Interesting Posts and Articles #304

1. Esser Agaroth hosts a Jewish blog carnival I've never heard of -- the Kehila blogging carnival.
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2. A newspaper reports thirty thousand pigs being washed away by a flood. They misheard thirty sows and pigs.
   
   Compare with this fairly old item, from "Quaint Idioms and Expressions of the Pennsylvania Germans", from 1939:

Here is a news-item which we believe will be of interest to the reader. It did not originate in Pennsylvania, but it has all the earmarks of being related to expressions in this State: "Two Sows and Pigs" Meant 2000 Pigs! Ventura, Calif.-By telephone from the Sheriff Deputy Grand Frazer received what he thought was an order to buy 2000 pigs for the county farm. All day he drove from farm to farm, but succeeded in bargaining for only 120 pigs. Apologetically he reported to Sheriff Bill Durley. "How many pigs did you say?" the sheriff gasped. "Two thousand." "Man," the sheriff shouted, "I wanted two sows and pigs."

3. YNet has some rather old news, on how kol koreis are threatening cancer and other disasters as a result of having Internet access.
   

   The fear-inducing posters blame the inability of teenagers to study and the destruction of tens of thousands of homes on the web, and use gimatria, which assigns numeric values to Hebrew letters, to prove that Internet equals cancer.

   Perhaps what is new is the agreement of various gedolim to this scary message.
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   Emes veEmunah reacts. As does DovBear.
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   This reminds me about an old post on Life In Israel about chasa, lettuce, causing cancer autism.
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4. At the Seforim blog, a nice post which discusses, in part, Ibn Caspi and Shadal on whether the Torah can include false beliefs.
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5. At Hirhurim, whether Menachem ben Saruk was a Karaite.
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6. Here is some of what the Lubavitcher Rebbe had to say about spontaneous generation.
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7. 
   The Muqata posts about the Biblical curse of the snake, and how X-rays of fossilized snakes reveal a hidden leg bone.
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8. Mystical Paths on a segulah for debt relief, and dybbuk removal, from Rav Aviner. And that a rosh yeshiva in Manchester, England, Rav Koppelman, predicts mashiach in months, not years.
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9. Life In Israel with some interesting pesak -- on learning hilchot aveilut; on having black on black tefillin straps -- in terms of this one, a nice quote:
   

   Rav Elyashiv said he is not interested in this hiddur. Surprised, the battim macher asked why and if the hiddur is not important.
   
   Rav Elyashiv responded, supposedly, that while it is a very good and important hiddur, he himself does not want to iplement it in his own set of tefillin. The reason being that if he gets such straps, everyone around the world will say that rav Elyashiv is makpid on davka using tefillin that is completely black on both sides. They will think that tefillin that does not have the back side black is not kosher, chas v'shalom. As well, people will run to switch their straps and that will be an unnecessary expense that will have been caused. He therefore said he wants to keep his original, black-on-one-side, straps.

   See also the discussion of some halachic sources in the comment thread there.
   
10. Rationalist Judaism as to what makes one an expert on brain death and halacha.
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11. Here on parshablog, whether Obama botched a quote from Isaiah. See also DovBear's post on the subject.