Ethics Bob Calls Out the Haredim for their Assaults on a Second Grader

On By southwerkIn International
Ethics Bob

Ethics Bob is not shy about calling out the Haredim for their ridiculous behavior. I put his first paragraph up. Please go read his whole article (and his follow up article which is also listed below).

Who would spit and curse at a second grader and call her a whore?

Who would spit and curse at a second grader and call her a whore? Haredim, that’s who. The Haredim are considered the extreme of orthodox Jews, although they reject the label: to them they are just “Jews,” everybody else is not. In the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, some Haredim spat and cursed at second grader Naama Margolese (pictured here with her mother), and called her a whore for dressing immodestly. Since the assault Naama.is afraid to walk to her religious school, even when her mother is with her, holding her hand.

Who would spit and curse at a second grader and call her a whore? « Ethics Bob

Ethics Bob follows this up with another article on a related topic entitled:

Israeli religious fanatics assault a female soldier for not moving to the back of the bus

I was going to add some comments of my own but I realized I was too angry to write well. I worked with children in the criminal justice system for some years. The idea of daily verbal assaults along with spitting against an 8 year old move me toward violence. So, I will stop here.

James Pilant

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Arizona Humane Society Kills Scruffy

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Humane Society; Sparks Outrage By Euthanizing Man’s Kitten Over Money

I was more than a little surprised by this. The Arizona Humane Society was unable to find the money to help Scruffy or take a credit card over the phone but was able to hire a publicist and scrub its Facebook site of all those nasty comments made by people who were obviously unaware of the souless minions running its operations. I went to the Facebook site for the organization and if you want to see professional damage control in action, I recommend it as a model. If it weren’t for their own carefully written remarks suggesting alternate places to write your complaints, you wouldn’t have know known that some poor cat had been wacked.

From the article –

Animal lovers threatened to pull donations to an animal rescue group and the public flooded the agency with scathing comments and calls after a man’s cat was euthanized when he couldn’t afford its medical care, prompting the Arizona Humane Society to go into damage-control mode Wednesday.

The group has hired a publicist, removed dozens of comments on its Facebook page and directed a team of five volunteers to respond to the overwhelming calls and emails it has received since The Arizona Republic published a weekend story about Daniel Dockery and his 9-month-old cat, Scruffy.

Humane Society‎ Sparks Outrage By Euthanizing Man’s Kitten Over Money

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New posts for the new year, James Pilant

On By southwerkIn Personal

I have posted seldom over the past several weeks. I have been in downward spiral due to severe allergies and sinus infections. It has been a painful time for me.

I am now using a prescribed nasal spray which is limiting the severity of my symptoms. But it does take time to work.

As part of my treatment, I have been tested for allergies and it has been discovered that there are no major allergens I am not allergic to. Just wonderful.

So, the plan is to start taking shots with the new year.

Presumably, I will be more active, intelligent and organized as time goes by. Certainly I hope so.

James Pilant

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The Documentary, Gasland was RIGHT!

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics
Gasland

English: Councilman James F. Gennaro attends t...
Image via Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image via Wikipedia

EPA links fracking to contaminated water in Wyoming | McClatchy

I have used the documentary, Gasland, in my class. The EPA has found clear evidence that hydraulic fracking has contaminated the ground water in a large area. This is evidence that Josh Fox’s crusade against unregulated fracking is based on sound science and I think he is owed an apology by many in the gas industry.

From what I am seeing, Gasland is on its ways to becoming the most influential documentary in modern American history as state after state and region after region struggle with the issues Josh Fox had the courage to bring before the public.

James Pilant

From the McClatchy article –

The EPA initially gathered water from privately owned wells and municipal wells. The presence of methane and hydrocarbons, including diesel, in groundwater led to further testing, including the EPA’s drilling of two monitoring wells. The EPA also tested waste pits for possible contamination. In its two years of sampling of the pits and the monitoring wells, the EPA found benzene, xylenes, diesel and other hydrocarbon compounds, among a list of unusual agents in the water.

EPA links fracking to contaminated water in Wyoming | McClatchy

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We Win the War on Terrorism by Maintaining Our Ideals!

On By southwerkIn International
U.S. soldiers from Bravo Company, 1st Battalio...

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Giving up long held American rights, attempting to copy the worst elements of repressive regimes like the Argentine and the Soviet, are not the way to victory in the “war on terror.” These attempts to discover how low we can go in our own behavior are counterproductive. The America whose ideas have become common across the world was a concept of idealism and possibility. People never turned to the ideals of America because of their similarity to totalitarian regimes and monarchies but because they were different.

We win wars of ideas by having better ideas. The Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus are persuasive ideas. Disappearing our enemies and holding them indefinitely without charges are the cowardly acts of frightened dictators and incompetent despots.

The great ideas that have made America a light to the world require courage, support and sacrifice. They are not cheap or easy.

But having such ideas is how societies win long term conflicts because having such ideas means that a people willing to hold on to its ideals even when threatened with destruction is a worthy people who live for more than just themselves.

James Pilant

Indefinite Military Detention Of U.S. Citizens Is A Win For Terrorists, Former Admiral Says

“As it turns out, our enemies’ greatest weakness is that they are bereft of ideals,” he added. “If we can maintain our ideals, our sense of justice, in the face of this, we can win. What the enemy, what the terrorists want to do — because they know they can’t beat us militarily — [is] they can try to change us. They can cause us to become more like them, and for them, that’s victory.”

The reason why, he argues, is that if the United States cannot portray itself as the holder of loftier ideals, then it is much harder to convince the rest of the world to stay on its side — and it’s harder to fight wars because even allies are less cooperative.

