The Fukushima crisis fading into the sunset as it must, temporary ersatz crises are now being  brought into play regularly in the not-so-vain hope of keeping the German national hysteria level unusually high, which isn’t all that unusual if you stop to think about it, really.

Today’s state of emergency was triggered by reported ozone layer depletion in the Arctic. Germany is now in a state of “ozone alarm” after UN scientists have determined that the Arctic’s ozone layer thickness has reached an alaming level and could cause in Germany, among other things, a mysterious medical condition known here as Sonnenbrand (burn of the sun or “sunburn”).

And I quote here, sort of: “The Arctic experiences ozone layer depletion seasonally up to around 30 percent. But this year’s unusual combination of extremely cold temperature in the stratosphere and the increase in the CFCs from refrigeration and aerosol sprays have caused a new record-high of 40 percent depletion.”

I don’t know, man. How did Commander Cody used to put it?

One drink of wine, two drinks of gin…
And I’m lost in the ozone again.

Erreichen sie (Schichten mit ozonarmer Luft) bewohnte Gebiete, droht Menschen, die im nun beginnenden Frühling die Sonne genießen wollen, unvermutet ein Sonnenbrand.

PS: They found their balls again. Now they know how many balls it takes to fill the Albert Hall.