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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!

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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.

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)

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Todd

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

— Bears Daily (@bearsdaily_) April 1, 2025

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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.

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.

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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 5 days, 14 hours 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

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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.

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Christian

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

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Martin Smith

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Todd, Sean Robinson

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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:

 

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Todd

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

 

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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.

 

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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.

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Andrew

Improvising on Barbie Girl with a bass guitar:

 

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

 

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Todd

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

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective

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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.

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Todd

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Martin Smith, Todd

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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.

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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.

 

 

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective

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Todd

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Todd

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

 

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Todd

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Todd

Next weekend is supposed to be very nice, about 16 degrees and sunny. We’ve had a very dry winter this year. Completely the opposite of last year’s winter which was soaking wet. I hope the difference is reflected in the numbers of bugs we get this summer.

Ah right, that could explain it.

95 is a good age to go, but his wife is much younger. Also the dog was found dead.

Alpacas are cuties

 

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Martin Smith, Todd, Christian

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njerry, Tobias Radesäter, Sean Robinson, Christian, Uncle Retrospective, Dave, Todd

We do still have one really good bookstore in town, they have a great used book section. Bought some gems there.

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Todd

Fish pond mosaic

 

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Todd, Dave, Dan, Uncle Retrospective

The bookshop i  my local mall here is closing…too bad. Sad to see shops going. It was a good shop, their books weren’t very special but they always had handy stuff, like pens and pencils, writing pads etc

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Uncle Retrospective, Dan, Todd

I have come to the conclusion that I don’t really like Adam Curtis. The music and the pretty pictures seem to be there to hide the fact that what he says goes nowhere.

Tusk might the the only European leader at the moment who isn’t insane.

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-donald-tusk-throws-down-gauntlet-to-eu-leaders-ukraine-defense-spending/

Christian wrote:

It’s stuff like the Pelicot case that makes me wonder whether we shouldn’t just get rid of men altogether.

Then I identify as a woman

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Todd

[Arjan Dirkse]

edit: That was perhaps a bit too strident. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be sad if something very bad happened to the Tate brothers.

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

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Todd

Germany:

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/50-battle-ready-germany-misses-military-targets-despite-scholzs-overhaul-2025-02-13/

 

50 % battle ready…fucking incredible how inept Scholz is.

Well, we’re probably going to be dead or refugees soon, with the way Russia is going. I actually agree with Trump in ignoring Zelensky and the EU shit-for-brains politicians, and their discordant, hysteric whining. Problem is Trump is an idiot too.

I read there’s another cold wave coming to the US…stay warm guys.

 

Winter here has been pretty nice the last few weeks. A bit cold but sunny. Beautiful days.

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Todd

My nephew is going to be a DJ in a pretty well known club in Amsterdam…which is awesome.

 

edit: yikes…looks like the place has many bad reviews.

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Todd

I follow a Dutch scholar of Turkish descent, with the impossible name Uğur Ümit Üngör, who talked about how almost half of Syrian refugees here were tortured in prison in Syria. He said, well of course these people have problems fitting in within society, they’re kinda fucked up from what they went through. Some of them will do bad things and some of them will need extensive treatment, and mental healthcare at the moment is not equiped for that.

 

These are things we have to be clear eyed about I think. If we don’t, politicians like the AfD who think every foreigner is a demon will run away with the issue.

Christian wrote:

Right now, probably not. But the conservatives’ candidate for chancellor has just tried to push through anti-migration legislation through parliament and he explicitly tried to do it with the AfD’s votes.

There’s a very real chance chance that there won’t be a government coalition with a majority after the next election, so Merz could form a minority government and rely on the AfD to supply the missing votes.

It’s not a very likely scenario, but at this point, it’s quite possible. CDU and SPD might not have a majority on their own (provided the SPD would even work with Merz’s CDU, which would be absolutely self-destructive), the CDU has ruled out a coalition with the Green Party, and the FDP is probably not going to make it into parliament (because we’ve got this 5 percent hurdle thing).

Throw out all your politicians and resurrect Adenauer. ;)

 

It sucks that these terror attacks lead to these gains for the worst parties. I mean I think you have to be able to point out when a certain group of people has a problem, wether that is muslims, white people, black people, whoever. But you can’t allow that to grow into hate for all of those people.

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Christian

It sucks that AfD has so much support, but I think it’s very unlikely they’ll end up in government.

I’m not that upset by politics atm, I mean everything sucks, but I don’t care very much anymore. What will happen, will happen.

Jesus Christ, almost every political figure in Europe is a massive idiot.

If the liberal states secede and most of the military stays in the hands of the federal government, that’s it for the world order basically. Most of Europe will be overrun by Russia.

 

I think it’s fascinating how this city where I live is always changing. In the 70s much was destroyed and replaced by soulless shitty architecture, but since the 90s things started to become better, and interesting buildings were built. There are a few nice places now with cafes and restaurants where you can sit outside by the water in summer. The city center has become much more appealing.

 

They’re now planning to redevelop the main shopping mall in the city center. It’s going to be a huge job, and hopefully they’ll start this year. The plans have been worked on for years.

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Christian, Todd

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Uncle Retrospective

This video is very wholesome and shows the good side of the US.

 

That’s good that they’re speaking out against AfD. AfD looks worse than maybe all the other popular right wing parties, except the one in Bulgaria maybe   which is also fucking nuts.

