Inaugural Cynic’s Newscycle post: Ready for World War III?

Another week of model civilization is in the books. With Oktoberfest a breath away, we take a look at the Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Abhorrent, wondering how history might reminisce back to another glorious 10-day span.

1 – THE ABHORRENT – Israel continues to spread genocide vibes left and right.

Based on various people’s proclamations, World War III has come and gone about 27 times in the last decade. Others say it silently happened and just never got registered as such. Headlines aside, we’ll steer clear of that designation in an attempt to avoid the populist label. In what may just be remembered as the straw that broke the camel’s back, Israel managed to kill Hezbollah’s leader. You’d be forgiven if this struck you as a surprise. The regime’s effectiveness at killing children and women is impressive, but their capability in exterminating ‘real terrorists’ has been nothing short of unimpressive. Who’s laughing now? The numbers game has won: If you murder tens of thousands, a few of them are bound to be high profile targets.

The week started with surprising, albeit encouraging news. US and their allies kindly requested a 21-day ceasefire across the Lebanon-Israel border! Talk about saving your reputation! Mad that Netanyahu won’t even let them run their pre-election campaigns in peace, USA seemed ready to put their foot down and demand peace. Unfortunately, after contemplating it for about 14 seconds, Bibi disagreed.

2 – THE UGLY – Von Der Leyen’s pony finally gets justice

They say that there is no better way to hinder a negative newscycle, but to keep throwing negative nuggets in an effort to render all the shit normality. Two years after a wolf committed the mortal sin on Ursie’s beloved pony Dolly, VdL is back with a vengeance. A bunch of enlightened and cultured EU countries voted towards a demotion of wolves’ protection status. If the proposal goes through and is finalized by the end of the year, hunters and other recreational gamers will be permitted to take down wolves for pleasure more casually, since their immensely rising population is a threat to farming, let alone human beings’ wellbeing.

After years of spending money on meaningful programs that advocate for the peaceful co-existence between wildlife and local communities in Africa, essentially pointing the finger to our southern neighbours for not taking such excellent care of lions, cheetahs and antelopes, EU has decided that wolves and civilization don’t go well.

But not all is as bleak as it sounds. Maybe the plan will be discarded for a better one, whereby wolves are sent to sanctuaries and camps in safe countries that could use the cash, where the wild dogs can finally comprehend the perils of reproducing at such high rates that they bother humans. If not, at least wolves migrating from other continents might hear of the tough luck awaiting them in Fortress Europe and think again before taking the boat north looking for greener pastures.

3 – THE BAD – Italy’s Il Duce (or is it Douche) nostalgia hits red

Georgia Meloni and her entourage are on quite the roll. Their human rights parade continued via the revival of ‘Grades for Conduct’, a genius regulation first enforced by none other than Benito Mussolini back in the country’s glory day. Disorderly, naughty students will now have to watch their attitude, particularly relative to their treatment of teachers, else they’ll risk repeating classes or paying fines more expensive than their parents’ paycheck. Considering Meloni’s popularity among good old family men and women throughout Europe, we can promptly expect more European havens to reinstall similar laws that can keep delinquent underagers at bay.

4- THE GOOD – Brandenburg shouts ‘Never Again’!, shows some good ol’ German pride

In what legacy media seems to regard as the single positive bombshell of 2024, SPD managed to take down AFD at the Brandenburg elections. For anyone who’s spent more than 26 minutes in a Brandenburg town or village, this might come as quite the shock. Of course, after wasting some precious time googling the past of Brandenburg elections, you’ll come to realize SPD never actually lost an election since the wall fell. Whether that is because of citizen-politician affiliations and customer relations rather than actual political ideology of the region’s peasants, I’ll let you decide for yourself.

The funniest piece of news out of the ordeal, however, is how SPD will have to struggle to form a coalition with the ‘hard left’ of Sahra Wagenknecht. How can a moderate, liberal loving social democrat party supporting genocide find common ground with an Islamo-homophobic, anarchist power on the rise? Next time you’re in Brandenburg, just make sure to remind Sahra’s voters that they voted for a ‘hard left’ party, just in case they forgot to find out from Deutsche Welle.