What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
An opinion piece in Berlingske Tidende on Sunday raises some interesting questions about the future of the war in Ukraine, some of which are stated directly and some of which are merely implied. Will we still say “Slava Ukraini” if the US pulls the plug?Adam Holm, Berlingske.dk, May 21 The subhead or lede of the…
In case you missed it, last weekend a person said some things. The person was French President Emmanuel Macron. The things he said were during a state visit to China and then in an interview on the airplane home. Some of the things he said were published Sunday in Politico. Europe must reduce its dependency on…
There are fourteen independent nations in the world today that used to be Soviet states, and many more that were Soviet clients. If we focus on continental Europe, there are six countries that can be counted among the former and even more than can be counted among the latter. This map of 1990 Europe from…
Rasmus Paludan is back in the international spotlight. I’ll just cite the lede from Danmarks Radio (DR): Rasmus Paludan burned a Koran in Stockholm on Saturday. Now Turkey will not support Swedish membership in NATO. Danmark’s Foreign Minister called that both shaming and shameful—the buring of the Koran, obviously, not a sovereign nation responding to…
In the most (and maybe only) memorable line of the movie A Few Good Man, the character Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) lashes out at Lieutenant Kaffee (Tom Cruise) from the witness stand: “You can’t handle the truth!“ In the context of the movie, he’s saying that comfortable civilians are incapable of handling the reality that…
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…
The hot-take out there in the wake of yesterday’s election in Italy seems to be that Europe is turning to the right. (Sweden did it! Italy did it! My god, it’s a pandemic!) I don’t believe any western European electorate ever really turns to the right: they just sometimes turn away from the left long…
Energy prices are skyrocketing in Europe and the natives are getting restless. The situation absolutely requires that a really stupid and futile gesture be done on somebody’s part—and you know what that means: The EU summit will fight skyrocketing energy prices: “Russia’s manipulating our energy markets”Per Bang Thomas, DR.dk, 7 Sept Is it boring and…
There’s an interesting article on DR’s website right now: EU wants more equality: “We’re lagging far behind”Simone Nielsen, DR.dk, Jun 21 The article itself isn’t especially interesting—the EU is implementing what amounts to gender quotas (but don’t you ever call them that!) for the boards of European companies with at least 250 employees. Pretty stupid…
Some things are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them.—George Orwell (apocryphal) Sovereignty is irrelevant.—Intellectual The new think pieces are here, the new think pieces are here! American professor: The Danish yes is part of a new world orderSolveig Gram Jensen, Berlingske.dk, Jun 2 Yesterday, as expected, Denmark voted overwhelmingly (roughly 2:1) to drop…
The headline of this post is, as best as I can tell from the information available, a succinct and yet comprehensive taxonomy of our ruling class. This was brought home to me today by an article on DR’s website. The EU’s Mission in the Mediterranean hasn’t stopped a single human smugglerTine Toft, DR.dk, May 31…
The EU wants to punish Russia for invading Ukraine by blocking all imports of Russian oil into the union. Toward that end it developed a sixth package of economic sanctions against Russia, and this package includes what would amount to an official oil embargo: a European ban on the import of Russian oil. Hungary has…
On Wednesday we Danes will be voting on a referendum to answer the following question, which I’ll provide in the original Danish first: Stemmer du ja eller nej til, at Danmark kan deltage i det europæiske samarbejde om sikkerhed og forsvar ved at afskaffe EU-forsvarsforbeholdet? In English: Do you vote yes or no to Denmark…
This is a pretty remarkable headline: Foreign heads of state involve themselves in French presidential election: warn against voting for Le PenPer Bang Thomsen, DR.dk, 22 Apr Election interference by foreign countries is supposed to be a bad thing, isn’t it? That’s what American Democrats and their international allies—everyone who wants to sit at the…
Flanked by the leaders of four other parties, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen held a press conference last night to announce that a historic, cross-bloc political agreement had been reached. “Given the gravity of the current situation in Ukraine,” the Prime Minister said, “the government and our partners in the four parties represented here tonight have…
There’s no law saying we have to be stupid but apparently no such law is required. We can’t help ourselves. Putin has his hand on the tap, and now Europe is becoming even more dependent on his gasSimon Kruse, Berlingske.dk, Jan 27 For years, European countries have been talking about dependence on Russian gas, and…
Danish Prime Minister Metter Frederiksen holds a position on abortion that’s opposed by many Danes. “Some say that the question of abortion is necessarily nuanced,” she wrote in 2021 Facebook post. ” I don’t agree. Either we are for. Or we’re against. There is no middle road.” She is proudly and openly for. Is it…
An editorial in today’s Berlingske, signed by Pierre Collignon, is unusually sensible. Entitled “The west hasn’t lost yet. Let’s wait a little before selling out,” the editorial takes exception to the “realists” and “pragmatists” suggesting that the western powers—the US, the EU, NATO—should promise Russia that Ukraine will never be granted membership in the EU…
I’m a citizen of a European country, I’ve lived in Europe for the past 19 years, my two teenaged daughters have lived their entire lives in Europe, and three of my four grandparents were American-born children of European parents. But I don’t feel European. I don’t imagine anyone does, because I don’t imagine anyone can….
Joe Biden addressed the UN General Assembly yesterday and Danish reactions were mixed. Over at Berlingske, Mikkel Danielsen seems almost ready to call bullshit on the American president, but obviously can’t, so he does the next best thing: he compares him to Trump. He cites EU President Charles Michel: With Trump it was at least…
