CLICK:
http://www.thejewisheye.com/rsfh17.html
"...Reb Shraga Feivel lived in fear of any trace of chillul Hashem, often saying that it would be better to close the Mesivta than for there to be a trace of chillul Hashem associated with it. During World War II, he forbade the talmidim from walking in large groups to Tashlich for fear that the sight of a large number of Orthodox boys not serving in the army, when so many families had sons serving overseas or who had been killed, would create animosity toward Orthodox Jews. For the same reason, he flew the American flag in Monsey"....
Rabbi Shmuel Mendlowitz
Clarifying the above:
Reb Shraga Feivel was a great American patriot, boys that didn't take learning seriously, he pushed them to go to work or to start a business. The Mesivta, and Bais Medrash Elyon in Monsey, were not hangouts for boys to evade the draft.
He hung the American flag not only at his house on Main St., but at Bais Medrash Elyon, out of love and respect for America, and G-D forbid that the umas haolam would think Jews were not true patriots.
In Monsey in the 1940s, Reb Shraga Feivel was "Orthodox Judaism".
There was a clergy deferment (4D) that Reb Shraga Feivel used only for the his best and brightest that he believed would go on to be rabbis and/or remain in chinuch.
At the time, YTV and YU were two of the Orthodox yeshivas that had their boys serve as chaplains.
PM
72 comments:
And just look at what you've done....
http://www.metnews.com/articles/2010/flor050610.htm
A prisoner who claims that a Jewish chaplaincy violated his civil rights by denying him assistance based on its conclusion that he is not Jewish may sue the group under federal statutes, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.
Overturning a summary judgment in favor of Congregation Pidyon Shevuyim, the panel said there was a triable issue as to whether the group acted on behalf of the state of Washington, with which it has a contract to provide services to Jewish inmates.
The prisoner, Dennis Florer, is serving 10 years for stealing a truck from a car dealership in 2003 and running over the salesman, The Associated Press reported. Florer completed the Washington Department of Corrections religious preference form, designated himself as Jewish, and requested a kosher diet, a Torah, a Jewish calendar, and consultation with a rabbi.
His requests were referred to Congregation Pidyon Shevuyim. The group’s contract with the DOC required it to provide “religious training on essential Jewish religious practices to Department of Corrections’ offenders who request this” and to provide “assistance with Jewish problems in prisons in Washington State.”
The contract also provides that while all prisoners could attend Jewish services, “the Jewish authorities will determine who can participate in liturgical activities.”
Florer claims that the denial of his requests by the DOC violated the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which bars the government from imposing an undue burden on a prisoner’s religious freedom.
He named the congregation as defendant because the congregation’s president, Gary Friedman, insisted that Florer was not Jewish.
Friedman, in a letter to a DOC chaplain that Florer cited, said that requests from non-Jewish inmates were burdening the chaplaincy and that the only solution was to limit services to those who “require them as obligations of their bona fide faiths.”
Friedman further offered to assist the department if it had “difficulty determining which inmates are Jewish” according to Jewish law, which requires one be born to a Jewish mother or converted. That view is not universal, as some within Judaism recognize as Jewish a person whose father is Jewish, or has undergone conversion outside Orthodox tradition, to which Congregation Pidyon Shevuyim adheres.
Florer received a questionnaire from Friedman regarding his claim to be Jewish, but did not complete it.
In summary judgment in favor of the congregation, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez of the Western District of Washington ruled the congregation could not be sued under the civil rights statutes because it was acting privately.
Judge Ronald Gould, emphasizing that the appellate panel was ruling only on the state-action issue, said Florer presented enough evidence to take that question to trial. He explained in a footnote that while the congregation raised other grounds in favor of dismissal, the panel declined to rule on them because the district judge did not treat them as dispositive.
Gould explained that if the state contracts with a private party to meet legal obligations, the private party acts under state law. He cited cases in which the Sixth Circuit allowed a prisoner to sue a volunteer chaplain who barred him from attending chapel because the prisoner was gay.
“Likewise, Congregation’s role in determining which prisoners were Jewish, arose through its contract with DOC,” the appellate explained.
Senior Judge Robert Beezer and Judge Richard Tallman concurred.
Yes, 8:07 am, we see what UOJ has done. He is fighting to stop Agudah chilul Hashem.
The Wall St Journal mockingly asked if this was Obama
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10119/1054214-53.stm
Car driven by 'messiah' hits grounds of Squirrel Hill synagogue
http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/1203409/jewish/Historic-Shanghai-Synagogue-Reopens.htm
Hey Arthur, maybe Chabad doesn't want to give any recognition to the Alter Mirrer "snags" who learned in the Shanghai shul, but a bunch of Lubavitcher bochurim who escaped the Nazis were learning there too.
Are the people behind Chabad's website total am haaratzim or do they hate non-Lubies so much that they would ignore the most important part of the shul's history?
It is amazing how much you resemble your grandfather obm. intellectually, physically and spiritually. Klal Yisrael is fortunate.
Did you hear that Lawrence Taylor is being Megayer through Tropper?
He wants the Agudas Yisroel to start a Pidyon Shvuim campaign immediately.
After all, he did play for the NY Gedolim!
It was announced today at the national headquarters of Agudath Israel of America that Guy R. Cook, the Iowa attorney representing former Agriprocessors CEO Sholom Rubashkin, will be addressing the organization’s 88th Anniversary Dinner this Sunday, May 9, at the New York Hilton in Manhattan.
Mr. Cook, a partner in the prominent Iowa firm Grefe and Sidney, has served as Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. He is also a past president of the Polk County Bar Association, which represents more than a quarter of all the lawyers in Iowa, and presently serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the Iowa State Bar Association.
Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudath Israel’s executive vice president, has worked closely with Mr. Cook over the past year-and-a-half as the Rubashkin case has proceeded in the Iowa and federal courts.
Rabbi Zwiebel had warm words for the Iowa attorney. “Over recent months,” he said, “I have had the opportunity to witness Guy Cook’s tireless efforts on behalf of Sholom Rubashkin.
The Agudah can't find enough paying fressers to fill the tables:
Reservations can still be made – until noon Sunday – by contacting Agudath Israel’s dinner office at 212-797-8177.
You can also call and explain that you will attend because you do not support an organization that protects pedophiles.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/jurors_watch_secret_recordings.html
During his testimony today, Dwek ticked off a list of public officials — without using their names — who he said he bribed to smooth the permitting process for development projects. Among his claims, he said he "had a middleman make a bribe payment, like, to the mayor of Long Branch or council people of Long Branch or sometimes I would give out auction tickets."
Today, Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider, who is up for re-election next Tuesday, denied receiving any bribes from Dwek or a middleman.
"It’s outrageous that a man who’s facing significant jail time and is a convicted felon is able to make this attack," Schneider said. "Solomon Dwek has been out there essentially as a criminal for four years. I’ve never been questioned by authorities. If there was anything to these allegations, I’m sure I would have been.’’
The testimony about the Long Branch officials was sandwiched between references to West Long Branch officials Dwek claimed he bribed.
Paul Zambrano, the former mayor of West Long Branch, pleaded guilty in 2005 to accepting bribes in an investigation not related to this case.
Dwek has testified he used a middleman to pass money to people he did not know. Schneider said he has known Dwek for nearly 20 years.
Anonymous 11:56
I would strongly suggest that you see a good shrink to get your hate under control.Your post seems to be a desperate call for help.An alternate solution would be to get back on your meds.
Anonymous 11:56 AM
It seems to me that this the same kind of mindless hate you subscribe to.
" Brutal Murder of Yeshiva Bachur in Kiev
[Update Below] According to a Kol Chareidi report, a chareidi yeshiva bachur in Kiev was brutally murdered, stabbed to death and his body cut into pieces. The murder occurred two weeks ago, on the birthday of Adolph Hitler YM”S.
According to a member of the local kehila, Yaakov Zilberman, the victim set out for some business dealings but when he did not contact anyone at home, they became worried. They began probing, learning of the brutal homicide. The body was found in a Kiev suburb the report adds.
Zilberman added that due to the brutality involved in the act, it was difficult making a positive identification of the remains. Zilberman states that of late, there has been an increase in anti-Semitic attacks and incident, “but we never believed it would come to something this horrific”.
The niftar’s remains will be arriving in Eretz in the coming days for kvura.
