A frum friend just invited me to bring Chaim Amalek to Shabbos lunch. I said he’ll come for dessert so long as the home is Amalek-friendly.
Chaim Amalek: “Is the dessert uber-glatt Kosher? What are the midos and tznius of the hosts? Will women be allowed to dine at the men’s table? Speaking of which, how much yichhus do these people bring to the table?”
* Here are five biographical questions which can eliminate, IMO, 95% of bad people (based on my experience and seeing patterns):
Did he or she grow up in a two-parent household? Are his or her parents still married and is it a first marriage for both?
How many siblings does he/she have? How many sisters?
Did he/she grow up with a dog and does he/she like dogs/animals?
Did his/her parents bring him/her to church/synagogue when he/she was growing up and does he/she attend now?
How does he/she feel about people who are different from him/her (racial, religious, sexual orientation, etc.)?
* One thing that has always bugged me about these flashmobs where you see a horde of black kids invade and loot a place…
You just know each and every one of them has a cell phone.
And you also know that in most cases the cell phone provider has the ethnic profile of the user.
Or heck, voice recognition has gotten to the point where I think it could reliably id the race (and a lot of other things) of a speaker from the speech itself (idiom, timbre, word selection, etc).
Even if you could care less about what they had to say, it’s easy to imagine a program processing this to id the user. For demographic reasons you understand.
I’m sure it is an invasion of privacy; but as someone who has no knowledge or experience with law, it has always seemed to me to be a crapshoot as to what lawyers can torture out of this system, meaning what is allowed and what is not permissible comes across as totally random.
Anyway, I’m quite sure that cell providers could do something to identify “swarms” as they are forming. It would be nice if different providers shared data for this purpose, but even data from one popular provider would be very useful for this concept.
Anyway, just idle musing. But the future is already here in a lot of ways. It just hasn’t bothered to materialize yet.
But me personally I think I could set up a system where these kids loot a store then walk out and find the police and barricades waiting for them.
* The mistake white people make is thinking that blacks naturally trust other blacks more than they trust whites. It’s just another example of how white people outside the South know very little about black people.
Most blacks, those outside the talented ten, look at whites in authority positions as more trustworthy than blacks in authority positions. The assumption of blacks when seeing a black cop is that he is a Tom and mostly interested in showing off to other white cops. An older white cop will usually get more cooperation from older blacks because they assume he will treat them fairly.
Young male cops of any race are assumed to be no different than the bangers. That’s not too far off. Most cities deploy their dumbest and youngest to the ghetto. It takes guts to confront a group of hoppers, much less full on bangers. It also helps if you’re stupid and in good physical shape. Older cops of any race will ignore most of the petty crime anyway. They simply don’t need the hassle.
* My experience with blacks is that they don’t trust anybody, but they have a pathological mistrust of whites, and the hatred of Toms is merely a reflection of that. Hatred of Toms does not equate to trusting whites.
Anecdotally, I have seen primitive displays of primate aggression, going up to the brink, and then backing down, between young black men, and only young black men, brought on by mere glances. One black guy simply looks at another black guy for a fraction of a second too long, and this aggression display erupts. I’ve never seen a black guy take such umbrage at a white guy. If the white guy does something the black guy doesn’t like, he’ll let it pass.
It’s like two parallel universes.
Robert Weissberg writes: Americans seem to have an irrepressible urge to uplift the bottom—the lumpenproletariat, to use a fancy word– no matter how daunting the mission. The federal government has spent billions since the mid-1960s (e.g., AmeriCorps) with scant success. Numerous non-profits have also sought solutions and here, too, the results are not encouraging. Now the private sector is trying its hand. With Starbucks taking the lead ($30 million from the CEO’s own foundation), corporate America (Hilton, Microsoft, Walmart, J.C. Penney, among 13 others) is rolling out a plan to create 100,000 jobs, internships and apprenticeships by 2018 targeting the 5.5 million young Americans who are neither in school or in the workforce. These youngsters (called “disconnected youth”) are predominantly non-white, poor, and are often teenage single parents. That these youngster lack any extended work experience hinders getting even to the first rung of the economic ladder.
The Aspen Institute’s Opportunity Youth Network will monitor and oversee the enterprise. All and all, this is a mega buck project supported by a Who’s Who of corporate America with access to an army of policy wonks.
