Ondertussen in België: ...

Trump said something outside a press gaggle that I don’t think enough people caught. A reporter called him out on the corruption. He gave three responses. 1. I have the right to do it. 2. He’s not stealing that much. A billion or two billion dollars. Not that much money. Classic Trump. 3. People don’t care. That’s the permission structure. Our collective apathy is what they’re using to justify everything happening in Washington right now. Please stand up and prove him wrong.

🚨 HUMILIATION AT THE WORLD CUP: SENEGAL STARS TREATED LIKE CRIMINALS BY US BORDER THUGS Senegal 🇸🇳 national team arrives in the US for #WorldCup2026 — and what do they get? US authorities pulling them off the plane for aggressive bag searches, invasive checks, and public degradation right on the tarmac. Top African football giants disrespected like suspects. This is not "security." This is racist arrogance from the host nation that lectures the world on fairness while treating African players like second-class humans. Same America blocking referees, humiliating teams, and showing its true face to the Global South. Senegal, Africa is with you. CAF and FIFA — speak up or remain useless puppets. The World Cup belongs to the world, not to US ego and discrimination. Expose this disgrace. Share widely.

JD Vance took time this week to explain to the British that the murder of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak was actually about immigration. Justice Secretary David Lammy apparently rang Vance to set the record straight. “You’re wrong about this,” Lammy told him. Which must have been an uncomfortable conversation for a vice-president who has built an entire political career on being confidently incorrect about things happening in other people’s countries. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, England’s football squad was busy preparing for the World Cup in Kansas City, Missouri. Nine people were shot near England’s planned training facility and hotel on Troost Avenue at four in the morning. Police arrived to find a large crowd scattering. A second shooting the same evening, just miles away on Troost Avenue, left two people dead.  The Kansas City Police were quick to reassure everyone that the incident “did not occur near a World Cup venue or anything else World Cup-related.”  Which is technically true, in the same way that a house fire next door isn’t technically in your living room. The Americans are hosting a World Cup. They have strong opinions about immigration and British crime statistics. They would just like everyone to ignore the bit where nine people get shot near the visiting team’s hotel before breakfast. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

A Russian Shahed has just punched a hole in the roof of a twelve-story apartment block in Galați, Romania. That is, technically, an attack on NATO territory. The 28th such breach, in fact, since Russia decided that international borders are more of a polite suggestion than a rule worth observing. So what did the mighty alliance do about it? It scrambled two F-16s and a helicopter. Two civilians were injured. The roof is charred. The foreign minister of Romania, bless her, has politely “requested measures to accelerate the transfer of anti-drone capabilities,” which is diplomatic for please, for the love of God, send us something that actually works. NATO’s response, the alliance, currently led by a Secretary General whose most memorable contribution to the historical record has been calling the President of the United States “daddy” on live television, duly condemned Russia’s “recklessness” and promised to “continue to strengthen its defences against all threats, including drones.” This is the same NATO, remember, that has spent the better part of five years standing on the eastern flank with the unflinching resolve of a man who has been told to guard the cake at a children’s party and has, instead, eaten most of it himself. Russia has now violated Romanian airspace 28 times. I am told that deterrence works through credibility. And credibility, in turn, works through the deeply unfashionable practice of occasionally shooting things down. Here is the problem with weakness. It does not de-escalate. It advertises. Every drone that wanders unmolested into Galați is a postcard to the Kremlin marked feel free to send more, we don’t really mind. And Moscow, being Moscow, will absolutely send more. So a modest proposal for the alliance. Stop drafting letters. Start drafting flight plans. The next Shahed that crosses into NATO airspace ought to be turned into a fine mist somewhere over the Danube, and the one after that, and the one after that, until even the dimmest analyst at the GRU works out that the postcards are no longer being accepted at this address. Otherwise, frankly, what is the point of any of it. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

Tanks kopen zou voor België heel wat economische return kunnen opleveren. KNDS: 120mm-munitie FN Herstal: machinegeweren munitie Scioteq: displays John Cockerill: assemblage onderhoud OIP: vizieren Ik geef het maar mee.

