Month: July 2011

A Shanda Before the Goyim*

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A prominent Orthodox rabbi has endorsed self-mutilation as a means to modesty:

What should a girl do if she wishes to dress modestly but her parents won’t let her? According to Rabbi Yitzchok Zilberstein she can injure herself in order to use it as an excuse for dressing modestly.

Three weeks ago, Rabbi Zilberstein, the the son-in-law of prominent Rabbi Yosef Elyashiv, received an inquiry from a women’s religious seminary (Midrasha) about a student who is growing increasingly religious. The student said she wanted to dress modestly but her parents were preventing her from doing so, because they were not religious.

…………

“The young woman thought that if she inflicted wounds on her legs she could tell her parents that she is wearing a long skirt to cover the wounds,” the letter said.

Rabbi Zilberstein’s reply came shortly after, with an unequivocal answer: “She is allowed to inflict wounds on her legs in order to dress modestly and evade sin.”

In his reply, the rabbi commended the student’s initiative, saying “the blood from the self-inflicted wound will atone for the people of Israel,” adding that the coordinator [of the woman’s seminary] should allow the student to commit the act.

This “Rabbi” is suggesting that self mutilation akin animal sacrifices last presented at the Temple more than 2000 years ago.

There is a word for people who believe that self inflicted injury is somehow holy, and that word is “nut-case.”

Additionally, he, and the seminary coordinator, are being played as fools.  This girl is not being forced by her parents to dress in hot pants, but rather she is profoundly troubled, and looking for a “get out of jail free card” for cutting herself, a pathological behavior rather common among adolescent girls.

Un-dirtyword-believable.

H/t Failed Messiah dot Com.

*An embarrassment before the rest of the world.

Finally, a Lawsuit

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Two Michigan counties have filed lawsuits against many the GSEs accusing them of defrauding them of title transfer fees:

Two Michigan counties, Oakland and Ingham, are suing some of the biggest players in the mortgage industry for what one official called a “fraudulent conspiracy” to avoid paying state and county property transfer taxes.

Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner is suing mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in the nation’s first federal lawsuit seeking to recoup tax payments never paid on properties that were transferred several times during the height of and during the foreclosure crisis that has gripped the nation over the last few years,

“I do think it’s fraudulent and I do think there is strong evidence to suggest there has been fraud. I do think it is a fraudulent conspiracy,” Meisner said. “We are identfying the people involved and we are systematically working to hold them accountable.”

While Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel Jr. would not go so far as to allege a “fraudulent conspiracy” he says that the aim of his lawsuit is to find out just how deep the malfeasance went.

“This is about getting to the truth,” Hertel said Wednesday, standing in front of one of the many foreclosed and empty houses in the city of Lansing. “I believe the crisis has been further exacerbated by a systematic attempt to avoid state transfer taxes in my office.”

Gee, you think?

Not that this lawsuit is only against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and does not reference the fraudulent (at least on a transfer tax basis) conveyances that were done through MERS, which should be at the top of the list, because, as Willie Sutton said, “It’s where the money is.”

In the case of Fannie and Freddie, they are claiming that they are exempt because they are government agencies (they are not), and because there is statute exempting them (I cannot find one).

H/t Naked Capitalism.

Not The Onion…

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But this is satire:

In bid for attention, nation’s unemployed to launch failing investment bank

District of Columbia – In an effort to gain the support of political leaders, a coalition of unemployed Americans have filed paperwork to declare themselves the nation’s largest investment bank. Supporters of the planned financial institution hope the move will quickly curry Congressional favor, leading to a large-scale federal bailout of unemployed and underemployed workers.

…………

Read the rest, it is prize.

Think of it as Evolution in Action

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In Onondaga, NY, a man died after falling from his motorcycle while not wearing a helmet.

He was protesting against helmet laws at the time of his accident:

Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike’s handlebars and hit his head on the pavement.

The accident happened Saturday afternoon in the town of Onondaga, in central New York near Syracuse.