“Who’s going to surrender to the United Sates if they think they’re going to be detained indefinitely without a trial? Is anybody going to give up?” he asked. “Who’s going to say, ‘You know, maybe the United States isn’t as bad as we think it is, and maybe it’s al Qaeda and the Taliban who are the bad guys, and I’m going to side with the good guys?'”

Indefinite Military Detention Of U.S. Citizens Is A Win For Terrorists, Former Admiral Says

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Obama Over Rules His Own Experts – Plan B

On By southwerkIn Opinion1 Comment
I am a more than a little annoyed by this. Didn’t this guy promise to rely on the experts and instead we get some paternalistic crap about 11 year olds? This decision is going to have serious repercussions. Teenage girls are going to get pregnant with all that entails for their futures when they should have had a choice of contraception. We are not yet a nation of Baptists who believe ineffectual admonishments against having sex is an improvement over reality. Every day in this nation, particularly in the South, teenagers have sex, millions of them. They’ve been told not to. However, since the survival of the human species has depended on the young having sex for hundreds of thousands of years, it may well be possible that a church pamphlet and a pat on the head may not discourage them.
President Obama appears to be working his way through all of his campaign promises one by one, tossing them out like softballs at a little league game. I have been disgusted a long time. I don’t know what bothers me more, his fake populism or his gutless inability to negotiate.
Below are some thought from Salon.
James Pilant
Official photographic portrait of US President...
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Obama’s woman problem – Gender Roles – Salon.com

But as an American, I think it is important for my president not to turn to paternalistic claptrap and enfeebling references to the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters – and young women around the country – to justify a curtailment of access to medically safe contraceptives. The notion that in aggressively conscribing women’s abilities to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy Obama is just laying down some Olde Fashioned Dad Sense diminishes an issue of gender equality, sexual health and medical access. Recasting this debate as an episode of “Father Knows Best” reaffirms hoary attitudes about young women and sex that had their repressive heyday in the era whence that program sprang.

Obama’s woman problem – Gender Roles – Salon.com

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Heroes to Zeroes? Monetized Fire Department Watches Home Burn

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Tennessee family home burns while firefighters watch | The Sideshow – Yahoo! News

From Yahoo! News –

Vicky Bell told the NBC affiliate WPSD-TV that she called 911 when her mobile home in Obion County caught fire. Firefighters arrived on the scene but as the fire raged, they simply stood by and did nothing. “In an emergency, the first thing you think of, ‘Call 9-1-1,” homeowner Bell said. However, Bell and her husband were forced to walk into the burning home in an attempt to retrieve their own belongings. “You could look out my mom’s trailer and see the trucks sitting at a distance,” Bell said. “We just wished we could’ve gotten more out.”

This is video from last year’s similar case. Both homes burned from the lack of a 75 dollar subscription payment. That’s what happens when you take firemen and make them into businessmen. Monetized serviced makes sense to free market conservatives because the believe in the survival of the fittest.

Fire departments are not businesses. Making them into businesses wounds up with them not doing their job as a way of building clientele. It’s cruel, vicious and destructive to those with the least resources. Our proud conservative commentators have never lived in a home where seventy-five dollars was the difference between getting a tire for the car or lunch money or a hundred other things that burden you when you live on the edge likes tens of millions of Americans do now.

James Pilant

Tennessee family home burns while firefighters watch | The Sideshow – Yahoo! News

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Occupy Wall Street Poster!!

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

My understanding is that this poster is free to use and I recommend you post it as well and visit OCCUPYWALLST.ORG. The struggle is just beginning.

James Pilant

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Big Brother = Carrier IQ?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics
English: Al Franken, Senator from Minnesota

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When you use Android  and Carrier IQ is running in the background on your phone, Carrier IQ is tracking your data – just a little bit of data. All they are getting is the following:

Every text message. Every web search. Every phone number. The user’s location and the URL of all web sites searched!

Now that’s service! You are not just another customer to Carrier IQ. They want to be close to you every moment of every day. I bet they keep a record of the names of your pets.

I suppose I am just some kind of reclusive paranoid because I can’t seem to feel that they are acting in my best interest. In fact, call me crazy, but I just get the impression that they are stealing private information and converting for their own use.

I am pleased that Al Franken is calling them on the carpet for this, but that’s not what I want. I want the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute these people. This is theft, a form of private espionage. Since these phones are used by government agencies, police, fire departments and the military, I would like an explanation as to how that does not violate The Espionage Act and laws governing homeland security. Isn’t this exactly the kind of data, another country would crave?

James Pilant

Al Franken Calls On Carrier IQ To Explain Mobile Tracking Software

Earlier this week, security researcher Trevor Eckhart posted a video detailing how Carrier IQ’s software — which has the same name — logs every text message, web search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smartphones and reports them to the mobile phone carrier.

The application also logs a user’s location and the URL of websites searched on the phone, even if the user intends to encrypt that data using a URL that begins with “HTTPS,” Eckhart said in the video. The software always runs when Android’s operating system is running and users are unable to stop it.

Al Franken Calls On Carrier IQ To Explain Mobile Tracking Software

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Pepper Spray Cop’s Lament

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice
Pepper spray Demonstration; U.S. Marine Corps ...

Image via Wikipedia

Now for the serious side of pepper spray. This is from wikipedia.

Pepper spray typically comes in canisters, which are often small enough to be carried or concealed in a pocket or purse. Pepper spray can also be bought concealed in items such as rings. There are also pepper spray projectiles available, which can be fired from a paintball gun. It has been used for years against demonstrators. Many such canisters also contain dyes, either visible or UV-reactive, to mark an attacker’s skin and/or clothing to enhance identification by police.

Pepper spray – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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