The Cartesian Crisis in Gaza

Is this physician telling the truth?

What is going on in Gaza?  How do we know?  For many months, I viewed this question as, well, you can accept reporting from Israel or you can accept reporting from Hamas.  Take your pick.

I can tell you, I will never accept anything coming out of Hamas.  Anyone who uses civilians as human shields is not honorable and not credible.  But after Trump's appalling behavior since his second election, and after Thomas Massie's failed  re-election, I have to question everything coming out of Israel as well.  And while I am generally supportive of the war against Iran, it seems completely obvious to me that Benjamin Netanyahu is also not credible.  And that he has some kind hold over Donald Trump.  That also seems obvious.

We can speculate:  It seems that Netanyahu wants to milk his hold over Trump for all it is worth, while he has the opportunity.  Maybe he views this as now, while he has Trump in his pocket, or never.  I have no idea what is really going on, but it is strange that the American president seems to be acting on behalf of another nation.  While we may not know exactly what is going on, we can see the results.  And we can know the tree by its fruit.

For many years, I have given Israel the benefit of the doubt.  But I am just not sure this can continue.  I am no longer convinced that they are deserving of our trust.  On the other hand, the people who are convinced that there is a genocide happening in Gaza mostly seem to accept Hamas reporting, either directly or indirectly.

Anyway, this physician, Nick Maynard, does seem credible to me.  Is he linked to Hamas, or Islam, or some Arab money, etc.?  Maybe he holds some Arab-funded chair at Oxford?  I do not know.  He just seems believable.  That alone does not make him honest, but judge his reporting for yourself.

I have been fooled before.  Of course; we all have.  And Gaza offers the most recent, and perhaps best, example of the Cartesian Crisis.

Broadly speaking, today we are witnessing the complete absence of honest journalism.

So in 2026, how can we know what is true?
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Walking Alone with My Thoughts

How to pass the time in 2026

I like to walk for around sixty to ninety minutes a day.  I try to do it early, before the sun gets too high, but it is never as early as I would prefer.  First things first, we start with coffee and the news, and only after that, can I make it out.  Yes, I miss some days, but I try not to miss two days in a row.

If you are walking a new path, even the most mundane route will keep you occupied and entertained.  But after a while walking the same path, one does seek something to occupy the mind.

Now I pretty much live in my head.  And I can easily spend an hour, or a morning, just thinking about life, family, business, and the latest variety of Dairy Queen Blizzard.  And there are mornings when I do exactly that.  Particularly on weekends.

There are those who prefer to walk and otherwise exercise with music.  I get that, and the devices today are small enough to be carried along unnoticed.  But I was never one of these walkers, as I was more likely to listen to talk radio.

But there was another way that I used to occupy myself walking.  Phone calls.  I could and often did make phone calls for the entire walk.  Friends, co-workers, clients, no one seemed to mind.  I found it amazingly productive.  And the time flew by; before I knew it, my walk was done.

More recently, I have interrupted my walks with stops for photos, almost always landscapes or cloudscapes.  Above is a photo I took today.  While this may interrupt the monotony, you still have the distance to cover.  Photos just slow you down.  Not complaining, that's just the way it is.

Enter podcasts.  All of this changed three years ago, when I purchased a set of Apple AirPods.  Up until this point, I suppose I did watch some podcasts, but only on Youtube and only on my computer.  What's the difference between a podcast and any other Youtube video?  Until that point, I don't think I knew.  And I never downloaded Youtube videos to watch or listen while walking.  That seemed more trouble than it was worth.

But at some point I did become aware of how podcasts worked, and importantly, I realized that several Youtube channels that I subscribed to, were also podcasts.  Which came first seems unimportant to me.

I think it is worth pointing out that far and away the Youtube videos I watch the most simply contain one or two people talking into a camera.  They are not girls in bikinis or some dude pranking strangers for clicks.  In other words, it is the sound that is important, not so much the video.  Your mileage may vary.

So anyway, today I walk with podcasts.  There are about five that I listen to regularly, though I am actually subscribed to quite a few more.  That's more than enough to fill my weekday walks with usually enough spillover to fill my weekend walks.  And if not, that's okay too.  At least once a week I walk alone with my thoughts.

Podcasts may not be my own thoughts, but I often stop the podcast and think about what I just heard.  It is not radio.  It is not phone calls.  It is not music.  But they are thoughtful.  I would argue that the DarkHorse Podcast is one of the most thoughtful broadcasts in all of media, old or new.

