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Farmers and consumers rightly expect all products on the 🇪🇺 market to meet our high standards. ➡️ Our objective is clear: smarter border controls that protect consumers, support European producers and safeguard the integrity of our Single Market. @BMLEH_Bund #EUStandards #SmarterBorders #SingleMarket #EU

Gun are a Scottish hard rock band formed by guitarist Giuliano Gizzi. The band's music has charted across Europe. In the UK, the band has had 4 UK top-20 albums and 8 UK top-40 singles, including a cover of Cameo's "Word Up" that reached the UK top 10. Gun has toured extensively, most notably with the Rolling Stones on their Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour of 1989–1990. The band's latest album, Hombres, reached the UK top 10 and Number 1 in their homeland, Scotland. https://hvdommelen.nl/g/Gun.html

🚨 SURPRISE SDM vient dévoiler un nouveau SINGLE ! Le titre sera disponible dans la soundtrack de FC 27 🎮⚽️ https://t.co/ScueQg8F2W #SINGLE #FC27 #Musique

🚨 SDM vient de SORTIR un NOUVEAU SINGLE !! « NZELA » Présent dans la soundtrack de FC27. https://t.co/Lc9RZEGk1j #SDM #NZELA #FC27

The Erosion of Western Civilization’s Social Fabric It is hard to fathom how much of Western civilization’s social fabric has eroded in just a single decade. No healthy society debates whether “the system” is to blame for a child murderer’s crimes and then expresses support for the monster. Such a society certainly does not celebrate the assassinations of moderate and respectable political figures, nor does it allow repeat violent offenders back onto the streets to terrorize the general public. The best explanation I have heard for this phenomenon of macrosocial insanity is *Political Ponerology* by Andrew Lobaczewski—the study of how pathological personalities infiltrate and transform social institutions. This process does not require an entire population of psychopaths. In fact, it is often only a small minority that forms the core of the pathological movement. A relatively small party or group is led by psychopaths, who are natural experts at manipulation, deception, intimidation, and ruthlessness. The ideologues are the ones who design the system. They create abstract ideologies, often criticizing reality for falling short of their arbitrary expectations. Human beings become nothing more than nodes in a network, to be organized and managed by supposedly more intelligent minds. Then there are the spellbinders, who serve as the movement’s salespeople. They package tyranny as safety, envy as justice, and coercion as compassion. Their primary tool of persuasion is emotional alignment rather than truth or logic. These three types rely on three other groups to normalize their totalitarian system: the spellbound, adapted conformists, and bystanders. The spellbound are true believers who experience participation in the movement as a kind of moral crusade. Adapted conformists support the system because of the security, status, or comfort it provides—or because they fear ostracism. Bystanders are generally aloof and avoid conflict at all costs, believing that ignorance and cowardice will spare them.

Russia’s overnight strike on the Tudor-Starokozache border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova, and this morning’s attack on a residential building in Kyiv underscore a single, unchanging truth: Russia remains committed to expanding its strategy of terror, destruction, and #Russia #Ukraine #Kyiv #RU #UA #MD

When Emotion Takes the Reins A remarkable study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesexamined millions of books covering almost 170 years and tracked language associated with rationality—facts, conclusions, analysis and determination—against language associated with sentiment—feeling, belief and emotion. The pattern was striking. From roughly 1850 to 1980, rationality-related language steadily increased while sentiment-related language declined. Then the trend reversed. By around 2007, sentiment-related language had overtaken rationality-related language and continued rising (Scheffer et al., 2021). This does not prove that people have become less rational, nor does the study establish a single cause. But it raises an important question: what happens when trust in the institutions associated with knowledge and expertise begins to collapse? If people believe governments, experts, universities and media are corrupt or captured, “look at the data” can sound less like an appeal to reason and more like an appeal to authority. And when institutional trust declines, emotion becomes politically powerful. Anger supplies an enemy. Fear supplies urgency. Hope supplies a future. Identity supplies belonging. Could this help explain why socialism and even communism have regained some appeal among young people despite the historical record? The study cannot establish that causal link. But it is a plausible hypothesis: when politics becomes increasingly emotional, an ideology can be judged by what it promises rather than by what it has historically produced. Benjamin Franklin captured the necessary balance: “If passion drives, let reason hold the reins.” Passion is not the enemy. It is the engine of human action. The danger comes when we surrender the steering wheel. Today, algorithms, political campaigns and media incentives are exceptionally good at exploiting emotion. Outrage spreads faster than nuance. A soundbite can provoke a reaction before we have checked whether it is true. Reference: Scheffer, M., van de Leemput, I., Weinans, E., & Bollen, J. (2021). The rise and fall of rationality in language. PNAS, 118(51), e2107848118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2107848118

A bigger Europe is a stronger Europe. At @CEPS_thinktank, I presented new IMF research showing that, with bold reforms, deeper single-market integration & strong institutions, EU enlargement can boost productivity, growth & living standards for all. https://t.co/cRV0d57hFl https://t.co/fS42uKDoxB #EUEnlargement #StrongerEurope #EconomicGrowth #EU #BE #DE #FR #IT

The commonality between approving of female exclusion from this event and approving of male inclusion in female single-sex spaces is that both take from women and give men what they want. I suppose there have always been women who are fine with that https://t.co/HsqGIHZy3X #Feminism #GenderEquality #WomenEmpowerment #Thetweetdoesnotmentionanyspecificcountriesortheircodes.

One crucial fact is being overlooked—one that has strong empirical support: populism does not have a single, uniform set of drivers. Dani Rodrik distinguishes between economic insecurity as the principal driver of left-wing populism and cultural or identity-related concerns as #Populism #EconomicInsecurity #IdentityPolitics #Nospecificcountrycodesarementionedinthetweet.

One crucial fact is being overlooked—one that has strong empirical support: populism does not have a single, uniform set of drivers. Dani Rodrik distinguishes between economic factors as the principal driver of left-wing populism and cultural or identity-related concerns as the #Populism #DaniRodrik #LeftWing #Thetweetdoesnotmentionanyspecificcountries.Therefore #therearenocountrycodestoreturn.

A country can be small and competitive. But if we want to be both #competitive and #sovereign we need EU #scale. Small and fragmented means depending on 🇺🇸US or 🇨🇳China. EU🇪🇺 scale is the only way for all single EU countries to keep sovereignty for real @iespega @DelorsInstitute #Sovereignty #Competitive #EUscale #US #CN #EU