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EU Under Water
The EU: A Sinking Ship? The shipwreck off the Italian coast, Bret Stephens writes in the Wall Street Journal, is an apt metaphor for the entire continent. Stephens recounts an old Berlitz ad featuring...
View ArticleDemocracy in Europe, Part n
For those who still have the patience—or the sick curiosity—to follow Europe’s parody on democracy and the rule of law, it’s been a fascinating few days. Forget Greece and Portugal: fiscal...
View ArticleCan German Law Professor Holm Putzke really be such a Putzke?
A medical doctor was recently acquitted of an assault charge by a German court for having circumcised a four-year old boy at the behest of his two Muslim parents. The court acquitted the doctor, not...
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Föhr Real
For good or ill, I’m back from my extended family vacation. To my modest credit, ‘twas poor moi who suggested Tom Christina as an ersatz blogger. To Tom’s far more considerable credit, he submitted...
View ArticleBanned in Cologne
When human rights meet multiculturalism, difficulties are certain to arise, and conflicts ensue, that would not have surprised Michael Oakeshott. If all political questions are to be answered by means...
View ArticleReporting From Germany: Er Ist Wieder Da
Germany is going to the polls in September but even by German standards, the election season is boring beyond belief. The governing CDU/CSU, my buddy Michael Zoeller has observed, never fights election...
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Global Warming, Kaiser Wilhelm, and the D.C. Circuit (I)
I’m going to ventilate, yet again and at the risk of further endangering the planet, over climate change—more precisely, the toll that the obsession has taken on our political institutions. Since...
View ArticleThe Regulatory State on Autopilot (I)
In countries such as Germany (see recent post), climate change regulation proceeds by idiotic, popular and partisan consensus. Stateside, there’s less enthusiasm for post-carbon fantasies. Thus,...
View ArticleLeadership, Jawohl!
Germany goes to the polls this coming week. The German media are desperately trying to convey Spannung (meaning tension and urgency), and party apparatchiks here and there fret about the emoluments of...
View ArticleAn Update on Germany (Sort of), and on Yet More Debt
In yesterday’s Bavarian state election, the conservative CSU regained an absolute majority. My earlier post on the national election this coming Sunday neglected to mention the event because, in accord...
View ArticleFriday Roundup, October 25th
Twilight of the American Republic: The new Liberty Law Talk presents a different way of thinking about American Exceptionalism. This discussion with author Justin Litke considers how the twentieth...
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The Currency of Destruction
When Gary Becker put forward his idea of human capital in 1964, it was to address the effects of knowledge and training on individual economic performance. This idea can and should be extended to...
View ArticleThe Culture and Politics of Economic Growth
‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man?’ asked Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, expecting no proper answer. In another context, that of economics, he might have asked ‘Why can’t one country be...
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No Vacation from History
My annual vacation in the Frisian Caribbean usually falls into what the German media call the Sommerloch (“summer hole”): nothing to report. Not so this year. Between Brexit, the rise of populist...
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EU Leaders Begin to Doubt “More Europe”
Beginning pre-Brexit and ending post-Turkey coup, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a series of articles under the heading, Zerfaellt Europa? (Is Europe Crumbling?). Interesting stuff....
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The View from Berlin
My preceding post noodled over non-German authors’ contributions to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s “Crumbling Europe” series. Today, a few of the Germans. Their contributions are charitably...
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Some Musings on the Abnormally Normal Germans
I’ve just returned from my annual vacation on my beloved island of Foehr; and as in earlier years Brother Reinsch has invited my random thoughts on what’s up with Krautland. Some bad stuff happened...
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Canine Democracy
From bitter experience the Social-Democrats know that life in Mrs. Merkel’s political embrace is a kiss of the spider woman: you slowly die.
View ArticleReporting From Germany: Er Ist Wieder Da
St. Giles Cathedral and the monument to Adam Smith, at the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland, July 28, 2012 (Gimas / Shutterstock.com).Germany is going to the polls in September but even by German...
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Global Warming, Kaiser Wilhelm, and the D.C. Circuit (I)
I’m going to ventilate, yet again and at the risk of further endangering the planet, over climate change—more precisely, the toll that the obsession has taken on our political institutions. Since...
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