UPDATED INFO:
According to Kol Chareidi, the details of the brutal murder were confirmed on erev shabbos. It appears the bachur HY”D was a talmid in a Chabad yeshiva. R’ Yaakov Zilberman reports the murder occurred on April 20th, the birthday of Hitler YM”S as was reported earlier.
As of Sunday morning, official Israeli sources are not confirming the report, but Kol Chareidi insists the report is confirmed by R’ Zilberman and Kiev Police.
“Police are continuing tests, including genetics and DNA since the body was found in almost ten pieces” Zilberman added. He explains that on erev shabbos, calls were made and efforts are continuing to expedite the release of the body for kvura which may or may not be in Eretz Yisrael.
UPDATE: Chabad.info reports the victim has been identified as Hatomim Aryeh Leib Misinzov HY”D, adding Ukraine Chief Rabbi Moshe Reuven Asman was in Eretz Yisrael when the news broke. He cut his stay short and returned home to deal with the kvura"
continued
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100505/FREE/100509925
The leaders of Spongetech Delivery Systems Inc., a tiny company whose ads were once as common at ballparks and hockey arenas as beer signs, were charged Wednesday with conspiracy to commit fraud, greatly escalating the legal problems for the Manhattan company that's already been sued by several area sports teams for failing to pay for its once-ubiquitous ads.
Spongetech is a tiny company that makes sponges to clean kitchens, pets and cars. It gained some public prominence in the past few years after buying large ads at Citi Field, Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden and other sports venues. Yet it also has been sued recently by the New York Mets, Giants, Islanders, MSG and other teams for allegedly failing to pay its bills.
The company is the brainchild of Chief Executive Michael Metter, a former stock broker who was accused of cheating clients out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1990s, and Chief Operating Officer Steven Moskowitz.
Both appeared before Judge Ramon Reyes in a Brooklyn federal courtroom on Wednesday and bail was set at $2 million each. Mr. Metter, 58, used his house in Greenwich, Conn., to secure his release, while Mr. Moskowitz, 45, brought his elderly parents to court with him so they could sign papers using their house in Forest Hills, Queens, to secure their son's bail.
Mr. Metter is the former president of First Cambridge Securities, according to federal court filings, a penny-stock brokerage house suspended by regulators in 1998 for failing to pay fines awarded to clients by arbitrators. (First Cambridge called itself J.J. Morgan & Co. until J.P. Morgan sued and forced a name change.) Mr. Metter was sued at least twice by clients for fraud and in 2000 a federal judge ordered him to pay about $500,000 in restitution. In 2001, he declared personal bankruptcy to shake off creditors and ultimately settled with his clients for a fraction of what they were owed.
Spongetech launched in 2002 and rose to prominence last year, when ads for its sponges started appearing in ballparks across the country. At an investor conference last summer, Mr. Metter said his fledgling company was able to afford to buy so much advertising because the recession and banking crisis knocked out so many other sponsors.
Its penny stock, which isn't listed on an exchange, quintupled last summer to more than 25 cents a share as buzz about its products grew.
Mr. Metter also told investors last year that the company had $40 million in annual revenue and $8.5 million in profits, up from just $67,000 in revenue two years earlier. But prosecutors say Messrs. Metter and Moskowitz booked phony sales to customers that didn't exist. They not only concocted false sales documents, but also created fake websites and virtual offices for the phony customers, the government alleges.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday morning, FBI and IRS agents raided Spongetech's headquarters at 10 W. 33rd St. Down the block, at another address listed in court records as a Spongetech office—but listed on the building's directory as home to “Vanity Events Inc.”—an IRS agent stood vigil as eight people, seemingly Spongetech employees, sat silently outside the office and furiously pecked away at their iPhones. Federal agents were summoning the people into the office one by one.
One house they lived at 137-32 71st Ave was recently sold to Israel Blumenfrucht.
They currently live at 136-24 71st Rd.
http://ohelyitzchok.blogspot.com/2005/05/journal-ad-for-steven-mindy-moskowitz.html
Yeshiva Tifereth Moshe (Chofetz Chaim's yeshiva ketana in Kew Gardens) will be holding its' 48th annual Dinner on Sunday May 22 at the White Shul in Far Rockaway.
Our honorees this year are:
Steven & Mindy Moskowitz (Guests of Honor)
http://www.hedgefund.net/publicnews/default.aspx?story=11245
Executives of a sponge company who had sued an ex-hedge fund manager and several journalists were arrested Wednesday on allegations of inflating sales figures and obstructing a regulatory investigation.
Michael Metter, 58, of Greenwich, Conn. and Steven Moskowitz, 45, of Flushing, N.Y. the chief executive officer and chief financial officer of SpongeTech were arrested Wednesday morning, according to the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn.
The two men were charged with securities fraud and obstruction of justice.
If convicted, they each face up to five years in prison.
The arrests came barely two weeks after SpongeTech sued ex-hedge fund manager Timothy Sykes, The New York Post and several business journalists who the company claimed were in a conspiracy to drive its share price down.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil action, accusing the company of inflating its share prices through a pump-and-dump scheme.
The government alleged that Metter and Moskowitz issued press releases and made securities filings about customer orders that did not exist.
“For example, for the nine months ended February 28, 2009, Spongetech reported that sales to these [nonexistent] five customers constituted approximately 99% of Spongetech’s revenue,” prosecutors said in a statement.
SpongeTech makes soap-filled sponges, including the SpongeBob SquarePants bath sponges for children.
Nutrisystem, the online weight loss company, shed 230-pound ex-Giants great Lawrence Taylor Friday, a day after his arrest on charges of raping a teenaged Bronx runaway.
"Based on the severity of these allegations, Nutrisystem has made the decision to sever our relationship with Mr. Taylor effective immediately," a spokesman for the the Horsham, Pa.-based company told TMZ.
The company said it was "shocked and saddened" by the allegations.
Nutrisystem quickly replaced Taylor's image on their website with San Diego Padres star Matt Stairs.
In the latest off-field fiasco for the Hall of Fame linebacker, Taylor, 51, was charged Thursday with raping a 16-year-old girl in a Rockland County hotel room.
Town of Ramapo police said the teen victim was a runaway forceably brought to a hotel where Taylor was staying in Suffern, about 40 miles north of the city.
A used condom reportedly was found in the room.
Taylor, charged with third-degree rape, which involves sexual intercourse with a minor, faces a maximum sentence of four years behind bars if convicted.
He also was charged with patronizing a prostitute in the third degree, which carries a maximum one-year sentence.
Taylor did not file a plea at his arraignment Thursday. A judge set bail at $75,000.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7424879
A Federal raid went down on a physical therapy clinic in Queens.
Four people are now charged with paying kickbacks to Medicare patients for therapy they never received, and didn't need in the first place.
The alleged Medicare fraud took in several million dollars.
Something just wasn't quite right at Solstice Wellness Center, a clinic that seemed to be thriving.
Wednesday morning agents with the Office of the Inspector General raided and shut down the operation, and arrested the head of the clinic, Dmitry Shteyman.
Authorities say the 35-year-old, along with his brother Aleksey and two other employees, paid people in the community $50 a visit for services like physical therapy and diagnostic tests that either weren't needed or never happened.
Solstice would then allegedly bill Medicare for the false claims.
OIG agents say red flags were popping up everywhere.
Agents added that they believe this is just the tip of the iceberg, that this ongoing investigation will uncover even more fraudulent activity.
http://law.rightpundits.com/?p=1405
600-Pound Man Steals Food
My choshuve mispalel in Kew Gardens Hills has just hired Ben Brafman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/business/06place.html
If the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department know what they are talking about, then Steven Y. Moskowitz is a very good liar.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-05/spongebob-bath-toymaker-s-officers-accused-of-fraud-update5-.html
The company markets cleaning and bathing supplies including soap-filled children’s bath sponges shaped like television cartoon characters SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and the Pink Panther.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/05/06/27026.htm
The SEC also sued New York-licensed attorneys Jack Halperin (lives in Manhattan) and Joel Pensley, and stock promoter George Speranza, "a self-employed consultant associated with Spongetech who operated the Internet stock hype site 'nohypenobull.com.'
al Qaeda sympathyzing Muslim group from the Carribbean.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/alleged_bomb_plotters_considered_izMePVKtD7SvCZW8M63cGM
The Guyanese cargo handler who plotted to blow up fuel lines at JFK airport also had his eye on a Queens yeshiva, according to federal prosecutors.
