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balkenende

A donkey does not bump into the same stone twice…

2 years ago Posted by Geeske Filed under ,

… but the Dutch did! Four times.

The Dutch cabinet fell -again- today. This time disagreements were over the extension of deployment of Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

Article at BBC

Article at CNN

Article at FoxNews (the article says that this was in Amsterdam, but even though that A’dam is the geographical capital this happened in the governmental capital, which is The Hague. You know the city where international war criminals (should) go to. How fitting that politicians spend most of their time there as well… ;) )

Article at MSNBC (They too mention A’dam as the place of origin for this news. The USA do know The Hague exists, don’t they?)

So, we now have a so-called ‘rump cabinet’, a minority cabinet that is only allowed to finish the work that was already begun by the cabinet.

Perhaps after four ‘cabinets Balkenende’ we will realise that Balkenende may not be a very good Prime-Minister. He seems to have trouble holding on to his coalition partners. Oh, al right, I’ll give him the third cabinet, which did not fall and was a transitional minority cabinet that governed the time between the second and fourth cabinets.

I’m a bit worried now, though. We have local elections coming up on the third of March, and it looks like the hate-mongering scurvy pig politician Geert Wilders may win quite some votes. With the general elections suddenly coming so close to the local ones, I’m afraid that people will not get enough time to see for themselves why it is not a good idea when you let Wilders’ party* govern a town, let alone the country.

I’m sure it will all work out, but thinking of Wilders as Prime-Minister makes ‘Balkenende V’ seem like a very good idea indeed.
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Poem: Punctuation

2 years ago Posted by Geeske Filed under

Today
is punctuated by two boys
outside playing with a ball
thump

Each comma a
thump
Each period a
thump

There is
thump
I feel
thump
something very peaceful
about the consistent
thump

After a while
it gets almost
hypnotic
thump thump thump


Until
thump
inevitably
thump
there comes the time
-
when they stop
-

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Good Omens

Book: Good Omens – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

2 years ago Posted by Geeske Filed under ,

Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home.

Good Omens

Good Omens

Good Omens
The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter (Witch)
by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
(Dutch title: Hoge Omens: de oprechte en secure voorspellingen van Agnes Nutter, een heks)

I have read this book multiple times and each time it is as good as it was last time. It’s smart and funny, and it does not bore easily.

The two main characters the angel Aziraphale and the Fallen angel Crowley, two angels have spent the past millennia on earth, ever since humans were cast out of the Garden of Eden. During this time both have become somewhat friendly with each other -how can you not become friendly with someone who spends eternity doing the same thing as you-, have become quite used to living their cosy, comfy lives, and also have become somewhat fond of humanity. The latter is expressed by Crowley (formerly known as Crawly, guess what his role was in the Garden) in these words:

He rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon.
Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.

And just when you’d think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved. It was this freewill thing, of course. It was a bugger. More >

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