Talk:Jan Peter Balkenende/Archive 1

Jan Peter Balkenende

This guy looks like Dwight Shrute from The Office. --

oh man. this guy does look like the grown-up version of harry potter. --Leigh Honeywell (or a young Garrison Keillor?)

Grown-up? --Bigsmoke 11:06, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Imagine the dutch reactions when we realised he was going to be our leader ^.^ Vincit 17:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

They were the best reactions ever. Many people in the US and the UK don't seem to understand that he is a hard working christian man, just like 75 % of the population in the US and the UK. No those people only look for good-looking men (might be gay but don't talk bout that). It's better for Holland to have a christian man in charge than someone like Wouter Bos, member of the socialist party (someone who opposed the Iraq war and all that Anit-American stuff). So you have again been fooled by these left wing idiots, who scream for help because their stupid social security's are cut. Wiki213ip 17:12, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Wouter Bos isn't a member of the socialist party, he's a member of the Labour party, like Tony Blair in the UK. Jacoplane 11:13, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Why is he a member of a labour party when he is in favour of social security plans like France. For the record France has an unemploymentrate of nearly 11% and a youth unemploymentrate of 23%! So why again is he a member of a labour party when he kind a opposse more work instead of improving it. It seems that the law student needs an economic lesson huh? Wiki213ip 10:15, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment except to ask you to take a look at Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Thanks. Jacoplane 15:04, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Wiki213ip needs to learn something about this world before he/she starts talking more nonsense. For the record, Balkenende is the worst PM the Netherlands has had since Colijn in the 1930s. His cabinet is obsessed with short-term thinking, xenophobia and elitism, and will go down in history for its terrible governing, like Bush and Blair, the warmongers who pose a greater threat to this world than all terrorists and other fundamentalists put together. 62.238.92.181 14:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Please, wikipedia is not a political platform. Discuss your inconvenience somewhere else. SietskeEN 10:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with SietskeEn, wikipedia is not a political platform. And I'm also thinking that it is very sad to make a comparison between Harry Potter and Balkenende. It's very childish and it shows a intellectual deficiency, it looks like people don't have any real arguments anymore and the only way to blackmail someone is a personal attack. 4:11, 4 juni 2006 (UTC)

Party names in NL

Please, please, everyone get over the funny party names already. They largely stem from a different era, and it's unfair to judge the parties by how close their platform is to the name they inherited from previous generations. Besides, the whole discussion is a little off topic, isn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.84.239.37 (talk • contribs)

Peter

Does he actually use the written middle name "Peter" in Dutch, as it seems? The article says his legal name is Pieter, which is what I would have expected; would anyone happen to know why he prefers the English form to the Dutch one? Just curious. --Saforrest 19:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The middle name 'Peter' is not specifically English. Peter is a name very common in the Netherlands. Peter R. de Vries for instance is a famous dutch crime reporter and wannabe politician. I'm not sure why he prefers an other version than his own name, but is very common for dutch people to have another roepnaam (name people are called, not very easily translated) than their legal name. Marijke Vos, the green politician, is legally called Maria Bernadina Vos. I don't know exacty whether or why JP decided to change his name. Maybe his parents called him this Jan Peter. Or he changed his roepnaam when he entered politics, because 'Jan Pieter' sounds worse than 'Jan Pieter'. I hope this explains. C mon 22:28, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Saforrest I want to add that it is a bit egocentric to think that because something is a normal name in your language that it can't be that in an other language... 212.64.56.124 (talk) 14:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Resignation

"Mr. Dr. Jan Peter Balkenende listen (help·info) (born 7 May 1956) served as Prime Minister of The Netherlands from 22 July 2002 to his resignation on June 30, 2006."

Today is June 29, 2006. Can Wikipedia see into the future?

• reworded. Baszoetekouw 20:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Now, shouldn't it be updated? He's a prime-minister again

death?

I don't believe he is deceased, is the intro. vandalism?

== vandalism - 'balls' instead of law ==

yeah. this page is vandalised by some haxxor. my first reading said he studied 'balls and history', the second 'law and history'.

how do we flag this up or lock it down?

--TresRoque 08:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The article is linked on the main page today. The vandalism will slow down when that link is gone. So far the vandalism is not too bad to handle. Garion96 (talk) 14:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Just netherlands

Why are people from the United states and Kingdom referred whit theyr State or Province and people from other countrys just the City/Village and Country

For example:

New york, New york, United states

Biezelinge, Netherlands

And not

Biezelinge, Zeeland, The Netherlands???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.134.154.25 (talk) 07:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not belief there is a simple answer for this question. There might be multiple reasons. The main reasons is probably a cultural one. It is simply not customary to do so. A second reason might be the difference in legal status of provinces/states. A last reason might be the fact that (in the case of the Netherlands), there are no cities sharing a name with their province as is the case in the USA, like New York city and New York State. --82.75.176.46 (talk) 12:14, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

There are cities sharing a name with their province in the Netherlands (Groningen, Utrecht). Other reasons might be that provinces in the Netherlands are not nearly as important, or powerful as states are in the USA, and that the Netherlands is quite small, a lot smaller than most US states. In some cases the name of the province is used, when multiple towns have the same name. See for example Bergen, North Holland and Bergen, Limburg. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.55 (talk) 14:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Candidate for EU Presidency

JP has categorically denied being a candidate for EU Presidency, and there is no evidence to refute that claim. The entire Dutch media continues to think otherwise, but this is just their opinion. here it says (in Dutch) JP once again claims not to be a candidate, nor has he been contacted by other heads of state to be one. Modified article to reflect this. crashmatrix (talk | contribs) 17:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)