Jan Maarten Slagter

Ja, wie had ooit gedacht dat we naar de maan konden vliegen!

JUST IN: You do not fire your Army Chief of Staff in the middle of a war for no reason. You fire him because of what comes next. Pete Hegseth called General Randy George on April 2 and told him to retire immediately. The Pentagon confirmed it within hours. No reason was given. Not publicly. Not privately. A senior Army official told Fox News that Hegseth offered George nothing: no misconduct, no operational failure, no policy disagreement on the record. Just a phone call and a career ending in the middle of the most significant American combat operation in two decades. George is the 24th general or admiral Hegseth has removed. But he is not the 24th. He is the one that matters. The Army Chief of Staff. The man whose signature sits between a president’s intent and the order that sends soldiers across a beach or into a tunnel complex. The 82nd Airborne is deploying right now. Marines from the 31st MEU are staged on the USS Tripoli. JSOC operators are at forward bases in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Kharg Island, 90 percent of Iranian oil exports, sits 16 kilometres off a coast that someone will have to decide whether to approach. And the four-star general whose job it was to advise whether that approach should happen was removed 48 hours after Trump told the nation the war would continue for two to three more weeks. The replacement is Vice Chief General Christopher LaNeve. He was Hegseth’s senior military aide before this appointment. The man who carried the Secretary’s briefcase now commands the Army the Secretary is reshaping. The chain of command did not break. It shortened. The distance between a television studio and a combat order just collapsed to zero intermediaries who were not personally selected by the man giving the order. No reason was given. That is the tell. When someone is removed without explanation during a crisis, the explanation is the crisis itself. George either objected to something or was about to. The ground option. The power plant strikes. The Kharg raid. The escalation that turned a highway bridge in Karaj into rubble on the same day he was told to leave. Something in the next two weeks requires a chief who will not push back, and the Pentagon solved that problem by installing one trained as Hegseth’s aide. A former Fox News weekend host just fired a four-star general with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, replaced him with his own former assistant, and did it during a live war in which the next decision could put American soldiers on Iranian soil for the first time in history. No hearing was held. No misconduct cited. The Army woke up on April 3 with a new chief it did not choose, in a war it did not start, preparing for a phase the previous chief apparently could not be trusted to execute. The question is not why George was fired. Every general in the building knows why. The question is what order is coming in the next fourteen days that required removing the one man in the chain of command who might have said no. The war has no perimeter. The chain of command has no objectors. And the next phase has no one left to stop it. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Proud to have contributed to this inspiring little clip "Science and the Satirists" by Dr Kate Watson, my tutor during my week in Oxford last summer, studying the French revolution and its aftermath. I was the cameraman! lnkd.in/e9WRMGAf

Ik weet vrij zeker dat Loesje niet heeft willen zeggen wat hier staat.

How to win friends and influence people.

@chrisklomp Sterkte.

Als de nog jonge dokter mij sterkte wenst, ontsnapt er nog een laatste zin uit zijn mond: zo jong nog. Hoewel ik tot dat moment redelijk ontspannen was, greep het korte zinnetje mij toch even aan. Inderdaad: zo jong nog. Mooi kut. chrisklomp.nl/zo-jong-nog-ka…

Hoe breng ik een Boekenweekessay terug tot een brief in Wat zou doen? (Volkskrant).

Meanwhile in the frat house.

“But her e-mails.” “But she danced in the streets with kids.”

Basically.

Jan Maarten Slagter: Wonen is goedkoper ondanks huistekort #Echobox=1773098357" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">telegraaf.nl/financieel/jan…

Ik wijs ook even op de (al 20 jaar consistente) laagste in dit staatje.

Overlooked point: Monster Raving Loony Party on the brink of national break through.

@claregarry6 @DrLKVaughan I (56) like the expression: it’s never too late, but it’s later than you think. So, get to it!

@DrLKVaughan Is 55 too old to learn latin? Husband was lucky enough to learn as a schoolboy.

Heard the best reasons for studying Classics today. From a girl sitting next to me on the tube. Trying to persuade a friend to study Classics (presumably for GCSEs) too. 'We are the luckiest people who ever lived. So much knowledge and thinking handed down to us. Most 1/

@vipinmalik123 @Bitcoin_Teddy King Lear.

@Bitcoin_Teddy Just learned of a man who gave all to his children, now he is retired 63 year old living on rent with half his pension. His children threw him out of the house, also collects half pension and a court case which he has to fight all his life to get back some dignity.

“Inheritance” is such a dumb idea Pass on your wealth while you’re alive Kids don’t need help when they’re 60 They need help when they’re 30, paying debt, buying a house, & having kids

@MiltonicMindset @BasilTheGreat Thank you!

Just another reminder that Diane Kruger is German, not Greek. Even if we want to pretend that all white people are the same, we should also remember that we’ve spent our entire lives (if we’re old enough) seeing white actors play Egyptians, Native Americans, Mexicans, Chinese people, and even black people. So maybe everyone should just chill. 😎

Helen of Troy in 2004 v Helen of Troy in 2026 I never thought Chris Nolan would be one to do something like this Completely ahistorical, woke, nonsense

@HuubBellemakers Goed nieuws voor de sport. We’ll be back.

Voorspelling: 0 goud voor NL schaatsmannen op de OS. 500, 1000, 1500 Stolz. 5000 jilek/Eitrem, 10k Ghiotto/Jilek, ploeg: Amerika. Massstart: loterij maar Stolz.

I am old enough to remember the last straw was “When you are a celebrity they let you do everything”.

Iedere keer toch weer de vraag: kan dit echt zijn? En dat is het iedere keer weer.

Maybe he can throw in some golden sneakers?