ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Now the Climateers Want Your Tires Washington state pols want to ban wheels that are safest on the road.

Posted By on February 5th, 2024

https://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-state-bill-tires-fuel-efficiency-568667bd?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Progressives spent last year torturing home cooks by threatening gas stoves and dishwashers in pursuit of energy efficiency. Now the climate brigade is going after drivers. A new bill in Washington state would give regulators the ability to ban tires that create a drag on fuel efficiency.

The proposal would give the state Department of Commerce authority to prevent the sale of replacement tires that the state says have too much “rolling resistance,” which decreases the fuel efficiency of the vehicles. Rolling resistance depends largely on the weight and depth of a tire tread, the grippy thick part that keeps you from sliding off the road in a storm.

Washington state isn’t Arizona, and even Seattle progressives need their Outbacks to get safely to the Cascades. The deeper the tread, the stronger and heavier the tire is. This means the car gets fewer miles per gallon, but it also means drivers will have a better grip on the road. The bill would cover all replacement tires for cars and light trucks up to 10,000 pounds.

The proposed legislation says the new standards “may not adversely affect tire safety or tire longevity as demonstrated by the independent testing of wet grip or traction.” That’s a good caveat, but if the new standards aren’t going to reduce safety and grippiness, why does the next section create an exemption for snow tires? The biggest difference between snow tires and regular tires is the depth and pattern of the tread.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Untold Gaza Progress The Israel Defense Forces are winning against Hamas but need more time.

Posted By on February 5th, 2024

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-untold-gaza-progress-hamas-war-4bc62196?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

You may have missed it amid the media defeatism, but Israel is winning its war in Gaza. Hamas’s losses are mounting, and support for the Israeli war effort has endured around the world longer than Hamas expected.

The war is far from over, but Hamas’s southern stronghold of Khan Younis is falling. Civilians have streamed out and Hamas’s remaining forces in the city’s west are encircled. They face an Israeli advance on all sides, and Israel is now fighting below ground in force.

Biden Administration restrictions and Israeli caution have slowed the war, but consider that the 2016-17 battle of Mosul against ISIS took nine months. “Mosul,” writes John Spencer, chief of urban warfare studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, “was one battle, in one city against 3 to 5k militants with limited defenses. Israel is fighting multiple battles in 7 cities against 30k militants with military grade underground cities built under civilian areas.”

Israel needs time to achieve victory, and Hamas is counting on Western powers to deny it that time. The 2009 Gaza war was brought to an end after three weeks, the 2014 war after six weeks. The “CNN strategy” of using human shields to gain media sympathy has worked every time for Hamas.

So far not this time. Oct. 7 was too brutal. This war has passed 120 days, and the U.S. and Europe refuse to call for a cease-fire.

Israel says it has killed, incapacitated or arrested some 20,000 of Hamas’s 30,000 men and dismantled 17 of Hamas’s 24 Gaza combat battalions. The losses have prevented Hamas from mounting military maneuvers and quieted its rocket fire, down more than 95% from the war’s early days.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on February 4th, 2024

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Israel’s resilience in the wake of the Oct 7 onslaught has astounded many of its overseas supporters and opponents alike. Israel is making an astonishing comeback, as this week’s positive newsletter highlights. Michael Ordman

There should be an antonym for genocide probably “benecide” a new word for doing good should be added to the dictionary, particularly about Israel. Israel, even during wartime, achieves more to benefit the world and ease suffering and deprivation than all the participating stooges in the United Nations and international kangaroo courts that routinely libel the Jewish nation. Read the positive news below.  rsk

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Helping wounded soldiers recover. New York based NGO Belev Echad (With One Heart) supports wounded IDF soldiers, providing respite, rehabilitation, and emotional support. Volunteers who make hospital visits are mostly army veterans who were themselves wounded in battle and have been through the recovery process.
https://www.jns.org/soldiers-give-wounded-comrades-strength-during-road-to-recovery/ https://belevechad.nyc/
 
IDF recovers tractor stolen by Hamas. One of the videos that Hamas broadcast on Oct 7 was of a tractor that they stole from Kibbutz Nir Oz and drove through the streets of Khan Yunis. The IDF have since found the tractor, repaired it, and driven it out of the Gaza strip.  It will return to work in a rebuilt Kibbutz Nir Oz.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-tractor-stolen-by-hamas-on-oct-7th-returned-by-idf/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2D0-ojOdXw
 
