Saturday, April 6, 2019

LIBERAL ORTHODOX YESHIVA SAYS IT WILL NOT ORDAIN GAY STUDENT

jpost.


In a statement to The Jewish Week, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah student Daniel Atwood, 27, wrote: “Four years ago I came out as gay during my first year at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, and it was decided that I would receive semicha [ordination] as their first openly gay student. After four years of study and my completing almost all of the program’s requirements, YCT decided not to give me semicha, news delivered to me only a few weeks ago, three months before my graduation, without any prior conversation on the matter.”



Atwood became engaged in the fall and is living with his partner.


Sunday, March 31, 2019

AP FACT CHECK: Trump's relentless drive to be given credit

abcnews

President Donald Trump's relentless drive to be given credit for all manner of things suffused his speech to Michigan supporters this past week.
These efforts are largely familiar by now: He counts job gains from the Obama era as his own, rebrands his predecessor's veterans health care initiative as a Trump achievement, attributes auto factory expansion long in the making to his leadership, and hails a Republican rescue of health care that has not materialized.
But there was a new one on Thursday night. "We have some breaking news!" he said. "Can you handle it? I don't think you can handle it."
He then declared that after decades of failure by lawmakers to get money to clean up the Great Lakes, he was coming ahead with $300 million for that effort. The crowd roared.
But the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative was getting that money already . Trump had proposed slashing it.

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Rockland declares state of emergency over measles outbreak, bars unvaccinated from public places




New York (WABC) -- Rockland County has declared a state of emergency over the ongoing measles outbreak, with Executive Ed Day announcing that non-vaccinated minors are now barred from public places. 

Now in effect, anyone who is under 18 years of age and is not vaccinated against the measles is prohibited from public places until the declaration expires in 30 days or until they receive the MMR vaccination. 



Officials said law enforcement will not be patrolling the streets or asking for vaccination records, but if someone is found in violation of the declaration, their case will be referred to the district attorney's office. 

Parents will also be held accountable for their children if they are found in violation of the state of emergency, and could face fines and possible jail time. 

Yona Weinberg



Yona Weinberg Slander Trial Continues Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Thursday, March 28, the next hearing of registered sex offender Yona Weinberg's slander trial against me will take place via teleconference from New York City. The hearing centers on one of Weinberg’s claims, namely that I ruined his reputation by falsely accusing him of being a fugitive from the United States, having posted on Twitter that he fled from Brooklyn to Israel fearing arrest for allegedly harming yet another child. 

For the record, this claim could or should have been rejected outright since a major media outlet had previously published this information The Daily News -- Convicted Sex Offender Flees on January 15, 2015, before my first tweet about Weinberg.   

The Israeli judge hearing this case declared NYPD Detective Fehrenbach’s letter inadmissible, because his written testimony was not subject to cross-examination. Therefore, tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. N.Y. Time, I will be with Detective Fehrenbach when he testifies in Israeli court via teleconference from New York so he can be cross examined and his testimony accepted.  

I am deeply committed to protecting the right of child safety advocates to warn Israeli parents of the life-threatening danger child abusers like Yona Weinberg present to their children, and will fight this lawsuit to the very end – and beyond if needed.

Yakov 


update


Dear Readers,

At the Weinberg slander trial teleconference hearing today, the NYC Detective who was in charge of the Weinberg case in 2014, clearly stated that there is an active charge against Yona Weinberg and that Weinberg would be arrested as soon as he steps on American soil.

Equally important, or perhaps even more so, when the judge asked Weinberg’s American lawyer to share his understanding of Weinberg’s status, the lawyer responded thatWeinberg is, in fact, facing charges in New York and may be arrested upon his return.

So; while is it never wise to predict the outcome of a court case, it can be stated with certainty that we are in a far better position now than we were before the hearing, as Weinberg’s claim that I slandered him by calling him a "fugitive" seems to have disintegrated. 

Moving forward, sometime after Pesach,

  • Weinberg will submit his final statement to the judge.
  • We will be given time to review it, and then submit our final statement.
  • Once the judge receives and reviews both our statements, she will issue her ruling.


Thank you for your support and emails of encouragement.

Yakov



Monday, March 25, 2019

Scientists rise up against statistical significance

nature

Let’s be clear about what must stop: we should never conclude there is ‘no difference’ or ‘no association’ just because a P value is larger than a threshold such as 0.05 or, equivalently, because a confidence interval includes zero. Neither should we conclude that two studies conflict because one had a statistically significant result and the other did not. These errors waste research efforts and misinform policy decisions.



Guest Post Short and Sweet, Hold the Gloat

Donald Trump told the truth when he said there was no collusion. He did not obstruct justice by opposing those who maintained the possibility he colluded.

Those who were overly suspicious that he colluded, were deluded into making his alleged collusion their reality, who became obsessed with prosecuting him for collusion, and who maintained he was narcissic and insane, and who made power grabs to dislodge him from the Oval Office, they are the crazy ones.

From the losing Presidential candidate to much of the media, to some Democratic elected officials, to Deep State bureaucrats, they pinned their hopes on something that existed only in their minds.

No winners here. Honest men and women were wounded; the scurrilous and devious are defeated.

Rocket-sirens-heard-in-Kfar-Saba-area-584520


Hamas officials have said that the rocket which struck a home in central Israel injuring seven civilians was fired from the Gaza Strip by mistake, Israeli media reported Monday morning.

According to the reports after the long-range J-80 rocket was fired by Hamas operatives by mistake, the group evacuated positions across the coastal enclave in anticipation for an Israeli retaliation.