PSA: @americanstudier.bsky.social and I are launching this website to host our public scholarship and get it off of Substack. It's going to take a lot of self-promotion (sorry!) to rebuild from scratch, but we put so much love into this site (that's notably Nazi-free and penguin-friendly!)

De Duits-Nederlandse militaire samenwerking is op een dusdanig innig niveau dat je hier een prachtig voorbeeld van vriendschap tussen landen ziet in de praktijk.

📣 We are very excited to share that the 19th Pan-European Conference on International Relations will take place in Lisbon, 1-4 September 2026! ⏰ The call for section chairs is now open - find details here: buff.ly/pRPNM9R 🗓️ Deadline: 17 November 2025

"What if the mountain is high, Or how deep the sea? When the Duke of Zhou greeted a guest, in his service all wished to be." youtu.be/gFIT8s4zLN8?...

"Carson’s daily mentions of Richard Nixon or Watergate in the early 1970s was a major contributor to the president’s approval rating crash, underscoring Carson’s tremendous influence on the bygone monoculture in his nearly 30 years on air" www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

“So in renewing our bond tonight, we do so with unshakeable trust in our friendship and in our shared commitment to independence and liberty." www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

"when comedians become the truthtellers and the philosophers, it means the truthtellers and the philosophers are failing" youtu.be/a1GAGzYVZ5c?...

... variety.com/2025/tv/news...

Classical Chinese for Portents: 天既訖我殷命，假人元龜，無敢知吉...今我民罔不欲喪，曰『天曷不降威，大命胡不至』？ Heaven has revoked its Mandate. No diviner dares read good omens in the plastrons...There is not one commoner who doesn't long for your ruin. They say "Why doesn't Heaven send down its might? Why hasn't its Mandate come?"

necessary

And they say the Dutch don't have a cuisine.

"Inside the 50th-birthday book for Jeffrey Epstein is a photo of a massive, novelty size check, seeming to reference the sale of a human being from one powerful man to another. The man whose supposed signature is on the check is the current president of the United States."

More retweets please, to voluntarily lock up one of my best friends:

Vriend Roel laat zich voor een goed doel opsluiten in de gevangenis. Win/win situatie: je kunt hem steunen als vriend en als vijand: schrijfjevrij.inactievooramnesty.nl/fundraisers/...

Let's also remember that Trump's 1st op, 9 days in, was the Raid on Yakla, Yemen which Obama considered too risky but Trump went ahead it. The raid was an alsolute failure that killed 14-25 civilians including 9 children; among them a 9 year old American girl shot in the neck. This is what he does

"The airfield was later seized by Army Rangers who parachuted directly onto the airfield."

"Evidence suggested that the crew, which people briefed on the mission said numbered two or three people, had been civilians diving for shellfish" www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/u...

"Putin called China’s leader, Xi Jinping, a “dear friend” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

If you're at #EISA2025, our final 2 panels on Friendship & Positive Peace are in Palazzo Ercolani (aula 2, 14.00-15.30) and our final roundtable in Belmeloro (Aula 3, Spisa, 16.00-17.30).

"een vijand doet waar hij voor staat; het is je vriend, die je verraadt" www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO0J...

If I ever have an art collection and donate it, the first room there too will have a massive portrait of me showing the donation.

Wat binne wy moai fuort net?

Friends: my facebook's been hacked (I'm not yet Chinese, despite mounting evidence against the contrary). Do ignore any messages from any of my social accounts. Also, I've officially joined the too old for the internet club apparently today.

Mwah. Misschien de runner-up. Europa kwam er voor het eerst goed eensgezind uit en heeft, itt de vorige keer, weer (iets van) invloed in Washington. En Zelensky's koorddansen, dat de vorige keer zo desastreus verliep, lukte dit keer (met hulp van de EU bondgenoten, denk ik).

"Seven very powerful, very big, countries. Great people. All friends of mine, and friends of yours" youtu.be/TXjbT6BF6Hc?...

So many examples of personal friendships impacting politics, so little research time. Where's my academic maecenas?

"De bijzondere band tussen Trump en de Finse president ontstond ongeveer vijf maanden geleden tijdens een potje golf in het Amerikaanse Palm Beach." www.nu.nl/spanningen-o...

"It was in 2006 when UK low-cost carrier FlyBe became what is believed to be the world's first airline to start charging passengers to check in bags. It charged £2 for a pre-booked item of luggage, and £4 if the customer hadn't paid in advance." www.bbc.com/news/article...

"I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin – with Vladimir" www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Walter Benjamin: "Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from* the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious." - Theses on the Philosophy of History, VI. * simulation by

Happy #internationalOwlAwarenessDay

Kamala Harris: "I did predict a lot of it, but what I did not predict was the capitulation. I did not see that coming" www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD8N...

😂

μάχεσθαι χρὴ τὸν δῆμον ὑπὲρ τοῦ νόμου ὅκωσπερ τείχεος (The people must fight for the law as for the city wall) Heraclitus Fragment DK 22 B 44

And mage and sailor are not so far apart; both work with the powers of sky and sea, and bend great winds to the uses of their hands, bringing near what was remote.

Alma, tell us, how can they help being jealous? Ducks always envy the swans, who get Gustav and Walter and Franz 🎵

😭. I LOVE Tom Lehrer and many of his songs feature in my lectures. There's not going to be a single seminar this year without a Tom Lehrer song. What's your favourite Lehrer song? Has to be "Alma" for me. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

“The government can’t cancel a show, I mean, what show are they going to cancel next?” share.google/ELSM0Box5SzZ...

“How do I know,” she said at last, “that you are what you seem to be?” “You don't,” Said he. “I don't know what I seem, to you.”

Three reviews. One paper revision. One bookproposal. And today's greatest and most satisfying achievement is fixing my cat's fountain.

None of that has anything to do with what anyone wanted in 1789. How everyone ended up with so much of what nobody wanted is history.

"Art nouveau when it looks like elves made it, art deco when it looks like dwarves did it". Mind blown

"there was no Nazi coup d'état. Instead, there was a series of quasi-legal actions over a period of at least six months, no one of which by itself constituted a revolution, but the sum of which transformed Germany from a republic to a dictatorship. The problem was where to draw the line."

Blankets, obviously.

23/10

"Nearly 30 million children are now receiving or have already undergone formal training in combat and lethal skills"

My mom and stepdad are from the same diaspora group as Zohran Mamdani’s dad (same like “my stepdad was kicked out of the same town and knows some of his classmates”) and apparently the New York Times doesn’t understand how diaspora works, so I am going to tell you a little about my mom’s people!

🎵 It only costs a dime, just a nickel a shoe It does a million dollars worth of good for you 🎵