יושר דברי אמת

Murder ?

2008-12-30T11:18:00.002-05:00

TWIN FALLS, Idaho – The father of an 11-year-old girl who died, likely of hypothermia, after trying to walk 10 miles in the snow on Christmas Day has been charged with second-degree murder and felony injury to a child.
Robert Aragon, 55, of Jerome, made an initial appearance Monday in 5th District Court, where Judge Mark Ingram appointed a public defender for him. The judge denied Aragon's request to lower his $500,000 bond. He was being held in the Blaine County Jail.
Aragon was emotional during the short hearing. He banged his head on the defendant's table as Ingram read the charges against him, The Times-News reported. After Ingram noted that second-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, Aragon said "Oh my God" as he banged his head on the table one final time.
Sage Aragon and her 12-year-old brother, Bear, were with their father on Thursday when his truck got stuck in a snow drift near state Highway 75, north of Shoshone in southcentral Idaho, according to the Lincoln County sheriff's office.
The children live with Aragon in Jerome and he was taking them to visit their mother, JoLeta Jenks, in West Magic.
After the truck got caught in the snow, authorities allege Aragon let the children out to walk to their mother's house while he and another adult stayed behind to free the vehicle.
Jenks said she called Aragon because she was concerned after no one arrived at her home on Thursday. Aragon had driven back to Jerome after letting the kids out to walk to her house, Jenks said.
"They didn't even call me, telling me they were walking," she told the Times-News.
Jenks called the police and a Blaine County search and rescue team found the boy at a rest area near the highway shortly before 10 p.m. on Thursday night.
Adults in the search effort described the snow as knee-deep for them.
The boy was found wearing only long underwear, Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling said in a news release. Apparently delusional from hypothermia, the child had discarded his jacket, pants and shoes, the sheriff's office said. He was treated and released at a nearby hospital.
The rest area was about 4.5 miles from where the children started walking.
At some point the children separated and their mother said her son told her they disagreed about whether to keep going or turn back.
"(Bear) kept on telling her: 'Let's go, Sage, let's go, Sage,'" Jenks said, recalling what her son told her. "She said, 'No, I'm going back.'"
The little girl was found about 2.7 miles from where the two set out, barely visible under windblown, drifting snow when search dogs located her along a local road about 2 a.m. Friday. She was wearing a brown down coat, black shirt, pink pajama pants and tan snowboots, the sheriff's office statement said.
"I thought she was alive because they said they found her," Jenks said. "I was excited."
The girl was pronounced dead at a Ketchum hospital; preliminary autopsy results indicate she died of hypothermia.
Officials say temperatures in the area at the time the girl was missing ranged from 27 degrees above zero to minus 5.
Jenks and Aragon are not married. While she said she doesn't understand the decision Aragon is accused of making in letting the children walk to her house, Jenks added, "I don't need to sit and yell. I know he's going through hell right now."

They are charging this man with murder. Not just did his entire life got ripped from underneath him, losing a child like this - something he will have to live with for the rest of his life. And the so called "law enforcement" has nothing better to do then charge this destitute man who probably can't even think straight, not to mention making legal decisions, with MURDER in the second degree, potentially locking him up for life. OJ walked free of murder charges, dozens of homicides go unresolved, jails are packed to the brim with non-violent offenders and here the Attorney's office decided to charge someone like this with murder two. Perhaps they know something we don't, because if not - I really don't get it ...

The Rockland Arrest brouhaha and the painful subject of self governance

2008-06-26T22:55:00.006-04:00

By now everybody heard the story of a Jewish woman from Monsey who was arrested during the sweep on welfare fraud in the Rockland county, and who was mistreated during booking by the Ramapo PD officer - they forced her to remove her wig and she was forcefully fingerprinted by a male officer; the first part being excruciatingly humiliating (especially given the fact that she probably shaves her head), and the second one is a major no-no both halachically (some but not me would argue yeherog ve'al yaavor) and socially, since any cross-gender body contact with strangers is a big taboo and under the circumstances probably caused a severe psychological trauma. Christopher St. Lawrence proceeded to apologize to the community and promised to look into the actions of the PD; the apology itself cause an outroar about the usual "special treatment" for "those people", the selfless professionalism of Ramapo police and how "they" bought everything and St. Lawrence is just a puppet.

Some in the blogosphere jumped on the subject and predictably tried and convicted her on all charges. The usual lectures about how rampantly corrupt "they" are and how dare "they" steal and more so , to the extent where "they" should be licking the ground of the goldene medine and be following every comma and apostrophe of every code of law ever written by man.

What was left completely unattended, both in the media and by the bloggers, are the relevant facts. First of all, some minimum wage journalist upgraded her charges to "welfare fraud in the 1-st degree" and others, not bothering to verify, propagated the word. 1st degree fraud, of course, had to exceed $1 million. This made an excellent cover story for anyone willing to bring an example of "them" bilking the system out of millions. Not to mention all those self-conscious moralizers preaching about how all criminals are criminals and should be shot on the spot or something to that tune. And the usual juicy stories about "them" picking up dope/hookers/weapons/you name it.

In reality, of course, this 24 year old woman was arrested along with her husband (9 years older then her) probably for having her signature on some forms they submitted to get Medicaid or welfare or who knows what. The amount involved ? USD $8,485.79. Staggering. Do you or the people convicting her even know what constitutes welfare fraud ? I strongly doubt that. Because the fact is that pretty much anybody applying for welfare probably can be charged with fraud, for the pettiest things on their application. Just like most homeowners can be convicted for mortgage fraud, as for past 10 years it was next to impossible to get a mortgage without fudging the numbers somewhat. This couple just got in the way and got railroaded. Out of 43 arrested, only three couples are identifiably frum and all three are charged with welfare fraud in rather modest amounts, all under $12,000. For comparison, others on the list allegedly took the State for anything from $100k and less.

So while this woman's crime is rather ephemeral and charges will probably be dismissed or reduced greatly, she and her family did undergo a very real, very harsh and long lasting punishment. She was physically assaulted, harassed, publicly humiliated and slandered for life with allegations of a crime she or her husband never committed and were never charged with - allegations that will remain with her forever, thank Google.

Was this cop doing his job ? I am sure he was. They always do. Even Eppolito and Caracappa were doing their jobs, and were excellent police officers. That's the idea actually - members of the law enforcement can do with you pretty much as they please, and if they are experienced enough they can get away with almost anything. They live in the system, have a vested interest in it and know every hook and nook of it, including every possible way of going after someone they simply don't like. It is unfortunate, but such is the way of it. I guess it's the lesser evil, and I'm sure that most of the time most of the cops are doing great things for which they should be very respected. But when they don't - it takes a real uproar to get anything looked at.

The keywords here are the same as elsewhere in this country : Selective Enforcement.

But getting back to the subject, consider how all these people, many of whom pretend to be observant Jews, treated this. They showed more eagerness to convict and stomp into earth, more vigor in accepting and embellishing every negativity there was then a police department and all the prosecutors combined. What follows is the old, often repeated, yet very hard to accept, truth : the last person you want to be judged by is such a yidele. You have more chances at getting justice with Al Sharpton and Muhammed Ali amongst your jurors, than you do with a panel of 12 mentchelech with shiny leather yarmulkes. Most convictors-in-absentia identify themselves as "MO", for what it's worth. And nobody ever, ever even considers anything remotely resembling "limud zechus". It probably is the most downtrodden mitzva ever ...

What follows is that other, farther away and more abstract, truth : given the current mindsets of American Judentum - all of them - the worst possible nightmare would be letting them anywhere near self-governance, under almost any circumstances. If that was to happen, the place would look like a cross between Buzescu, New Utrecht on a Sunday night and Pyongyang. "Developers" would fill every square inch with carton anthill housing, homeowners would "improve" their homes with five floors of recycled cement accented with faux-Louis XVII furniture and Thermador bidets; and "Chassidish With It" shomrim along with modern orthodox attorneys would form Mobile Justice Squadrons (a/k/a troykas) to go around, arrest and convict every breathing being for tax fraud. Evidence - they breathe, and that requires some ...

Bear that in mind next time you pick a jury ...

Abwehr Mole in the US Command

2008-06-02T16:43:00.003-04:00

This piece of sh!t never saw the frontlines or the inside of a tank. He wormed his way up the ranks of the US Army, and was right there to reap the victorial laures. His soldiers hated his pompousness and high pitches whine. And he paid them back with vicious hatred, disregard for privates' concern and outright harassment.

