Bless him. Go fund him.

When you see all the numbers, it’s astounding that it’s taken this long for the idiotic authoritarianism of the haredim to be pushed aside in Israel.

[A] solid majority of Israeli Jews wants government policy to be far less influenced by Jewish law than it is now.

A total of 64 percent of respondents want there to be separation of religion and state in Israel, while 68 percent want Israel to recognize civil marriages.

Sixty-four percent do not want any religious body to have governmental authority in Israel, according to the poll. At present, Israel’s Orthodox Chief Rabbinate controls marriage, divorce, burial and other affairs in Israel.

A total of 62 percent want Israel to recognize a range of Jewish conversion ceremonies — not just Orthodox ones.

“It is undisputed that Rick Singer prayed on Stephen [Semprevivo], and parents like him, in his 25-million-dollar racketeering bonanza, that to some real extent makes Stephen a victim,” [the Varsity Blues parent’s lawyer] wrote.

Intriguing essay about the quite rapid rise of atheism in America.

Carrying a gun isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I learned that most people I encountered actually didn’t feel better knowing that I had a gun. And, though I tried to keep it concealed in a hip holster under a shirt or jacket, the people who inevitably did glimpse it frequently wondered why I had it and whether my gun or my presence put them in danger — like the staff and customers who panicked at that Walmart in Missouri. Even the people who knew and trusted me — knowing that I was a responsible gun owner who had been threatened — wondered if being near me in public exposed them to … danger …

… it’s SO much like this one – so much like hunderts of ‘merican boy deaths – that I thought I’d throw it into the mix.

A man, [who had earlier consumed alcohol and taken a Percocet pain for which he didn’t have a prescription], admiring a friend’s pistol during a gathering of friends, accidentally shot and killed another man with it …

[The shooter] had asked to hold a visitor’s pistol, which was loaded but did not have a bullet in the chamber. While admiring the gun, [he] pulled its slide back and simultaneously squeezed its trigger, police said, citing the witnesses’ accounts.

One of the visitors said he tried to warn [him] that he had loaded a bullet into the pistol’s chamber when he pulled the slide back, but it was too late — he had already fired the gun.

Vivia Chen was there. (Background here.)

If [Judge Loretta] Preska’s deployment of sarcasm is any indication, I’d say that the Dershowitz team should be sweating. The judge asked pointed questions to both sides but I thought she was a lot more skeptical of the arguments that Dershowitz’s legal team was putting forward.

A number of times, Preska said to Dershowitz’s lawyers, Howard Cooper and Imran Ansari, about their arguments, “I don’t get it.” For instance, Preska asked why Dershowitz failed to raise the conflict issue about Boies Schiller’s representation of [Virginia] Giuffre in previous litigations related to the Epstein matter, though the professor made noises about doing so. (Dershowitz claims that Boies Schiller has a conflict because its partner Carlos Sires had offered to represent him after Giuffre accused the professor of sexual abuse, and that he had sent the firm confidential information as a result.)

When Dershowitz’s lawyer Ansari argued that he’s now raising the conflict issue because he’s being directly sued for defamation, Preska was unimpressed and shot back, “What difference should that make?”

Nor was she impressed by Ansari’s suggestion that Boies Schiller used dirty tactics. “Why are you telling me this?” Preska asked. “I don’t care.”

And she seemed even more unconvinced that Dershowitz had established a client/lawyer relationship with Boies Schiller that would merit the firm’s disqualification. She noted that when told by Sires that the firm could not represent him, Dershowitz replied in an email: “Darn. I was really hoping that you could come on board.”

Preska hammered away at that response.

“It’s the subjunctive,” she said. “He’s not writing back and saying, ‘Holy Moly, you said you’d represent me.’ He’s saying, ‘I was hoping you could do it.’”

At that point, Ansari looked stumped. He reminded me of myself as a law student during moot court. Scared.

Transcript of Rudy Giuliani’s remarks to his soon to be third ex-wife.

No, wait. That was him on Fox today.

Israel’s religious parties: Scripted by Woody Allen.

Not in Pakistan it don’t, babe. Shush. Stay in Saudi.

Not that Saudi is safe from the evil intentions of women who insist on being free.

If you truly wish to live where all the women wear burqas, there’s always Al Hol.

The 81-year-old Harvard Law School professor angrily poked the defense table — where he sat alongside his pack of five lawyers — passed notes to his attorneys and seemed to argue with them every time one of them jumped up to address the judge.

He’s in a courtroom, and very angry, because he’s being sued for libel by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex slaves. The brilliant jurist’s defense against claims that he has called the former sex slave – who says she was forced to have sex with Dershowitz – a serial liar, a prostitute, an extortionist, and a lot of other not very nice things is that sure he said all that shit but it was a long time ago and the statute of limitations yadda yadda. But what about the fact that he said the same shit and worse about her very recently? Well, see, precisely cuz he said the same shit before, the same statue of limitations applies. So he can, in the judge’s words, “repeat potentially libelous statements for eternity”? Oh yes your honor, respond his attorneys; absolutely. For eternity…

Er, but this interpretation of the law gives people “license to be serial defamers,” the other side points out to the judge, who seems to agree. Hence Dersh’s angry table poking…

******************

‘Course he wouldn’t be in this tight spot were it not for his much earlier alleged poking…

“We were looking for things that were new and exciting,” [one parent] said. “You can only buy so much cookie dough, cheesecake and wrapping paper. We were looking to be unique in our offerings the best we could.”

… you get American deaths like this one, of a Colorado State University student. Both he and his armed to the teeth housemate seem to have been shitfaced when they started playing around with the housemate’s … let’s see…

… military-style AR-15 carbine, a Remington pump-action shotgun, a Springfield .45-caliber handgun and a Glock 34 9 mm semi-automatic handgun with a mounted flashlight and 17-round magazine.

Strange brew… see what’s inside of you — drugs, alcohol, and… hey… a fatal bullet! How about that!

Who cares. The police initially believed the beyond-bogus story the housemate concocted about how you know a young man with his whole life before him and no history of depression just up and marched into his room, took his Glock (conveniently loaded) and shot himself through the head with it. Case closed! Kids these days.

Only after all sorts of shouts and cries from the dead guy’s family have the police who I mean nu? I mean every day around here some hopeless jerk with a gun kills his kid boohoo you expect us to sit up and take notice when another one bites the dust? So the guy keeps changing his story, his timeline, his alcohol consumption, his everything – I guess that’s why he failed two lie detector tests…

[He eventually admitted] he posed for a couple of Snapchat photos with [his housemate] before the incident, which contradicts his initial statements to police that [he housemate] came into his room without warning, picked up the gun and shot himself… [He also made] four calls to family, … removed the 17-round magazine from the Glock 34 and ejected the round from the chamber and put the gun in [his housemate’s] lap before police arrived. He also moved [his housemate’s] marijuana pipe from the room and cleaned up several beer cans.

So a guy’s lying mortally wounded in front of you. What do you do? … Hello muddah, hello faddah, here I am at…

… got murdered in broad daylight for his troubles. The paid degenerates who did the deed will certainly be convicted (finally, after a five-year delay).

It’s equally important that the rich degenerates who paid the killers go to prison too. But that’s for after the state of Florida puts the paid degenerates away.

… United States of America.

The hotly recruited pride of the University of Wisconsin. Go, Reggie!

Hey but Reggie: “Nearly” doesn’t count. Let’s see some real action next time.