Joran is walking around a free man â?? who has the leisure to be coached by his father, a lawyer and a judge.

So it sounds like maybe he really did just leave poor Natalee on the beach.

I don’t think he would be a free man in the American system. But he’s in the system of the Netherlands and in the Netherlands, they let Victor marry Bianca and Mirjam and Bianca marry Victor and Mirjam and Mirjam marry Bianca and Victor.

Now it all makes sense.

That’s My Word.

De door Bush voor het hooggerechtshof genomineerde Harriet Miers doet binnen de Republikeinse partij veel stof opwaaien (geencom/geencom). Officieel is men vooral tegen haar omdat ze te weinig ervaring zou hebben: “The issue is not the venue of Miers’s constitutional scholarship, experience and engagement. The issue is their nonexistence.” In werkelijkheid gaat het echter waarschijnlijk vooral omdat ze zich nog nooit heeft uitgesproken tegen het homohuwelijk en abortus. Ook heeft ze geen duidelijk standpunt over hoe religie in de samenleving hoort te staan. De hoop van religieus rechts dat de religie steviger in de rechtspraak verankerd zou worden lijkt daarmee van de baan.

Het lijkt er zowiezo op dat de Republikeinse partij in een crisis verkeert. Katrina had al een flinke bres geslagen en Bush zijn politiek adviseur Karl Rove wordt beschuldigd van het lekken van informatie. Daarnaast moest de leider van de republikeinen in het congres, Tom DeLay zijn functie neerleggen.