Author Archives: David Weman

About David Weman

The founder of A Fistful of Euros. He is Swedish, and was born in 1980. Works as a translator and subtitler.

Americans look at Europe

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Mc Masterchef posts his “final draft of a paper on European Muslims at Liberals against terrorism I wrote for my recently concluded class on Islamic Political Movements with Professor Husain Haqqani.” at Liberals against terrorism: Clash of Identities: Integration, Islamism, and the Question of Europe?s Muslims.

The great Brad Plumer summarizes and discusses a survey of a bunch of books on judicial systems around the world (the parts dealing wit hEurope.) A couple of days ago, he did the same for a Brookings report on The Rise of Europe’s Defense Industry.

I’m frightened

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This story from a week ago frightens me greatly. The lack of attention it has gotten is remarkable.

?Until recently we would find giant ?chimneys? in the sea where columns of cold, dense water were sinking from the surface to the seabed 3,000 metres below, but now they have almost disappeared,? he said.

?As the water sank it was replaced by warm water flowing in from the south, which kept the circulation going. If that mechanism is slowing, it will mean less heat reaching Europe.?

Such a change could have a severe impact on Britain, which lies on the same latitude as Siberia and ought to be much colder. The Gulf Stream transports 27,000 times more heat to British shores than all the nation?s power supplies could provide, warming Britain by 5-8C.

Obviously, Sweden would be hit even worse. But the consequences could be severe for the whole world.

Metro-Land links to this cover story for the January 1998 issue of The Atlantic Monthly tells why this is so scary, gives you other reasons to be frightened, and mentions possible ways to counteract a catastrophe. Fatalism is the wrong approach.

Also of interest is the recent articles from the New Yorker and the Wikipedia entry.

Working girls

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Apropopos this post Edward’s post on fistful a couple of days ago, an observation. I find it remarkable how when people discuss these issues, (the working age population declining) no one ever talks about female participation in the work force. In some euro countries it’s pretty low, and an increase could make a real difference.

It’s weird.

Happy thought

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Happy thoght about the British elections. No one else seems to thought of this angle:

Isn’t this like the first time in living memory that a party has made anti-immigration message the centerpiece of its campaign and not only didn’t succeed, but possibly maybe, lost votes because of it? I think in Europe it’s literally the first time in my lifetime.

God, let it be the start of trend.

All good things come to an end

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You might have noticed that we haven’t updated AFOE for a week, and that the posting frequency dropped considerably in the last weeks. I’m sad to say that we’re not coming back; this will be the last update to A Fistful of Euros. The archives and links will be maintained.

The reason isn’t any great falling out, suffice to say that we all felt that things weren’t working out, and it was time to move on. However, I know that I speak for all of us when I say that I’m immensely proud of what we’ve achieved these last nineteen months, and will remember this period of my life with great fondness.

You’re not quite rid of us. We will of course continue blogging at our own weblogs. I strongly recommend you add Nick, Scott in Prague, Scott in Brussels, Claudia and Doug, Tobias, Mrs T and Matt to your daily reading list if you haven’t already. (I wouldn’t really recommend reading me, but not quite advise against it.)

I understand Doug (Merrill) will start a blog of his own, and afaik Edward is still planning to resume blogging.

I want to thank all my co-bloggers for letting me be a part of this thing. It’s been a blast.

April 2 Update: Fooled you.

The Tulip Revolution

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As you probably know, there appears to have been a peaceful revolution in Kyrgyzystan.

Latest news.

Photos.

BBC backgrounder on the recent events

For general information on Kyrgyzustan, Wikipedia.

More from registan.net

Some original, not too informed analysis: The last years peaceful revoutions have all happened in countries with some democratic features, not straight out dictatorships. Kyrgyzystan was always the least authoritarian of the Turkistanic countries then became more repressive the last four years. I don’t think that’s coincidental; regime change in the other more repressive ‘stans seem unlikely.
But it’s noteworthy that it has happened in a more repressive country than Georgia and Serbia, with even less experience in democracy.

This revolution took almost eveyone by surprise. I think people, like me, just assumed have the possibility of change in the region, and maybe that was a bit lazy and prejudiced. It’ll be interesting if the new regime proves to be less authoritarian in the long run, like the new regimes in Serbia and maybe, probably, Georgia and Ukraine. Let’s hope so.