What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
In its Sunday opinion section, Berlingske ran a “debate interview” with Alex Vanopslagh, the chairman of Denmark’s libertarian Liberal Alliance party. The first three sentences set the table: On the bookshelf in Alex Vanopslagh’s office in Christiansborg stands a copy of a dangerous book. A book whose author can get both (communist green party) Enhedslisten’s…
Substack Note: there’s new content over at Nagan of Copenhagen, including a lengthy article featuring a substantive interview with the apparently uber-woke ChatGPT. Anyone who’s followed this blog for any length of time knows that Berlingske Tidende’s U.S. correspondent Mikkel Danielsen might as well be a paid shill for the Democratic National Committee. I’ve chronicled…
I’ll pick off right where I left off yesterday: Analysis: Biden’s advanced age is suddenly a political strength. A frail old man does not look like a criminalKristian Mouritzen, Berlingske.dk, January 18 Kristian Mouritzen, the author of this bizarre piece, appears to be acting as the very personification of Danish media. Everything he gets wrong…
The poor darlings don’t know what to do. Here are screencaps of actual news searches I performed on “Biden” on Berlingske.dk and DR.dk at about noon (CET) on Tuesday, January 17, 2023: Berlingske: Danmarks Radio (DR.dk): Berlingske’s most recent news item that’s actually about the American president is already three days old (“Another five classified…
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…
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…
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…
Today, Tuesday, Berlingske finally got around to reporting on the “Twitter Files” that were released Friday evening. I wrote a couple of quick posts over the weekend anticipating the Danish coverage. (Here and here.) You can go back to the those if you have no idea what I’m talking about. And here’s what we’ve got…
(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…
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…
Mikkel Danielsen strikes again—with a headline that shouts: “Duck!” The Republicans have Hunter Biden’s dirty hard drive. Now they’re throwing it at the presidentMikke Danielsen, Berlingske.dk, November 18 (The story was published Friday, but it was a busy weekend.) Before I dig into Danielsen’s gaslight-a-palooza, I should state clearly that I’m going to be neutral…