Christian group supports with visit and donation. A delegation from the Christian Passages group traveled to Netiv HaAsara and Kfar Aza in the Gaza Envelope – two of the hardest-hit communities on Oct. 7, to express their friendship. They gave a donation of $250,000 to help each community rebuild.
https://www.jns.org/wire/passages-christian-leaders-donate-500000-to-affected-communities-in-gaza-envelope/
 
JNF-USA plants trees at ground zero. More than 100 Jewish National Fund-USA volunteers planted trees at Kibbutz Re’im, near the site of the infamous NOVA music festival during Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish New Year for trees. It was part of JNF-USA’s broader efforts to revitalize and renew the battered region.
https://www.jns.org/wire/planting-trees-at-israels-ground-zero/
 
He raised the flag he lowered 19 years ago. Zvi, an IDF reservist volunteer, lowered the last Israeli flag in Gaza when he was the last IDF soldier to leave in 2005. He kept that flag for 19 years and has now raised it again in Khan Younis.  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384042
 
Bar Mitzvah boy treats soldiers to dinner. Amichai Jackson, from Elazar in the Gush, canceled his Bar Mitzvah party and used the money to prepare a lavish dinner for 200 IDF soldiers. He wasn’t sad about missing his party, “When I saw the soldiers eating and enjoying themselves, that was 1,000 times more meaningful.”
https://thejewishvoice.com/2024/01/bar-mitzvah-boy-forgoes-party-treats-200-idf-soldiers-to-dinner/
 
Showing reality to overseas students. The Maccabee Task Force fights against Antisemitism on college campuses. It brought 40 US student leaders (Jewish and non-Jewish) to see wartime Israel for themselves and then use the knowledge gained to make a difference on campus when they return to the USA.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/allies-of-jewish-us-students-visit-israel-after-oct-7-and-come-back-armed-with-info/   https://www.maccabeetaskforce.org/
 
Kibbutz printing press reopened in 3 days. Kibbutz Be’eri was famous for having the largest printing press in Israel.  Despite the devastating Hamas attack, by Oct 10 factory workers were back at work and within the week, President Isaac Herzog officially reopened the press in a special ceremony.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-768546
 
Displaced volunteer EMT is still working. United Hatzalah volunteer paramedic Vicky was evacuated from the upper Galilee to escape Hezbollah rockets. Now in a hotel in Tzfat she is the first responder for all residents, treating panic attacks, pneumonia, etc. She also co-ordinates doctors, insurance, incident training, and more.
https://israelrescue.org/stories/displaced-as-a-result-of-the-figthing-in-northern-israel-volunteer-emt-continues-to-help-the-community/
 
We shall not be moved. (TY Hazel) The residents of Hurfeish, a Druze town of 7,000 in the Galilee just 1.5 miles from the Lebanese border, refused to be evacuated. As the commander of the first response team said, “We’ll fight to the end. Whoever tries to infiltrate or harm us or the State of Israel, we’ll stop them.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/never-too-old-to-fight-druze-hamas-hezbollah
 
Amazing rescue. The remarkable story (could be a movie) of I24 News employee Noam, who was shot in his car on Oct 7 while his 9-month-pregant wife Noa was under attack in their Kibbutz Mefalsim. Noam was rescued by two men, both who were shot but survived. He woke up in hospital in time to hold his newborn son.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/survivor-testimonies/1706440683-what-could-a-movie-plot-becomes-an-october-7-miracle   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr9zTn6egDM
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Partnering to develop solid tumor therapy. (TY OurCrowd) India’s Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is partnering Israel’s Edity Therapeutics (see here previously). They plan to build a platform for developing intracellular proteins to destroy solid tumors. https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=316507
 
“Locked in” woman can speak again. The Israel ALS Research Association IsrA.L.S. It has worked with Israel’s D-ID (see here previously) to develop a virtual avatar for Debbie, a woman with ALS who can only move her eye muscles.  The AI technology recreated Debbie’s image, voice, facial and lip movements.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-783095  https://en.israls.org.il/
 
3D printer helps rebuild shattered leg. (TY Yehoshua) Doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital used a 3D printer from Israel’s Stratasys to reconstruct the fractured knee of wounded IDF soldier Shilo Segev. The printer model identified a lack of upper thigh bone which surgeons rebuilt using bone from Shilo’s pelvis.
https://www.jpost.com/science/article-783484
 
A better world for animals. University of Haifa’s Tech4Animals lab (see here previously) is developing AI-powered analysis of video, sensor, and audio data to determine animals’ emotional states. Its most advanced project is Cat Reader, a mobile app for detecting cat pain – initially for veterinarians, and later for cat owners.
https://www.israel21c.org/unique-lab-uses-ai-to-make-a-better-world-for-animals/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-35846-6
 
