Tootfinder

The fracturing of the Dutch far-right, after Wilder's reminded everyone that bigots are bad at compromise, is definitely a relief. Dutch folks I've talked to definitely see D66 as progressive, <strike>so there's no question this is a hard turn to the left (even if it's not a total flip to the far-left)</strike> a lot of folks don't agree. I'm going to let the comments speak rather than editorialize myself..
While this is a useful example of how a democracy can be far more resilient to fascism than the US, that is, perhaps, not the most interesting thing about Dutch politics. The most interesting thing is something Dutch folks take for granted and never think of as such: there are two "governments."
The election was for the Tweede Kamer. This is a house of representatives. The Dutch use proportional representation, so people can (more or less) vote for the parties they actually want. Parties <strike>rarely</strike> never actually get a ruling majority, so they have to form coalition governments. This forces compromise, which is something Wilders was extremely bad at. He was actually responsible for collapsing the coalition his party put together, which triggered this election... and a massive loss of seats for his party.
Dutch folks do still vote strategically, since a larger party has an easier time building the governing coalition and the PM tends to come from the largest party. This will likely be D66, which is really good for the EU. D66 has a pretty radical plan to solve the housing crisis, and it will be really interesting to see if they can pull it off. But that's not the government I want to talk about right now.
In the Netherlands, failure to control water can destroy entire towns. A good chunk of the country is below sea level. Both floods and land reclamation have been critical parts of Dutch history. So in the 1200's or so, the Dutch realized that some things are too important to mix with normal politics.
You see, if there's an incompetent government that isn't able to actually *do* anything (see Dick Schoof and the PVV/VVD/NSC/BBB coalition) you don't want your dikes to collapse and poulders to flood. So the Dutch created a parallel "government" that exists only to manage water: waterschap or heemraadschap (roughly "Water Board" in English). These are regional bureaucracies that exist only to manage water. They exist completely outside the thing we usually talk about as a "government" but they have some of the same properties as a government. They can, for example, levy taxes. The central government contributes funds to them, but lacks authority over them. Water boards are democratically elected and can operate more-or-less independent of the central government.
Controlling water is a common problem, so water boards were created to fulfill the role of commons management. Meanwhile, so many other things in politics run into the very same "Tragedy of the Commons" problems. The right wing solution to commons management is to let corporations ruin everything. The left-state solution is to move everything into the government so it can be undermined and destroyed by the right. The Dutch solution to this specific problem has been to move commons management out of the domain of the central government into something else.
And when I say "government" here, I'm speaking more to the liberal definition of the term than to an anarchist definition. A democratically controlled authority that facilitates resource management lacks the capacity for coercive violence that anarchists define as "government." (Though I assume they might leverage police or something if folks refuse to pay their taxes, but I can't imagine anyone choosing not to.)
As the US federal government destroys the social fabric of the US, as Trump guts programs critical to people's survival, it might be worth thinking about this model. These authorities weren't created by any central authority, they evolved from the people. Nothing stops Americans from building similar institutions that are both democratic and outside of the authority of a government that could choose to defund and abolish them... nothing but the realization that yes, you actually can.
#USPol #NLPol

Wettbewerb: Google winkt Gericht mit mehr Werbedaten
Wie entscheidet Google, welches Gebot für einen Online-Werbeplatz gewinnt? Mit Einblick darin möchte der Konzern Wettbewerbsbedenken ausräumen.
https://www.

Sources: Intel is in early-stage talks to acquire AI chip startup SambaNova, with a deal likely valuing SambaNova below its $5B valuation in 2021 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-30/intel-in-talks-to-acquire-ai…

Rest Fire
Santa Barbara County
An Evacuation Warning has been requested for Gaviota State Beach, per Incident Command. The fire is 1/2 to 1 acre in medium brush w/ moderate rate of spread, burning under the influence of a north wind & is burning towards the south, per Incident Command.
https://share.wa…

Watch Duty - Wildfire Maps & Alerts
Real-time information about wildfire and firefighting efforts nearby

Americans Don't Agree with Democrats' Actions (President Donald J. Trump/The White House)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/government-shutdown-clock/
http://www.memeorandum.com/250930/p149#a250930p149

Great brief blog post by @… and I agree - 'The internet is far from being dead': https://michal.sapka.pl/weblog/2025/internet-is-far-from-being-d…

Internet is far from being dead
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Der Eurasische #Fischotter ist ein faszinierender Bewohner unserer #Gewässer. 🦦 Mit einer Länge von bis zu 120 cm und einem Gewicht von 5 bis 16 kg gehört er zur Familie der #Marder. Seine Revie…

Auf den Spuren des Eurasischen Fischotters (Lutra lutra) : Lebensweise und Naturschutz
Lerne mehr über den Eurasischen Fischotter: Von seinen Jagdmethoden bis hin zu den Herausforderungen, die er in der Wildnis meistern muss.

Check out today's Metacurity for a solid round-up of the most critical infosec developments you might have missed over the weekend, including
--UK government bails out Jaguar Land Rover with $2 billion loan,
--Hackers contacted Harrods after 430K customer records were stolen,
--Hackers threaten to release more Kido nursery school records,
--Russia's undersea spying ops become more brazen,
--Unitree robots afflicted by a severe flaw,
--Akira attacks …

UK government bails out Jaguar Land Rover with $2 billion loan
Hackers contacted Harrods after 430K customer records were stolen, Hackers threaten to release more Kido nursery school records, Russia's undersea spying ops become more brazen, Unitree robots afflicted by severe flaw, Akira attacks on SonicWall VPNs evolve, RemoteCom spyware data leaked, much more

Vodafone agrees to acquire Skaylink, a German company specializing in managing cloud deployments on Microsoft Azure and AWS, for €175M from PE firm Waterland (Yamini Kalia/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/vodafone-buy-german-clo…

Source: Meta is acquiring AI chip startup Rivos, as it seeks to reduce reliance on Nvidia; Rivos was reportedly seeking new funding at a $2B valuation in August (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-30/met…