Interesting Posts and Articles #94

1. Comics: Close To Home on the early snooze button; Bizarro on one more theory explaining the extinction of dinosaurs.
   
   
2. Reb Akiva of Mystical Paths has an interesting contrast between the Baal Shem Tov's message and modern day doom-and-gloom, everyone is an evildoer messages.
   
   
3. Soccer Dad directs me towards a Daniel Pipes article, discussing how some Muslims believe Obama is a fulfillment of an ancient Muslim prophecy. Just as we have folks saying the same for Jewish prophecies.
   

   Ali ibn Abi-Talib, the seventh-century figure central to Shiite Islam, is said to have predicted when the world will end, columnist Amir Taheri points out. A "tall black man" commanding "the strongest army on earth" will take power "in the west." He will carry "a clear sign" from the third imam, Hussein. Ali says of the tall black man: "Shiites should have no doubt that he is with us."
   
   Barack Hussein in Arabic means "the blessing of Hussein." In Persian, ObamaMahmoud Ahmadinejad has been predicting. translates as "He [is] with us." Thus does the name of the presumptive American president-elect, when combined with his physical attributes and geography, suggest that the End of Times is nigh – precisely what Iranian president

   Heh.
   
   
4. On a related note, Geulah Perspectives reports on a "psak" of Rav Kanievsky, in which he says that in Israel, they will all be in bomb shelters by Chanukka. He has taken down that post while he checks some of it out, now that it has gained attention. But if you want to see the original post with the details, check it out where I saved it at this old post at parshablog, put in 2005 so it does not interfere, or look it up in the Google cache. Even if entirely accurate, I would not label it "psak" but rather an "eitzah." I have a lot more to say about this, but it is worthy of its own post.
   
   
5. A Mother in Israel reports on the latest in the Rabbanit Keren case. E.g. the judges are wearing plain clothes so as not to frighten the children, who would be scared of the black robes.
   
   
6. Inside Higher Education on a professor accused of racism for opposing affirmative action, for distributing an Onion article which students did not entirely understand was satire, and telling students to improve their writing, in the same class in which he discussed affirmative action.
   
   
7. BlogInDm continues his series critiquing Rabbi Ephraim Luft's Torah is Not Hefker, with parts III and IIIa.