Nu aan het verzenden, nieuwe aflevering van mijn Nederlandstalige nieuwsbrief over AIVD/MIVD, belastingdienst en nerdvote.nl, te vinden in dit overzicht berthub.eu/ckmailer/cha... waar je je ook in kunt schrijven.

So true: "Cancel culture was never about going after people who were already considered beyond the pale; it was about weeding out those from your own side who are deemed guilty of wrongthink." The right gets how disastrous this dynamic is. The left does not. www.ft.com/content/80f0...

Spot the North-American anomaly: only region where social media use is still growing. Great work by the FT’s @jburnmurdoch.ft.com www.ft.com/content/a072... “Have we passed peak social media?”

it's shocking how unshocking antisemitic violence and terror has become. Same feeling among Jews in the Netherlands, is my impression. Really important for non-Jews to stand behind them, consistently and publicly.

And, just as importantly, that they would do the same for mosques, churches, temples, gurdwaras, or any other places of worship were they to be similarly threatened. Something about the UK to be genuinely proud of, that the overwhelming majority of us help to build & maintain, despite everything.

Het gaat - volkomen terecht - veel over de macht van tech bedrijven en hun invloed op politiek en publieke opinie. Maar dit is pas echt macht: Een bedrijf bepaalt gewoon wie er mag debatteren en wie niet. www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Look at Trump does not what Trump says. And this is what he does now. Big stuff.

this deserves as much coverage and attention as possible.

Might be wrong, but I don't remember the fuel situation ever getting this bad in Ukraine since the start of Russia's invasion

10 november! Masterclass Tricky Tijden, waar ik me zeer op verheug en waar n hele hoop slimme dingen gezegd gaan worden (@jitskekramer.bsky.social @jorisluyendijk.bsky.social Paul Iske) waar ik zo min mogelijk doorheen zal praten 😇

This is fantastic news.

We have Schadenfreude but my feelings about this seem to require a different German term. Leidenfreude?

This is in a nutshell the story of the Netherlands.

for those still insisting that the White House is working from a master plan

It is crucial to remain aware of stability risks around the US without succumbing to fatalism. There is still time for MAGA to screw itself and everyone else to turn the American ship of state around before it hits the iceberg. But there should be no illusions about America's current trajectory.

Remember all those books by US authors bristling with outrage over, say, German industry's complicity with authoritarianism. Look at American business now.

the success formula in today's political landscape: "provide a big tent for conspiracy theories". Interesting from a Dutch perspective where we have PR with lots and lots of different political parties (or tents). So each tent remains considerably smaller. FPTP is not a good system for our times.

Come to Europe! Yes, we tax you. On the other hand, those taxes pay for a functioning state. Also! Your kids won't have to do school shooter drills. We have the rule of law. Our food is better. You can still watch American entertainment. We speak English.

similar reluctance in news rooms, especially the finance desk.

this cannot be emphasized enough: the collapse of the US system.

So painfully true. Is this what Asians say to themselves, too, before we in Europe wake up?

When AI interacts with me, I feel like this phone.

Oleksandra Azarkhina is a leading civil society activist and independent government adviser in Kyiv. I am proud and honored that she accepted to be the guest for the inaugural episode of this new series.

Well put. They are testing how far they can go. So far: very far.

does anybody do exceptionalism better than the Brits? It's simply exceptional.

What EU member states won't do or dare, South Korea does do: stand up to the US.

This author is always worth reading

Ukrainians have been living with interrupted nights for 3,5 years now. Imagine: air alerts almost every night, forcing you to decide whether to go sleep in a shelter. A no-fly zone over Ukraine means Russia can no longer use a bunch of shahed drones, night in night out, to terrorize civilians.

Just came back from two weeks in Ukraine and heard very much the same thing. "We have no choice". Europeans, though, do have a choice: help Ukraine any which way you can. Buy Ukrainian products, take out a subscription to the Kyiv Times, support an NGO like Protect Ukraine protectukraine.nl

Eindelijk is er iemand in de NL media wakker geworden. Niet verrassend: het is het FD.

that's 40% from a very, very low base. 4,125 people is actually a shockingly small number given that the US is going fascist and London would seem a prime destination for refugees from that. Hypothesis: Americans are still in deep denial over what has already happened to their Rechtsstaat.

Yeah. Nobody wants to admit that American logistics and canned hams were the key part of both winning World War Two and the US ability to project power around the globe. GWOT and the fetishization of Special Forces has done ten times more damage to the military than Vietnam has.

So well put.

It's not like some people didn't see it coming, back in 1992. "They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle."

Unless Trump really does in some way work for the Russians. Then so much makes sense.

@gideonrachman.bsky.social describes how in the past two years he has moved from the pro-Ukraine + pro-Israel camp to the pro-Ukraine + pro-Palestine camp. I cannot remember a time when an Israeli government was as isolated as it appears today. Maybe around the Sabra & Shatila massacres?

Club41 in Kyiv is the only dance club in the world to raise funds to buy... weapons. Great piece (in Dutch so you need your G translate) by Dario Goldbach 3voor12.vpro.nl/artikelen/ov...

Remember when he was telling everyone about his "intensely relaxed" attitude to "people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes"? Most of us focused on the terms 'rich' and 'taxes'. Turns out, it was the filth he was so relaxed about.

we need this word in English, too: l'impératif hédoniste. It explains so much. And so does the term 'opportunistic scepticism' - a tendency that follows from the hedonist imperative.

As far as I can tell: no. Ordinary Israelis don't now so we don't know if they cared if they did know. Israel has a world class newspaper in Haaretz but almost nobody reads it.

I reported on famine in South Sudan in 2017, traveling to rebel-held territory in Unity state where tens of thousands of people were judged to be in "IPC5", which is to say, totally without food and on the verge of death. In Gaza 244,000 people are now in that stage

Er blijft weinig over van Willem Schinkel. "Sjoemelt" is nog aardig gezegd. Wat een oplichter.

Ozzy Osbourne stole my heart forever when he told the camera, at some particularly messy and chaotic point during his reality show: "It could be worse. I could be Sting." FWIW Mr. Osbourne, you will live on in the Luyendijk household. RIP. www.bbc.com/news/live/cn...

Bunch of Dutch volunteers transporting used fishing nets to Ukraine. They do need your cash for fuel. Donate here for more brilliant low-tech high-yield protection for Ukrainians! deleeuwkyiv.nl

And there are still Europeans who prefer to believe that this is an administration like any other. No. We are witnessing in real time a fascist take-over. Whether it succeeds nobody knows. But God know they're trying hard.

Was Nazi or Stalinist propaganda this insipid?

Take back control over your campaign finance laws, United Kingdom.

Worth your time. Denial of reality is what makes Trump possible in the first place. So don't go looking for some hidden logic in his actions. Trump's irrationality and the suspension of reality is not a bug. It is the key feature of his populism. www.eliasisquith.blog/p/why-maga-a...

Agree. It's arrogance.

We will not forget.