Replies

Christian wrote:

There are many, many productive groups you can support

Your local gun club?

 

(Pallas cats can survive under very cold conditions so it’s not a cruel image)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

And yes they covered up Biden’s cognitive decline. As well as they could anyway.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/30/joe-biden-decline-underreported

 

 

Really, if you look back at the Biden time and say, well that’s an era of competent government, things just went great during those years…I don’t know what you’re smoking man, but have fun with it.

Christian wrote:

What, that is the only example you could come up with for it being “a clown show of incompetence”? Seriously? With the shit Trump is doing every day?

Dude, Western countries are completely dysfunctional. That includes the shitholes we live in, not just the US. In fact the US is probably better off because they still have a lot of unspoilt nature. If you listen to Dugin’s critique of the West, he’s right about a lot of things. We’re creating a hellish dystopia. Of course Dugin is also insane and he has that “white man bad” stuff in common with Western leftoids. (And he shills for Putin who is worse than us)

 

So yeah that is also because of those four years of Biden. But also Merkel, Scholz, Rutte, Macron, Bojo, Starmer etc. The whole rotten bunch, they all need to fuck off. So you can point at Trump and say “Now he’s bad!” but that doesn’t mean Biden was somehow good.

 

 

Unironically I’m starting to think maybe we should all embrace Christianity or something. We’re totally lost and looking for guidance. Or we could base a new society around Greek philosophy, like Heracliteanism or Epicureanism. Or Theravada Buddhism. Almost anything is better than the Western mindrot. (Well outright communism or naziism would be worse)

Erdo would be bad, he’s friendly with Orban and by extension probably Putin.

 

I listened to a podcast a while ago with Rob van Wijk, an academic who works for the strategic think tank Clingendael Institute, and he mentioned how the Vatican is a powerful force in international diplomacy. He thinks they have one of the best information networks in the world because they’re literally everywhere. If Erdo would become pope, he might steer those resources in the wrong direction.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Martin Smith, Dave

I hope it will be Pizzaballa. Funny name aside, he’s a good man who cares a lot about the situation in Israel/Palestine. I think he’s officially the Latin Patriarch for the Holy Land, or some title like that. It would send an important message.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierbattista_Pizzaballa

2 users thanked author for this post.

Dan, Todd

Dave wrote:

I bet it’s another Pope

Maybe they’ll pick one who’s Catholic this time.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Christian wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Honestly the Biden administration would be just as funny, or even funnier. Dems let a senile man lead the world.

And yet under his lead, there was a competent administration quietly doing pretty good work like investing in the US infrastructure, lowering the cost of insuline, advancing regenerative energies and supporting labour unions. And they did all this without leaking shit about Biden’s health to the press.

That’s not Ianucci material, that’d be Sorkin. If you can’t see how fucking hilarious a Ianucci depiction of the continuous meltdowns and backstabbing and insanity of Trumpworld would be, well, I recommend watching Veep. Because I am doing that right now and it’s like two sides of one coin.

It was a clown show of incompetence. Of course Trump is likely worse because they’re fascists, but the absurdity is pretty much the same.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/04/biden-broadband-program-swing-state-frustrations-00175845

 

Honestly I think societies collapse under this shit. We’ve beome ridiculously incompetent and absurd in Western countries. They literally couldn’t say until he made a fool of himself in the debate that Biden had cognitive deficiencies because you’d be accused of spreading misinformation and being a Russian troll, that’s how fucking stupid they are. Just gaslighting themselves.

RIP. Will be interesting to see who follows him up.

Honestly the Biden administration would be just as funny, or even funnier. Dems let a senile man lead the world.

(not my opinion but i think its a funny statement)

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Uncle Retrospective

I’m watching an old interview with Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who used to be NATO secretary general, and he says it was Bush jr who pushed for inviting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, while Condoleeza Rice and Bob Gates as well as Sarkozy and Merkel weren’t enthusiastic about that.

5 users thanked author for this post.

Uncle Retrospective, Christian, Tobias Radesäter, Dave, Todd

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Video on twitter of some moronic streamer yelling at a drowsy sedated tiger. I swear these nuisance influencers just do annoying shit for hate clicks. Maybe they should be torn apart by the wild animals they tease.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

El Salvador is an odd country. It never got much attention under Biden, but bad things were in all likelihood going on there. Lots of people there were rounded up and locked in prison, with little judicial justification, accused of being gang members. I am not quite sure wether they were put on trial or not, I don’t know the exact details.

