For those who have been following the ratification process of the European Constitution (misnomer of the century) will have noted that the Dutch have said no. A very large number of people, more than 60%, turned up and almost two thirds of those people voted against it and I was one of them.
The coverage on CNN was kind of funny. They had some "expert" on the phone from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. The reason it was funny was because they must have pulled out the only map of the Netherlands they had. It just so happened to be the same map as the one used when the politician Pim Fortuyn was shot and killed in the town of Hilversum because that seemed to be only town marked on the map. Rotterdam, which has to be at least 10 times bigger, if not more, wasn't even marked.
The funny thing is that this so called constitution isn't really a constitution and that the referendum wasn't much more than an government sponsored opinion poll. Unfortunately it wasn't the opinion most political parties were hoping for. Our prime minister, the Harry Potter look-alike Jan-Peter Balkenende, was very disappointed of course. I bet he's kicking himself in the shins now for submitting this treaty to the general public for approval. Now he has to deal with the consequences and so will we. Democracy is great; it's nice to think you have some power over what's going on in your life, even if it's only pretend. Just remember; if voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

Here in the US I haven't seen much in the news about the European Constitution but they have plenty of time to talk about the Michael Jackson trial. Or maybe I've been avoiding the news because of the trial. Either way, Jello is right about voting in America but your vote seems to have made an impact. Good luck on getting a chance to do that again.