The airport employee, Russell Defreitas, 66, recorded audio and video tapes of his terrorist plot to blow up the airport and considered hitting targets in the surrounding neighborhood, including a Jewish school, according to the feds. Authorities declined to name the school.
Defreitas also confessed on tape to stealing cargo, identity theft and welfare fraud –as well as building and detonating bombs in Guyana, prosecutors say.
And the accused terrorist recorded conversations about a sexual assault charge brought against one of his four co-defendants, Abdel Nur, in Guyana, and how it affected the bomb plot.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors are looking to play these recordings to the jury during his upcoming trial.
Brilliant article in yesterday's New York Post about how Al Capone was finally busted by the feds and it is so scary with its similarity to the current spate of cases of the feds busting frum cartels, like the Rubashkin operation, the Spinker spiel, the Dweck scandal and why the frum world should sit up and take notice that their foul deeds have reached critical mass and have clearly caught the eye of the authorities who are not buying into the falsehoods that Rubashkin, Spinker, Dweck (while it's quite possible that Shanon Orand was a professional operator hired to bring down the corrupt Tropper/Kaplan/EJf juggernaut) who would like to make the world believe and claim that on the the surface they are covered by "religious freedoms" while below the surface they commit huge crimes and frauds.
Read the following story, and draw your own conclusions about how it compares to today's situations:
How Al Capone was untouchable: The real story on how he was taken down
By JONATHAN EIG
Last Updated: 12:34 AM, May 9, 2010
Posted: 12:34 AM, May 9, 2010
When Al Capone left Brooklyn, he was a 21-year-old nothing. When he turned 28, by then living in Chicago, he was one of the world’s most famous men, his face as recognizable as that of Babe Ruth or Lucky Lindbergh, his name a synonym for “gangster” in languages all over the earth.
But Al Capone’s story has never been properly understood. The man known as Scarface has been turned into a cartoon bad guy. And in almost every account of Capone’s villainy, the role of the good guy is played by Eliot Ness, the dapper young Prohibition agent who led his team of so-called Untouchables in battering down doors and chopping up beer barrels to ruin the Capone empire and bring Public Enemy No. 1 to justice.
That’s not the way it really happened.
Al Capone was not the biggest bootlegger of the Prohibition age. He wasn’t the most ruthless gangster of his time. What really separated him from other criminals of his era was his style. While other gangsters went about their dirty business quietly, Capone cried out for attention. He posed for photographers, chatted easily with reporters and threw lavish parties in for the city’s respected citizens.
He fancied himself a businessman, and, as fancies go, it was not so ridiculous. In the 1920s, everyone was breaking the law. Everyone was seeking fame and taking chances. Capone fit right in.
But by the late 1920s, the mood of the nation was starting to change. Chicago business leaders were tired of seeing their city’s reputation stained. And the federal government was embarrassed that Prohibition had become a national joke.
So, when Herbert Hoover became president in 1929, just weeks after Capone’s men were involved in the shocking St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, he made the takedown of the mobster one of his top priorities. Not since the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth had so many federal resources been devoted to the pursuit of one man.
The feds discovered a problem, however. Most of Capone’s purported crimes were local, and the police in Chicago were entirely uninterested in doing anything. Capone had paid them off.
The job of making a case against the gangster fell not to Eliot Ness but to a deeply conservative, mild-mannered lawyer named George E.Q. Johnson, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Johnson had a team at his disposal that included Ness, but the most important men operating at his command were from the Bureau of Revenue, in particular an agent named Frank Wilson.
Johnson had been experimenting with tax cases. When he couldn’t get criminals off the street for their more celebrated crimes, he tried to bust them for tax evasion. The approach had proven successful, standing up to several court challenges..."
(...continued)
How Al Capone was untouchable: The real story on how he was taken down
Other gangsters had claimed that they hadn’t paid taxes because their income was derived illegally, and paying taxes would have amounted to an admission of criminality. That defense routinely failed.
But Capone was savvy. He claimed he never had any income. Sure, he made some money from gambling, he said, but he lost just as much, if not more. And it was true that Capone was one of the worst gamblers of all time.
When Frank Wilson set out to establish Capone’s true income, he was astonished. The feds believed that Capone personally earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but they couldn’t trace any of it. They couldn’t find his name on any of the syndicate’s checks or bank ledgers.
The investigation dragged on years. While it did, police in Philadelphia locked up Capone on a simple gun-possession charge, stirring huge embarrassment among the feds. At one point, prosecutors in Miami threatened to take the case away from the team in Chicago.
Finally, Frank Wilson found a single ledger book that seemed to indicate payments to Capone. It was the only hard evidence they had, and Johnson went to work building a tax-evasion case around it.
Even so, he ended going to trial with a case built entirely on circumstantial evidence. He established that Capone spent lavishly — on everything from silk underwear to suits with reinforced pockets to hold pistols — and they asked the jury to believe that the money must have come from illegal activity.
Even on the eve of the trial, Johnson knew his case was weak, and that the jury might acquit. At one point, according to documents newly discovered in my research, Johnson convinced his superiors in Washington, DC, that they ought to cut a deal with Capone for a two-and-a-half year prison term.
Luckily, the deal never happened. Frank Wilson found just enough evidence to make a case. Johnson, with help from a friendly judge, took his case to trial, and Capone received a sentence of 11 years in prison. It wasn’t pretty, but the law worked.
In all likelihood, Capone never heard of Eliot Ness. He almost certainly never met him. Ness and his men did break up some of the gangster’s breweries and disrupted Capone’s cashflow.
But Capone knew all too well that President Hoover, George Johnson and Frank Wilson were his real enemies. He even explored the possibility of bribing them, but Johnson and Wilson were too honest. They were the true Untouchables.
Jonathan Eig’s new book, “Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster” (Simon & Schuster) is out this week.
http://www.rbr.com/media-news/advertising/23952.html
Moskowitz's partner, Michael Metter in Greenwich, owns all kinds of radio stations.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Joseph Bruno, once one of the most powerful political figures in New York, was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison on two federal fraud counts.
The 81-year-old Bruno was the Republican leader of the state Senate for 13 years, controlling that chamber's legislation and billions of dollars in spending. He was convicted Dec. 7 of using his office to help a businessman who paid him as a consultant and in a horse venture, violations of the federal honest services law.
U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe, a former federal prosecutor, scolded Bruno during the trial, telling him this was one place he was not in charge. Bruno had made a comment to one of his lawyers criticizing one of the judge's rulings, and Sharpe said it was loud enough for him and possibly jurors to hear.
The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing the honest services statute in three other cases, with a ruling expected by the end of June. Sharpe rejected a request by Bruno's attorneys to postpone sentencing until then.
Bruno will be out on bail until after the Supreme Court rules on the honest services statute. Sharpe said he would review the ruling and call the two sides back together. If the ruling doesn't affect the convictions, Sharpe said, he will set a date for Bruno to report to prison, typically six weeks later.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/how_spongetech_fans_attempted_to_6uFNer85j0IBfxEOSZH4fI
By KAJA WHITEHOUSE
On Wednesday, the top two executives of SpongeTech Delivery Systems, a company that makes and sells soap-infused sponges, were arrested on criminal charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and obstruction of justice.
Suddenly, the anonymous phone calls to my office, the e-mails calling me a "whore" and a "hack" and the biting Web postings slamming my reputation ceased.
For seven months I have been reporting on SpongeTech's curious revenue numbers, mystery customers and troublesome money woes. And for seven months, an anonymous band of company supporters have worked tirelessly to harass, intimate and discredit me.
In February, for example, I opened my e-mail to a message board posting urging SpongeTech supporters to go to Amazon.com and slam a book I published in 2006 as revenge for a series of critical stories I was writing about the company.
"BASH KAJA'S BOOK LIKE SHE BASHERS (sic) OUR STOCK!!!!!!!!!," a post by a person who goes by the handle, "Mingy," wrote.
Someone responded, "that's really funny..hope that b**** get's 100's or 1000's of 1 stars!!"
The campaign against me got more personal. Last month, my friends and colleagues were slammed by alarming e-mails warning them that I'm involved in a "criminal enterprise" to destroy SpongeTech.
"Shall it prove, as I suspect it will, that there is a criminal enterprise/organization working to destroy a company called Spongetech, I believe a RICO case could be made against Ms. Whitehouse," the e-mail said.