State troopers tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse that 55-year-old Philip A. Contos of Parish, N.Y., was driving a 1983 Harley Davidson with a group of bikers who were protesting helmet laws by not wearing helmets.

Troopers say Contos hit his brakes and the motorcycle fishtailed. The bike spun out of control, and Contos toppled over the handlebars. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Troopers say Contos would have likely survived if he had been wearing a helmet.

(emphasis mine)

On a meta note, I have decided to add an “irony” tag. This story inspired me.

And the Wisconsin Supreme Court Gets Weirder and Weirder………

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This is technically assault

Now it appears that Republicans on the court wanted to proceed with an official photograph session before reporting anything to the capitol police:

In the wake of a physical altercation between two state Supreme Court justices, several of the judges discussed whether a planned photo session for the court should take priority over a meeting with the Capitol police chief.

The email exchange among all the justices came late in the afternoon on June 14, one day after the incident between Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and David Prosser. The emails were released to the Journal Sentinel first by Prosser and then by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson after a request was made to each justice under the open records law.
The response to the request for Abrahamson’s emails also suggests that she had considered putting out a public statement in response to the incident but did not release it.
Bradley told the Journal Sentinel that in the June 13 incident Prosser put his hands around her neck in what she called a “chokehold.” Prosser has said other accounts quoting anonymous sources would be proved false, but he has not directly responded to Bradley’s description of the incident.

So, one side says that Prosser put her in a choke hold, and the other says that she attacked his hands with her throat. (Which one sounds more credible to you, particularly since Prosser called the Chief Justice a “bitch” whom he would “destroy”)

It gets weirder, because Prosser assaulted a reporter asking him about the matter, by grabbing a microphone out of his hands (yes, it is assault). (See vid)

Prosser is not presenting the image of a person who is in control of his behavior.

H/t TPM (also here) .

Well, the DoJ is Saying that it Might Investigate Torturing People to Death

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Of the 101 cases that special prosecutor John Durham investigated, he referred just 2 to be considered for further investigation.

Both of them were murder by torture, out of the dozens of cases of murder by torture, and the hundreds (probably thousands) of cases of torture without a death being involved.

As Glenn Greenwald observes, it doesn’t matter, because the Obama administration has ruled out prosecuting anyone who authorized torture but did not actually physically conduct it themselves:

In August, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder — under continuous, aggressive prodding by the Obama White House — announced that three categories of individuals responsible for Bush-era torture crimes would be fully immunized from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution: (1) Bush officials who ordered the torture (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld); (2) Bush lawyers who legally approved it (Yoo, Bybee, Levin), and (3) those in the CIA and the military who tortured within the confines of the permission slips they were given by those officials and lawyers (i.e., “good-faith” torturers). The one exception to this sweeping immunity was that low-level CIA agents and servicemembers who went so far beyond the torture permission slips as to basically commit brutal, unauthorized murder would be subject to a “preliminary review” to determine if a full investigation was warranted — in other words, the Abu Ghraib model of justice was being applied, where only low-ranking scapegoats would be subject to possible punishment while high-level officials would be protected.

Adam Serwer makes the obvious conclusion, that absent prosecution of those who authorized torture, it will happen again.

In the matter of crimes against humanity, of which torture is one, the cover-up is a crime as well, and it is ongoing, and so not (yet) subject to the statute of limitations, so I hope that some future Justice Department will take the time to criminally investigate the Obama administration on this.  (Unfortunately, this would almost certainly involve a Republican President)

Otherwise, torture is the law of the land right now.

Remember, the Banksters Own Our Asses

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That’s why the Federal Reserve almost doubled the interchange fees that banks can charge on debit card swipes, despite the fact that the initial proposal was much higher than what is charged in other industrialized nations:

Responding to an outcry from financial institutions, federal regulators on Wednesday significantly increased a new limit on fees that large banks can charge to merchants for processing debit card purchases, and they delayed the implementation of the cap until October.

