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More background on Israel’s rape-by-deception case

I really should have done some research when I made my last post, but better late than never. And waiting for the weekend is understandable, right?

I posted on the rape by deception case as I was shocked by how brazen a story of persecution based on ethnicity or religion it appeared to be, and The Guardian didn’t appear to do much better research that I did as they provided context to support that case and none to contradict it… and I’ve found that there exists ample evidence to prove my (and The Guardian’s) implications as poorly founded…

I was able to find a couple of Haaretz articles (and linky to the second) that has a bit more details about the incident described in the previous post and, more importantly, some history of cases that contradict my interpretation of the ruling.

First, the notable details about Sabbar Kashur’s case:

• He’s married and a father of two children, I’m presuming at the time of the sexual encounter (I don’t think it’s ever specified, but being that the encounter appears to have taken place September 2008 and he was under house arrest for “almost two years” (says Haaretz), I’m comfortable assuming he was married at the time). So there’s another potential unstated reason for the conviction: protecting the sanctity of marriage and finding excuses to punish those who cheat.
• The plaintiff approached Mr. Kashur, and appears to have chatted him up about his motorcycle (I knew it! Chicks dig bikes!)
• And the older Haaretz article states what I feel is probably a very important detail to most people, which The Guardian article mentioned only hinted at: Apparently, after the bike-talk, “the couple then went to a nearby building and had sex, after which Kashur left the building without waiting for the woman to get dressed. When the woman found Kashur was not a Jew but an Arab, she filed a complaint that resulted in charges of rape and indecent assault.”"

And now some legal background and opinion:

• Apparently precedent was set in 2008 as well with a rape by deception charge of Zvi Sleiman, who impersonated a government official and said he would use the powers of his office in a woman’s favour if she would sleep with him. No mention of whether or not Mr. Sleiman was Jewish or Palestinian, but being that he was impersonating an Israeli official, probably a decent bet he’s Jewish (according to a quick Google search, but nothing that I found is definitive/credible). So that dispels my insinuation in my last post that the convicted ethnicity was the deciding factor.
• “High Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein said a conviction of rape should be imposed any time a “person does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman, and as a result of misrepresentation she has sexual relations with him.”" More on this point later…
• “Eran Ben-Avraham, who told a woman he was a neurosurgeon after which she had sex with him, and was convicted of three counts of fraud.” Another example! The convicted was also a Jewish man, according to the same questionable Google research. And this one is much more palpable to those of us who have trouble understanding how someone’s religion or ethnicity can be a deciding factor in what appears to be a pretty casual sexual encounter.

So the insinuations of my last post are bunk: This is not a case of the Israeli justice system systematically enforcing their law at varying degrees depending on the religion or ethnicity of the parties involved. Not to say the individual judges involved couldn’t have that intention, but I certainly am not going to make that accusation.

But despite how very, very wrong I was, this case doesn’t become less interesting. Some good points are made by The Atlantic Monthly‘s (I still call it that) Andrew Sullivan’s blog, mostly not by Mr. Sullivan. And since Mr. Sullivan is the most prolific blog poster on the whole goddamn Internets, I’ll give you some direct links and short summaries to the relevant posts:

1. Sullivan’s first mention that I could find, the title of which seems to be along a series of posts that appear to be fairly critical of Israel. This one is little more than a link to the 2nd (older) Haaretz and Guardian articles.
2. But that original post brings out an informative reply, where a reader calls Andrew out for Israel-bashing (I can’t comment on that) and links to a number of similar US cases in defense of Israel, citing what Sullivan retorts are materially different cases (cases of impersonating a specific person, doctors using their occupation for sexual assault, and a man pretending to be a doctor)… If Sullivan’s characterizations are accurate, I would definitely agree that those cases differ from the Kashur case enough to make them insufficient for direct comparison. The commenter does make noteworthy mention of racial biases that may exist in the US but that doesn’t exactly mean similar practices elsewhere are any less heinous.
3. The best post of the bunch where, once again, those Sullivan quotes do the heavy lifting. Sullivan’s quotation of Dana McCourt provides an excellent example of deceit by weed-brownie, which really highlights the ‘material’ nature of the deceit and how difficult it can be for some – myself included – to understand when it comes to religion or ethnicity. Dan Savage’s quotation is the perfect natural progression of the argument of the ‘material’ nature of the lie: He argues that when we’re talking about a rather casual encounter, and an apparent deal-breaker like religion is confirmed by little more than a Jewish-sounding name and an assertion of being Jewish, the court has no right to step in. If you sexual partner’s Jewishness is so important to you, maybe you should spend… oh… maybe more than a day getting to know the guy before you sleep with him?
4. And the most recent post I could find, where a reader once again provides excellent background: One reader – sadly, neglecting citation – says the trial started as a vanilla rape case but when it was discovered that sex was consensual, it lead to the rape by deception plea bargain. The reader adds three points of little worth (some accusations and conjecture) that I don’t feel like summarizing, but it’s only a click away for those of you who don’t trust my opinion.

So I don’t think there’s any way anyone can continue to suggest, based on the information above, that Kashur’s case is an example of ethnic or religious persecution, or that “had Kashur been a Jewish man sleeping with a Palestinian woman under false pretense, this would have never made it to court”. There are no grounds for that argument.

But I believe what fuels people’s disgust with this ruling despite the above is what Dan Savage brought up: This is the court stepping in to rule on someone’s sexual indiscretions, moreso than a case of legal deception. Had the plaintiff married Kashur, or dated him for years, and Kashur managed to maintain a convincing charade of Jewishness – simply, had the plaintiff showed evidence of due diligence before allowing him access to her “no admittance for non-Jews” reproductive organs – I think there’d be a lot more sympathy for the conviction.

As is, this smells a lot like excessive intrusion into the most private part of people’s relationships by courts, to police personal morality.

And here’s my big, fat foray into pure conjecture: Quite frankly, it sounds like she thought he’d at least hang around until she got dressed, didn’t like the cold shoulder, opted for the stalk of shame over the walk of shame, kept calling or doing her own bit of investigating, found out he had lied to her, and then accused him of rape in revenge. Hell hath no fury…

… and the cow goes moo

UPDATED – Israel: Where the truth is supposed to get you laid?

I’m sure this story is making it’s rounds all over the internet, but it deserves some attention so I’m going to link to it too.

From the Guardian: “Arab guilty of rape after consensual sex with Jew“

Summary: Palestinian in Israel tells a Jewish girl that he’s Jewish, is seeking a serious relationship, and wants to get all up in her. She responds: “You had me at ‘Jewish’” and they (appear to) immediately get to humping. She goes home and Googles him or something (note to all faux Jewish bachelors out there: Give a fake name and number) and finds out he’s not so Jewish after all and goes to the ultimate arbiter of romance, the Israeli Justice System, to punish the deceitful prick.

Money graft from one of the judges, Tzvi Segal:

“”The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls…”

Mr. Segal tactfully omits any mention of the man’s ethnicity in the quotes in the article, but Gideon Levy is quoted in the article, peeling back the thin layer of artful evasion and calls it for what it is: Persecuting lying Arabs for lying to Jews and continuing to entrench a Palestinian underclass within Israel, with a justice system designed specifically to protect Jews from Arabs. For someone who thinks people who lie for sex need to go to prison, he seems awfully comfortable hiding the true rationale behind his judgment. But then again, I doubt any Jews are going to believe that this is really about lies and not about kicking a Palestinian every chance you get. And we all know lies are only crimes when you lie to a Jew.

I can’t wait to see all the lawsuits from women who slept with guys who claimed to be business owners but are really just unemployed. Or guys who tell girls that they are soooo funny and interesting.

UPDATE: See my follow-up to this post. The follow-up includes facts! And research!

