Lukas Mengelkamp

Quite important context for how Trump can rebuild the White House and pay the military through private donations while the government is shut down.

a man in a white shirt and tie is holding a drill and singing the song drill baby drill ALT: a man in a white shirt and tie is holding a drill and singing the song drill baby drill

Me: Finally, I have some time to read and prepare my next talk.

My neighbor at exactly the same moment:

Thomas Zimmer, Historiker, über den Stand des "Project 2025" Thomas Zimmer, Historiker, über den Stand des "Project 2025"

#USA
Der Historiker Thomas Zimmer im Gespräch mit Ingo Zamperoni über den Stand der Umsetzung des von der Denkfabrik Heritage Foundation entworfenen Planes ‚Project 2025‘

Das Erste (ARD), 21. Okt. 2025
www.tagesschau.de/tagesthemen/...
@thomaszimmer.bsky.social

Welfare cuts have fuelled rise of far right and populism, top UN expert says Exclusive: Poverty rapporteur says governments must rethink welfare state as essential to fabric of society

It's crazy that resilience is one of THE buzzwords of our time, while the very embodiment of societal resilience—the welfare state—is under constant attack.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Coffee First

dem würde ich sicherlich nicht widersprechen.

Das Problem ist ja nicht, dass es keine "nennenswerten Proteste" gab und gibt, sondern, dass darauf nicht reagiert wird - was ja nun heutezutage ein allgemeineres Problem vieler Protestbewegungen ist.
"faire Verteilung von Bildungskapital": Dass unser Bildungssystem als solches sozial selektiv ist,

Dem würde ich widersprechen. Proteste von Studierenden und Mittelbau gibt es seit Jahren. Und "bessere Berufsakademien" finde ich - bei aller Liebe für Polemik - doch auch einfach falsch. Auch inwieweit "Prestige-Uni" für sich genommen ein lohnenswertes Ziel ist, würde ich in Frage stellen.

👇

Alliance Politics: Revisiting NATO’s History Through Civil-Military Relations

It should be borne in mind that political restrictions and interventions in operational and tactical matters are a recurring phenomenon in NATO history, as you can read in @davisellison.bsky.social's excellent doctoral thesis on civil-military relations in NATO.
kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/st...

NATO agonizes over leaky air defenses while Russian threat grows Mounting drone incursions are sparking a debate on national rules that some see as limiting NATO’s top military officer.

“SACEUR needs flexibility, he needs a margin of maneuvering”

Just gave a briefing in Berlin last week on possible restrictions on NATO operations by the NAC and/or national governments in a crisis or war and what that could mean for NATO's current defense approach.
www.politico.eu/article/nato...

While NATO could do better, a reminder:

All air defenses are leaky. The bomber always does get through. Really. Enough of them, anyway, to make a dent. And in the nuclear age, does not take many to ruin a day.

Stop imagining perfect shields, iron or golden domes.

Start imagining resilience.

Maybe I'm getting old, but wouldn't it have been considered deeply unconservative in the past to try to justify anything based on an (alleged) "popular mandate"?
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Wer noch nie in einer gesundheitlichen und/oder seelischen Ausnahmesituation war, kann leider sehr oft nicht nachvollziehen, wie schnell ein betroffener Mensch durch das soziale Netz fallen kann und innerhalb kürzester Zeit vor dem NICHTS steht.

phoenix runde: Zeitenwende für die Bundeswehr – Brauchen wir die Wehrpflicht? YouTube video by phoenix

Ich fand diese Phoenix Runde zur Wehrpflicht wirklich ausgezeichnet - unaufgeregte und respektvolle Debatte, die das Thema in der nötigen Breite und Tiefe angeht.
Davon bräuchten wir dringend mehr - nicht nur beim Thema Wehrpflicht.

www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...

(S+) Tochter mit ME/CFS: »Unsere Tochter verträgt kein Licht. Wir pflegen sie deshalb in Dunkelheit« Sie kann nicht sprechen, erträgt keine Geräusche, keine Menschen – Milena, 22, hat ME/CFS. Ihre Eltern Sabine und Joachim Hermisson kümmern sich seit fünf Jahren um sie. Hier berichten sie, worauf es ...

Für @spiegel.de habe ich @sabinehermisson.bsky.social und Joachim Hermisson gesprochen, die ihre sehr schwer an #MECFS erkrankte Tochter Milena pflegen.
Über Geschenk-Link ein paarmal gratis lesbar
www.spiegel.de/gesundheit/d...

I think it is important to understand, that AI hallucinations are not just "some" mistake an AI makes, that will be cleaned out at some newer version, but an inherent result of how LLMs work. They are build to create coherent results, here scientific references, not to be accurate.

All three of NATO's nuclear powers are currently experiencing periods of domestic political turmoil, which is not great to put it mildly.

I think “Belgian UFO Wave” would make for an excellent band name.

My favorite:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian...

None Of The New Jersey Visual Drone Sightings Have Been Corroborated: White House The White House says federal, state, and local authorities have not corroborated any purported visual sightings of drones over New Jersey.

While the hightened awareness to drone activity in Europe is commendable and important, increasing political attention and media reporting will also result in false positives. Just remember the New Jersey drone scare, where most of the sightings turned out to be lawfully operating manned aircraft.

Ah, schade. Aber man könnte es doch so schön mit "Je kürzer die Reichweite, umso toter die Deutschen.", überschreiben.

Habt Ihr da eigentlich ein paar nette Schautafeln zur Kontroverse um die Lance-Modernisierung Ende der 1980er?

It's easy to see this speech as just weirdly performative, but there's a lot more—and a lot worse—going on here.

The meeting & speeches are part of a larger project aimed at promoting the military leadership’s partisan alignment with the administration.

How? 1/

The problem with having vilified Trump so often is that now that he says and does openly fascist policies, many people will hardly noticed.

This 'shock and yawn' process created by so many scandals is a real danger given what was a barely disguised declaration of war against internal opposition.

"We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement."

I wonder if Europeans' fear of abandonment will eventually turn into fear of entrapment.

MSV 2 : 1 Ingolstadt

Immer weiter! #MSV #MSVFCI

How tech lords and populists changed the rules of power Digital moguls and strongman leaders are more than disrupters of the old liberal order. Together they seek to sweep it away, writes Giuliano da Empoli

"In Europe, the technocrats who govern [...] share the same incomprehension at the offensive they are facing. They [fail to] acknowledge that Trump and the tech bros’ goal is to impose regime change on this side of the Atlantic as well."

I spent the week at the police surveillance convention and let me tell you my biggest observation: The name of the game now is consolidating as much information as humanely possible from surveillance devices, the internet, other governmental data, and literally a million other places. 🧵

Check this out!👇