Month: May 2012

How About a Coat Hanger Vasectomy for Him?

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Repulsive!

After having passed a bill that would effectively outlaw abortion clinics in the United States, Mississippi State Representative Bubba Carpenter is crowing about the return of coat hanger abortions to his state:

“It’s going to be challenged, of course, in the Supreme Court and all — but literally, we stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi, legally, without having to– Roe vs. Wade. So we’ve done that. I was proud of it. The governor signed it into law. And of course, there you have the other side. They’re like, ‘Well, the poor pitiful women that can’t afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger.’ That’s what we’ve heard over and over and over.

“But hey, you have to have moral values. You have to start somewhere, and that’s what we’ve decided to do. This became law and the governor signed it, and I think for one time, we were first in the nation in the state of Mississippi.”

These people are deeply evil.

Trying to find common ground with them makes nor more sense than trying to find common ground with the late and unlamented Osama bin Laden.

They need to be run out of the body politic.

I am a Moron

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I locked myself out of my car last night, and as a consequence (yes, I know correlation is not causation) I’m having some issues with muscle spasms in my back.

Nice locksmith.  Got into my car in about 30 seconds, but it added to my stress level, and I’ve carried stress in my body since I was 7.

Went to the chiropractor after work today.

While We Are On the Subject of Scott Walker

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We now have video of Scott Walker telling a wealthy donor that he will use divide and conquer to make Wisconsin a right-to-work red state:

A filmmaker released a video Thursday that shows Gov. Scott Walker saying he would use “divide and conquer” as a strategy against unions.

Walker made the comments to Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks, who has since given $510,000 to the governor’s campaign – making her Walker’s single-largest donor and the largest known donor to a candidate in state history.

The filmmaker has done work on Democratic campaigns and gave $100 in 2010 to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Walker’s challenger in the June 5 recall election.

In the video shot on Jan. 18, 2011 – shortly before Walker’s controversial budget-repair bill was introduced and spawned mass protests – Hendricks asked the governor whether he could make Wisconsin a “completely red state, and work on these unions, and become a right-to-work” state. The Republican donor was referring to right-to-work laws, which prohibit private-sector unions from compelling workers to pay union dues if the workers choose not to belong to the union.

Walker replied that his “first step” would be “to divide and conquer” through his budget-adjustment bill, which curtailed most collective bargaining for most public employee unions.

It’s rather unsurprising therefore, that a number of public safety unions, like the State Troopers Union are withdrawing their endorsements of him in 2010, and endorsing Tom Barrett. (Hereafter referred to as “The other guy”)

While such rough and tumble politics may be the reality in Wisconsin, the people of the Badger State* tend to seem themselves as practicing a more civil form of politics.

*Except for the right-wing Fox River Valley, where they have a f%$#ing monument to f%$#ing Joe f%$#ing McCarthy.

Why Not to Give to the Democratic Establishment

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The biggest political contest in the United States in the next month is the Scott Walker recall, and the Democratic National Committee is refusing to supply resources for the all critical GOTV effort:

Top Wisconsin Democrats are furious with the national party — and the Democratic National Committee in particular — for refusing their request for a major investment in the battle to recall Scott Walker, I’m told

The failure to put up the money Wisconsin Dems need to execute their recall plan comes at a time when the national Republican Party is sinking big money into defending Walker, raising fears that the DNC’s reluctance could help tip the race his way.

………

According to the Wisconsin Dem, the party has asked the DNC for $500,000 to help with its massive field operation. While the DNC has made generally supportive noises, the money has not been forthcoming, the official says — with less than a month until the June 5th recall election. The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

………

“Scott Walker has made this a national election,” the Wisconsin Dem tells me. “If he wins, he will turn his victory into a national referendum on his ideas about the middle class. It will hurt Democrats nationally. The fact that [national Dems] are sitting on their hands now is so frustrating. The whole ticket stands to lose

******************************************

UPDATE: Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Mike Tate goes on record about the dispute in a statement:

“Having received absolute support from the Democratic Governors Association, we also are in conversation with the Democratic National Committee to help in this battle against Scott Walker, a right-wing diva who has the full backing of the national corporate Tea Party movement.”