My podcasts have also replaced radio in the car, and fill most of my downtime.  I would love to tell you they are mostly about poetry, highbrow literature, and stoic philosophy, but no, sadly, they are mostly news and commentary about current affairs.

My walks may not go by as fast as when I was making phone calls.  But today, I find more value in the solitude, listening to a quiet podcast interspersed with a few photos.

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The Ultimate Excuse For Bad Behavior

It's their culture

It always seems to start with noise in public.  No matter what, public noise, the speakers, the smartphones, loud voices, whatever it is, well, it's their culture.

And because it is their culture, you are not supposed to complain.  And if you do have the temerity to complain, you are expected to accept it's their culture as a legitimate excuse; and let that be the end of it.

Well no, just no.

But noise is only the start.  Bad behavior in restaurants, undisciplined children running amok, cultural scams like the skin tax, praying en masse on the streets and sidewalks, the amplified adhan five times a day, the lack of daily bathing, the failure to respect lines (queues), elastic punctuality, the list is endless.

And don't get me started on table manners and eating habits.  Now I do not care what people eat.  Different cultures eat different things.  But I do care a great deal if your culture attempts to control what I eat.  No, that's really bad, and no, I don't care if it is your culture.  Not even a little.

Lately ghetto and racket behavior are ruining, or threaten to ruin, all public spaces.  But don't you dare complain; you see, it's their culture.

And notice this:  It's their culture is rarely applied to good habits.  Why?  Because few of us notice a culture's good habits.  Why would we?  Oh, he bathes every day?  I hadn't noticed.

So each of us can decide for ourselves whether cultural practices should be accepted.  But I do not accept, cannot accept, the cultural excuse for bad behavior.  Bad behavior is bad behavior.  And here is a dirty little secret that only gets revealed over time and only if you pay close attention.  People are fully aware that their cultural practice is bad.

Does anyone really believe that Pakistani rape gangs are unaware that rape is unneighborly?  The idea is absurd.

One final example that I like to use is people from Holland and Germany and Scandinavia, who love to tell others how direct, blunt, and frank, they are, as a culture.  But I have long suspected that what is really going on is that they use frankness as an excuse for rudeness.  And moreover, they are perfectly well aware that this is what they are doing.  Bad behavior is bad behavior; and rudeness is rudeness.

They all know.  Of course they know.  It's my culture is just the most efficacious excuse.

Remember, culture is what we tolerate.

If you want to improve your culture, do not tolerate bad behavior.
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Tucker Carlson Interviews Iuliia Mendel

At the end, she addresses Vladimir Putin directly.  Transcript below.



Iuliia Mendel (Speaking in Russian):

Vladimir Vladimirovich, with all your life experience I don't understand how you see this world.  But I'm not a NATO representative, not a Western representative, and I don't work for Zelensky — they're political opponents.  You're not a threat to me.  I'm a Ukrainian woman from provincial Kherson.

You say you're a man of God, but what's happening in Ukraine has nothing to do with God or humanity.  You say you want peace — the only right thing today.  It's the only way Ukraine and Russia can both win.  No victor.  Both lose.  Slavs kill Slavs.

Your army tells you only noble victories, but there's a drone safari on people.  My mom, a nurse, was talking on the phone going home — a Russian drone wounded her.  Another nurse, back from her grandson's birthday in my Kherson village, was killed by a Russian drone getting out of her car.  We see videos of old people evacuating, falling in blood and snow, shocked by explosions.

On frontlines, the oldest and poorest have no money to leave.  Your army posts videos hunting people with drones.  There must be limits of humanity.  One word, one order from you can stop this.

You want peace?  Stop.  No one may thank you, but people will know.  Peace is the only possible decision today.

[Grok translation]

Ordinarily I would not take such a speech seriously.  And I confess, at the beginning of this video, I did not really take her seriously.  Her English is imperfect and she is too pretty.  At first glance she comes across as a pretty Ukrainian woman who lacks depth and seriousness.  This is incorrect.

I'm telling you, set your stereotypes aside and listen to her.  If you watch the video, it becomes clear that she is a master of her subject, Volodymyr Zelensky, and she deserves our attention.  She describes Zelensky as a tyrannical child who simply does not want the war to end, because that would end his grift.  That sounds about right to me.

And this ending was completely unexpected, which I guess is what makes it notable.  Because I don't see Putin responding at all, even if he does see it.  I just wish she would have also addressed her fellow Ukrainians.  Message:  Arrest Zelensky before he plunders the entire country and gets us all killed.

