It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, January 21, 2023
US will resume border wall construction at San Diego park
A man looks through the wall at Friendship Park, near where the border separating Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego meets the Pacific Ocean on Jan. 19, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico. Advocates say the Biden administration has agreed to lower part of a border wall planned in the southwest corner of the continental United States. Construction paused in August at Friendship Park, which was inaugurated in 1971 by then-first lady Pat Nixon as a symbol of ties between the U.S. and Mexico.
(AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More
ELLIOT SPAGAT Thu, January 19, 2023
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration agreed to lower part of a border wall planned in the southwest corner of the continental United States, advocates said Thursday, dismissing the concession as a token gesture.
Opposition prompted a construction pause in August at Friendship Park, which was inaugurated in 1971 by then-first lady Pat Nixon as a symbol of ties between the U.S. and Mexico. For decades, visitors to the oceanfront park between San Diego and Tijuana could easily converse and touch, but access gradually diminished from the U.S. over the last 15 years.
After public feedback, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agreed to lower a double wall for 60 feet (18.3 meters), about the length of a tractor-trailer, said the Rev. John Fanestil of Friends of Friendship Park. In that section, the height will dip to 18 feet (5.5 meters) from 30 feet (9.1 meters).
CBP didn't respond to questions about the revised design. But it said in a news release Tuesday that it “developed an approach that meets the border security needs of the area while also addressing feedback from the community.” It expects construction to resume early this year and take about six months to complete.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas approved the changes, Fanestil said he was told by CBP officials.
Chris Magnus, who was ousted as CBP commissioner in November after less than a year on the job, paused work on the Trump-era contract, saying he wanted to first understand community concerns.
The decision comes a week after Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador thanked President Joe Biden for building “not even one meter of border wall,” which is not entirely true. While Trump built hundreds of miles, Biden has pursued small projects in Texas' Rio Grande Valley; Yuma, Arizona; and San Diego.
The San Diego project involves 0.3 mile of double-layer wall that currently rises 18 feet, Fanestil said. Aside from its height, it will be made of tightly spaced steel bollards, which are more difficult to see through than current material.
“The proposal to ‘dip’ the primary border wall to 18 feet for a small stretch near the center of Friendship Park is a token and inadequate gesture,” Friends of Friendship Park said in a statement.
CBP agreed leave unchanged a policy to open the outer gate from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays for up to 25 people at a time to converse with people on the Mexican side through a barrier of steel mesh.
SELF DRIVING CAR BOMB Self-driving cars create new opportunities for terrorist attacks, says FBI Director Chris Wray
Peter Kasperowicz
FOX NEWS Thu, January 19, 2023
The expanding use of self-driving cars opens up new ways for terrorists to harm Americans, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Speaking on a panel on national security, Wray said the FBI views autonomous vehicles as both a possible tool to cause physical harm and a potentially valuable source of personal data that could become a target.
"When you talk about autonomous vehicles, it’s obviously something that we’re excited about, just like everybody," Wray said. "But there are harms that we have to guard against that are more than just the obvious."
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday that self-driving cars create new ways for terrorists to attack Americans.
"One of them is the danger that there could be ways to confuse or distort the algorithms to cause physical harm," he said. "I’m thinking about a story I heard not that long ago about the researchers who were able to trick a self-driving car’s algorithm by essentially putting a piece of black tape over a stop sign. It caused the car to accelerate, about 50 miles an hour or something.
"It’s a simple example, but it shows some of the harms we have to guard against," Wray said.
"A different kind of harm we’re concerned about is the enormous amount of data that autonomous vehicles, for example, aggregate. And any time you aggregate lots and lots of sensitive data, it makes a very tempting target," he added.
He said these potential threats are something that is "very much on our mind" in the federal government.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety expects there to be 3.5 million self-driving cars on the road in the U.S. by 2025.
Wray said the expanding use of self-driving cars is an example of a new "attack surface" that terrorists will try to use to their advantage. He said Russia’s war against Ukraine is giving U.S. national security officials new examples of how cyberattacks are evolving and demonstrated how early surveillance activity can be a precursor to a cyberattack.
"We did see as the conflict erupted an increased effort by the Russian intelligence services, which have been conducting malicious cyber activity against U.S. infrastructure for years," he said. "We’re increasingly concerned that the surveillance activity – the scanning, the research, all the preparatory activity – could be one thing, could be an indication of something more serious."
"The name of the game in terms of cyber defense from our perspective is to try to get – to use a terrorism analogy – further left of boom," Wray added.
The U.S. is also worried about China’s growing Artificial Intelligence program.
"The Chinese government has a bigger hacking program than any other nation in the world, and their AI program is not constrained by the rule of law," he said. "It’s built on top of the massive troves of intellectual property and sensitive data that they’ve stolen over the years and will be used unless checked to advance that same hacking program."
"That’s something we’re deeply concerned about and I think everyone here should be deeply concerned about it," Wray said.
The brilliant and disturbing 100-year history of the “poor man’s air force,” the ubiquitous weapon of urban mass destruction On a September day in 1920, an angry Italian anarchist named Mario Buda exploded a horse-drawn wagon filled with dynamite and iron scrap near New York’s Wall Street, killing 40 people. Since Buda’s prototype the car bomb has evolved into a “poor man’s air force,” a generic weapon of mass destruction that now craters cities from Bombay to Oklahoma City.
In this provocative history, Mike Davis traces the its worldwide use and development, in the process exposing the role of state intelligence agencies—particularly those of the United States, Israel, India, and Pakistan—in globalizing urban terrorist techniques. Davis argues that it is the incessant impact of car bombs, rather than the more apocalyptic threats of nuclear or bio-terrorism, that is changing cities and urban lifestyles, as privileged centers of power increasingly surround themselves with “rings of steel” against a weapon that nevertheless seems impossible to defeat.
REMEMBER WHEN THE U$A WELCOMED ALL CUBANS Homeland chief: Cubans, Haitians who come by sea are disqualified from new parole program
David Goodhue/dgoodhue@miamiherald.com
Syra Ortiz-Blanes, David Goodhue Thu, January 19, 2023
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that Cubans and Haitians who illegally come to the United States by boat will be disqualified from applying to a recently announced parole program, a public declaration that follows a wave of migrant landings in the Florida Keys.
“Cubans and Haitians who take to the sea and land on U.S. soil will be ineligible for the parole process and will be placed in removal proceedings,” said Mayorkas in a tweet on Wednesday evening.
Mayorkas’ tweet is not a new policy announcement from the federal government. But it’s an attempt by the agency’s top official to deter maritime migration as hundreds of Cubans and Haitians have landed in the Florida Keys since late December, as well as an indirect endorsement for migrants to apply to the new parole program for Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua announced on Jan. 5
Mayorkas warned that the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection were actively patrolling the Florida Straits and Caribbean waters for migrants, who would be sent back home if they were caught at sea.
“Irregular maritime migration aboard unseaworthy or overloaded vessels is always dangerous, and often deadly,” Mayorkas said. “We are steadfast in our commitment to saving lives and discouraging anyone from taking to the sea to irregularly migrate.”
Since Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year, Border Patrol agents have come across over 240 migrant landings in South Florida and encountered over 4,000 migrants. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard interdicted 4,962 Cubans and 1,199 Haitians at sea during that same period.
Under the new parole program, people from Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba can fly to the United States if they have a financial sponsor in the country and if they pass the required medical and background checks. The agency announced a similar parole process for Venezuelans in October. The United States will parole up to 30,000 people a month through the programs.
