The Dutch Experience

There was a long, long line of spirits at the gate waiting to get into heaven. Not all these spirits could fit into heaven, so the ones who died the worst death would be allowed in.

The first man in line started telling his story, ''Well, Peter, you see, I knew that my wife was cheating on me so I decided to come home early from work one day to catch them in action. I got home and searched all over but I couldn't find him. Then when I walked out onto the balcony, there he was dangling off the darn thing by his fingertips. So I ran and got a hammer then started beating him with it and he fell. Well, the fall didn't kill him, because he landed in a bush so I picked up the refrigerator and threw it on him. Although that killed him, the strain gave me a heart attack, and here I am.''

The next man came up and started his story. ''St. Peter, I always work out on my balcony on the 14th floor of my apartment building. I was on my bike one day and I fell off when it flipped. I sailed over the rail and I thought 'Please God spare my life' and he did. I caught on to a balcony below me. I was even happier when a man discovered me hanging there. But all of a sudden he started beating my hands with a hammer so I fell again. But the dear Lord saved me again when I landed in a bush. But I'm here now because the guy threw his refrigerator on top of me.''

It was now the third guy's turn to start his story. ''Well, Peter, just picture this. I'm hiding butt naked in this married chick's refrigerator.....'''

wemalo - Amr Diab

Though, I'm normally not a ROMANTIC person, but this clip is so lovely....and the lyrics is awesome

In a murder trial, the defense attorney was cross-examining the coroner:

Attorney: Before you signed the death certificate, had you taken the pulse?

Coroner: No.

Attorney: Did you listen to the heart?

Coroner: No.

Attorney: Did you check for breathing?

Coroner: No.

Attorney: So, when you signed the death certificate, you weren't sure the man was dead, were you?

Coroner: Well, let me put it this way. The man's brain was sitting in a jar on my desk. But I guess it's possible he could be out there practicing law somewhere.

If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind.
- John Stuart Mill

Cited from Ha'aretz's article

Eli Yishai, the vice prime minister and minister of industry had this interview at an Israeli newspaper. The journalist was asking him about the point out of the war against Lebanon, and if Israel has achieved their goals, and surprisingly, this guy don’t has a huge military record as almost all of the other ministers!!
Eli’s cited, "If Hezbollah fires Katyushas, we have to deliver a severe blow to Lebanon's infrastructure, black out Beirut, cut off electricity, turn off the water, destroy bridges, halt industry and flatten entire villages. If there is horrible damage in Lebanon, they will say, 'The Jews are crazy,'" Yishai explains.

“I have proposed that we damage infrastructure and flatten villages because Hezbollah personnel must know they are not immune. We should have made it clear to them that all the residents in villages from which firepower is launched at IDF soldiers, will be warned and required to leave their homes within 48 hours. And later these villages will be bombed from the air. That policy would have assured that Lebanese citizens would not permit Hezbollah to live next to them," Yishai says.

Do you agree with the opinion that the war against Hezbollah is not over and that we can expect another round in a few months?

"Absolutely. We must prepare for another war. The IDF must prepare for war against short- and long-range missiles. We were blessed with a miracle in this war. If even 10 percent of the 4,000 missiles fired at Israel had hit citizens, we would have had 400 deaths. The fact that only 39 citizens died proves this was a miracle."


NO COMMENT!!

The last few days, I’ve been going through different sources of media criticising what’s happened in Lebanon, and the funny thing, that such war has lasted for almost a month, but nobody can say clearly this was the “outputs”, except that more than one thousand Lebanese civilians had been killed and around one hundred Israelis including soldiers had been killed!!
The brief result of the press articles were: Iranian and Hezbollah and some Arabic newspapers have said that the war was a victory for Hezbollah, because Israel has initiated this war to eliminate them from southern Lebanon….not achieved, Israel wanted to create a buffering zone in south Lebanon……not achieved, Israel has pushed a 40,000 of the currently most developed troops all over the world to eliminate 4,000 guerrillas……not achieved!!

On the other hand, the Israeli and some of the western media (specially Americans or to be more specific Republicans) have claimed that Israel has won, because they were successful in weakening Hezbollah and decreasing the effect of them threatening northern Israel.