Select accounts from his biographers and his own speeches betray the man's inner animal and his utmost sympathies with the Nazional Socialism ideology and the very people he pretended to fight.

"According to witnesses, General Patton was visiting patients at a military hospital in Sicily, and came upon a 24-year old soldier who was weeping. Patton asked "What's the matter with you?" and the soldier replied, "It's my nerves, I guess. I can't stand shelling." Patton "thereupon burst into a rage" and "employing much profanity, he called the soldier a 'coward'" and ordered him back to the front. As a crowd gathered, including the hospital's commanding officer, the doctor who had admitted the soldier, and a nurse, Patton then "struck the youth in the rear of the head with the back of his hand". Reportedly, the nurse "made a dive toward Patton, but was pulled back by a doctor" and the commander intervened. Patton went to other patients, then returned and berated the soldier again.^""This happened to be the feast of Yom Kippur, so they were all collected in a large, wooden building, which they called a synagogue. It behooved General Eisenhower to make a speech to them. We entered the synagogue, which was packed with the greatest stinking bunch of humanity I have ever seen. When we got about halfway up, the head rabbi, who was dressed in a fur hat similar to that worn by Henry VIII of England and in a surplice heavily embroidered and very filthy, came down and met the General . . . The smell was so terrible that I almost fainted and actually about three hours later lost my lunch as the result of remembering it"

"[others may believe]... that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews, who are lower than animals"

"The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks"

Doesn't take much assumption to see that wherever and whenever this man was or would've been allowed a shred of discretion, he would act by the narrative of his ideology.

Looking closer at the pattern of his military decisions, which turned out to be some of the more spectacular failures on the record of US Army, there emerges a plausible explanation to all of it.

General Patton was a mole of Abwehr, highest ranking mole ever in the US Defense.

It's also not completely unreasonable to argue that he was liquidated as an Ally counter-intelligence measure - either by "friendly hands", US very own counter-intelligence units, or by MGB. Remember, he died as a result of a freak car accident.

"On December 9, 1945, in Germany a day before he was due to return to the United States, Patton was severely injured in a road accident. He and his chief of staff, Major General Hobart R. "Hap" Gay, were on a daytrip to hunt pheasants in the country outside Mannheim. Their 1939 Cadillac Model 75 was driven by PFC Horace Woodring (1926 - 2003). Patton sat in the back seat, on the right with General Gay on his left, as per custom. At 11:45 near Neckarstadt, (Käfertal), a 2½ ton truck driven by Technical Sergeant Robert L. Thompson hit the car containing the general head on, Thompson appeared out of the haze and made a left-hand turn towards a side road. The Cadillac smashed into the truck. General Patton was thrown forward and his head struck a metal part of the partition between the front and back seats. Gay and Woodring were uninjured. Paralyzed from the neck down, George Patton died of an embolism on December 21, 1945 at the military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany with his wife present."

Back in 1945, it would've been simply an unacceptable embarrassment to have a purple-hearted and silver-starred decorated General of the US Army exposed as a Nazi Germany mole in the US Command. The magnitude of damage from such exposure would've eclipsed Aldridge Ames, Robert Hansen and all the other known moles as mere functionaries.

Someone did him in, and someone did him right.

Abstract of the week

2008-06-02T16:21:00.002-04:00

Quoted verbatim from here.

"It is not that we now believe in the tenants of Conservative Judaism per say or that we are even observant to the level of true Conservative Jews who follow a halachic tradition."

The level of pathos is remarkable. All things said, this is an illustration of how a fact of people leaving "the fold" can inherently be a good thing.

On age of the universe

2008-05-28T00:47:00.002-04:00

A rather beaten topic of j blogger controversy, now it's caught attention of the down to Earth crowd who are demanding answers. Disappointment by the meager weight of R' Arye Kaplan's work on the subject and its inconclusiveness, naturally our oyfgekleter yungeleit would like to know : What Gives ?

The simple answer to this is, of course, age old "RTHM". It's all in there, for those following advice of the forefathers ("Разуй глаза, мудило" et cetera).

But really, those who choose to attack yiddishkeit using this as an argument are usually either misinformed, biased or blatantly ignorant. Even if we put aside the fact that it's our Sages and our sources who pioneered many - dozens and dozens - fundamental concepts that the world is just coming to understand via rigorous and scientific means (concepts that were usually discarded by the lesser brains as "stam agaddata") - dealing with curvitude of space-time, the fundamental property of light and importance of its propagation speed, measuring of vast distances with "years" and such - putting all that aside, question that still remains is how do we fit 5768 years sinse creation with the observable physical "reality".

To address this properly one could delve, foremost, into ontological relativity - and from there on using heavy tools like Quine and Tarski - take the question apart. But that would be boring and counterproductive for some intended purposes.

One could also [ab]use lighter, more versatile and more practical instruments. First that comes to mind, of course, is relativity. Just the basics of it, mind you. We could pose a relatively trivial question - assuming that

1. speed of light is more-less constant; and
2. Minkovski did a good job describing our world with three spatial and one temporal coordinate

question is - given that _we_ observe the Age of Universe to be a period of X (13.73 is a consensus figure, I hear) billion years, how does an Observer B have to move and where would Observer B be positioned to have the 5678 year period meaningfully correspond to the X billion years ?

Just by applying basic Lorenz transformation formulas, and by adding a few more assumption, we can start producing mind-shattering results.

For someone right at the Edge of the Universe (as per wikipedia, 4.6e10 light years away from Earth) and moving at the speed equal to about 28.6% of speed of light (very reasonable speed for someone right at the edge) would be celebrating a very real 5768 Rosh haShana right about now, having celebrated first or second one about 13.729 billion years ago in our days.

Someone a lot closer - just one billion years away - could do the same by stepping on the gas pedal, all the way to 80.8% of the speed of light.

There are many, many more ways to slice it; I'm sure that someone who actually knows something about the subject can show real wonders. Call it curve fitting or kiruv, but there are just so many ways to approach the numbers that the real question is where to draw the line. But no informed person, in their right mind and without agenda, would use the "primitiveness" of the age of the universe against Judaism. Nobody, that is, except some of ours.

The spelling problem in our law enforcement

2008-05-20T15:28:00.003-04:00

It seems that the New York's Finest could use a crash course in spelling. Just look at what they have to say about the pesky inhabitants of PCTs 66, 71 and such (warning : profanity ahead)