Officials hope the programs will curb irregular migration from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which all increased in the last fiscal year. In 2022, Customs and Border Protection registered nearly 221,000 encounters with Cuban migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. During that same period, it also recorded almost 54,000 encounters with Haitians and close to 164,000 encounters with Nicaraguans.
When announcing the parole program earlier this month, the agency said that migrants from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua who attempt to unlawfully cross the border would be returned to Mexico, which agreed to receive 30,000 people monthly.
Agency officials have said that the number of Venezuelans coming to the U.S.-Mexico border has drastically dropped since a parole program for Venezuelans was put in place last fall. Encounter numbers for December and January are not yet public.
However, at the Winter Meeting of the Conference of Mayors on Thursday, Mayorkas said that “encounters from the targeted countries have dropped significantly” since the “new lawful pathways … accompanied by a consequence regime” were announced earlier this month.
At a press conference in the airport in Marathon in the Middle Keys, Sen. Rick Scott said on Thursday that the effect of Mayorkas’ tweet remained to be seen.
“As you know, the situation in Cuba is bad, and their economy is horrible. I think the impression is still that the border is completely open, which is what it is. So, we’ll see what impact it has.”
US drops case against NYC cop accused of spying for China
NYPD officer Baimadajie Angwang, left, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Tibet, and his attorney John Carman, right, hold a press briefing outside Brooklyn's Federal court after a judge dismissed spy charges against him, Thursday Jan. 19, 2023, in New York. Federal prosecutors dropped charges against Angwang, who authorities had initially accused of spying on independence-minded Tibetans on behalf of the Chinese consulate in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
BOBBY CAINA CALVAN Thu, January 19, 2023
NEW YORK (AP) — Charges against a New York City police officer accused of spying on behalf of China were formally dropped Thursday after U.S. prosecutors said they uncovered new information that warranted the dismissal.
It ended a two-year ordeal for Baimadajie Angwang, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Tibet, who spent about six months in custody before being granted bail. He had been accused of spying on expatriate Tibetans in New York on behalf of officials at the Chinese consulate in the city.
Outside the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, Angwang, wearing a pin of the American flag on his lapel, thanked his family and his supporters, including those on the city's police force and the U.S. Marine Corps, where he formerly served.
During a brief court appearance, prosecutors said they were dropping charges “in the interest of justice." U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee tried to prompt prosecutors to share what they could about their change of mind, but they declined to reveal what new information led them to do so.
“The decision was based on all the evidence and information developed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Hagans told the judge, adding that some of the information were too sensitive in nature to discuss in open court.
The prosecution is among several brought by the Justice Department alleging spying for China that have fallen apart in recent years, though the details of Angwang's case differed from the others, which involved academics.
A year ago, federal prosecutors dropped their case against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who had been accused of concealing ties to the Chinese government. In 2021, a judge acquitted a professor at the University of Tennessee who had faced similar charges. Those prosecutions were brought as part of an initiative, begun during the Trump administration but later dropped, to root out economic espionage by Beijing.
In Angwang's case, the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn had claimed that he began working as an agent for China in 2018 and was secretly supplying information on Tibetans pushing for their homeland’s independence from the communist government. It said he had worked to locate potential intelligence sources and identify potential threats to Chinese interests.
The government case partly relied on intercepted communications between Angwang and a consulate official — someone Angwang called “big brother” and “boss” — about how to identify dissenters in the independence movement.
There was no allegation that Angwang compromised national security or New York Police Department operations. When prosecutors filed their case in 2020, they deemed him “the definition of an insider threat."
Angwang initially traveled to the United States on a cultural exchange visa at age 17. He overstayed a second visa and eventually sought asylum in the United States, alleging he had been arrested and tortured in China partly because of his Tibetan ethnicity.
In court filings, Angwang's attorney said any discussions with the Chinese consulate were meant to curry favor so he could obtain a visa to visit relatives in Tibet.
Beijing had called the case “pure fabrication."
After Thursday's proceedings, Angwang’s attorney, John Carman, said his client was “innocent from the very beginning.”
“As an American, he is a great one,” Carman told reporters.
Angwang, 36, has worked at an NYPD precinct in Queens as a community liaison. His lawyer said they were still considering how to proceed to get him reinstated to the police force.
After gaining asylum, Angwang became a Marine and served in Afghanistan before being honorably discharged, according to court papers filed by his attorney. Angwang went on to join the Army Reserve and the NYPD, earning a “Cop of the Month” award at his precinct in September 2018, according to the court filing.
He is currently suspended, with pay from the NYPD, the department said. The U.S. Army Reserve said Angwang was “administratively separated” on Jan. 21, 2021, but it didn't specify why. It said federal law allows some discharged reservists to reenter on a case-by-case basis.
U.S. authorities continue to hunt for China's operatives.
Last fall, federal authorities in New York charged seven people, including five in China, with what they said was a campaign of harassment against a Chinese national and his family living in the U.S. to force him to return home.
The U.S. attorney’s office alleged the threats and harassment continued for years and were part of “Operation Fox Hunt,” characterized by the FBI as an illegal global effort by China to locate and repatriate alleged fugitives who flee to foreign countries.
Tibet has been an especially sensitive issue for communist China.
China says Tibet has historically been part of its territory since the mid-13th century, and China's ruling Communist Party has governed the Himalayan region since 1951. But many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of their history and that Beijing wants to exploit their resource-rich region while crushing their cultural identity.
___ Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz contributed to this story.
US hands over to Mexico suspect in missing students case
Relatives and classmates of the missing 43 Ayotzinapa college students, march in Mexico City, Sept. 26, 2022, on the anniversary of their disappearance in Iguala, Guerrero state. U.S. authorities handed over a key suspect, Alejandro Tenescalco, in the 2014 disappearances, after the man was caught trying to cross the border Dec. 20, 2022 without proper documents.
(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ Thu, January 19, 2023
MEXICO CITY (AP) — U.S. authorities handed over a key suspect in the 2014 disappearance of 43 college students to Mexico, after the man was caught trying to cross the border Dec. 20 without proper documents.
Mexico’s National Immigration Institute identified the man only by his first name, but a federal agent later confirmed Thursday that he is Alejandro Tenescalco. The institute said he failed to qualify for asylum in the United States.
Tenescalco was a police supervisor in the city of Iguala, where the students from a rural teachers college were abducted by municipal police. Investigations suggest corrupt police turned the students over to a drug gang, who killed them and burned their bodies.
Alejandro Encinas, the head of the government Truth Commission, has called Tenescalco “one of the main perpetrators” of the crime.
He faces charges of kidnapping and organized crime. The Mexican government had offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest.
In 2022, the Truth Commission declared the disappearances a “state crime,” because authorities at all levels of government were involved in the disappearances and cover-up.
The investigations resulted in the arrests of three soldiers, including a now retired general who had been the army commander in the area when the abductions occurred. Also, then federal Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam has been accused of inventing the government’s original account based on torture and manipulation of evidence.
But some charges against dozens of other suspects have been tossed out because of tainted evidence. Man arrested in Santa Teresa tied with kidnapping 43 students in Mexico
Aaron Martinez, El Paso Times Fri, January 20, 2023
A man wanted in connection with the 2014 kidnappings of 43 college students in Southern Mexico was extradited to Mexico after he was arrested in Santa Teresa.
