What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
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…
(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…
Daniel is a 24 year old Danish university student whose apartment building in Copenhagen is going to be torn down in January. He therefore needs to find a new place to live, but the pricey rents in Copenhagen would eat up nearly his whole allowance. So he pestered politicians gathered at a voter event out…
An imaginary reader asks: “Greg, I can’t help noticing that sometimes your post titles are capitalized in standard American title case, and sometimes in the more informal sentence case so common on the internet. And now you’re using shouty all caps. Why?” It’s a good question, and like so many other good questions it has…
This is fascinating stuff: Female productivity decreases at lower temperaturesEditorial, TV2 News, Sept 23 …if the Danish workplaces lower the temperature, this could have negative consequences for women’s productivity, writes (the trade publication) Fagbladet 3F. Women are more susceptible when the temperature deviates from their preferred degrees, shows a study from the University of Southern…
It was reported in Denmark today—this morning—that natural gas prices had gone up 30%. It would be pretty painful if the price of natural gas went up that much every year! Except this wasn’t a year-on-year increase. It wasn’t even a monthly increase. It was an overnight increase. From TV2 News: Large price jump for…
I just want to lay down a marker: my advance transcript, posted hours before the transcript was even released yesterday, nailed it. Here’s the real transcript from the New York Times. Compare and contrast—and marvel at my powers of precognition. Which I had thought was just satire. I never would have imagined Biden’s handlers would…
We got back from “the the west” very early Wednesday morning. Cool, gray, drizzly Denmark was a welcome relief after our week without air conditioning in the sun’s European anvil. The Danish media are mostly dominated by stories about Jonas Vingegaard’s Tour de France victory, and the local celebrations of that victory, and the planning…
TV2 News published an interesting article last week. I only first came across it Monday morning. It was apparently based on a TV2 documentary called “Operation X: The Dark Side of Solar Panels.” I haven’t seen the documentary, but the article seemed balanced, interesting, and thoroughly researched. It was the kind of investigative journalism “60…
Candidate Joe Biden, October 2020 (my emphasis): Two years ago, Saudi operatives, reportedly acting at the direction of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, murdered and dismembered Saudi dissident, journalist, and US resident Jamal Khashoggi. His offense – for which he paid with his life – was criticizing the policies of his government. Today, I…
The World Health Organization (WHO) is worried about words again. WHO wants to give monkey pox new name to avoid discriminationRitzau, TV2 News, Jun 15 According to researchers, it is discriminatory to continue to keep referring to monkeypox as “African.” The World Health Organization (WHO) is collaborating with experts to find a new name for…
Yesterday’s post was about the stupid prizes we’re winning for the stupid games we’re playing with language. That theme continues today. We’re going to start with a recent decision of the Danish bakery chain Lagkagehuset (the name translates to “The Layer Cake House”) to replace two of their popular cakes, the so-called kagemand (“cake man”) and kagekone (“cake wife”) with the…
I always figured kids had a pretty easy time of it during war. Thanks to TV2 News, my eyes have been opened. A kid’s-eye view of war: “It’s all Putin’s fault”Sofie Synnøve Herschend & Alexander Østerlin Koch, TV2 News, Mar 19 Herschend & Koch are only writing about one particular set of children whose experiences…
I’ve been very critical of the establishment media in Denmark and the United States. I’ve called them “garbage media” and have used words like “execrable” and “disgusting” and “grotesque” in describing a lot of journalists and editors. I’ve called them hacks and partisans. I’ve avoided hyberbole because none has been needed: the establishment media new…
I’ve written a lot about Michael Crichton’s “Gell-Mann Amnesia” in the past. It’s the phenomenon of encountering a story in the media on a topic about which you’re knowledgeable, realizing the story has everything completely wrong, then relying on the same media for stories on subjects about which you are not knowledgeable and assuming they’ve…
