What the Danish and European media misunderstand (and misrepresent) about America, and vice versa. And other stuff.
This morning—not much more than 24 hours before polling places open in America—Berlingske published a signed editorial entitled “Berlingske believes: The USA is in a death-spiral of mistrust.” There’s plenty of empirical data to support that premise. I touched on a lot of it yesterday and on Friday. Berlingske’s lede states things pretty plainly: The United…
A funny thing happened to Pernille Vermund on the way to the Danish election: Facebook blocked her ability to do live streams or to advertize on their platform. Vermund is the party leader for Nye Borgerlige—literally “the New Bourgeois”—one of the right-of-center parties in Denmark that’s spent most of this election cycle in a circling…
On Sunday, Berlingske published an editorial in which they came out in support of free speech—arguing against the censorship of fake news on the basis of sunlight being the best disinfectant. Here’s the lede: “Instead of censorship, Western democracies should bet on freedom of expression as the best antidote to the information war.” That should…
It’s commonly believed that on September 26—more than three weeks ago—the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged. Three weeks isn’t a lot of time in most circumstances, but in warfare it’s an eternity: time enough to fight the whole Six Day War three times and take a long weekend. New Yorkers woke up to a beautiful…
The fault lines and tectonics responsible for the rattling of western civilization can be seen or described as a right-left conflict, a globalist-localist conflict, or a collectivist-individualist conflict. Each of those perspectives has its merits and its uses, and at one point or other I’ve used each of them, but none of them seems to…
(Think of this as Green Menace Part II.) Okay, they don’t actually say they want a revolution, but they sure act like they do. And by “they” I mean the GLOB. (Not the whole GLOB, only those of its members who’ve been absorbed into the mass psychosis of green hysteria—so, you know, only about ninety-eight…
First, quickly: In last night’s party leader debate on the energy crisis, Conservative party leader Søren Pape Poulsen actually mentioned the importance of the Tyra Gas Field. I felt like I should mention that, given that yesterday’s post was about our public servants’ unwillingness to address the supply side of the current energy crisis. Credit…
Mikkel Danielsen had a big article about Donald Trump and QAnon at the top of Berlingske’s website this morning. Big image, big headline, big story: The headline says: “A particular song got underway. Suddenly Trump supporters reached one finger into the air—what just happened?” I don’t know what happened. Neither does Mikkel Danielsen. Nor do…
The Little Mermaid was among my daughters’ favorite movies when they were very young. They knew it was a Danish story—they’d been riding “The Flying Trunk” at Tivoli since before they could walk or talk. That’s a very slow, very gentle indoor ride through various semi-animatronic scenes from the works of Hans Christian Andersen, including…
“The bite on which I gagged the most,” writes Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, “is not the knowledge that life itself requires hostility and death and torture-crosses—but once I asked, and I was almost choked by my question: What? does life require even the rabble? Are poisoned wells required, and stinking fires and soiled dreams and maggots in…
There’s an old Danish maxim that “necessity teaches naked women to sew.” (Nød lærer nøgen kvinde at spinde). It’s actually to spin, not sew, but teaching naked women to spin is weirdly ambiguous in English—it might just as easily be a reference to pole-dancing classes. A figurative translation is better: necessity is the mother of…
Mikkel Danielsen tried to explain John Fetterman to Danes in yesterday’s Berlingske. The Democrats’ big hope is a middle-aged man in a hoodie and shorts.Worries are now growing about his conditionMikkel Danielsen, Berlingske.dk, Sept 13 Middle-aged men in hoodies and shorts are something I sometimes encounter Sunday afternoons at the dump. You can probably also…
There’s a particularly soft spot in my already squishy heart for well-reasoned, finely-worded arguments in defense of ridiculous propositions—especially when there’s actually a subversive point concealed within the nonsense. Swift’s “Modest Proposal” is the most obvious example: in suggesting that the starving Irish begin eating their own children, Swift let his readers laugh their way…
The lights have literally begun to go out in Europe, even in little Denmark. Several municipalities are considering saving electricity by dimming street lightsRitzau, Berlingske.dk, Sept 6 Energy prices have skyrocketed, and this has caused several municipalities in the capital area to discuss whether street lighting should be dimmed or switched off during the night…
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…
There’s big piece in Berlingske today on the changed tone of Danish politics. Something has gone seriously wrong in Danish politics. Now concerned experts are sending a warning to ChristiansborgTobias Reinwald & Thomas Søgaard Røhde, Berlingske.dk, Sept 4 Only a fraction of this blog’s readers are Danish, so I’m not going to get all deep…
Back in 1992 the communications director of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, James Carville, set up a sign in the campaign’s Little Rock headquarters to keep everyone on message. Among the three bullet points was one that has since become a political cliché in America: “It’s the economy, stupid.” It says something about the American political…
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…
AUDIO NOTE: I haven’t given up on the audio experiment, but the home office is still in disarray due to the renovations that are underway. Audio should resume at some point next week. Berlingske’s “Business Overview” this morning—a round-up of the business news the paper’s business editors consider most newsworthy—includes an item entitled “Denmark, Sweden…
