What Makes People Tick?

In 2014, when Hamas attacked innocent Israelis with numerous rockets day in day out, the world was mostly silent. Or I should say: The world quietly applauded the so-called Palestinian 'freedom fighters' and their despicable terrorist acts, calling them heroes and courageous people.  What is courageous about terror and hatred? What is courageous about killing innocents? What is courageous about sending rocket after rocket at men, women and children simply trying to live their lives? What is courageous about terror tunnels meant to attack non-combatants? What is courageous about hating Jews because an old book tells you that you should? Yet when Israel fought back, when the Jewish people responded by protecting their own instead of waiting to be slaughtered the way the world seems to think they should, the world reacted. The world shouted about the 'evil Jews' and the supposedly horrible acts they committed. The world shouted about 'concentration camps' in Gaza...

Dutch television news ( RTL Nieuws ) has just reported that a large part of the Kurdish city Kobani in Syria, right on the Turkish border, is now under the control of the Islamic State terrorist group. Volgens een andere functionaris hebben de terroristen enkele gebouwen aan de oostkant van de stad veroverd, ondanks de voortdurende luchtaanvallen door de Amerikanen. Er zijn ook berichten dat IS al een groot deel van de stad, zo niet het grootste deel, in handen heeft. Dat vertelt onder meer de vertaler van correspondent Roel Geeraedts. Die vertaler is een Koerd die uit Kobani komt. Freely translated: One officer says the terrorists have captured several buildings on the east side of town, despite ongoing American air strikes. There are also reports that IS already controls a large part of the town, if not most of the town. There has been fighting around Kobani for some time now, inside it since the last few days. The fighting has been going on for weeks, however now it seems ...

Nederlandse media rapporteert dat een groep van ongeveer honderd Koerden maandagavond het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer bestormd hebben. De Koerdische betogers vragen met hun actie aandacht voor de situatie in Koerdistan. Terroristische organisatie IS (Islamitische Staat / ISIS) voert momenteel aanvallen uit op de Koerdische stad Kobani in Syrië, dichtbij de Turkse grens. De Volkskrant meldt dat veel van de betogers in het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer familie en vrienden hebben in Kobani. Teletekst meldt dat de betogers het gebouw inmiddels verlaten hebben na een gesprek met Kamervoorzitter Anouschka Van Miltenburg. Ook buiten het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer stonden mensen, volgens verschillende bronnen ongeveer 150 (Volkskrant) of "zo’n drie- à vierhonderd man - een eerste inschatting. Een derde daarvan is politieagent" ( NRC.nl ). Den Haag is niet de enige plek waar gedemonstreerd werd. Koerdische betogers verzamelden ook in onder andere Wenen, Bern, Kopenhagen, Stockholm, ...

A women's clothing store in the United Kingdom named after an Egyptian mythological figure becomes the target of hate mail and harassment, as the UK's  Daily Mail reports . Source:  Isis Boutique  Facebook page Jill Campbell is the owner of women's clothing store Isis Boutique in Malvern    (Worcestershire). Her store is named after the Egyptian goddess Isis. Ms Campbell came up with the name after leaving Oxford in 2007, explaining "The river in Oxford is named locally as ISIS and it is also the Egyptian goddess of magic, mystique, beauty and femininity which is everything the shop is all about." The boutique has been in business for seven years. The past few months, as the western world has been getting to know the terrorists and murderers in Iraq and Syria known as "ISIS", Ms. Campbell's store has been coming under threat. Not because she supports ISIS or anything like that but because the name of her boutique sounds similar to one of th...

In October 2001, almost thirteen years ago, Robert Worth published an article in the New York Times entitled "The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic Terror." In the article, he quotes Princeton professor of Near Eastern Studies Michael Doran who talks about terrorist group Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. Remember, this article was published only a month after the horrible events of September 11, 2001. ''Many Americans seem to think that bin Laden is just a violent cult leader,'' said Michael Doran. ... ''But the truth is that he is tapping into a minority Islamic tradition with a wide following and a deep history.''  Although many Muslims are horrified at the notion that their faith is being used to justify terrorism, Mr. bin Laden's advocacy of jihad, or holy war, against the West is a natural extension of what some radical Islamists have been saying and doing since the 1930's. These radicals were jailed, tortured and oft...

Vox.com presents an interesting article with 40 maps that show the start and spread of the internet. It looks like it all started in America, spreading from there to Europe and beyond. Reading this article made me wonder - didn't Dan Brown once write that the internet started at CERN? (Or some part of the technology that makes the internet possible anyway... Heck, it was a long, long time ago that I read his books...) "The internet increasingly pervades our lives, delivering information to us no matter where we are. It takes a complex system of cables, servers, towers, and other infrastructure, developed over decades, to allow us to stay in touch with our friends and family so effortlessly. Here are 40 maps that will help you better understand the internet — where it came from, how it works, and how it's used by people around the world." Source:  40 maps that explain the internet , Vox.com Maps 14 and 15 shows domain names around the world. The first map shows E...