ON THIS POST BY ROGER SIMON, AN INTERESTING COMMENT:

A person I trust posted the following on a local Jewish e-board in NJ. She advised that it is from an IDF solider presently serving in Gaza:

“What’s happening here in the staging area [area where soldiers prepare to enter Gaza] is beyond comprehension, not rationally, not emotionally and begs the imagination.

Almost every hour a car shows up overflowing with food, snacks, cold drinks, socks, underwear, undershirts, hygiene supplies, wipes, cigarettes, backgammon and more. They’re coming from the North and the Center, from manufacturers, from companies and private businesses, from prisons, Chareidim and Settlers, from Tel Aviv and even Saviyon.

Every intersection on they way down here we get stopped, not by the police, but be residents giving out food. What is amazing is that the entire situation wasn’t organized and everyone is coming on their own without coordination between the folks coming.

They’re writing letters and blessings, how they’re thinking of us all the time. There are those who spent hours making sandwiches, so they’re as perfect and comforting as possible.

Of course representatives of Chabad are here to help soldiers put on Tefillin and distributing Cha’Ta’Ts (Chumash, Tehillim, Tanya) for every troop transport and Breslov are showing up to the border and dancing with the soldiers with great joy.

The Chareidim are coming from their yeshivot to ask the names of the soldiers with their mothers’ names so that the whole yeshiva can pray for them. It should be mentioned that all of this is done under the threat of the terrorist tunnels and rockets in the area.
Soroka Hospital (in Be’er Sheva) today looks like a 5 star hotel. A wounded friend who was recently discharged told us how the MasterChef truck is parked outside and is preparing food for the wounded.

It goes without saying the amount of prayer services that are going on. On the religious front as well, there are lectures and Torah classes, all the food is obviously Kosher. Shachrit, Mincha, and Maariv with Sifrei Torah. They’re giving out tzitzit and Tehilim by the hundreds. It’s become the new fashion! The Rabbi of Maglan [Special Forces unit] told me that almost the entire unit has started wearing them, because the Army Rabbinate has been giving out tzitzit that wick away sweat. They’re gaining both a Mitzva and a high quality undershirt. We’ve started calling them “Shachpatzitzti” (a portmanteau of the Hebrew term for body armor and tzitzit). We’re having deep conversations late into the night without arguments, without fights and we find ourselves agreeing on most stuff.

We’re making lots of jokes at Hamas’s expensive and without politics. There’s lots more to add but my battery is running low and the staff has been requesting someone give a class on Likutei MoharaN (Breslov).

How happy is the nation that is like this.”

Well, to be fair, they have a leader who believes in the country he leads.

UPDATE: Question: Come a real confrontation with Obama — which seems possible — could the Israelis flip and ally with Putin? The Soviets backed the Israelis pre-1967, and right now Putin’s siding with Assad against the Islamists. Israel would be a game-changing ally for Russia in the Middle East, especially with all the traditional Arab powers looking shaky — not only in terms of military assets, but more significantly in terms of intelligence assets.

I’m sure the crack Smart Diplomacy^TM team at the State Department has considered this.

FEMINISTS NOW TARGETING COMIC CON.

HOW’S THAT RUSSIAN RESET GOING FOR YA, HILLARY? Russians’ Test Called Breach Of Missile Pact. “The United States has concluded that Russia violated a landmark arms control treaty by testing a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile, according to senior American officials, a finding that was conveyed by President Obama to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a letter on Monday.”

The Russian fear is that we’d scrap the treaty and push new weapons systems. Putin knows that Obama won’t do that, so why stick to the treaty?

POLL: 77% want illegal immigrants sent home, 81% say it’s a serious issue.

K.C. JOHNSON: Harvard Joins The Ivy League’s Race To The Bottom.

Sending a son there looks like an increasingly risky, and expensive, gamble.

YES, THIS IS A TWITTER EXCHANGE FOR THE AGES:

This is the piece in question.

WHAT YOUR WORKOUT SAYS about your social class.

Friends came for dinner. A public-interest lawyer, noticing I was bigger, asked what I’d been up to.

