May 5, 2024

OPEN THREAD: Expatiate at will.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WELL, GOOD, I TAKE THAT: Scientists Have Discovered Cognitive Benefits of Creatine. “Various studies have already reported improvements in cognitive performance after a long creatine diet. The substance also counteracts the metabolic changes caused by sleep deprivation.”

Posted at 7:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

VITAMIN D UPDATE: New study challenges one-size-fits-all approach to vitamin D supplementation guidelines. “The first key insight is that ambient UVB emerges as a critical predictor of vitamin D status, even in a place like the UK, which receives relatively little sunlight. The second is that age, sex, body mass index (BMI), cholesterol level, and vitamin D supplementation significantly influence how individuals respond to UVB. For example, as BMI and age increase, the amount of vitamin D produced in response to UVB decreases.”

Posted at 6:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

NEW YORK TIMES OWNER VERSUS PRO-PALESTINIAN HOUSE OF STEPHANOPOULOS: Tom Cotton Calls Out ABC Host For Attempting To ‘Move On’ From Discussing College Protests.

Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton called out ABC host Jonathan Karl Sunday after attempting to “move on” from discussing college pro-Palestine protests.

Cotton appeared on ABC’s “This Week” to discuss the ongoing campus protests across the U.S. as many students have demanded that their schools divest from companies that are connected to Israel. As Karl called out the “vile stuff” going on in “some” of the pro-Palestine campus protesting he asked Cotton if they could both agree that peaceful protests were okay.

“You can protest all you want. If you want to make a fool of yourself and support a terrorist group, you can do that. Now if you are a foreigner, you can’t. Where’s Joe Biden’s administration demanding that universities turn over the names of any foreign students here on a visa, revoking those visas and deporting them? That’s something that Joe Biden can do today. But you are not allowed to violate the rules and policies and break the law,” Cotton stated.

“Where were the liberal administrators and liberal politicians sending in the police on the very first day? We should not have tolerated this for a moment. You have Jewish students who have been assaulted on campus. Jewish students have been told it’s not safe for you to come, go back home. Just blocks from here, Jon, you have one of the biggest ‘little Gazas’ left in George Washington University. Yesterday they called for a guillotine for the beheading of university administrators. Is that non-violent?”

“No, like I said there’s no doubt there’s plenty of vile stuff — there’s lots of vile things going on. There’s no doubt there’s also people legitimately protesting Israeli policy,” Karl responded.

Karl seemed quite perturbed by Cotton calling the college protest sites “Little Gazas” and drifted perilously close to “fine people on both sides” territory during the exchange:

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

HEY, WHEN DID GEORGE COSTANZA BECOME AN INVESTMENT BANKER? High-flyers leave investment bank after having sex with cleaner.

A US investment bank has parted company with two experienced members of its London team for having sex in the office with one of the cleaning workers.

Stifel, which is headquartered in St Louis, Missouri, launched an internal investigation after allegations over the pair’s behaviour at the bank’s London premises near St Paul’s cathedral. After findings of misconduct, one immediately resigned. The other parted some time after and is said to be in a legal process with the bank.

The pair are understood not to have paid the female cleaner for sex. The bank declined to comment on their identities but the duo are said to have had substantial careers in the City.

In accordance with the prophecy:

Posted at 5:25 pm by Ed Driscoll

ADULTS IN BLUE: At Columbia University this week, the NYPD demonstrated again why it’s the best—and taught protesters something about individual accountability and character, too.

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of CompStat, the technology-enabled innovation that turned the gritty New York City Police Department into a modern, transparent, and strategically intelligent public safety force. Every week, commanders from the city’s roughly 100 precincts come in front of top chiefs for a grilling on what’s happening in their command, what they plan to do about it, and if they’re succeeding. It can be terrifying. But the demand for individual accountability—on a podium, exposed under scrutiny—is what created an agency of leaders and the nation’s best police force.

This week, former NYPD captain and current mayor Eric Adams went through a version of this exercise in front of the press as he was grilled on the situation at New York City’s campus protests (especially at Columbia University), how police planned to deal with it, and how it was going. He shared the tactical and strategic planning that went into the arrests of roughly 300 people from Columbia and City College of New York on Tuesday. (An additional 13 from NYU and 43 from the New School were arrested today). He explained the authority granted for these raids by the school administrations—and by the laws allegedly broken, from criminal mischief to burglary.

And, Adams explained: “Young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalizing our children, and I’m not going to allow that to happen as the mayor of the City of New York.” What is the NYPD doing now? “We are processing the arrests to distinguish between who are actual students and who were not supposed to be on the ground,” the mayor said.

It was quite a scene on Tuesday night: NYPD officers entering Columbia’s illegally barricaded Hamilton Hall via an armored vehicle that got them through a second-floor window. Bodycam video illustrates what they encountered inside: physical blockades of furniture, garbage cans, and other objects obstructing their path, which they cut through with electric saws and blow torches. Then they had to deal with the demonstrators, some resisting—“Put it down, you’re gonna get hurt,” a cop told one idiot trying to block him with a makeshift shield—others complying, all amid the steady din of the rioters’ frenzied chanting. Not an easy day’s work: how many of us could handle it, even for a few minutes, without losing our composure? Yet the NYPD accomplished its assignment in an intensely hostile environment without using undue force. And when they were done, they lowered the Arab colors of the Palestinian flag that protesters had raised over CCNY and reinstated Old Glory.

Contrast this professionalism and competence with the squawks of protesters, most of whom have likely never been tested away from the protection of social media, group-based entitlements, and the safety blanket of anonymity. Unlike protesters of earlier generations—Mayor Adams conjured his own participation in bygone demonstrations with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton—the current crusaders distinguish themselves by cowering. They hide their faces behind pandemic-era masks, sinched hoodies, and keffiyehs wound tightly around their faces as if to keep out the worst Arabian sandstorm.

While it’s understandable that they want to maintain the chic part of radical chic after their protest days are over, there may still be plenty of employment opportunities available, even to those who are identified: “YGTBFKM: Goldman-Sachs Donor Fund Is Underwriting Hamas Protests,” thus completely upending this tweet from last month:

 

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

DANIEL GREENFIELD: How Hamas Bought Joe Biden.

But the single most shocking document from James Biden’s relationship with Qatar may be a letter that he allegedly wrote to the Qatari leadership on “behalf of the Biden family.”

“We are not particularly close to this administration and have a different vision,” Biden’s brother wrote, accusing the Trump administration of being “fractured” and “beleaguered by major issues that are not soon to be resolved.” However he promised that the Biden “family could provide a wealth of introductions and business opportunities at the highest levels that I believe would be worthy of the interest of His Excellency.”

“If this is in keeping with the vision of His Excellency, on behalf of the Biden family, I welcome your interest here,” he concluded.

Even while undermining the sitting administration, Biden’s brother was offering the services of his family to an enemy nation. This has wider implications beyond Qatar’s role backing Hamas.

Qatar was also the central intermediary in the Taliban “deal” and had formed an alliance with Iran. It is difficult to know whether the “Biden family” relationship with Qatar played any role in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and in the sanctions relief offered to Iran.

We do know there was a relationship between the Biden family and a state sponsor of Hamas, which Joe Biden profited from, and that has disturbing implications for our national security.

“We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden,” James Biden once bragged. One of those investors had ties to Iran, Al Qaeda, Iran and Hamas.

Earlier: Pro-Palestianian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll