(Footnote out of the way first: * As opposed to doin’ the Foggy Mountain Breakdown, by Earl Scruggs – and folks, that link there actually takes you to a webpage showing the guitar fingerings for playing this timeless bluegrass classic!)

Prospects for a “Yes” vote on the proposed EU Constitutional Treaty are under pressure these days not only in France but also here in the Netherlands. Well, at least “Yes” is currently ahead of “No” by only about ten percentage points in the polls, which is taken to be a worrying sign. So cabinet ministers are swinging into action to tout the Constitution, including Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner who, as reported in the newspaper Trouw (registration required) has warned against the danger of war if the Constitution is not adopted.

War? Yes, war: Because without the more authoritative and more effective EU institutions that the Constitution will supposedly bring into being, Europe’s inherent “irritation, suspicion, and distrust” threatens to escalate out of control. Just like happened in the mid-1990s in the Balkans: “Yugoslavia was more integrated than the [European] Union is now, but bad will and the inability to stifle hidden irritations and rivalry led in a short time to war.” (more…)

“Ratzinger? The name sounds familiar,” I said to myself when I heard word about the Roman Catholic supremo who henceforth is to be known as Benedict XVI. And in fact this weblog had a discussion only last August of an interview the then-Cardinal gave with the conservative French newspaper Le Figaro. To my amazement, I discovered that I actually agreed with much of what he said then.

Ludomani – there’s your Danish word for the day, meaning “compulsive gambling.” Plagues to society are one of my fascinations, and so will often be encountered on these pages, but make that plagues to rich societies. Europe is after all my self-appointed beat. So don’t expect to come to EuroSavant and find anything about the mysterious Marburg virus stalking Angola, for example. Instead, take a situation where national payment systems evolve to the point where you can send money almost anywhere, almost instantly; and where you can receive anywhere, on your mobile telephone, attractive, easy-to-look-at data. Two “goods,” right?, which must characterize a nation riding modern technology’s leading edge. Unfortunately, as the Danes are now finding out, what all this must also mean, sooner or later, is an explosion of high-tech gambling – and ludomani. (more…)

Germany is an interesting country (among other reasons) because, although it is a liberal democracy, there are still certain things you’re not allowed to be or say. You’re not allowed to be a Communist or Nazi, for example; both these parties are outlawed. You’re not allowed to publish Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

However, there is an important exception where you can at least say whatever you like – if you happen to be a member of parliament (either the houses of the federal parliamant – the Bundestag or Bundesrat or of any of the state parliaments), and you’re speaking either on the floor of that parliament or in one of its committees. In those places, it seems about the worst that can happen in response to something impolitic you might say is that part (or, I guess, all) of your audience may decide to walk out on you.

This happened recently in the parliament of Saxony – a German federal state, or Bundesstaat, in what used to be Communist East Germany, whose capital is Dresden. That is, a number of Saxon lawmakers left the parliamentary assembly last January, in response to some remarks on the floor by Holger Apfel, fraction-leader there for the NPD. The Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany – sorry, you’ll have to find the link to their website yourself if interested) carries the “right-extremist” label, at least from one credible source, and that is Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung. That paper recently reported on this incident, which was touched off by Apfel’s characterization of the destruction of Dresden in February, 1945, by allied bombers as a “bomb-holocaust,” and of the Allies as “mass murderers” (No Charges Against NPD-Chief Due to “Bomb-Holocaust”). (more…)

As with most other weblogs, EuroSavant has had in the past certain topics to which it regularly returns. I’d like to keep that up, even though at least one of these, the “Poles In Iraq” series (last entry here, which deals appropriately enough with the prospect of withdrawal of Polish troops) has pretty much expired. But there remains the still-riveting tale of the EU Constitutional Treaty, now about to embark on the phase during which it is supposed to be ratified by all 25 EU member-states.

