The country's economy is facing a third consecutive year without growth

Unemployment in Germany has risen to its highest level in a decade, official figures released on Friday showed. The labor report comes as the country's faltering economy risks contracting for a third consecutive year.

The figures showed the number of unemployed individuals having topped three million in August for the first time since 2015. The month-on-month increase came in at 46,000 to put the tally at 3.02 million in seasonally unadjusted terms, or 6.4% of the population.

Last night's ZeroHedge Debate, hosted by journalist Mario Nawfal, posed the question bluntly: Does Israel's war in Gaza constitute genocide? The exchange between Brown University historian Omer Bartov and Ben Gurion University historian Benny Morris cut straight to the marrow. Here were the key highlights though we recommend the full discussion at the bottom:

"Ceiling to floor"

Bartov described the Israeli campaign not as combat but as destruction. "The IDF is engaged in demolition... ceiling to floor," he said, referring to operations that flatten entire neighborhoods. He noted that Israel has even contracted private bulldozer crews, some imported from the U.S., to carry out the razing — with soldiers dying not in firefights but in defense of heavy machinery.

[Full debate below:]

". . . this time the story has escaped the narrative guardrails and some real reckoning looms."
— Jeff Childers

Unwittingly, that New York Times headline is a wondrous case of the self-solving mystery. You come here to understand the many social and political mysteries of the day. I will attempt to unravel this hairball.

Most obviously, the suspect, now dead, in Wednesday's Minneapolis school shooting was not a "her." He was a him, a 23-year-old male, Robert Westman, who had been pretending to be a female for some years since undergoing puberty, with the encouragement of his parents and the cultural leaders of his city, including Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey, backed by the expressed principles of the national Democratic Party.

The essence of all that was a gigantic game of pretend, a broad and deliberate dissociation from reality for the purpose of maintaining a political racketeering operation, which is what the Democratic Party had become. Pretend that men can become women. Pretend that Covid vaccinations are safe and effective. Pretend that national borders don't matter. Pretend that crime is not a social problem. Pretend that riots are mostly peaceful. Pretend that our elections are free and fair. Pretend that "Joe Biden" is president. Pretend that Ukraine is fighting for democracy. And so on. All pretend.

Artificial Intelligence, transhumanism and technology will easily take over the world because people never think about ethics while doing whatever job they have that supports all this insanity. Ethics? Are you kidding? Who gives a crap about ethics? We don't need no stinkin' ethics.

Most people don't seem to give a rat's ass about what is going on in Ukraine, or Israel and Gaza. It is just business as usual. They certainly don't care about what is happening to art, or even romance and love. They undoubtedly don't give a second thought to their job supporting the decimation of the human race. If it makes them a nickel, then forget it. What do you expect a person to do? Starve?

(No, dear reader, I am not talking about you or many like us. You know who I am speaking of.)

Now, don't get me wrong, people do seem to think about things like foreign wars, inflation, riots in various places, but they do not think about the real reasons for any of these things. If they have been led to believe (which they have) that any of these inconveniences has to do with racism, homophobia or transphobia, hate for some out of favor foreign leader, climate change, or Trump's antics and his wanton destruction of democracy (which few people in the world can even define) then of course their ears perk up and they spew out a bunch of hate sound bites. But other than that, forget it.

I doubt if anyone out there would be happy with a job that is directly racist, or was directly anti-trans or anti-homosexual. There are plenty of people out there spending their days making money in some business that is directly responsible for climate change, pollution, or the destruction of humanity with Big-Foot-sized carbon footprints. But because the whole climate change nonsense is so hard to put a clear finger on, most people have to look sideways to see if what they are doing is actually promoting the very thing they lie awake at night worrying about.

The real things that are problems, the things that are unethical, they don't even see. And I would suspect that even if they did see them, they would do nothing about their contribution to them. They have to eat, right?

Hey, I am probably just as guilty as the next guy with a lot of this stuff. I am not one to severely limit my quality of life just because everyone else on this side of the fence is doing so. Well, to a point, maybe, but mostly not. My bad, truly.

