Fungibility for Morons

There’s a lot of stupidity in the Danish news today but a couple of days ago there was a sign of lucidity. That’s worthy of note. The new Danish government—the monstrous red-blue-purple “technocratic” government installed as a consequence of the November election—has made one of its first priorities the demonstration of its economic ignorance. Or,…

Denmark’s Homer

Very few people outside of Denmark have seen or are even aware of the Danish miniseries Matador, which aired in Denmark over four seasons from 1978 to 1981. The series chronicles life in the fictional town of Korsbæk through 24 episodes covering the bumpy years from 1929 through 1947—from the Depression through the occupation of…

The Year in Preview: 2023

I thought 2020 was gonna be a pretty good year. I was dead wrong about that. So I was pretty sure 2021 would be an improvement. Wrong again, on so many levels, but after back-to-back years like that I was sure things could only improve in 2022. Nope. So I’ll tell you what I think…

Cheering on the collapse of republican government

A business article in today’s Berlingske Tidende examines what the spending bill passed by the U.S. Congress means for Denmark. The facts presented by the article are more or less accurate, but they’re served to the reader in a way that raises some interesting questions. When the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made a surprise…

Ho ho ho, Joe Joe Joe: take your &%#@! unity and—

Language note: This post originally contained such salty language that I thought I should include a warning up front for those turned off by profanity. Against all odds, however, I managed to seize control of my temper and soothe it down to the point where I could form coherent sentences without explosions of Anglo-Saxon crudity….

Happy, Happy Winter Solstice

Danish media have run a lot of stories about the new “technocratic” government’s plans to drop the national May holiday of “Great Prayer Day” in order to raise some revenue for defense.  (For example here, here, and here.) As the name suggests, Great Prayer Day is an old Christian holiday that the decreasingly observant Danes…

Weekend Mush

Saturday we went out to buy our Christmas tree. Eldest couldn’t join us because Eldest always has more important things to do these days, so it was just Herself, Youngest, and Me. We wanted to make it an actual event, as it should be, so the three of us decided we’d try a new place…

Teknokratborgerlighed

The new Danish government was announced yesterday, six weeks after the November 1 elections. We’re going to get a majority government comprised of the biggest left of center party, the biggest right of center party, and a brand new Goldilocks party—neither right nor left but juuuuuuust moderate. The Social Democrats, Venstre, and the Moderates.  A…

Twitter, Solved

All this fuss about Twitter is annoying the hell out of me because the activist left is deliberately mixing up its terms either to make sensible debate impossible or to prevent it altogether. (I know where I’d put my money.) So this is one those posts I’m writing today in order to reference later. First…

Spectator Citizens

AUDIO NOTE: Long post, long audio—also with some extemporizations and a barking dog. I want to talk about the EU corruption case that’s making waves in Belgium right now, and in talking about that I want to reference a recent Bill Whittle video about the weaponization of trust. That’s going to involve a lot of…

Q-Anon Global

AUDIO NOTE: I was just wrapping this up and getting ready to record the audio when Eldest’s screams of anguish from the shower alerted me to the fact that we have no hot water… in our faucets or our radiators. Our boiler is not cooperating with my requests that it play nice. So I reckon…

Shiny Happy People

A little over a month ago Danes voted largely in favor of the status quo. The status quo therefore remains in effect. Good and hard. Thousands of homeowners are struggling to pay bills – banks have never seen anything like itSabina Louise Nesheim, TV2 News, December 5 There’s nothing new about our financial conditions in…

Journalisming Update

Sunday evening now, and still nothing at all from the Danish media. The American left seems to have settled on their talking point: “Matt Taibbi is just doing PR for the richest man in the world.“ Not their best work. Let’s take them at their word: let’s say, “Okay, yes, Matt Taibbi is just doing…

Journalisming Again

(No audio for this because it’s just a quick observation. An expression of annoyance.) As anyone with any interest in the fate of free speech in the western world surely knows, on Friday night Matt Taibbi began releasing “the Twitter Files”—mostly internal corporate communications from Twitter that provide irrefutable evidence of the social medium’s interference…

Shah-la, la-la-la-la, live for today… then please die

Yesterday I wrote (here) about the importance of the survival of our species: We have one job as adults: produce the next generation. Given the amount of time it takes for a human child to achieve maturity (about 16-18 years for females and 60-70 years for males), “producing” the next generation goes well beyond the…

Unintended consequences—and their consequences

The so-called “Law of Unintended Consequences” doesn’t have a definition because the name of the law is the law: there are always unintended consequences. You kick a stone out of your way as you hike up a mountain trail—and inadvertently start an avalanche that buries a small town. You flick a cigarette out the window…

The Swordsman Outmatched

Don’t just stand there: gesture! One of the most iconic moments in 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark comes during a chase sequence through the crowded and colorful streets and alleys of Cairo.  Indiana Jones suddenly finds himself surrounde d by a crowd from which emerges a menacing master swordsman.  The swordsman brandishes his sword and swishes…

Equity’s a bitch and then you die

According to an item on DR’s website: In 2021, an average of five women or girls per hour globally were killed by a partner or family member in their own home, according to a new report from the UN, according to Ritzau. Five females per hour times 24 hours times 365 days gives a total…