Israel’s first Advanced Therapies Award. Israel’s Bonus Biogroup (see here previously) is the first Israeli company ever to receive an Advanced Therapies Award, winning in the Cell Therapy Biotech Innovation category. Bonus Biotech has two products in advanced human trials – MesenCure and BonoFill.
https://www.israel21c.org/first-ever-israeli-win-in-advanced-therapies-award-event/
https://advancedtherapiesawards.phacilitate.com/winners/  https://advancedtherapiesawards.phacilitate.com/
 
 
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
 
A home for graduates with disabilities. The “Line for Life” Association has completed a new NIS 6 million home for its graduates. Situated in Kibbutz HaGoshrim, it will house eight individuals aged 21+ who will integrate into the local community, study at Tel Hai College, and then work in the surrounding communities.
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/real-estate/article-782506  
 
Knights deliver rice to Israeli food charity. The order of the Knights of Malta (full title “Maltese Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St John of Jerusalem”) delivered 24 tons of rice to Leket Israel to support the people of Israel during the ongoing war. It was financed by Governor of the Nevada Commanderie David Flippo.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-782715
 
Israeli Arabs visit Auschwitz. It was a historic event when the first Arab Israeli delegation visited the Auschwitz death camp on Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day).  Israel-Arab Yussef Haddad features on this special documentary of the emotional journey of dozens of Arab Israelis to Poland to learn about the Holocaust.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-history-in-the-making-first-ever-israeli-arab-delegation-visits-auschwitz/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91OpBfO4_M4
 
Bedouin eco-village turns desert into oasis. Project Wadi Attir in the northern Negev (see here previously) aims to show the world that proper land stewardship and technologies can turn an unlivable place into an oasis. It opened an agricultural school in 2018, grows medicinal plants and produces health and skincare products.
https://www.israel21c.org/bedouin-culture-combined-with-modern-tech-blooms-the-desert/
 
Promoting Arab-Jewish unity. The non-profit Tsofen (see here previously) has launched a new campaign to promote unity among Jews and Arabs working in Israel’s high-tech sector. Its slogan is “working together – right now we are making a voice of partnership.” Startups Intuit, Hailo, and Sanofi have joined the campaign.
https://nocamels.com/2024/01/new-campaign-fosters-arab-jewish-unity-in-israels-high-tech-sector/
 
Helping protect ships in the Red Sea. This article mentions five Israeli startups that either are being used or could be used to help keep cargo ships safe from attack in the Gulf. Windward, and theDOCK hub startups WaveBL, Hoopo, ConboAI and DockTech. They all have previously been included in this newsletter.
https://www.israel21c.org/5-technologies-keeping-cargo-ships-safe-in-turbulent-times/

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Long War for the West by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on February 4th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20362/israel-long-war

The common thread weaving Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shia militias together is the significant funding and support each receives from Iran, which has in turn received it from the Obama and Biden administrations. When the Biden administration came in, Iran had $6 billion of reserves; it now has, according to former US Army Gen. Jack Keane, more than $100 billion– which is presumably what it used to finance its proxies and its nuclear program.

The Biden administration now appears about to compound the problem with another catastrophic retreat: there are reported to be discussions about the US pulling its troops out of oil-rich Iraq – just as the Iranian regime has been trying to force the US to do since Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979.

“Israel didn’t start this war. Israel didn’t want this war…. In fighting Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror, Israel is fighting the enemies of civilization itself…. While Israel is doing everything to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way, Hamas is doing everything to keep Palestinian civilians in harm’s way. Israel urges Palestinian civilians to leave the areas of armed conflict, while Hamas prevents those civilians from leaving those areas at gunpoint.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Wall Street Journal.

Iran’s former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi recently confirmed that the “the confrontation between Iran and Israel will continue as long as [Israel] exists… even if a Palestinian state is established.”

Israel is actually well on its way to winning. The least we can do is to enable it to have whatever it needs to complete its mission, and the time in which to do it.

[P]rotecting our borders and protecting our allies is not an either-or choice…. America’s outstanding troops are fighting abroad not because the US is irresponsibly gallant, and not recklessly to fund the military-industrial complex, but to defend us here at home better.

If you have a strong military, you will not have to use it: no one will test you.

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought that a “deal” with Hitler would bring peace and stability. It brought the opposite. Hitler, not surprisingly, used the opportunity of the illusion of peace to enlarge his invasions. By the time they became intolerable, it was clear to everyone that it would have been far less costly in life and treasure to have stopped Hitler before his army crossed the Rhine.

