Just… read it. Just work your way through it. I promise it will bring a smile – and maybe even laughter! – to your face.

Excerpts:

‘Merchants Hospitality has filed an explosive lawsuit against former partner Adam Hochfelder, accusing him of running a Ponzi scheme, embezzling investor money and retaliating against his former associates after he was fired in June.

In a complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court last week, Merchants claims it went out on a limb to help Hochfelder get back on his feet after a two-year prison stint, only to catch him stealing from the firm and using its name and assets to defraud unsuspecting investors and partners…

Hochfelder went to prison in 2010 after pleading guilty to 15 counts of grand larceny and three counts of scheming to defraud his uncle, in-laws and other investors out of more than $18 million. He left prison and was hired by Merchants in 2012.

Now, eight years later, Merchants accuses Hochfelder of embezzling funds from its West 42nd Street hotel project — the site of a failed effort to run a high-priced Playboy Club in New York — and using his affiliation with the firm to run a $400,000 Ponzi scheme through his company email…

[Hochfelder] accused Merchants of fabricating the scheme by breaking into his computer and creating false documents…

Merchants brought Hochfelder on board during his prison stint to spearhead acquisitions and development for the firm…

In 2014, Merchant, the firm’s CEO, called hiring Hochfelder “one of the best decisions we ever made.” And in 2017, after allegations of sexual harassment against Hochfelder surfaced, [the CEO] defended Hochfelder, saying, “It’s easy for him to be a pinata because of his past. But I think everybody deserves a second chance.”…

Merchants claims it conducted an investigation into [one particular] embezzlement … and Hochfelder ultimately admitted to the scheme and begged his partners to let him repay the money, citing “his own psychological issues and problems with drugs,” according to the September lawsuit…

Hochfelder [allegedly] collected $125,000 for an investment in the Bryant Park Hotel, which Merchants does not own. The complaint also alleges that Hochfelder offered an interest in Merchants’ Z Hotel in Long Island City but had the investor wire $75,000 to an LLC owned by his wife.

On top of those accusations and the alleged $4 million payment withheld by Roche, Merchants says Hochfelder has left the firm with months of overdue car payments, traffic violations and an ongoing eviction proceeding at his Midtown apartment…’

A French government official’s attempts to ban an essay entitled I Hate Men over its “incitement to hatred on the grounds of gender” have backfired, sending sales of the feminist pamphlet skyrocketing.

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Perhaps you don’t share UD’s sense of humor. I haven’t gotten past that first paragraph and I’m already laughing. Let’s read the rest of the article. Here’s hoping for more laughs…

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Yes!

[The 25-year-old author] criticised [the gender equality advisor’s] response to her work. “A state official who has a power crisis facing an 80-page book released in 400 copies, I find that very problematic,” she said.

[The small publisher] did initially set out to print just 400 copies when the essay was published in August, but after [Ralph] Zurmély’s attacks, the first three editions of the book have sold out, with almost 2,500 copies sold just two weeks after its release. A larger publisher, who has yet to be named, is now set to take the title on.

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And, as faithful readers know, UD always finds a way to sing it.

LOL.

LOLOLOL legal fees settlement defamation questioning ethics LOLOLOLOL.

… COLLIDE.

The bad news is that his voice – which always brightened UD‘s day – has now been stilled.

Who else in our political culture will justify no abortion even in cases of rape or incest because there wouldn’t be “any population of the world left” if it weren’t for rape and incest?

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But when God closes a door, he opens a window: Adrian Vermeule is just getting started.

95% of haredi math teachers [in Israel] did not receive a math education.

Don’t worry – I’m sure it’s much better here in the States. 90%?

Anyway. Really not to worry. Math beyond fingers and toes isn’t taught in haredi schools. So they don’t need any teachers.

Fun sentence, this morning’s New York Times.

Written, starring and executive produced by [Timothy] Simons, [new HBO comedy] Exit Plans centers around assisted suicide. When assisted suicide is legalized in 2019, a man from California opens a small business helping people transition into death peacefully while struggling to keep ahold of his crumbling personal life. In short, he’s trying to figure out his life while ending yours.

… heats up.

I’m not sure how saying someone looks like a child of “Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes” is racist. I thought “Muslim Brotherhood” was supposed to be a “good” thing and Liberals say we are descended from apes?

Bill Mitchell; quoted by Conor Friedersdorf

“He just can’t defend guilty people. He’ll meet with a client, they’ll explain their problem, and he’ll say, ‘Well it sounds like you should go to jail then.'”

Hawaii Governor Didn’t Correct False Missile Alert
Sooner Because he Didn’t Know his Twitter Password

Norway’s state-funded Islamic Council

used state funds intended for “bridge-building and enhanced communication” to hire an office administrator who uses a niqab that covers everything but her eyes.

“The only thing I would be impartial about is which prison he goes to,” one [prospective Martin Shkreli] juror said. That person was dismissed — as more than 250 were…