My father and his consulting firm were also implicated in the made-up stock manipulation scheme, and the slanderous e-mails were distributed to his co-workers.
At the bottom of the e-mails was a link to Web site Stockbasher.com, which carries the very menacing statement warning that "stock bashers" will pay in the form of personal attacks against them and their families.
"We may also target your family if their story is more dramatic and has more fat than your miserable life," it cautions.
Photos of my family, including young children, their work histories and addresses were collected and posted online by "Mingy."
"Kaja, you are a dirtbag," read a posting by an anonymous online commentator on The Post's Web site that day.
SpongeTech pursued all its critics. In another instance, Spongetech sued the CEO of a competing sponge company and as part of the settlement demanded the CEO write a retraction to comments he made in a story that questioned SpongeTech's sales numbers.
Two weeks before SpongeTech's CEO Michael Metter and CFO Steven Moskowitz were arrested and charged, the New York-based company took its most aggressive shot -- it sued me, The New York Post and several other people -- including David Patch, who runs investigatethesec.com -- on defamation and allegations of running a "short and distort" scheme.
And when it was clear the threat of the lawsuit wasn't going to stop me from writing stories, a lawyer representing SpongeTech -- Alan A. Heller, of Heller, Horowitz & Feit -- e-mailed me a letter to urge me to stop writing about SpongeTech, and promised to go after my stock trading records and those of my "friends and contacts."
"We trust that you will stop your relentless pursuit of this company and its management," the letter concluded.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/05/07/archbishop-sambis-bizarre-war-of-words-with-sex-abuse-protester/
Archbishop Sambi's Bizarre War of Words With Sex Abuse Protester
When Pope Benedict XVI named Archbishop Pietro Sambi as the Vatican's ambassador to the United Sates in 2005, he chose a man with broad international experience. The newest Papal Nuncio had spent 36 years in nine countries, including Israel, Indonesia, Belgium and Cuba.
Sambi was hailed by the Catholic News Agency as "one of the Vatican's most able diplomats" and by the Catholic Exchange as "an energetic and gregarious man with an ability to bring the human touch to diplomatic challenges."
One of those challenges turned out to be John Wojnowski, 67, who, since 1998 has ceaselessly picketed the Apostolic Nunciature on Washington D.C.'s posh Embassy Row, where Archbishop Sambi, 71, lives and works.
Wojnowski says he was molested in 1958 at age 15 by an Italian priest, and repressed the memory until 1997, when it was triggered by the suicide of a young clergy abuse victim in Texas. Not long after, he launched his one-man crusade for a proper apology and "reparations" from the Church. He has spent nearly every day for the last 12 years holding a large sign clearly visible to thousands of commuters along Massachusetts Avenue and anyone entering the Nunciature -- or the vice president's mansion across the street.
"Sociopaths Hide Pedophiles. Vatican Hides Pedophiles," proclaims the latest in a long series of protest banners.
For years, he was little more than a street-corner curiosity, cheered by some, jeered by others. But escalating stories worldwide about child sexual abuse by Catholic priests and what many consider Rome's refusal to deal adequately with victims and offenders may finally have brought a measure of vindication to the retired ironworker.
In the latest twist, Wojnowski alleges that at least 15 times in the past 20 months, Sambi has insulted him in language most undiplomatic, uttered during the Nuncio's regular strolls along Massachusetts Avenue. Wojnowski immediately writes each one in a datebook.
"You're an idiot, a paid idiot," was among the first entries, on Aug. 16, 2008.
"Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame. You are a fetid pervert," was the Oct. 21, 2008 insult.
"You're a total loser," came on March 19.
Despite my four detailed requests for comment -- two faxes, an e-mail and a hand-delivered letter to the Nunciature -- Sambi has chosen to remain silent. I wanted to ask him why a career diplomat -- who served in the world's most populous Muslim country (Indonesia) and had dealings with warring Palestinians and Israelis in the Holy Land -- allegedly slurred a lone, unarmed individual. I also wanted ask if he thought it appropriate to call an alleged victim of clergy sexual abuse a "pervert." I still welcome the chance to have that conversation.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.politicsdaily.com/media/2010/05/wojnowski-article-1.jpg
And UOJ can add this picture to the sidebar.
Is this lawsuit just a smokescreen?
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20100509/NEWS05/305099965
The owner of a kosher food plant in Ogdensburg has sued the city for $11 million.
Tubroburg LLC, owned by Menachem and Schneur Bistritzky, claims the city of Ogdensburg has unfairly charged it for water and sewer services at the plant and hasn't turned over paperwork needed to finalize purchase of the property.
The company also wants a state Supreme Court judge to issue an injunction preventing the city from shutting off water and sewer services to its Main Street plant.
Menachem Bistritzky said Friday that inaccurate measurements used in determining daily water and sewer use has driven up the bill. He also said the plant was being billed at a higher rate than other commercial businesses for city services.
Earlier this week, the city threatened to foreclose on the kosher cheese plant if delinquent bills totaling nearly $160,000 — $154,000 in utilities and $6,600 in rent — aren't paid. The company employs about 50 workers.
The company began operating the plant, which makes "cholov yisroel"-grade kosher cheese and milk, in May 2009 after the city agreed to sell the plant for a $125,000 down payment, $12,000 monthly rent for 13 months and a closing payment of up to $900,000.
The contract called for the company to purchase the plant by June 1, but the city hasn't provided abstracts to the business to finalize the sale, the lawsuit alleges.
While the company put its down payment in an escrow account, it subsequently missed deadlines that would have allowed its monthly rent payments to be put toward the $900,000 closing payment amount, City Manager Arthur J. Sciorra said Monday.
Ogdensburg city attorney Andrew W. Silver said Friday that the city had not been served with the lawsuit so he couldn't comment.
In 2008, the city took over the cheese plant after former owner Ahava Food Corp., Venice, Calif., failed to pay about $90,000 owed in rent and $618,138 in utility bills.
By a disgruntled transplant Sun., May. 09 at 4:28 pm
Well here's my take on this fine mess...
Art and the boys downtown won't want to fight this one...they've got them on the unpaid stuff anyhow...so what will happen is the the two rabbi's will get to walk away from the run down cheese plant wihout spending a dime...all will be forgiven in the interests of trying to keep somebody warm and breathing operating that nasty hole on the incentives that will arise to save the 50 jobs. I'll bet though, if you went in and drug tested that plant, all employess, an unannounced test, half of them would be fired for refusing to pee...gotta keep that cheesey plant operating to keep the druggies off the streets..
http://securities.stanford.edu/1019/USWCE01/20010719_o01c_MOSKOWITZ.pdf
This Moskowitz putz tried to sue US Wireless Corp 10 years ago. Was he really a victim or was in he on the scam?
US Wireless were promoting themselves as getting contracts with Verizon and other telecoms that never materialized. The CEO Hilsenrath is Israeli.
There was a frum guy in Philadephia who used the Yahoo screen name Enzyman to hype the stock all over and to threaten anyone questioning the company's finances & viability that he was reporting them to the Feds.
Jamaat Ismailiya Condemns Arrest
By: Sheikh Panoon Lipschutz
May 10,20010
New York (AL JAZEERA)-The Jamaat Ismailiya of America today issued a strongly worded statement condemning the arrest of Faisal Shahzad. Mr. Shahzad has been accused of planting explosives in New York by the oppressive American regime. Shahzad, a devoutly religious man who wears a beard, was forcibly removed from an Emirates Airlines plane when he was attempting to go home to his family in Pakistan. The Executive Vice President of the Jamaat Ismailiya, Sheikh Habib Dahood Zwiebel expressed his outrage at the power grab that the American government has attempted from the Imams.
“The tragic news out of New York,” said Sheikh Zwiebel, “leaves us feeling deep anguish and sorrow.
“Mr. Shahzad’s arrest has hit our community very hard. He is a fellow Muslim and so we see him as a brother. Countless members of our community had telephoned, e-mailed and faxed the DOJ's office pleading that Mr. Shahzad is innocent and should be set free. Unfortunately, our hopes were dashed."
Zwiebel went on to condemn the government's encroachment on the authority of the Imams. "The U.S. government should be careful not to be seen as making a power grab from the Imams' authority." Zwiebel added that the government should recognize "religious sensitivities" by seeking alternatives to prison, to avoid depriving a family of its breadwinner.