Among all those articles and sometimes rubbish news, I liked one article from Ha’aretz (a wide spread Israeli newspaper), cited “Israel has taken counting the bodies losses approach to cover their disachievements in this war, When the largest and strongest army in the Middle East clashes for more than two weeks with 50 Hezbollah fighters in Bint Jbail and does not bring them to their knees, the commanders are left with no choice but to point to the number of dead fighters the enemy has left behind. It can be assumed that Bint Jbail will turn into a symbol of the second Lebanon war. For the Hezbollah fighters it will be remembered as their Stalingrad, and for us it will be a painful reminder of the IDF's defeat”.
“Ze'ev Schiff wrote in Haaretz on August 11 that we had "gotten a slap." It seems that "knockout" would be a more appropriate description. This is not a mere military defeat. This is a strategic failure whose far-reaching implications are still not clear. And like the boxer who took the blow, we are still lying dazed on the ground, trying to understand what happened to us. Just like the Six-Day War led to a strategic change in the Middle East and established Israel's status as the regional power, the second Lebanon war may bring about the opposite. The IDF's failure is eroding our national security's most important asset - the belligerent image of this country, led by a vast, strong and advanced army capable of dealing our enemies a decisive blow if they even try to bother us. This war, it soon transpired, was about "awareness" and "deterrence." We lost the fight for both.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/750990.html
That’s more rational and critical than most of the other news, isn’t it?

Yesterday was quite a hell of a day……was paradoxically emotional.
Well, after meeting my professor which was so good and motivating, I’ve spent the rest of the day with my friends in Arnhem, which was quite emotional specially that I won’t be seeing some of them for long time, and may be never for others. Anyway, I’ve received a post from ABN (the bank) which seemed like a bad joke or somebody who had a bad day and wanted to screw mine!! The letter was saying that according to the increasingly tighter international laws and the transparency of ABN’s dealings and good reputation, they are urging me to give them my SOFI number (the taxation file number) to demonstrate their international integrity image and “to help UN resolutions in solving Israel/Lebanon’s issue and eliminate the starvation in Africa” (the last quotation is an added sarcasm from my side (
But hold on a sec!! SOFI number……I don’t have one, for a very simple reason that I’m a student and not working which means that I’m exempted from paying taxes, and it don’t need more than a below average human intelligence to recognise that because I’ve a student account, and because of my residence permit!!
Forget about that, the second point in the letter was more fancier, according to “their sources of information” (it seems like CIA is behind it), they think that I’m either residing abroad and having a postal address in Holland, or I’ve already left the country!!!
Well, I’ve got no idea what the hell source of information have they got, but can’t they check with the immigration service that I’ve got a stamp into a Europe and haven’t got any for exiting it?!
Then, this supports my theory that the Dutch are trying their best to make life more complicated, but hahahaaaa not with my B***es.

On the other hand, I had another situation that made my day……..when I was coming back from Arnhem, I went off the train station in R’dam, going back home with my big trolley bag behind me, when I felt that somebody is tracing me, and because I hate that feeling, when I’ve glimpsed that there’s somebody walking closely behind me, I slowed down to let him/her pass, but when (turned out to be a SHE) she came closer, she started walking with the same pace as mine, so was walking beside me, when I she suddenly stepped closer to me and asked me “do you know where are you going?”. Well, when you get such kind of question, you feel that you either look really waster or stoned, or like a stupid tourist who’s heading toward the bloody gangsters backstreet side!! And as I’ve felt that I’m not any of the mentioned types, so I told her that I’m heading back home, when she replied that she thought that I’m a tourist and have lost my way, because where I’m heading is a residential area and has got nothing interesting to see :D but that was really nice of her…..we’ve catch up some chat, and then I’ve realised that the world is filled with such lovely people who are willing to help you when you need it……this made my day, THANKS DUTCHIES.

if anybody has got an explanation for that http://www.mysticalball.com/......PLEEEEAAAAZZZZZEEE shoot it out

Yesterday, I had a quick flashback of our days in MC in Egypt…….those days were perfect, but the reason that I’ve remembered them – might sound stupid for you ( - was because of an incident that happened to me in AH…..Albert Heijn is one of the biggest supermarket chain in NL……I was shopping for my new room in Rotterdam, and I was looking for a dish washing liquid soup, when I’ve found one bottle of what seems like soup, but with absolutely nothing written on it, except the brand name!! this reminded me with the incident in Cairo, where during an outing with Tom, when he was holding the “new” branded Fayrouz – Egyptian flavoured non-alcoholic beer – and was saying this is a crime against marketing concepts, because it had the fruit drawn on it, without saying which flavour is it!!
The same happened to me again today, when we’re having lunch at the company, and I was putting chocolate on my bread when Stefanie (a colleague) remarked that putting chocolate on cheese might not be tasty……..i hold the cheese box and scanned it all-around, but there was nothing among everything that was written said that it’s a CHEESE, and my colleagues in the company said that…yeah sure, because this brand is very well known for making cheese and nothing else, so they don’t need to write it down on the box???!!!!! But to my surprise, I started looking at everything on the table, and noticed that most of the products have the same problem, processed cheese, butter, meat paste………damn, do you need to get born in Holland to know what the hell are those products?!