UPDATE II: Wisconsin Dems say the problem isn’t with the Democratic Governors Association, which has already committed more to the recall fight than they’ve ever committed to a Wisconsin gubernatorial election in recent history. Still no comment from the DNC.

I’m thinking that the DNC is having a hissy fit because labor is not interested in funding their national convention in a right-to-work state, but stupidity and evil are nearly as valid explanations.

Words I Never Thought That I Would Ever Say

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Good for George Lucas.

George Lucas wanted to expand his movie studios in Marin County, but has been running into a torrent of obstructionism and NIMBY from the local home owners for 25 years, and so they’ve thrown in the towel, and will be selling the land to the Marin County Foundation to create low-income housing:

He’s working with the Marin Community Foundation to instead construct affordable housing for either low-income families or seniors living on small, fixed incomes. In order to smooth along the development, he’s already given them all of the pricey technical studies and land surveys Lucasfilm spent years conducting. And we think that’s just great. Because if there’s one thing rich people will hate more than having movie magic made in their backyard, it’s poor people moving in.

Heh.

And the LCS is Beginning to Look Like a Real Dog

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Serikously, the most recent list of problems with the ships makes one wonder if they will ever be combat ready:

The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom is plagued by extensive corrosion and manufacturing issues more recent and serious than anything the Pentagon or prime contractor Lockheed Martin has publicly acknowledged thus far.

This is based on a guided tour of the ship in dry dock, as well as sources intimately familiar with Freedom’s design, repairs and operations, U.S. Navy documents and defense analysts.

The vessel is rusting and blistered by corrosion in many areas, marred by crack repairs throughout the deckhouse and hampered by what appear to be flaws in vital piping systems.

Corrosion is particularly evident throughout the ship’s waterborne mission area, located at the Freedom’s stern, because of a large gap between the stern doors and the vessel’s deck floor, which allows water to pour in when the doors are closed. They are supposed to form a watertight seal (see photo.)

As part of its plan to address some of the Freedom’s problems, the Navy is apparently adding more sailors – a move that runs counter to the ship’s basic concept of operations, which are meant, among other things, to reduce weight and costs by deploying a ship with as few crewmembers as possible.

The vessel – the first ship of what is supposed to be the future cornerstone of U.S. surface naval power – left dry dock at the end of April for tests off the California coast. Equipment failures had cut short previous test attempts in January and February. The Freedom had been at sea 15-20 days in the 16 months before leaving pier side for the recent tests and underway 12 hr. since June 27, 2011, when it docked for recent repairs.

This is further complicated by the fact that the one of the Navy’s goals on this ship was to completely minimize crewing, which means that there is little, if any capability to fix problems as they develop:

But some members of Congress see it differently. “Making sure the stern door seals shut is shipbuilding 101,” says U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “I’m troubled that the Navy would accept so many deficiencies in a program that seems to be riddled with serious problems,” Speier said after Aviation Week shared with her staff photographs and other material gathered from the ship tour.

Navy officials and program supporters say some of the problems are due to first-of-class growing pains and the learning curve achieved by getting to know the maintenance needs of a ship that until about a decade ago was little more than a concept.

LCS is meant to be maintained differently from other Navy vessels. “Crews do minimal maintenance on board,” Capt. John Neagley, the acting LCS program manager, said during a briefing at the Navy League’s recent annual Sea Air Space conference.

And the ship’s current concept of operations, or conops, reinforces that idea. “The crew has no surplus capacity to absorb additional duties,” reads the conops, last revised in 2009. “There are no spare sailors or officers assigned to LCS.”

To further address some of the corrosion problems on both the Freedom – developed and built by a team lead by Lockheed – and the LCS-2 USS Independence – developed and built by a team lead by General Dynamics and Austal USA – the Navy has put in additional cathodic protection systems, which protect metal surfaces by making them cathodes of an electrochemical cell.

