Guus Bosman

The presidential debates are in the middle of the night, Dutch time, so it's not always possible to see them live.

However, I found that they are also vieweable online. They're made available for free by C-Span, an American broadcast
organization.

It seems like Mr. Lazrak has decided to establish his own political party and to keep his seat in parliament. He was expelled from the far-left Socialist Party last Monday after he directed harsh criticism to Mr. Marijnissen, the party's leader, and after a disagreement on the donation of his salary to the party.

Of course, he has the right to do so. Formally he was elected on a personal title, and he has the constitutional right to stay in parliament. It healthy for intra-party politics if all the members of a political faction are sure of their seat, and don't run the risk of loosing their position if they disagree with the majority.

However, it is unfortunate that Lazrak decided to stay. I don't think his one-man faction will have a lot of added value to the Dutch parliament. He himself acknowledged that the disagreements between him and the party are not based on policy; in fact he said that he would almost always vote with the Socialist Party. Also, it is virtually certain that he won't be elected if there would be elections now, nor in a few years.

I would say: do the decent thing and give the seat back to the party.

A nice letter to the Editor in The Economist this week:

"Sir -- you gave both candidates in the 1998 American presidential election -George Bush senior and Michael Dukakis- the collective name "Mr Bushakis". Your cover of January 3rd inspires me to suggest a name for the younger George Bush and Howard Dean, the potential cadidates in the forthcoming election: Mr Bean."

It's the first time I saw "breaking news" in Bulgarian... I was watching some TV (which is a great way to learn Bulgarian), when I saw a news-ticker with Saddam Hussein's name.

It's simply wonderful news, especially for the Iraq people. And a huge boost for the morale of the troops there, too.

Mr. Verhagen is back from his stay abroad.

He has updated his diary, with a discussion on the Democratic caucuses in Iowa. He writes very well... I missed his comments ;)

For a long time I've been interested in American politics. Especially now the elections are approaching (about a year to go), I enjoy reading about the candidates and the campagnes.

A great Dutch website I recently found is Amerika.nl. It's a website that accompanies Dakota, a magazine. The site is an initiative of Frans Verhagen, who's online diary is probably the part I like the best -- sharp observations and strong opinions. Not that I always agree with his view, but it's a pleasure to read: "Essentially Sharon told Bush: Fuck you. And Bush said: thank you, Ariel."

The congressional report on the terrorist attacks of September 11 has been published yesterday. It's a huge document of course, even without the classified parts.

You can download the whole report (or parts of it) in PDF format.

A colleague send me a hilarious Flash animation on the difference between Europe and Italy. I really loved the part of pedestrians crossing the road.

Download it here. It's quite big, 1.5 MB, but it's worth every byte of downloading.

Nice link from an (Italian) collegue: reactions of various newspapers Europe-wide on Berlusconi, Italy's Prime Minister.

See also CNN's article.