[A]s the journalist Daniel Greenfield pointed out, did anyone ever ask during World War II if there were too many German casualties, and if there were, that the fighting should stop?

The Biden administration would probably prefer to work with an Israeli prime minister, who was more compliant, one who would be happy to see a Palestinian state next to Israel, and not worry so much if it was genocidal; a prime minister who would be happy to see an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and not get all squeamish every time the mullahs called for “Death to Israel” and said Israel is a “one-bomb” nation. The Biden administration might even be wondering, “Why can’t there be a reasonable Israeli prime minister who would just sign off on these plans without giving everyone such a hard time?”

“Iran wants to erase the Jewish state from the map, but the main obstacle Mr. Blinken sees to his plan is Israel.” — Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2024.

Others have mentioned that if this is what Iran is doing without a nuclear weapon, just think of what it will do with one.

Not all wars are “forever” or “pointless,” or the United States would not be here. Regrettably, there seems to be… a commitment to losing.

The Biden administration has so far been immensely supportive of Israel in many ways, which is most welcome. It is sincerely hoped that its wholehearted support will stay the distance.

Iran itself has been exempt from paying any price for all the devastation it is causing, not to mention the devastation it could cause if it is allowed to have nuclear weapons. Diplomacy will not stop it, and a “deal” will not stop it.

It is time to confront the Iran challenge seriously, eliminate Iran’s ability to fund and provide weapons to its proxies that pose multiple threats in this fight, and bring an end to its nuclear program before it is too late.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Donald Trump, Imperfect Vessel, Is Our Only Hope Ben Bartee

Posted By on February 4th, 2024

https://pjmedia.com/benbartee/2024/02/03/donald-trump-imperfect-vessel-is-our-only-hope-n4926097

EXCERPT:

Looming global war. Global abandonment of the U.S. petrodollar. A gangrenous southern border. Total subversion of national sovereignty via WHO “pandemic treaty.”

It’s now down in the primary to Nikki Haley, an entirely superficial donor creation with no grassroots supports, vs. Donald Trump. For all intents and purposes, the primary is over, and arguably was before it ever started; even if Trump is in a jail cell come convention time, he will be the nominee. Nothing stops this train.

What we have looking ahead is a two-front political war brewing.

In the general, it will likely come down to Trump vs. Biden, barring a strategic substitution by the Democrats of their candidate with a fresher, more diverse puppet.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iran: Risky Elections Ahead by Amir Taheri

Posted By on February 4th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20364/iran-risky-elections-ahead

[T]hose wishing to stand for a seat in the Majlis must be approved by the Council of the Guardians whose members are named by the “Supreme Guide”.

Those elected won’t be considered elected unless the “Supreme Guide” approves.

In an arrangement that might have amused Alice [in Wonderland], candidates are not allowed to criticize the leadership or to offer programs that contradict choices already made by the ruling elite.

The Fundamentalists have never made it clear what their fundamentals are, and the Reformists have always shied away from suggesting any concrete reform.

The “Supreme Guide” has repeatedly said he prefers the Fundamentalists who praise his “Looking East” strategy.

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a visual perversion deforms people and objects so that they look like what they are meant to be but are not quite the same.

The fantasy device used by the English poet in his comic tale has given its name to a neurological condition known as the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) which causes an incorrect perception of external reality.

The four decades’ long experiment that Iran has had with the Khomeinist ideology is a big-sized illustration of that syndrome.

To start with, you call yourself Islamic but end up as a regime that directly or indirectly has attacked all of Iran’s Muslim neighbors, sparing the only two that are not Muslims: Armenia and Russia.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Democracy in Decline: The Subversion of Rule of Law There are many signs and portents that signal the guttering of the rule of law and its replacement: rule by law. It is an autumnal sign—a sign of civilization at the end of its tether. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on February 4th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/04/democracy-in-decline-the-subversion-of-rule-of-law/

A friend recently wrote me to offer a sharp formulation of a distinction I have often written about myself. Regular readers know that I am fond of distinguishing between “democracy”—a political arrangement in which the demos, the people, rule—and “Our Democracy™,” a counterfeit or masquerade of democracy in which not the people but an elite nomenklatura rule. To an increasing extent, I believe, the United States is gradually subsisting into the latter, with all the political, social, and moral deformations that such anxious oligarchical arrangements entail.

True enough, the United States was never really a democracy—a form of government, as James Madison observed in Federalist 10, that tended to be “as short in its life as it is violent in its death.” Rather, the United States was, from the beginning, a democratic republic. Ultimately, the people were sovereign—that was the point of the phrase “We the People.” But their sovereignty was mediated through the agency of representation. The point of my distinction, however, still holds. The Founders bequeathed us a democratic republic and a Constitution whose chief purpose was to define and limit the power of government. Their modern successors have inhabited that political dispensation, slyly perverting and emptying it out of its original signification while maintaining the names and rituals of the original.