I'm watching the news and had to have a good laugh it seems that a hasid was assaulted and it was deemed a bias crime and the hasids are demanding more police and that the perp be caught right away,the same group of people that assaulted a teenager a few weeks ago and they will not give him up(yes I know the victim of the earlier assault is the son of a MOS)
--
Due to the latest multitude of black-on-Jew violence in Crown Heights and the growing frustration within the community of the lack of Police intervention, members of the community have staged a march of protest. Three hundred Jewish neighborhood people marched down Empire Blvd. passed the 71st Police Precinct to let their voices be heard. The crowd then proceeded to march to Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue where they have blocked the street and closed traffic in both directions. Instead of listening to the communities pleas for protection, the Police are now dispatching a task force to dismantle the march.
Police are now at Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue. They have roped off the street and are containing the crowd to that one block with traffic still blocked. A Police negotiation team has been dispatched to the scene to calm the community.
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With these fvcking $hitbag hasids..nearly all assaults on them on upgraded...F THem!!! Tired of of the pandering that goes on with that community..Cross bred mothfvkcers with their gene pool so F'd up that all them share DNA..ridiculous.. F them!!
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I cant wait to retire and move the F out of NYC. THe Evil J's run the whole damn city
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Any other group in NYC and there would be a bunch of collars off of this, not with the Hasidic community, they run the city and get whatever they want...
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There were numerous photos of that incident taken by a photographer that day that were all over the news. Some shot inside the S/H. I remember one politician (may have been Dov Hikind..Im not sure..) screaming like a biatch in the street. His wig had been severely adjusted by a nightstick. The look on his face said..."Oy...I cant believe some cop cracked my skull!" He was most definetely looking like a schmuck "wit a schmeer on top."
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a hasid is a victim of a 34 and they want the world turned over. but when their buffy wannabe police force beats up a black kid for walking down the street, oy vey, vee didn't see nuttin. i'd rather have diapers thrown off project roofs at me in the 73 than have to work in the 66 or 71.
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I want to see a boss (above captain) have the ballzzz to say, "LOCK THEM UP," when a protester disobeys a direct order to stay back or when a protester tries to shove a cop or a sergeant!! I want to see the cells loaded to capacity and listen to their supposed lawyers sit out front and scream about all those supposed civil rights and freedoms of speech!! And I want that same boss to smile to them and then turn his back and walk away from them, ignoring them all!!! I can dream, can't I???
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I'm going to keep dreaming because, someday if not this year then in the future, some inspector or chief (as all humans do) will see that final line being crossed. And when he does, or when he comes to his senses, he'll cross his arms, look to his men and women, look back to the crowd, then yell "LOCK THEM ALL UP!" I PRAY TO GOD I LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE THAT DAY!!
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If the hasidic community , won't help our detectives in finding the person responsible for the assualt on the MOS's son ,, then we need to put a bug in there ear ,, and watch them scratch their ears like a dirty hounddog with ticks,, They can't violate VTL's... opps did i just run a red light ..! or is this a hydrant
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A Big "F" YOU to the Hasidic community
Unreal how this job kisses the fvcking azzes of the Hasidic community. I am tired of seeing us respond to synagogues (sic) with 1 and 10 and HOW autos assigned to patrol the Hasidic areas...yeah turn out 3 cars for the tour and stay in alert the whole night but go have a slew of cops blow smoke up the azz of the Hasids while on fixers.. F you Hasidic idiots! When was the last time a synagogue was burned to the ground to broken into? I cant recall...but my Catholic Church gets the donation box broken into and burglarized but i never see any fixers from the pct sitting on my HOW!!!! Good for the Hasids but not good for Catholics!!! F YOU!!!! Meshiac this and that....I am tired of this!!!! Go bang your sister or cousin and have another F'd up offspring...it would be impossible to find the perp among these clowns as they all look the same... F YOU...go march on Al Sharptons house...
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Can you imagine if they ever do make a collar on the assault of the cops son?...How in the hell are you supposed to pick the guilty hasid out of that line up?
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That perp is long gone. They never give one of their own up. Remember the grand rebbe's driver who ran a light, killed a kid and stirred up all that shite? You don't? Because he was long gone.
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Yes Corruption. If a boss favors one community in order to get promoted, isnt that corruption? Don't Insperctors and chiefs make more than Captains? Of course they do. Years ago, the Bklyn South CO , Robert Johnson, made Chief of Dept thanks to his cowtowing to the Hasids. And with respect to Espo, he did the same in the 66. Chief Fox would sell his soul to please the Hasids. They may OK otherwise, but the were shameful in their dealings with the beards. The one exception, like him or not, was Chief George Brown. He would not back down when they surrounded marhsalls towing cars in Boro Park. He was DUMPED as the CO of PBBS for his stand. That was truly a disgraceful episonde in NYPD history. I always admired him for that. The Bklyn South bosses thought he was nuts. They didnt want anything to stand in the way of their promotion. Its corruption, pure and simple and its only getting worse. So called 'EMT' volunteers are racing all over Bklyn SOuth with red lights and sirens. There have been numerous cases when they have been found to be driving on personal business. I mentioned this to a Bklyn South Insperctor once and he looked at me like I came from Mars.'' And its not just the NYPD. A few yeshivas recently got federal homeland security funding to 'secure' their schools, courtesy of Congressman Weiner. I kid you not.
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no doubt this is a bias crime. from doing way too many tours in the 66 and 71, i've realized some of the hasids are the most prejudiced around.
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I agree unborn . This young man is the son of one of our brothers . The Bastards now have f*cked with family !
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i've delt with these a-holes from time to time and let me tell you as a person of mixed decent that has walked around in their neigborhood after hours its not at all fun...
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Im interested to know what the 71 will do in regards to this. I dont wanna hear "attend community meetings" either.
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Not only will it not be treated as a hate crime, but I doubt if the perp will ever be arrested. The Hasidics are a privileged class in New York City.
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This sounds like the work of La Kosher Nostra.
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It can happen. Ive seen these fools do so much crap and get away with it. Thats why many times Id take my time going to their "jobs" and let the so called perp get away. My partner and I would do so much to get back at them.. ah.. the good ol' days.
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Best night of my life besides during the Thompkins Square Park Melee was the Crown Heights riots. Just before Mayor Dinkins called for our retreat of the area we had a fine ole time adjusting the attitudes of these bottle throwing hasids. AAAAAAH yes I personally must have bludgeoned 4-7 men in black before the retreat was ordered. I know for a fact I left one poor sap unconscious on the floor. I guess he never threw bottles a cops again. Those were the days.
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WTF is a Hasidic anti-crime neighborhood patrol? sounds like vigilanties to me, fugget, lockem all up.
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For one Passover is not like Yom Kippur , its not a real religious Holiday. Hell they would lock up an Irishman on St Paddys Day and they would lock Dom up on Columbus Day and all of us could be locked up on Presidents Day . Saturday night after dark when they go trolling for trouble in their neighborhoods and then veer off to the rest areas to spie on couples engaged in activity, lets start pulling them over for everything from no brake lights to suspicion of DUI .
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Just like clock work the threats of lawsuits rears its ugly head but in this case the shyster lawyers will get NOTHING and the rabbinical mope will get his justice. Suddenly it will be an interesting summer in Crown Heights. Oye Vey.
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"maybe you now know why Adolf hated them."

"the beards look like homeless people because they never shower"

"Having to pick up some Hasidic @#%$'s wig because she has smutz on her hands and putting it back on her so she'll look sexy for her father/lover."

"2 of my favorite interactions with the Little Bastards" (referring to little kids asking questions)

"Well, at least he doesn't have to deal with those whining stinky skells anymore"

"The city only tolerates these animals because they are the biggest whiners"

"with there stupid azz sideburns all happy"

"YA!! DIRTY!! FILTHY!! INBRED!! BEARDED!! SON OF A BIATCH BAST###!!!!!!!!!!!"

"I hope this MOS sues the f'king beard off of this sh!tbird."

"was in Hezbullah" (Referring to Hatzolah volunteer Ambulance)

"The smelly mafia"

"Even the female beards have the VAS tags on their minivans and go lights and sirens picking up their evil little offspring"

"I think we should be offered like a one day pass of 'bang out the beards' when they do something wrong"

"These horses aszes are a menice too all Brooklynites"
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Remember : these are the people who swore to protect you. Full time. For pay.

And this brainiac insists that anti-Semitism doesn't exist, except maybe "in Russia". I guess when there's a baton sticking out of his צד השני, he'll change his mind ...

May 9th - the V Day

2008-05-10T23:29:00.005-04:00

Extensive but biased post here.

In the fifty or so years before the revolution, most representatives of organized religions, rabbonim in particular, showed utmost blindness and insensitivity to the plight of some 90% of your average Jew. Living in relative safety and stability while others starved away, the almost unequivocal support for the "melicha", constant collaboration with Okhranka, denouncing of all and every attempt to change the reality in more evolutionary way - and post-revolutionary antagonism of the new regime and failure to see the magnitude and depth of changes it brough about - all this was a defining factor in the relationship between Jews, Judaism and Communist Russia.

On the physical level, most Jews and certainly Jews as class reaped many benefits from the emancipation, removal of the Pale and subsequent move further east and availability of high education and better jobs, all of which were simply unthinkable under Tzar. Communist regime was responsible for evacuating the good part of surviving Jewry in the 40's and for breaking the back of the Germans.Instead of trying to stay out of politics and trying to get the best possible deal given the situation, the self-appointed leaders chose to antagonise the new regime, thus sealing the fate of spiritual Jewish life in Soviet Russia. That was often done from the safety of Jacob Schiff's funded operations in the States, and under a guise of "Struggle against Communism". This ended up costing many lives and many generations, and no attempt has been done to mitigate.

Today is May 9th, celebrated by many as the Victory Day for the Great Patriotic War. There is no sign of gratitude to the millions of Soviet soldiers, alive or not, whose resilience, dedication and selfnessness broke the back of Nazi Germany and assured survival of the world in general and of Jewish nation in particular. Completely underplayed in the popular Western view, these people played probably the most important role in the history of humanity and have very little to show for it. Many were Jewish. All males in my family fought on the frontlines and have more wounds and medals then I can ever count.

