Tootfinder

Tibetan religious authorities supported abusive leader of Belgian Buddhist sect (OKC) https://europeanacademyofreligionandsociety.com/news/tibetan-religious-authorities-supported-abusive-leader-of-belgian-bud…

Tibetan religious authorities supported abusive Belgian leader - EARS
Tibetan religious authorities supported the abusive leader of the Belgian Buddhist sect OKC, known as Robert Spatz.

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

The Dutch Data Protection Authority, the national privacy watchdog, told Het Financieele Dagblad that it has counted dozens of such AI-related data breach reports so far this year.
https://nltimes.nl/2025/12/30/dutch-privacy-watchdog-warns-rising-ai-ch…

Dutch privacy watchdog warns of rising AI chatbot data leaks
The number of reported data breaches linked to workplace use of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini is rising sharply in the Netherlands, according to the Dutch Data Protection Authority, following a recent leak involving the municipality of Eindhoven.

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The people who shape decisions aren't always in charge. They're the ones others trust and turn to.
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New piece on how to build it without authority.
What's helped you influence without power?

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Learn how to build real influence without authority. Discover proven strategies for gaining trust, establishing expertise, and leading without a title.

"Baum auf Fahrbahn", Weihnachtsedition.
https://social.adridoesthings.com/@strecken_info/115798993831304510
(ist inzwischen behoben)

Vårt intag av dem har minskat stadigt sen 70 talet men
“We have updated the tolerable weekly intake (TWI), setting it at 0.6 picograms per kilogram of body weight. Updated dietary exposure estimates from European countries indicate that the new TWI is exceeded in all age groups,” https://www.efs…

Have your say – dioxins and related PCBs
Dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs are toxic chemicals that persist in the environment for years and accumulate at low levels in the food chain, usually in the fatty tissues of animals. Their presence in food and feed has declined since the 1970s thanks to the efforts of public authorities and industry.In their draft scientific opinion, EFSA experts confirmed the conclusion of the Authority’s previous assessments that dietary exposure to dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs is a health concern.“We have u…

Bien entendu, Madagascar 2025, c'est d'abord et surtout la Gen Z.
Mais Š mes yeux, il y a eu aussi le dossier Autoroute Antananarivo Toamasina qui a été tout aussi révélateur du mépris des autorités envers les populations, et du courage de celles-ci face Š la coercition et au climat de peur.
Le courage de ces paysans a été au moins aussi admirable que celui des Gen Z, car les coups bas peuvent si facilement survenir dans les campagnes…

39C3: CCC-Sprecher erdgeist über autoritäre Trends in der Tech-Branche
In Hamburg tummeln sich die Hacker zum 39. Chaos Communication Congress. Wofür das Motto „Power Cycles“ steht, erläutert CCC-Sprecher erdgeist im Interview.

South Korean authorities are investigating a data leak at e-commerce giant Coupang that exposed ~33.7M accounts; the country has a population of 51.7M (Sohee Kim/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-30/cou…

The company made the disclosure in the United States without prior consultation with South Korean authorities, a move that has sparked controversy.
https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20251231/6036076/1

Data breach prompts Coupang $1.2 billion payout
Coupang disclosed the results of its internal investigation into a personal data breach to the U.S.…