Mark Mardell, of Mark Mardell’s Euroblog, a BBC blog that seems to get better and better over time, has a rather typical post on Europe called A country called Europe. It is typical in that it centres around the issue of Europe becoming a superstate or not. Nothing new here. Some people dream of a [...]

If you want to lecture the French on “economic reform”, it pays to have some knowledge of French economic history. If you insist on doing so despite knowing nothing, “Big Mouth Strikes Again” is not a good headline. Of course, it could be some downtrodden sub-editor’s revenge.
Anyway, Chris Walker writes in today’s Independent that Nicolas [...]

The nazis marched today in Frankfurt. But it must have been rather frustrating for them. Their numbers were disappointing, they were relegated to the periphery of the city, and a thick wall of police ensured that they would not offend decent people’s eyes or ears.

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Below you’ll find a reaction I posted to an excellent rant by Ape Man on what he believes are some shortcomings in the news coverage of The Economist. His rant ties into what Edward posted below in his post Bad Journalism at The Economist and raises some, in my opinion, hugely important issues. Please go [...]

In a recent Afoe post on European Fertility (which was really an extended review of an article in the Economist) I took some considerable stick in comments for being too soft on the journalists over at the Economist who were behind the article (mainly because a large chunk of the “good news” they claimed [...]

Looks like I won’t be writing a post like this next year.
[Hat tip to His Imperial Majesty.]

Hessia’s education minister Karin Wolff has recently drawn attention for proposing that school biology lessons include the biblical creation story. Now she has drawn attention by outing herself as gay. All too many politicians pander to creationists; and some out themselves. But it’s pretty rare, I’d think, that the same politician does both.
Wolff will have [...]

Eurozone Watch has two articles about Germany and Italy that offer support for an optimistic view of the European economy. For a start, Sebastian Dullein argues that a comparison of Germany today and the US after the early 90s recession shows that Germany might be on the brink of a productivity surge. Dullein argues that [...]

I was recently fiddling with the German Federal Railways’ on-line European timetables, when I noticed something very strange. They have the best cross-European timetable, no doubt about it, but some odd things happen if you’re heading too far east. For example, when I asked it for a route from Paris to Tallinn, everything went a [...]