Jacob Christensen

Via Google Reader I received a distressed call for help as a former student wanted to know what Danish newspaper she ought to read. Well, the answer is of cause “that depends on”, but in case anybody are interested, I have the following listed on my feed reader:

Berlingske Tidende, DR Nyheder, Jyllands-Posten, Politiken, TV2 Nyhederne.

I also have Peter Mogensen’s, Niels-Krause Kjær’s and Lisbet Knudsen’s kolumns separately listed.

The Swedish batch is as follows:

Dagens Nyheter, Ekot (Swedish radio news), Svenska Dagbladet, SR Västerbotten (maintained by journalists who cannot write Swedish), Sydsvenskan (always nice being informed about waterleaks in Lund and the like) Västerbottens Folkblad, Västerbottens-Kuriren.

VK’s political editor will be happy to learn that I subscribe to his feed as well.

Germany is served by Frankfurter Allgemeine, Heute, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tagesschau and Die Zeit.

The UK: BBC News, Daily Telegraph, Economist, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, The Times.

The US: NY Times, Washington Post, McClatchey, Slate, Time.

And finally, just for fun: TV5 Europe (France) and NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands)

These are just the mainstream media feeds – and no, I don’t read everything: I skim the reader and check perhaps 5-10% of the headlines.

I could say a lot about the subject of Danes and Swedes covered by DN in a couple of articles today – a short and evil (or satirical) take on the issue could be that Swedes apply democratic forms of decision-making to mask a distinctly hierarchical way of running organisations. Danes have strong formal leaderships which are then never obeyed.

Sidsel Eriksen reminds us that the temperance movement was very strong in Denmark back in the day.

The report quoted in the DN article can be downloaded here (registration needed)

Did I say that Ny Alliance is well and truly doomed?

Well, I could have – and in that way be joining the choir of the Danish commentariat. For some reason, I never got around to write about the phenomenon last spring but I will be happy to admit that I was always rather sceptical about the project and would have advised Messrs Khader and Samuelsen against taking the plunge, had they asked me – yes, there is a conspicuous void in the centre of Danish politics and people in principle always like centre parties, but in practice always have them as their second or third choice, so you need extraordinary circumstances (think 1973 and remember that CD almost was wiped out in the 1975 election) or very, very good political leadership to survive.

And that a week is a very long time in politics has yet again been proved.

• c|net – Five things right and wrong with Flickr
  (tags: web2.0 webdesign flickr)
• Surprise farewells: Exits from currency unions | Vox
  …the most striking facts are that aggregate macroeconomic features of the economy do a poor job in predicting currency union exits and that there is only a weak linkage between monetary and political independence
  (tags: economics currency europe research)
• Make sure Word, OpenOffice.org Writer play well together
  (tags: productivity software OpenOffice microsoft)
• Migration Policy Institute – Country and Comparative Data
  (tags: statistics immigration migration globalisation labourmarket)
• Økonomisk Redegørelse, februar 2008
  (tags: denmark publicpolicy budget economy economicpolicy)
• Budgetoversigt 1, februar 2008
  (tags: denmark budget publicpolicy economy economicpolicy)

It is a bit premature to say anything conclusive about “Super Tuesday” but I couldn’t help noticing that the New York Times sees trouble brewing for the Democrats:

The Republican and Democratic presidential contests began diverging Tuesday, leaving the Democrats facing a long and potentially divisive nomination battle and Republicans closer to an opportunity to put aside deep internal divisions and rally around a nominee.

On the other side of the pond, the Guardian thinks the Republicans are in deep, deep troubles:

The Republicans are potentially facing a period of turbulence reminiscent of the prolonged soul-searching the Democrats went through during the 1980s. It was precisely the powerful coalition of conservative forces put together by Ronald Reagan in those years that has now started to become unstuck.

Okay, I’m exaggerating just a little bit but the difference in angles is kind of interesting.

Meanwhile Matthew Shugart is annoyed by some of the reporting:

NPR, to its credit, is telling its listeners to focus on the delegate count and not who “wins” states. Less to its credit – but typical – is the going on and on about how “complex” the “proportional” rules are. Worse still are the claims that these rules mean the delegates may not track the “popular vote,” as if the popular vote were more respected when a candidate with a narrow margin gets 100% of the delegates than when candidates get shares of the delegates approximating their shares of the vote.

Well, it seems that media have a tendency to confuse the rules applied in the primaries with the rules applied in the general election.

Oh, and among the US bloggers I follow, Daniel Drezner went for … tadaa! … John McCain while Brad deLong voted Obama. My hunch is that Paul Krugman backed Hillary Clinton (I have this feeling that he’s not an Obamaman). Laura McKenna, on the other hand, confesses that she is an Obama-girl. Matthew Shugart? Well, either he’s older than I thought or else…