EppsNet Archive: Europe

Who Will Be America’s America?

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And do not forget that nearly all of the countless 20th-century innovations and industries that made the rest of the developed world so efficient and comfortable came from America, and it wasn’t a coincidence. As long as Europe had America taking risks, investing ambitiously, and yes, being “inequal,” it had the luxury of benefiting from the results without making the same sacrifices. Who will be America’s America? — Garry Kasparov Read more →

See You in Hell

by  on Satan
 

[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings from the underworld! I see that Pope Francis put a bee in Turkey’s bonnet a couple of weeks ago by calling the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 a genocide. According to the Turks, the Vatican should look to its own history before casting stones. Tu quoque! On that note, the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Biography was just awarded to David I. Kertzer for The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe. Historically, popes have been far more circumspect in condemning genocide and other atrocities when committed by countries willing to aggrandize the Church (or when committed by the Church itself!) See you in Hell, clerics of all stripes . . . Read more →

We’re Still Smarter Than You Are

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Teens from Asian nations dominated a global exam given to 15-year-olds, while U.S. students showed little improvement and failed to reach the top 20 in math, science or reading, according to test results released Tuesday. — Why Asian teens do better on tests than US teens – CSMonitor.com Why am I not shocked by that? Because Americans on the whole are dumb and lazy. We have lots of dumb, lazy parents raising dumb, lazy kids. The average American kid doesn’t compare well academically to the average kid in an Asian country where academics and hard work are valued, or to the average kid from a small, homogenous European country where it’s easier to get everyone pulling in the same educational direction. The U.S. is a big, diverse country and the average academic results are pulled down by a lot of dummkopfs. But still, the smartest people in the world are… Read more →

Five Guys in Europe: When in Rome . . .

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. . . pay attention to these helpful tips. Read more →

An American in Cannes

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Here’s a young man enjoying the beach at Cannes, probably as a high school graduation trip with his friends. He looks like he’s enjoying himself, clowning it up for the camera . . . Read more →

Five Guys in Europe: La Sagrada Familia

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La Sagrada Familia is a nice building . . . Read more →

Five Guys in Europe: Departure

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In today’s update, the boys catch a break at the airport . . . Read more →

The Problem With Debt

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These are all from today’s headlines: Ireland told: Take EU bailout or trigger crisis – The Guardian Euro under siege as now Portugal hits panic button – Montreal Gazette Greek deficit much bigger than estimate – The Guardian Thirty years ago, we had the savings and loan crisis. Those were the good old days, when investors were only nervous about small banks. Investors have since become nervous about big banks, then non-bank financial institutions, and now small countries — Greece, Portugal, Ireland . . . That’s the problem with debt — bad things happen when your investors get nervous. What’s next? Medium-sized countries, obviously — Italy, Britain — and eventually the biggest of the big: the United States. Read more →

Payback Time

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PARIS — Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II. — Payback Time – Deficit Crisis Threatens Ample Benefits of European Life – NYTimes.com Read more →

Low-End Wealth

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Flying back to California from the east coast, I sat next to one of about 60 kids coming back from a three-week tour of Europe to celebrate their graduation from an Orange County high school. “You guys must be rich,” I said to her, “traveling around Europe for three weeks.” “We’re on the low end of wealthy,” she said. She put her hand out in front of her, palm down — not too high — to indicate her standing on the wealth ladder. Read more →

Another Reason I Like to Just Stay Home

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ROME – Italian railway police say an American tourist was hit and killed by a train at a Rome station as he was walking on the tracks in a daze after being drugged and robbed. Police official Giovanni Piccolantonio said Monday that 74-year-old Frank Phel from California died early Friday at the suburban Tiburtina station. — Associated Press Arrivederci Roma! Read more →

Best Explanation of the Spanish Election Results

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Even the mere threat of Islamic terrorism has for several decades been very effective at steering European nations’ foreign policy. Going back further consider the Germans in the 1930s and early 1940s. A small minority of people living in Europe had an ideology and the will to use violence to back up that ideology. Without a whole lot of effort or actual force they were able to conquer nearly every other European nation and convince those Europeans to accept major elements of their ideology. European democracies appear strong but apparently are easy to control by anyone who threatens to disrupt the bourgeois comforts of the populace. Nor do Europeans have the internal strength to dislodge violent minorities who’ve gained control of their societies. In the 1940s it was the leveling of German cities by the British and American air forces and Soviet artillery that convinced Europeans of the impracticality of… Read more →