What Makes People Tick?

Minister Timmermans vertelde op woensdagavond 8 oktober 2014 bij televisieprogramma Pauw dat er bij een passagier van het neergehaalde vliegtuig #MH17 een zuurstofmasker is gevonden.  Een YouTube video afkomstig van Pauw - Gemist  waarin Minister Timmermans vertelt dat er een masker gevonden is: YouTube: Roeland Roovers Dat er een zuurstofmasker gevonden is bij een passagier betekent dus dat er voor in ieder geval een persoon genoeg tijd zat tussen de inslag van de raket en de dood om een zuurstofmasker om te doen. Genoeg tijd om te zien en horen wat er gebeurde, genoeg tijd om de armen uit te strekken, een masker uit de lucht te pakken en dat om te doen. Genoeg tijd.  Oorlog is niet leuk of mooi of heroïsch. Wapens zijn gemaakt om levende wezens te stoppen, om anderen te doden. Mensen voelen en denken na, ook in hun laatste momenten. De treurigheid en de grote leegte die ik voelde toen ik hoorde over het neerschieten van vlucht MH17 komt nu weer terug. D...

The first official report about the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 came out today. Thirty-plus pages of maybes and more questions, thankfully some clarity too however not nearly as much of it as I'd hoped for. The report seems to only confirm all the speculation going on in the days after the downing of the Malaysian Airlines passenger carrier. The aeroplane didn't suffer any kind of failure, the pilots and crew didn't screw up or do anything wrong. Something external, something outside and slightly in front of the aeroplane, exploded and impacted with MH17, causing it to break apart in mid-air. The cockpit, as I understand it, pretty much went straight down, the rest of the plane, the part with engines and momentum, disintegrated and came down in pieces spread out over a larger area.  Chilling reports from villagers on the ground  confirm this, their stories of body parts landing in their gardens and on their streets are as horrifying as the loss of human ...

Operation Protective Edge continues. While I read earlier this morning that there might be a 72-hour ceasefire starting today; Israel National News (Arutz Sheva)  tells me that the ceasefire has already been broken, not even two hours into the 72 hours. How surprising... Not... "Israel uses weapons to protect its civilians. Hamas uses civilians to protect its weapons. Hamas puts Palestinian civilians in the line of fire." Source: IDF through Barenaked Islam

Israel National News reports that for the second time since the start of Operation Protective Edge; United Nations workers have found rockets stored in one of their schools in Gaza. United Nations relief agency UNRWA has discovered, for a second time during the current war in Gaza, Hamas terror rockets stashed in one of its vacant schools.  A statement by UNRWA Tuesday said that “Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip.” Source: Again, Rockets found in UNRWA schools , Arutz Sheva - Israel National News

The always inspirational Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, former Secretary of State and presumed Democratic presidential candidate, appeared on the 15 July 2014 episode of The Daily Show. She gives a candid four-part interview, talking about a very wide range of topics. I highly recommend watching all four parts of the interview -  part one  here and part two  here. Parts three and four deal with the ongoing attacks against Israel and the war in Gaza. The Daily Show The First Video: Part Three The Second Video: Part Four

“Hamas was perfectly well aware what would happen if they started raining rockets on Israel. They fired a thousand of them, and they have a strategy designed to force Israel to kill their own civilians so that the rest of the world will condemn them.” ~ Former US president Bill Clinton Source: Bill Clinton says Netanyahu 'could and should' clinch peace deal , The Jerusalem Post

Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 flying from Amsterdam (The Netherlands) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) was shot down yesterday over eastern Ukraine. By a rocket. A passenger jet carrying 298 innocent people was shot down BY A BLOODY ROCKET. A very sophisticated one too, apparently. Both Ukraine and Russia deny involvement, point at the pro-Russian separatist movement who are in control in eastern Ukraine as the culprit. Last night, the Americans confirmed that a rocket had  indeed hit the plane. Today they were able to confirm that the rocket that killed 298 innocent people originated from eastern Ukraine. Two hundred and ninety-eight innocent people shot down. That is the kind of damage one rocket can do in the hands of the wrong people. While yesterday the confirmed Dutch death toll stood around 90, those figures were revised upwards last night to 154 and again to 189 earlier this afternoon. One hundred and eighty-nine of my people are dead because the Ukrainians and the Russi...

There's a story in the Bible about a wise and just king named Solomon. Perhaps the most famous story about Solomon is a story about two women who come to the King and ask him to decide which of them is the true mother of a newborn baby. Source : The C Section The story is recounted in 1 Kings 3:16-28. Two young women who lived in the same house and who both had an infant son came to Solomon for a judgment. One of the women claimed that the other, after accidentally smothering her own son while sleeping, had exchanged the two children to make it appear that the living child was hers. The other woman denied this and so both women claimed to be the mother of the living son and said that the dead boy belonged to the other.  After some deliberation, King Solomon called for a sword to be brought before him. He declared that there was only one fair solution: the live son must be split in two, each woman receiving half of the child. Upon hearing this terrible verdict, the boy...

* Disclaimer : Based on a true story, some dramatization. Recently, my neighbours decided to remodel their bathroom. No big deal, apart from the noise which he warned us about early on. I thanked my neighbour for letting us know about the coming noise and promptly forgot all about it. Until the drilling started two days ago. I'd just made myself a large mug of tea in the kitchen, intending to relax on the couch with a book, nurse my cold and soothe my sore throat. I'd put a lot of honey in my tea which is why I made sure not to over-fill the cup - I didn't want to spill that sticky sweetness on the floor after all.   But enough about the tea - where was I? Oh right - And then the drilling started. I'll set the scene: Imagine me carrying my mug of tea from the kitchen to the lounge, feeling a bit frail and under the weather but bravely soldiering on. Suddenly, I hear this ear-splitting noise from behind me, after another second it feels like the noise is coming at m...