… and the cow goes moo

Breaking News! Joe Johnson is NOT Retarded!

What an awesome NBA free agency season we’re having so far. In total, the players signed have gone for ~200% of their value.

And overpaid athletes now have a new king! Move over, Rashard Lewis!

Joe Johnson signs with Atlanta for One Hundred BILLION Dollars!

When the best (arguably… J-Smoove is pretty unique) player on a team that barely gets over a very crummy Bucks team that was missing one of their two best players — and the other player is a rookie — and then absolutely quits in the second round of the playoffs, losing every game by 20+ points, you HAVE to pay max money to keep him.

What’s amazing is that I’ve been hearing rumours of essentially the accepted contract offer since July 1. What took you so fucking long, Joe? Your house so big it takes you 3 days to find a pen?

Darko Milicic and Drew Gooden, do you see what you two have started?? Can the league survive without a lockout and new collective bargaining agreement to protect teams from themselves when GMs are this stupid?

… and the cow goes moo

Naked Capitalism: Summary of the BP hearing (and the string of risks taken)

Naked Capitalism has had some very solid guest contributors providing reporting far superior to a lot of the mainstream organizations (I feel like I’m getting better info from NC than NYT so far).

Here’s a link to NC’s latest post, a short rundown of some of the controversies brought up in the hearings/BP CEO Tony Hayward testimony.

Now the big question is… Had BP not delayed the top kill procedure (for example) trying to drill relief wells to keep the well (and their investment) alive for those first few weeks, would erosion of the damaged areas and the potential escalation of flow been cut short and the top kill procedure more likely to have succeeded?

(I expect the ever-escalating barrels/day flow estimates are largely but not entirely due to just the gradual erosion of BP/this administration’s obfuscation by the truth)

What does that say when BP opted to less-effective methods at the risk of allowing xx,000 barrels of oil to spill into the Gulf every day, and at the same time reduce the likelihood of successfully halting the leak… for the sake of maintaining their multimillion investment in the well? When you’re capped to $75m in damages, why wouldn’t a company prioritize the response efforts in that manner?

I just hope to God that we don’t have to wait years to find out.

… and the cow goes moo

WP’s Fred Hiatt writes the shitfullingest paragraph I have ever read

Please enjoy this opus from the great Fred Hiatt, of the esteemed Washington Post (specifically, the less-esteemed editorial section) provides an interesting setting for his opinion piece on the Gaza Strip flotilla fiasco:

From June 1/2010, fresh out the cow’s ass:

“THE ISRAELI commandos who landed on the deck of the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara off the coast of the Gaza Strip early Monday were totally unprepared for what they encountered: dozens of militants who swarmed around them with knives and iron bars. The result was a bloody battle in which at least nine passengers were killed — and a diplomatic debacle for the government of Binyamin Netanyahu. Though the investigations to come will find many to blame, it’s already clear that Israel’s response to the pro-Palestinian flotilla was both misguided and badly executed.”

I know very little about the flotilla, and even less about this incident… but does that paragraph pass anyone’s smell test?

Do Israeli commandos make a habit of boarding ships and putting themselves in a position to be surrounded? Remember:  there is no equivocation about who boarded who here.

Does the Israeli military, possibly the asskickingest military in the world, have a reputation of wussing out when confronted with piddlyshit small arms? If not, who the fuck is coming at gun-toting commandos with goddamn bludgeoning and stabbing utensils?

So do I believe the passengers of the flotilla may have attacked the Israeli units once the Israeli units boarded the flotilla? Sure. But the picture Fred Hiatt is trying to paint is one of a “swarming” force, rather than a bunch of reactive civvies who are, essentially, under assault the moment the commandos touch down, and implying without any real evidence some overwhelming number of aggressors.

[I don't really have an opinion on this event: I understand what the objections of both groups seem to be and what each side may have been hoping to gain or protect. Like I said, I'm pretty uninformed about this matter. But man, Fred Hiatt is full of shit.]

