new office

What a day. Outside temperature was below 20 Celsius. But inside in the air-conditioned space temperature was above 25 degrees Celsius.
I almost exploded to the responsible man, who seems to me minimizing the problem.
That man told me the airconditioner is based on a temperature of 23 degrees! What does this man think? That we are old people living in a old people's home doing old people's things?

He got angry cauze I phoned him instead being informed by my co-worker. He told that maybe on the old address we could do it otherwise but on the new address I got to follow the line. Just bullshit I told him. But now I hope temperature remains high so the rest of the week the temperature measurements will prove we're right. Average temperature 24 degrees!

safe as safe can be

surfing blog I found this YouTube video.

Other pictures of a cycle tour

Cycling from Utrecht along the river Vecht to Breukelen. Passing the A2 highway at Nieuwer ter Aa. Traffic jams are common at that spot. Much freight trucks on the road. Wonder why the waterways aren't used more often. Plenty of space.
In Vinkeveen is a lot of water, an ideal habitat for dinosaurs. That's why a lot of the Dutch rich have a house on the lakes of Vinkeveen.
On the horizon you can see the skyline of Amsterdam and you hear the airplanes leaving or coming to Schiphol.
After that it was time to find a way back home. I had a quick meal in Breukelen and made the first autumn pictures of the tree bathing in the sunset light. In Utrecht a late 19th century warehouse and a factory of the same period was picturezed.

Plenty to write about

First I saw a documentary on National Geographic about the need of water for civilisations. People depend on water, that was proven by archeology again. An Italian excavator was working in a Kazakhstan (former Russian republic) dessert on lost cities. The reporter who visited saw the excavation as a prelude for his report about lake Aral. Everyone should know that the lake is getting smaller and smaller due to the fact that less water goes in because Russia altered the flow of the rivers feeding the lake. The Aral still has an island in it which was a test facility for chemical and biological warfare of the Soviet Union. It's all contaminated and an easy place to get some antrax. It's there and nobody cleanes the place. All extremists can go there. So Richard Branson, why not a few billions for cleaning up that place next to your gift fighting global warming?

His $3bn donation will be "invested in schemes to develop new renewable energy technologies, through an investment unit called Virgin Fuels." (see the link)
Okay, it is a meaningful gesture to the energy entrepreneurs, such as the old oil industry of the Bush dynasty to change course, direction. If one person can do this, a nation can certainly do more. Come on world. Let the funds for new energy resources grow.

Today the Schiphol-detention-burning report has been made public. 11 People died in that fire. It appeared that the authorities are to blame for it. As many people thaught they were.
Today, 2 ministers and a local mayor resigned because they had the final responsability. It is much to late (11 months) and to easy. In all the previous months they didn't want to take responsability and debate about it(esp. the 2 min.) And with the final conclusion they say they can't debate about it because the report makes clear they can't stay.
What did the 2 ministers do in the last 11 months?

Today was also the last day in the office where I stayed 3 years. Tomorrow and the weekend we move to the new (old) building, where we left 3 years ago. So we packed our stuff and start Monday at 8.15 am in the new office, which seems to be even a little beter than the one we left today.

After work I cycled a little a took some pictures of Breukelen. For the Newyorkers it might be known. Some say Brooklyn is named after the Dutch village.
Breukelen is a village on the river Vecht and it has only one bridge to cross the river. Well, I took some pictures, look for yourself

The difference

On November 22 the Dutch can vote for a new House of Representatives, which is divided in a few wings of political parties.
You can imagine so many things about which the election in November 2006 should go (about?).

You can make the old age state pension an important item. It can be seen as an insurance, in my opinion it's not. Gradually it should be abolished. More and more people build up an own pension.

The health care is an important item. It's about quality and quantity of care in hospitals, old age homes, nursing homes. What quality of living can people be guaranteed? Is there enough care for old people in the future? Will there be enough workforce in health care in the future? What about hospitalization? Will quality be guaranteed? Will there be enough hands on the bed? Measures have to be taken.

It all comes together with the ageing people and education of youngsters.
The Netherlands should spend more on the educational budget. Workforce productivity should be increased by putting more money in it. Who dares that. Left will be the big spender, right will be the opportunist if they put money in it.

Or should the election go about the Islam, the religion that can't reason and uses the scimitar to spread their thought according to a Byzantium emperor from the 14th century AD, on a wicked moment brought up again by someone who might be a German in-between pope.

No, maybe it's the pope's criticism on the video-release, or suicide-bomber message of our Samir A.
The street rebel who doesn't speak Dutch, but makes Arabic sound like double Dutch. He says and I quote the Dutch newspaper NRC, "Every voter is guilty. That is the basis of democracy."
(guilty of the trouble in the middle east, because the government supports Bush and NATO)

Isn't that the reverse world of the Samir A.'s of this world? Some parties had a lack of votes because their voters didn't show up massively.
Everyone who doesn't vote is guilty because he failed to use the possibility to alter the ratio between the parties. That is the basis of democracy in 2006.

