It seems that it is very trendy among American nazillons, the latest facho chic. Senate Committee investigation into attack on Capitol Hill by Donald Trump supporters reveals far-right militias are no longer content to communicate via encrypted messaging but are increasingly using good old-fashioned shortwave radios to coordinate their glorious offensives. Slateto explain this retro fashion, scrutinizes the sepia image of White Power and recalls that the Ku Klux Klan, like other racist movements, already used CB radios in the 1960s, like the sheriffs of rural counties or the truckers, to the point of setting up these devices as a symbol of their militant networks.
The great return of communication low tech can be explained by tactical reasons: the militias act in very small groups and find these instantaneous exchanges on multiple frequencies more practical, which the police struggle to spot in time. The other reason? Show off. These walkie-talkie-style radios, hung on the body armor between the magazine pockets and the shoulder strap of the AR-15 rifle, enhance the martial look of these would-be soldiers of fortune.
Elon worries
In an email, Elon Musk admits to feeling “a very bad feeling about the economy”and, to join the gesture to the divine word, fires a month later 200 employees of the autopilot department of Tesla, some of which had just been hired, confirming in stride, according to Reuters, the imminent dismissal of a tenth of the 100,000 employees of the pioneer of the American electric car. The prospect, inevitable in his eyes, of a recession or a severe reduction in sales would justify these sharp cuts, but the reduction in costs is above all due to the poor results of the second quarter, after the complete closure of the Shanghai due to Covid-related containment.
In addition, Musk, who hates telecommuting, ordered all his employees to return to Tesla’s offices under penalty of dismissal. Fortune reveals that many of them, when they arrived, did not even find a chair to sit on, let alone a parking space. In short, all this had not been very thought out.
A hacker’s life
Axel Kirschner was just 1 year old when he arrived in the United States, from Guatemala, in the arms of his parents, illegal immigrants. He was 37 years old when, following an ordinary car collision near New York, the police discovered that he was illegally on American territory. His main job, hacker, had not pushed the authorities to indulgence. Deported to his native country, he learned on his arrival that the local civil registry had been destroyed by a hurricane, and with it all the proof of his existence and his original nationality.
This is only the beginning of Axel’s tribulations, recounted in a book whose Rest of World publish an excerpt. By attempting to return to the United States on foot via Mexico with a caravan of other migrants, the hacker was able to use his talents. His group had been arrested by the Mexican federal police and placed in a detention camp where the telephone network was cut off by the jamming antennas installed by the guards. Axel, with his smartphone and the computer of a local volunteer, hacked into the police network and quietly restored communications, allowing the migrants to secure their release and continue on their way to the border.
Congress and Semiconductors
Joe Biden, to stop being at the bottom of the polls, was counting on a feat of arms: a fine program of 52 billion dollars intended to boost the production of semiconductors in the United States to fill the shortage of these essential components for all industries, and deprive China of its quasi-monopoly on these technologies. The project, applauded by Republicans and Democrats, an extremely rare exception, should have been ratified in a flash. It was eight months ago. And nothing has changed yet. David Ignatius, famous columnist at the Washington Post, describes one of those grotesque legislative boondoggles that encourages the anti-politician resentment of citizens. Put simply, the bill, called the America Competes Act, was so popular and assured of a final vote that elected officials in Congress used it as a legislative Trojan horse, stuffing it with mini-bills often unrelated to semiconductors, which are now the subject of fierce debate in both houses. Ignatius recalls, a little annoyed, that the Europeans, reputed to be slow to relax, are already ready to launch their competing industrial project.
Questions about Q
Q is back! After a year of silence, the mysterious high priest of QAnon, a network of conspiracy theorists who, among other things, assures that Donald Trump is secretly fighting against a satanic pedophile cabal hatched by the Democrats, left a cryptic message on the 8kun messenger: “Shall we play the game again ?” (“Are we starting to play again?”). His millions of followers believed that Q was a senior US intelligence official familiar with the sinister conspiracy of Washington’s elite. According to New York Times, it would most likely be a man named Ron Watkins, a programmer in his thirties, former administrator of the fascistic gossip site 8kun, who is running under his real identity for a mandate as an elected Republican from Arizona in Congress. Without much hope, by the way. His performances in the primary debates were abysmal.