Archive for 2024

BORDER REMINDER:

BECAUSE IT IS: It feels like the social order is crumbling in Germany.

The rise in political violence combined with a rapidly shifting party landscape in which a right-wing force is emerging as a major player reminds many Germans of the 1920s and 30s. AfD politicians and voters have long been called ‘Nazis’ by their opponents, but now a new spate of scandals has sparked fears that far-right sentiments may be more embedded than political polling suggests.

Over recent months, videos have appeared of people singing Nazis slogans to the 1999 party tune L’amour Toujours by the Italian DJ Gigi D’Agostino. In October last year, young people sang ‘Germany for the Germans, foreigners out’ (Deutschland den Deutschen, Ausländer raus) when the song was played at a harvest festival in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Recordings were posted on social media, and it became a trend with further cases being reported to the police across the country.

It then made the headlines when a group of revellers at an exclusive bar on the island of Sylt filmed themselves singing the ‘foreigners out’ version. One man was seen doing a Hitler salute and mimicking the dictator’s moustache with two fingers. The footage went viral, and the German press, politicians and public figures condemned the group as ‘champagne Nazis’. In another incident, students of the private school of Louisenlund in northern Germany were caught doing the same thing at a school party. Such blatant disregard for the country’s post-war taboos by members of the wealthy elite cast unsettling doubts over the idea that this only about the great unwashed.

It’s a fascinating article but it barely touches on the source of Germany’s current angst: uncontrolled immigration by Muslims who, at best, have no intention of assimilating.

SHOCKER: Anthony Fauci tells Congress he’s ‘not aware’ of studies that support social distancing rules that colleges imposed.

Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci told a House committee that he’s unware of studies that supported social distancing rules that were in turn used by many American colleges and universities during the coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci was asked about social distancing by a Republican staffer during a closed-door hearing, according to the Daily Mail.

”Do you recall when discussions regarding, kind of, the at-least-a-6-foot threshold began?” the staffer asked.

”You know, I don’t recall. It sort of just appeared,” Fauci responded.

Fauci then said he “was not aware of studies” that supported the 6-foot rule, noting “that would be a very difficult study to do.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, almost every American college and university implemented social distancing requirements.

Having been exposed as someone who believes that “when you make it difficult for people in their lives, they lose their ideological bullshit and they get vaccinated,” naturally, Fauci is furious: Dr. Fauci: ‘Level of Vitriol’ During Hearings Was ‘Quite Unfortunate.’ Really, Doc?

ELON’S GONNA NEED A FASTER STARSHIP: Scientists discover potentially habitable planet 40 light years away. “The exoplanet, named Gliese 12b, orbits a cool red dwarf star situated in the constellation Pisces and is about 27 per cent the size of our sun and 60 per cent of its temperature, according to the two studies published last week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.”

MENTAL HEALTH: Number of College Students Diagnosed With PTSD Has More Than Doubled.

Diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among college students more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, finds a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Based on data collected from five waves of college students participating in the Health Minds Study at 332 colleges and universities, the investigators found that the prevalence of PTSD increased by 4.1 percentage points from 3.4% (2017-2018) to 7.5% (2021-2022). The rate of a similar disorder, Acute Stress Disorder (ASD), also more than doubled, increasing from 0.2% (2017-2018) to 0.7% (2021-2022).

The rates jumped the most in 2020-21 and 2021-22, following the Covid-19 pandemic, which closed down many American campuses and caused severe disruptions in the lives of students.

Not just “disruptions” but nonstop panicmongering from all levels of government, social media, and the entertainment industry.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Merrick Garland’s KGB Is Keeping America Safe From Pro-Life Grandmas. “Attorney General Merrick Garland spent some time Capitol Hill on Tuesday, sparring with Republicans who, once again, were expressing their extreme displeasure with the way he does business but not really doing anything about it.”

DECOUPLING CUTS BOTH WAYS: The Goal for China’s Chip Giant: Cut Out the U.S.

It is a part of a broader campaign to eradicate American technology in China, dubbed “Delete A” or “Decouple From A,” which has accelerated in recent years as the world’s two biggest economies intensify their battle to dominate in next-generation technology.

The Biden administration, and some U.S. allies such as Japan and the Netherlands, have introduced targeted export curbs that have undercut China’s ability to make high-end chips. But those measures have also served as a rallying call for China’s homegrown industry to develop more quickly, leading to big spending, experimentation and even some breakthroughs.

China, defying the global drop in semiconductor-equipment purchases, went on a spending spree in 2023 and represented a third of worldwide sales, according to industry association SEMI. This year, the country will add more new semiconductor-production capacity than the rest of the world combined, all for mature-technology chips, according to an estimate by analytics firm Gavekal Research. In May, China established a third round of its national semiconductor fund worth roughly $48 billion—coming on top of the previous two iterations that totaled nearly $50 billion.

I doubt China’s massive intervention in the chipmaking business will perform much better than Biden’s has but we’ll see.

JUDGE CANNON GRANTS JOSH BLACKMAN PERMISSION TO ENTER AN ORAL ARGUMENT in the Trump document case.

Here’s his motion and brief as amicus curiae in support of Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment. Seth Barrett Tillman coauthored these papers.

MIDDLE EAST: Israelis Weigh in on the State of the War Against Hamas.

The top-line numbers are encouraging: “39% of Israelis say Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, while 34% say it has not gone far enough and 19% think it has gone too far.” Additionally, just over two-thirds of Israelis believe that Israel will achieve its goals in battling Hamas, with 40% saying that Israel will “definitely” win and 27% saying that it will “probably” succeed.

This confidence doesn’t eliminate any worry about the conflict. According to Pew’s report, “61% say they are extremely or very concerned about the war expanding into other countries in the region” and “68% say they are extremely or very concerned about the war going on for a long time.”

They’re right to be concerned about the war expanding. Hezbollah has been working hard to make that happen in the north, resulting in yet more punishing IAF airstrikes late Tuesday.