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Just before eight, I switched on the TV to watch the news.One of the first things I read was "Assault on Pim Fortuyn".Just a little later, I heard how he was murdered in coldblood in Hilversum when he returned to his car from aradio interview. This is the first political murder inthe Netherlands.(follow-up)
Signing
This afternoon, I went to the offices of my new employerto sign a contract. I will start working on the 15thof this month, which will be election day as well.Then I went to the town hall in the city to signthe condolence register for Pim Fortuyn, who wasbrutaly murdered yesterday. I find both signaturesof the same importance.
Volkert van der G.
The suspect on the murder on Pim Fortuyn appearsto be some one fighting for the freedom of animals.He works withMilieu Offensief (Environment Offensive).On the website of Animal Freedom aninterview with him is given.
No continuation
I received an email, which implied that there willbe nocontinuation offormer employer for the simplereason that the customers after many negotiationshave decided not to support it.At this point it also would not have been possibleanymore, because almost all software engineers (including me)for the client are no longer available.
Chestnut plant
Thechestnut plant that Ithought was not going to make it, started to grow in astrange way again. As you can see here onthis picture.I wonder how it is going to develop.
This evening,Annabel and I went tothe Chinese taka-away to get one portion of "Nasi Goreng Speciaal".As usual, Annabel went outside to play. She came back tellingthat she had found a little chestnut plant under the bigchestnut tree. And indeed, when I went to check her findings,it was indeed a little chestnut tree. Later, when we walkedaway, we found another two. All three of them were smallerthan the ones we have at home. I think it is also a differentkind of chestnut tree.
Two years after the disaster
This morning, while driving home, I saw a flagat half-mast. Thinking that it was the 12th,I wondered what might be the reason why that flagwas at half-mast. Then at home, when I watched thenews, I suddenly realized that it was indeed the13th, and that it was now 2 years agothat Enschede was struck by thefire-works disaster. Around half past four thebells were rang for five minutes. To be honest, Idid not hear it. They are still working on clearingthe disaster area, and only bits by bits are released.Last month the main road through the area was openedagain. Some houses at the border have been rebuild.(follow-up)
(And now for something completely different:)
In the past weeks, Ihave worked on avery simple tool for creating C++ based Object-Oriented persistentstore based on the concept op Memory Mapped Files. Windowsallows you to open a file as if it were inside the memoryof your program. (This functionality is also widely usedby the operating system itself.) I decided to makethe source availableunderGNU General Public License.I have to give credits toSuneido forgiving me the initial ideas.(Seehere for an example of usage.)
Election day
Around half past seven, I went to vote forLi-Xia and myself. We are in electoral district 4 "Zwolle", in theelectoral subdistrict 615, where the voting is done at "MediantHelmerzijde" located at "Broekheurnering 1050". The number ofLi-Xia's voting card was 456 and the number on mine was 457.We were the 13th and 14th person to vote.Today it is a very strange voting day, overshadowed by thebrutal murder on PimFortuyn the political leader of the LPF. Now that he isgone the rest of his party is divided among itself. Whichdoes not make it a good party to vote on. At the same time,many people felt simpaty with the ideas of Pim Fortuyn andwanted to express their resistement against the currentgovernment by voting on him. Some people may even vote onthe LPF as a means to express their condolence with thedeath of Pim Fortuyn.
The outcome of the voting was unexpected, but on theother hand also to be expected. Our parlement has 150positions. The LPF got 26 of these, but they did notbecome the largest part. The Christian Democrats got43 positions. The two big losers are the labour partyand the liberal party. Both got 23 positions. Alsothe third party that was part of the goverment untilnow, lost significant.Some other change, that was not given attention in themedia is the fact that the two small Christian parties lost25% of their positions. They went from eight back tosix positions. Especially, for one of the two, thisis remarkable, for it has been on three positions formany years in a row. (OnMay 25,I discovered thatthey actually got more votes than last time, and thattheir loss is caused by the fact that much more peoplewent to vote.) I guess some of them have votedfor the Christian Democrats, maybe because they areagainst the LPF.
It is rather clear that the Christian Democratswill be first asked for form a new goverment. To dothis, they will have to form a coalition with at leasttwo other parties to get enough votes. They can turnright, forming a coalition with the LPF and theLiberal party. But the LPF does not seems to be avery stable party, and the Liberal party is among thebig losers. Or they can turn left, making a coalitionwith some of the left wing parties. Such a coalitionwould require the labour party, the biggest loser.Which makes it even a more unlikely possibility.Some weeks ago, it was already clear that theChristian Democrats were going to play a key rolein determining the next government, and that theywould have some good combinations to chose from.Now it looks like there is not really much goodto chose for, especially, because there has been sucha dramatic change. Some politicians have been sayingthat we will have elections soon again, maybe eventwithin a year. This will be a real test case forJan Peter Balkenende, the leader of the ChristianDemocrats.
Fennel and liquorice
The afternoon, I had some fennel and liquorice tea madebyZonnatura.
Yet another chestnut in the garden has started to grow. Nowwe have two in the garden and three in home that are growing.The formation of the new cabinet is not going smooth.The liberal party has announced that they rather notwould like to be part of the new cabinet. The leader ofthe LPF has declared that the Christian Democrats owethem a dept of honour, because according to him, theygot so many votes because of Pim Fortuyn, which impliesthat they want to have an equal share of the power althoughthey are smaller. The problem is that amongh the partymembers there are not many with the right experience forbecoming a minister or secretary of state.
