Saturday Miscellany

First, on the anti-Semitism watch. Dr. Eli David writes:

500,000 killed in Syria? 380,000 killed in Yemen? 240,000 killed in Afghanistan? 500,000 killed in Sudan? 300,000 killed in Iraq? It's fine. No “Doctors Against Genocide” 

Israel defends itself against Hamas? “Doctors Against Genocide” is formed.

A separate standard for Jews.

Second, the war in Ukraine is winding down. Those of us, including yours truly, who believed that a negotiated settlement was better than destruction, have been proved prescient.

From Sean Davis, of The Federalist:

It was obvious from the beginning this would only end with a negotiated settlement that included Russia claiming a large swath of land. That settlement could’ve been agreed to years ago, before hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Everyone with a brain and a soul knew it. And the only reason they were sent into the meat grinder is because a bunch of politicians in Washington and London decided years of death and misery were worth it because a profit could be made for their benefactors in the military-industrial. That’s not my opinion, as the war’s backers proudly said as much out loud. Lindsey Graham was happy to fight to the last Ukrainian. Mitch McConnell all but said wiping out a generation of Ukrainian men was a worthwhile trade for rebuilding America’s defense industry. Major national newspapers and networks published and broadcast that propaganda in both their news and editorial products. Joe Biden and the remnants of the Obama administration decided Zelensky had to be protected at any cost because of all the money that flowed to the Biden family through Ukraine. These people are monsters, who care nothing for peace or stability or human life. They are evil. They want money and power above else, but what they deserve is your total contempt.

Third, the New York Times reports on the situation in Ukraine, as of a couple of days ago:

Russian forces have recaptured land hard won by Ukrainian troops at the peak of their summer counteroffensive in the south, just as Washington announced that it was releasing the last remaining Congress-approved package of military aid available to Kyiv.

Fourth, Batya Ungar-Sargon, of Newsweek, comments on the Claudine Gay kerfuffle:

Claudine Gay is not some mistake Harvard made. A serial plagiarist with no moral compass is the apotheosis of higher ed. Our universities aren't institutes of learning but places where affluent progressives confer plaudits on each other—then render everyone else second class.

Fifth, John Sailer reports on faculty hiring practices, in history departments. It explains how we got to where we have gotten to:

Half the faculty jobs in history over the last three years focus on ethnic identity, 35% on African American history. And this doesn’t account for the jobs focused on social justice/equity. Based on what I’ve seen, this is a good picture of what’s going on throughout academia.

Sixth, the DeSantis campaign is on life support, apparently because the candidate is not sufficiently charismatic. And yet, when it comes to getting results, DeSantis outpaces them all.

Bonchie reports:

DeSantis breaks the back of the Miami teacher's union, one of the biggest education victories for any Republican in the last decade, and none of your favorite influencers have even mentioned it. But sure, it's all about campaign strategy.

Seventh, from PsyPost:

Trigger warnings are statements designed to forewarn viewers about potentially distressing content. A recent meta-analysis of 12 studies concluded trigger warnings have no effect on emotional responding to negative material or educational outcomes. This research was published in Clinical Psychological Science.

Eighth, the world’s first ecosexual has fallen in love with an oak tree. The Daily Mail has the story:

A woman describes herself as an 'ecosexual' - and says she's in an 'erotic' relationship with an oak tree.

Sonja Semyonova, 45, has always felt lonely but says her new relationship with the tree has filled a void.

Sonja, a self-intimacy guide, even says that the feelings she experiences with the tree are what she has always looked for in a person.

Sonja, from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, said: 'The presence I feel with the tree is what I'm looking for but that's a fantasy with a person.

'The feeling of being tiny and supported by something so solid. The feeling of not being able to fall”

And you thought that size didn’t matter!

Ninth, in regard to the October 7 massacre, Hamas supporters insist that it did not happen. They also insist that it did not involve sexual violence against women. 

Of course, these were lies, designed to dupe the gullible. And among America’s youth, there is no shortage of gullible dupes.

Now, as of yesterday the New York Times reported on what happened to women when Hamas invaded Israel. It turns out that it was as bad as the Israelis said it was. 

Now, since it appeared in the New York Times, even the most gullible of dupes are allowed to believe it. Anyway, here are some excerpts from the Times:

The first victim she said she saw was a young woman with copper-color hair, blood running down her back, pants pushed down to her knees. One man pulled her by the hair and made her bend over. 

Another penetrated her, Sapir said, and every time she flinched, he plunged a knife into her back. She said she then watched another woman “shredded into pieces.” 

While one terrorist raped her, she said, another pulled out a box cutter and sliced off her breast. “One continues to rape her, and the other throws her breast to someone else, and they play with it, throw it, and it falls on the road,” Sapir said.

She said the men sliced her face and then the woman fell out of view. Around the same time, she said, she saw three other women raped and terrorists carrying the severed heads of three more women. 

Sapir provided photographs of her hiding place and her wounds, and police officials have stood by her testimony and released a video of her, with her face blurred, recounting some of what she saw. 

Yura Karol, a 22-year-old security consultant, said he was hiding in the same spot, and he can be seen in one of Sapir’s photos. He and Sapir were part of a group of friends who had met up at the party. 

In an interview, Mr. Karol said he barely lifted his head to look at the road but he also described seeing a woman raped and killed. 

Since that day, Sapir said, she has struggled with a painful rash that spread across her torso, and she can barely sleep, waking up at night, heart pounding, covered in sweat.

“That day, I became an animal,” she said. “I was emotionally detached, sharp, just the adrenaline of survival. I looked at all this as if I was photographing them with my eyes, not forgetting any detail. I told myself: I should remember everything.” 

Have you seen enough? Consider this, also from the Times:

The Times viewed photographs of one woman’s corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin.

The Times also viewed a video, provided by the Israeli military, showing two dead Israeli soldiers at a base near Gaza who appeared to have been shot directly in their vaginas.

And also,

He said he then saw five men, wearing civilian clothes, all carrying knives and one carrying a hammer, dragging a woman across the ground. She was young, naked and screaming.

“They all gather around her,” Mr. Cohen said. “She’s standing up. They start raping her. I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words.”

“Then one of them raises a knife,” he said, “and they just slaughtered her.”

Please do your mind a favor and do not rationalize this barbarity by saying that Israelis had it coming. And don’t gin up your empathy for the Palestinian people who brought destruction on themselves.

Tenth, Maine’s Secretary of State, a refugee from the Southern Poverty Law Center, by the name of Shenna Bellows, is making a name for herself. Normally, I like strange names; they have their charm. 

In banning Donald Trump from the presidential primary ballot in Maine, Bellows has drawn attention to her pathetic insufficiency. After all, she is not a lawyer. 

Professor Margot Cleveland has the last word on the Bellows nonsense:

Maine Secretary of State claims that the reason Trump needed to be legally removed from the ballot was because “If his name was on the ballot, there’s a good chance people would have voted for him.”

Have we reached peak stupid? If not, we are awfully close.

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