 

I always thought there was almost like a lack of international attention for El Salvador and Bukele. Like governments were looking at it as a test case, to see how such a forceful approach to the crime problem (and El Salvador had an enormous crime problem which was reduced) would work out.

Christian wrote:

Yeah, there’s a moderate faction that was dominant under Merkel, but with Merz and Linemann (the current party leader), it’s gone more to the right.

 

Yeah under the wrong leader the CDA could also move to the right.

Again really odd weather patterns in Europe. Eastern Germany and Western Poland is the hottest with 28 degrees. More than 10 degrees warmer than Central Spain.

Christian wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Yes there are some very shitty people on the left, but I still think good politics is left wing.

Yeah, and I mean, nobody knows better how exhausting people on the left can be than the other people on the left. Like Lorcan posted in the pic thread:

But it’s usually going over the top from a place of wanting to make the world a better place. Whereas right-wing politics is mostly about me, me, me in the first place. (Even in those countries where there is supposedly a big Christian influence on conservative parties, which is why e.g. the German conservative CDU has been clashing with our churches over the issue of migration.)

I believe the CDU in Germany is quite a bit worse than the CDA (Christen-Democratisch Appèl) in the Netherlands, at least under Merz. I kinda like the CDA in certain respects.

 

We also have a party called Christen Unie in the Netherlands. They’re obviously Christian, but more from a left wing angle. Lots of emphasis on helping people, social welfare etc. but with some traditional twist.

 

 

Al-x wrote:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democratic-senator-heads-el-salvador-find-man-deported/story?id=120865596

The wrong man was rounded up for deportation to the El Salvador center, and still the US government is not making an effort to get him back

This case is very disturbing. Those Salvadorian prisons are terrible. I think you could describe them as concentration camps.

 

Also, it is ominous of course that Trump is defying the courts. Very very bad.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ben

A fountain in Morocco

 

4 users thanked author for this post.

Uncle Retrospective, Todd, Dan, njerry

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

About the woke stuff, in the end it’s not such a big deal I guess. Yes there are some very shitty people on the left, but I still think good politics is left wing.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Christian

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Uncle Retrospective

I try to buy my food from smaller shops as much as possible. I don’t trust the supermarket chains at all. They sell chemical slop.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

The Naked Gun trailer is some of the stupidest unfunniest garbage ever.

Wilders is dropping in the polls here, he’s still the biggest but by a very small margin, like less than one percent. This is good. I hope this government will collapse and we get new elections.

Over a year ago it was revealed all of the cheap honey supermarkets sell is fake. It is still in the stores. Wonder what that tells about our food supply.

It’s a total win for diversity though!

Yesssss tomorrow we’ve got thunderstorms coming.

De Molen is a craft brewery in the Netherlands that makes really good beer. They have a lot of different beers but you can always make out their flavor. I think it’s the yeast they use that makes them so recognizable.

 

3 users thanked author for this post.

njerry, Todd, Christian

“Traden” as the Dutch version of the English verb to trade (especially when talking about stock trading) might be the worst anglicism in the Dutch language. Stupid morons, there is a perfectly fine Dutch alternative.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Christian

Honestly I do kind of understand the radicals. If you see how badly the establishment fucked up our countries it’s hard not to get mad, swing hard to the right or the left and want to burn things down. That is pretty much what I mean by woke, the desire to fuck things up. For instance you had a while back in Canada the revelation that bad things were done in Catholic schools to native peoples, and now some lefties are cheering when churches get burnt down, taking away people’s places of worship, things that form their communities, that are vital to their communities and identities. It’s basically the left side in the cultural warfare, pitting whole groups against each other and slowly eroding the basis of the existing moral order, which gave us those very same ideas of equality and human rights that some claim are all that woke is. If you cheer the burning of Catholic churches, you have little basis to criticize the burning down of totem poles, or mosques, or asylum centres. They’re escalating scales in the loss of human decency.

 

Maybe the term is a bit unfortunate, since woke is also used by certain right wingers to point to anything that is slightly left wing.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Sean Robinson

Christian wrote:

Of course “woke” is different things to different people, but what I call woke is basically I think a sort of rotting of the liberal system.

All woke really means though is calling out racism, sexism and other forms of bullying minorities. People mostly hate that because they want to bully minorities.

Haha OK.

 

Honestly if you really believe that, that that is all woke is, you’re just very naive, but I am starting to think many here are just disingenuous and arguing in bad faith.

