Mark Steyn is a brave man. He doesn’t talk about his death threats or his security measures, but his public life speaks for itself. For the fifth anniversary of the Muhammad cartoon controversy, he stood on a stage in Copenhagen with the Danes who were not yet in hiding along with Lars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist who had survived physical attacks, arson, at least three assassination plots, and an Al Qaeda hit list. Steyn returned for the tenth anniversary observance, a few months after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but by then no cartoonists were left — they were all in hiding, including Vilks, after yet another attempt on his life.
“I’m always willing to stand with the guys in Denmark,” says Steyn. “But the reason all these left-wing Europeans end up on a stage with an eccentric right-wing Canadian like me is that no real A-list stars will agree to be there. At the tenth anniversary both the American State Department and the British Foreign Office even issued official warnings to their citizens to stay away from the Danish Parliament, where we were holding the ceremony. What kind of signal does that send? Why don’t the artists show up for these things? Why aren’t the movie stars there? When Theo Van Gogh was assassinated, no one at the Oscars had a word to say about it. They didn’t even put him in the obituary montage. And yet they congratulate themselves on their moral courage. George Clooney wears a Je suis Charlie Hebdo pin. Helen Mirren wears a brooch. But they were not with Charlie. Those guys died alone. This is gesture politics. No one would stand with them. I honour the genuine courage of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ayaan’s point is absolutely right — in the end you have to share the risk. Charlie Hebdo supported the Danish cartoonists, but the rest of the world didn’t. If every newspaper had published those cartoons, there would have been no point in killing anyone because there would have been too many people to kill. Instead, nobody stands with them, and so the small publication that does ends up massacred. The writer of the comic strip Doonesbury in America [Garry Trudeau] attacked the decision of PEN to honour Charlie Hebdo. Well, they were lying on the floor, bleeding and dying. I don’t think they noticed.”
The Danish cartoon controversy was actually the first moment the American press had been challenged by Islam and could do something in response — and their reaction was a spectacular failure of will and principle. In several countries around the world, it was actually against the law to publish the Danish cartoons, but many editors stepped up, published them anyway, and suffered the civil and criminal consequences. In the United States — where there was no such law — no major publication would print them.
Mark Steyn, interviewed by John Bloom, “Mark Steyn, Cole Porter and Free Speech”, Quadrant, 2017-05-11.
June 12, 2019
QotD: Militant Islam and the Western media
April 14, 2019
The Invasion of Norway and Denmark – WW2 – 033 – April 13 1940
World War Two
Published on 13 Apr 2019This week, the Phoney War seems to come to an end when Germany invades Denmark and Norway. The Allies seek confrontation with Germany in the hope to at least deny them full access to the Swedish iron mines. Nevertheless, the Germans are prepared and have been planning this for weeks. It looks like it will cost a lot to put a stop to it.
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Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: EastoryColorisations by Norman Stewart and JuliusJaa (https://www.flickr.com/photos/juliusjaa/)
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Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.comSources:
Riksarkivet
File reference: RA/PA-1209/U/Uj/L0203
Author: unknown
File reference: RA/PA-1209/U/Uj/L0203
Author: unknownA TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
1 hour ago
Hey all! The Phoney war is over, and although we have learned in the last months that it wasn’t as uneventful as is generally believed, the war really takes off here. While this is going live, we are in France to film future events, which I won’t spoil in this video. If you don’t mind too much, do check out our road trip vlogs (the many specials we shot here will have to be edited and will be published over the spring). We have seen very interesting things and we will challenge many misconceptions and myths about the upcoming events of World War Two. Thank you all for your ongoing support!Cheers,
Joram
April 7, 2019
Germans and British make their way to the North – WW2 – 032 – April 6 1940
World War Two
Published on 6 Apr 2019While China gets a new government, or at least in the eyes of Japan, the British are trying to cope with the rationing of meat and dairy products by trying out some new recipes. More importantly, Germany seems to be very serious about invading Norway. However, the British also plan to move closer to Norway.