BTW, there are reports that Austal, which uses cathodic systems on its civilian high speed ferries, suggested putting in such a system for their LCS, but the Navy shot it down. (Smooth move, USN)

I don’t think that the Navy’s fetish of cutting crewing is producing a viable platform.

Me Want!

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It appears that a bloke has a bunch of late model Spitfires in Myanmar:

This story is not about JSF, or Rafale or Typhoon or Gripen but about one of the world’s legendary planes: the Spitfire, a large number of which – up to 120 – [other reports list it at just 20] were found in almost pristine condition in Burma last February and are now going to be returned to the UK.

Thanks to an English farmer’s dogged determination and willingness to spend a considerable amount of his own money, the Griffon-engined Mark XIVs Spitfires have been located and British Prime Minister David Cameron has secured a deal that will allow them to be dug up and shipped back to Britain almost 67 years after they were hidden more than 40-feet below ground.

The aircraft were discovered in February by English farmer David Cundall, 62, who has spent 15 years, travelled 12 times to Burma and spent more than £130,000 in his quest. Using radar imaging technology Cundall found the aircraft buried at a former Royal Air Force base. They had been shipped to Burma and then travelled by train to the RAF base during the war, but were never used because by the end of the war they were nearing obsolescence. Unwilling to leave high-performance, if out-dated, aircraft in a country with an uncertain future, Britain’s South East Asia command decided to bury them. As many as 120 Spitfires, original cost about £12,000, may have been disposed of in this way.

“They were just buried there in transport crates,” Cundall told the Daily Telegraph which published the story today (May 7). “They were waxed, wrapped in greased paper and their joints tarred. They will be in near perfect condition.”

Newspapers Are Not Dying, They Are Being Murdered by Management

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Because instead of reinvesting in their business, they are spending their money on dividends and stock buybacks:

The Washington Post Company‘s dismal quarterly earnings release last week was received with something of a shrug—more of the same. But the report is worse than the reaction suggests and raises fundamental questions about the Post’s strategy, not just for the newspaper, but for the whole company.

If you hadn’t heard, the Washington Post Company is basically a for-profit college/SAT-prep firm that sidelines as a cable-TV provider and newspaper publisher. The august Washington Post (I’ll italicize Post here when referring to the newspaper and won’t when referring to its parent) contributed just 15 percent to its namesake company’s revenue in the first quarter but was a $23 million drag on the bottom line.

Kaplan, the Post’s education division, is the company’s cash cow, and a few years ago looked like the newspaper’s savior. But its revenue has fallen sharply over the last year and a half since for-profit schools, very much including Kaplan’s, came under pressure for predatory practices. Its sales tumbled 14 percent from 2010 to 2011 and dropped another 11 percent in the first quarter.

Its deteriorating prospects spells more trouble for the Post’s newspaper division, whose very bad first quarter included not only that $23 million loss but also a 7 percent decline in revenue. Crucially, its digital ad revenue—the paper’s main hope for the future—went into reverse and hit negative 8 percent. It’s just the latest in a long line of bad results.

The Post’s newspaper division (which includes Slate) has posted losses in thirteen of the last fifteen quarters, a trail of red ink that has led to cumulative losses of $412 million over the period. Its revenue has declined in twenty of the last twenty-two quarters and last year it brought in fully one-third less—$314 million—than it did at its peak in 2006. Layoffs have reduced the Post’s newsroom to a little more than half its peak size.

Despite this, the company continues to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases. The Post is disgorging the cash, as JW Mason calls it, to investors and depriving its businesses of resources.

…………

This is financialization at work. Instead of investing in its business operations, the Post is investing in its stock, which is a very different thing. The only way this bet pans out is if the Post’s shares rebound significantly in coming years. Would you put money on that? I sure wouldn’t (moreover, the company effectively levered up to buy them. The Post rolled over $395 million in debt in early 2009 to mature in 2019—at a 1.75 percent premium to its old bonds).