In the USA there was a tie in Florida, a recount was demanded. After that the Bush-supporters won on close call. It might have been a little stupid of the anti-Bush supporters not to vote for the democrats.
The few missing votes of those days make a huge difference nowadays.

spider without a net

my spider

Afghanistan a new Atlantis?

First we got some remarkable late summery days. After September 7 temperature higher than 25 degrees C. remembers about the Indian summer of 2005. Greenhouse effect? No, human kind can use another conspiracy-theory.

It's the 10th now. Tomorrow the twin assaults will be remembered. The whole world will think about the impact of it. Of course it made obvious that not everyone is happy with the continuing globalization. Some people don't want to be part of it.
I can't blame them. It's the religion you see.

I'm sorry for them, but it's hard not to be part of the process of globalization. I wrote about it in previous logs. The EU doesn't allow countries to export to the EU. The EU sets high tariff walls on goods (incl. life stock and plants) and people.
Not to mention the tariffs wars between the so called developed countries, or monopolies of some companies or whole industries.

I started reading Atlantiss of david Gibbins. (2005, Headline book publishing, paperback) Another could-have-happened story. It starts with the excavation of a mummy from 2600/2500 years ago.
That mummy was wrapped in papyrus. On it the Greek word Atlantis. That's the start.

It seems not to be like the 3 books Dan Brown wrote. Atlantis isn't a page turner.

A thought of mine is that it's a pity that religion has not many progressive men in it's organization. The lack of progress makes people stay behind. I can see it in the cities compared with the countryside where everything remains the same, especially in the religious area's. People have different opinions. In the 50's of the 20th century it was a real areal difference. Nowadays the opinion differs from person to person. Opinions became stand alone opinions. Especially those opinions which are a threat for progress.
In countries like Afghanistan the people are in the areal phase. They feel strong and any attack (or presence) from the outside world will be answered by violence, their only voice comes from the past. It's a long way to make any progress.

I hope the best for the Dutch Military force over there.
Don't let Afghanistan be a new Atlantis.

being watched by secret service

It may be normal that since my contact with Ocean I have more Iranian readers. I think it's funny because I really don't know the person behind the viewers.
They might be anxious and curious to know how life is in Europe, or with who my contact in the United States is dealing with. Just someone from Iranian University or a integer colleague of the Iranian Government!
It could also be not curiosity, but professionality. The person might be a secret service employee!
It could be anyone. A mother in law? Who knows.

But let me tell you about a short discussion on my work this afternoon. It started with the JFK murder and the conspiracy theory. The real murderer has been jailed and he told in 1994 he killed JFK. For what it 's worth.
The discussion jumped to the Twin Towers and the conspiracy theory about 911.
My colleagues can't believe Bush ordered that assault. And the plane that crashed in the Pentagon, where are it's wings on moment of crashing into the building?
What about the plane that crashed in the field after a struggle between passengers and the hijackers, where are the motors?
Questions that are asked by criticasters of the inquiry.

Than we jumped to women that wear those scarfs. I saw a picture in the paper of a muslima in a special bathing suit for muslimwomen. Seeing that I said that it didn't suit because of the muslimrules. Women are not allowed to show their bodylines. A female colleagues got very angry on muslimmen. They are the problem for women to be free.
She named countries like Pakistan, Saoudi Arabia and Iran. No not Iran I said, Iran is quite developed. Tonight I'm not sure however.
But we all know the student in my office so time ago who wore a headscarf too and a colleague told about a Muslim colleague he saw again complete with headscarf. Why do they wear those scarfs. Mainly because of the men in their part of society. They are watched. If not by their brothers then by other relatives.


So, I'm gonna watch the football game Holland- Bela Russia.

61 years after the war.

It's funny how in one way some great events in my life can be linked to the Second World War.

It started with my place of birth in the middle of nowhere. The village where I was born played an important role in hiding people from Germans. The village got a Yad Vashem award from Israel. The street I was born in carried and still carries the name of the leader of the regional resistance, Johannes Post.

Later I lived in Westerbork, a village which name only makes people shiver. From the concentration camp in the fields near Westerbork men were deported to Germany. We all know nowadays what happened there until 1945.
35 Years later I cycled a couple of years through those fields, nowadays partly forest, and could smell the odour of history. The same air Anne Frank breath so many years ago.
Nowadays we're looking at the stars.

Discovery of heaven, but actually a monument.

One day on my way to school I was hit by a car driven by a man called Speelman. That brings me back to the war because not a few Speelman's were transported via Westerbork to Germany. It makes me feel sad.

In 1988 I visited Israel where my sister volunteered in a kibbutz. I had a spring-break and made it a working-holiday. Visiting many place which the primary school teacher, mr. Dolman, in my place of birth, told about in his biblical lessons 8 years before.

And even nowadays, when I travel to my parents in the north by train, I use the same track which carried deported people from the west of The Netherlands to Westerbork and further to Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen, Sobibor, Theresienstad.

I could tell you more links with the war but than it would be like Zwartboek the movie of Paul Verhoeven. Sometimes it's difficult to keep one's word. But I am not a traitor.