The key work to understanding what this “constitution” is all about, and so to make up my own mind whether I’m for it or not, is I think Peter Norman’s The Accidental Constitution: The Story of the European Convention, from EuroComment, which I previewed here. (Then I had long-running problems getting ahold of it, but those are finally solved.) I hope to report to you about this book shortly. In the meantime, though, the only EU head of state who has made it clear that he is against ratification – Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, of course – recently turned up the volume on his anti-constitution agitation, as the French leading daily Le Monde reports (The Czech President, the Ultraliberal Václav Klaus, Campaigns for a “No”). (more…)

Just freshly back into the weblogging fold – if only on a week-by-week basis – ¿and I’m already dictating what sort of news should be covered more and what sort less? The sheer noive! (That “¿” was taken from the Spanish to let you know up-front that a question was coming. Thoughtful of me, ¿eh, amigos?) OK, so coverage of the late, great pope and/or his earthly remains belongs in the latter category; what should be in the former?

Consider that Thursday of last week saw the release of the report of the the commission on intelligence, assigned to evaluate culpability in light of the US intelligence community’s utter failure (together with most of its foreign partners) to correctly evaluate the extent of Iraq’s holdings of weapons of mass destruction. But by that point the pope was already seriously ailing – and then he died two days later, and the world’s journalists began their own professional pilgrimage to Rome! Is George W. Bush a lucky son-of-a-gun, or what?

But actually, the requirement would have gone beyond simple coverage of the face-value of the commission’s report, for that report focused on the supposed mistakes of the various intelligence agencies, the CIA at the forefront, and largely exonerated Bush administration officials from the charge of having tried to influence what the intelligence community reported to it over Iraq. So it’s a tall order: coverage that can discuss the report, yet disregard its more blatant presentations of sheer horsefeathers. (On the other hand, you might ordinarily consider the task simple, comparable to simply pointing out the obvious fact that the emperor is wearing no clothes.) Fortunately, there are journalists in the world up to the task, and newspapers willing to publish them, as in this case is Dorrit Saietz (who’s preferred by-line is simply “DS”) and her employer, the Danish commentary newspaper Information (Political Spies). (more…)

Allow a rare personal note here, which at least will be of interest to those of my readers still around who happen to wonder what really has been preoccupying the EuroSavant the last couple of months, keeping him mostly away from his keyboard.

The answer is on this page. Hint: search for “Amsterdam.” It’s probably inevitable that I’ll inflict more about this on you at a later point; in any event, it is quite an all-absorbing side-project, and is likely to become so again.

Poor Charles and Camilla: their wedding plans have been beset by one problem after another. First of all, the Queen let it be made known that she did not intend to be there for the second marriage of her own eldest son. That ruled out access to every couple’s dream wedding-venue – Windsor Castle, naturally – and recourse instead to a garden-variety local town hall. The shine on the event had also quickly faded among the British public, who were noticeably slow to go after the usual commemorative souvenirs brought out for sale for a royal wedding – you know, teapots, coffee cups, dishtowels, that sort of thing.

Now, however, such souvenirs are flying off the shelves. It’s not so much because of the English reconsidering their attitudes towards the marriage of Prince Charels and Camilla Parker-Bowles, as it is due to another mishap on their path to the altar, reports Marianne Fajstrup in the Danish Berlingske Tidende (Wedding Souvenirs with the Wrong Date Hoarded). That darn Pope John Paul II, as sainted a guy as he was otherwise – I know, EuroSavant promised just yesterday not to cover him again – had to up and die on such a schedule that pencilled his funeral in for this upcoming Friday, just the day when the Prince of Wales was intending to tie the knot again. (more…)

I’m back – perhaps in a bid for small-screen immortality? But be advised that this is going to be a day-to-day decision – or, more likely, even week-to-week.

The timing is a bit strange, since I re-emerge onto the blogging scene, eyes blinking, into the blinding light of the story dominating world news: the Pope’s death, of course. Assenting to “go with the flow” for now, in fact turning into a glutton for punishment, I immediately resort to what is sure to be “all Pope news, all the time”: the Polish press. Continuing to take things to the limit, why not head straight to the leading Polish daily (long-time EuroSavant readers – if there are any left – will know immediately whereof I speak): Gazeta Wyborcza. (more…)