The Federal Reserve voted 4-1 to set the limit for so-called swipe fees at 21 cents per transaction, an increase from the 12-cent fee it proposed in December. That fee would have gone into effect next month for large banks with more than $10 billion in assets.

In addition, the Fed on Wednesday allowed debit card issuers to add a fee of .05% of each purchase to cover a portion of fraud losses. That would add 2 cents to a $40 purchase. And debit card issuers could add a 1-cent-per-transaction fee if they undertook tougher fraud prevention policies and procedures.

The Fed said the new fee for an average transaction would be 24 cents. That’s still a big decrease from the current average swipe fee of 44 cents.

BTW, that “outcry from financial institutions,” they refuse to happens every time someone tries to reduce the ability of the banksters to rob the general public, and the “Responding to”, means that the Fed really has no interest inhelping consumers, they just had to determine the least that they could do to avoid a sh%$ storm.

Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve can bite my shiny metal………

Things are About to Get Interesting in Lebanon

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The UN Tribunal investigating the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005 has indicted 4 people, including 2 senior Hezbollah members:

A United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister delivered indictments to prosecutors here on Thursday, naming four men, including two suspected members of Hezbollah, in a six-year-old case that remade the country’s politics and unleashed years of discord.

The naming of members of Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim movement that is the most powerful actor here, was expected for months. But the indictments marked the beginning of a judicial process that could bring unprecedented pressure on the group and its ally Syria, which faces growing isolation over its crackdown on a nearly four-month uprising.

Although the statements of Lebanese leaders were restrained, details of the indictment could prove inflammatory in a country still deeply divided between Hezbollah and its allies, on the one hand, and a disparate group of its critics and opponents. Only the names were leaked; the details of the indictment, so far, remain secret.

“It’s the beginning of something big, not small,” said Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. But, he added: “Names without a story doesn’t have much impact. If the public comes to see there’s massive evidence of a terrible story, that will have a big public impact by itself, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

According to legal experts, Lebanon has 30 days to serve the arrest warrants. If the suspects are not arrested in that time, the tribunal will make the indictments public and summon the suspects to court.

The facts of the case are no surprise, Hezbollah, and Syria’s, finger prints are all over this, but the formal indictment certainly complicates things.

Busy Day

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We got a call from Natalie’s sleep away camp, she was experiencing headaches, tremors, and trouble swallowing.

We took her to the ER, and it appears just to be a minor virus, juxtaposed with not eating anything that day (from the virus), and the fact that she was up until 2 in the morning.

Still, there is nothing like an ER visit to F%$# up your day.

She’s back at camp, and so are we overnight, just in case.

How the Russians Develop Weapons

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The Russians have now successfully test-launched their Bulava missile:

Russia successfully tested on Tuesday its new Bulava intercontinental missile which Moscow aims to make the cornerstone of its nuclear arsenal over the next decade.

The Defense Ministry said the 12-meter long Bulava, or Mace, fired from a submarine near Russia’s border with Finland, successfully hit its target some 6,000 km (3,370 miles) away on the peninsula of Kamchatka in Russia’s far east.

“The launch was successful in all respects. The Bulava missile delivered its warhead to the target area in the Kura testing site in the Kamchatka Peninsula region,” spokesman Colonel Igor Konashenkov told Interfax.

The Bulava, which will face four more trials this year before being introduced into service this year or next, had failed half of its previous fourteen trials, calling into question the expensive missile program.

The program was never in serious question.

The Russians do missile testing: test, fix, test, fix.

Americans just do tests to validate their analysis, we operate under the assumption that our missiles will, after a few decades of simulation and systems analysis will work perfectly out of the box.

One of these methods is faster and cheaper, but it is not ours, and catches serious problems early enough that when you do catch a stinker, you don’t have so much invested in your techno whiz bang that you cannot abandon it.

I’m Calling a Political Hit By Sarko

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As you may have heard, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been released on his own recognizance for the rape charges against him:

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials.

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a French politician, and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.

Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings, and the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who is Guinean, and possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering.