Where would the Post be if its parent company had invested even one-quarter of that nearly one billion dollars in its newspaper, or in some other profit-making, preferably non-predatory venture? That’s unknowable, of course, but it’s worth thinking about when you ponder why newspapers haven’t better adapted to the digital age.

The facts are stark, though I think that part of the the author’s thesis, that the WaPo should go behind a paywall, is fundamentally wrong.

People have not payed for news in newspapers since the beginning of the modern mass market newspaper, they have paid for ink on paper, and the content has been paid for by advertising.

The problem is not the internet, it’s Craigslist. The classifieds have always been the most profitable source of ad revenue for papers, particularly in local markets.

Unfortunately, as opposed to finding a way to fight this, or another potential source of revenue, the news papers go for Wall Street rules, which means asset stripping rather than investment.

JP Morgan Chase Goes Wile E. Coyote

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So, JP Morgan Chase just lost at least $2 billion in ill conceived derivatives trades:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the firm suffered a $2 billion trading loss after an “egregious” failure in a unit managing risks, jeopardizing Wall Street banks’ efforts to loosen a federal ban on bets with their own money.

The firm’s chief investment office, run by Ina Drew, 55, took flawed positions on synthetic credit securities that remain volatile and may cost an additional $1 billion this quarter or next, Dimon told analysts yesterday. Losses mounted as JPMorgan tried to mitigate transactions designed to hedge credit exposure.

“There were many errors, sloppiness and bad judgment,” Dimon said as the company’s stock fell in extended trading. “These were egregious mistakes, they were self-inflicted.”

The chief investment office was thrust into the debate over U.S. efforts to ban proprietary trading when Bloomberg News reported last month that the unit had taken bets so big that JPMorgan, the largest and most profitable U.S. bank, probably couldn’t unwind them without losing money or roiling financial markets. Dimon, 56, had transformed the unit in recent years to make bigger and riskier speculative trades with the bank’s money, five former employees said.

Just so you know, the “Synthetic credit securities” mentioned means that this is basically pure gambling.  There is no ownership or insurance interest in the underlying investment.

It’s not surprising that the SEC has decided to look at this.

As a result of this blowup, Fitch’s and S&P have downgraded the bank.

Henry Blodgett accurately obaserves that, “It’s Just Kids Playing With Dynamite“.

Rather unsurprisingly, advocates of more regulation of the financial industry, are calling for an aggressive implimentation of the Volker rule.

Of course, Jamie Dimon does not think that this shows a need for more regulations, because, “Just because we’re stupid doesn’t mean everybody else was.”

No, actually,  you’re all stupid f%$3s, and you blew up our economy 4 years ago, and the taxpayer dumped more money into you keeping you afloat than we spent on the WW II.

Why no senior banksters have been indicted is beyond me.

Lamest Political Party in the History

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Professor Pongoo
Pole to poll: Professor Pongoo won more votes than the Liberal Democrats in a council election in Edinburgh. Photograph: Ali Tibbitt/ STV

While there are significantly less viable parties out there, Canada’s Rhineroceros Party, and the Monster Raving Looney Party in the UK, but because they fancy themselves as being in the big leagues in Britain, the Liberal-Democrats win the prize:

If there was a symbol of the Liberal Democrats’ discomfiture as their vote plummeted across Scotland and the rest of the UK, it came in the shape of a penguin.

In the Pentland Hills ward for Edinburgh city council, the Lib Dem candidate won fewer votes than Professor Pongoo, or independent candidate Mike Ferrigan, who ran his campaign in a full penguin suit.

Professor Pongoo, who stood to raise awareness of social and environmental issues, took 5.6% of first-preference votes to the Lib Dems’ 4.7%.

On the brighter side ……… Ummmm ……… There is no brighter side. You were outpolled by a bloke in a f%$#ing penguin suit!

About the only thing more embarrassing would be to be out-polled by the  Fabian Socialists.

MoD Goes Back To Jump Jet

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About a year ago, the British decided to switch from the STOVL F-35B to the catapult and arrestor hook F-35C.