The Muslim community has also condemned the Times Square vendor that alerted police to Shahzad's van. The van was loaded with merchandise which Shahazad was hired to deliver. He was unaware that the van contained potentially explosive materials. The Council of Imams for the Jamaat Ismailiya has issued a fatwa against the vendor and has forbidden any Muslim to purchase any shish kabob from his cart. Any Muslim that reports a fellow Muslim to the authorities is widely scorned by his community. During Friday prayers at his mosque in Paterson, NJ, the vendor was attacked by other worshippers. His turban was thrown off his head and he was kicked at.
The head of the Council, Imam Yaquob Perlow, in a speech last night to his devout followers, claims that he divined from the Koran that one must vigorously oppose the detention of any terrorist. When asked to comment, the group's spokesman, Sheikh Ibrahim Shafran, blew off reporters and said "Why would we have comment? All these allegations against terrorists are a bunch of tawdry tales based on anecdotal evidence." Shahzad's attorney, Jeffrey Schwartz defended his client and said that he will be vindicated.
“What everyone seems to fail to remember is that terrorists are the most abused forgotten victims,” Schwartz explained. “99 percent of the time they were viciously abused and they never got care. They’re terror victims who have languished their whole lives and they reached a point when they start acting out since that’s all they know. There’s no pity for these people who are the ultimate victims. People forget to remember that.”
http://www.avi-chai.org/bin/en1d35.html?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enInfolet=Projects.jsp&enDispWhat=Zone&enZone=AboutUs&
How is Marvin Schick the darling of the Agudah when Avi Chai is sponsoring all these freye choleryos like Meretz & JTS
And has Conservative rabbis on staff?:
http://www.mechonhadar.org/faculty
Rabbi Elie Kaunfer is co-founder, rosh yeshiva and executive director of Mechon Hadar and on the Talmud faculty at Yeshivat Hadar. A graduate of Harvard College, he was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also completed an MA and is pursuing a doctorate in liturgy. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Elie is a co-founder of Kehilat Hadar and in 2009 Newsweek named him one of the top 50 rabbis in America. He was selected as an inaugural AVI CHAI Fellow, and is the author of Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us About Building Vibrant Jewish Communities (Jewish Lights, 2010).
Great stuff Steve, keep it up I may make you the designated yoresh of the UOJ blog....no gelt, just the right to rant as UOJ II!
Hey...post that ODE again...:-)
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/Boruch+Dayan+Emmes/55988/Levaya+Of+Rabbi+Moshe+Hirsch,+Neturei+Karta+Leader.html
If anyone still thought Eckstein is playing with a full deck, look how he adds zochrono liverocho to the name of Neturei Karta's Moishe Hirsch, the bosom buddy of Yasser Arafat, yemach shmoy.
A 46-year-old Amenia, NY man was arrested after a female employee of the town's Family Dollar Store on Route 22 reported that she found a video camera hidden in the store's employee bathroom.
George Hoffman, the store's manager, was arrested and charged with second-degree unlawful surveillance, a Class E felony, after a detective and deputy from the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office discovered that he allegedly had been illegally videotaping female employees in the bathroom without their consent.
Hoffman was arraigned in Amenia Court, where he posted $1,00 cash bail.
http://www.thehour.com/story/485979
Kidnap suspect in jail seeks rabbi
By STEVE KOBAK
Hour Staff Writer
A former Stamford man who is imprisoned at Bridgeport Correctional Center for allegedly trying to abduct a Norwalk Community College student is seeking counseling from a rabbi, his attorney said Tuesday.
Alexander Wendorf, 27, has had trouble trying to arrange a meeting with a rabbi, and his attorney Stephan Seeger asked Judge Bruce Hudock to assist in the matter at Wendorf's Norwalk Superior Court appearance Tuesday. Seeger said a rabbi has agreed to visit Wendorf, but complications with the Department of Corrections have prevented the rabbi from meeting with Wendorf at prison.
"We're hopeful that a rabbi could see him in a short period of time," Seeger said.
Hudock took note of the request in Wendorf's file. Although the Department of Corrections is outside of Hudock's jurisdiction as an official from the judicial district, Seeger said having a recommendation from a judge included in Wendorf's file could be helpful step toward getting permission for a rabbi to visit his client.
Wendorf, a former judicial marshal and a certified Emergency Medical Technician, is being held on $500,000 bond on charges of second-degree kidnapping, first-degree unlawful restraint and criminal impersonation of a police officer.
He was arrested March 9 after allegedly posing as a Norwalk Police officer and luring a 19-year-old woman into his car in a parking lot at Norwalk Community College, according to police.
Prior to leaving the parking lot with the victim in his car, Wendorf asked the victim to get in the passenger side and hold the flashlight so he could inject insulin, police said. He stuck a needle in his arm and injected an undisclosed substance into his veins, police said.
Seeger said that his client injected cocaine during the incident, and blood tests will indicate that he is a habitual cocaine user. He said his client's emotional and substance issues "converge in such a way" that it's difficult to establish the element of intent in regards to the alleged criminal incident.
Wendorf recently signed consent forms that give Seeger permission to obtain information about his medical history. Seeger is collecting the medical information because he plans to file a motion for a psychiatric evaluation of Wendorf.
Security advisor to Leib Tropper
Allegations directed at a former Swedish police chief suspected of rape continued to mount on Friday with a further woman accusing the retired officer of pimping.
Göran Lindberg, a respected law enforcement official who recently retired after a career spanning more than 20 years, is suspected of charges ranging from rape, plotting to rape or pimping in a case that has grown to include at least ten women and girls.
The latest woman to come forward is in her thirties and contacted police last week reporting Lindberg for pimping.
The case against the ex-chief has also now expanded to involve a further three people suspected of buying sex.
The three men were taken in for questioning by police last Wednesday and were informed that they are suspected of having bought sexual services.
Prosecutor Håkan Roswall has applied and received an extension on the deadline to bring charges, and now has until May 20th.
Göran Lindberg has admitted that he has bought sexual services but denies all other allegations against him. He has been remanded in custody on charges including pimping, aggravated rape, rape and attempting to rape several children.
The investigation is currently focusing on the pimping offences which are alleged to have taken place between 2006 and 2009. The prosecutor has not ruled out that further men will emerge as suspects in the case.
The case against Lindberg has its origin in the investigation into a suspicious death in the suburb of Bredäng, in southern Stockholm, in July 2009 when a 60-year-old man mysteriously fell to his death from a balcony.
Lindberg's name unexpectedly turned up after police launched a preliminary investigation into the suspected murder.
During the investigation police confiscated a computer and a mobile phone which belonged to the deceased 60-year-old.
When investigators examined the contents of the machines and found the names of several men, their suspicions were aroused and they handed the matter over to the Stockholm County police force.
After intense media speculation into Lindberg's links to a purported sex ring, police leading the investigation issued a denial in January that there were further suspects under investigation.
UOJ,
Thanks for the undeserved praise. When it comes to rants, nobody comes close to matching you, the Master Ranter. We look forward to many more years from you. As for the Ode, I was warned by Matzav/Al Jazeera that I must first get written permission from their Imams since the original was written in praise of Sheikh Panoon, er, Pinny Yated. We don't need any more fatwas hanging over our heads (although I'm sure by now you're used to them).
http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/world/article/521277--november-trial-on-fraud-charges-set-for-former-us-surgeon-caught-in-italy
A federal magistrate has scheduled a November trial for a former Indiana surgeon who was caught in Italy after five years on the run and extradited to face health care fraud charges.
http://blog.taragana.com/law/2009/12/17/5-years-after-vanishing-us-doctor-facing-fraud-claims-at-home-is-arrested-on-italian-mountain-18927/
An American doctor on the run for five years as charges of fraud and malpractice mounted against him was arrested as he hid out on a snowy mountain in northern Italy, and stabbed himself in the neck as he was taken into custody, police said.
Mark Weinberger, 46, of Merrillville, Ind., was apprehended earlier this week on a mountain in Val Ferret, where he was living in a tent, police in the town of Aosta said Thursday.
A mountain guide tipped off authorities that he was there, said police official Guido Di Vita. Weinberger had previously rented an apartment in the area but then left without paying and was likely trying to sneak into Switzerland, Di Vita said.
Weinberger’s patients in the United States, who have been waiting for years to tell a court they believe the doctor misdiagnosed them, botched surgeries or hastily performed the wrong procedures, hoped his capture will mean their lawsuits can finally go forward.