Will it succeed? Absolutely not, despite its corporate capitalist pedigree. Begin by recognizing the awaiting legal pitfalls. Any effort to target black kids without a similar outreach program for whites, Hispanics, and Asians may instigate litigation and EEOC complaints. This may tie up the project for years as Aspen lawyers seek to circumvent anti-discrimination laws in employment. And if that were insufficient to impede progress, what about hiring those with criminal records? Does Walmart really want to hire ex-cons and thereby face the potential liability if one of these employs assaults a customer? Even more vexing, what about those with drug addictions? Imagine making a reasonable workplace accommodation for a chronic sex offender? Clearly, many of the most challenging cases, those most in need of a corporate-supplied opportunity, will be risky bets and would justifiably never be hired in the first place.
Far more important, a few exceptions aside, these youngster will arrive with terrible work habits and I defy any firm, within today’s legal and political environment, to overcome these liabilities. I suspect that all the well-intentioned CEO’s and their white, middle class Aspen facilitators are clueless regarding the toxic underclass culture. It will be a major struggle to get these kids to be prompt, follow directions dutifully, avoid on-the-job conflicts, speak clear English absent profanities, disdain socializing or periodic texting, function without close supervision, always dress neatly and be well-groomed (including conservative haircuts, no piercing), eschew petty thievery, control one’s temper when challenged (“dissed”) and otherwise conduct themselves according to traditional standards of a “good employee.”
Invariably, civil rights activists will condemn this training as cultural imperialism, making blacks into whites, and this argument is not easily dismissed. The Al Sharptons of the world will insist that there’s nothing inappropriate with black slang and a “black accent” in the workplace, and corporate America should accept it much like they currently tolerate immigrants who speak with a Chinese or Indian accent. Ditto for program enrollees who continue to wear their pants well below their waist or otherwise dress in the ghetto “style.”
Then add the obstacles of bringing these “disconnected youth” up to speed on simple arithmetic, an 8th grade reading level, legible penmanship and properly filling out forms. In a nutshell, corporate America, with the help of the Aspen Institute must transform deeply rooted cultural habits, habits that may even be classified as survival tools in Hobbesian inner cities. Clearly, far more is involved here than simply spending an hour or two teaching how to make a tall soy milk latte and then use the cash register to make change from a $20.
FROM CNN: Cincinnati police are investigating the fatal shooting of an apparently unarmed black man by a University of Cincinnati police officer after a confrontation during a traffic stop Sunday.
The dead man, who was shot in the head, was Samuel Dubose, a 43-year-old father of 13 children, according to CNN affiliate WKRC-TV. A CNN records search showed that Dubose had more than 60 arrests.
Authorities identified the officer as Ray Tensing, who has five years’ experience in law enforcement and who has worked for the University of Cincinnati Police Department for more than a year. He is white.
According to Cincinnati police, which is handling the investigation, Tensing saw Dubose driving without a front license plate around 6:30 Sunday evening and tried to pull him over. Police said Dubose continued for about a mile before stopping the car…
Tensing asked several times to see Dubose’s driver’s license, Cincinnati police said. Instead, police said, Dubose handed the officer a bottle of alcohol.
According to police, Tensing asked Dubose to step out of the car, at which point a struggle ensued.
“There was a struggle at the door with Mr. Dubose in the vehicle and the officer outside the vehicle, and the vehicle sped away,” Cincinnati police Lt. Col. James Whalen told reporters.
Police said Dubose then stuck his key back in the ignition and sped away as Tensing fired a single shot, hitting the driver in the head.
Tensing fell to the ground as he fired the shot, bruising his legs and tearing his uniform, Cincinnati police said.
My relatives at my Aunty Linda’s 80th birthday party.
A source emails:
With regards to the allegations against Jacob Fetman, an attorney familiar with the case points out that Justice Demarest in her decision to confirm Rabbi Cohen’s award of $20,000,000 (twenty million dollars), made it clear that she did not review the merits of the case – her focus was to confirm or reject this award. As it is the public policy in NY state to uphold arbitration awards and because of the fact that there were no transcripts of the arbitration sessions (4 sessions totaling 140 minutes) she had no choice but to confirm the award – despite her reservations about Fetman’s allegations of the many violations of his Due Process. For example, in court it was acknowledged that a forensic report, which R’ Cohen bases his award on, was never provided to Fetman and in fact, once the judge ordered Aish to produce it (April 25, 2015 – almost 18 months after the award was issued), it was found to be dated AFTER the last session and on the date of the AWARD. Clearly, there was no chance for Fetman to dispute any of its ‘findings’.
It is note worthy that a criminal complaint which was alleged by Aish against Jacob Fetman is still pending in Brooklyn Supreme court for the alleged theft of $236,000 over five years – Mr. Fetman plead Not Guilty to this allegation and a trial is pending.
