- How much of a scumbag do you have to be to steal millions of dollars from programs established to help Holocaust survivors? Rather than debating that question, we could simply ask the 17 ass hats against whom federal charges were filed Tuesday for allegedly thieving more than $42 million from those programs set up for those who survived the single greatest atrocity ever committed by one race or nationality against another. The alleged fraud is as substantial as it is galling" said Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for New York's Southern District. Bharara also called it a "perverse and pervasive fraud committed against a not-for-profit organization of historic significance." The scope and breadth of this thievery spans some 16 years, during which millions of dollars intended for Holocaust survivors "instead found their way into the pockets of corrupt employees of the Claims Conference and an elaborate network of fraudsters," according to Bharara. The stolen funds came from two accounts managed by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also known as the Claims Conference, a nonprofit that was established almost 60 years ago to assist those harmed by Nazis. The Claims Conference distributes more than $400 million a year from funds provided by the German government to victims of the Holocaust, making it one of the largest efforts of its kind - and unfortunately, a target for soul-less ass clowns who have no respect for the six millions Jews murdered by the Nazis and the millions more who survived with irreparably scarred lives. Conference officials first noticed the fraud and alerted the FBI in December 2009. "The Claims Conference is to be commended for notifying us as soon as they found out there were issues," Bharara said. The theft was an inside job, as six of the 17 people charged Tuesday with fraud and conspiracy are former and currant employees of the Claims Conference. Alleged "ringleader" Semen Domnitser led the effort and took advantage of his position as director and overseer of both the Hardship Fund and the Article Two Fund for more than 10 years. The Hardship Fund became a target because it makes one-time payments of about $3,600 to victims who were forced to leave their homes while fleeing advancing Nazis troops and submitting some 5,000 fraudulent applications worth $18 million made for an easy mark. As for the Article Two Fund, it gives pension payments of roughly $411 a month to those who earn less than $16,000 after taxes and spent a minimum of six months in a concentration camp or at least 18 months in a Jewish ghetto in hiding or living under a false identity to avoid the Nazis. Six hundred and fifty bogus applications were submitted to the fund and those awards stacked up to more than $25.5 million. Smartly, the Claims Conference has learned from the fraud and enacted new safeguards to protect its funds. “We are outraged that individuals would steal money intended for survivors of history's worst crime to enrich themselves," said Julius Berman, chairman of the Claims Conference. Agreed and agreed. I also hope that Bharara’s vow that, "We will bring to justice all those who would callously line their own pockets by looting an important lifeline for Holocaust survivors," comes true sooner rather than later………
- Look, I know that I said new, original ideas were needed in Hollywood and that I’d keep an open mind for anyone who wasn’t merely recycling an old movie concept or churning out an unnecessary sequel of a movie franchise that should have died after just one film…..but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give a stamp of approval to just any crappy film because it’s technically original. As a prime example, allow me to introduce you to a terrible movie concept that should never see the light of day and thus will definitely be green-lighted and end up in a multiplex near you. It comes from Iron Man director Jon Favreau, who is currently negotiating with Walt Disney Studios to bring Magic Kingdom, a Night-at-the-Museum-esque movie about the rides at Disney’s flagship theme park coming to life, to the big screen. In order to make this surefire train wreck a reality, Favreau will reportedly postpone work on a script penned by Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica) and develop this disastrously bad project with a new, as-yet unnamed writer. The problems with this idea are numerous, not the least of which being it’s not even a new idea. You’re basically ripping off Night at the Museum and staging it in an amusement park, so it’s not a new idea at its core. Secondly…..are you freaking kidding me? Do you want to give Disney a two-hour free commercial or will that simply be a nice side benefit? But rest assured, you can probably talk Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson into signing on for the movie, so there’s two key cast spots filled and you barely had to work for it……..
- It may still be hockey and thus largely irrelevant in the world of American sports fans, but at least the NHL is doing something to spice up its otherwise blasé all-star contest. The NHL All-Star Game will look like a pickup game at the local rink this season after the league announced Wednesday that it is switching from the conference-versus-conference format it has used for years (to the disinterest of fans of all ages and nationalities) to a “captain’s choice” selection process to unfold after players select team captains and those captains choose their teams in alternating fashion . The 2011 All-Star Weekend will be hosted by Carolina on the last weekend in January and will feature two captains per team selecting the remaining All-Stars in any order they choose. Not only will those teams compete in the All-Star Game , they will also take part it the SuperSkills competition. For a sport that’s barely relevant enough to be considered on the fringes of the American sports landscape, the concept is a solid on and NHL vice president Brendan Shanahan says the goal is to "make the game more fun for everyone" and to "inject more excitement and intrigue into all the events." Fans will also have their normal stake in the game by voting for a starting team of three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie, regardless of conference. Voting begins Nov. 15 and runs through Jan. 3, after which the league's Hockey Operations Department in Toronto will name the remaining 36 All-Stars to form a player pool, along with 12 rookies, for a total of 54 players. As is the case with most professional sports in the U.S., each team in the league will have at least one all-star representative. The fantasy style draft to form the teams will take place on Jan. 28 and the rules stipulate that each team must have three goalies, six defensemen and 13 forwards. One of the likely choices for captain, Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby, is already considering the benefits and drawbacks of being a captain. "It would be fun, but it would be a little bit of pressure. Guys would all want to be picked," he said. "You'd have a pretty good pool to pick from, though." Smartly, the NHL never considered following in the asinine footsteps of Major League Baseball, which sought to infuse interest and meaning into its all-star game by awarding home-field advantage in the World Series to the winning league. So for the first day in a long time, the NHL is the one American professional sports league making the smart moves……..
