I can imagine part of the reasoning there being that we need to keep a clean slate there to be able to raise levies on state-subsidised products coming from (mostly) China without attracting massive counter-levies.

Well, as long as voters think they’re all the same (and thus they might as well not vote, or vote for the ones who’ve actually done the lying), then yes, they will have zero consequences.

On the one hand I’m not sure if that’s such good news (I don’t like the PVV, but I do think it’s important that citizens are involved in how the country is governed), and on the other hand I’m not even sure that it’s true. They’re still polling strong.

They won’t rule any more, that’s true, but they’ll make it harder to former a stable government, and still have strong influence on the policy that does get enacted. Compared to e.g. any election before the last one, I see no signs that make me particularly hopeful.

It was as mandatory as the 5% will be now, right?

Sure, there are options, but they’re not terribly different from last time. It’s always possible to get something great, but I don’t see how hopes are particularly higher now than they were e.g. at the last elections.

We have good hopes the next government is gonna get it right.

Wait what? Where do those hopes come from?

It costs nothing* to kiss some ass, it buys the US nothing, and yet it can get Trump (and thus the US) to support you. To do anything else would be irresponsible, TBH.

*Not even your pride, in this case, because everyone can see that Trump is the baby for needing it, and everyone knows you don’t need to mean it.

Founder is on Mastodon too: @stefanlindbohm@mastodon.social

Yeah but I don’t think anyone was referring to Israel’s actions as the US doing “preventative bombing”?

So far I don’t think the US strikes specifically on Iran are known to have killed or even wounded anyone, let alone civilians, nor hit hospitals or schools, right?

Well, the article (and a previous one I read) says that he didn’t personally accept it; it went to the ministry, who auctioned it:

the money was meant to help fund the digitization of the justice system, fight drug use in prisons and provide housing for prison staff.

Well, the main question is whether they’ll be able to accomplish more as opposition. It wouldn’t surprise me as they can, though at the same time, they’re not as big a threat anymore now that it’s clear that no party will want to govern with them anymore in the foreseeable future, so maybe whoever does get to govern feels less pressure to move in their direction. Until a new party arises, of course.

I can also now add that the Dutch far-right party just stepped out of the government, so now it’s just the three other parties, and presumably new elections later this year 😅

I can’t answer definitively for the other countries, but the Netherlands has a far-right party in government, but it’s not the government - that’s a coalition together with three right-wing parties. Certainly not what left-wing folks like to see, but the other three are keeping the far-right one in check somewhat compared to winner-takes-all systems like in the US.

Please please please if this happens, institute reciprocal tariffs on services. Nobody would care if it becomes more expensive to advertise on Facebook, and we have a trade deficit in services.

(OK I guess lots of companies would care if their IT infrastructure gets more expensive, but 🤷)

Damn that is a misleading title. “Wales is increasing taxes by 50% for second homes, and…” would be better. Or more accurate, at least; probably not generate more clicks.

Original source: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ghost-machine-rogue-communication-devices-found-chinese-inverters-2025-05-14/

Ah right, that makes sense, thanks! (Thanks to the other repliers as well.)

Do you know what makes people say he will probably be voted in in a later round? We don’t really know anything about why coalition party members voted against, right? Is it just that a reasonable explanation is that people wanted to keep him on his toes, but that’s that?

Pressures like these have historically sometimes led to countries becoming more democratic, so hopefully it’ll lead to the UK applying some reforms allowing for a more proportional system. Labour probably has the numbers for it. But just at least as likely nothing will change.