 

I guess in some was it’s not not as bad today as in the 70s, when widely admired leading members of the left vanguard like Sartre were Stalin apologists, and arguing for crazy shit like legalization of pedosexuality. Basically it’s a battering ram against all established order. (And in the 70s, and probably today too in some cases, a Russian operation. Russia funded certain BLM facebook groups etc)

Christian wrote:

The point being, Putin – just like Trump and other right-wing extremists – are using people’s fear of “woke”* to push for fascism.

 

This does not mean that therefore woke = good. It’s still bad, but Putin and Trump are worse.

 

Of course “woke” is different things to different people, but what I call woke is basically I think a sort of rotting of the liberal system. You get all sorts of zany lunatics saying this and that, which is fine, but it becomes a problem of course when it’s something people start listening to. The flip side of leftie woke is the “dissident right” which has now come to the conclusion that Hitler was not so bad. With the right the problem is worse because there are influential people in power who listen to it.

 

With wokies you can just laugh, but if some of those very shitty people had power they would be another Khmer Rouge.

There’s a NATO conference in the Hague in June and the government is literally telling people to “avoid the Randstad” during that time because of the disturbances it will cause, to traffic etc. Motherfucker I live in the Randstad.

Cats are so interesting as animals because they go from soft floppy cuddle bugs to fierce merciless killer in a second. I like petting this big ginger boi in our apartment complex but I’m under no illusion that he would eat me if I were ten times smaller. Sometimes he comes into my house and he lays on the table and just stares at me. It is slightly unsettling.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

[Arjan Dirkse]

Cloak Napoleon wore in Egypt:

 

 

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 1 day ago by Arjan Dirkse.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Man, weather forecasters here suck at their job. They predicted 16 degrees for today, it isn’t even 12 degrees. I don’t know what the fuck these morons are doing. They only talk about climate change.

 

The BBC is much better at predicting the weather in the Netherlands.

 

edit:  Looks like it is much warmer in the South East of the country, pretty big differences for such a small country

Eh woke is stupid, but it’s not the biggest enemy, that’s Putinism. Really the worst most extreme wokes, the “whiteness is a curse” racists are just best to ignore, or throw in jail when they’re really bothersome. (Well, I mean when they break the law in an egregious manner)

Christian wrote:

But that is not something governments are interested in.

No, they’re interested in tracing your movements and contacts.

Damn, it came out in the news that our crown princess has been living in Spain for a year because the Netherlands is too dangerous for her. She was targeted by the mocro mob. I think that is what the kids call a red pill.

 

If Europe is distancing itself from Trump’s America, maybe we can also be more critical of Israel. My own givernment is way too friendly towards them.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Uncle Retrospective

Yeah you might think it is a bit dystopian…But it will save lives!

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/08/uk-creating-prediction-tool-to-identify-people-most-likely-to-kill

Speaking of Jainism, I am currently reading the Dhammapada, a Buddhist scrupture, and in the introduction it mentions how some of the verses are identical to verses in Jainist literature as well as the Mahabharata, a classic scripture of Hinduism. These three religions (Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism) are very closely related.

Christian wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

The air humidity here is now about 35 %. That is extraordinarily dry for the Netherlands. Usually it doesn’t even get under 70.

 

This year has been very dry so far. (I’m not complaining tho)

Yeah, personally I’m loving the warmth, but the plants are already struggling. Could become another bad drought year (after one year of relief). It’s already getting dangerous for the forests in particular.

I find myself longing for a good old thunderstorm! Haven’t had one of those in a long time. Lst summer there were quite a lot of them I think

I think it’s a spectrum. Religion has philosophical facets but philosophy also has religious facets. Taoism and confucianism for instance can be regarded both as a philosophy and a religion.

 

Alo Christianity incorporates bits of stoicism, neo-platonism…

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

I think much in the world that’s happening makes sense if you just look at it through the lens of power politics, rather than moral principles – or at least it used to before Trump v 2.0. We want to spread our power, NATO, the EU, and capitalism, free trade and access to markets and resources, Russia wants to rule (and widen) their sphere of influence. In the widening of Western influence there is also the hammering of getting the influence of religion to shrink and promoting LGBT rights(although the Saudis are an exception to that), as well as promoting migration, and reducing nationalism and increasing internationalism. Russia of course does the opposite: reducing LGBT rights and promoting nationalist parties.