They were building two carriers, but they would only equip one with the necessary equipment to launch and land the aircraft, leaving the remaining carrier as the world’s most expensive helicopter carrier.

Well, they are back to the B model: (Paid subscription required)

In the depths of the crisis about 18 months ago surrounding the Stovl model, the U.K. walked away from the F-35B, saying it would instead buy the F-35C and denigrating the jump-jet version as an inferior aircraft. But since the F-35B gained the Pentagon’s blessing as having its Stovl-unique questions resolved, London is now embracing the variant it abandoned, in part citing the development progress. “The Stovl aircraft has made significant progress since the SDSR was published over 18 months ago,” the Defense Ministry says.

The back-and-forth is not just about semantics. The U.K. decision during the 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review to opt for the F-35C added weight to those hoping to cancel the F-35B, irking U.S. Marine Corps officials who were eager to see the version survive.

U.K. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, in announcing the move to Parliament, still defends the 2010 ruling. He says the decision on carriers “was right at the time, but the facts have changed and therefore so, too, must our approach. This government will not blindly pursue projects and ignore cost growth and delays.”

The U.K. expects to take delivery of its first Lockheed MartinF-35B Joint Strike Fighter in July. Credit: Lockheed Martin

In the end, it was cost that brought the U.K. back to the F-35B. The price to fit HMS Prince of Wales—the second Queen Elizabeth-class carrier—with catapult launch and arrestor gear doubled to £2 billion ($3.2 billion) since the initial estimates were made going into the 2010 review , Hammond asserts. Moreover, U.K. planners were increasingly concerned about higher manpower costs associated with operating such an aircraft carrier. The decision is a setback for General Atomics, which hoped to sell its electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) to the U.K.

Hammond also says the conversion would have delayed the restoration of the U.K.’s carrier strike capability by three years to 2023. The current plans call for HMS Queen Elizabeth to begin sea trials in 2017, with aircraft to fly from the deck in 2018 in preparation for an operational capability around 2020.

Understand that the Brit carriers are gas turbine powered, and so could not be retrofitted with steam catapults, and EMALS is still showing problems, and the cost is increasing.

Also, the MoD was committed to building both ships (the cancellation clauses are pricey) but only had money to convert to CTOL, which meant that when it was in retrofit, they would have no carrier capabilities.

It is yet another testament to David Cameron’s “genius” at governance:

For the government, the about-face on JSF is domestically embarrassing. While vowing to fix the lax acquisition practices that it blamed on the Labour administration, it is now reversing course on the first major item in its procurement agenda.

Yeah, like that competence is fairly oozing from the Tories.  (Not)

The Pedophile Protection Society Goes After Girl Scouts

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Well what do you know, in their latest attempt to distract people from their actions protecting child predators, they have put the the Girl Scouts in their cross hairs.

Why the Girl scouts, because it’s not like they are going to f%$# them, that’s the boy scouts:

The sometimes tense relationship between the Catholic Church and the Girl Scouts appears to be moving toward a resolution, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked scout leaders to clarify programs and material that some religious conservatives think promote contraception and abortion.

Potentially at stake is whether troops can continue meeting in Catholic churches, and whether many Catholic girls, who make up a quarter of the nation’s 3 million Girl Scouts, will continue in scouting as the organization marks its 100th year.

In a letter dated March 28, the head of the bishops committee that has been looking into concerns about the Girl Scouts said he wanted to identify and address all remaining questions. The letter was written by Kevin C. Rhoades, bishop of Fort Wayne, who was a leading critic of the University of Notre Dame when it awarded President Obama an honorary degree in 2009.

The Associated Press reported on the letter Thursday, referring to it as an “official inquiry.”

The Girl Scouts???  Seriously?!?!?!? The US Confrence of Bishops has gone off the f%$#ing deep end.

Just Lovely

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India is looking to start MIRVing its nuclear missiles:

Agni-V, India’s most powerful missile with a strike range of over 5,000 kms, is set to get substantially higher destruction capabilities with plans to equip it with multiple warheads.

