What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
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…
The Danish media—like most western media—assure me that Putin’s “recognition” of the “independence” of the “republics” of “Lugansk” and “Donetsk” in what was formerly Ukraine will be met with hard words and sanctions from the western world. Is being met with them. Very hard words, and very serious! Sanctions so brutal they may actually be…
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…
Against all odds, our household has recovered enough from its recent bout with the Wuhan virus to be permitted a vacation. To ensure I get the maximum recharge value out of it, there will be no blogging from me during this vacation. (Persons planning to loot our house in our absence should note that we…
Henry Higgins, call your office. Over the past few years there’s been a slow but steady drumbeat on an amorphous issue, or set of issues, that seem finally to have congealed into something covered under the rubric of “the feminization of politics” (or of culture). A single writer has finally, in a single column, pulled…
Apparently the CDC is now suggesting, or preparing to suggest, that vaccinations be spaced further apart in order to reduce the risk of heart inflammation. You know, the heart inflammation that we’ve been told repeatedly wasn’t any big deal as a side-effect from the vaccinations that are so safe that anyone questioning them is spreading…
Personal update: Covid appears to have completed its course through our household. The girls are back in school and Herself is up and about, although the virus seems to be lingering with her. And once again I was left untouched as covid struck everyone around me. One would think that by the time February 2022…
On Friday night the Danish national men’s team, strong favorites to win the European Championship, got knocked out of the semifinals by losing to Spain after having led for the first 45 minutes. On Saturday morning Herself and I went through the all-too-familiar ritual of queueing up at a test center for the obligatory four-days-after-near-contact…
The circus is coming back to town! Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement was officially announced yesterday and Joe Biden took the opportunity to announce that by the end of February he’d appoint a black woman to replace Breyer. That’s how identity politics works. And if the president of the United States is willing to…
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…
The Omikron variant is running amok in Denmark—there’ve been 30-45 thousand new cases reported every day for the past week or two. It’s utterly unlike the previous waves of the Wuhan virus in that it genuinely seems to be hitting everyone. Colleagues at work disappear for days at a time, the girls have multiple classes…
Taliban representatives are right now in Norway for a three-day conference with representatives from western governments. The conference is scheduled to end today. I was startled to see coverage of the conference on a news segment Monday evening. Here were avowed members of the Taliban milling around a conference room in Oslo, doing their best…
DR’s ace correspondent Steffen Kretz has once again put pen to paper to misinform those of us who pay his salary. President Biden’s first year began hopefully, but defeats are now dominantSteffen “Ace Correspondent” Kretz, DR.dk, Jan 21 Lede: “U.S. President Joe Biden has gone from being popular to the opposite in his first year…
Have a look at this chart (it’s not important if you can’t read the texts): That’s courtesy of Berlingske, where journliast Philip Sune Dam continues to do yeoman’s work in trying to dig to the heart of Denmark’s actual covid numbers, as distinct from those reported by the government. What you’re looking at is a…
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…
Let’s get right to it. The Golden State Warriors public relations team is distancing the franchise from minority owner, Chamath Palihapitiya, after the billionaire boldly stated “nobody cares” about the Uyghur genocide in China on Saturday. That’s from an article in the insufferably progressive NPR, but it’s all true: Palihapitiya did say it, he is…
Mads Fuglede is a member of the Danish parliament for the (ostensibly) right-of-center Venstre party. On Sunday he penned an opinion piece for the (ostensibly) right-of-center Berlingske Tidende. In his byline, Berlingske identified him not only as a member of parliament, but also a “U.S. Analyst.” A right-of-center reader of this right-of-center publication might have…
On January 7, Ekstra Bladet published an editorial in which they apologized for not having done a better job questioning the government on all things covid: We FailedEditorial, EkstraBladet, Jan 7 I only became aware of the editorial today when I stumbled over it on a conservative American website (AceOfSpades). There are two reasons I…
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…