Most surviving veterans aren't homeless or hungry; both the State of Israel and the current rulers of former Soviet Union pay some pensions and throw them a bone here or there. Is it adequate ? How much is enough for those who very literally saved the world and paid for it with a leg, an arm, a lung ?

The sight of revisionism, recognizing Nazist collaborators with blood on their hands, as "freedom fighters" is rampant. Monuments to the fallen Waffen SS, UNA/UNSO, Bandera gangs became tolerable.

The least we can do is listen with respect.

בימים ההם ובעת ההיא נאום ה’ יבוקש את עוון ישראל ואיננו ואת חטאות יהודה ולא תימצאינה כי אסלח לאשר אשאיר

Feminism in New Square Part II - Friends in High Places

2008-05-10T22:31:00.003-04:00

All those who ever had a shred of doubt about the new development in New Square Hatzalah - namely, active participation in it by women and blessing of such by Skvere rebbe zg"z - now there is a solid and unequivocal proof.

Leitzonei haDor, represented by the Spinker Oisvorf, condemned every aspect of this. He was unoriginal enough to use leshoinos brought down by me in the original mentioning of this - complete with "Chassidim Shoytim" and what have you. The general rule of thumb is that the more these talmidei Bilam "condemn" and disapprove of something new, rest assured that the development is a good one.

While I'm not familiar with the background of the decision to start their own Hatzolah, female participation - if other leitzonei hador won't peck it down - is truly revolutionary and wise. Foremost, Skvere Rebbe zg"z spoke of real life anecdotes of people who didn't want to call Hatzalah for because of gender / tznius reasons. He didn't in any way suggest that it's a right thing to do, as a humra, halacha or hanhaga. Nor are we aware of a case of women getting in serious danger because of this. But it can't fit into the tiny heads of our own Goebbelses that for what it's worth, a chassidishe lady just may have an issue with being handled by a yingerman - likely her relative, given the size of Skvere gene pool - in ways that don't belong on a family friendly resource.

There isn't a shred of attempt to see anything positive here. The fact that it's probably the first time these women can partake in communal activities in ways that don't include writing checks and cooking and doesn't include breaking any rules - and will without doubt save many lives - that bears no value whatsoever with our bean counters.

That it will remove any or most claims or realities of gender segregation and discrimination - disregarded as well.

That women will get trained in much needed medicinal, ER and hygienic skills - all forgotten.

That decision to call Hatzalah will be a trivial one and response time will improve - not a word on that.

And who will even mention that Rashi כל מקום שאתה מוצא גדר ערווה אתה מוצא קדושה . After all, it is an improvement in the ways his father set up the place.

None of the above present any interest or concern to this creature, pretending "to do what's right". Rather, the cause is turned into yet another fest of bashing Skver; it seems that smearing of Czernobyler kinder and as an extention all other kreyzen, chassidus'n, rebbes et al is a recurring theme and a preferred pastime of this degenerate and his real rebbes - the "it's alive" neurotic graphoman mentoblock and Failed Shmarya.

What can we say - good luck, Skvere weibelech; you'll need it.

Feminism in New Square and role of woman in Hatzala

2008-05-08T15:14:00.003-04:00

In the העיליגע שטעטיל סקװירא חדשה , there is a new initiative by the Rebbe's advice to create a Hatzala unit with women' participation. The usual suspects are already up in arms, blaming the victims-that-aren't-yet on the issue and complaining about "Hamiri Sakanta", "Heikhi dumi chodis shoite" and more. That's before ever giving subject a chance.

Truth is, one should give him the benefit of the doubt. First of all, many farfrumte heimishe ladies will feel way more comfortable treated by a woman then by a man, and the reality is that most chassidishe yingelait - Skveres in particular - have ingrown issues with treating women medically.

And when a patient is comforted and made feel at peace, that in itself is evry helpful in a whole lot of cases. Besides, I have a 100% assurance that there will be NO scenario like some are suggesting with waiting for women paramedics and doctors, and nobody will ask to wait for 5 minutes till a woman is available.

And women get both a zchus of being matzil nefushos, and more importantly TRAINING IN BASIC MEDICINE AND EMERGENCY PROCEDURES and that's super important.

So it can be a very beneficial development at the end of the day. And least we forget the fact thatצדיקי סקװירא have for a long time been the most informed and knowledgeable in the field of practical medicine and quasi-medicinal advice and many outsiders without much vested ideology turned to them for eitzah vetoshiya ...

Gestapo tactics of the Israeli police

2008-05-07T22:40:00.003-04:00

As reported by Y-NET - http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3540707,00.html .

It seems that police, armed with mace, were waiting for a "just cause" at a demonstration by frum people, opposed to the Zionist regime and the State of Israel. As by a rehearsed scenario, an agent provocateur appeared few minutes before the siren with an Israeli flag - which, as he surely knew, is more then not just a symbol of all they stand against. Violence ensued and undercover police "rescued" the man by liberally spraying demonstrators' faces with tear gas.

Is everything really that well in that State that police must resort to stooges and provocators to punish politically incorrect demonstrators, who were on their territory and didn't harm or threaten anyone - until the much needed "victim" arrived ?

שטיק דרעק is back

2008-05-07T15:10:00.004-04:00

The precious few months of silence from the schizophrenic graphoman, formerly known as the "tzemach author of the mentalblog", are officially over. Not able to acknowledge that his pathetic foray outside of the usual puddle of vomit failed miserably, he's back ever as pompous, vicious and lying - armed with Copy & Paste and deeply rooted love and friendship of Hershel R. of New Hempstead, the so call "antitzemach". Reassuring to know that the attempt to make a penny or two off his delusions, or to find more of Le Miserables failed without a bang. Alas, not even Gil Student is inclined to share electrons with this ...

The latter likes to pretend they're on different sides of the barricades, but they're not. It's a symbolic symbiotic partnership, and nothing comes easier then popular unity for the low scum as these two. It doesn't bother Hershel in the slightest that his mantoy from Boston speaks about Hershel's rebbe (as he pretends) with leshoinos that Hershel wouldn't use even towards his pet snag Belsky. The depth of hiskashrus is abysmal.

למהוי ידיע לכל מן דבעי, the first, last and every word in between of these and their kind is lie. That's the foundation. Be it chassidus or politics of communist Russia, it's all about lies and conformism. In 1970, people like these spent one day a week being debriefed in Lubyanka and rest of their time collecting valuable compromat on their peers. Thank God for Internet that keeps them busy and away from live humans.

Germany, Switzerland, Banking and the Lichtenstein affair

2008-04-06T02:31:00.001-04:00

Few people are aware that the Swiss Banking Law that made it a criminal violation to breech privacy of the bank depositors that was passed in 1934, was passed specifically to deter German attempts to "investigate" and seize assets of Jews and other "enemies of the German state" (as customary, Germans came with a very strong legal pretexts to their investigation, armed with allegations of tax evasion, embezzelement and other statues available to them back in the day). Back in 1934 Swiss showed some backbone, and ever since Swiss banking privacy has been ironclad, until the arrival of this Millennium.

An average German today is probably a very nice chap without a shred of sympathy towards Nazis and probably will tell you how much he loves Jews (except the Russian ones, that came to steal his pension, but that's a separate story). But it is naive to think that the elite of Western Germany's society, the people who ran both the industry and the government from after the war and till today were clean of sympathy to the old regime. Unlike GDR, where Stasi with KGB's help did a thorough and complete purge of anyone known to sympathize or even collaborate with the Nazi regime in any significant way - Bundesrepublik and their American puppeteers took a very different approach, under which almost everybody got to keep their posts after some shuffling and public chest-beating. They gave it a lot of thought, and given that both the upper echelon of US military establishment and the Nazis now shared unmitigated paranoia and hatred of a common enemy, the great "Bolshevik conspiracy", where "Bolshevik" was often a moniker for a Jew - it is no surprise that General Patton and his clique on one hand, and Nazi executive functionaries on the other, found much in common. This laid a foundation to the Western Germany and today's Germany is ran by people who got to their posts by that route.