“We want him . . . to look these people in the eye and explain why he did this,” said Kenneth J. Allen, who represents around 60 families accusing Weinberger of negligence.
The mystery surrounding Weinberger, who was known as the “Nose Doctor,” began more than five years ago when he disappeared while traveling with his wife in Greece. He was the subject of an international dragnet and his case was featured on “America’s Most Wanted” as recently as August.
His wife said at the time that they had been vacationing on his 79-foot powerboat in Mykonos and she woke up to find him gone.
He had been troubled by malpractice lawsuits before the trip, his wife, Michelle Kramer, told CNN’s Larry King in August 2005. She has since filed for divorce. After he vanished, she said she learned that he had purchased diamonds before leaving, withdrew a large sum of money from his business and had taken survival gear that he kept at his Indiana clinic.
He could have been anywhere. He’d built a glamorous life after opening his Indiana surgery clinic, acquiring yachts, vacation properties and private jets, she said. He was an excellent doctor, she said, but had a “narcissistic personality disorder” and needed constant adoration and always wanted bigger conquests.
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/article_ef3805e4-e280-55f8-bed7-4dec9494fe0e.html
Allen believes Weinberger, who was aware of several pending lawsuits against him prior to his vacation, may have planned his disappearance long before he set off for Europe. He thinks Weinberger, who is Jewish, may have traveled to Israel as a final destination because American Jews can travel there without a passport, and cannot be extradited from that country.
http://www.thelocal.se/26538/20100509/
Train passengers were left reeling on Thursday by an announcer's use of the antiquated term 'negro balls' to describe a type of chocolate treat on sale in the bistro carriage, public broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports.
A number of passengers complained about the loudspeaker reference to a small, spherical, coconut-covered cake more commonly referred to in modern times as a 'chocolate ball'.
"It wasn't particularly smart, or correct," said Ulf Wallin, spokesman for rail operator SJ.
http://www.therightperspective.org/2010/05/09/obama-loses-nearly-half-of-jewish-support/
A new McLaughlin Group poll shows that nearly half of Jewish-Americans who voted for US President Barack Obama in 2008 would not vote for him again.
I know frum institutional investors who do not buy Israeli stocks for other reasons. Many Israeli companies are rife with fraud which is a huge chilul Hashem and dangerous as an investment.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/05/10/2394747/under-the-radar2
Israeli companies that trade on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange are a bad religious investment, a haredi rabbinical court has ruled.
The Badatz rabbinical court, whose rulings are observed by much of the ultra-Orthodox community, has decreed that Jews should not buy shares in Israeli companies because they violate Jewish law by operating on Shabbat or using suggestive advertising.
The prohibition includes companies owned by religiously observant businessmen.
The Badatz-appointed financial investment supervisory committee began working two years ago to set criteria for “kosher” investments. The committee's rabbis concluded that nearly every publicly traded company violates Jewish law in some way.
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A volcanic ash cloud that has closed airports throughout Europe is set to reach Israel.
The Israeli Transportation Ministry has begun emergency preparations for the volcanic ash cloud, which is expected to hit Israel on Monday night, according to reports.
The ministry may cancel airline flights due to the situation, Ynet reported.
Thousands of flights throughout Europe were canceled last month as a result of the cloud, formed after the eruption of the Mount Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. Some airports also were forced to close this week.
It is feared that volcanic ash can damage an airplane's engines.
I consider myself to be a Jew in the vertical and horizontal sense. Horizontal, because I feel myself to be kin, relative and family of every Jew who lives today, wherever he or she may be.
Vertical, because I am son, grandson and descendant of all the Jews who came before me; I am also father, grandfather and ancestor of all those who will come after me. Am I special because I am a Jew? Too often, people misunderstand the notion of Jewish specialness.
Being the “chosen people” meant chosen for a task, not for privilege. That task was to bring the Word to a world that needed to hear it—still needs to hear it. Call it the Word of God, call it an ethical orientation, call it the knowledge of the difference between good and evil. We are not better than our neighbors, not nobler; we just carry a knapsack that is heavier with memory, with pain. We peddle the lessons of history.
As for survival in the face of mortal threats, we who have repeatedly stared into the jaws of death are better able to deal with the threats than those who face them for the first time. But when we tell the world about survival, we are talking about creative survival, not mere physical survival. Everybody who is threatened with extinction fights for physical survival.
Yet to survive as a moral people is as important, maybe more important. Far too often people forget this.
Rabbi Nissim is from Aish London
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/national-news/gambler_who_lost_700k_put_trust_in_rabbi_1_629252
Gambler who lost £700k 'put trust in rabbi'
Peterborough Today
A young professional poker player from Hertfordshire who was said to have lost £700,000 at cards put his trust in a rabbi, a High Court judge has been told.
The rabbi, Simon Nissim, offered to place spread bets for Andrew Feldman on the Dow Jones index and give him any winnings.
But Mr Feldman, 22, who agreed to cover any losses and ended up with a bill for £140,000, is now asking deputy High Court judge Richard Snowden QC to set aside a statutory demand for the money served on him by the 34-year-old rabbi.
Jonathan Lewis representing Mr Feldman at the High Court in London, said the two used to be friends and his client "looked up to and placed trust" in the rabbi.
He said the two had agreed or understood that all wins would go to Mr Feldman and he would indemnify Mr Nissim for all losses.
But while Mr Nissim placed bets for Mr Feldman during two weeks in October 2008, he also placed a "considerable number of spread bets on his own behalf using the same spread betting account", said Mr Lewis.
Mr Feldman, from Bushey, had argued that he did not accept that all the bets had been placed on his behalf and that he had never authorised the "huge volume" of bets. He said he had agreed to four or five bets a session but Mr Nissim had placed 77 bets in a four-hour period which he had never instructed him to do.
Richard Ritchie, representing Mr Nissim who now works in New York and was not in court, said it was Mr Feldman's decision to try to win back his poker losses by spread betting and had told Mr Nissim he was prepared to lose up to £200,000.
He said Mr Feldman was now claiming he was ignorant about what was going on and did not stay in close contact with Mr Nissim.
Mr Feldman, speaking after the judge had reserved his ruling to a later date, said he met the rabbi through a Jewish charity in Hendon, north London.
Rubashkin's defense sunk to a new low in court today, accusing the Church of being part of the conspiracy against him along with PETA & the unions.
Lubavitcher bochurim have also been accused by the local goyim of vandalizing the car of one of the Postville galochim.
Can anyone verify comments made at Matzav that Rav Lieff of Agudah Ave L said that cries that Rubashkin is "innocent" is a chilul Hashem and will backfire?
The jurors in the State trial are parishoners of that church and will not take kindly to Rubashkin for all this garbage.
Justin Pritchard, Associated Press Writer, On Monday May 10, 2010, 6:50 pm EDT
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Federal regulators are expanding their investigation into children's jewelry that contains the toxic metal cadmium, promising that a recall announced Monday of "Best Friends" charm bracelets will not be the last.
"More recalls are in the works," U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Scott Wolfson said.
Those recalls would be the result of voluntary testing by companies, some of which have found troubling levels of cadmium and then reported those results to the agency, Wolfson said. He would not say how many products are under scrutiny.
In addition, in recent weeks agency inspectors working at 10 of the nation's largest ports have screened imports of jewelry for cadmium. In one instance, a shipment of Chinese jewelry was turned away.
Word of expanded federal efforts came as the consumer safety agency announced the voluntary recall of about 19,000 "Best Friends" charm bracelet sets made in China and sold exclusively at the jewelry and accessories store Claire's, which has more than 3,000 outlets in North America and Europe.
"Cadmium is toxic if ingested by children and can cause adverse health effects," the agency said in its recall announcement. Medical research shows that cadmium in high levels is a known carcinogen and can harm kidneys and bones.
An 8-year-old Brooklyn boy chasing after his school bus was hit by a car Friday, police said.
Boruch (Motty) Tyberg, a student at Yeshiva Torah Temimah, was in serious but stable condition at Kings County Hospital after surgery to reduce swelling in his brain.
"Is this a dream?" cried Tessle Tyberg, the child's mother, after she scooped up her injured son on Avenue J after the 8 a.m. accident. "Answer me!"
