Stanley Pignal

Elon Musk openly compares the EU to Nazi Germany and yet tomorrow the EU institutions will happily post to X as if nothing had happened.

I’m confused — does this repost mean he secretly likes the EU?

Draghi's big recommendations are massive investment (basically via EU joint bonds), deepening of the single market and some simplification/deregulation.

The first two are political minefields. The other one involves mildly annoying Ribera and seemingly nobody else. No wonder it's the focus.

There is trolling, and there is whatever grandious name we should give to this:

The question I am asking myself is: what does America lose by losing European "followership"?

It's quite clear Europe has stopped being useful to America. Is that because American perception of Europe changed, or their priorities beyond Europe made Europe less of a relevant ally?

If FIFA gives Barack Obama the FIFA Peace Prize, I'm nominating Gianni Infantino for the (actual) Nobel Peace Prize.

But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence. Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation

US national security strategy.
Something sure is unrecognisable here, but it’s not Europe.

www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

"If Europe will not, or cannot, deploy the frozen assets, it must use its own balance-sheet—soon. That means common borrowing: Eurobonds, strategic-autonomy bonds, whatever label is politically palatable. Ukraine needs predictable, multi-year financing: a four- or five-year package it can count on to keep its budget afloat, manufacture shells and rebuild power plants. Europe’s current dribs-and-drabs approach is the opposite of strategic. It forces Ukraine to live from one donor meeting to the next; it encourages Mr Putin to wait the West out; and it offers ammunition to those in Mr Trump’s inner circle who argue that Europe is incapable of serious statecraft."

@economist.com his the nail on the head this week. Europe can easily afford to support Ukraine -- and it is not even that costly, as long as all members participate. Joint debt will rope in even the recalcitrant ones.

Amazing.

You forgot the detour into NFTs! Blochain is immutable, don't you know?

The cable, sent to all U.S. missions on December 2, orders U.S. consular officers to review resumes or LinkedIn profiles of H-1B applicants - and family members who would be traveling with them - to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others.

Holy shit.

Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.

www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Holy hell Zuck was still spending money on the metaverse and nobody noticed??

I also recall Grace Blakeley having a very shaky grasp of how the banking system works.

North Korean-style. A Potemkin village of fake journalists.

different systems should result in varying degrees of tolerance for unpopularity. France can't kick out its president absent an election, it's all but impossible in Germany (I think Erhardt came in that way?). Whereas Tories do this with relish. Depends on internal party rules as well.

I think understanding of EM dynamics helps understand this particular situation

Macron's popularity rating is now scraping the ocean floor

Every upcoming summit of EU leaders is meant to be about "competitiveness".

Then stuff happens. And thus:

No summit of EU leaders ends up actually being about "competitiveness".

If the fighting ends in Ukraine, the infighting in Europe will begin Beware Europe’s great de-galvanisation

Nearly four years of fighting on its doorstep have given Europe, often a fractious continent, the closest thing to national unity it has ever known. That is unlikely to last in peacetime

had the intrusive thought that 30 years from now we’re going to have VC funds and military startups named after harry potter stuff and it’s going to be even more annoying than hobbit stuff

The world is trying to tell you something, Kate.

Yes exactly. I don't think you need to have a European demos to have a European Union. You only need an EU demos to have a very specific type of union, which has fallen out of favour anyway.

Drones are just fancy airships.

Perfect Tom Stoppard story from DTel obituary:

His response to a letter from Harold Pinter canvassing support for a proposal to have the Comedy Theatre in London rechristened the Pinter Theatre, “Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?”

RIP Tom Stoppard – a dazzlingly original voice in theatre. I got to meet him at a couple of Czech functions in London in the 2000s (he was born in the same Moravian town as my grandfather) and he was an absolute gentleman to boot.

Jeremy Corbyn's party now had more factions than members. Not even Monty Python dared go that far.

are EU ships not allowed to transport oil below the price cap? It's fine to suggest even that mechanism is insufficient/immoral, but surely not enough to sanction any Greek oligarch.

To be fair, Rooney is using the publicity-machine quite adeptly here. She is explicitly tying the royalties of her books to payments she will separately make to Palestine Action. This feels contrived to say the least.

Muscular Christianity.

“Wear some headphones, kid. And put your shoes back on”

If the fighting ends in Ukraine, the infighting in Europe will begin Beware Europe’s great de-galvanisation

My Charlemagne column this week on the unintended consequences of peace (one day, hopefully soon!) in Ukraine. War on its doorstep brought the EU together. Can this hard-won unity endure after the fighting ends?