If you think that a desire of revenge over those who contributed to their downfall is gone, think again. The higher on the ladder you go, the likelier you are to encounter these pleasant, grey haired gentlemen who were pretty young during the war to be convicted of anything serious, but many of whom retain so much bitterness and hatred, closeted towards the US, Britain and Spain but rather uncloseted towards the "Russians" and whatever else they lump into the group.

So back to the banking laws, recently Germany set a nasty precedent with Lichtenstein bribing an employee to hand over confidential information about accounts of Germans that were keeping money in Lichtenstein. Germany is largely behind the pressure on the Switzerland to change or even repeal their Banking Secrecy Law, and German-written policies are used as a template by morons in Washington who are eager to buy into this well though out scheme of oppression.

"Money laundering" and "tax evasion" are phony, sucked-out-of-a-finger, reasons to give up the shred of banking privacy - by now largely symbolic, as in reality the Swiss readily and eagerly hand over information to anything resembling a criminal investgation. In reality, it's just a tiny step in building the new Eurofascism and in exacting the scheme of ethnic revenge.

Today's Germany rewards its allies from days long gone and punishes those who dared to stand up. An American for whom ethnicity is the last thing on mind won't readily understand Europeans, who think foremost in the terms of nationality and only then education, profession et cetera. Thus, whever possible Germans punish and humiliate Serbs, Russians, Czech, Danish and Dutch - while rewarding their pets from days of Nazism, such as Albanians, Bosniaks, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Estonians, Romanians, Chechens, Turks, Arabs - this list is much longer. It's not a coincidence that every attempt of separatism by those who lined with the Reich and served in Waffen SS is actively trumpeted and supported by the Germans, even when it involves supporting open terrorism and crime - like the KLA, heroin trafficking, kidnapping and murdering terrorist ring that got themselves a small country now. They divide and conquer relying on the networks of old rifts and antipathies. And they quench, oppress and sabotage those whom they perceive as "resistance", who didn't and probably won't align themselves completely with German interests of then and of now.

How many crises' can one man do ?

2008-03-16T23:57:00.002-04:00

Recall that in 1998, meltdown of a single hedge fund - LTCM - had repercussions that spreaded way further then one would think, affecting US and global economy and changing climate in sovereign borrowing and general credit markets for years to come. Back then, one man and one firm refused to participate in the bailout - without which, some say, US economy and probably world economy as well would've been in such deep a crisis that we'd still be crawling out of it. The man was James Cayne and the firm was Bear, Stern & Co.

Arrogant as ever, Bear Stern was at the edge of reputable Wall Street entities, constantly getting into something fishy yet managing to get out of it. Mr. Cayne chose the easy way to run the shop, simply loading up on the highest yielding asset available, and spending rest of his time playing golf. Alas, the mighty have fallen and now it's him and his firm seeking bailout.

Last week he was worth $900m. Supposedly, tomorrow he'll be worth only a fifth of that. They will plead poverty, and they will tell you how much losses he personally took and how much stock of Bear Stern he owned.

Don't believe a word of this. I have little doubt that Mr. Cayne's positions were so well tuned and so well hedged that come tomorrow, Mr. Cayne and his friends booked profits many, many times larger then the market re-cap of the dwarf bear ...

Mai ahani lon Rabonon ? Part II

2008-03-16T16:53:00.002-04:00

The "Anti" voices a "question" posed by the very object of his "antiness" - "What have the Twerskys done for the Jewish People during the 100 year reign ?". A good question, certainly worth answering - if anyone was interest in the answer, of course.

First of all bear in mind that the "asker" comes with a crypto-atheist cynical attitude that places no positive value on a concept of Tzadik, a righteous person in and of himself, who doesn't "produce". Unless there is a tangible benefit that you can take to then bank, a person is worthless. "Jewish People" in such context is some sort of consumerist union, an organization that has to benefit in an accountable fashion; if that can't be shown, there is no legacy.

Written legacy of first two tzaddikim of Czernobyl is in the "top 10" list of representative, core Sifrei Chassidus that are learned and revered wherever word "Chassidus" has a meaning. Meor Einaym and Likutei Torah are deep, concise works that are revolutionary in many ways and introduce concepts that aren't seen elsewhere. These seforim and their authors were without doubt a "chidush" in this world, so we can write off original "askers'" not mentioning of Likutei Torah as another manifestation of ignorance.

With R' Mottele's z"l children, matters aren't so simple. "Mogen Avrohom" is an important work but not as much as the first two. "Mogen Dovid" is even less so. So what were these Twerskys busy with for so many generations and in so many places ?

The simple answer is that they dedicated their lives to mundane, day to day and non rewarding dealing with ordinary people and their ordinary lives. Acting as shrinks, judges and councils of everyone seeking their advice, Czernobyler Rebbes spent day after day and year after year listening, giving advice, helping with hard decisions, collecting and disbursing money, making peace, dealing with constant mesiros, with Haskala and with all the hostile forces that Ukraine of 1800's had to show. They nurtured spirits of those who came from great distances and often took heat whenever things went not in the best way. And they often showed knowledge, insight and openmindedness that was simply never seen elsewhere.

R"Y of Skver was the very epithome of a Tzaddik. The few words that he managed to utter still ring in ears of those to whom it trickled down. He's worthless in the eyes of the "asker", as he didn't leave behind eighty six volumes of essays, but those who saw him and who grew up touched by his genius were kept warm forever. The "m'shveigt" vort is often parroted but rarely understood.

His brothers Trisker Maggid, Tolner Maggid, R"YY Cherkasser, R' Yochanan from Rachmystrivka and R' Aron (whose daughter, by the way, married a grandson of R' Nachman from Breslav) were up to their eyebrows in handling affairs of ordinary people, without much time left to themselves. So if anyone gave all they had to the very concrete people connected to them, it was the "Twerskys" ahead of everyone else ...

Chacham Tzvi, R' Moshe Hagiz and their generation's struggle

2008-03-15T23:26:00.003-04:00

In Shaalos uTeshuvos of Chacham Tzevi, the very first responsa as well as quite a few others answer shaalos asked by one R' Shlomo Ayllon, towards whom it seems that Chacham Tzvi has a lot of respect.

Yet, his contemporary R' Moshe Hagiz in his work against Sabbatens, this R' Shlomo Ayllon is one of the top three embodiments of evil, along with a notorious Sabbatean prophet Nechemia Hayun yim"sh and his partner Miguel Cardoso. R' Moshe in no uncertain words takes apart works of these people and declares them to be unequivocal heresy of the worst kind, the very anti-thesis of teachings of Ar"i ha"K and in general.

Chachaz Tzevi condemned Hayun by explicit request of R' Moshe Hagiz to examine his works, and despite one responsa in which Chacham Tzevi defends a scholar from London who delivered a discourse in which he subscribed to "Deistic" views for which he was scorned by some members of the congregation, Chacham Tzevi very actively opposed Sabbateans for the most part of his life, and certainly for the entire time when his mature works were written.

Available biographic sources bring an account of a protracted dispute between Ayllon and Chacham Tzevi, as a result of which the latter had to escape Amsterdam. Ayllon and Hayun were in this together and both partook in vindicating the holy R' Tzevi Ashkenazi, apparantly drawing quite a lot of support from the local congregation.

Later in life there seems to be a retraction on the part of Ayllon, so much so that he refused any contact with Hayun when he visited Amsterdam, and he admitted that he wronged Chacham Tzevi for bad reasons. But for all intents and purposed Shlomo Ayllon went down in the annals as a person who gave material and spiritual support to the worst Sabbateans of his days, and was a keyy figure in the tormenting of sages who actively opposed the Sabbatean heresy.

Why then is his name all over Chacham Tzevi's responsa ? And is there a pattern of questionable, shortsighted deeds by the congregation of Amsterdam that had a deep and long lasting effect on the history of European Jewry ?

Venahapoch hu

2008-03-12T15:35:00.004-04:00

In an unbelievable turn of events, while R' Aron Teitelbaum der Monroe Rebbe declares the terrorist act in Merkaz HaR' Kuk as a "tragedy for the Klal" and doesn't mention at all what would be expected from a representative of Satmar, yet R' Don Segal Levi from OK, to an extent a Lubavitcher Chosid, states that the acts were a result of "Violation of the Three Oaths". He's not too verse in the Shita, and he proceeds to mix up horrifyingly naive Zionist memres along with digested Kannaism of Williamsburg bottling, or what some commentators refer to as "ער מישט דרעק מיט לעבער".

