Tag: europe

The word of the day is ‘Völkerwanderung.’

German word, obviously: Völkerwanderung more or less means ‘folk migration.’ Admittedly, Iron Age European history is a little outside of my patch, but I do seem to recall that the Roman Empire (and later, its successor states*) had to deal with lots of people moving to where there wasn’t a war. Or at least to where the people moving could win a war.

I mention this because… well. Continue reading The word of the day is ‘Völkerwanderung.’

One part of Pan-Europe decides that online sites are liable for their commenters.

Ah, Europe.  Nice place to visit, wouldn’t live there on a bet. I prefer a more… robust sort of civilization:

In a surprise decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg has ruled that the Estonian news site Delfi may be held responsible for anonymous and allegedly defamatory comments from its readers. As the digital rights organization Access notes, this goes against the European Union’s e-commerce directive, which “guarantees liability protection for intermediaries that implement notice-and-takedown mechanisms on third-party comments.” As such, Peter Micek, Senior Policy Counsel at Access, says the ECHR judgment has “dramatically shifted the internet away from the free expression and privacy protections that created the internet as we know it.”

Continue reading One part of Pan-Europe decides that online sites are liable for their commenters.

A lot of people worrying about Central Europe right now.

I’ve had my, ah, difference of opinions with Anne Applebaum, but she sounds damned worried here:

Over and over again — throughout the entirety of my adult life, or so it feels — I have been shown Polish photographs from the beautiful summer of 1939: The children playing in the sunshine, the fashionable women on Krakow streets. I have even seen a picture of a family wedding that took place in June 1939, in the garden of a Polish country house I now own. All of these pictures convey a sense of doom, for we know what happened next.September 1939 brought invasion from both east and west, occupation, chaos, destruction, genocide. Most of the people who attended that June wedding were soon dead or in exile. None of them ever returned to the house.

In retrospect, all of them now look naive. Instead of celebrating weddings, they should have dropped everything, mobilized, prepared for total war while it was still possible. And now I have to ask: Should Ukrainians, in the summer of 2014, do the same? Should central Europeans join them?

Continue reading A lot of people worrying about Central Europe right now.

I have only one real comment about the rioting/attacks in Europe.

And it’s this: if the current people in charge over there don’t come up with an acceptable answer to the problem of Islamist (note suffix*) violence, the people on the sharp end of that violence will go looking for groups that do have an acceptable answer – or at least one that’s acceptable to the people on the sharp end.  And Western Europeans have a profoundly sh*tty track record when it comes to peaceful wholesale revisions of the social contract**.

So I guess that’s two comments.

Moe Lane Continue reading I have only one real comment about the rioting/attacks in Europe.

#rsrh German Chancellor Angela Merkel feels that Europe is… Nicht in Ordnung.

It’s all so very, ah, sloppy.

[T]he respected German weekly Der Spiegel reported in its latest edition that Merkel wants EU leaders to forge ahead with deeper political integration within the unwieldy 27-nation bloc.

Merkel has long advocated closer political integration as a means of preventing the European project from unraveling under the strain caused by the eurozone crisis.

…You know something, Germany? Fine.  It’s just not worth it.  Are the French on board?  Good.  You going to leave the Brits alone, when they tell you to sod off?  Glad to hear it.  No barbarism planned, this go-round? Very smart of you.  OK.  Yeah. Go ahead and have your Wholly German Empire, and don’t make us come over there again.