Europe

The Farmers Win

Featured image Farm revolts have spread across Europe, most recently in France where farmers blocked roads leading into Paris. Local grievances vary somewhat, but fundamentally farmers have been rebelling against the environmental insanity that afflicts the EU even more than it does the U.S. So farmers have been rebelling on behalf of the rest of us, since left-wing environmental policies are designed to make food (especially meat) vastly more expensive, so as »

War Drums In Europe

Featured image Suddenly, there is talk everywhere of war in Europe. On Monday, I wrote about warnings from Germany and Sweden of a possible Russian invasion. The drumbeat continues. The London Times lays out a scenario for a Russian attack: A few years after a break in the fighting for Ukraine, the Kremlin seizes its moment and strikes at the Baltic states. While Nato forces clog up overstretched roads and railways across »

War In Europe?

Featured image The war in Ukraine seems to have settled into a stalemate, and one would think that the Russian army’s mediocre performance in that conflict would dampen any Kremlin aspirations to widen the war. But military leaders in Western Europe are nevertheless sounding an alarm. Thus, Bild magazine has published documents from Germany’s Ministry of Defense about the possibility of a Russian attack. It isn’t clear from the linked story whether »

Europe’s “Hard Right” Uprising

Featured image Across Western Europe, the right is rising. This strikes fear into the hearts of Brussels bureaucrats, as the London Times reports, with this headline: “‘Hormonal’ voters could hand hard-right victory, EU chief fears.” Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, warns that migration fears could send political shockwaves across Europe. Borrell, 76, a Spanish Socialist and former foreign minister, was referring to the fact that illegal immigration has »

Attack on Cologne Cathedral Foiled

Featured image The Christmas/New Year season is one of heightened terrorism alert in Europe. Today, German authorities announced that they had stopped an intended Islamic attack on Cologne’s (Koln’s) historic cathedral: German police have arrested three people suspected of planning a New Year’s Eve terrorist attack on Cologne Cathedral, which was reportedly to be carried out in a car loaded with explosives. Officers had first been informed of an attack planned for »

Globalize the Jihad!

Featured image That is one of the mantras recited by Hamas supporters across the Western world. And, as usual, we should assume that terrorists mean what they say. The Telegraph reports: “Hamas plot to attack Jews across Europe is foiled by police.” A Hamas plot to kill Jews in Europe was foiled by German and Danish police who uncovered the terrorist group’s alarming change of tactics. Three people were arrested in Germany, »

Down and Out In Paris and London

Featured image Actually, of course, we were anything but down and out. Rather, on vacation. Our plan was to spend a week in Paris, where we had never been, followed by a week in London, where we go pretty often. It didn’t quite turn out that way. Here are a few observations for those who might be interested: * We saw absolutely no political activity–no pro-Hamas demonstrations, in particular. On the contrary, »

Ireland Goes Fascist

Featured image An Irish author has just won the Booker prize: Irish author Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize on Sunday. His novel, Prophet Song, imagines an Ireland that has fallen under Right-wing totalitarian control, and begins with members of the new secret police rapping on the door of a union leader to interrogate him for “sowing discord and unrest” against the government. The reality, of course, is precisely the opposite: The »

Reporting From Paris

Featured image I have been in Paris for the last week, my first visit to this city. This is a fun time of the year to be in Europe, as the Europeans generally make a bigger deal out of Christmas than we do. Before we left, friends warned us against two things: pro-genocide demonstrators, and bedbugs. So far we have seen the same number of each: zero. Yesterday we visited one of »

Notes from Central Europe

Featured image An unusual experience on the train from Salzburg to Munich yesterday. The train stopped at the German border, whereupon eight police officers, well armed and wearing full body armor, boarded the train and asked to see passports. I haven’t had a passport check on a European train in years, and I thought they were obsolete in the era of the Schengen Zone that allows visa-free travel throughout the European Union. »

Vaclav Klaus, After All

Featured image SALZBURG, Austria, October 19—Back in August of 1990 I attended my first-ever meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Munich, West Germany, not far from my current temporary location. I was still a sluggish graduate student at the time, long past when I should have completed my dissertation, but somehow I had contrived to snag a fellowship to attend, and present a paper whose precise topic I don’t now recall, »

Europe: Tangled Up In Green

Featured image Opinion polls indicate that the vast majority of Europeans have drunk the global warming kool-aid, at least in theory. But things change when they are confronted with “green” realities. The Wall Street Journal reports: For years, Europe has been at the forefront of the global drive to curb carbon emissions and slow climate change, pledging to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Overwhelming numbers of Europeans say they like the »

The Daily Chart: The High Cost of High-Cost Energy

Featured image Everyone knows that Germany was the “first mover” on the net-zero bandwagon, spending more than a trillion Euros over the last 15 years on its “energiewende” (“energy revolution”) only to see their greenhouse gas emissions begin rising again, and last year reviving coal-power to keep the lights on. One thing they did achieve was causing consumer energy prices to roughly double. I guess that “wind-and-solar-are-cheaper” isn’t working out according to »

Night Falls On Free Speech

Featured image In Europe in general, and Denmark in particular. Mark Steyn recalls the Mohammed cartoon crisis of 2005 and the sequels that have played out over the ensuing years: In 2005 Jyllands-Posten, one of the biggest-selling newspapers in Denmark, as part of an exploration of the state of free speech, was willing to publish a dozen cartoons of Mohammed by prominent cartoonists. In 2010, on the fifth anniversary, I was given »

De-Industrializing Germany

Featured image It is hard to believe, but Germany is on its way to becoming a post-industrial country. What its economy will look like at that point is anyone’s guess, but it won’t be pretty. The Telegraph interviews Monika Schnitzer, who heads Germany’s Council of Economic Experts. She leads off by talking about the need to distance Germany from China: Berlin outlined a plan to “de-risk” the relationship with China last month. »

Right-Wing Surge In EU Elections?

Featured image Breitbart reviews polling on next year’s EU parliamentary elections, which suggests significant conservative gains across the continent: Polling has projected populist and conservative-leaning blocs to make significant gains in the next European Union parliamentary elections, as support for centrist parties wanes in the wake of growing discontent over failures on immigration and the green agenda. Those are the two issues that dominate European politics: both wide-open immigration and “green” energy »

What’s the Matter With Sweden?

Featured image The following story was related to me by a former Governor of Minnesota, who was of Norwegian descent. A number of years ago, a Norwegian dignitary (the Prime Minister, I think) visited Minnesota. Talking to our governor, the Prime Minister tut-tutted about Minnesota’s crime rate, saying that there was much less crime in Norway. Minnesota’s governor replied, “We don’t have a crime problem with our Norwegians, either.” That anecdote came »