Alejandro Tenescalco-Mejia, 41, was turned over to Mexican authorities Wednesday at the international boundary at the Santa Teresa Port of Entry, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.
Tenescalco-Mejia, of Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, allegedly illegally entered the U.S. on Dec. 14 by climbing over the border wall near Santa Teresa. He was then arrested by immigration officials and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Enforcement and Removal Operations officers.
He remained detained at the El Paso Processing Center until his removal on Wednesday, officials said.
Tenescalco-Mejia was wanted in connection with the Sept. 26, 2014, disappearance and abduction of 43 college students in Southern Mexico. The students - all men from a rural teachers' college in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico - went missing when they were traveling on a bus, officials said.
Alejandro Tenescalco-Mejia, 41, was wanted in connection with the 2014 kidnappings of 43 college students in Southern Mexico .
According to Mexican court documents, Tenescalco-Mejia is one of several suspects wanted in the case.
"ERO made good on its promise to protect the American people by removing a suspected violent criminal back to his home country," Mary De Anda, field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Enforcement and Removal Operations in El Paso, said in a statement. "The ongoing cooperation between ICE and our Mexican counterparts resulted in holding another fugitive accountable for his actions, highlighting the critical public safety role ERO plays in the community."
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations arrested 46,396 noncitizens with criminal histories in the 2022 fiscal year. The people arrested had a total of 198,498 associated charges and convictions, officials said. The charges and convictions included 21,531 assault offenses; 8,164 sex and sexual assault offenses; 5,554 weapons offenses; 1,501 homicide-related offenses; and 1,114 kidnapping offenses.
'Concerning' map reveals where fish caught in the US are full of hazardous 'forever chemicals'
Morgan McFall-Johnsen Thu, January 19, 2023 An uncle and his nephew fish for salmon with a net on the Trinity River on the Hoopa Valley Reservation in California.
A map of documented contamination sites shows how PFAS pollution is everywhere.
Eating a fish from a local lake could be equal to drinking PFAS-contaminated water for a month.
Eating fish from a local lake or stream could give you a giant dose of hazardous "forever chemicals," equal to nearly a month of drinking highly contaminated water, researchers have calculated.
Since their invention in the 1930s, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have multiplied and spread. Humans have created thousands of substances in the PFAS class, since their resistance to water and heat makes them useful in everyday products like food packaging and clothing.
But in recent decades, research has revealed that PFAS are harmful to human health. Peer-reviewed research has linked them to some cancers, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, developmental delays, liver damage, high cholesterol, and reduced immune responses.
What's worse, PFAS only stick around and build up. They're nicknamed "forever chemicals" because they don't really break down. Now they're in soil, food, water, clothing, and even the dust in your home. One recent analysis found that rainfall across the entire planet contains unsafe levels of PFAS.
So it's no surprise that these substances have filled waterways across the US, where they can accumulate in the bodies of fish. Eating a fish can give you a concentrated dose of its entire lifetime of forever chemicals.
The problem is widespread across the US. The Environmental Working Group assembled a map, below, of the more than 500 samples of PFAS-contaminated fish. The instances span all 48 contiguous states.
An interactive version of the map on the EWG website contains details about each site.
The map is based on EPA data from 2013 to 2015, in which the agency tested over 500 samples of fish from freshwater sources across the US.
EWG researchers published their analysis of that data in the journal Environmental Research on Tuesday. They found PFOS — one of the most notorious substances — was the largest contributor to PFAS contamination in fish.
Eating just one freshwater fish could be equal to a month of drinking water contaminated with 48 parts per trillion of PFOS, EWG researchers calculated. Last year, the EPA lowered the level of PFOS in drinking water it considers safe to 0.02 parts per trillion.
"To find this level of contamination in fish across the country, even in areas not close to industry where you might expect heavy contamination, is very concerning. These chemicals are everywhere," Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, told CNN. PFAS are everywhere, making the planet 'a bit inhospitable'
Some places have even issued advisories about PFAS contamination in fish, like Wisconsin in 2021, when the state warned people not to eat smelt from Lake Superior more than once per month.
But states don't always detect or warn people about PFAS contamination in their fish. So taking your fishing pole to the local river could be riskier than you think.
"When we start to really worry about using our environmental resources, that makes me really angry and annoyed," Ian Cousins, who led the analysis of PFAS levels in rainwater, told Insider in August.
He said he's also seen PFAS contamination advisories for fishing spots in Sweden, where he lives.
"We kind of made the planet a bit inhospitable," he added.
The new EWG study found that the median total PFAS level in freshwater fish was 278 times higher than that of commercially sold fish tested in the last three years.
A fish market in Reading Terminal Market, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Hannah Beier/Reuters
While avoiding PFAS altogether is probably impossible, it can help to know how to cut out little things that pack big doses — like certain fish in certain waterways.
Though the EPA's stringent new guidelines for PFOS and its equally notorious cousin, PFOA, are not currently enforceable, the agency is working to clean up some of the country's most contaminated drinking water.
The 2021 Infrastructure Bill designated $5 billion for that effort.
Mexico Bans Solar Geoengineering After Startup Stunt
Lauren Leffer Thu, January 19, 2023 Stock photo of weather balloon floating above land
Luke Iseman released a photo of him supposedly launching a sulfur-filled weather balloon in Mexico, but the founder and his company didn’t respond to Gizmodo’s contact requests. So, here’s a stock substitute.
Mexico is cracking down on experiments in solar geoengineering. The controversial proposed climate solution, in which aerosol particles are released into the upper atmosphere to reflect the Sun’s heat, will no longer be allowed to take place in the country, the Mexican Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) announced last week.
Both large-scale and in-development projects involving solar engineering are to be halted, via coordination between the Mexican environment ministry and the country’s National Council of Science and Technology, the news statement noted. The goal of the new policy is to “protect communities and environments.”
The nationwide ban comes on the heels of climate tech startup Make Sunsets’ claims that it released weather balloons filled with sulfur dioxide particles from an unspecified location in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur—without any sort of permission, dialogue, or approval from any Mexican regulatory agency or authority. The startup’s co-founder, Luke Iseman (formerly of Y Combinator and numerous other startups that seem to have floundered or been abandoned), said in a December interview with MIT Technology Review that he’d conducted two test balloon launches there in April 2022.
But Iseman has contradicted his own claims since then. In a follow-up report from The Wall Street Journal, published Thursday, Iseman changed his story to “a single weather balloon.” And in a Wednesday blogpost from Make Sunsets, the company floated the possibility that it never actually released any sulfur balloons at all. “Make Sunsets will share all information about its activities in Mexico to date (if any) with... responsible agencies,” the startup wrote. “Make sunsets will cease its operations in Mexico (if there were any),” the post continues.
Gizmodo reached out to Make Sunsets for more information but did not receive a response.
Regardless of whether or not Iseman and Make Sunsets actually did what they claimed, the alleged stunt drew widespread criticism and concern from scientists and policy experts alike. Though solar geoengineering is a simple enough concept, safe implementation of the theoretical climate change remedy is a complex issue.
Blocking out sunlight via sulfur particles could trigger rapid and significant global shifts in precipitation that could leave some parts of the planet flooded and others arid, according to past research. If not managed properly, solar geoengineering could lead to even more erratic and rapid changes in temperature than we’re currently experiencing under climate change. And the use of sulfur, specifically, would likely damage Earth’s crucial ozone layer.
