Saturday Miscellany

First, as though on cue, Senator Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor to denounce Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace. Schumer called for new elections in Israel.

I have been following New York Times columnist Tommy Friedman and I suggested that he was promoting the Biden party line. Now, we see the same party line promoted by Schumer himself, the leading Democratic Jewish politician in America.

Most people are appalled by Schumer’s election interference, but  is the cover up is more important. By emphasizing Netanyahu and by blaming him for being an obstacle to peace, the Democratic Party is doing everything in its power to ensure that no one figures out that the person who is most responsible for what is happening in Israel and Gaza is-- Joe Biden himself. It is setting the terms of the narrative, which shifts blame away from Biden.

Second, we should keep in mind the unexampled moral depravity shown by Hamas. Blaming Netanyahu is rich indeed.

David Goldman tells us about Hamas:

Hamas is the first combatant in all of history that tries to maximize casualties among its OWN civilian population, to win sympathy from the squeamish and credulous. Not even the Nazis did this. Not even the Nazis, for that matter, raped their victims before butchering and burning them. It is the wickedest entity in the whole grisly history of warfare. The civilian death toll--even if inflated by Hamas propagandists--is horrifying, but not nearly so horrifying as the Hamas strategy. This is an evil that must be extirpated, and Israel is fighting the fight of all civilized peoples.

Evidently, saving Joe Biden is more important for Congressional Democrats.

Third, meanwhile back in Ukraine, things aren't going very well for the beleaguered and outgunned Ukrainian forces. The French magazine Marianne has the story, based on analysis conducted by the French military:

"A Ukrainian military victory now seems impossible" 

The reports Marianne consulted write that Ukraine's counter-offensive "gradually bogged down in mud and blood and did not result in any strategic gain" and that its planning, conceived by Kiev and Western general staffs, turned out to be "disastrous": "Planners thought that once the first Russian defense lines were breached, the entire front would collapse [...] 

These fundamental preliminary phases were conducted without considering the moral forces of the enemy in defense: that is, the will of the Russian soldier to hold onto the terrain". 

The reports also highlight "the inadequacy of the training of Ukrainian soldiers and officers": due to a lack of officers and a significant number of veterans, these "Year II soldiers" from Ukraine - often trained for "no more than three weeks" - were launched into an assault on a Russian fortification line that proved impregnable. Without any air support, with disparate Western equipment that was less efficient than the old Soviet material ("obsolete, easy to maintain, and capable of being used in degraded mode", the report mentions), the Ukrainian troops had no hope of breaking through. Add to this the "Russian super-dominance in the field of electronic jamming penalizing, on the Ukrainian side, the use of drones and command systems".... 

The reports also highlight that contrary to Ukraine "the Russians have managed their reserve troops well, to ensure operational endurance."

"To date, the Ukrainian general staff does not have a critical mass of land forces capable of inter-arms maneuver at the corps level capable of challenging their Russian counterparts to break through its defensive line," concludes this confidential defense report, according to which "the gravest error of analysis and judgment would be to continue to seek exclusively military solutions to stop the hostilities". 

A French officer summarizes: "It is clear, given the forces present, that Ukraine cannot win this war militarily." "The conflict entered a critical phase in December" "The combativeness of Ukrainian soldiers is deeply affected," mentions a forward-looking report for the year 2024. 

"Zelensky would need 35,000 men per month, he's not recruiting half of that, while Putin draws from a pool of 30,000 volunteers per month," observes a military officer returned from Kiev. In terms of equipment, the balance is just as unbalanced: the failed offensive of 2023 "tactically destroyed" half of Kiev's 12 combat brigades. Since then, Western aid has never been so low. It is therefore clear that no Ukrainian offensive can be launched this year. 

Now you know why Ukraine has disappeared from the news cycle.

Fourth, the singularly inept Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Qatar. He managed to declare that Israel’s most important job in Gaza was protecting civilians.

To which Sean Durns replied on Twitter. Here, he said, are a few words that American general never pronounced during World War II:

‘America’s no. 1 job in WWII is protecting Japanese and Germans’

Fifth, let them eat meat! So says a Harvard trained doctor in the Daily Mail:

Meat is essential for warding off depression and anxiety, a top nutrition expert has revealed, sending a blow to veganism. 