If you believe that the words “perverting” and “emptying it out of its original signification” are extreme, I invite you to contemplate the tenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” To what extent is the letter or spirit of that instruction followed today?

The answer is: not at all. What was originally a document designed to limit government and protect people from its coercive intervention has mutated into a reliquary containing the desiccated remains of a once-potent, now mostly quaint and antique admonition.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Biden Brags of “Blowout” in South Carolina With 4% Turnout Can’t you just feel the feverish enthusiasm? by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 4th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-brags-of-blowout-in-south-carolina-with-4-turnout/

Once upon a time, journalists were warned not to ‘bury the lede’. But in an era when the media is Pravda with snappier logos, the lede has to be buried in an unmarked grave most of the time. Take the story of Biden’s big blowout primary win.

Media headlines hype his 96% victory in the South Carolina primary. Fewer mention that it was a 4% turnout election.

I’ve said before that Biden had the DNC rig the primary calendar to favor him by putting South Carolina first and kicking out New Hampshire because he couldn’t lose in SC if he were dead.

And this primary proved it.

South Carolina secured Biden the nomination in the 2020 primaries. He paid multiple campaign visits there and spent six figures on ads in a state that was a sure thing to produce these kinds of big numbers.

And 96% (the current estimate) does sound like a lot. But it’s 96% of what? As it turns out, it’s 96% of 4%.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s War on Hamas is the Least Deadly War in the Region Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 4th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20365/least-deadly-war
The moral calculus between the Allies and the Nazis in WWII did not change based on how many German civilians were killed in the bombings and artillery shelling on the road to Berlin. The morality of the American Civil War was not measured in civilian deaths, and neither is any other.

A nation is actively evil when it sets out to exterminate a civilian population. Whether it is WWII or the Hamas war: only one of the two sides was engaged in a total war of extermination.

On October 7 and in the months since, Hamas has engaged in the deliberate killings of civilians. Israel has not. The number games are meant to be a distraction from that simple fact.

Morality is defined by intent, not statistics.

The Associated Press recently made headlines by falsely claiming that the Israeli campaign against Hamas “sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history” and was even worse than “the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II”.

The Washington Post argued that “Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars in Gaza” while The Wall Street Journal contended that it was “generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Rafael A. Mangual Outrageous—But Not Surprising The Times Square assault of two NYPD officers, and the release of several of the suspects, are predictable outcomes of destructive policies on migrants and public safety.

Posted By on February 3rd, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-falling-into-disorder

Last weekend, video cameras posted in Times Square captured a scene that has sparked outrage across the city. While struggling to arrest a resisting suspect, two NYPD officers were viciously attacked by at least six other men—all migrants, recently arrived in our “sanctuary city.” They all got away. Not long afterward, police made seven arrests related to the incident, on charges that included assault and robbery (according to reports, one of the officers’ cell phone was stolen during the fight). Adding insult to injury, at least four of the seven attackers have already been released. The attack and the subsequent release of the alleged perpetrators may shock the consciences of many New Yorkers, but anyone surprised by this hasn’t been paying attention.

The sad truth is that this episode reveals exactly what the politicians running Gotham’s city council and the legislature in Albany have invited. For years, my colleagues and I have called attention to the destructive policies that city and state officials have proposed and enacted. We’ve warned that those shifts would embolden offenders, make police more vulnerable, and put residents at risk. The Times Square episode is an amalgam of the obvious and expected effects of just a few of those policies.

New York City mayors and other city leaders have on multiple occasions defended the decision to make the city a “sanctuary”—which includes refusing to assist federal authorities seeking to deport migrants suspected of crimes. As noted in a recent article in City & State, this has been the city’s policy since 2014, and it has been state law since a state appellate court held as much in 2018.

The city council has also criminalized the use of basic police grappling techniques through the “diaphragm law,” which, on pain of criminal prosecution, prohibits the placement by cops of any pressure on the diaphragm, chest, or back of even actively resisting suspects, or otherwise restricting their airflow. The law was initially thrown out on constitutional grounds, but a state appellate court overturned that ruling in 2022. Handcuffing a grown man who is forcefully resisting is not easy, even when officers outnumber him. Yet, we ask our police to try to win these fights without running afoul of these restrictions—even when they’re surrounded by others willing to use violence to thwart the arrest.