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Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Join our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/D6D2aYN.
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: EastoryColorisations by Norman Stewart
Eastory’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.comA TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
2 days ago (edited)
The war seems to be heating up. As both the Germans and the Allies move towards Norway, the Soviets commit a big war crime in Katyn. We have made a ‘War Against Humanity’ episode in which we explain how Stalin and Beria ordered the mass murder. You can see that right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd5YhhNcC44 And a friendly reminder for the existence of our own discord server: https://discord.gg/D6D2aYN.Cheers!
December 28, 2018
December 11, 2018
Viking Expansion – Lies – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 8 Dec 2018Writer Rob Rath talks about all the cool stories and facts we didn’t get to cover in the already expansive Viking Expansion series.
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7:08 – Rob learns he has a linguistic tic about being able to correctly distinguish “ancestor” and “descendant”
17:10 – Olga of Kiev scared Matt to death… really though…
25:23 – Walpole Connection
28:05 – what’s next on Extra HistorySome other works to check out: The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings, by Lars Brownworth / The Vikings, by Else Roesdahl / Podcast: Norse by Northwest
December 5, 2018
QotD: Patriotism
Once upon a time, patriotism was a fairly simple thing. It was tribal identification writ large, an emotional attachment to a people and their land. In most of the world, where patriotism exists at all it’s still like this — tribal patriotism, blood-and-soil emotionalism.
A different kind of patriotism emerged from the American and French revolutions. While American patriotism sometimes taps into tribal emotion, it is not fundamentally of that kind. Far more American is the sentiment Benjamin Franklin expressed: “Where liberty dwells, there is my country”
Thus, most Americans love their country in a more conditional way — not as a thing in itself, but insofar as it embodies core ideas about liberty. It is in the same spirit that our Presidents and miltary officers and naturalizing citizens swear to defend, not the land or people of the United States but its Constitution — a political compact. This is adaptive in many ways; one of them is that tribal patriotism is difficult to nourish in a nation of immigrants.
In France, the ideology of the Revolution displaced tribal patriotism, just as it did in the U.S. But the French, roiled by political instability and war, have never settled on a political unifying idea or constitutional touchstone. Instead, French patriotism expresses a loyalty to French language and culture and history. It replaces tribalism not with idealism but with culturism.
America and France are a marked contrast with, say, Denmark. I chose Denmark at random from the class of civilized countries in which patriotism is still fundamentally tribal. You don’t become a Danish patriot by revering the constitution or culture of Denmark; you become one by being a Dane. Which partly means being a tribesman, connected to the Danish gene pool, and partly means identifying with stories of past Danish heroism.
It hasn’t been easy to find a fire-breathing Danish patriot for at least fifty years, though. One of the effects of the terrible convulsions of the 20th century has been to discredit tribal patriotism. Many people in Europe, not unreasonably, associate it with racism and Naziism and are suspicious of anything that smacks of immoderate patriotism.
Eric S. Raymond, “Patriotism And Its Pathologies”, Armed and Dangerous, 2008-07-09.
November 6, 2018
Viking Expansion – Rollo the Walker – Extra History – #2
Extra Credits
Published on 3 Nov 2018Rollo the Walker led the Great Heathen Army and had his sights set on sacking Paris, in a time when relations between the Vikings and the Franks had become, essentially, getting paid to raid. Eventually his sights would turn to stability — and he became the founder of Normandy.
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October 30, 2018
Viking Expansion – The Serpent-Riders – Extra History – #1
Extra Credits
Published on 27 Oct 2018The medieval Scandinavians left an impact not just on Greenland and Iceland, but on France, England, Russia, and even briefly North America. But how did Scandinavian society begin, and what incited its voyage across the seas?
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June 11, 2018
Feature History – Thirty Years’ War
Feature History
Published on 12 Nov 2016Hello and welcome to Feature History, featuring religious conflict, tragic war, and a really nifty collaboration with Jabzy.