Zelensky's attempt to strip the independence of anti-graft bodies triggered mass demonstrations last month.

The Ukrainian authorities have introduced a requirement that all mass gatherings receive prior approval from the military, according to local media and an official. The move comes weeks after Vladimir Zelensky faced widespread protests over his attempt to curtail the independence of anti-corruption agencies.

The restriction, attributed to security concerns, was reported this week based on a leaked instruction from Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko to senior officials. The document outlined a general regulation for mass gatherings under martial law and stated that in Kiev, organizers must obtain permission directly from the General Staff.

On Friday, Nikolay Kalashnik, the head of the Kiev Region administration, confirmed the policy in comments about a recent event - a small concert that he said sparked complaints from residents and had not been approved by the military.

From August 29-31, thousands of Palestine supporters will gather in Detroit, Michigan, for the second annual People's Conference for Palestine, guided by the principle: Gaza is the Compass.

For two years, Gaza has been a moral and political compass that has guided so many towards true liberation.

Israel, with full US backing and support, is starving 2 million Palestinians, carrying out a plan for mass displacement and ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and the West Bank, and continuously bombing and shooting Palestinians with the number of martyrs rising daily.

Israel's brutality, though gruesome and with the ultimate price being paid by Palestinians in Gaza, resembles more the last thrashes of a dying beast, than it does a mighty force. Zionism itself is facing an existential crisis. Around the world, Israel's murderous rampage has given it a spotlight for international scrutiny and has turned Zionism into a pariah among the world's masses.

Israel has been exposed on the world stage, for its colonial, apartheid, and genocidal project that continues to dispossess and oppress the Palestinian people. This political turning point provides us with an opportunity to utilize every tactic and strategy to ensure this genocide not only comes to an end, but also that Zionism fails to survive this indelible mark in history.

The transgender mass shooter who carried out a horrific attack on Christians at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, killing two children and injuring 17 others before taking his own life, wrote in a dark, troubling manifesto posted online that he was "tired of being trans," according to a New York Post report.

"I only keep [the long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself," 23-year-old transgender man Robin (Robert) Westman wrote in the manifesto, which was translated by NYPost journalists.

The transgender man continued, "I can't cut my hair now as it would be an embarrassing defeat, and it might be a concerning change of character that could get me reported. It just always gets in my way. I will probably chop it on the day of the attack."

The H-1B visa system is a scam, plain and simple. What started decades ago as a "temporary work program" to fill supposed gaps in specialized fields has turned into a full-blown racket that sells out American workers and ships our middle class right out the window. And US corporations are gaming the system, replacing qualified Americans with cheaper foreign labor, all while patting themselves on the back for being "innovative" and "diverse."

This program is so rotten from the inside out, it can't be fixed with a tweak here or a reform there. It's corrupted to the core, and at this point, the only real solution might be to scrap the entire thing and start over with a true America First reset that puts American workers first, not multinational profits.

And Charlie Kirk agrees.

"No child here is swimming in German waters, they remain in their Arab, Turkish, Afghan pools"

German schools are dealing with "hell." That's the conclusion reached by Die Welt newspaper, as cited by Hungarian outlet Mandiner. Based on numerous case studies, it is clear that "far too many children are being sent to school who can barely concentrate and, above all, who do not speak German."

Families, children, and teachers are suffering the consequences of the bad policies from politicians. In short, they "have failed." One major issue is the death of the German language itself, across Germany.

In the Hemshof district of Ludwigshafen, for example, barely a word of German is heard. The students in the district's Gräfenau elementary school are 98 percent migrants.

At least two people are dead and up to as many as 20 injured after a gunman opened fire at a Catholic school and church in Minneapolis early Wednesday, officials said — just two days after school began.

First responders and law enforcement swarmed the area surrounding the Annunciation Church just after 8:30 a.m. following reports of heavy gunfire, authorities said.

A male gunman was later found dead, law enforcement sources told The Post.

An initial emergency police alert described "a man dressed in all black and armed with a rifle" had opened fire and there were "at least 20 victims."

Local police haven't confirmed how many people were injured.