The formation of the new cabinet(Cont'd)
The leader of the LPF (Lijst Pim Fortuyn), Mat Herben, wantto have something to say about who will be the new primeminister. He feels that the LPF has this rights, becausehe thinks that the Christian democrats owe some votes tothe rise of his party. This is what he yesterday said duringthe television showBarend en Van Dorp. He also thinksthat the liberal party should be allowed to join in. He saidthat Hans Wiegel (a well known liberal) has a slight preferenceover Jan Peter Balkenende, the leader of the Christian democrats.Why would Mat Herben have a preference for a prime minister froma party that lost many votes compared to one that won many?It might be the case that the Christian Democrats won somevotes because of the LPF, but it is clear that they only couldhave done this because of the clear leadership of Jan PeterBalkenende. Could it be, that Mat Herben does not like devotedchristians, because he is an active member of the freemasonry,as is appearent fromanannouncement of an open-dayand ashort explaination written by himself.Although freemasonry claims to be nota religion andnot to exclude Christianity in the first place, the sitesEx-Masons for Jesus andSaints Alive seem to argue for the opposite.
(follow-up)
The Christian Democrats have said that they are willing to forma coalition with the LPF. The liberal party has said that theyprefer a minority cabinet that they would support. But in a sensethat is a ridiculous proposition. Because in the situation of aminority cabinate with a party supporting that, that party getstoo much power, because it can veto every decision of the cabinet.
Accident
Some people from my church bring a visit to the Ukraine abouttwice a year and take a lot of goods with them. One of thepersons they visit there, recently moved to a poorer area ofthe city. He felt that God had called him to live there, topreach the gospel to the poor. Yesterday, during our cell groupmeetings, we heard that he and some of his family members wereinvolved in tragic car accident.He had broken his leg with an open wound. Some woman in hisfamily had her nose and forehead fragmented. The driver of thecar was still lying in coma in the hospital. Of course,accidents happen every day, but we were quite impressed by thisnews. During our time of intercession at the end of the evening,our attention was brought to some other forms of suffering inour midst. The world is full with suffering.
Millennium Falcon
Some people tried to build aa life-sizeMillennium Falconin someones back-yard.
The formation of the new cabinet(Cont'd)
You always have to be careful about what you conclude.Last Tuesday, I suggested that Mat Herbermight not like Jan Pieter Balkenende. However, today, hesaid in an interview he has a great trust in Jan PeterBalkenende, and has a preference for him as the nextprime minister. (Last Tuesday, he still had a slightpreference for Hans Wiegel. Apparently Hans Wiegel isno longer an option.)In the same interview, he said that his party shouldbe granted five of the fifteen ministers, and that helikes to give the ministers for the departments ofjustice, education and healthcare. These are threevery important departments. However, compared to theirshare in the coalition they would only have right forfour ministers. He argues that the prime-minister countsfor two. But even in that case, the LPF would onlyhave right for 4.47 minister positions. Furthermore,he also wants five minister positions for the liberalparty. That would mean that they would get ten ofthe fifteen minister positions, compared to only fivefor the Christian Democrats, while they together onlymake 53.8% of the coalition. (It should be noted, thatthe liberals lost a lot of votes, while the ChristianDemocrats made a big come-back.) Even if you count theprime-minister as two, their share of the coalition is62.5%. To do justice to the victory of the ChristianDemocrats they should get at least six minister positions(including the prime minister). The suggestion thatMat Herben made, again seems to imply that he seekssupport from the liberals rather from the ChristianDemocrats.
(follow-up)
Mat Herben
Today, there was a short documentary about Mat Herben onDutch television. He lives in Lintschoten, which is closetoWoerden were I grewup. If he was born in Lintschoten, it is likely he attendedthe same high-school that I attended. The documentary alsotold that he is Roman-Catholic and that he one day withYvonne van Gerp visited the pope. He also often wrote somecolumn for a Roman-Catholic life-style magazine. In thedocumentary he also was open about his freemasonrymembership. He depicted it as a place of free and opendiscussion, not as a secret organization. We even got aglimse of the meeting room with the eye in the triangle.(Yes, the same symbol you find on the US dollar bills.)Furthermore, he made a statement that Pim Fortuyn was againstthesame sex-marriage (althoughhe himself was gay), and that for him it also was not needed.He did not have trouble with sex outside marriages, as ithas become common practice nowadays.I think that if he would read my suggestion that he is havingtroubles with devoted christians, his first reaction willbe that that is nonsense, and that he regards all peopleas equal (as is being thought by the freemasonry). But onthe other hand, I think he will condemn some of the ideasfound in conservative (protestant) Christian circles as beingtoo intolerant.I furthermore, think that he will have problems with the factthat the Bible states that there is only road to salvation,and that is throughJesus Christ.
What Roman-Catholisme and freemasonry have in common is thatin both traditions symbols and rituals play an important role.However, it should be noted that many of these symbols andrituals are from a pagan background and not based on the Bible.It is also remarkable that in both traditions symbols are saidto be just symbols, e.g., refering to some higher invisble truth.Yet on the other hand, these symbols have become so important,that it seems impossible to do away with them. They almost havereplaced the higher thing. It looks like they have become objectsof worship themselves.
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