The Perils of Article 25

(I didn’t even mention it in this space, but last week marked the 20th anniversary of my arrival in Denmark. The milestone was commemorated over on the Nagan Of Copenhagen Substack.) On Saturday, taxpayer-funded Danmarks Radio (DR) ran an article about Russia assuming the presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of April….

“Gentlemen, congratulations. You’re everything we’ve come to expect from years of J-school training.”

The coverage is everywhere. So are the hot takes. I have no coverage to offer and I don’t do hot takes. A New York grand jury indicted Donald Trump yesterday and the indictment is sealed. That means we don’t know what he’s been charged with. We’re told that Trump’s attorneys have been in communication with…

Trans men are men… until they shoot people

Wait, what?  The 8:00 radio news update from ABC News, delivered by the insufferably biased Richard Cantu, included an audio clip of someone lamenting that mass shootings have become so widespread in America that even women are getting in on the act. I found that remarkable.  I did a quick search online and found the…

Good news, Denmark! Our army is “practically useless!”

Western governments have gotten very good at doing things they were never intended to do and very bad at the handful of things they were intended to do. Strike that. Western government haven’t been very good at doing anything for decades, but they’ve been squandering our money and reputation on elective absurdities while ignoring what…

Springtime for the west?

A couple of recent opinion columns by Berlingske Tidende’s opinion editor Pierre Collignon offer some hopeful signs that at least parts of Denmark’s thinking class may have begun to realize the depth of the hole we’ve dug ourselves into. . . and may have begun speculating on ways to actually climb out of it. Collignon…

Psychopathic Lives Matter

Norman Bates, call your office. If you had “normalization of psychopathy” on your What Fresh Hell Is This bingo card, congratulations! She lives in a way few people know about. Here is Sheila’s life as a psychopath.Anne Funch, Berlingske.dk, March 19 When I tell strangers that I’m a psychopath, I always add: “And on paper….

The Never Ending Story

(I’m back after a week off including a few glorious days in Tallinn, Estonia. There’ll be an article about that trip over on Nagan of Copenhagen soon, if it’s not already there.) We begin (as one must) with disclaimers, disclosures, confessions, and context. I’m grateful for a lot of the things Donald Trump was able…

Time out

It’s come to my attention that to celebrate my birthday, Herself will be whisking me off shortly for parts unknown. I have no idea where we’re going and am apparently not going to know until we check in to our flight. I will therefore not be posting until later this week, possibly not until next…

Twofer Thursday! Mind virus makes landfall in Denmark and TV2 News serves its American ideological overlords

Denmark has until now been spared the worst excesses of the culture war underway in America, but the Rubicon has been crossed. Fort Sumter has been fired upon. The Archduke has been assassinated. It’s here. I had actually thought Denmark had a stronger immune system.  I thought we might have some kind of natural immunity…

The plot thickens

The Nord Stream pipeline sabotage is back in the news. Media: German police have located mysterious boat on Christiansø. Was used for attacks on Nord Stream, they claimMikkel Danielsen, Berlingske.dk, March 8 Long story short: five men and a woman using false passports rented a boat from a Polish boat rental agency in Poland. The…

Danmarks Radio: Biden just keeps getting better with age!

Everyone knows that Joe Biden isn’t up for another full term in office. A majority of Democratic primary voters want someone other than Biden.  Establishment news outlets regularly feature items on the back-room chatter of Democratic muckety-mucks still supporting Biden publicly but scrambling behind the scenes for a viable alternative. Those Democrats don’t oppose Biden…

…And now, the rest of the story

For more than three decades (from 1976 to 2009), legendary American radio newsman Paul Harvey used to have a feature called “The Rest of the Story” in which he’d present short stories on every manner of subject, with one key element left out—usually the well-known name of the person at the center of the usually…

What a Difference a Car Makes (and the difference is death)

Show me a headline that tells me you’re one of Denmark’s ace U.S. correspondents without telling me you’re one of Denmark’s ace U.S. correspondents. Here’s the best-selling car in Europe and the best-selling in America. Americans are killing each other with giant cars. That’s yesterdau’s Berlingske’s headline over an article by ace U.S. correspondent Mikkel…

Not every theory is a conspiracy theory

On September 26 last year—exactly five months ago tomorrow—a couple of underwater explosions 70 meters beneath the surface of the Baltic Sea caused three leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines. There is no question of the event having been anything but sabotage. Western governments still have no idea who was responsible. Given the resources available…

Literary Troubles

News of the collected works of Roald Dahl having been edited for sensitivity came to my attention at some point over the weekend. It was impossible to miss on the anglophonic internet. As culture war stories go, it’s a good one, but it seemed less significant to me than the one that was bobbing around…

The Balloon Trial Balloon

Berlingske’s (ace) US and Asia correspondents, Mikkel Danielsen and Alexander Sjöberg, have joined forces to write an article that dares to ask the question America’s renowned intelligence agencies appear to want them to ask: was the whole Chinese spy balloon thing just a nutty misunderstanding? The question is right out there in their headline: The…

He shoots, he scores!

In a comment on last week’s post about the Great Chinese Balloon Caper, I wrote: My fear now is that Biden or his babysitters will do something stupid to prove how tough and resolute they are… I’m gonna go ahead and give myself a bingo on that. Here’s the article Danmarks Radio (DR) published this…

One Brave Atheist

A guest column in today’s Berlingske is a good reminder that when anyone in the politics or media says freedom of speech is important, but we also have to respect religion, they’re full of it. The column is entitled “Jesus thinks whatever you want.” Its author is Anders Stjernholm, identified by Berlingske as a comedian,…

Hot Air

Anyone who’s followed the news this week, in American or in Denmark, knows about the Chinese Balloon spotted drifting over Montana a few days ago. “Spy balloon!” cried America. “Weather balloon!” shouted the CCP. I didn’t follow the story very closely because it seemed awfully trivial and stupid, but that just goes to show how…