Then, there’s the geopolitical implications of a country or rogue actor deciding to go ahead and change the stratosphere’s composition without international buy-in.
For all of these reasons and more, it’s probably not in Mexico’s favor to allow this sort of unregulated geoengineering experimentation on its soil. The ministry’s press statement cites a United Nations moratorium on geoengineering that Mexico and nearly 200 other countries (though not the U.S.) agreed to in 2010—as well as the risk of dangerous climactic consequences. “There are enough studies that show that there would be negative and unequal impacts associated with the release of these aerosols,” wrote the environment ministry.
All that said, Iseman’s experiment (if it happened) probably wasn’t enough to impact much of anything. From a scientific perspective, it wasn’t even much of an experiment. The Make Sunsets founder previously told MIT Tech Review that he doesn’t know if the balloons released made it high enough in the atmosphere to distribute their sulfur in the correct place. And Harvard geoengineering researcher David Keith said that such a small amount of particles would likely have no effect on the climate.
Iseman is reportedly disappointed by Mexico’s decision. “I expected and hoped for dialogue,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I’m surprised by the speed and scope of the response,” he added. Prior to the ban, Make Sunsets indicated it planned to fly three more balloons from Southern Baja this month. Now, that presumably won’t happen. But the perpetual founder isn’t giving up. “One of my dreams is that we could, in some distant future, grow Make Sunsets legally and responsibility,” he said to the WSJ.
And maybe Iseman would have better luck back in the U.S., which hasn’t co-signed any pesky UN agreements to not block out the Sun. In 2022, the Biden Administration announced it’s developing a five-year plan for geoengineering research. If the ~$750,000 in venture capital money that Make Sunsets raised isn’t enough, perhaps in the near future, the company could apply for some federal funding.
Gizmodo
Why a Startup's Controversial Experiments to Cool the Earth Are on Pause
Alejandro de la Garza
TIME Thu, January 19, 2023 Sunset with beautiful cloud formations at San Francisco
Sunset with beautiful cloud formations at San Francisco Island in the Sea of Cortez in Baja California, Mexico. Credit - Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket—Getty Images
Make Sunsets, a company behind a recent controversial effort to cool the earth by releasing particles of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the upper atmosphere to reflect incoming heat, is canceling its upcoming experiments in Mexico, following a rebuke from the Mexican government.
“We have decided not to do launches in Mexico until we come up with a way to collaborate with the Mexican government,” Luke Iseman, the company’s founder, tells TIME in reaction to Mexico announcing on Jan. 13 plans to ban geoengineering. “We want to be working hard with government partners to buy us time for others to solve the shared challenges that we have to prevent catastrophic warming.”
The two-person company made news in the climate world last month when the MIT Technology Review reported that they had launched weather balloons containing helium and SO2 in the Mexican state of Baja California last spring—the first recorded attempt to alter the stratosphere in the name of climate action.
The intent was that the balloons would burst when they reached the upper atmosphere and release the SO2, which would theoretically reflect solar radiation back into space. Such methods, known as stratospheric solar geoengineering, are one of the most controversial areas of study in the climate world, due to the possibility of large-scale SO2 releases affecting global weather and agriculture in unpredictable ways. Many environmental activists are also opposed to the possibility, arguing that geoengineering constitutes a moral hazard, since polluters could conceivably argue that it gives them license to continue emitting planet-warming greenhouse gasses.
Following news of the Make Sunsets launch, the Mexican government issued a press release saying that it would “prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering,” citing a lack of international agreements and a 2010 UN moratorium on the practice. The announcement also noted that the startup had not consulted authorities before it carried out the experiments.
“It was surprising that people feel like we’re trying to sneak around some law when that is not the intent,” Iseman says. “There doesn’t appear to be some permit that I should have filed for and did not.”
Experts say that Make Sunsets’ SO2 release was small enough not to constitute an environmental danger, but many have criticized the company for attempting to profit off largely untested science. Make Sunsets sells $10 “Cooling Credits” on its website in exchange for releasing a gram of SO2 into the stratosphere, which it claims will correspond to eliminating the warming effect on one ton of carbon dioxide emissions for one year.
One of the concerns about geoengineering is the possibility that individual countries or even lone actors might take up the practice of their own accord, attempting to alter the climate without global buy-in or robust scientific support, a possibility that Make Sunsets might seem to illustrate.
Iseman, for his part, argues that there is no time to wait to pursue last-ditch climate efforts. He is hopeful that he can find another country more supportive of his work. “If someone, somewhere in the world wants to launch a balloon with us, I hope they reach out,” he says. “And if they are a government, I will bend over backward to be on the next plane to visit them.” Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering, forcing startup to pause operations
Ralf Geithe
Catherine Clifford Thu, January 19, 2023
The tiny startup Make Sunsets, which had been experimenting with releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight in order to cool the earth, said Wednesday it would cease operations for the time being and review its approach after the Mexican government cracked down on solar geoengineering.
Luke Iseman, a serial inventor and the former director of hardware at Y Combinator, believed all of that research was not happening fast enough. So he started tinkering with releasing sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere with balloons, raised venture capital to fund the startup, and brought on co-founder Andrew Song to manage sales.
Last Friday, the government of Mexico issued a statement that it plans to “prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering in the country.”
The statement said, “The opposition to these climatic manipulations is based on the fact that there are currently no international agreements that address or supervise solar geoengineering activities, which represent an economically advantageous way out for a minority and risky for the supposed remediation of climate change.”
The lack of an international governance structure surrounding global geoengineering was a big concern for industry watchers in regard to what Make Sunsets was doing.
“We appreciate the Mexican government’s concern for protecting communities and the natural environment and support their call for scientific expertise and oversight of climate intervention activities. We also appreciate their concern for national and local engagement and regret that we had failed to take this into consideration sooner,” Make Sunsets said.
Brayton Williams, a co-founder of San Mateo-headquartered venture capital firm BoostVC, who previously told CNBC the firm invested $500,000 in Make Sunsets, told CNBC the startup was “definitely not shutting down.”
“When you work with super early stage startups you get very accustomed to roadblocks and naysayers. Not sure we have seen a success yet that didn’t have to overcome massive hurdles early in the process,” Williams told CNBC. “Onwards!”
Kelly Wanser, the executive director of SilverLining, an organization promoting research and governance of climate interventions, supports the move by the Mexican government.
“The Mexican government is right to halt irresponsible activity and emphasize the importance of scientific examination and science-based governance for solar climate intervention,” Wanser said in a statement shared by a press officer. “Irresponsible activities and unfounded claims are an example of why society needs publicly supported research, scientific assessment, and the expansion of governance mechanisms like the Montreal Protocol, to help ensure a safe climate.”
Both Wanser and Make Sunsets both indicated their support for thorough and detailed study of sunlight reflection technologies.
That’s because sunlight reflection technology would be one of the fastest and cheapest options for bringing down the temperature of the globe, and there’s already evidence it works: The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines released thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, temporarily lowering average global temperatures by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But it’s not known whether the damage caused by sunlight reflection technology — possibly including damage to the ozone layer, increased respiratory illness, and acid rain — could be worse than the future effects of global warming.
“We agree that there are no alternative technologies that replace the need to reduce emissions to remediate climate change. We also see that the negative and unequal impacts of climate change are growing, and we hope to encourage the world to consider whether technological interventions have the potential to help,” Make Sunsets wrote in its blog post.