Actually, if such incident highlights anything, it’s that the Dutch market is a very closed to locals – although would claim against that - but they have a “list of rules” to exclude foreign products from getting into the market, and the reason is so obvious……although, it’s claimed to be a western European country = developed = open minded = have open markets……but the local market is controlled by a few people!! Believe it or not, but the same is for the construction industry. I was chatting with one colleague about construction projects in Holland and was telling her that I’ve noticed that there are almost none international construction companies performing in NL. She told me the reason is that they have few rules, from among is that the language of all performance has to be DUTCH, which simply makes it impossible for any int’l company to perform here, but the worse than that, for tendering for big projects, Dutch companies cooperate together to decide which company will win the tender………that’s what is called in international law “FRAUDELENT ACTIVITIES”

A guy dies and goes to heaven. It's a slow day for St. Peter, so upon passing the entrance test, St. Peter says "I'm not very busy today. Why don't you let me show you around?"
The guy thinks it's a great idea and graciously accepts the offer. St. Peter shows him all the sights: the golf course, reading room, library, observation room, cafeteria and, finally, a HUGE room full of clocks.
"What's up with those clocks, Peter?"
"Everyone on earth has a clock that shows how much time he has left on earth. When a clock runs out of time, the person dies and comes to the Gates to be judged."
The guy thinks this makes sense, but notices that some of the clocks are going faster than others. He asks why that is.
"Every time a living person tells a lie, it speeds up his clock." This also makes sense, so the guy takes one last look around the room before leaving and notices one clock in the center of the ceiling. On this clock, both hands are spinning at an unbelievable rate.
"What's the story with that clock?"
"Oh, that," St. Peter replies. "That's George Bush’s clock. We decided to use it as a fan."

Being from mid-east and specially Egypt, puts me ahead of a lot of question marks when I start talking about Israel/Palestine, and lately Israel/Palestine/Hizbolah/Syria/Iran issue. The problem is that people automatically conclude that anybody coming from that part of the world should be blindly offending Israel whether they’ve the rights or not. I’m, as the majority of Egyptians, think that the war isn’t a solution for any problem, but we’ve an old saying in Egypt “any fight takes place between 2 stupid people”, same for wars.
I think this issue has been taking some space in a lot of minds, specially, these days with the escalation of violence in mid-east. Watching the news, makes people gets confused – which side has the right to get supported – the poor Israeli civilians in the north who have nothing to do with the war, and get their houses and cities bombarded by the terrorists from hizbolah, or the helpless Lebanese civilians who the furious Israeli rockets don’t differentiate between a 2 months baby or an old woman, and hizbolah terrorist. Frankly speaking, I’m always trying to be critically criticizing the situation, without getting biased toward any party, though, it’s extremely hard for a person who have most of his education in a part of the world were the word “Israeli” is always attached with the word “the Zionist enemy”, and the word “terrorist” represented in bomb-suiciders is transformed into “martyr”, and the “deceased Israeli” is transformed into “deceased occupier”. But at the same time, mid-easters have a better overview on the REAL situation there, as the news shown in US and Europe is much more decorated than the reality.
If get to the definition of terrorism, I think everybody would agree that it’s about terrifying civilians. Knowing that 100% of the Israeli population, in the age between 16 till 60 for males, and 16 to 50 for females are doing the military service which makes at least 70% of the population involved in military action even if it’s just an administrative work, makes it even harder to consider or deny that the terrorism operations against this nation are considered as “terrorism”.
Today, when I’ve got this message about an article written by some rabbis on the Israeli newspaper’s website “news first class”, I was absolutely shocked!!

Here’s the brief of the message delivered by the rabbis:
The board of the west bank’s rabbis are motivating the people of Israel to kill the enemy without showing them any mercy, because mercy will endanger the lives of the innocent people of Israel. The rabbis are asking the people of Israel not to fear from killing the arab civilians from women and children, because if you’ll feel mercy/fear from killing them today, you’ll regret in the future.
Whoever shows mercy toward the children of Gaza, is considered merciless toward the children of Sidrot settlement, and whoever shows mercy toward the children of Lebanon, has no mercy toward the children of northern Israel. The intellectual Israelis who are controlling the media and justice are trying to intrude the Christian teachings at the Israeli decision making process, and security systems, while those teachings wouldn’t defend the jews in Sidrot or northern Israel. The solution is represented in ASSASINATIONS, and if it’s not possible, and there’s a danger in involving our sons the soldiers to Lebanon and Gaza, so the alternative solution is killing the innocents.
The board of the rabbis consider the airstrikes are the best solution for defending and killing the enemy without endangering our soldiers, even if this involves killing of innocents. It’s better to endanger others lives, than ours.
The board of rabbis is urging the Israeli government to give a green light for our soldiers to kill the civilians in Lebanon and Gaza, because Torah allows the killing of women and children during war time, and that those civilians are biased toward the enemy’s side!!

