Ab Klink

PWC Europe/Middle East, professor VU Amsterdam, Scientific Council for Government Policy. Formerly Minister of Health Care /Board Health Insurance Co VGZ/Senate

[Ab Klink @KlinkAb]

Voorzag Twitter, denk ik

[Luis Garicano 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @lugaricano]

This plan is incompatible with freedom- a global class of planners telling us how long to work, how much we can grow, what we can eat. It is also completely wrong. All advances for climate (including the huge drop in battery and solar and wind costs) have come (and will come) from more innovation, more competition, firms that grow and invent and innovate and produce energy solutions that replace fossil fuels. If you enforce degrowth in the West you will kill for ever the climate agenda.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

People saying he won’t also need to explain how to stop it, because he won’t stop on his own. Simply hoping it’s not possible ignores what’s been happening in Congress and the Supreme Court for the last year. This year’s midterms must be an overwhelming repudiation.

[NEXTA @nexta_tv]

🤡 “A bloody usurper!” Zakharova compares Zelensky to Hitler

“Ukrainians were deceived as brutally as Germans once were with Hitler,” Zakharova claimed.

According to Russia’s chief alcoholic spokesperson, Zelensky has supposedly turned into a “bloody usurper” over the past seven years, while all of his campaign promises were allegedly cynical lies.

Interesting to hear lectures about power usurpation from representatives of a country where the same tsar has ruled for a quarter of a century.

[Brad Setser @Brad_Setser]

Frustrating that the work Sander and I did to find innovative measures of the China shock using "real" metrics are ignored, and the old "but Germany also runs a surplus" canard gets rolled out --

But I am happy to respond --

1/

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

Just another complete and utter lie

[Niall Ferguson @nfergus]

When I first saw the “Why College?”syllabus, I genuinely thought it must be a parody. https://t.co/m6YdoP3QCG

[Yarema Dukh 🇺🇦 @yarko]

Russia: Don’t attack the Moscow parade, or we’ll attack Kyiv.

Ukraine: Ok, no attack, have your parade.

Russia, a few days later: attacks residential buildings in Kyiv while people are sleeping, killing 1, injuring 23.

[Warren Gunnels @GunnelsWarren]

Can't stop thinking about Elon Musk, the wealthiest man alive worth $828 billion, spending $290 million to elect Trump, becoming $563 billion richer since Trump was elected and ending humanitarian aid that will lead to the deaths of 4.5 million of the poorest kids on the planet.

[Mikhail Khodorkovsky @khodorkovsky_en]

Alexander Okunev set himself on fire at a Soviet WWII memorial in Kaliningrad on the 3rd anniversary of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. In his suicide note, he wrote that he knew no one would ever hear about him.

He was almost right🧵[1/15]

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

When I retired from chess to help launch the pro-democracy movement against Putin in 2005, I was told that politics isn’t like chess, it’s all gray area. But in some things, like the fight between good and evil in Ukraine, it’s black and white. My speech at the Tryzub Gala:

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

JUST IN: House Democrats secured the 218 signatures needed to bypass Speaker Mike Johnson and force a vote on Russia sanctions and Ukraine aid after Rep. Kevin Kiley joined Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick and Don Bacon in backing the petition.

[Henshi @HenshiG]

In 1942, in Nazi-occupied Tunisia—the only Arab country to suffer direct German occupation—a drunken officer bragged at dinner about the Jewish woman he planned to seize from a forced brothel.

He named her.

Across the table sat Khaled Abdul-Wahab, a 31-year-old wealthy Muslim Tunisian who had studied art and architecture in New York, spoke fluent German, and was trusted by the Nazis. They invited him to their tables. He smiled, poured the wine, finished the meal… then raced through the night.

He pounded on the door of the woman’s family at midnight. “Pack nothing. Come now.” He gathered 25 terrified Jews—mothers, fathers, children, cousins—and drove them nearly 20 miles to his family farm. For four agonizing months, he hid them in the olive press, stables, and storage sheds.

He fed them as supplies ran desperately low. He kept crying babies silent. When German soldiers came to count Jews, the hidden families pinned on their yellow stars, stood motionless, then tore them off the moment the danger passed.

One terrifying night, a drunk soldier stumbled upon them and threatened to kill everyone. An 11-year-old girl, hiding under a bed, watched in horror—until Khaled appeared like a guardian angel.

He calmly disarmed the soldier and sent him away.

No one on that farm died.

In May 1943, the British liberated Tunisia. The 25 returned home alive. Khaled went back to his quiet life—painting, raising daughters, serving his country—and never spoke of it again. Not to his wife. Not to his children.

He died in 1997 at 86. His secret died with him.

A decade later, his daughter Faiza sat in a Paris café reading a newspaper. An American historian was describing a Tunisian Arab who had hidden 25 Jews. He named her father. She was 45 years old and hearing the story for the first time. “I rediscovered my father,” she said.

Khaled was nominated to be the first Arab recognized as Righteous Among the Nations—Israel’s highest honor for those who saved Jews. The committee declined.

Today, those 25 souls have hundreds of descendants living in Israel, France, America, and Tunisia. The little girl under the bed grew up, built a family in Paris. None of them would exist if Khaled had looked away that night.

He had everything to lose. He acted anyway. Then he carried the silence for the rest of his life.

The world almost forgot him twice.
Now you know his name: Khaled Abdul-Wahab.

A true hero. A Muslim who stood against evil when it mattered most.

Colorized image of black and white photo poster by Israel the Jewish State.

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

Evil. Pure evil.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Who’s running the country?

[Rod Dreher @roddreher]

Hope!

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

I've always noticed that in many parts of America vulgarity and coarseness are regarded as guarantees of authenticity

Whereas correct speech, good manners and lack of
lavatorial references are signs of affectation and elitism

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

Never forget that what really frightens him is democracy

Because all the NATO countries are democracies

Except for the United States of America, of course

Which is Russia's ally...

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

In my opinion, yesterday a turning point in the war took place.

Perhaps we still do not fully grasp the significance of what happened.

For the first time, Putin publicly showed his weakness and inability to independently protect his capital, his parade, and himself from our strikes. Because of this, a frightened Putin was forced to publicly humiliate himself and ask Trump, as a mediator, to help stop a strike on Moscow.

De facto, Putin asked Trump to protect him from the Ukrainians.

I consider President Zelenskyy’s order a brilliant informational slap in the face and an additional public humiliation.

It is obvious that before and during the parade, Putin was physically afraid - he felt vulnerable and threatened.

Putin publicly appeared weak and humiliated, and in Russia’s "prison-style" political culture, such things are not forgiven.

A weak "tsar," mocked by everyone, cannot remain a tsar in Russia.

These are very, very hard times for Ukraine. However, Ukraine is strong, resilient, and continues the fight.

Slava Ukraini!

[Rod Dreher @roddreher]

I'm struggling to understand how those Protestant pastors justified gathering to bless the golden Trump idol. I mean, hell, I supported Trump in 2024, but this is Saddam Hussein crap, and maybe even Nebuchadnezzar crap. Christians shouldn't be doing this. And his Easter garbage!

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

I wonder if there's anything in the Bible about golden idols and stuff