Marijnvanh

retweet =/ endorsement

[Shashank Tripathi @sha2nk_t]

🚨 We turned European train delays into a live league table.

Germany finished last. 🇩🇪
Switzerland isn't even #1. 🇨🇭

Over the last 30 days, DelayBahn tracked 900,000+ train stops across 6 countries.

Welcome to Europe's Rail Leaderboard 🏆🚆

See where your country ranks 👇
https://t.co/eLzrE1WYEA

Some of the results are wild 🧵 (1/6)

[Department of National Defense - Philippines @dndphl]

MAHIYA NAMAN KAYO | Secretary of National Defense Gilberto C. Teodoro, Jr. responded to a note from the Chinese side during the Seoul Defense Dialogue (SDD) 2026 in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

#DNDPHL #DiKaPasisiil #SDD2026

[spiked @spikedonline]

Birmingham has issued a fatwa on the England flag. The city that illuminates its buildings to celebrate Pakistani independence, and where council meetings begin with an Islamic prayer in Arabic, has criminalised English patriotism. Enough, says Hugo Timms
https://t.co/IaIPnk83PV

[Rutger Bregman @rutgerbregman]

Here's the mustread if you want to understand this insanity, by investigative journalist Jesse Frederik (in Dutch): https://t.co/0NMK18zfQ2.

Short summary:

1. Drilling for gas caused (by international standards) minor earthquakes. The damage to some houses in the epicentre area was real. And the state and the gas company handled it badly. Corporate lawyers, denial, etc.

2. Things became super political. The need to establish cause was removed. You can now claim mining damage anywhere the ground has ever moved more than 0.55 mm per second. That's a basketball bouncing on a floor. (For most of the province it was a single tremor back in 2012).

3. Then the investigating stopped too. 'Victims' first got €5,000. Then €10,000. Then up to €60,000 of repairs with no investigation into what caused them.

4. Claims exploded. 2024 was the mildest seismic year in two decades, but there were 42,790 damage claims. Over 70% of claims now come from zip codes where the strongest ground motion was about what a truck going over a speed bump produces.

5. Total compensation: €3.9 billion. 56% of all addresses in the 'earthquake zone' have been compensated at least once (including a rich town where the strongest tremor expected was equivalent to a passing train), and where an engineer puts the odds of a quake-caused crack in an undamaged brick wall at 1 in 20,000. The town has collected €65 million, plus another €14.5 million in green-energy subsidies for earthquake 'victims'.

6. Meanwhile the gas company spent €200 MILLION on research - Groningen became the global centre of seismological research (even though people in - for example - Italy would find it funny that we call these tremors 'earthquakes'). The whole provinces was wired with sensors.

7. All the research was ignored though. The political debate was dominated by a form of science denial, but this time mainly coming from the left. One international expert called the parliamentary inquiry's account of the physics 'misinformation on a very serious scale'.

8. The gas field is now being filled with cement. Around 550 billion cubic metres is still down there (roughly 18 years of Dutch consumption), but the Netherlands now imports most of what it burns. Experts asked to keep some wells intact as an emergency reserve. Parliament said no.

9. End result: we spent insane amounts of money, are much more dependent on foreign autocrats for our energy (with higher greenhouse gas emissions), misinformation is everywhere, and citizens in Groningen are still angry.

[Marijnvanh @Marijnvanh1]

A truly virtuous man would come to the aid of the most distant strenger as quickly as to his own friends. If man were perfectly virtuous, they would not have friends - Montesquie

[Shermin Amiri @SherminAmiri]

Een deel van intellectueel links heeft moeite met het idee dat gezin, omgeving en land zwaarder mogen wegen dan de rest van de wereld. Waarom eigenlijk?

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

I Support This Because Women Should Never Be Made Faceless in the Name of God.

Portugal has just banned the full veil in public spaces. And a statement from its president particularly struck me:

“The face must be considered a central element of human identity and communication.”

I support this.

I have spent years fighting compulsory hijab because I believe women must be free. But covering a woman’s entire face is different.

The face is how we recognize one another, communicate, and participate in public life. A society has a legitimate interest in requiring people to show their faces in shared public spaces.

And please don’t call the burqa or niqab “women’s liberation.” I come from a region where women are erased from public life in the name of religion.

I am against forcing a woman to wear hijab.

I am also against the ideology that tells women they should disappear behind a veil.

I grew up in the Middle East. I saw how Islamists gradually turn demands into norms, and then frame any resistance as an attack on Muslims.

Women should not be erased. Not by the state. Not by religion.

[Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins]

I am bewildered, and not very impressed, by the visceral, naked, irrational hatred spat out by some defenders of Jason Arday. If a Cambridge professor is accused of being an unqualified charlatan, the accusation might be racially motivated. On the other hand it might not, depending on the evidence. The correct question to ask is not, ”What is the colour of his skin” but “Is it in fact true that he is an unqualified charlatan?” Please examine the evidence before leaping to the assumption of racism.
As for the idea that journalists “piled in on him” and “hounded him to his death”, most attacks were against Cambridge University. Jason himself was widely regarded as an unfortunate victim of foolish promotion way beyond his ability to cope. In appointing him to a professorship for which he was manifestly unqualified – in ludicrously describing him as “the best in the world” – certain senior members of the university showed a level of patronising condescension towards black people that could fairly be described as racism, while at the same time making him tragically vulnerable to such attacks as came his way.

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

This is truly one of the most insane cases the FSU has seen in our six-year history.

A retired police officer who gave 30 years of public service to his community had a knock at the door after his neighbour complained about some posts he had reposted on Facebook.

In April, Stephen was found guilty by a district judge over one of these posts — unsurprisingly, the one about Islam — of sending a “grossly offensive” communication, an offence under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.

The Facebook post featured an image of a rasher of bacon and a man in a turban, accompanied by the text: “Fun facts about bacon! People who eat bacon have a lower chance of marrying a 9 year old!”

While giving evidence, Stephen explained that the post was a reference to the marriage between the Prophet Mohammed and Aisha, which was consummated, according to traditional Islamic sources, when she was nine years old, after he married her when she was six.

But the district judge wasn’t having any of it. Stephen was ordered to pay £1,100 in fines, plus legal costs and now has a criminal conviction.

The Free Speech Union is supporting Stephen in appealing his conviction.

If you are still in any doubt that Britain’s blasphemy laws have returned, 18 years after Parliament voted to abolish them — for Islam alone — take a look at Stephen’s case.

Watch Stephen Gray on @TalkTV with @JuliaHB1 👇

[Keren Hirsch @KerenHirsch]

En nu ik toch bezig ben…..

Protest (jongerenorganisatie van Pro) is officieel tegen het bestaan van de enige Joodse staat: Israël.

Nee hoor totaal niet extreem….
Pagina 58, punt 24 van het Politiek programma van ze.

[Carel Brendel @CarelBrendel]

2/ Aanwezig bij de feestelijke opening van het "Lange Arm van Rabat-pand" in Amsterdam o.a. PvdA-wethouder Sofyan M'Barki en D66-Kamerlid Fatimazhra Belhirch (in rode jurk).

[Carel Brendel @CarelBrendel]

Nog steeds is er geen duidelijkheid over de verdwijning van een opmerkelijke column van Izz ad-Din Ruhulessin, met stevige kritiek op Femke Halsema, van de Volkskrant-site. Een technische fout lijkt het niet, maar wat dan wel? Link naar de column hier. https://t.co/gZCSbWJDae

[Marijnvanh @Marijnvanh1]

@parlementor Optisch is het ook lastig daar de impact van verlaging op arbeid of btw wel iedereen raakt, maar voor een heel klein bedrag. Niemand voelt zich rijker als je 10 euro extra overhoud per jaar. Terwijl de belastingverhoging op vermogen een veel kleinere groep treft en dus harder

[Zain @ItzzZain10]

This is what tennis was meant to be all along

[Maarten Bakker @maartenbakkerch]

Werkelijk onbestaanbaar en verschrikkelijk verhaal. Dit kan echt niet in ons land. Dit gewelddadige gedrag op straat is volstrekt onacceptabel.

[Tim Hofman @debroervanroos]

We gaan het hebben over jongensbesnijdenis, op veelal religieuze gronden - dus zonder medische noodzaak.

Volgens de artsenfederatie een schending van de lichamelijk integriteit van kinderen. Moeten we dat nog willen?

🎧: https://t.co/sIRLTPKi3m
🖥️: https://t.co/vyIWsPTtQp

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

I asked a local councillor if the russian refinery here in Ireland should be sanctioned.

He said yes, if it was supplying Israel.
But Russia? No.

This is Ireland’s sanctions hypocrisy in 90 seconds.

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

Every sign at this refinery in Ireland is in russian. The official website is a .RU domain.

There’s no reason to hide it because local politicians are openly doing it for them.

[Aimee Terese @aimeeterese]

“Teachers are more lenient in their marking of girls' schoolwork, according to an international study.

An OECD report on gender in education, across more than 60 countries, found that girls receive higher marks compared with boys of the same ability.”

[Claire Lehmann @clairlemon]

It's not poverty that drives men to violence, but the experience of losing status.

Fascinating piece from the sociologist @sociologyWV on the link between downward mobility and violent crime
https://t.co/WvV1tQfogX

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

If you have this weird gut feeling that the rich pay little tax in the US, your gut is spot on... Source: https://t.co/4oB5o7f4cT