What prosecutors have discovered is that:

  • She had a phone conversation with a friend, who is in prison pending drug dealing charges, discussing the financial benefits of pursuing the case.
  • She appears to have lied about a gang rape on her asylum application.
  • She appears to have been used in, or participated in, some manner to launder cash and cell phones for her fiance’s operations. 

Seeing as how DSK was the leading Socialist candidate for the French presidency, and Nicolas Sarkosy is as about as popular as a case of the clap, I’m wondering if this wasn’t some sort of setup arranged by Sarkosy or his allies.

I don’t think that Sarko can make himself popular, but he could create a situation in which a contested primary by the Socialists could create disarray in the party* which could be used to his electoral advantage.

Google™ Analytics™ says that I do have an occasional reader from France, and I would love to hear their take on this.

*In fact, one could consider disarray to be the natural state of the Socialist party.

Judge Enjoins Kansas Defacto Abortion Ban

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Maddow has been on this like white on rice

Kansas just passed a series of regulations that closed down the 3 abortion clinics in the state.

Following the adoption of the regulations, which included things like the size of janitors closets (!), the clinics had about a week to comply:

After deliberating about an hour, U.S District Judge Carlos Murguia issued an order late this afternoon blocking new Kansas licensing regulations for abortion clinics.

The temporary restraining order was sought by two Kansas City area abortion clinics that had been denied licenses under rules that took effect today. It will be in effect until a later court decision on the issue.

…

They contend that the licensing process was an organized and deliberate attempt by Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration to shut down abortion clinics in Kansas.

…

Brownback, a staunch abortion opponent, signed the new licensing requirements into law along with three other new abortion restrictions approved by the Legislature this year.

Providers said the state didn’t send out the rules until after the close of business June 17, less than two weeks before the new licensing was scheduled to start. They said they didn’t receive the new regulations until the following Monday, June 20.

The compressed licensing process, coupled with the strict requirements, made it impossible to meet the law, they argued in their legal filings.

Six days after Aid for Women applied for a license, the state said it wouldn’t grant one based on its application alone, the clinic’s complaint said. At no point, the clinic contends, did regulators discuss why they denied the license or what corrective measures might be undertaken.

The clinic argued that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment had no factual basis for the denial because it hadn’t even inspected the clinic.

One of the things that the above article does not mention, and Rachel Maddow does, (at about 5:30 in the video) is that, in addition to banning abortion clinics, the new regulations allow Kansas authorities do have access to people’s medical records without a warrant.

So they take the records, and they will use those records to harass the patients.

We really need to understand that those who would criminalize abortion folks with a minor political difference whose feelings we should try to accommodate.

These are people who offer open and enthusiastic support to assassination and other forms of terrorism, and if we are to use material support statutes against Islamists, we should use them against them as well.

And Now, a Public Service Announcement

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Now if only they could pivot to the banksters

It’s an advertisement for Wikileaks.

I wholeheartedly support and approve this message.

Unfortunately, you cannot use your credit, but there are other options listed on their support page.

I would offer a caveat about Bitcoin, which is that the virtual currency has experienced wild price swings, as a result of someone counterfeiting the digital currency, and I would anticipate this sort of thing to increase, because it has some real world value, which attracts criminals, and it is not traceable by the standard three letter acronym (TLA) organizations, which might lead them to attempt to debase the currency or exchanges in some manner.

I would suggest buying an international money order with cash, and mailing it to:

WikiLeaks (or any suitable name likely to avoid interception in your country)
BOX 4080
Australia Post Office – University of Melbourne Branch
Victoria 3052
Australia

Not only do I support, rhetorically at least, Wikileaks, but I would like to see the US Constitution mirror that of the Swedish Constitution, and enshrine the concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (openness) into our governmental structures.

I believe that the classification of documents in our society should require a strong and affirmative showing that doing so is essential.

Secrecy is most often used to protect those in power from those whom they ostensibly serve, not for protecting the public safety.