Only one interesting comment? Why so many people like to make jokes about Dutch technologies, I really don't know. Or do I just hear complaints about (research) jobs moving to Europe and Asia?
Remember some flood in the US not long ago? Remember who helped you how to get prepared for such disasters? So "dykes" should be something you don't laugh about, but respect. They save your life. You probably heard the saying "God created the land, but the Dutch created their own". Just like
LOFAR is an unique project, which sees the sky with different eyes. Lower frequencies means different data to be combined with existing HF-data, to complete the picture. Pulsars are an unique phenomenon which stll is not understood at full; reseacrh on lower frequencies
Another thing is that LOFAR can look in any direction, whereas normal radio-telescopes can only look into 1 direction.
The Netherlands have a very high reputation in (radio) astronomy kept high for several centuries.