The mix is typical, and it's worse then each of the ingredients taken separately. As always.

Degenerates' descent

2008-03-11T14:50:00.002-04:00

Country that professes itself as the cradle of (formerly known as white) civilzation, United Kingdom, teaches the world yet another lesson in unmitigated hypocrisy and general drift towards populist fascism that's taking place, slowly but surely, in UK and elsewhere.

Don't forget, this is the same United Kingdom that provided safe haven to Nazi war criminals after the war on condition of them helping undermine the Soviet Union and the GDR; same United Kingdom that initiated several bloody wars over monopoly of opium market in Eastern Asia; same United Kingdom responsible for colonization of two thirds of non-European world and all the evils that stemmed from such.

So now, of all people, UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith denied entry to Moshe Feiglin, a right wing Israeli politician. Mind you, I'm the last person to sympathize with right wing Zionist politicians. But I don't think one can think of a more hypocritical statement then when United Kingdom, a country actively engaged in material support and providing shelter to the most outspoken supporters of Muslim terror - be they Chechen, Arab, Pakistani or Sudanese; United Kingdom that closes its eyes to the bloody wars and executions perpetrated by the Muslims on daily basis - in exchange for pounds and schillings the better of them leave shopping on Bond Street - they have the guts and twisted atrophy of any moralism to ban an Israeli politician from entry because he's "seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts" ?

There is very little excuse United Kingdom can muster to justify its existance. Country that gave the world white trash and little else, it's rotten to the core. Let your people go, and long live the Democratic Republic of England, Scotland, Wales and the Shetlands !

Who did Spitzer ? Part II

2008-03-11T11:04:00.002-04:00

Back in his Attorney General days, Mr. Spitzer's gave some advice for people who have to break the law. He said "Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an email because it's death. You're giving prosecutors all the evidence we need"

Given all this, one can not see the Mayflower Affair as anything other then deliberate act of political suicide, committed by a knowledgeable professional. And the damage was multiplied by the long and torturous silence, when Governor neither denied nor addressed the allegations.

A few scenarios seem plausible. Most likely, he was made an offer he couldn't refuse. Something of much greater significance was lurking by the surface, and perhaps the Governor was told to either go this way, or the high way. And after all the dust settles, losing governor's seat out of basically a one time fling without a juicy story of a perversion of some sort or an allegation of corruption isn't the worst proposition for Mr. Spitzer.

There is no way one can discount Hillary vs Obama campaign and the bottomless bag of dirty PR to which both sides will resort without an eyebat. Clinton and Spitzer go hand in hand, but that doesn't necessarily translate into Obama points from this scandal. McCain and rest of GOP aren't chopped liver either. Nor is George Fox, of Titan Advisors, probably the only friend Mr. Spitzer has south of Fulton Street. Without turning this into Pelican Brief Redux, here are some people at whom a researcher may want to take a look :

George Fox - President and FounderGeorge Fox leads Titan Advisors as its President, actively engaging in the firm's portfolio management process as a member of the Investment Committee and leading Titan's business development and marketing efforts. He entered the New York financial markets in 1984 as a floor trader at the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange and the Commodity Exchange Inc., where he traded for his own account for seven years. In 1992, Mr. Fox created G. Fox & Co., a hedge fund advisory firm. He graduated with a B.A. degree from Tulane University in 1981 and earned a law degree from the University of Richmond (VA) in 1984.

Tom Holliday - Chief Investment Officer and FounderTom Holliday is a member of the Investment Committee and is chiefly responsible for Titan Advisors' portfolio construction and manager research. Before joining Titan Advisors in April 2001, he was responsible for identifying and recommending investment managers for Soros Fund Management as it changed from a global macro fund to a multi-strategy, multi-manager fund. At Soros, Mr. Holliday also established due diligence guidelines and created manager analysis reports. Previously, he was a senior marketing consultant for Strategic Financial Solutions and helped build its PerTrac product into the hedge fund industry's leading analytical tool. Mr. Holliday, who attended the University of Tennessee, also has experience trading in the futures markets and selecting Commodity Trading Advisors.

Doug Herman - Chief Financial Officer and FounderDoug Herman is the chief financial officer of Titan Advisors. A certified public accountant, Mr. Herman previously was co-founder of general practice CPA firm Gittleson & Herman, where he worked with high net worth individuals, businesses and hedge funds. He also spent three years in private practice and 11 years with Executive Monetary Management (EMM), where as executive vice president and treasurer he ran the day-to-day operations of the firm. Prior to EMM, Mr. Herman was employed by medium-sized public accounting firms. He earned a B.S. from the University of Maryland, an M.B.A. in accounting from St. John's University (NY) and is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in N.Y.

Kieran Cavanna - Principal and Research AnalystKieran Cavanna, who joined Titan Advisors in 2002, primarily identifies and performs due diligence on hedge fund managers in the long/short- equity and event driven strategies. Mr. Cavanna is also active in the firm's portfolio construction process as a member of the Investment Committee. Previously, he was a senior consultant in KPMG's business consulting group, and before that worked in program planning at the National Broadcasting Co., where he helped launch MSNBC. Mr. Cavanna earned an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 2001 and graduated with a B.A. from the University of Richmond in 1994.

Darren Ross - Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer Darren Ross is the Chief Operating Officer of Titan Advisors and is also responsible for legal and compliance matters. Prior to joining Titan Advisors in May 2006, Mr. Ross worked for six years as part of the management team of the Wolfson Group, a large family office that actively invests in hedge funds, private equity funds and other alternative investments. Mr. Ross worked previously as an attorney at Dorsey and Whitney, LLC and as a certified public accountant at Finkle, Ross & Rost, LLC. Mr. Ross graduated with a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and earned a J.D. from Fordham University in 1997.
N. Claude Colabella -Director of Investor Relations Claude Colabella is responsible for investor relations and business development. Before joining Titan Advisors in 2001, he operated Alpha Beta Alternative Investments, which was a hedge fund advisory and fund of funds firm. From 1990 to 1998, Mr. Colabella was involved in energy industry equity research, first as a senior vice president at John S. Herold Inc. and later as president and co-founder of Petroleum Research Group. Previously, he was affiliated with Westfair Financial Analysis, Zimbalist Smith Ltd. and Securities Industry Management Corp. Mr. Colabella graduated magna cum laude from Manhattan College in 1983 and earned his M.B.A. from Duke University in 1985.

Karl Chalupa - Head of Multi-Strategy and Global MacroKarl Chalupa joined Titan Advisors in August 2007 and performs due diligence primarily on multi-strategy quantitative, fixed income, and global macro hedge fund managers. Additionally, he is a member of the investment committee. Prior to joining Titan he was president of Gamma Capital LLC, a quantitative global macro hedge fund. Previously he managed the currency and alternative investment groups at State Street Global Advisors. Prior to that he spent 13 years at ABN Amro Bank where he traded interest rate and currency derivatives and managed the North American proprietary trading and economic research desks. He also worked as an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He earned an M.A. in economics from Brown University in 1982 and a B.A. from Northern Illinois University in 1979.

Richard Leifels - Vice President of Operational ResearchRick Leifels joined Titan Advisors in 2005 as a vice president in charge of operational due diligence. His responsibilities include examining fund managers' operational, back office and financial/accounting procedures. He brought 20 years of insurance industry experience, most recently as MetLife's director of product development for the high net worth market. From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Leifels was controller of Security Equity Life Insurance Co., where he was instrumental in developing private placement insurance products that can invest in hedge funds. Earlier, he was an assistant controller for a life reinsurance unit of The Hartford and before that was with General Reinsurance. Mr. Leifels received his B.B.A. in accounting from St. Bonaventure University in 1984.

I could produce a relatively precise outcome scenario of what will happen to the parties involved with probabilities of each outcome, but there is no real upside to that. Yet.

Spitzergate : cui bono cui bono ?

2008-03-11T00:15:00.002-04:00

To those uninformed - Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer allegedly patronized a very expensive Escort service while staying in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington in February 2008 (just a month ago). He was nabbed in a federal wiretap of his private cell phone as federal agencies were investigation this prostitution ring. Rumor has it that a resignation is imminent. An ardent Clinton supporter, this could've not been more embarassing. Or could it ?