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Random Spring 2026 Observations

Some thoughts on current affairs and culture

Pickleball is lazy tennis.

There is a shopping center in town that ripped out much needed parking spaces to install pickleball courts.

The tennis courts down the street are almost always empty.

Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass is incompetent.  How much rebuilding has been done in fifteen months?

Seattle mayor, Katie Wilson, and New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, do not understand that billionaires can live anywhere.

In fact, most Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York City residents could live anywhere.

China is having a property valuation depression.

Everything about China is a scam.

Candace Owens scares the elites.

I hope Candace Owens has more than adequate security.

The US can open the Strait of Hormuz any time it chooses (see AC130 gunship).

The US has thirty AC130 gunships.

The foreign government of Israel wants Thomas Massie defeated.

So Trump wants Thomas Massie defeated.

The recent Met Gala only proved, again, that Anna Wintour has no class.

When I was a kid, the school cafeteria served peanut butter sandwiches, I'd say, round about once a month.  And, no one had autism.  It is worth asking what has changed?

Big Food and/or Big Pharma do not want us asking.

The engine of the international economy runs on...petroleum.

If you are paying through the nose for energy... Europe and California ...it is no one's fault except your own.

Regarding the ongoing Hantavirus outbreak, once again the public health apparatus, led by WHO, proves that it is entirely untrustworthy, and likely working against the interest of actual public health.  And once again, Bret Weinstein is on it.

Leather pants may be okay for a night club, but I cannot take anyone wearing leather pants seriously.

This seems obvious to me:  Volodymyr Zelensky is worse than Vladimir Putin.  Zelensky thrives on this war; why would he finish it?

Suicidal Empathy is killing the West at every level.

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Peter Boghossian Interviews David Seymour

"One thing we know about the state is that it's generally incompetent."

Nominally, this is an interview about New Zealand.  But David Seymour, the current Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, offers a case study in the kind of thinking we desperately need in every western democracy.

The biggest problem for New Zealand, and for all western democracies, is that the Jacinda Ardern and Kamala Harris and Angela Merkel types will be back in charge before we know it.  And while these three examples are all women, they are as power-hungry as their male counterparts.  Say Keir Starmer, Gavin Newsom, and Tim Walz.  These people only care about power; not good public policy.  They weaponize the suicidal empathy of their voters to achieve and maintain their own power.  That's the whole game.

And power-consumed leftists win because people on the right do not know how to fight.  The right believes that the fight is with the leftist politicians.  So they talk about how incompetent Tim Walz is.  But the real fight is with the people who have voted for Walz and would vote for him again.

Let's take an example.  Donald Trump loves New York City.  Of course he does; it is his home.  But last year, the good people of NYC elected a socialist mayor.  They need to pay for that decision.  They, the voters.  And it needs to hurt.  So when New York asks for the inevitable bailout, the answer must be no.  The same for Seattle and Portland and Minneapolis and California.  End the deduction for state and local taxes.  Or at least cap them.  The fight is not with Mamdani; it is with his voters.

So long as voters never pay for the consequences of their votes, they will continue to behave in an irresponsible manner.  Mamdani and newly elected Seattle mayor Katie Wilson are power-hungry fools; but we all know exactly what they are.  The people who voted for them also know what they are.  They, the voters, must pay dearly for their decisions.

But the right will not do this; has never done this.  They wring their hands, and complain about the slow but sure leftward drift of the country.  They criticize Zohran Mamdani and Brandon Johnson.

Stop trying to win over the suicidal empathy crowd.  You are never going to win them over.  Instead, start talking about how stupid they are.  And it is so easy to cite examples.  Think for example:  The Trump campaign ad about Harris is for They/Them; Donald Trump is for you.  More like this.  Much more.

How about:  Stop funding Somalia you morons.  Okay, clean it up a bit, add a little context, but that needs to be the message.  Or:  Wait, you want boys on the girl's volleyball team; what is wrong with you?  No, of course you will not win over someone who does want this.  Rather, you will win everyone else.

I would go max on voter ID.  Start with buying alcohol and cigarettes.  But find the most stupid thing that people need an ID for, and compare that to voting.  Also, voting machine manipulation compared to the numerous internet hacking cases.  High taxes are a bit more difficult, but not if you link them to stupid spending cases.  And if they want to confiscate the wealth of billionaires, remind the public that billionaires can choose where they live.  Billionaires choose where they live, you morons.

You get the idea; do not be afraid to point out stupidity.  Relish it, roll in it.  For God's sake, learn how to fight.  And learn who exactly you should be fighting.

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