There's an intriguing bit of analysis at the IHT about the EU's smack-down ruling on Microsoft earlier this week, showing not only a precedent but a philosophical divide between American and European federal intervention in corporate activities. A Washington anti-trust lawyer says the decision sets Europe as the world's regulatory standard, "In the U.S., both the courts and the current enforcement people fear that over-enforcement will chill competitive conduct and reduce incentives to innovate. In Europe, there is much more confidence in a regulator's ability to intervene without having an unduly chilling effect on innovation", i.e. there are over-riding concerns that trump innovation for its own sake.

Our contemporaries Atlantic Review wonder about the insecurities of "being liked" that are behind the US media's obsession with anti-Americanism formulated as either (a) love or (b) hate. (Recall all those "Why Does Germany Hate Scientology" or "Why Does Germany Hate Tom Cruise" articles a few months ago during the Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg dust-up? Update: Cruise is allowed to film at the Bendler Block in Berlin after all; TIME says Germany appears to like Tom Cruise after all. Oh, silly MSM, why are you so predictable?)

Notably in German, love and hate happily co-exist in Hassliebe.

Scott Horton at Harper's Magazine knows a lot about Wilhelmine Germany. That might explain why he sees the war of ideas through a Wilhelmine lens. His unpacking of the ideas of Leo Strauss and his "noble lies" -- the bedrock of today's Neocon intellectual -- as a perversion of a peace-loving Virgil into a "curiously bellicose" Virgil is nonetheless fascinating. "When Virgil writes “arms,” he means not just feats, but customs and rules; he is writing in the wake of Lucretius, who decried the violence and suffering of the Homeric world. Lucretius wanted a new world in which humans achieve a more dignified life through art and philosophy. He sees peace as essential to this vision." Check out Horton's emphasis on the US founding fathers' understanding of Virgil. That's why the "new world order" or novus ordo seclorum is on the dollar bill, y'all.

Malcolm in the Middle: Remember Malcom Perry, the former manager at London-based German bank Dresdner Kleinwort, who last week said he got side-lined for "not being German enough" in a merger restructuring with Dresdner Bank? Remember how he decided to sue for 10m pounds sterling on charges of racial discrimination? The guy replacing him is a Canadian who speaks no German. Doh. Looks like Anglos get the Arschkarte this round.