The funny thing is...If he had said to the journos “Yes I said that, but now that I know more about your country I realize I was wrong. Sorry”. He would have mostly been off the hook. Everybody makes mistakes, and a reasonable person admits a mistake, and is forgiven.

This is absolutely true. A politician can get away with not sharing information, but outright lying is career-ending. The press have a field day- and it really is a free press. The right wing press slaughters mr. Hoekstra as enthusiastically as the left wing press, because what he did flies in the face of fundamental…

Well there was this one prime minister named Johan de Witt who got lynched and had his liver roasted and eaten by the angry mob. But that was in 1672, I don’t think we had any Muslims in The Hague back then.

Woke up long ago, realized that all of it is a fairy tale.

Also I sometimes see this at flea markets- Jesus in a bottle! Including water!

Where I’m at (the Netherlands) there is always simulated water. My dad used to build a few...Maybe it is regional thing?

Really? That sounds more fun than a Dutch funeral, where aunt Joke sips sips weak tea and nibbles her allowance of one (1) slice of pound cake while making passive-aggressive remarks.

I hope they condemn him on the base of him wearing the kind of tie that has only ever been acceptable at a 90's wedding

He’s gone off the deep end years ago. Like Mariana Trench deep, swimming with the angler fish and getting deeper by the day. It’s just that is somehow does not seem to matter any more. Each day is a new exercise in “how low can he go”.

a while back a Belgian charity that fights against child exploitation set up a website called Schat je Schatje (“estimate your darling”) where you can put the gender, age, skin-tone and hair color of your child and they will give you a estimated price that your child would fetch on the European black market. You can…

This. There are people out there who are far more murderous and dangerous- like Putin. But at least Putin has been proven to be extremely effective in his quest to destabilize enemy democracies. For that he gets my grudging admiration.

Well there was voter fraud, just not on the side where they wanted it to be...

I think it is a shame really. I would have liked to see whatever evidence of voter fraud they found. But I guess they did not find it on the side that they hoped to find it on...

impossible to say as cameras and writing had not been invented. But it seems more likely that early humans hunted and killed adult wolves as they were dangerous and serious competition, but kept and raised their cubs if they found any...and bred the tamest ones.

Hey don’t diss on Gollum. He smart enough to survive alone in the wilderness for decades and wander all the way to Mordor. Also, he still had a shred of decency left. He was far more handsome and athletic than the orange blob we see on tv every day.

A note on this from abroad: I from the Netherlands, originally. Today at 10 o’clock a temperature of 12.5 Celcius was measured at the location of the national weather service KNMI. This is the all time record for the highest temperature measured on New Year’s Eve. The unbroken record of measurements goes back to 1705,…

I have some clues. First of all, electricity is not fire, but the motion of an electrical charge. Heat is generated when this motion meets resistance, and this can lead to fire. Like, when an electrical heater which uses lots of amps is connected to an unsuitable extension cord.

Ow, horrible...These poor people. I wonder if the building met fire safety regulations...

The local zoo has two baby black and rufous elephant shrews. Very odd critters, very adorable critters too! Look like rats on stilts with long noses; are actually related to the elephant!

Well, it needs to be said that while the Netherlands are known for being progressive, we have our very own bible belt. Maybe the Americans should consider moving their embassy from The Hague to Staphorst. They should fit in fine there, as long as they don’t spray their lawn on Sundays.