While Aish is a wonderful organization, with a very important mission, in court papers it was alleged by Fetman that executive compensation was substantially under reported and disguised as activities. Rabbi Greenman’s compensation over 2012 reported as (aish 990 filing) $101,409 taxable income and an additional $94,000 non taxable income was in fact almost double that. David Markowitz’s taxable compensation of $62,500 with an additional $50,000 non taxable compensation was in fact about $150,000. 2013 reported income for Rabbi Greenman was $118,310 taxable and combined compensation (with non taxable compensation) $216,929. Aish chose not to divulge any other executive compensation.
If the allegation against Fetman is correct – Aish NY, an organization with an internal budget of about $3 million dollars annually could have not “noticed” that $1.2 million annually was being stolen from it?? Why is it that Aish will not submit to examination of the ‘forensic report’ – what was the rush to issue an award when an attorney intervened on behalf of Fetman?
See attached Justice Demarest’s decision that Aish must produce the ‘forensic report’ to Fetman – when it was acknowledged that Fetman never received it. The award was issued 12/17/2013 – This decision by the court is 4/25/2015.
See the attached DA statement – Aish NY used Fetman and Merkaz the Center as a funnel to transfer monies from Project Inspire to Aish NY. Hundreds of thousand of dollars were transferred this way.
Lastly, see Dan Stein’s (Fetman’s original attorney and now the Chief of the Criminal Division at the US attorney General’s Office NY Western District) letter to R’ Cohen right after the award was issued and another letter to Mel Zachter, a noted accountant who agreed to examine the ‘forensic report’ but Aish never agreed.
R. Cohen’s decision states that Fetman took property from Aish which was proven in court that those properties were purchased prior to Fetman even working at Aish. That part of the award was struck out by the judge. The confirmation is pending an appeal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As a recent article in the Forward states – its well known that Courts rubber stamp arbitration awards. Rabbi Greenman and his excellent attorneys took advantage of this perfectly.
G – Dan Stein letter to R Cohen 12 27 2013 Mel Zachter agreement 5 30 2014 brooklyn DA press release Jacob-Fetman-grand-larceny-indictment decision of judge demarest that aish must get me the report before the beis din session
Forensic Accountant report attached: lipnitsky forensic report transcript ebt 3-31-15 full-lipnitsky deposition decision of judge demarest that aish must get me the report before the beis din session (1)
Transcript of Lipnitsky’s deposition – in which he states hundreds of times “I Don’t remember”, “I took no notes”, There was no report”…
Aish and their attorney fought in court not to divulge the purported forensic report that Rabbi Cohen stated he saw and relied on that report for his award of $20,000,000
Attached is a decision from Justice Demarest dated April 25 2015 compelling Aish to show Fetman that forensic report. The Judge noticed that the report was dated December 17th 2013, well after the last session with Rabbi Cohen and was incredulous to hear that Fetman never received this report prior to Rabbi Cohen issuing his decision and award on December 17th. Lipnitsky also admitted discussing this case with Rabbi Cohen the evening before he issued the report, against all common practice that no discussions shall take place Ex Parte.
There are major errors and mistakes in the purported report – some of which are stated below:
Lipnitsky report
Exhibit 1 summarizes his findings – between the years 2006 – 2013
1. Unauthorized compensation – $174,202
2. Funds deposited into Unauthorized bank accounts: $ 1,697,523
3. Credit Card charges Personal – $ 462,787
4. Other $16,700
Total: $2,351,211 (This is the figure that they made to match R. Cohen’s reference when he states that the report claims that $2.4 million stolen from Aish. Also note that the report is dated December 17, when the psak itself was already faxed over December the 16th – based on R’ Cohen fax date stamp)
Issues with the report:
2006-2013
1. Unauthorized compensation states that two schools were paid as a part of Allowable Compensation
Masores BY – report claim $ 161,942 however – as can be learned from the school’s report (attached)
$131,473 was paid (difference of $30,469)
Tiferes Yisroel – Lipnitsky report claims $ 94,242 however as can be seen from the school’s report (attached) only $ 58,403 was paid (difference of $ 35,839)
Additionally, Health insurance premiums, totaling $ 95,733 were NOT a part of the compensation but an added benefit.
Fetman’s compensation 2006-2011 did NOT stay the same but was increased annually. 2012 – 2013 was $135,000 and not $125,000 as it shows on the report
Therefore – there is no basis to the claim of unauthorized compensation.
2. Lipnitsky’s report refers to a total of seven bank accounts as “Unauthorized bank accounts”
Project Inspire (Bank of America X4050) total deposited $1,200,052
Tomchei Torah (Bank of American X4322) total deposited $ 262,923
Jewish Speakers Group (Bank of America X8362) total deposited $ 64,581
Ahavas Israel (Bank of America X4513) Total deposited $ 4,975
Three other account are referenced –
Aish International – depositing funds totaling $ 139,967 into Merkaz account (Bank of America X5468)
Aish Missouri – depositing funds totaling $ 15,025 into Merkaz account (Bank of America X5468)
and Aish Center – depositing funds totaling $10,000 into Merkaz account (Bank of America X5468)
the last three entities (Aish International, aish MO and Aish Center) are separate and distinct 501c3 organizations, with their own board, management teams and accounting departments. These entities are NOT under Fetman’s control and never were. Its misleading and a complete falsehood to report these transactions as if they had anything to do with Aish NY. Certainly, Mr. Lipnitsky never even attempted to contact them as he stated in his deposition.
Project Inspire and Tomchei Torah are their own entities – Project Inspire was ALWAYS under Aish International (certificate of Incorporation attached) had its own staff, address, board of directors and fundraising and accounting systems. Lipnitsky’s letter refers to email dialog between Greenman and Yossi Friedman, the director of Project Inspire, requesting that Inspire pay more money towards Fetman’s compensation – clearly, Inspire is NOT under or a part of Aish NY.
Greenman claims that these accounts were ‘unauthorized’ yet clearly he knows and agrees to have Project Inspire use accounting services provided by Fetman. Greenman’s claims that the Project Inspire bank account was unauthorized – is unbelievable – how else can checks made out to Project Inspire be able to be deposited.
THE MOST EGREGIOUS OMISSION IS THAT IN THE LETTER LIPNISKY ACKNOWLEDGES CONFIRMING THAT APPROXIMATELY $450,000 WAS DEPOSITED BACK IN AISH ACCOUNT FROM MERKAZ, HOWEVER THE REPORT FAILS TO DEDUCT THAT AMOUNT FROM THE $2.35 MILLION REPORTED.
3. Credit Cards transactions reported to Lipnitsky by Aish as Personal – a total of $ 462,787
The report claims that EVERY charge at Staples was personal – approx. $200K over the 8 years! Likewise, charges from T-Mobile, Mountain Fruit, Home Depot, Lowes, Costco local coffee shops etc. are all marked as personal. Fetman NEVER had an account with T-Mobile only with Sprint and those transactions were authorized by others as legitimate aish expenses and not a part of Fetman’s compensation.
Specific business transactions, such as over 10,000 dollars copier lease expenses charged by De Lage Landen, were marked as personal expenses. See lease attached.
Simcha Kosher Caterers, which was an Aish caterer for an event in Austen Texas, were marked personal as well.
Fetman was personally in charge of all purchases, and Aish staff constantly used Fetman’s credit cards to have with them while on Aish run trips and student meetings. Many times staff meetings at local restaurants and eateries were charged to Fetman’s credit card by staff.
As much of the documentation is not available to us, we can not comment on the amex transactions. One credit card – Aish Plum card – which Lipnitsky’s report claims to have $147,919 personal charges 2010 thru 2013 was analyzed and concluded to have a total charges of $585,400. When deducting returns and refunds of $16,755 and legitimate Aish NY business transactions of $558,827, only $9817 of personal charges over the 4 year period exist.
4. Other Fetman Expenses:
$6700 over 2006 – 2013 Insurance payments to William Penn were authorized and not a part of Fetman’s compensation.
Conclusion:
Lipnitsky’s report which spans 8 years, and reports finding $2.35 million is a gross and malignant painting of the actual information. Even according to his own findings, its actually $1,900,000 (2.35 mil less than the $450K found returned to Aish). Even if we take 1.9 mil over 8 years and project to 17 years the total would be approximately $4 million – no where near $20 million. However – as stated, the ‘unauthorized accounts’ were fully authorized and fully scrutinized by Project Inspire and Greenman, so the 1.9 mil is no where near that amount.
* For the past 45 years, people have told me that my sloppiness will be my undoing.
* Friend: “You misfiled again!”
Luke: “Will you be my sponsor for Underearners Anonymous?”
Friend: “Sure, I’ll do a 5150 and have you taken to the mental ward.”
* I learn about who I am from the frequent things people say to me, such as, “Dude, that was wayyyyy to fast!”
* I just learned you can get Workers Comp for psychiatric problems!
* Do you have to have work before you can get workers comp?
* Do you ever find yourself hating whole groups of people, such as gays/trannies/blacks/Jews/Muslims/Mexicans etc and if so, what do you do with these feelings? How do you healthfully release them?
* I asked my friend to set me up. He said: “We need to duct tape your mouth and you’ll have a fighting chance.”