No charges were filed against the driver.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/05/08/2010-05-08_car_hits_kid_running_for_his_bus_in_brooklyn.html#ixzz0nd1hwKFp
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100511/NEWS/5110356/-1/NEWS04/Young-workers-describe-physical-meatpacking-jobs
Around 5 feet tall, Ordoñez Capir demonstrated quick, exact movements for the jury that he repeated over and over. the Guatemalan thrust a meat hook into an imaginary 40-pound rib with his left hand, and used a knife to repeatedly slash the slab of meat with the right.
Ordoñez Capir told the jury that he began working at Agriprocessors when he was 16 and that he usually cut about three pieces a meat per minute, during shifts that typically stretched from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m., six days a week.
It was conditions like these, and dozens of pictures of baby-faced Hispanic workers taken the day of a May 12, 2008, federal immigration raid at the plant, that provided the backbone for the prosecution's opening statements Monday. Some workers were as young as 13 when they were hired, prosecutors said.
"This did not happen in a Third World country," said Laura Roan, assistant Iowa attorney general. "It happened in Iowa. This man is guilty of all the crimes charged because we say, "Not in Iowa. Not here.' "
Ordoñez Capir said supervisors slowed the line down significantly and did not yell or berate workers when rabbis who supervised kosher meat production or other visitors passed through the plant.
In opening statements, the prosecution offered more details of underage workers' experiences at the plant. They said children's oversized protective frocks would get caught on conveyer belts, dragging them down the kill line. They also described how youngsters sliced beef carcasses in half with electric saws, and ripped gizzards and pulled feathers from chickens.
Yesenia Cordero Mendoza, now 18, told the jury how disinfecting meat thermometers with industrial cleaners caused her skin to peel.
I just posted a link to the sentencing statements in the trial of Israel Weinberg that netted the menuval a 30 year sentence for transporting his daughter over international lines to sexually abuse her. http://wp.me/pFbfD-m6
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2010/05/03/roxanne-conlin-refutes-claim-she-violated-a-campaign-pledge/
Democrat Roxanne Conlin, U.S. Senate candidate
Reform needs to include penalties for employers, she said.
“In Postville I had a woman call me who was sexually exploited every single day by her manager and who was undocumented and who felt she could not report. I found a way to protect her, but I couldn’t protect her son who was also undocumented, and so she went right back into the plant,” Conlin said. “I’ve often wondered what happened to her.”
Didn't Weissmandl & the OU make him sign that he can't be megaleh to anyone?
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/article_2d22cf26-5cfa-11df-9f75-001cc4c03286.html
Rony Ordonez Capir showed jurors how he wielded knives and hooks to cut beef at Agriprocessors' Postville plant as the state began its case against former executive Sholom Rubashkin Monday.
"My job was to take them from the barrel over to the small conveyor belt, and that's where I would lift them up and cut them into pieces," Ordonez said through an interpreter.
He talked about cleaning the conveyor belts with chlorine during breaks and how it made his eyes water and burned his throat.
"I cut myself, and also I hooked myself several times," Ordonez, now 20, said. The state asked him to show his scars, but the judge ruled against it after the defense objected.
http://wallstreetpit.com/12200-irs-tax-amnesty-yields-unprecedented-response-from-tax-cheats
IRS Tax Amnesty Yields Unprecedented Response From Tax Cheats
It's Weingarten, not Weinberg.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/289271
Are Jews That Gullible?
JENNIFER RUBIN - 05.04.2010 - 3:35 PM
Ben Smith says that he was dubious about the Obama team’s charm offensive with American Jews. After all, how could they be so foolish as to take puffery seriously and be wowed by a lunch with Elie Wiesel? Aren’t Jews, you know, supposed to be smarter than that? After all, the underlying policy hasn’t changed one iota. And in fact the administration is flaunting its anti-Israel connections.
Smith also picks up this tidbit:
Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber drew the camera flashes at the White House Correspondents dinner, but foreign policy geeks took closer note of the TPM table, where National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough — probably the most powerful foreign policy staffer in the administration — was seated with the two grand old men of “realist politics,” former National Security Advisors Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Also at the table, New America’s Steve Clemons, who qualified that he and the others are “progressive realists” and added that the table also included “Sex and the City” creator Darren Starr and TPM founder Josh Marshall, the host.
Scowcroft and Brzezinski have been vying for influence in the Obama White House since Obama introduced the latter in Iowa, then distanced himself from him over Israel. They’re currently central to the efforts to persuade Obama to advance his own Mideast peace plan.
McDonough, who came up on the process-oriented Hill, tends to keep his own broader views on foreign policy close to the vest.
To translate: one of the administration’s key foreign-policy hands goes to the most highly publicized event in town to hob-nob with the advisor who Obama had sworn during the campaign not to be an advisor, who has suggested that we shoot down Israeli planes if they cross Iraqi air space on the way to Iran, and who wants to impose a peace deal on Israel. And, for good measure, he sits with the purveyors of a website infamous for puff pieces on terrorists and committed to a hard-left anti-Israel line. It was an act of defiance — see who our friends are? Well, I guess we do.
So the question remains whether the Jewish community is as easily lulled into passivity as the Obama administration believes. Can a few carefully worded speeches get American Jews off their backs? After all, they’ve been so mute about the effort by Obama to undermine sanctions. And really, they were able to “condemn” Israel without being condemned in turn by the Jewish groups, which have clung so dearly to the Democratic Party. Smith shouldn’t be skeptical: American Jewish officialdom is falling over themselves to make up with the administration. Whether rank-and-file members and the larger Jewish community are as easily swayed, remains to be seen.
No I will not set aside "differences" to "join forces" with Shmarya.
He is not like the other bloggers and activists. He is cynically using child abuse, Rubashkin and everything else to convince people to leave the fold in his futile attempt to destroy Judaism.
Of course if the police in Israel or Boro Park held back from chasing a perp into a shul, Shmarya would be all over it like a fly on a shtik drek that they are "caving" to "Haredim".
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/05/10/2010-05-10_cops_hit_for_barging_into_church_service_pols_clergy_blast_police_for_lack_of_re.html
Black politicians and church leaders blasted cops Sunday for storming a Crown Heights church during services to pursue a suspect in a traffic incident.
Police chased Kendall Jones, 18, into the Shiloh Seventh-Day Adventist Church Friday night after he dumped a stolen car and fled.
"The police violated the sanctity of this house of worship," said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Crown Heights). "The police conducted themselves as if they were raiding a crack house as opposed to being in a house of worship."
He said police would have acted with more restraint in a white neighborhood.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/icy_smirk_un7QZeqo6x1nrq5Vj5lT0O
What is it exactly that makes Shmarya prefer women who are melanin endowed?
Shmarya incidentally banned the word melanin from Failed Messiah after it was used in some clever plays on words.
New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo filed a lawsuit Tuesday against a Bank of New York Mellon Corp. unit and two of its executives alleging they “deliberately” mislead clients about investments tied to Bernard L. Madoff.
The suit alleges that Ivy Asset Management LLC, its former Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Simon, and its former Chief Investment Officer Howard Wohl, deliberately “kept clients in the dark about damaging financial information about Madoff so Ivy could bring in millions in advisory fees.”
New York, NY, (AHN) - When will Anne Hathaway learn how to pick the right boyfriend? The “Alice in Wonderland” actress’ boyfriend, Adam Shulman, is being accused of stealing a part of a mural by street artist Mr. Brainwash.
According to the New York Post, contractor Ken Hart promised not to file charges against Shulman if he returns the artwork he allegedly stole from a construction site. Shulman, with the aid of a friend, was spotted walking off with the painting by the street artist, whose real name is Thierry Guetta.
Hart, the president of H&H Builders told the paper, “If he brings me back the art, it’s over. But if he doesn’t, I’m going to the police to report it stolen!”
Hathaway’s previous boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, was arrested in 2008 on fraud charges for allegedly duping investors millions of dollars in a scheme. He is currently serving a 4 ½-year prison sentence.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently filed suit against a bank and local money manager who served as custodians for two feeder funds that invested with convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff.
The state is seeking to recover $16.2 million in damages for investors. The suit alleges that Westport National Bank, money manager Robert L. Silverman and his company PSCC Inc., violated multiple state banking laws.
According to the suit, the plaintiffs' feeder funds ignored obvious, repeated signs of fraud; miscalculated fees, resulting in millions of dollars in overcharges; acted as investment advisors without a state license; provided no written information on fund risks and strategies; and failed in their duty to verify Madoff's investments.