Wanser echoed that sentiment. “Increasing the reflection of sunlight from the atmosphere is one of the only means that scientists have identified to significantly reduce global warming within the next few decades. Understanding its risks and benefits through research is critical for the world’s most climate-vulnerable people,” she said in a statement.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Netflix’s German-language All Quiet on the Western Front is a haunting revelation
Ed Power
TELEGRAPH Thu, January 19, 2023 All Quiet on the Western Front
The First World War is reimagined as a symphony of mud, teen angst and terrible beauty in All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger’s stunning German-language retelling of Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel. As with Lewis Milestone’s 1930 Hollywood adaptation, it faithfully communicates Remarque’s message about the futility of the conflict. To this Berger adds production values that have the blood-in-ears rush of a hyper-stylised video game. Violence may be hell, but Berger bathes it in a pulsating shimmer. Oh, what a lovely-looking war he has conjured.
There’s always that extra zing when a war movie takes up the German perspective. That’s particularly true of the First World War, long distilled in the popular imagination into a mash-up of Wilfred Owen, Blackadder Goes Forth and Paul McCartney’s Pipes of Peace video. Such clichés are absent from Berger’s take. All Quiet on the Western Front instead feels like a Teutonic soulmate of Sam Mendes’s 1917, which likewise re-cast the ghastliness of the trenches as a haunting Neverland.
The film, which has a staggering 14 Bafta nominations, tells the story of 17-year-old German recruit Paul Bäumer (a charismatically mopey Felix Kammerer), across the span of the war. He is introduced as a naïve adolescent who lies about his age to sign up with his equally patriotic pals. But as soon as he reaches the frontline, he has the sense of entering a dystopian otherworld. That sci-fi factor reaches its inevitable conclusion when a phalanx of monstrously boxy French tanks rumble into view, sprung free from an HG Wells nightmare.
The dreaminess leaves little room for a conventional plot (another parallel with 1917). Berger and cinematographer James Friend have instead stitched together a series of vignettes that by turns convey the banality and the terrifying white-heat of the killing fields. The effect is visceral. A grey haze descends whenever the machine guns strike up and Paul and his friends – portrayed with cheery charm by Aaron Hilmer, Adrian Grünewald and Albrecht Schuch – become snarled in smoke and mummified in muck. These vividly-drawn characters are suddenly rendered indistinguishable: a commentary, surely, on how war reduces young men to indistinguishable killing machines or targets.
The tumult in the trenches is juxtaposed with the more orthodox account of German politician Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl) and his desperate efforts to bring the conflict to a close to prevent further needless deaths. He is opposed not just by the warmongering French but the Berlin military establishment. As personified by General Friedrich (Devid Striesow), they believe German honour must be safeguarded by continuing to toss teenagers into the meat grinder.
What stays with you is the eeriness. Two figures face off in a forest glade, framed by icy light. French soldiers in dehumanising gas-masks wield flamethrowers. Paul staggers from a tunnel wearing a funeral shroud of white ash. There are moments, admittedly, when All Quiet on the Western Front makes you feel as though you’re sitting through the most profound PlayStation cut-scene ever made. But the beauty is unrelenting and finally claustrophobic. Berger’s evocation of war and its horrors ultimately connects not at an intellectual level but where it truly matters: in the gut.
15 cert, 147 min. On Netflix now
Why the ‘Jewish treachery’ of All Quiet on the Western Front drove Joseph Goebbels mad
Tom Fordy Thu, January 19, 2023
In this article: 'It's not about politics': All Quiet on the Western Front showed the grim reality of life in the trenches - Reiner Bajo
In December 1930, Joseph Goebbels led an attack against the landmark anti-war film, All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the controversial, hugely successful novel published in 1928 by Erich Maria Remarque, a First World War veteran.
Last year a German-language retelling of the book was made by Edward Berger for Netflix, earning rave reviews and armfuls of nominations at the 2023 Baftas, as well as becoming the favourite to win Best International Feature Film at the Oscars in March. It is the first film adaptation by a German director. “If your [American] great-grandfather fought in the war, he came back and was celebrated and embraced,” has said Berger. “It’s just a different legacy in Germany. It’s only shame and guilt – that informs every creative decision I make.”
The original 1930 American-made film, directed by the Russian-born Lewis Milestone, depicted the bleak, traumatising reality for Germans in the trenches. In the story, a group of school chums enlist – all hyped up on the glory of war – and perish one-by-one. The film was critically acclaimed in the United States, Britain, and France; by the time it reached Germany, All Quiet on the Western Front had won Academy Awards for Outstanding Production and Best Director.
The National Socialists had warned against showing the film in Germany, though a lowkey industry preview in Berlin went smoothly enough. German critics, particularly those on the Right, disliked the film – not for any lack of artistic merit but for its portrayal of German soldiers and war disillusionment. The Nazi newspaper, Der Angriff, called the film a “Jewish lie”, while the liberal newspaper Vossische Zeitung claimed that the screening had provoked a “profound effect on the audience”.
The following night, on December 5 1930, the film premiered in Berlin’s swanky Mozart Hall. Goebbels and his brownshirts bought up a third of the tickets. Ten minutes into the presentation, Goebbels arose from his seat and headed to the exit, signalling the brownshirts to begin a chaotic disruption. They bellowed over the film – “Jews out! Germany awake! Hitler is at the gates!” – and unleashed stink bombs and white mice into the auditorium. Goebbels later boasted in his diary about the pandemonium: “After only 10 minutes the cinema is like a madhouse”. There was rioting outside the theatre and several more days of Goebbels-led trouble. The German government swiftly banned All Quiet on the Western Front.
“They banned it because there was a culture war going on,” says Alexander Watson, Professor of History at Goldsmiths University. “They didn’t ban it because it’s inaccurate. The Nazis made enough disruption that the government gave in – ‘Let’s ban it because it’s a danger to public order.’” Indeed, it was a victory for the rising Nazis. Joseph Goebbels – the party’s soon-to-be chief propagandist – understood the power of film.
Ninety-three years on, All Quiet on the Western Front remains a profoundly stirring piece of cinema – old-timey hokeyness punctuated with the bombshell-like moments of hellish violence and deep, soul-troubling sadness.
Netflix’s new adaptation realises the story on a scale way beyond the means and technology of the 1930 version. It plays like an opponent to Sam Mendes’ 1917 – told from across the battle lines – and gets deep into the filth, guts, and industrialisation of mass death. But few scenes equal a climactic moment from the 1930 film, as Lew Ayres’ hero, Paul Bäumer, carries his last surviving pal to safety – unaware that his friend is already dead. The scene was apparently inspired by a real-life incident in which Remarque had carried a wounded comrade back from the battlefield.
Remarque was called up in 1916, aged 18, and was sent towards the Western Front the following year. He never made it as far as the frontline. Wounded by grenade splinters in the Battle of Flanders, he spent most of the remaining war in hospital. All Quiet on the Western Front – Im Westen nichts Neues in the original German – was partly autobiographical but also based on second-hand accounts from fellow soldiers, some whom he’d met in the infirmary.
Im Westen nichts Neues was first serialised in Vossische Zeitung, a liberal Berlin newspaper, at the end of 1928. It was cleverly marketed – presented as an authentic account of life in the German trenches. The serialisation tripled the circulation of the newspaper, which was reported to sell out each edition. The book followed in January 1929.
Coming at a complex time for post-WWI Germany – when the country was facing reparations, a wave of militarism, and its own sense of loss – the story struck. By the end of the year, Im Westen nichts Neues had sold over a million copies and was translated into more than 20 languages.
Witness to history: Erich Maria Remarque, circa 1950
- Albert Harlingue/Roger Viollet
“There are so many war novels – you cannot count them!” says Holger Afflerbach, Professor of Modern European History at Leeds University. “Why this one? The overwhelming success shows that it was an appropriate and maybe true story about how the war was experienced by the normal soldier. It’s not about generals, it’s not about strategy, it’s about ordinary men.
“There’s a common theme in many of the soldiers’ recollections. Millions of people had to go through awful experiences – maybe they came as volunteers and discovered the realities of the war at the frontline. They were angry. This anger stayed with them for years after the war – that they had to go through it and that others had let it happen. They felt betrayed.”
The book was controversial. In Germany, the Right accused Remarque of betraying the country; his book dismantled the image of mighty German heroism. Other countries, including Italy, banned it.
Alexander Watson, whose book Ring of Steel is about Germany and Austria-Hungary in WWI, explains other reasons for its controversy. “Remarque was largely welcomed in Britain and France,” says Watson. “The impact in Germany – particularly the film – was far more complicated. Remarque presents the war as something that’s fundamentally pointless. We can say, ‘This is terrible and shouldn’t have happened’ if we’ve won. For the Germans it was much more difficult to accept because they had 2 million dead. How do you justify all those deaths to bereaved families – to say those deaths meant something – if a book comes out and says it was entirely pointless?”
The film rights were snapped up by Carl Laemmle, a German-born Jew and the founder of Universal Pictures. His son, the Hollywood wunderkind Carl Laemmle Jr, took the reins as producer. The film – a sombre, harrowing, un-heroic treatment on why war is most definitely hell – was risky for Universal. It also had the potential to transform the relatively minor studio into a major player.
Several writers worked on the screenplay, and newspapers from the time reported that Milestone had resisted calls to shoehorn a love story into the carnage. The film remained mostly faithful to the book. Remarque, when selling the rights, requested that the story wasn’t significantly altered. He wanted to maintain its anti-war message.
Outgunned and exhausted: German infantry resting during a lull in battle - Bettmann
Like Remarque, director Lewis Milestone had served – but in a very different capacity. He learned his craft in the Photographic Division of the United States Signal Corps. Based in Washington, he made training films and edited combat footage. As recalled in Andrew Kelly’s book, All Quiet on the Western Front: The Story of a Film, Milestone employed German veterans as behind-the-scenes advisors and technicians: one German veteran, Otto Biber, taught the actors how to goosestep. Also enlisted was landmark cinematographer Arthur Edeson (who also shot Frankenstein and Casablanca). Edeson’s work would prove vital for All Quiet’s first-of-their kind battles scenes.
Lew Ayres – who became a popular Hollywood star through a series of Dr Kildare films – took the lead role of Paul Bäumer, who loses all of friends after joining the 2nd Company. Ayres later caused some controversy for declaring himself as a conscientious objector during the Second World War – though he did enlist as a medic and served in the Pacific. Playing Bäumer’s closest comrade, the grizzled mentor Katz, was the likable, potato-ish Louis Wolheim. He died suddenly the following year, aged just 50.
All Quiet on the Western Front began production on November 11 1929 – the anniversary of the WWI armistice – a symbolic, publicity-friendly gesture. The film begins amped up on war enthusiasm – soldiers parading through adorning crowds, boys itching to fight. Bäumer and his friends are talked into volunteering by their school teacher, Kantorek (played with menace by Arnold Lucy). Echoing the words in Remarque’s novel, Kantorek tells his pupils that they are “the life of the Fatherland… the iron men of Germany… the gay heroes who will repulse the enemy when you are called upon to do so.” The scene is maddening – all maniacal laughter and spoiling for bloodshed. One pupil imagines putting on the Imperial uniform to show his parents at home – his mother is horrified, his father is proud as punch.
Kantorek personifies what Holger Afflerbach describes as “treacherous patriotism”. All Quiet on the Western Front is perhaps not as unpolitical as Remarque had claimed. “It is very clearly a reckoning with old-style patriotism,” says Afflerbach. “It’s this 19th century European patriotism that was taught in grammar schools. The teacher is probably the most negative figure in the entire story.”
'Treacherous patriotism': an early scene from Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front - ReinerBajo
These early scenes play into the long-held view of Germans greeting the war enthusiastically. “When war broke out in 1914, German newspapers were talking about war enthusiasm,” says Alexander Watson. “There were pictures of big crowds gathering, singing patriotic songs, shouting things like, ‘Down with Russia!’
“But a lot of research has been done since that shows a vast majority of Germans were very scared – most people didn’t want war. There were some crowds before war broke out, but those patriotic crowds were disproportionately students – and they were often gathering before Germany looked like it was entering the war. They were gathering to support Austria. It’s difficult to say whether they wanted war themselves.
“But once war breaks out, people go. Russia mobilises first so it looks like Germany is under threat of invasion. People in Germany said, ‘We don’t want to go but we’ve got to defend the country.’ It’s not that people were war enthused – it looked like it was ultimately necessary that they went.”
After enlisting, Bäumer and his pals are like children – all excited by their new army bunk beds – but are soon face-down in the mud, or going underpants-on-the-head crazy under the constant artillery bombardments.
The film is occasionally daft by modern standards – a company of German Imperial soldiers with Yankee Doodle accents, which may have rankled some German viewers. But even now, the trench warfare and battle scenes are a thundering, hellacious experience: screeching bombs, earth-rattling explosions, scores of men cut down by machinegun fire, and severed hands left clutching to barbed wire – a precursor to The Longest Day, Paths of Glory, and Saving Private Ryan.
There’s also hand-to-hand combat; bayonets that come spearing towards the camera. “All [other battles] shown previously are tame by comparison,” wrote a Los Angeles critic after the film’s premiere. Ninety-five years since the advent of talkies, it's now hard to imagine how terrifying and real the battles must have sounded to audiences at the time.
In one scene, Bäumer bayonets a French soldier and has to face watching him die. The new film replays the scene more gruesomely – a grim depiction of a violent death and trauma – but the original scene remains equally affecting. “Forgive me, comrade,” pleads Bäumer. “If we threw away these uniforms, we could be brothers.”
Bone-shaking accuracy: a battle scene from 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front
- John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images
The film was ahead of its time in striving for historical accuracy. The no-man’s land scenes were filmed at Irvine Ranch, south of Hollywood, where they used real dynamite blasts to create shell craters, and filled them with dirty water. When a rainstorm hit the production, Lewis Milestone sent his actors out into the torrid conditions for added realism.
As detailed in Andrew Kelly’s book, a sanitary inspector temporarily shut down the production for its all-too-real conditions. The inspector was accompanied by a nurse who had spent time at a field hospital in Dijon. “It brings back to mind all the terrible anguish of that struggle,” the nurse said.
Universal spent a reported $27,500 on real uniforms, rifles, gas masks, and field equipment from the war. The production was so epic that it went way over budget, rocketing from a planned $900,000 to $1.4 million. Publicity at the time claimed that twenty tons of gunpowder and ten tons of dynamite were used, while Universal also reported that 2,000 extras had been recruited – veterans from the American Legion and various nationalities. One veteran had shell-shock from his experiences and had to be sent home.
“Except for not using real bullets, we might as well have been in the war,” said cinematographer Arthur Edeson. “There were some close calls with explosions.” Indeed, newspapers reported in January 1930 that Lewis Milestone was almost killed in one explosion. He was hospitalised by a flying two-by-four. A German trench helmet had saved his life.
Like Remarque’s book, the film is often most powerful away from the battlefield. In one scene, the soldiers query why or how the war began, which has become a trope of WWI stories (Baldrick asks Blackadder the same before they go over the top). “Somebody must have wanted it?” ask the German soldiers about the war. “Maybe it was the English? It must be doing somebody some good. Maybe the Kaiser wanted a war?” Nobody seems to know.
“By 1917 soldiers were asking, ‘Why is this war lasting so long?’” says Alexander Watson. “There was a worry that the German government and army wanted the war to continue because they wanted to expand Germany and profit from it.”
For Holger Afflerbach, not dwelling on politics may explain the story's success. “It was not about politics,” Afflerbach says. “It was about the experience – they go through the gruesome experience and try to keep alive. It’s also the peer group experience. It's not the Kaiser that keeps them going. If they don’t stick together and look out for each other, they will die.” Awful realism: a scene from Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) - ullstein bild/ullstein bild
At times, the film is as much about hunger as death, with the 2nd Company scrambling for something – anything – to eat. It's certainly accurate: the British cut off Germany from international trade via a naval blockade. Around 750,000 Germans died of malnutrition or related diseases.
In another poignant sequence, Bäumer returns home briefly, where he’s surrounded by fusty old men who – having been nowhere near a trench – insist that the war needs to continue. “You must give the Frenchies a good licking,” says one. Bäumer returns to his school and warns Kantorek and the pupils about the less-than-triumphant realities of war. “It’s easier to say go out and die than it is to do it,” he says. Bäumer is called a coward, echoing the criticisms hurled at Remarque.
The scenes describe a discord between the frontline and folks back home. “Most people knew in 1914 that it was going to be terrible, but they didn’t know how terrible, or how long it was going to last,” says Watson. “Soldiers at the front did get very angry at the staff and generals, and there was some division between the soldiers at the front and home. In letters I’ve read you do see criticism of war-enthused people at home – who don’t know what on earth is going on – while soldiers are bearing the brunt.
“At the same time, you wouldn’t know from Remarque that German soldiers were heavily dependent on support from the home front – 28 billion letters and parcels were passed back and forth. By the second half of the war, the home front was very scarce on food but German families were still sending the soldiers whatever they could get.”
Lewis Milestone agonised over how to end the film. It was settled when a cinematographer friend, Karl Freud, said it should be “as simple as a butterfly”. In the final scene, Bäumer – his friends now all dead – spies a butterfly on the edge of no-man's land. He reaches to touch it but his hand goes limp – killed by a sniper days before the Armistice.
All Quiet on the Western Front was hailed as a masterpiece. “Universal Pictures deserves the thanks of mankind for their courage in making the picture,” wrote one American critic in June 1930.
As detailed by historian Jerold Simmons, the filmmakers had liaised with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America to navigate any material that may cause problems with domestic censors. Overseas, different countries requested different edits – all according to their own national sensitivities. The traditionally censorious Brits requested just one small edit. But Universal was most concerned with Germany, the second biggest market in Europe. The film was first shown to the German Embassy, which suggested small changes. The German censor board then approved the film with a few additional cuts.
For the Nazis – who made considerable gains in the 1930 election – All Quiet on the Western Front presented a political opportunity. The government was weak and nationalists, Nazi or otherwise, agreed that the German army should be perceived as strong. The Right wanted to maintain the myth that Germany had not lost the war on the battlefield, but because of liberal and Jewish treachery. The film had provoked a violent reaction in the post-WWI culture war.
Joseph Goebbels – who hadn’t actually fought in WWI – slated the film as a “Jewish version of a German soldier’s life”. His thuggish demonstrations raged on and the film was banned. The censor board denied that the Nazis has forced its hand. All Quiet on the Western Front was banned elsewhere, too, including Austria (where there was also nationalist uproar) Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and, oddly, New Zealand
Universal fought to re-release the film in Germany and, with some modest cuts, it was shown again in September 1931. There were no protests this time. The outrage was largely forgotten. “The film had lost its symbolic power” wrote Jerold Simmons. Master manipulator: Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi's chief propagandist, understood the power of film - Albert Harlingue/Roger Viollet via Getty Images
The Nazis banned the film again and burned Remarque’s book when they took power in 1933. Remarque himself – who wrote further war novels, including The Road Back – fled Germany. In 1943, the Nazis beheaded his sister. All Quiet on the Western Front was not shown again in Germany until 1952, and was not seen uncut until the 1980s – though, as Alexander Watson explains, likely due to lack of interest, rather than the film’s symbolic power.
Just as the not-entirely-accurate idea of “lions led by donkeys” dictates the memory of WWI in Britain, All Quiet on the Western Front is crucial in the cultural memory of WWI – a story that has shaped the popular narrative of the war from the German perspective.
“There’s some truth in all of what Remarque says,” explains Alexander Watson. “War enthusiasm, disillusionment and anger, old men being belligerent when they’re not the ones making the sacrifices. There’s some truth to the idea that for Germany it was ultimately a pointless war. They lost it. It was incredibly destructive.
“But people got offended in Germany because it’s not ‘whole’ truth. Remarque’s interpretation was disillusionment and pointlessness – it’s only about the horror and pointlessness. That’s not how Germans wanted to see it at the time – particularly Germans who lost family members. A lot of people thought it was a necessary war of defence in spite of those horrors. The problem with Germany embracing pacifism is you can’t justify those 2 million dead. How on earth do you justify a war that is lost?”
All Quiet on the Western Front is on Netflix now; the Baftas take place on 19 February
IN THE ERA OF BIRD FLU H1N5 Egg Smuggling Is on the Rise at the US Border as Prices Soar
Jelisa Castrodale Fri, January 20, 2023
U.S. Customs and Border Protections says it's experienced a 108% increase in the number of eggs and poultry products seized at U.S. ports of entry.
Nikada / Getty Images
The cost of eggs has steadily increased over the last year, to the point where all of us have probably stared at the price and thought, “that can’t be right.” But it’s true: The average cost for a dozen eggs hit $4.25 in December — and in some states, 12 eggs are selling for over $7.
But in Juarez, Mexico, shoppers can pick up a mega-carton of 30 eggs for the incredible-by-comparison price of $3.40. That kind of bargain seems to have prompted some U.S. citizens to travel across the border to buy eggs in Mexico, despite the fact that it’s against federal law to bring uncooked eggs or poultry products across the border.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), between October 1 and December 31, 2022, it saw a 108% increase in the number of eggs and poultry products seized at U.S. ports of entry.
“My advice is, don’t bring them over,” CBP Supervisory Agriculture Specialist Charles Payne told the online publication Border Report. “If you fail to declare them or try to smuggle them, you face civil penalties.”
Those penalties aren’t cheap, either. The fines for bringing undeclared raw eggs into the U.S. start at $300 and could increase to as much as $10,000. Before you get any ideas, no, you can’t just declare your egg haul to CBP officers and then drive home to make a less-expensive omelet. Even declared raw eggs will be seized and incinerated, but declaring that you’re transporting eggs will save you from any financial penalties.
“The advantage of declaring it is, we will pick it up with no penalty issued,” Payne said. “If you fail to declare it or if you attempt to smuggle it, there’s going to be a penalty.”