“I’m really into lifting weights right now,” I said. “Trying to get strong.”

The lawyer’s wife, a marathoner and family therapist, appeared startled, as if concerned about my emotional state. She looked me in the eye and said, “Why?”

Sociologists, it turns out, have studied these covert athletic biases. Carl Stempel, for example, writing in the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, argues that upper middle class Americans avoid “excessive displays of strength,” viewing the bodybuilder look as vulgar overcompensation for wounded manhood. The so-called dominant classes, Stempel writes—especially those like my friends and myself, richer in fancy degrees than in actual dollars—tend to express dominance through strenuous aerobic sports that display moral character, self-control, and self-development, rather than physical dominance. By chasing pure strength, in other words, packing on all that muscle, I had violated the unspoken prejudices—and dearly held self-definitions—of my social group.

Well, one wouldn’t want to be unacceptably . . . masculine. Plus: “A faster runner abandons you; a stronger lifter hangs out, kindly critiques your form, and waits his turn.” I don’t know about everywhere, but at my gym the folks — male and female — in the “testosterone corner” (as the trainers call the section with barbells and squat racks) are astoundingly nice.

ED DRISCOLL: Truman Shrugs.

CHARLES COBB: This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed. “One of the important lessons I learned as a participant in the southern freedom movement of the 1960s shocks many of my liberal friends: Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. I am neither a member nor supporter of the NRA, but both sides in today’s convoluted arguments about gun control and the second amendment need to pay attention to this lesson.”

NICE WORK, ZUCKERBERG, YOU PUTZ (CONT’D): Facebook says page calling for death to Jews doesn’t violate ‘community standards.’

UPDATE: They’ve now removed the page. I guess the community felt otherwise.

WELL, OKAY, NOT SO MUCH “STRIVE FOR” AS “FAIL TO ACHIEVE:” Continuing to strive for excellence at Vox.

A PROBLEM FOR 2016? Hillary’s Domestic Violence Record.

THE SURVEILLANCE STATE is looking in the wrong direction.

IS CHOLESTEROL THEORY in “scientific free fall?”

WE HAVE A COUPLE OF THESE HEAVY METAL ROCKERS, which are made and sold by Helen’s psychologist-crony Hodge Golson. They’re awesome-looking, and also very comfortable.

WHY YOUR PHONE FREAKS OUT when you get off a plane. I can’t say I’ve experienced this, but then, I don’t have AT&T.

AT AMAZON, Featured Touchscreen Laptops Under $500.

Also, Save up to 50% On All Cuisinart Griddler Models. Like a tonier version of the George Foreman Grill.

“SMART DIPLOMACY” GETS EVEN SMARTER! The Obama administration threatens Israel over criticism of John Kerry.

DO WE REALLY WANT A KINDER, GENTLER SURGEON? “Surgery is a fundamentally messy and stressful activity. When being a few millimeters off target can be life-changing, a surgeon needs to possess fierce concentration, unrelenting perfectionism, and, above all, staunch self-assurance.”

ANDREW BREITBART SAID THAT SARAH PALIN SHOULD AVOID POLITICS IN FAVOR OF BECOMING THE “RED STATE OPRAH.” NOW: Sarah Palin launches her own online TV channel.

You can do worse than follow Andrew Breitbart’s media advice, even posthumously.

I still think someone should plaster D.C. with these posters, especially around the various Palace Guard Media offices.

THE WORLD IS SAVED: All systems “go” as control restored to beleaguered sex gecko satellite.

53 COLORIZED CLASSIC PHOTOS.

TEN THINGS you didn’t know your iPhone could do.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Scott Walker’s ad about Mary Burke’s family’s company — Trek — gets the numbers right. Also, attacking Dems on hypocrisy that will hurt them with their base is an excellent turnout-reducing strategy. People bothered by these ads won’t vote for Walker, necessarily, but they’ll be less likely to show up at all. Same reason people should go after Democratic officeholders who pay women less than men.

HEH: Lawsuit Filed To Prove Happy Birthday Is In The Public Domain; Demands Warner Pay Back Millions Of License Fees.