… and the cow goes moo

Move over Lebron and Mamba: Joey Crawford is the NBA’s Marquee Superstar

(Found via ESPN’s Bill Simmons’ Twitter page)

Let this be the month that I devote entirely to bitching about Joey Crawford.

Here’s some video evidence for the fact that Joey Crawford sucks.  Some of the comments seem to use this to implicate all NBA refs as being worthless, but I’d like to single out Joey as the one ref who has the biggest negative impact on an NBA game.  Consistently and predictably, Joey Crawford finds a way to make himself the center of attention and the most important person on the court.

Fresh out the oven, from Game 5 of the Portland-Phoenix series, April 26/2010.

Enjoy!

And those who think Joey’s fucked up game-effecting call might be out-of-character, here’s prima donna Joey trying to save himself the embarrassment of admitting his brakes suck by calling bullshit.

Hey Joey:  NBA games are recorded…

… and the cow goes moo

To those watching Orlando at San Antonio right now…

Yes, that is fucking Joey Crawford running the officiating crew, and yes, the official are capriciously calling fouls like people tuned in to see the officials tonight.

God dammit, why do they let Joey Crawford keep his job when unemployment is ~9%?

Some of these officials (mostly Joey, but there are others) are ruining the league.  Watching a game like this makes me wish for a lockout.

… and the cow goes moo

Paul Krugman vs. Paul Krugman: Paul Krugman wins!

[Late April Fool's joke for the 5 people still checking this blog!  I am still going to post, whenever the planets align!]

I understand Krugman probably gets quite a bit of leeway with his editors (a Nobel is probably hard to argue against) but … wtf?

His NYT op-ed today addresses an important point and is worth reading, to an extent, but he manages to t-bone his own argument about halfway through.  Here are the relevant passages of Krugman offering his polite criticism of Tall Paul Volcker’s solution to the financial crisis (limiting size, no mention of Volcker’s more important proposal to separate investing and traditional banking, but I believe Krugman has few qualms with that):

“The solution, say people like Mr. Volcker, is to break big financial institutions into units that aren’t too big to fail, making future bailouts unnecessary and restoring market discipline.

It’s a convincing-sounding argument, but I’m one of those people who doesn’t buy it.

Here’s how I see it. Breaking up big banks wouldn’t really solve our problems, because it’s perfectly possible to have a financial crisis that mainly takes the form of a run on smaller institutions. In fact, that’s precisely what happened in the 1930s, when most of the banks that collapsed were relatively small — small enough that the Federal Reserve believed that it was O.K. to let them fail. As it turned out, the Fed was dead wrong: the wave of small-bank failures was a catastrophe for the wider economy.

…

So what’s the alternative to breaking up big financial institutions? The answer, I’d argue, is to update and extend old-fashioned bank regulation.

After all, the U.S. banking system had a long period of stability after World War II, based on a combination of deposit insurance, which eliminated the threat of bank runs, and strict regulation of bank balance sheets, including both limits on risky lending and limits on leverage, the extent to which banks were allowed to finance investments with borrowed funds.”

Huh?

So Krugman argues that limiting bank size is insufficient to halt a repeat of the crisis (fair argument) because runs still occurred in the 1930s even though banks were small.  Krugman is insinuating that small bank failures can cause a financial crisis as well.  Fine.

But then Krugman continues to describe the change in the banking world that occurred since WWII due to recent advents like FDIC deposit insurance, which effectively ended traditional bank runs.  FDIC deposit insurance was created by Glass-Steagall Act o f 1933 specifically in response to the small bank run of the early 1930s that Krugman is referring to.

So Krugman is saying if banks are limited in size, we can still have a small bank run like we did in 1930-1933.  But the world is different since Glass-Steagall enacted in 1933 which put an end to bank runs.  But still, we will have more small bank runs so Volcker is wrongwrongwrong… ?