Few people genuinly like Mr. Spitzer. Unfortunately, the high moral ground he used in such macchiavellian manner time after time didn't do much to veil the inner being - an opportunist with gargantuan ambitions, often a bully and a narcissist. That said, his successful career as a prosecutor - if high profile convictions and constant dealing from the bottom of the deck is a success - had most people assume that he does get the job done; he's as sharp as lawyers get and it's better to have him as a Governor than in the prosecutorial chair. Many scandals of various calibers have came and past, yet Spitzer was holding the Albany fort and was largely considered Hillary's man. Much hated on Wall Street for non sensical, biased and unfair handling of many high profile cases, he still manages to maintain Robin-Hoodesque aura of simple man's man etc etc.

But this, of course, isn't about Mr. Spitzer. This scandal reeks from such blatant conspirantism that the first thought is that "they" would never do something so brazen and in so much public eyesight.

Still, let's rehash. Born to a family of basically non-religious Austrian Jews, Eliot scored 1590 on his SAT and attented Princeton undergraduate college. After getting a perfect LSAT - not an easy feat, I hear - young Elion went on to Harvard Law, where he picked up his JD and his wife of 21 years by now. After a brief stint with a private law firm, Spitzer worked for Morgenthau's office (Manhattan District Attorney) for about two years. He made a name in a few very high profile Mafia cases, went back to work for the most important law firm in the US whose name I'm afraid to mention, and ultimately in 1998 became New York State Attorney General.

The list of matters handled by him as an AG is too long to bring up here. In 2006, he was elected as a Governor of the NYS with 69% of the vote. And it seems now that his career is over because of an expensive phone hooker.

Sum it up. The Man : We have a gentleman here who was some of the sharpest minds in Harvard Law and elsewhere. A man who spent most of his career working with wiretaps, wiretapped subjects, surveillance evidence, warrants, data mining and prosecuting prostitution and other organized crime feats, as well as high profile Wall Street "crooks" with questionable lifestyles. A man who has more rich, mighty enemies then probably even Giuliani. A man with a weakness - publicly known high moral standards, often used as a prop for whatever agenda needs to be pushed.

Time - about the most heated segment of US Primaries in the most uncertain election year EVER, with Democract candidates locked in dead heat and hurling feces at each other so that baboons want to take classes. "Republicans in the office" status quo assures us that getting anything tossed out on a simple phone call is just unviable.

Place - the Mayflower Hotel. Some of the most notoriously upscale, VIP-diplomat-lobbyist kind of stomping ground, which is probably under a constant uninterrupted surveillance of every conceivable government, state and local agency with means; where I have no doubt that every room has at least a capability of filming from six hidden camera angles. Hotel where you have to peel surveillance bugs off if you want to install your own.

And the Deed. Allegedly, Mr. Spitzer disguised as "George Fox" and "Client 9", on Valentine's Day called (!) on his cell phone(!!) a wiretapped "Emperor's Club"; he further conducted detailed "business" over SMS (!!!, knowing how much easier it is to store, retain and retrieve all text messages) . Federal affidavit alleges that he spent at least $4,300 (he basically "kept all the receipts" by SMS-ing every little detail). He was to pay for everything - train tickets, cab fares, miin bars, travel time - you name it. Apparently, on the February 12th he didn't have "enough credit" with this institution (a mere $500 left), so they refused his business until some more dough was coughed up.

With all the tips squeezed out of him, The Governor left behing $4,300 in US Currency, and a few dozen SMS messages that are so obvious that a conviction would only entail establishing that Client-9 is indeed his ugly mug.

This goes beyong "how stupid can he be". This goes deeply into the area of "why was it done this way?". I am almost certain of one thing - unless he's in some very deep psychiatric abyss, this story has more to it then you would like to know.

The real Klausenburger

2008-03-10T18:18:00.003-04:00

Via dorrevii.org, this is the wedding picture of Shaendl Glasner, daughter of R' Moshe Shmuel Glasner of Cluj Napoca to Avraham Finkelstein.

Dem rebbems a moifes

2008-03-09T17:06:00.003-04:00

חיה מיט הערנער איז מחדש א חידוש - אז די אללע דערהארגעטע אין מרכז הרב קוק איז בלױז דערהרגעט װײל מען האט נישט געפאלגט זײַן רבי'ן און גערעדט פון שלום מיט אראבער. אז עהר האָט מיט רוח קודש און א װײטן בליק אללעס געזעען און העטט מען נאר געפאלגט עהם , װאָלט אַללעס געװען זיס און װויל אין עזה און שומרון.

איך װײז קײַן סך נישט פֿון ציוניסטישע פאליטיק. אָבער אײַן זאַך קען איך זאָגן - נישט נאָר אַז זײַן רבי װאָלט עהם מחרים געװען פאר אזא בילליגע ברעכערײ, אױכעט אױף די בילדער פֿון די לויה און פון נאך'נ אסון זעט מען נישט קײן סך פון זײנע חברים. מען זעט קײן אײנס אױכעט נישט, בלױז א פאר "פעילישערס" פון הצלה און חברא קדישא

גרעפצען פון ניו העמפסטעד קאסט נישט קײן סך

Philosophy of Benedict Spinoza

2008-03-09T03:03:00.002-04:00

I'm leaning towards concluding that Benedict Spinoza, while a very bright young soul, was only made popular by the Herem against him. Of those who proclaim to carry his banner, few actually bother to go through his works; his detractors - even less so.

Just ten years before "hisgalus" of S' Z' ym'sh, Herem against Spinoza was pronounced in sharpest of terms; his unspecified pantheistic views were condemned as utter heresy. The nusach, in translation of Abraham Wolf went :

The members of the council do you to wit that they have long known of the evil opinions and doings of Baruch de Espinoza, and have tried by divers methods and promises to make him turn from his evil ways. As they have not succeeded in effecting his improvement, but, on the contrary, have received every day more information about the horrible heresies which he practised and taught, and other enormities which he has committed, and as they had many trustworthy witnesses of this, who have deposed and testified in the presence of the said Spinoza, and have convicted him; and as all this has been investigated in the presence of the Rabbis, it has been resolved with their consent that the said Espinoza should be anathematised and cut off from the people of Israel, and now he is anathematised with the following anathema:

"With the judgment of the angels and with that of the saints, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and of all this holy congregation, before these sacred Scrolls of the Law, and the six hundred and thirteen precepts which are proscribed therein, we anathematise, cut off, execrate, and curse Baruch de Espinoza with the anathema wherewith Joshua anathematised Jericho, with the curse wherewith Elishah cursed the youths, and with all the curses which are written in the Law: cursed be he by day, and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lieth down, and cursed be he when he riseth up; cursed be he when he goeth out, and cursed be he when he cometh in; the Lord will not pardon him; the wrath and fury of the Lord will be kindled against this man, and bring down upon him all the curses which are written in the Book of the Law; and the Lord will destroy his name from under the heavens; and, to his undoing, the Lord will cut him off from all the tribes of Israel, with all the curses of the firmament which are written in the Book of the Law; but ye that cleave unto the Lord your God live all of you this day!"

We ordain that no one may communicate with him verbally or in writing, nor show him any favour, nor stay under the same roof with him, nor be within four cubits of him, nor read anything composed or written by him.

For a twenty four year old operating in the times of fervent activities of Kabbalists and other radical and new worldviews, he received a disproportionate amount of attention from relatively liberal and enlightened Rabbinical Court of Amsterdam. I am not, G-d forbid, doubting their decision. I am sure they saw something that deserved such treatment. But there are no historical records that tell us what exactly was the cause of all this noise.

At least one source cites that the Court of Amsterdam was very prolific with their excommunications and issued over two hundred and eighty instances in the first hundred years, sometimes for very trivial reasons. If that was the case, it's easy to say that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the pivotal decision to throw him out would've played out differently if it happened in Poland a hundred years later. Was the martyrdom unearned ?

In any case, casual attempt to sketch Spinozism from his own late works does not put forth anything revolutionary or particularly interesting. It is not very consistent even in Cantor's terms, nor very rigorous; but the religious ideas espoused can be encountered in many other sources, many of which are on the "A-list", and even those that aren't are far from being an ultimate revelation of rationalist self-sustenance.

It may be worth spending some effort on figuring out what was it in early Spinoza's head that he probably tossed out right there and then when he and the Rabbinical Court of Amsterdam parted ways.