* I threatened my friend to dedicate my next book to his family.
* Are you also going through life on bald tires, hoping someone will take care of you?
* If I turn my will and my life over to the care of God today, at least I’ll no longer have an idiot running the show.
* A friend from the Valley says: “you were the dog’s bollocks then…now you’re a talmud hochem.”
* Some women flake on me because they need to buy a new parrot, others because they must assemble furniture from Ikea and others because this was the anniversary of the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe getting released from a Russian jail.
* Converting Sephardi? Is that like becoming black?
* Miriam Lilian D Or I knew an Ashkenazi man who did this. He must be happy eating meat now and rice during Pesach.
Marc Dome · 2 mutual friends
I wouldn’t even call the both of you light entertainment. You’re probably made for one another. I used to keep Sephardic halachot and didn’t eat rice. Not all Sephardim eat rice.
Miriam Lilian D Or You haven’t been following Luke’s posts long enough. The Ashkenazi to Sephardic man I was referring to was my fiance, and a fine man he is (still my friend). Once again, I get a good talking to from posting on Luke’s post, probably because satire is lost in translation. As distasteful as I am here is an interesting article. http://www.dailyhalacha.com/displayRead.asp?readID=537
Chaim Amalek Why do yidden eat rice? It is for the yellow ones. Hashem made wheat for real yidden to eat, like on Mt. Sinai.
Miriam Lilian D Or 5 out of 1 fiances/boyfriends dislike my commenting on Luke’s posts.
Marc Dome · 2 mutual friends
Who cares what anyone thinks, and a fine man he is! ( one for you here Luke). Thanks for the Halacha article, I like a rice story! Maybe wrong continent?!?!
Marc Dome · 2 mutual friends
I got it wrong. I thought the Ashkenazi man was Luke! Well, you’re both fine men even now and you’re a fine man too!!
* I want to thank the maid for the great job she did cleaning the kitchen but fear she’ll think I want to Governator her.
* Friend: So….who was the blonde girl you were playing with in my dream? She was resting on the floor and you were playing with her hair.
L: Can you tell me more?
Yes, long blonde hair
But, I think it was dyed blonde
She was kind of busty
I was walking by and saw the two of you in my wood cabin. She was just resting. I saw you sitting next to her, holding her hair. I didn’t see what happened next.
Well, more like caressing her hair. You had an happy look.
There are two common viewpoints on how to choose policemen. Either hire:
The best individuals who apply, or
The best racial balance
I think both arguments have some surface plausibility because the police are, as the word suggests, inherently political.
It’s not unreasonable to imagine that since such a disproportionate fraction of homicide perps, victims, and witnesses are black, police forces should strive to have a number of blacks. By way of analogy, although female firefighters have proved fairly useless (it’s not coincidental that none of the 343 firefighters killed on 9/11 were women), women cops ought to be valuable for, say, getting evidence from rape victims.
Similarly, a lot of police work in modern America is persuading black witnesses to show up to testify against black criminals.
“The superior solution would be to hire cops in rank order within their race’s quota. That way, police departments would get the best blacks and best whites rather than the random flotsam chosen by lottery.”
Strangely, though, nobody has ever produced much evidence that diversity hiring improves policing. In the largest such natural experiment, Congress ordered Mayor Marion Barry’s Washington D.C. to hire 1,800 additional police officers in 1989–90. By all accounts, this proved a disaster. As of 1994, over 100 of D.C.’s new cops had themselves been arrested.
Similarly, advocates of diversity hiring seemed compelled to lie about the evidence. For example, the federal consent decree against the LAPD in the Rampart scandal was sold to the public as being due to revelations of white racism among cops. Yet the main malefactors were all diversity hires, some of them moonlighting for felonious hip-hop producer Suge Knight. Strikingly, the Oscar-winning movies Training Day and Crash were more realistic about the race of the Rampart bad guys than was the news coverage.
I never saw myself as this much of a loser. In 2007, I had about $130,000 available credit on my cards, now it is down to about $2127.
I have a lower credit score than your average resident of Washington Park!
Report: “In the village of Washington Park, where the population is 98 percent minority, the average credit score is 600. That’s 107 points lower than the average credit score in nearby Belleville, Illinois, where only 22 percent of the population is minority.”
According to my USAA account:
What’s Hurting:
Balances on bankcard or revolving accounts too high compared to credit limits.
Total of all balances on bankcard or revolving accounts is too high.
The balances on your accounts are too high compared to loan amounts.
What’s Helping:
There are no or only a few recent delinquencies on your accounts.
Lack of sufficient relevant installment account information.
Few or no bankcard or revolving accounts with delinquent/derogatory status.