3 Minute History – German Peasant’s War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeQVAUmyLksInvolvement Chart
April 2, 2018
QotD: Is Danish following the same path as Maltese?
… while I was in Denmark I kept tripping over odd facts that pointed to a possibly disturbing conclusion: though the Danes don’t seem to notice it themselves, their native language appears to me to be dying. Here are some of the facts that disturbed me:
- I was told that Danish phonology has been mutating so rapidly over the last 50 years that it is often possible to tell by the accent of an emigre returning to Denmark what decade they left in.
- The Dane with whom I was staying remarked that, having absorbed spoken Danish as a child, he found learning written English easier than learning written Danish.
- Modern Danish is not spoken so much as it is mumbled. Norwegians and Swedes say that Danes talk like they’ve constantly got potatoes in their mouths, and it’s true. Most of the phonemic distinctions you’d think ought to be there from looking at the orthography of written Danish (and which actually are there in Norwegian and Swedish) collapse into a sort of glottalized mud in contemporary spoken Danish.
- At least half the advertising signs in Denmark – and a not inconsiderable percentage of street signs – are in English. Danes usually speak passable English; many routinely code-switch to English even when there are no foreigners involved, in particular for technical discussions.
The overall picture I got of Danish was of a language in an extreme stage of phonological degeneration, extremely divergent from its written form, and functionally unnecessary to many of its younger speakers.
I contemplated all this and thought of Maltese.
Maltese originated as a creole fusing Arabic grammar and structure with loanwords from French and Italian. I have read that since 1800 (and especially since WWII) Maltese has been so heavily influenced by bilingual English and Maltese speakers that much of what is now called “Maltese” is actually “Maltenglish”, rather more like a Maltese-English fusion, with “pure” Maltese only spoken by a dwindling cohort of the very old and very rural. Analysis of this phenomenon is complicated by the fact that the Maltese themselves tend to deny it, insisting for reasons of ethno-tribal identity that they speak more Maltese and less Maltenglish than they actually do.
Based on what I saw and heard in Denmark, I think Danish may be headed down a similar diglossic road, with “pure” Danish preserved as an ethno-tribal museum artifact and common Danish increasingly blending with English until its identity is essentially lost except as a source of picturesque dialect words. For a look at a late stage in this sort of process, consider Lallans, the lowland Scots fusion of Scots Gaelic and English.
Eric S. Raymond, “Is Danish Dying?”, Armed and Dangerous,2009-05-17.
March 25, 2018
Great Northern War | 3 Minute History
Jabzy
Published on 5 Nov 2015Thanks to Xios, Alan Haskayne, Lachlan Lindenmayer, William Crabb, Derpvic, Seth Reeves and all my other Patrons. If you want to help out – https://www.patreon.com/Jabzy?ty=h
October 18, 2017
Cognitive bias – it can be a problem for the “nudgers”, too
Ilya Somin says that replacing private decisions with “rational” government nudges does not guarantee that there are no cognitive biases still being expressed:
Economist Richard Thaler recently won the 2017 Nobel Prize in economics for his important work documenting widespread cognitive errors in human decision-making. All too often, people fail to act as rationally as conventional economic models assume, and at least some of those errors are systematic in nature. Such errors can lead to mistakes that greatly diminish our health, happiness, and welfare.
Thaler and many other behavioral economics scholars argue that government should intervene to protect people against their cognitive biases, by various forms of paternalistic policies. In the best-case scenario, government regulators can “nudge” us into correcting our cognitive errors, thereby enhancing our welfare without significantly curtailing freedom.
Irrational Nudgers
But can we trust government to be less prone to cognitive error than the private-sector consumers whose mistakes we want to correct? If not, paternalistic policies might just replace one form of cognitive bias with another, perhaps even worse one. Unfortunately, a recent study suggests that politicians are prone to severe cognitive biases too – especially when they consider ideologically charged issues. Danish scholars Caspar Dahlmann and Niels Bjorn Petersen summarize their findings from a study of Danish politicians:
We conducted a survey of 954 Danish local politicians. In Denmark, local politicians make decisions over crucial services such as schools, day care, elder care and various social and health services. Depending on their ideological beliefs, some politicians think that public provision of these services is better than private provision. Others think just the opposite. We wanted to see how these beliefs affected the ways in which politicians interpreted evidence….