Of all the uncountable of books on the matter the most interesting and usable one was written by Spinoza's luminous contemporary, some of the brightest minds ever, Gottfried Leibnitz. It is also a source I'm inclined to trust since as long its authorship is unchallenged, it does get as close to the very object of our interest as possible - Leibnitz was born only ten years before Spinoza's excommunication, and that makes him 14 years younger.

Remainders of Spinozist "pantheism" addressed by Leibnitz seem innocent and benign. "Everything is in G-d, that is, G-d comprises the being and the idea of everything" can be explained as normative doctrine - given enough ink and benefit of the doubt - in either Lithuanian, Chassidic or Chabad schools of thought, or in the explicit Kabbalist system of values to which Spinoza and other contemporaries often allude, as it gave them the means and the ways to express hitherto unexpressable.

So Leibnitz, the supergoy and and a thinker of unmatched caliber, wrote "Refutation of Spinoza" to refute a commonly shared belief that he (Leibnitz) was a Spinozist. In it he begins with a claim that while Spinoza has outwardly proclaimed the "divinity of Cr-st", he really kind of does not and really Spinoza is just repackaging "Kabbalistic doctrine". Then, Dr. Leibnitz goes into remarkable depth, although off-beat and naive, into the Kabbalist doctrine, how it's very close to Spinozist views and how he as a Christian does not really subscribe to these views and would like to distantiate himself from such (of course it's deeper and more nuanced, and quite unlike the treatment of genetics and Ac. Vavilov in the Soviet Academy of Sciences by Ac. Lysenko). It's surprising to see an erudite rationalist German to spend so much time arguing about intricacies of interpretations of various Kabbalistic doctrines (especially after it was condemned by the Yemenite and German self-professed rationalists alike). Messianic thought, too, is treated by Herr Leibnitz on more then one page in this very thin and scarcely available work.

Thus by all accounts it appears that Spinoza started off with a conceived relatively thorough system of thought that was deeply intertwined with contemporary religious "mysticism", with some of Descartes' innovate thinking and with approach and reconciliation with classic Judaism. In that, he was somewhat of a predecessor to, lehavdil, the school of R' Bunim, R' Yeshaya Muskat and his saintly father in law, OB"M. We can only speculate the magnitude of good that could have came out of taking the sprouts of this budding "theory of everything" and developing and retaining it further completely within the framework of Yiddishkeit. Instead of being a phony martyr to two-bit apostates who haven't read him, and instead of ending up writing outright heresy, blasphemy and idolatrous beliefs - looks like he did it to make a living and out of desperation - Spinoza could have been the focal point of development of centrist wholesome Jewish thought. And while philosophical contributions aren't particularly valuable because they lack rigor and weren't written with formal model theory in mind, everything could've been so different ...

Part Two :

There was something in the air in the mid-1600's.

Subtle Slander by Selective Reporting

2008-03-05T15:45:00.002-05:00

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/02/2008-03-02_bunch_of_wealthy_deadbeats_owe_new_york_.html

Daily News, a notoriously Anti-Semitic mouthpiece of Al Sharpton and Co published a list of "deadbeats" - mostly old, sometimes dead people who the New York City thinks owe them a lot of money. No surprise that Daily News picked mostly those with obviously Jewish last names. I'm sure it wasn't hard to do either, given the role that Ashkenazi Jews played in New York in the 20th Century. Most of these people were convicted of white collar crime and had to give up most of their money, and who knows why they still owe these nice chunks of change to the City.

All these numbers pale in comparison with how much Washington and Albany owe to New York. And the general concept to owe so much in taxes to the city, state, and the feds after paying up millions in restitution and fines is I'm sure not that trivial.

Daily News, a yellow paper if there ever was one, considered it important to concentrate its readers' focus on the rich, white slimy Jews. Whose bidding is it doing not so subtly ?

On vulgar customs

2008-03-05T14:14:00.002-05:00

(Thanks to WM) Hamra bar H. Yitshak Yousup chose wrong words to perpetuate the cause of Sephardic identity. Looks like some "conformists" amongst Sephardic young men picked up some ancient Ashkenazic wedding customs. So this gentleman decides to score some Moroccan votes to declare these customs as "vulgar". He got ticked off by the custom of Yichud Shtibl, of holding hands after the Chuppah and some other behaviors that may or may not qualify as "customs".

Holding hands after the Chuppah is universal amongst almost all Ashkenazic communities and goes back as long as the wedding ceremony itself. A select few communities don't practice it, but I suspect its because of being uninformed and out of misplaced shame; otherwise the custom is universal even amongst the frummest chassidim who will shave the poor bride to oblivion and will maintain mechitza even by mitzva tantz. It was modest enough for Pney Yehoshua, for Ktsos, probably for Rabeinu Tam - and likely too for Baal Shem Tov, for the heilige Ruzhiner and for Tzanzer Ruv, all of whose memory shall be blessed. And here comes a pere odom who didn't learn and didn't listen and declares this custom as vulgar ?

If all the concert ban signers had any anatomy at all, they would instead put him in Herem until he personally apologizes to every human dead or alive whose wedding went according to a thousand year old rite. But I guess מכה בסתר is easier and poor Lipa is a juicier target then some wannabe frenk ...

A new low for (some in) New Hempstead

2008-03-04T23:56:00.002-05:00

The mamshich darko of the now defunct TA, the nebech'l couldn't live with all the lows he's hit till now and decided to start drilling. It's not a chiddush that being Hungarian and all, there is a fair the amount of insecurity and lack of self esteem that drives the irrational, ingrained hatred to the word "Satmar". In lack of any real material, he decided to go dumpster diving and lo and behold, the low tide of heimishe cesspool, Hydepark, provided our Don Quixote de Hempstead Nueva with a diamond of a dung.

There are few things about which I care less then the Aroinim-Zaloinim conflict. I'm sure they all have their reasons, I'm sure they're both tired of it and enjoy it immensely and I'm also sure that time and money will heal that rift. In any case, given the magnitude of conflict (some fifty thousand people on each side), both sides have a fair share of leidigeiers and worse, people of all colors of the rainbow. And it seems that one of them dug up some book in Hebreaeich in which a Holocaust survivor reminisces that Rav Shpitz z"l from Bistrica, Razal's deceased father in law, may he rest in peace, was not in labor or any other concentration camps, but was hiding in a house of a hungarian go, and at that time also something unsavory was done towards this respectable Rov that puts him in less then favorable light in eyes of pretty much anyone frum reading this shtikl.

A staunch Zaloini, our Defender of Things Jewish insists on widely publicizing this to the English reading crowd. He doesn't actually translate the piece, written in primitive Ivrit. Instead, he puts up a scanned page of the book. As if that will relieve him from the fact that he took this out of obscurity of a yiddish-only forum for those who deeply care about the A-Z conflict, and into the limelight of English-speaking oilom that frequents his site to fill up on some fresh libel and perhaps some very nice old photos thrown in for credibility. It will not take long until his teacher Shmarya will quote him on the matter. It's pretty clear that he doesn't actually give a hoot about Rav Shpitz z"l and his kuvod; I'm sure that if it was found on some Machnovka vs. Belz forum, it would go deeply unnoticed.

And he writes up a filthy ruse, as if the matter was brought up by lowlife "Satmars" in their infights, and now they're officially pouring dirt on the now-deceased respectable Bistricer Rov. So this creature in his pathological hatred for Satmar engages in wholesale slander, propagates dirty rumors about a respectable Rov who is no longer with us and is otherwise being oiver on a dozen or so deoraysos, all this in public limelight.

One thing is clear - whoever posted the original document on Hydepark didn't represent anything and anyone, and did not speak for anything or anyone and did not label himself as a "defender of all things Chassidish, doing what's right". I am sure that the Holy Rabbi Ariel Sokolovsky Shlit"A has way more credentials to speak from the name of all the Raboisov Nesioisov then whoever it was on Hydepark has to speak in the name of anyone in Satmar. Whether or not the story is true - who knows, and who cares. But this particular blogger made his career on shoveling disgusting dirt of just this kind for past year or two, and he pretends to do so in the name of Sholosh Rishoinos.

Then, he provides some kind advice to the A's and the Z's how to settle their issues and what to do with their real estate.

Many things could be said about where he could place that advice, and about people with stones in houses. But there is no need; he'll spell them all out for you .