Author Archives: Andreas Moser

About Andreas Moser

I am a lawyer in Germany, with a focus on international family law, migration and citizenship law, as well as constitutional law. My other interests include long walks, train rides, hitchhiking, history, and writing stories.

If you don’t read my blog, you will die.

That caught your attention, didn’t it? And on the face of it, it’s true and backed up by facts and statistics: About 150,000 people died worldwide yesterday. Of these, none had read my blog yesterday. The few people who did … Continue reading

Posted in Economics | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Print is King

I have some information stored on 3.5-inch discs, but I can’t find a computer that still has a slot for these floppy discs. With my old phone, I had taken some cool photos, but I can’t retrieve them because I … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Economics, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

A welcome alternative to flag-burning

When I was in Kosovo in February 2009 for the first anniversary of Kosovo’s independence, I spotted this car draped is US flags in front of a mosque in the Southern (i.e. Kosovar) part of Mitrovica: Of all the countries I … Continue reading

Posted in Islam, Politics, Travel, USA | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Strangers on a train

I like long train journeys because they provide me with the time to read books, magazines and newspapers. Once, on a train in Germany, I was reading a newspaper or a news magazine. Across the table sat a man who … Continue reading

Posted in Germany, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Book Review: “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer

“Into the Wild” is the real story of Christopher McCandless, a young American who decided to roam the wilderness of the United States after graduating from university and who eventually died of starvation in Alaska, aged 24. “Greetings from Fairbanks! … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Life, Philosophy, Travel, USA | Tagged , , , , , , | 25 Comments

“Why don’t you get married?”

“What’s the point?”, I could retort. Or talk about freedom, independence and self-determination. But for now, I will just point you to the answer given by J. D. Salinger in his novella “Zooey“: “I like to ride in trains too much. You … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Life | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments

Assessing the risk of nuclear technology

The nuclear industry is keen on coming up with probabilistic risk assessments that show that a serious accident at a nuclear power plant can only happen every 20,000 years or so (admittedly this number is from a somewhat outdated report … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Politics, Technology | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments

Why I don’t answer the phone

A warning to everyone: I don’t like it when you call or e-mail me and your first sentence is “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Even if it’s not posed as a question but as a statement (“You didn’t answer … Continue reading

Posted in Life, Philosophy, Technology | 50 Comments

Deutsche Aussenpolitik schafft sich ab.

Nach Wochen des Mordens, Bombardierens und apokalyptischen Schwadronierens durch den libyschen Führer Gaddafi hatte die Weltgemeinschaft in Form des UN-Sicherheitsrates ausnahmsweise mal selbst genug von den ewigen “Ermahnungen”, “Aufforderungen” und “dringenden Bitten”, mit denen sonst auf Menschenrechtsverletzungen reagiert wird. Vor … Continue reading

Posted in Germany, Human Rights, Libya, Military, Politics | Tagged | 50 Comments

Must a person have both desires and values?

As one of the reasons behind taking up blogging was to gain writing experience in English for my studies, it might be fair to publish the essays that I am writing for my MA Philosophy course at the Open University, … Continue reading

Posted in Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments