1/ So, let's definitely do an Amanda Knox thread. The tl;dr is that her case was indeed a miscarriage of justice, which of course also happen in Italy, and probably more frequently than the USA. I'll quote the most important tweets as I respond.

https://twitter.com/dilanesper/status/1957875494671773739

2/ The first thing to realize is how incredibly unlikely the prosecution's scenario was. To believe the prosecution's case, you have to believe that an American and an Italian college student, both with no records of violence whatever,

1/ A thread about the class dynamics of air-conditioning in Europe. I believe attitudes toward air-conditioning are class markers in many European countries. Air-conditioning is seen as prototypically American, and that's important. 2/ I have lived in Germany for two decades and have observed the pro-A/C contingent here go from total defeat to now being on the verge of victory. The reason is normies. I remember visiting a local grocery store in my neighborhood just after it installed air-conditioning.

1/ Public swimming pool in Switzerland near the French border bans all foreigners except holiday-makers and those with work visas. Staff and customers are delighted, many locals are returning to the baths after avoiding them. City council member Lionel Maître, 2/ who obviously came loaded for bear, vigorously defends the ban. Local residents financed the construction of this pool and deserve to use it undisturbed. Young males from nearby French "problem neighborhoods" were making welt.de/politik/auslan…

1/ Air-conditioning is like smoking bans. For decades, Europeans in the chattering classes looked on with smugnorant amusement as "puritanical" Americans banned smoking in public, one of "life's civilized pleasures". People were still writing these articles in the early 2000s. 2/ This was mainly a product of cultural snobbery and reflexive negative polarization: Childish Americans were just having one of their moral panics again, like with topless bathing or alcohol prohibition or prostitution. But then people came back from vacations to

1/ I once spoke to a German judge about a case she had heard involving a short, squat defendant with very dark skin who claimed to be from Somalia -- thus setting up a defense against deportation if he was convicted. She Googled Somalia a bit and noticed that virtually all 2/ Somalis were tall, thin, with mahogany-colored skin. She did some research on what the main ethnic groups were in the Horn of Africa and found out that there is more genetic diversity between Africans of two distinct ethnic groups than there is between Africans

1/ In 2016, while Germany was still celebrating its own righteousness, a Syrian father entered Germany joined by 11 other family members. They settled in Stuttgart and promptly began committing crimes of all descriptions, including violent ones. bild.de/regional/stutt… 2/ So far, 10 of the 12 family members have accumulated long criminal records, the total number of cases is 154. Just yesterday, three brothers from this family (2 of whom had already served prison time) were sentenced to prison for a July 2024 knife-attack

1/ This article in Die Welt tells the armchair sociologist (and who isn't one?) so much about Germany. First the authors survey German city-cleaning agencies in many German cities, all of whom report a dramatic increase in street trash dumps. welt.de/politik/deutsc… 2/ Now comes the traditional part of every German news article about problems caused (mainly) by migrants: How to obfuscate the obvious truth that the problem is caused (mainly) by migrants. The 'Welt' is a center-right publication, so it makes a bold move:

1/ How "Feminist" Foreign Policy Endangers Women in Germany
Outgoing Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock from the Green Party proudly announced that she would be implementing a "feminist" foreign policy. 2/ You can read speech after speech from her describing what this was supposed to mean, but
it seems to just boil down to spending more money on aid projects for women and expressing disapproval of countries where women are denied basic rights.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/newsroom/ba…

1/ It's a shame that modern sociology is so ideologically demented, because it would be intersting to compare the movement to legalize pedophilia in the 1970s and 1980s to the movement for trans self-id in the last 10 years (obvious but necessary disclaimer: not equating… 2/ …pedophilia with transness).

In the early 1970s, leftist French academics decided the next phase of their "liberatory crusade" were abolishing prisons and legalizing sex with children. The German greens took up these ideas, especially sex with children.

1/ One of the highlights of Germany's decade-long immigration free for all was October 2015, at the height of the first surge. For the past months, Germany mainstream media consumers had been patiently instructed by a series of politicians and "migration experts" 2/ that "reputable scientific studies" had "conclusively shown" that "pull factors play little or no role in immigration". What's key are "push factors" -- the terrible conditions migrants are fleeing. Which means, of course, that Germany cannot control the situation

1/ Big news: *National AfD Gets the "Extreme Right" Stamp of Disapproval*
Germany's "Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution" (OPC) has released a report categorizing the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as "gesichert rechtsextremistisch"... 2/ a clumsy phrase which can be translated as "demonstrably extreme-right".
This will have considerable political and PR implications, and will of course be cited by every English-language publication as a kind of Homeric epithet.faz.net/aktuell/politi…

1/ Every week, as per British law, the Guardian is obliged to print an article by an English-speaking expat complaining about how "right-wing" the European country they live in has "become". This is what I call the "laptop-class bubble effect" (LCBE). theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 2/ A left-learning American or Brit teacher, professor, writer, or art type (there are 100 engineers and data analysis expats for every one of these, but those people don't count), sickened by the endemic racism and anti-intellectualism of their home countries,

1/ Sketch of some thoughts for an upcoming piece: Identity politics, postmodernism (and specialization, which is somewhat related to these) caused a big structural problem for the humanities which is now coming home to roost. 2/ Humanities professors, especially at public universities, are parasitic. They consume (modest amounts of) resources without instilling *high-value* marketable skills.

1/ Protests are now an ineffective political tool. 2/ They didn't stop globalization, they didn't stop the Iraq war, they didn't oust the Iranian government, they didn't stop Trump being elected and re-elected, the Tea Party didn't stop Obama's re-election, the 2021 US Capiol riot didn't stop Biden's election, the list goes on.

1/ The AfD is now tied for first place with the CDU in Germany. A shibboleth among the Euroleft is that center-right parties who ape "extreme-right" rhetoric only prompts voters to pick the "real thing". This is one of many direct counter-proofs to that theory. 2/ In a desperate scramble to avoid working with the AfD, the CDU has been trying to put together a "Grand Coalition" with the Social Democrats. But the Social Democrats have the whip hand, because they are the only party the CDU is *willing to* form a government with.

1/ "Adolescence" is an interesting case study. Growing up in the USA, you quickly become aware that violent crime as depicted in the mainstream media has nothing to do with actual violent crime that happens in the real world and which is your constant low-level concern in cities. 2/ Everyone understands at some level what typical cases of violent crime look like and who commits them -- in fact the series "48 Hours", which focuses on real violent-crime cases, captures the reality pretty well: imdb.com/title/tt027189…

1/ To fill their quota of fresh Afghan "resettlement" candidates, German diplomats rely on almost 100 NGOs who trawl through Afghanistan offering promising families resettlement in Germany. There have now been dozens of accounts of people presenting focus.de/politik/deutsc… 2/ fraudulent documents or failing DNA tests or background checks. German-language articles tiptoe around this issue but reading the accounts from anonymous diplomatic staff it appears some of these NGOs are quite sketchy and may be taking bribes or helping

1/ My favorite story was taking a cab back to my hotel in Jaipur, a Holiday Inn which was supposed to be one of the best. Maybe 30 minutes later there's a loud pounding at my door. It's the cabbie *and the hotel manager*. The hotel manager announces in barely-functional English

https://twitter.com/kunley_drukpa/status/1898121554904404115

2/ that the cab driver "accidentally gave me too much change" and that I need to fork over 3,000 rupees. I politely inform him this did not happen and I have no intention of giving the cab driver extra money. I then close the door. The knocking starts again.

1/ *Why more lone-wolf attacks in Germany are on their way*
💠As always, we begin with the numbers. With over 300,000 young males from Afghanistan and something like 1.5 million from various MENA countries and Turkey, regular murder sprees are statistically inevitable. 2/ edition.cnn.com/2025/03/03/eur…

1/ This comment from a therapist who works with mentally ill Afghans makes an important point: The EU's de facto open-borders asylum policy -- and Germany's decision to allow applications from people without ID papers -- negatively selects for the most feckless/unstable migrants.

https://twitter.com/WollJule/status/1891770749473444013

2/ She is currently treating four Afghan migrants. with schizophrenia. What she's learned from her interactions with this community is that there are two goals these young males have in Germany -- as they themselves confirm.

1/ American woman moves to Spain and eventually gets fed up with the lousy cuisine, weird hours, lack of air-conditioning, etc. For American expats, Spain is in the "uncanny valley" -- it looks like a functioning country, but it's not quite there.
edition.cnn.com/travel/america… 2/ Middle-class Americans are used to a standard of general competence and efficiency that no other country *quite* reaches. If an American (or German) relocates to a place like Vietnam or Colombia, of course you're going to adjust your expectations because you don't