“We are working in this area. It will take time for us to develop but our work is on,” DRDO Chief Dr V K Saraswat told the news agency when asked whether the agency is developing capabilities to produce a variant of Agni-V missile which can hit multiple targets.

Known as Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV), the missile would be capable of carrying multiple warheads to destroy several targets.

Asked about the plans in that regard, he said, “Basic vehicle (missile) will remain the same. The first three stages will also remain the same and only the kill vehicle or the payload delivery system will need changes.”

Terming it as a “force multiplier”, the DRDO chief said, “If I am able to do force multiplication with this… where I was using four missiles, I may use only one missile. So it becomes a force multiplier given the damage potential.”

It also destabilizes the the situation with Pakistan, because it allows multiple warheads to be taken out in a single strike.

Not good news.

Huh, this Might Explain the Current Turn in Israeli Politics

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Benyamin Netanyahu had announced that he would be holding snap elections in the fall, which would was assumed to give the Likud a better electoral position.

Then, he announced that there would be no election, because he had formed a coalition with the 2nd place party, Kadima.

For Kadima, which looked to be destroyed in a future election, dropping to 4th or 5th place, it made sense, but it didn’t appear to make sense either Netanyahu or Likud.

I kind of shrugged, and put it off to the rather Byzantine nature of Israeli electoral politics, but Harvard’s Noah Feldman appears to have an explanation, and, in what might be a first for Benyamin Netanhahu, it appears that he reshuffled the coalition in order to make a deep and fundimantal change in Israel’s society,  and the only reason that we would make that change is because he thinks that it was the right thing.

If this calculus is true, I agree with him:

Israel’s newly expanded governing coalition may be more cautious about bombing Iran, and it may be marginally more open to serious negotiations with the Palestinians. But neither issue was the immediate reason the centrist Kadima party joined the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 8.

The fundamental issue was the relationship between Israel’s secular and ultra-Orthodox populations.

A looming crisis in Israeli politics was created when the country’s highest court ruled in February that ultra-Orthodox men studying in Israeli yeshivas, academies of higher Talmudic learning, must be drafted into the Israeli army as of Aug. 1. Since Israel was founded in 1948, ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students have been exempt from compulsory military service, as have religious Jewish women and Palestinian Arabs who hold Israeli citizenship. Those exempt can choose nonmilitary national service, but few do.

The exemption was the product of a deal between David Ben- Gurion, Israel’s legendary first prime minister, and the ultra- Orthodox minority, which was then tiny. At the time, many ultra- Orthodox Jews in Israel and abroad rejected the very idea of a Jewish state, believing that only God had the authority to re- create Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. To hasten the messianic age was a sin, and secular Zionism was its incarnation.

…

The latest round of coalition building may have broken that cycle. [Of having to kowtow to small religious parties to maintain the coalition] Netanyahu feared that passing a new law to address the high court’s ruling might bring down his government, and had called early elections to avoid the conflict. He canceled that plan two days later, however, after expanding his government. With 94 of the 120 seats in parliament, the new government can address the ruling without fear of collapsing because of defections. The centrist and secular Kadima, led by former military chief of staff Shaul Mofaz, is likely to see eye to eye with Netanyahu’s Likud party on this issue.

If these maneuvers are intended to change this policy, then it is an unalloyed good.

The idea that Yeshiva Bochers are to be exempted from the basic requirements of citizenship is wrong.

Furthermore mandatory service (largely military, though the Orthodox might end up working in public service) has the effect of exposing members of this community to the rest of society in a day-to-day professional environment.

Should this new policy come into effect, it will have a major impact on the coming generations of Heredim.

One hopes that this will also result in more of them working for a living, as opposed to sponging off subsidies from the government, which is good both from a societal and halachic (religious law) perspective.

The sages clearly state that, “Torah is not a spade,” meaning that religious scholarship should not be an excuse not to support one’s self and family.

Despicable People, Heredi Edition

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Specifically, the Orthodox Jews in New York, who are shunning and harassing co-religionists who report child rape to the authorities:

The first shock came when Mordechai Jungreis learned that his mentally disabled teenage son was being molested in a Jewish ritual bathhouse in Brooklyn. The second came after Mr. Jungreis complained, and the man accused of the abuse was arrested.