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=2778
Man dies after eel is inserted into his rectum
A man has died after a live eel was inserted into his bottom for a joke, according to recent reports.
The 59-year-old chef from Sichuan in China had apparently passed out after a heavy bout of drinking and friends inserted a 50cm Asian swamp eel into his rectum for a bit of fun.
However, the joke wasn't so funny when the man died after suffering severe abdominal pains. Doctors who performed a post mortem on him found the eel in his rectum where it had reportedly gnawed at his intestines, causing heavy internal bleeding.
Practical Fishkeeping reported a very similar story last year in which a medical journal revealed that surgeons had removed a live eel from a man's rectum.
The man had suffered from rectum, intestine and spleen damage following the insertion of a 50cm swamp eel which he claimed was introduced to "relieve constipation."
The eels are not the only fish to have been removed from patients. In 2008, Practical Fishkeeping exclusively reported that doctors had removed a live fish from a boy's penis after it "slipped" into his urethra while he was holding the fish in his hand, while simultaneously urinating and maintaining his aquarium.
The pizza is cholov Yisroel
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/bernie.madoff.prison.2.1687272.html
According to lawyer Joseph Cotchett, who interviewed Madoff earlier this year and who represents victims in another suit trying to recover some of their losses, Madoff has been sharing a small cell with a 21-year-old man convicted of drug crimes. Madoff apparently sleeps in the lower bunk. He eats pizza made by a child molester, and spends his leisure time walking around the prison track at night.
http://www.cornucopia.org/soysurvey/OrganicSoyReport/behindthebean_color_final.pdf
On or shortly before one month of age, my son Aidan began experiencing violent reactions to the Similac® formula with DHA. Symptoms included: explosive diarrhea, projectile vomiting, dehydration, excessive gas, weight loss, excessive crying, and loss of sleep. It was difficult to get him to finish a complete bottle because he would begin screaming half way through. This screaming continued, along with pulling his legs up and writhing, for approximately two hours after the feeding. When it was time for him to eat again, the process would start all over again. In all, over a six month period, I tried every formula I could find, including: Nutramigen, Alimentum, ProSobee--and all included DHA/ARA. As a last resort, I gave him Neocate, also with DHA, but it produced the same results as all of the other formulas. It was not until I accidentally bought a non-DHA formula that all of the symptoms stopped at approximately 6.5 months of age. The symptoms stopped approximately 24 hours after using the non-DHA formula, if not sooner.
– Holly Schneider, Taylor, Michigan
(The Cornucopia Institute has more than 100 similar adverse reaction reports on file.)
Algal DHA and fungal ARA oils are hexane-extracted ingredients that are added to some organic foods, including organic infant formula and Horizon Organic milk with DHA. DHA is a long-chain, polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acid that is naturally found in fatty fish such as salmon and sardines. Martek Biosciences Corporation produces a vegetarian and not quite identical DHA additive called Life’sDHA™ for foods, used in products such as Silk soymilk with DHA, Rachel’s® yogurt, and nearly all infant formula on the market. Martek’s Life’sDHA is produced by immersing fermented algae in hexane to extract the oil. The company’s Kentucky plant, where Life’s DHA is produced, emitted nearly 200,000 pounds of hexane into the environment in 2006.
According to the USDA regulations, Martek’s Life’s DHA should be prohibited in organic foods because it is a synthetic additive that is not listed as an approved substance on the National List of Approved and Prohibited Substances.
Moreover, it should not be added to organic foods because it is hexane extracted. The Cornucopia Institute has filed legal complaints against the manufacturers that we allege are illegally adding these hexane-extracted oils.
The Cornucopia Institute is especially concerned that these oils, when added to infant formula, are making babies very sick. These findings are detailed in The Cornucopia Institute’s report Replacing Mother—Imitating Human Breast Milk in the Laboratory, which presents disturbing research indicating that these hexane-extracted algal and fungal oils lead to virulent diarrhea, vomiting, and other gastrointestinal problems in some babies. In some cases this has led to significant health complications, failure to thrive, and hospitalizations.
The report also outlines how formula manufacturers profit tremendously from adding DHA and ARA (another fatty acid, which Martek extracts from fungi by means of hexane) to formula. It allows them to misleadingly advertise their formula as being “as close as ever to breast milk,” and “supporting brain and eye development.” The vast majority of scientific studies show no meaningful benefits from adding DHA and ARA to infant formula. Meanwhile, some infants continue to get sick from these oils, while infant formula companies refuse to acknowledge the serious problems and side effects associated with their lucrative additives. There is no information about possible side effects listed on the packaging or on the manufacturers’ web sites.
There is one conventional manufacturer that supplies infant formula without Martek’s DHA/ARA supplementation (Nestlé®) and one organic supplier that does not use these novel oils (Baby’s Only®).
http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2014/2/16/beit-shemeshs-magen-tackles-sexual-abuse-one-case-at-a-time#.Ux1wqPmwLYg
One boy was molested by the teenage son of a well-known community rabbi.
“We all assumed the perpetrator was some drifter from outside the community. We never imagined it could be a boy from a successful family within our own community,” said Parent A, who remained anonymous. “This boy was not some kid off the derech [non-religious kid]. His family was the derech we all admired and aspired to achieve.”
Parent A was told not to work through Magen, and not to work with the police by some area rabbis. But he worked with Magen anyway. Shortly thereafter, similar stories began to surface. With people aware and looking for the perpetrator, one afternoon he was caught shortly after he abused another victim.
“The boy was arrested. He has been placed under the supervision of the courts. … My 8-year-old’s cry for help and our full disclosure has led to other boys being saved,” said Parent A.
In another case, two young girls were molested by their 70-year-old grandfather. Parent B filed a report, and the grandfather and the young girls are getting the help they need.
“Sometimes doing the right thing will not make everyone happy,” said Parent B. “But it has to be done.”
What can be done about hamenuvol Leib Tropper?
He is still hanging around & zipping around Monsey in his gray Honda Accord despite signing notarized documents that he will leave town.
He shows up at Tuvya's judaica store on Route 59 to stand around at the front pontificating & darshaning about the shalsheles of the yeshiva velt through Lita to America.
Here is this menuvol & batlan who doesn't learn a word but comes to a seforim store to darshan about yeshivos & they let him get away with it. He was last there on erev Shabbos.
Hmmm, a well known rabbi in RBS
Could that have anything to do with Malignowitz & Smellymelech Kornfeld fighting as hard as they can to protect molesters and against victim advocate David Morris?
Never mind Tropper doing a crazy man on the street corner gig, Old man Moses has his son Mordechai Tendler giving public shiurim in his shul
http://comsyn.org/about.php
SHIURIM DAILY:
• Daf Yomi – Rabbi Mordecai Tendler Fri & Sun 8:45a.m. to 9:30a.m.; Mon-Thu 5:00 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. (winter)
WEDNESDAY:
• Tur – Rabbi Mordecai Tendler 8:45 p.m.
Unbelievable
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/a-memorable-weekend-for-divorced-orthodox-jews/2014/02/27/0/
Here is this new group for divorcees run by Naomi low Klass Mauer of Jewish Press infamy together with the womanizer & thief Benny Rogosnitzky.
Paysach Krohn speaks at their events
http://www.frumdivorce.org/images/event_dr-ruth.jpg
And so does explicit sex guru Dr. Ruth Westheimer!
Headlines & Recommended
50 Thousand Haredim March So Only Other Jews Die in War
Haredim show an astonishing degree of honesty regarding the bankruptcy of their entire school of faith and study.
"Tropper doing a crazy man on the street corner gig"
Can someone give me directions to Tuvya's?
So he was afraid of his bachrim looking like draft dodgers but not being draft dodgers?
Seem like deja vu all over again!
4D was a legitimate clergy exemption. The non-learners did not fit into this category!...And YTV supplied chaplains as did YU.
What a disgrace to the rosh yeshiva ztl's legacy that the Fressers installed the corrupt fraud son of the molesters' best friend Shmuel Bloom to head the once glorious Torah Umesorah. What's happening after the Feds found out that TU tzedokah money was given to the Platinum ponzi scheme? Also check out the complaint in Federal Court that Bloom was one of the players to suck all the money out of Seasons supermarkets before a premeditated "bankruptcy"
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2019/06/rabbi-nosson-kamenetzky-zl-wasted-his.html
Update on the R' Nosson Kaminetzky saga: see the 3rd comment here
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