On Wednesday, Jennifer De La O, the Director of Field Operations at the CBP’s office in San Diego, tweeted that those ports of entry have also seen an uptick in egg smugglers.
“The San Diego Field Office has recently noticed an increase in the number of eggs intercepted at our ports of entry,” she wrote. “As a reminder, uncooked eggs are prohibited entry from Mexico into the U.S. Failure to declare agriculture items can result in penalties of up to $10,000.”
Specialist Payne did confirm to NBC San Diego that “personal meals” containing cooked eggs or cooked poultry would be allowed to cross the border. Sounds like you might want to get that omelet to go.
Customs officials are seizing eggs at the U.S.-Mexico border
Khristopher J. Brooks Fri, January 20, 2023
U.S. customs officials are cracking down on egg smugglers.
With egg prices soaring in the U.S. over the last year, more Americans are crossing into Mexico to buy the food item and trying to sneak cartons of raw eggs along some areas of the southern border, including California and Texas.
"We are seeing an increase in people attempting to cross eggs from Juarez to El Paso because they are significantly less expensive in Mexico than the U.S.," U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Roger Maier told CBS MoneyWatch. "This is also occurring with added frequency at other Southwest border locations."
Jennifer De La O, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection field operations director in San Diego, said in a tweet this week that her office "has recently noticed an increase in the number of eggs intercepted at our ports." Failure to declare agricultural items while entering the U.S. can carry fines of up to $10,000, she added.
Federal law prohibits travelers from bringing certain agriculture products — including eggs, as well as live chickens and turkeys — into the U.S. "because they may carry plant pests and foreign animal diseases," according to customs rules. Eggs from Mexico have been banned from entering the U.S. since 2012, according to the USDA. Cooked eggs are allowable under USDA guidelines.
A 30-count carton of eggs confiscated in January at a El Paso, Texas, border checkpoint. / Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
The number of incidents in which raw eggs were confiscated at U.S. borders jumped more than 100% during the final three months of 2022 compared to the same period a year ago, according to Border Report, an online news site focused on immigration issues. The price for a 30-count carton of eggs in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is $3.40, according to Border Report.
Egg prices in the U.S. have surged to an average of $4.25 a dozen, up from roughly $1.79 a year ago, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The cost of processed eggs — used in liquid or powdered form in manufactured products including salad dressing, cake mix and chips — has also risen.
Those price increases are being driven by growing consumer demand along with a decrease in domestic egg supplies caused by an avian flu epidemic that has devastated U.S. poultry flocks.
Nearly 58 million birds have been infected with the disease, while more than 43 million egg-laying hens have been slaughtered, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, making it the deadliest avian flu outbreak in American history. USDA officials are investigating what caused the outbreak.
People entering the U.S. must declare eggs at the border, Charles Payne, supervisory agriculture specialist at U.S. Customs in El Paso, Texas, told Border Report. A customs officer will still confiscate the eggs and have them destroyed, but will waive the penalty for the offender.
"We don't want to issue the penalties, but occasionally we have to," Payner told Border Report. "So if you declare what you've got, there won't be an issue."
The State that Wants to Ban Electric Vehicles
William Dahl Fri, January 20, 2023
A group of lawmakers in Wyoming has introduced a bill to ban sales of electric vehicles in the state by 2035, claiming the move will boost the state’s oil and gas industry while ensuring its ability to trade with other states.
Wyoming’s proposed phaseout of electric vehicles (EVs) would be timed for 2035 — the same year that California has pledged to phase out gas-powered cars. The proposal is mostly being viewed as a tongue-in-cheek response to progressive overreach in California.
Even if Wyoming manages to stamp out the EV revolution within its borders, it would be little consolation to the anti-EV lawmakers. California has a population over 52 times greater than Wyoming’s, and in late 2022, the Golden State surpassed Germany as the world’s fourth-largest economy.
If California were a country, only three nations would have a higher gross domestic product. They are, in order, the remaining 49 U.S. states, China and Japan. France, Italy, Brazil and the United Kingdom all have smaller economies than the $3.63 trillion in economic activity California achieved in 2022.
This dynamic is consequential to the clean energy transition because, in many ways, as California goes, so goes the nation. For example, the Trump administration sued California over its clean energy standards in 2018 because it knew that the biggest car manufacturers — from Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) to Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) — would manufacture vehicles to comply with California’s energy regulations over the looser ones of the Trump White House rather than forgo such a massive market.
Of course, President Joe Biden’s rise to the White House made that legal conflict moot. Today, the White House and California’s state government are working in tandem to hasten the transition to electric vehicles — including the federal initiative to spend $7.5 billion building America’s first-ever national network of EV charging stations.
But even this historic network of chargers pales in comparison to the $369 billion the federal government is spending to boost solar, wind, thermal and new battery technologies. This $369 billion package is not just the largest single sum the U.S. government has ever spent to boost clean energy, it’s the largest by far. Among numerous clean energy carveouts, it allows taxpayers to claim a 30% deduction on solar installation costs on their homes or businesses through 2032.
That’s great news for YouSolar, a startup company that’s helping customers transition to the electric grid. It’s doing so with the help of a nano-grid technology that delivers clean, reliable power with next to no involvement from the traditional energy grid. And given what you’ve just read on California’s vow to transition to clean energy, you won’t be surprised to learn that the company is already seeing more demand in Northern California than it can keep up with.
This article originally appeared on Benzinga.com Wyoming Lawmaker Admits EV Ban Proposal Was Just a Stupid Stunt
Andy Kalmowitz Fri, January 20, 2023 A Tesla car recharges its battery at a Supercharger on March 10, 2022 in San Bruno, California.
Basically, the bill only existed as a dumb middle finger to other states that were moving in the opposite direction, i.e. phasing out internal combustion-powered vehicles. It specifically takes aim at new rules from the California Air Resources Board which aims to push zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
Anderson says this is all being done in an effort to preserve customer choice. “It’s not good to dictate to the citizens what kind of vehicles they’re gonna buy, because of all the problems with [electric vehicles],” Anderson told Automotive News. He went on to say that the bill is meant to “make a statement.”
“If we pass it or don’t pass it, it doesn’t matter,” he said. So yeah, it was all just a big stunt to drum up outrage.
Part of the bill says that as EVs become the norm it will have “deleterious impacts” on Wyoming since the oil and gas industry has “long been one of Wyoming’s proud and valued industries.”
Anderson said that despite the fact the bill encourages industries and citizens to limit sales and purchase of new electric vehicles, folks in Wyoming can still buy any type of vehicle they want.
The bill also contains a number of inaccuracies including the idea that battery materials are not “easily recyclable or disposable.” It adds that Wyoming’s landfills are incapable of handling “all the batteries that are hazardous material.”
A spokesperson for the Zero Emissison Transportation Association told AutoNews that the idea of EV batteries not being recyclable is “clearly not the case.” They added that most battery components are “infinitely reusable” as long as critical minerals maintain their purity.
The bill is functionally dead in committee, but if by some weird miracle it does make its way though and passes, it won’t really have much of an impact on vehicle sales. The outlet reports that car buyers in Wyoming only purchased 228 electric vehicles in the first 11 months of last year. Somehow that wasn’t the lowest total, though, as only 213 BEVs were purchased by North Dakota residents last year.
So, what have we learned here? Well, other than the fact some lawmakers will waste everyone’s time with pointless, dead-end, self-serving bills, nothing really. But, I suppose we already knew that.