I’ve been always trying to give the Israelis excuses for starting those attacks against Palestinians as, in there you can’t differentiate between civilians and terrorists, but in Lebanon it’s so obvious. I think after reading this horrible article, I can’t find any more excuses…………NO COMMENT!!

When you’re starting a chat with a random Dutch and they’re always shooting the typical question you can ask a foreigner to start a conversation…..do you like the Netherlands?......everytime, I’ve been asked this question, probably, I look like a stupid, but I stop for thinking for sometime about how the answer should be. Well, the typical answer of such question should be nice – gosh, I love this country because of ………hmmmm, yeah because of…… - damn, this can be the right answer in some countries but not here. If you say that you like the weather, the food, the people, the culture……people will spot you LIAR. To be honest, I like this country but it’s not because of any of those things that don’t exist here, but I believe that anywhere in the world is such a lovely place, and however good/bad it’s or however long/short is your stay there, it should be a very good learning experience, so to get the best out of it……BUT the problem that when you tell some dutchies that you like the country, you can see a big balloon over their heads saying “here we go, another one of those bastards who want to invade our country and take our jobs, and leave us poor”.

This country is really weird, they’ve 2 types of people in their population. The first 50% of people are super kind, very helpful and need to hear that you’re in a problem or glimpse that you need something, to hop in and try their best to give you a hand. The other 50 are the super rude, super RED NECKS, who are always trying their best to get hated and to appear as the evilish assholes.

Yesterday, I was still working on the mission of finding a room in Rotterdam, when I found this random organization for supporting students with a lot of services, I skipped the last half an hour of work to go their office……when I got in there, I found a nice girl with a big smile who told me that they’ve collected ads from all newspapers and magazines, and giving them up for students, but when I told her that I don’t know Dutch, she started looking for a room for me (which isn’t her job) and when she found couple of them, she called them for me (which isn’t allowed from the office’s phone) and connected them to me…..lovely
After then, I took the train back to Arnhem, when I’ve found the conductor checking 2 tourists-look-like dudes, and the conversation went on in such way:
Can I see your tickets(conductor) – checking – you guys have a discount ticket and probably you don’t have korting card, so you’ve to pay a fine for that and get other tickets, which means that you can keep those tickets as souvenirs!!!!!!!!
When I heard this SICK conversation, I decided to interfere and told him that I’ve a korting card that can work for 4 people, and they’re with me…….he replied back, I’m sorry, you could have made that play sometime before, but now, it’s obvious that you’re not together, and they have a different destination……..well, there was a different balloon over his head saying “get away, I’m not gonna rest tonight without screwing those tourists day”……

I got really interested in that issue, since I caught few discussions with Dutch friends, and knowing more about the Dutch culture and the level of acceptance of immigrants/expats within the society in general. I’ve got few interesting stories about how the “old” immigrants from the 60s and 70s are leading their lives in NL, and what kind of life they are leading, as there are huge amount of such people that are rejecting the process of integration into the society, from among, was a story by a Dutch friend who has been working on a program for developing those people……she told me that on her first “mission”, she went to one old Turkish lady who’s been living in NL for 30 years and now she’s living with 2 granddaughters, BUT don’t know how to do shopping, don’t understand any other language than Turkish, in brief – she’s living in a small Turkey within the Netherlands. This was quite shocking for me, among other stories as well, but these statistics are interesting…..check the following article.

Over half the young people in Amsterdam and Rotterdam come from a non-western background, according a new report by Statistics Netherlands. Known as the CBS in Dutch, the bureau said that while the number of non-western first-generation residents has been decreasing slowly since 2004, the second generation continues to grow.
One in three residents of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague come from a non-western background. That is far greater than elsewhere in the Netherlands. Of the 16.3 million Dutch population, almost 11 percent come from a non-western background.
The amount of immigrants from outside Western Europe has risen sharply in
Rotterdam and The Hague particularly in the last 10 years. The number of first generation immigrants in Amsterdam and Rotterdam has declined recently because immigration is down while emigration is increasing, the CBS said.
The bureau explained the rise in second generation immigrants by saying many non-western residents are now in the "family phase".
Amsterdam has the most young immigrants, younger than 21. They make up about 55 percent of the total, followed by Rotterdam. The figure in The Hague is just under 50 percent.