So wtf, Prof Krugman?  Am I misunderstanding or did one of his two weekly op-eds make absolutely no sense?

But on the more important overall issue of the editorial, effective reform, I believe Volcker’s solution is inadequate.  Limiting size may arrive at a desirable end, but does little to reduce the threat of repeats crises.  It may make bailouts more political viable (bailing out a bunch of $500m regional or community banks is probably less likely to stick in the public’s craw than high-profile, high-rollin’, outright-ballin’ Wall Street bank bailouts), but it does little to reduce the need for bailouts.

What allowed the financial crisis to sneak up on many is that individual institutions, no matter how large, didn’t appear to be as vulnerable as they were revealed to be.  Nor was the system itself as apparently vulnerable as it turned out to be.

Krugman’s reference to the role the shadow banking system is dead-on:  While regulatory focus (what little existed) was applied to the conventional banks and their daylight operations, their highly leveraged interconnectedness, opaque and inscrutable, with the appendages of other conventional banks, insurance companies, investment banks, and shadow banking systems was what made the failure of even a single major entity the potential harbinger of systemic collapse.

That’s why size limitations will prove inadequate to mitigate losses in a future financial crisis, or reduce the likelihood of one occurring.  But it has nothing to do with what happened in the very-different world of the 1930s.

… and the cow goes moo

Feats of Sophistry: Baby Einstein

First off, I like the Baby Einstein videos.  I don’t think they turn babies into Einsteins, but I do believe they have the ability to temporarily turn babies into vegetables, which is much more important for me in the short-term.  Anything that lets me take an occasional break is worth $19.95.  That being said, like in all other things, Baby Einsteins are best used in moderation.

Now I haven’t reviewed the science, I don’t know why the University is being so evasive (except that a well-funded company like Disney could tear apart any academic paper if it wanted to commit the resources to it, for better or for worse, and embarrass an institution), but I do know that the following comment is dumb as all shit (from the New York Times):

“I’m proud of what I made,” Ms. Aigner-Clark [one of the creators of the Baby Einstein series] said in an e-mail message on Monday night. “Welcome to the 21st century. Most people have televisions in their houses, and most babies are exposed to it. And most people would agree that a child is better off listening to Beethoven while watching images of a puppet than seeing any reality show that I can think of.”

Thank you, Ms. Aigner-Clark.  I hope to see that on the next iteration of Baby Neptune DVD cover: “Better for your baby than ‘The Jersey Shore!’”

The Situation is rolling in his grave.

… and the cow goes moo

Merry Christmas! In the spirit of the holidays, I’m not going to show compassion to the elderly

Quick link and comment today.  Please see this post at Calculated Risk (which links to a Denver Post article).

My capsule summary:

Sympathetic elderly couple in their 70s and 80s had a pretty nice interest rate on a credit card for years, then it nearly tripled to 16.9% (which still isn’t bad for a credit card).  Now the elderly couple’s payment for the coming month has doubled from ~$500 to over $1,000 (the rate change shouldn’t effect the minimum payment for the cards I’m familiar with, so I imagine this has to do with increased amount of interest accrued over the past month under the new interest rate that wasn’t covered by the previous payment).  Sadly, as is the case with all these “how can you not feel bad for [old people/single mothers/apple pies] getting charged lots of money by Evil Bailed Out Bank X” stories, the details are sparse so I am left to make these assumptions.

As most cards require something along the lines of a 2.3% minimum payment per month, and assuming his ~$500 payment per month was the minimum (seems likely, considering the increase of his payment), that would mean Mr. Rickman was carrying a $21,000+ balance on the credit card.  He indicates he has no salary coming in, so I will assume he’s left with pension and/or retirement investment income.  Mr. Rickman also indicates he and his wife “reverse-mortgaged” their home, so it would appear he may have no substantial assets either.

Now no one wants old people to go broke and hungry, even heartless internet bloggers like myself, but to make this a news story is absurd.