In our first test, we asked the politicians to evaluate parents’ satisfaction ratings for a public and a private school. We had deliberately set up the comparison so one school performed better than the other. We then divided the politicians into two groups. One group got the data — but without any information as to whether the school was public or private. The schools were just labeled “School A” and “School B.” The other group got the exact same data, but instead of “School A” and “School B,” the schools’ titles were “Public School” and “Private School.”
If politicians are influenced by their ideologies, we would expect that they would be able to interpret the information about “School B” and “School A” correctly. However, the other group would be influenced by their ideological beliefs about private versus public provision of welfare services in ways that might lead them to make mistakes….
This is exactly what we found. Most politicians interpreting data from “School A” and “School B” were perfectly capable of interpreting the information correctly. However, when they were asked to interpret data about a “Public School” and a “Private School” they often misinterpreted it, to make the evidence fit their desired conclusion.
Even when presented additional evidence to help them correct their mistakes, Dahlmann and Petersen found that the politicians tended to double down on their errors rather than admit they might have been wrong. And it’s worth noting that Denmark is often held up as a model of good government that other countries should imitate. If Danish politicians are prone to severe ideological bias in their interpretation of evidence, the same – or worse – is likely to be true of their counterparts in the United States and elsewhere.
October 3, 2017
Between Gulasch Barons and Defending Neutrality – Denmark in WW1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 2 Oct 2017Denmark, Germany’s northern neighbour, declared neutrality when World War 1 broke out. But after the defeat against Germany in the 19th century, they were still worried and readied their defences. At the same time Germany’s hunger for supplies created a new rich elite which were called Gulasch Barons. 30,000 Danes also fought for Germany since they lived in a territory previously belonging to Denmark.
August 25, 2017
Great Northern War – I: When Sweden Ruled the World – Extra History
Published on 19 Aug 2017
A young boy king had inherited the crown of the Swedish Empire, and his neighbors saw an opportunity to attack. To their surprise, young Charles XII of Sweden turned out to be a fearsome opponent who quickly repelled their assaults – and then sought revenge.
April 7, 2017
Unintended consequences of “good” policies
Megan McArdle discusses when some otherwise nice-seeming policy changes have not-so-nice unforeseen side effects:
What happens when you suddenly offer parents generous family leave benefits, paid at the expense of the government? You can probably think of dozens of outcomes. But here’s one you might not have been expecting: people die.
That’s the finding of Benjamin Friedrich and Martin Hackmann, in a new working paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research. The culprit? Nurses, who skew female, provide a lot of vital health care, and made heavy use of Denmark’s new paid family leave benefit when it passed in 1994. Since the supply of nurses was limited, and their skills could not easily be replaced, hospital readmissions went up, and more troublingly, mortality spiked among elderly patients in nursing homes.
Advocates of paid parental leave are no doubt bristling at the implication that their favorite benefit might kill people. But that’s not quite the right implication to take away from this paper. What it really highlights is how difficult it is to know how a given policy will turn out. Had officials understood that in advance, they might have taken steps to mitigate the effects — such as training extra nurses beforehand. The problem, in other words, wasn’t necessarily family leave policy, but the limited visibility policymakers have into the outcomes of their plans.
To see why, consider what the paper actually found. When parental leave came along, it reduced the supply of nurses. But that impact wasn’t felt evenly. In hospitals, where doctors make more of the medical decisions, it seems to have been costly to patient health. But in nursing homes, where nursing staff have more power over daily operations, it seems to have made a much bigger difference. Meanwhile, nursing assistants seem to have been little impacted by the change in leave policy; while they were also likely to make generous use of the leave, health-care facilities seem to have had little difficulty replacing them.
