Brian Levine

"Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago" - Warren Buffett

[UF Sports Analytics Lab @UFSportsAnalytx]

We are hiring a Postdoctoral Associate for the UF Sports Analytics Lab. Come help guide motivated students doing analytic work for a dozen Gators athletics teams!

Please see the job description and requirements at the following link: https://t.co/uK0JqUqSuT

[Brian Levine @g8ors]

@ZaneNavratil @Pickleball Can you trade cash in your fantasy football league? 😜

[Clay Travis @ClayTravis]

It pains me to admit, but the University of Florida, with 5 national titles in football and men’s basketball since 2000, is the best college athletic program of the 21st century so far.

[Florida Basketball Hour @FloridaBBHour]

A team full of players almost no Power 5 teams recruited.

A First Team All-American who had more football offers than hoops.

A coach who was a walk-on.

Picked 6th in the SEC.

No top 100 players.

A Gators 🐊 Final Four team for all the underdogs everywhere.

[Brian Levine @g8ors]

@marcorubio What a remarkable life arc - from National Flag Football champs to watching your son score for your alma mater! Congrats @marcorubio

[Florida Gators Football @GatorsFB]

Still remember the words, Coach? 🐊

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

Having listened to the arguments of both sides over the last year, I'm no longer on the fence about Israel's war. Here is why:

[Brigitte Gabriel @ACTBrigitte]

To those who continue to blame Israel for the "occupation" in Gaza, the Palestinian people have brought this on themselves over and over again!

[Khaled Hassan @Khaledhzakariah]

As Hezbollah confirms Nasrallah's death, I can't overstate the significance of this moment.

This is a "Camp David accords" kind of moment. The West and Gulf can now easily transform Lebanon, defeat the IRGC, and bring a moment of extraordinary hope and peace to the region.

70% of the job has been done by Israel. All you need to do is work with the right people in Lebanon and put in some money for security and economic stability.

Now is your chance. This opportunity may not present itself again in many, many years.

Save the Lebanese people who have no electricity, no functional banks, healthcare, education, police/army. Save them and rheir children from decades of misery, bloodshed and tyranny.

What you do today will be remembered for a century.

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

Isn’t it ironic that Israelis, Iranians, Syrians, and Lebanese are celebrating the downfall of Hezbollah with Nasrallah’s death, while the West mourns?

The West, which claims to care about indigenous peoples, freedom, and self-determination, should be rejoicing that the people of the Middle East are finally free from Hezbollah’s grip.

[daniel hanuka📟 🇮🇱 @LionsOfZion_ORG]

Amjad Taha, a political strategist and analyst from the UAE, wrote:

"You dared to strike at a wise and courageous people on October 7th—committing genocide, kidnapping their children, and violating their women. You thought they would fall, but they rose again. After 11 months, they returned to correct what briefly slipped—their intelligence. Now, they will send you back 1,000 years, to an era without technology, where a ringing phone feels like a death sentence and a beep is a nightmare. You will be haunted by your own shadow, too afraid to use any technology, cut off from the advanced world.

They will defeat you—not with bullets or tanks, but with the unbreakable will of brave and intelligent people. Over a simple cup of coffee, with a decisive click, they will seal your fate and that of anyone who dares to harm their children. This is a nation the world respects.

Lebanon—Hezbollah's beeper attacks and today's V82 strike aren't just military victories; they represent a triumph for the Middle East over radicalism—a victory not just for Israel, but for all who stand against terror."

[Major League Pickleball @MajorLeaguePB]

For everyone suffering from the Post-Open Blues (POB) this Monday, don’t despair — @AndreAgassi, @DUPRpb, and MLP may just have the cure! 🙌 #MLPNYC

🎟️ https://t.co/ydXzZ75P77

[Men in Blazers @MenInBlazers]

TANNER TESSMAN AND GIANLUCA BUSIO WIN PROMOTION with Venezia after beating Cremonese 1-0 in Serie B playoff. They join Christian Pulisic, Yunus Musah, Weston McKennie and Timothy Weah in the Italian top flight.

Big USMNT representation in Serie A next season. 💪🏻🇺🇸

[Venezia FC @VeneziaFC_EN]

Today, Venezia FC will celebrate their promotion to Serie A with a water parade featuring the players and technical staff. The parade will start at 17:00 from Piazzale Roma, passing through the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco for a symbolic embrace with the arancioneroverdi fans.

[Brian Levine @g8ors]

@Dougielarge These last 3 games have been dominant - youve doubled them in XG. I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway, now close it out here in Florida! (On ode to Billy Joel….who’s also moved to Florida)

[Hillel Fuld @HilzFuld]

An incredible letter written by a non-Jewish Scottish professor to his students who voted to boycott Israel

It's a response from Dr. Denis MacEoin to the motion put forward by The Edinburgh Student's Association to boycott all things Israeli, in which they claim Israel is under an apartheid regime.

Denis is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs and was a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Here's his letter to the students.

TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote.

I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel .

That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I'm speaking of a hatred that
permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is
this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel , precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.

It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.

That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).

In Iran , the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why
aren't your members boycotting Iran ? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa . They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do in South Africa .

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.

On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid.

Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran , where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the
Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel . I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.

Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , and Iran . They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that
protects the Bahai's.... Need I go on?

The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side.

Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and
that is to protect them from one-sided argument.

They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence.

It's up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,

Denis MacEoin

[Brian Levine @g8ors]

@annabright108 @MajorLeaguePB It’s a fair debate. Q is what you’re trying to solve for-as you said, games are more important so that’s a better proxy for “MVP”. But for “best performance”, hard to ignore the extra data from points. Eg. The 25-12 win you/Kate had yest vs CP/Jade is MUCH better vs a 25-23 win

[Clay Travis @ClayTravis]

The University of Florida, not messing around when it comes to protests. Love this. Content neutral policies on protected speech and what is permitted on campus. Violate them and the consequences are severe. This is how it’s done. Dare I say, #gogators