 

With Trump v 2.0 I’m not quite sure. They seem to be stepping out of that routine, scaling back their presence in Europe, whereas on the other hand you could say they just want to get a tighter grip on Europe – Musk has been promoting the AfD and palling around with Farage for instance, and it seems like now they are also supporting Le Pen. Although they may just be doing what Putin wants them to. Christian said Trump is just looking around for other authoritarian leaders to befriend. That could be true.

 

A Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk warned in a podcast of the bad effects it may cause if the US steps away from enforcing certain rules they used to have at least some allegiance to. That is already happening I believe. For instance Russia is doing some brutal things in Africa that hardly get attention, unlike of course what they do in Ukraine. Or say Erdogan might feel emboldened to capture some Greek islands in the Aegean sea. Many governments could decide to do some shit to increase their power or territory.

Face of an ancient statue of the Roman God of war, Mars. I like the angry stare

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/04/russell-brand-charged

 

This seems deserved, from most accounts

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

The air humidity here is now about 35 %. That is extraordinarily dry for the Netherlands. Usually it doesn’t even get under 70.

 

This year has been very dry so far. (I’m not complaining tho)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It’s interesting that the US stays staunchly behind Israel, bombing Yemen and threatening Iran, even as it is moving away from Europe. I think in the Trump era it is very much about personal sympathies and connections.

 

Sorry this post was supposed to go in the politics thread!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Uncle Retrospective

It’s interesting that the US stays staunchly behind Israel, bombing Yemen and threatening Iran, even as it is moving away from Europe. I think in the Trump era it is very much about personal sympathies and connections.

To an extent yes but we’re also influenced by our environment, our society, our culture. Those factors can force certain ideas or behaviors on us or forbid some behaviors

I noticed online some of the people especially f the libertarian type who were pro-Trump actually realize now that he might be terrible for the economy, but they’re saying “Let it collapse! It will be good!” That’s some mega level of copium, where you start saying the collapse will bring positive benefits. Optimal delusion.

 

Come to think of it, this is also what Bezmenov warned about. Hating your own system so much, that you applaud its collapse and takeover by another ideology or another country, even to the extent that you start working for its collapse.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Christian

When it comes to religion, I think you have to cherry pick, because there is so much nonsense and mind control stuff in it. But there are good things in it too. I’m interested in shinto at the moment, but there’s not a lot of good info about it that’s translated into Western languages. Taoism is also really fascinating. The Zhuangzi is one of the two big books of taoism, the other being the Dao de Jing, and it is probably my favorite book ever.

 

I also like things about confucianism.

 

(Buddhism, christianity, Islam as well as hinduism also have good things of course, but with those big religions I think there are  negative things connected to them. More so than shinto, taoism and confucianism. The big reigions seem to have more of the mind control, conformity stuff)

2 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, Todd

they're so goofy sometimes 😭 pic.twitter.com/zLWk5nfU9q

— 🐻 Bears Daily 🐻 (@bearsdaily_) April 1, 2025

2 users thanked author for this post.

Uncle Retrospective, Todd

It’s different for different religions I guess, but i think in Indian religions (India the country, not native Americans) including Jainism  there is an emphasis on self denial that I have started to dislike after reading a lot about Buddhism. Jainism is also pretty ascetic.

 

I think human beings have basic needs that we should try to meet. Simply enjoying things for instance, this is something I think we shouldn’t deny ourselves. I think hedonistic philosphers like Aristippus and Epicurus were right about a lot of things.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Politics is turning into absurdist theater.

Well I disagree with the chatpgt about Buddhism. In Buddhism there os often – at least in the “official scriptures” – quite a strong emphasis on punishment of bad deeds, bad akrma, sometimes quite graphic torture in hell realms etc. There’s also a denial of pleasure.

If you keep abusing people and saying they are evil, they’re worthless, they don’t deserve love, their modest needs in life are sinful, eventually I think they internalize it and they become oppressed by tthe burden of sin. I think many belief systems and ideologies do this to an extent, maybe most. It can be an effective way to subject people, to bend others to your will. Religions do this all the time. Buddhism to. “You have to become pure, unstained”, bla bla bla.

Fucking hell, there’s no reasoning with some Putin asskissers. They really see Ukraine as the aggressor and Russia as the poor victim. Incredible.