 

I’ve been listening to this podcast the last few days. It’s Dutch but a very good one, they have sort of a Christian angle but pretty liberal, left wing. One of the people who is on the podcast is a historian named Beatrice de Graaf who’s very good. If you’re on bluesky you can look her up, she has very interesting things to say. (And posts in English)

 

edit: mistake, I see most of her posts are in Dutch

This is a good article by Anne Applebaum on the “obscurantism” of the right wing. I read it and it is something that I am also susceptible too, these narratives.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/trump-populist-conspiracism-autocracy-rfk-jr/681088/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK39h5wzR–PdEbMVMB5FR5Xs&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

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Todd

Don’t the democrats always argue government shutdowns hurt the poor?

I’m watching a podcast where they talk about the right wing push and they’re making the interesint g point that the church in Europe is to some extent a moderating factor. They mentioned Germany especially where a bishop was “less Christian” than the CDU which wanted crucifixes in classrooms.

 

It’s also true in the Netherlands I believe. The most conservative Christians still vote for a Christian political party. Wilders and Baudet don’t get many votes from that demographic. The party they vote for is the SGP which is pretty conservative but I would not call them far right. (And they only get like 3 %, which is much less than two other more liberal Christian political parties)

 

Italy is an exception though, they don’t really have a truly Catholic party in parliament despite being the original home country of Catholicism.

Many places in the Netherlands have deer camps where people can feed and pet deer. Like a petting zoo for deer. Our previous no-fun-allowed government had forbidden them and they were to be closed once the animals that lived there had expired. These places are beloved and there was lots of protest. Now the current government has overturned this decision, and the deer camps can stay.

 

Some of the shit these people do is just crazy.

edit: I misread. It was already the previous government which overturned their own decision. Anyway they’re still assholes.

In the Netherlands the traditional left wing labour party and the greens want to join into one party. I think this is a bad development.

 

Although it could also lead to more labour voters going to the SP ( socialist party), a social democrats party with more attention for things like workers rights and anti-neoliberalism. The SP at some point many years ago, like in 2010 had about 15 % in the polls, but now it’s more like 5 %.

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Todd

This article has some good advice. I don’t agree with all the things he says, but I think it’s a god read because it’s good not to give in to desperation.

 

He says “read banned books” which can be good I think, but many books that are not banned are good too. Read history books. Read Thomas Paine. Read Marcus Aurelius. Read the Tao te Ching.

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fight-back-resist-united-states_n_6798d909e4b035ecd67cc987

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Todd

Great minds think alike

 

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Uncle Retrospective

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Dave, Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Some people on twitter are celebrating that USAid is halted. That is just fucking disgusting.

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JRCarter

A problem with the doors in public bathrooms (in the US, here in the Netherlands the doors go all the way down)

 

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Dan, Todd

I think in the months before the elction RFK jr did a “1488” hint at some point. Dog whistling at nazi supporters.

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JRCarter

Psychos in my country want to wipe out these beauties.

 

 

I thin you can tell a lot about people by the way they treat animal life. (I am personally not against eating meat, but I think animals raised for meat still have to be given a good life)

 

There is a kind of lifeless quality in these people in how they propose to kill them and make the world more sterile, more “safe”, and uglier.

https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/01/29/swedens-plan-to-send-criminals-abroad-amid-gang-violence-epidemic/?utm_source=thumbnail&utm_medium=internal&utm_campaign=related-stories

 

Honestly we’re going to be worse than Syria until we get serious with dealing with the scum.

RFK jr really looks super unhealthy.

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Sean Robinson, Todd

I think politically Europe needs to get its head out of its ass. I would like to see France and Germany produce a shitload of nukes and place some in Poland, to be used at their discretion. Maybe put some in Greenland too. Strive to equal the US and Russia in nuclear capacity.

 

It is stupid how we limit ourselves with our pious lies. We say nukes are bad so we shouldn’t have them, yet we are protected from invasion by Russia by American nukes. Many now even lament Ukraine giving away its nukes in the 90s. We need to stop with the soft bullshit and just do what is right for us and our own people.

Todd wrote:

Google Maps in the US will change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

I would like to say to all those people whose chose not to vote for Kamala Harris for (vague hand wave) “reasons”…

…everything that is happening is your fault. If y’all had got off your fucking asses and voted for her, we might not be in this nightmare scenario. You knew shit like this was going to happen. You fucking KNEW. You knew and did nothing. This is your fault, and nothing will change that.

I have a coworker who believes that the big reason a lot of people didn’t vote for was good old fashioned misogyny. She may not be wrong.

Regardless, here’s hoping we can survive at least the next two years and be able to flip the House and Senate. Here’s hoping there’ll be an election then…

Sorry but you had a candidate who was weak as shit man.

It’s all because he was bullied!!1! Fucking Guardian.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jan/25/axel-rudakubana-from-unassuming-schoolboy-to-notorious-southport-killer

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/us/politics/cia-covid-lab-leak.html

 

CIA now favors lab leak theory

Another favorite soundtrack ( and also one of my favorite movies) Kurosawa’s Ran:

 

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Uncle Retrospective

It’s very disconcerting seeing the other billionaires, like Zuck and Bezos, also kissing Trump’s ass

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JRCarter

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Todd