- Not cool, South Korean officials, not cool at all. Building a 7-foot bulletproof wall around the G-20 summit site in Seoul, bringing 60,000 security forces to help handle the hundreds of activist groups that have applied to stage protests and erecting said barricade rose under the cover of darkness is shady, devious and despicable. You seem mighty proud to have a mile-long wall of tough polyurethane and bulletproof glass, but I see it as ruining the nation's largest mall and convention center and turning it into a repressive symbol of intolerance. Shame on each and every one of the workers who frantically put up the wall overnight Wednesday, leaving the 7-foot-high security fence around the site of Seoul's G-20 economic summit as a symbol of something more in line with the repressive ways of North Korea than in one of the planet's newer democracies. Not to go all Ronnie Reagan on you, but South Korea, tear down that wall - the one encircling the Coex convention and exhibition center in the capital's Gangnam district. Forget trying to create peace of mind for foreign dignitaries and realize that the voice of the common man needs to be heard without restriction. Just because similar barriers were set up at economic summits in London, Toronto and Pittsburgh doesn’t mean you need to follow suit. "It just sends the wrong message," said Jang Sung-min, a former national legislator. "It reminds me of our country's dark days of military dictatorship. It just doesn't fit today's South Korea." Well said, bro. The fact that security workers waited until 10 p.m. to erect the structure tells you all you need to know about this farce. "It's a barrier to keep South Korea outside the conference," said Seoul G-20 spokeswoman Sohn Jie-ae. "It's not something security people want to talk about — a necessary evil." The wall is one of three security barriers for the event, along with a "second line" green barbed-wire fence and a "third line." Now, I’m all for making sure that no one is assassinated while attending the summit, but I’m certain that can be accomplished without fencing out the people who make their way across the world to speak out against the leaders of nations they feel are responsible for too many of the world’s many woes. For the first and hopefully last time, I find myself siding with the kooks in North Korea on an issue after the North labeled the South’s security concerns "a childish farce." Stop the oppression, cease with silencing the people….just stop. But perhaps this slap in the face can inspire protestors to new and greater heights during the event……….
- The issue of dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a type of anxiety disorder common among soldiers coming off of combat duties, is a major concern for the U.S. military and especially for the loved ones of those men and women of the armed forces. Seeing their loved one suffer through recurring, intrusive thoughts of a traumatic event is tough, so anything that might alleviate the suffering would be welcome. Who would ever have guessed that solving the ever-quickening puzzles of the popular video game Tetris would help those suffering with PTSD? A new study suggests just that, finding that playing Tetris soon after a traumatic experience appears to protect against these flashbacks, by distracting the brain from the event and short-circuiting how upsetting memories and images are stored. The study, published in the most recent edition of the journal PLoS ONE, indicates that Tetris and only Tetris has this effect. Games centering on trivia or language skills don't appear to have the same therapeutic effect as stacking Tetris blocks, although researchers aren’t sure exactly why. “Verbal tasks may not be as effective because they will not affect the same neural networks," says Dr. Alexander Obolsky, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill. "It's a different part of the brain that processes that information." The study was conducted by researchers in the United Kingdom who followed a well-mapped lab model of trauma: They showed a series of upsetting film clips (fatal car accidents, graphic surgery) to 60 people, then asked the participants to record how often they experienced flashbacks from the film. None of the volunteers had a history of mental problems and they were divided into three groups, one of which played Tetris immediately after viewing the films. The second group player a word-based quiz computer game and the third simply quietly. The first group, the one that played Tetris, suffered an average of just four flashbacks in the first 10 minutes. By contrast, the word-game players had an average of six flashbacks and the participants who did nothing had 12 flashbacks. Better still, the effects of playing Tetris extended beyond the day of the traumatic event and were still seen a week later. "A visuospatial task such as Tetris may offer a 'cognitive vaccine' against the development of PTSD flashbacks after exposure to traumatic events," the researchers concluded. Leading the study was by Emily Holmes, a senior research fellow in psychiatry at Oxford University (home of wicked smart people). Holmes and her team concede that their study is not enough to certify Tetris as a surefire cure for PTSD, but it is an encouraging sign of hope for men and women who can definitely use it and who deserve it…….
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