 

(I know I’ve been a bit critical of some things Ukraine and the West did, but I always recognized Putin was the aggressor here. At least since 2014)

 

On another note, fuck Wilders and the way he generalizes all Muslims. I’m critical of some Muslim groups and I think there is a problem with intolerance against groups like LGBT people  in some parts of the Muslim community, but I’ll protect Muslims against his shit.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Christian

Turks in Germany and the Netherlands are more pro-Erdogan than Turks in Turkey.

[Christian]

Christian wrote:

Makes more sense though, Waterstones are actually very good book stores, whereas WH Smith are mainly places where you get books and toys cheaply.

Speaking of books stores and the Netherlands, one of my favourite bookstores that I ever saw in my life is a church that’s been converted into a book store in Maastricht. Just such a beautiful place.

I wish they’d convert more churches already in Germany. There’s one in Cologne that’s a cultural event place now (I saw Henry Rollins, Lambchop and Neal Stephenson there), but it’s very much an exception, where in the UK you get the impression that every second church has been turned into a pub already (special mention to the wonderful The Church pub in Dublin, where I met up with our former member Wayne a thousand years ago.)

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by Christian.

 

Damn, I need to go to Limburg some time. Maastricht must be a nice city.

 

I’ve put off traveling for a while because I’m not very mobile. The covid kilos gave me achy knees so walking long distances which tends to happen when I travel is impossible. I’m currently trying to lsoe weight but not quite there yet

2 users thanked author for this post.

Christian, Todd

There used to be a WH Smith store in Amsterdam. Not quite sure if it’s still there as I haven’t been there in a while. It was a phenomenal bookstore. Probably my second favorite in Amsterdam.

 

edit: what the hell, I just googled it and apparently at that location there was a Waterstones, not a WH SMith. Bit of a Mandela effect

Damn, you’re right…well that’s unfortunate.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Christian

That last pic might be AI, I dunno, it’s hard to tell these days.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Martin Smith

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Sean Robinson

2 users thanked author for this post.

Martin Smith, Todd

I think Varoufakis is unironically a Chinese agent now. Not sure if he always was, but here he is just regurgitating Chinese propaganda.

 

Reminds me of a few old marxist professors in the Netherlands who are now palling around with FvD, our right wing Putinist party that is now openly flirting with nazi shit, and saying stuff like Zelensky is a war monger and Russia is just defending themselves against NATO. Could be they were always bought by Russia, going back to Soviet times, and Putin found good use for their old useful idiots. It’s a red-brown alliance.

 

Uber Eats in 1960s Iran:

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Tank Man didn’t face one tank but a long line of them

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

I like the Italian wines from this brand, Riporta: they sell Italian wine in different styles, from different regions and different grapes. The pecorino is a white wine that is nice and fruity and sparkly, easy drinking. At 8 bucks it is not expensive.

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

I did like the forst story in Morrison’s X-Men run, with the creepy lady who was somehow Xavier’s twin sister. Can’t remember all the details, but I did enjoy that. After that I agree it quickly got less interesting.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Andrew

Improvising on Barbie Girl with a bass guitar:

 

Aw Rob de Nijs died…he was a Dutch singer I really liked

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/german-spy-agency-concluded-covid-virus-likely-leaked-lab-papers-say-2025-03-12/

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Uncle Retrospective

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Funny thing with English names is that they’re so common that if you google someone you get many results for completely different people. Like you want to google something about the philosopher Mark Fisher and most results will be for different Mark Fishers.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

2 users thanked author for this post.

Martin Smith, Todd

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Spring is here. I had a cup of tea in the park today and there was a stork sitting on top of a bare tree, throwing his head back and making that clacking sound they make.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

I’m reading “Narrow Road to the Far North” a travelogue by the 17th century Japanese poet Basho. He makes a pilgrimage to the places poets from earlier generations wrote about. It’s such a great book, I have had it for over 15 years and been reading bits of it off and on through the years. It’s a fun book to just grab and read little bits of rather than reading the whole book in one go. It’s especially great because of the commentary, the translators wrote long notes that explain a lot about the world Basho lived in and the other poets and philosophers he worshipped.

 

It’s a Dutch translation in a series that has run for decades. The publisher publishes travelogues, diaries and similar autobiographical works by writers, but also artists, politicians, academics etc.

 

 

2 users thanked author for this post.

Todd, Uncle Retrospective

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

Amstel Radler is a pretty good low alohol beer, if you don’t want to have too much alcohol. Good refreshing lemon taste.

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd

1 user thanked author for this post.

Todd