Any bank can see the situation clear as day:  The client has a growing credit card balance that can never be paid off.  They are choosing to keep the balance on this card in particular because it has a very low interest rate.  At some point, this client will default and the debt will have to be written off (remember? No liquid assets to recover any of these debts from and its highly unlikely Mr. Rickman would qualify to consolidate with his income and the potential damage his high revolving balance may have caused his credit rating).  If Evil Bailed Out Bank X jacks up the interest rate, maybe they can provide incentive for Mr. Rickman to transfer this balance over to another lower interest credit card he might have, or pursue a solution with another bank to take this ticking time bomb off Evil Bailed Out Bank X’s hands.  Or, in a worst case scenario, maybe Evil Bailed Out Bank X will cause a default sooner and have to write off a smaller amount of unrecoverable debt than it would be a year or two down the road (when certainly it is unlikely that anything will improve for Mr. Rickman in terms of income or assets).

Shockingly, Calculated Risk actually seems to see things similar to the way I do!

“The interest rate increase is outrageous, but also notice that Mr. Rickman was apparently not paying off his credit card balance every month. I suspect he has been running a fairly large balance compared to his income (only Social Security at this time according to the article), and just making the minimum payment on his credit card. Although the 5.9% interest rate was somewhat reasonable, it is still far more than Rickman could earn on any conservative investment.”

I actually would argue the increase isn’t outrageous (remember, Mr. Rickman’s credit rating may be significantly effected by his high revolving balances, as utilization is the second most important factor effecting his credit score, second only to making/missing payments) and appears to me the logical thing to do from the bank’s end.

And as much turmoil as this may cause Mr. Rickman, the  fact of the matter is that Evil Bailed Out Bank X, for better or for worse, allowed Mr. Rickman to live well beyond his means for years now, if my assumptions on Mr. Rickman’s balances are correct, and the big loser will be EBOB-X as they’ll be looking at $22,000 of unrecoverable balances, probably far more than EBOB-X would have collected in profit at 5.9% interest over the past 20 years, plus the cost of collections and that last tank of gas it sounds like Mr. Rickman will charge to the card with no intention of paying (I believe the spirit of the law would call that stealing, but hey, the guy’s old).

So whenever it was that Mr. Rickman started accruing large balances on his credit card, he should have been faced with the ultimatum of adjusting his spending or his income to match his lifestyle but EBOB-X allowed him to defer that conundrum.  For years, and perhaps decades.  Now he is finally forced to face that ultimatum, plus interest compounded, and all he has to do is declare bankruptcy and be debt-free without having much of an impact on his life, if he is able to live without new credit cards.

So what’s the big fucking problem?  Mr. Rickman is able to walk away from $22k of debt with minimal consequences.  The only source of discomfort noted in the article is that his wife will “miss having the card”.

Boo-fucking-hoo.  EBOB-X will miss having $22,000 too.  Where’s there tear-jerking article?

[There's a much larger issue of addiction, taking advantage of the innumerate, and financial education... independence... responsibility... and the whole assumption that adults of sound-mind can be trusted to make their own decisions and be responsible for them... but I'm not going to address that here.  Like everyone else (see the last paragraph of CR's post), I'm happy to just swing at and not smash open that hornet's nest.  Really, I just have to wonder why a family or social group doesn't have one person who is consulted about financial matters when that credit card balance is breaking five figures.  Really?  No son, daughter-in-law, or good-friend-that-used-to-be-an-accountant that would be happy to provide some free advice?  Or do we leave our credit card balances to grow silently in the dark, ashamed to reveal to those around us that we spend 50% more than what we make?  Furthermore, is this a problem that exists throughout the world?  From what I've read and seen firsthand, the Western world seems to be populated by profligate spenders with comfortable lifestyles and no savings, while the Eastern hemisphere lives in relative simplicity and doesn't pay credit card interest.]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

… and the cow goes moo