Old friends started walking stonily past him and his family on the streets of Williamsburg. Their landlord kicked them out of their apartment. Anonymous messages filled their answering machine, cursing Mr. Jungreis for turning in a fellow Jew. And, he said, the mother of a child in a wheelchair confronted Mr. Jungreis’s mother-in-law, saying the same man had molested her son, and she “did not report this crime, so why did your son-in-law have to?”

By cooperating with the police, and speaking out about his son’s abuse, Mr. Jungreis, 38, found himself at the painful forefront of an issue roiling his insular Hasidic community. There have been glimmers of change as a small number of ultra-Orthodox Jews, taking on longstanding religious and cultural norms, have begun to report child sexual abuse accusations against members of their own communities. But those who come forward often encounter intense intimidation from their neighbors and from rabbinical authorities, aimed at pressuring them to drop their cases.

Abuse victims and their families have been expelled from religious schools and synagogues, shunned by fellow ultra-Orthodox Jews and targeted for harassment intended to destroy their businesses. Some victims’ families have been offered money, ostensibly to help pay for therapy for the victims, but also to stop pursuing charges, victims and victims’ advocates said.

This behavior is profoundly and deeply evil.

Retaliating against people who report child rape to the authorities is contemptible, and I call on the Brooklyn DA to pursue anyone who does participates in these efforts at intimidation to the fullest extant of the law.

What’s Genocide Between Friends?

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There have been some stories about Islamaphobes, but now we know that these whack jobs were calling for a genocide against Muslims:

The U.S. military taught its future leaders that a “total war” against the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims would be necessary to protect America from Islamic terrorists, according to documents obtained by Danger Room. Among the options considered for that conflict: using the lessons of “Hiroshima” to wipe out whole cities at once, targeting the “civilian population wherever necessary.”

The course, first reported by Danger Room last month and held at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College, has since been canceled by the Pentagon brass. It’s only now, however, that the details of the class have come to light. Danger Room received hundreds of pages of course material and reference documents from a source familiar with the contents of the class.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently ordered the entire U.S. military to scour its training material to make sure it doesn’t contain similarly hateful material, a process that is still ongoing. But the officer who delivered the lectures, Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, still maintains his position at the Norfolk, Virginia college, pending an investigation. The commanders, lieutenant colonels, captains and colonels who sat in Dooley’s classroom, listening to the inflammatory material week after week, have now moved into higher-level assignments throughout the U.S. military.

For the better part of the last decade, a small cabal of self-anointed counterterrorism experts has been working its way through the U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement communities, trying to convince whoever it could that America’s real terrorist enemy wasn’t al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself. In his course, Dooley brought in these anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers. And he took their argument to its final, ugly conclusion.

…………

International laws protecting civilians in wartime are “no longer relevant,” Dooley continues. And that opens the possibility of applying “the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” to Islam’s holiest cities, and bringing about “Mecca and Medina[‘s] destruction.”

Dooley’s ideological allies have repeatedly stated that “mainstream” Muslims are dangerous, because they’re “violent” by nature. Yet only a few of al-Qaida’s most twisted fanatics were ever caught musing about wiping out entire cities.

Let’s be clear here, this is not some guy ranting on a street corner, this is a lecturer at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College, and he called for genocide, and he still has a position there.

Of more concern is that these people are taken seriously.

I am Disappointed in Myself

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You see, I’ve been watching the kerfuffle over Obama and gay marriage since Biden’s statement on Sunday, and what appeared to be a full on weasel by Obama, or at least his Press Secretary Jay Carney, from which I inferred that the President would give the weasel answer.

I had been drafting my scathing response to this in my head for days, so when he actually made a clear and unambiguous statement I was surprised.

But my first reaction wasn’t surprise.  My first thought was, “Son of a bitch!  I have to rewrite now!”

At least I had the basic level of self awareness to be ashamed.