Interesting Posts and Articles #315

1. A Mother In Israel on how to deal with bullying, in Israel, for Anglos.
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2. A guest post at On the Main Line about a free (at least in limited form, pay for full features) powerful, online tool for Talmudic text research. I haven't checked it out myself yet, but maybe soon. Sounds good.
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3. Circus Tent was actually the source of the scoop on the edited picture, with Hillary ad a female staffer Photoshopped out. Failed Messiah ran with it when someone else sent it to him, and credited the one who sent it to him, Critical Minyan. Then, in retrospect, Circus Tent was glad that it was not him that was credited. DovBear, Rationalist Judaism and Life In Israel on the PhotoShopping.
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4. Shiloh Musings points us to this Latma Video, Super Hero, Barack Obama, via Caroline Glick's webpage:
   
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5. Havolim on Muscovy ducks. I am not so sure I agree. So many people have different shitos, and in Israel, I don't know that mashgichim need be concerned with something like this. They ensure that it is kosher according to their defined standards, and just because someone walks in and has a different standard, that does not mean they need to keep track of all of this. This might, instead, be on the customer.
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6. Is renting actually better than buying?
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7. Mark Steyn on why Pakistan knew it could hide Osama.
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8. At Life In Israel, Rav Elyashiv puts an askan in his place:

   Rav Yosef Chaim Kupshitz recently went to Rav Elyashiv recently asking him to sign a letter. He said there is a big problem today that seminary girls walk through the streets talking on their cellphones, and it is very inappropriate. He asked Rav Elyashiv to sign a letter saying he is opposed to this phenomenon...

   Read the post, and the story Rav Elyashiv told him. In terms of the second question, "Why are the two things mutually exclusive? Just because there are other problems means the "smaller" problems should not be dealt with?", I would say that the point was that this does not even rise to the level of a trivial problem. If you are worried about such nonsense, then you have too much time on your hands.
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9. As we all know, there are great difficulties in financially sustaining the chareidi kollel lifestyle of learning full-time. But, recently, it seems like a great discovery has been made, to allow all holy Jews to study Torah with great hasmodah and ecstasy. Shirat Devorah reports:

   Yakov Yosef was amazingly upbeat. I quote some of his comments:

   
   

   "I took upon myself kabolos toivois, however I do not regret them for a second."

   "I also do not regret filing for my appeal. During this time I concluded hilchos boser becholov, hilchos taaruvos, and over 100 daf gemorroh; I would never have managed this elsewhere."

   This is a simply a wonderful idea. Besides learning Yoreh Deah for Yoreh Yoreh, perhaps they could learn a bit of Choshen Mishpat so as to get Yadin Yadin!
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   All kidding aside, my thoughts are with these bachurim. Apparently, there is the possibility of being sentenced to hard labor.
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10. Rabbi Natan Slifkin's favorite opponent, Rabbi Simcha Coffer, on how attending a conference on evolution is worse than going to a brothel.
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11. Mystical Paths with an in-depth explanation of the recent Blogger outage.