Dr Georgia Ede, a Harvard-trained nutritional and metabolic psychiatrist, studies the relationship between what we eat and our mental and physical health. 

And despite the health halo that vegan diets have been given over the last few years, she claims that giving up meat could be detrimental for mental health.

'The brain needs meat,' she told KIRO News Radio. 

'We’re used to hearing that meat is dangerous for our total health, including our brain health, and plants are really the best way to nourish and protect our brains.'

'But the truth of the matter is that it’s actually — that’s upside down and backward.'

And also,

She noted that meat is 'the only food that contains every nutrient we need in its proper form and is also the safest food for our blood sugar and insulin levels.

 

These nutrients include vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, choline, iron, and iodine. 

Vitamin B12, for example, helps with the formation of oxygen-rich red blood cells and DNA. However, it has also been linked to regulating mood-boosting serotonin, and low levels of serotonin have been linked to increased risks of depression and anxiety. 

Sixth, more and more universities are reinstituting standardized test scores for applicants. They have learned their lesson.

Jazz Shaw explains it in Hot Air:

The University of Texas at Austin released the academic performance data for students who submitted standardized scores versus those who did not submit such scores. The result is unambiguous: Students who did not submit standardized tests performed drastically worse than students who did submit their scores. 

The students who did not submit ACT or SAT scores finished the fall 2023 semester with a grade point average 0.86 grade points lower than students who did. This demonstrates an average difference of almost an entire letter grade. Had the University of Texas utilized all applicants’ standardized scores, it very well might have decided against admitting many of those who did not provide their scores. Students who did not provide scores had a median SAT of 1160, markedly lower than that of the students who did provide their scores: 1420. The University of Texas would have been correct in deciding against admitting those students with lower scores given how much better students with a higher average SAT performed academically.

Seventh, economist Angus Deaton has changed his mind about immigration. Previously, he had supported it. Now, not so much. From Breitbart News:

Importing tens of millions of third-world people with no skills and no money into a first world nation with an enshrined welfare state, does not benefit the people of that nation, as the latter are forced to foot the bill.

Eighth, speaking of unintended consequences, the rage against Donald Trump, playing itself out in courtrooms across the east coast, has produced a situation where businesspeople might now hesitate about doing business in New York City.

Roger Simon writes:

Meanwhile, what businessperson—high or low—wants to incorporate in a state where a wanton judge can suddenly decree his or her estimates of their real estate valuations to obtain a loan to be inflated, impose ridiculous fines, and then shut them down—possibly forever?

In President Trump’s case, as those same businesspersons surely noted, not a soul had been damaged by the former president’s estimates, inflated or not. All the loans had been repaid and the banks involved, of course, made money. There were no victims.

Ninth, were you worried about Gen Z? Were you worried about the love life of these overgrown adolescents? If so, you were right. Olivia Dean pulls back the curtain in the Daily Mail:

Welcome to the world of youthful romance in the 21st century, where charm is no longer a currency and boozy nights out end not with phone numbers scrawled on receipts, but with a lonely kebab in bed and a scroll through Instagram.

Gen Z, born at the turn of the Millennium, should be in its dating prime, yet research shows that we are having fewer romantic trysts than ever.

A recent study revealed that the proportion of people aged 18 to 24 having no sex at all increased from 29 per cent of men and 50 per cent of women in 2009 to 43 per cent of men and a huge 74 per cent of women in 2018. And things only seem to be getting worse.

What happened to the bed-hopping hedonism of past generations? Our parents — even our oldest siblings — fell in and out of love with ease, yet we twentysomethings seem incapable of having any sort of normal relationship.

But why? Is it dating apps, social media, Covid, mental health, the economy — or a miserable mix of them all?

Give it some thought.

Tenth, from Prof. Sallie Baxendale, regarding puberty blockers, no longer allowed in Great Britain.

Prof. Baxendale challenges the claim that puberty can be paused & resumed: 

“If you deprive the brain of any input during the critical windows of opportunity, the brain will move on and whatever it was that was supposed to be developing, doesn't develop properly.” 

Keep this in mind when you are considering what happens to children’s brains when they are not allowed to attend school at certain ages.

Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for a fee.