Well argued Australian critique... youtu.be/j9MubNsh3rs?is=LruL…

🇺🇸 The Gun People Who Can’t Spot a Tyrant America is, when you think about it, absolutely magnificent in its absurdity. Here is a country so profoundly committed to the idea of armed resistance against government overreach that it wrote the whole thing down in its founding document. The Second Amendment. Sacred text. Non-negotiable. The entire philosophical premise being: we the people shall remain armed, so that should any future government attempt to seize illegitimate power, we can stop them. Remarkable foresight, really. There is, however, one rather catastrophic design flaw in this otherwise bold constitutional experiment. It assumed the people clutching the rifles would actually recognize tyranny when it walked through the front door, wiped its feet on the Constitution, and sat down in the Oval Office. They do not. It turns out you can dismantle democratic institutions in plain sight, in real time, on television, and roughly half the population will respond by eating toast. Some bacon, perhaps. A scroll through Instagram. Maybe a bit of outrage about something a liberal said in 2025. The checks are gone. The balances, wobbling. Career officials purged. Courts packed. The press called enemies of the state. Federal prosecutors weaponized. And the proud defenders of liberty, the people who will fight you to the death over a bump stock, are furious about exactly none of it. Because nobody told them what authoritarianism actually looks like in the early stages. It doesn’t arrive in a tank. It arrives in a suit, with a slogan, and it’s on your side, and it’s very mean to the people you already didn’t like. So they sit there. Chewing. Scrolling. Completely unaware that the country they are willing to die for has already, quietly, become a rather different country entirely. The guns, I should note, remain absolutely fine.

Kinderen met snoep naar z'n ambtswoning lokken; uitgejouwd worden; "neen" als antwoord krijgen als hij vraagt of men met hem een selfie wilt en dan nog z'n meegereisde dokter die moet vaststellen dat de gezondheidszorg op 🇬🇱 goed loopt. Meer "in de Gloria" wordt het idd niet.

Volgens de PANO-reportage over het Belgische C-UAS programma is dit nochtans niet het juiste materiaal ....

#Drones don't eliminate the enduring requirements of warfare: seizing terrain, generating trained manpower, sustaining logistical capacity, etc., and most of all imposing political outcomes on an adversary. They are enablers within a broader system, not independent solutions.2/6

Direct na de capitulatie in 1940 werd op de top van de Grebbeberg een begraafplaats ingericht voor zowel Nederlandse als Duitse gesneuvelden. Mannen van onder meer het Rode Kruis en de EHBO kwamen uit de wijde omgeving naar Rhenen om te helpen bij de berging van de gesneuvelden. 1/4

En in Middeleeuwen vormden graafschappen Vlaanderen en Henegouwen 3x ´n personele unie (= ‘co-sharing a ruler’) Ben nu wel fier om Vlaming te zijn maar weerhoudt me er niet van om mensen die zeggen dat we ‘n artificieel land zijn toch op de vingers te tikken. Feiten zijn feiten.

Uit de Panoreportage blijkt dat sommige rugchirurgen veel te snel opereren en dat zo'n ingreep vaak zelfs averechts werkt. CD&V-voorzitter Sammy Mahdi wil daarop rugoperaties verbieden: "Dit soort ingrepen zijn nergens voor nodig. Je kunt prima leven zonder ruggengraat." 1/2 👇

1/x Marine insurer Skuld has issued an advisory warning members of a pattern of on-spec but potentially problematic fuel being bunkered across Asia, particularly in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. Why? a small 🧵splash247.com/tainted-bunker…

Unchecked and unbalanced... theguardian.com/us-news/2026…

Suggestieve café naam verleidt studenten om op café te klimmen gva.be/regio/antwerpen/regio…

Finalement quelqu'un qui explique Ormuz. Mais quel cinéma!

🇫🇷 AGAIN! MACRON SAYS THAT EUROPE CANNOT DEPEND ON THE MOOD OF A 79-YEAR-OLD CRY BABY! Stay connected, Follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1

Je zou nog verder kunnen gaan. Los van de de vraag of die drones er al dan niet waren en wie daar desgevallend achter zat, blijft de vaststelling dat 'waarnemingen' voor economische schade zorgden en dat de overheid bij gebrek aan middelen niet bij machte was om een en ander te bevestigen of te ontkrachten. Wat onvermijdelijk voeding geeft aan complottheorieën en daar wordt een maatschappij nooit beter van. Alleen dat al rechtvaardigt investeringen in detectieapparatuur, zodat je in de toekomst het debat hopelijk kan voeren op basis van feiten.