The controversy about how we should refer to the terrorist group known in Western Europe as “ISIS” has been going on for some time (the Americans prefer “ISIL”). If you followed the news after the recent attacks (and who hasn’t), you will have noticed that a third name, “Daesh”, is gaining currency with heads of…
Germany’s restrictive bioethics legislation in general, and its very tight rules on embryology and fertilisation in particular, present a puzzle for political science. Early on, the country has enacted liberal rules in other moral policy domains, most notably the abortion law of 1975 (Richardt, 2003: 113). The full range of prenatal diagnosis is available to…
“Cult of guilt” (Schuldkult) is a phrase that was coined in the early 1990s. It is a highly loaded term that is used almost exclusively by the NPD and other right-wing extremist groups whenever the crimes of the Nazis are mentioned. That Pegida would use that word, on that day, and that the crowds would cheer, is significant.
Taking a walk whilst running two variants of a slightly dodgy LTA in parallel on 64 of this baby’s 35,000-odd cores (to please a grumpy reviewer). Feeling like a proper scientist for a change. Needless to say that the whole thing shut down 35 minutes into the world’s fastest MPlus run, because the wardrobe-sized cooling unit broke down. Never happened on my desktop.
On Friday, a day after the great refugee compromise between CDU, CSU, SPD, and the minister presidents was announced, Home Affairs minister Thomas de Maiziere created a medium-sized stir by presenting plans that would reduce the level of protection granted to refugees from Syria. None such measure had been agreed the day before. By Saturday,…
On a balmy evening in August, I was lounging in the garden with a dead-tree copy of Perspectives on Politics (as you do), and stumbled across a rather spirited, well-written editorial attack by Jeffrey C. Isaac on the Data Access & Research Transparency (DA-RT) manifesto. So far, I had had only the vaguest awareness of…
I’m suitably flattered: This week, I’m guest-blogging on Pegida over at the Monkeycage. [contentcards url="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/04/every-monday-thousands-of-germans-rally-against-muslims-here-are-the-6-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-pegida-movement/"]
The (conservative) union of grammar school teachers in the east German state of Sachsen-Anhalt has appealed to their members to discourage “girls from the age of 12” from “casual sexual encounters with certainly attractive Muslim men” (page 2). In the same editorial, the association’s president and his deputy voice concerns about “an immigrant invasion”, hint…
Altmetrics loves my recent article on the strange phenomenon of bioethics legislation in Germany. Now these measures may be questionable and biased, but I’m happy nonetheless. Time for you to read it, too? It’s short, sweet, and open access. More generally, Altmetric has tracked 4,453,342 articles across all journals so far. Compared to these this…
Markus Pretzell, UKIP Fan, AfD supremo in NRW and newly minted sweetheart of the newly minted party leader, has a bright idea. In a public speech last week, he suggested to deter refugees at the German border by all means necessary, including the use of firearms. He has now repeated that statement in an interview…