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

Since #Trump’s re-election, warnings that his use of presidential power to advance personal interests is corroding American democracy have grown ever louder.
☑️ All the president’s millions: how the Trumps are turning the presidency into riches

All the president’s millions: how the Trumps are turning the presidency into riches
From Vietnam to the Balkans, Donald Trump’s family has launched a global dealmaking blitz since his re-election

Interestingly a simple kWh/HDD regression for our full electricity imports fits reasonably well R^2>0.75) and gives a total year prediction close to that of our electricity supplier #Ecotricity partly because almost all imports are in winter for space heat...

16WW Heat-pump Control
Settings and control of the heat pump at 16WW. #heatPump #controls #DHW #spaceHeat

The case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia ended on Wednesday
with a filing for dismissal by the state prosecutor who took over after the removal of Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney.
Pete Skandalakis, the prosecutor and the executive director of the prosecuting attorneys’ council of Georgia, confirmed to the Guardian that
“it’s over”after superior court judge Scott McAfee issued a one-page order on Wednesday dismissing the 2020 racketeeri…

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said Unions are gearing up to challenge the US president’s “Billionaire First” agenda in 2026
– and drive candidates in key elections to stand up for “struggling” Americans.
In an interview with the Guardian, she described how the federation has pushed to restore collective bargaining rights for federal workers,
-- and filed lawsuits against the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken unions and worker protections.
“People were …

This article just cited the Finnish Michaux study. There are others. The whole "industrial renewable energy capture systems" wager has inadequate foundations, which is why the only way is to use much less energy. Hence #degrowth See my article and linked report for the UK case.
Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil? - CounterPunch.org

Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil?
A key issue for the accomplishment of renewables is power storage because of the impact of wind and solar intermittency, both of which are highly intermittent. Most studies assume gas will be the buffer for intermittency. Other than using fossil fuel such as gas as a buffer, an adequate power storage system to handle intermittency will require 30 times more material than what electric vehicles require with current plans, meaning the scope is much larger than the current paradigm allows.

„EU makes it even easier for Chinese EV companies to dominate the European car market“ There, fixed it for you.
EU Moves To Ease 2035 Ban On Internal Combustion Cars - Slashdot https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/17/003222/eu-moves-to-…

This is one of the many reasons I use #Bandcamp and #Qobuz.
I actually own my #music, no corporate algorithm deciding what I “should” like, no invisible hand yanking albums away because some…

Seventy percent of Americans oppose to US military action in Venezuela, CBS News/YouGov poll finds
Trump administration labels Maduro as member of foreign terrorist organization
as US prepares for next phase of operations
https://www.

“How do we move forward in a way that everybody feels like they’re being engaged, they’re being heard and they’re understanding that elections have consequences?” she asks rhetorically.
“You have to come out and vote. You lose your voice if you don’t come out to vote.
One of the problems that’s happening right now is people are fearful and that’s how dictatorship begins. That’s how authoritarian regimes start.
They create this chaos and then this fear and we cannot be fe…