For those of you following the Talking Fish Saga:
The Jewish Press (not that we expect better)
The New York Times (also published in the Charlotte Obsever and LA Daily News)
The Jewish Week (which seems rather skeptical)
The UK Guardian (which has, by far, the best headline according to Reader Shmuel)
Free Republic
BBC (also linked to by Dave Barry's blog)
will update as the need arises

Forget Gulf War II, the growing rift between the religious parties and the Sharon government, Derech Etz Chaim, and all of that. The real news this week was the Fish Dibbuk. Also, Rebbetzin Jungreis reads God's mind and uncovers the true significance of the S.S. Columbia tragedy. Hint: its not what you think.

Interesting article on the Neturei Karta and A.N.S.W.E.R. on Salon. Its also interesting that A.N.S.W.E.R. is OK with the NK but not with Michael Lerner, probbaly because the latter accepts Israel's right to exist, in stark contrast to the former.

According to the Jerusalem Post, should circumstances force Israelis to seal themselves into their saferooms:
1/3 (33%) would pass the time by reading.
56% would pass the time by watching TV.
15% would pass the time by surfing the web.
27% would "prefer another pastime entirely, the nature of which they refused to divulge." well stated.
and 9% is still undecided.

The only thing one has to wonder about is the math, which comes out to 140%.
[My vote: shivering in a corner, pissing my pants -- SIW]

Reader David points out that, as opposed to Elder I's assertion, the DEC Rabbi in question used to operate out of Santa Clara, CA - not Los Angeles. Apparently, Santa Clara is "nearly 400 miles away [from LA] in Northern California, near San Jose/San Francisco."
[Granted -- though isn't everything 400 miles away in California? -- SIW]

Maybe I was wrong. Apparently, CongressPeople do say stupid things. This, courtesy of James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.)...
The gaffe:

"If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this," Moran said, in comments first reported by the Reston Connection and confirmed by Moran. "The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going and I think they should."

By no means did I intend or believe that members of the Jewish community are united in their support for a possible war with Iraq," Moran said in a Friday letter to the Jewish Community Council of the Washington area that was made public this morning. "And I certainly never meant, nor do I believe, to imply that the Jewish community is responsible for or should be blamed for this war."

A letter of mine to Romenesko quoted in Christianity Today. Cute.

The Fiddle-Weiner Wedding. (Thanks, Ephraim)

Yehoshua Levine alludes to the case of another abusive rabbi, while failing to mention either his name or what he is alleged to have done.
His argument for having failed to do so, in a column that is so hard to read after nearly three years of the Lanner affair, concludes:

First, as is clearly evident, I removed the name of the rabbi. Although at least two respected rabbeim advised me that there is just as much of a chiyuv to publicize the rabbi’s name as there is a chiyuv to divulge what happened, I felt more comfortable leaving it out. Anyone wishing to find out his name can easily do so. Second, I removed a portion of the article that thoroughly described the allegations themselves, both back then and now in Derech Etz Chaim. I again assumed that this additional information would be superfluous to the point at hand.

Elder I - as we all know, no member of Congress would ever make such a bigoted statement. Well, maybe not after they saw what happened to Trent Lott. Rep. Lois McMahan is a state legistlator, and therefore usually doesn't need to be careful about what she says, apparantly. Also, you spelled her last name wrong. McMahan.
[Well, the phrase, "Garbage In, Garbage Out" would certainly seem to apply here. "Lois w/2 Mcmahon and islam or muslim" got no hits, will her name correctly spelled got 35, including this short item from Tribune News Services:

A Muslim leader returned to the state House on Friday to deliver the opening prayer, and this time everyone listened.
Reps. Lois McMahan and Cary Condotta drew criticism Monday when they deliberately stayed off the House floor during Imam Mohamad Joban's prayer. The Republicans apologized to him and shook his hand on his return visit.
McMahan initially defended her decision to stay off the floor, saying it was "an issue of patriotism." Joban said he accepted McMahan and Condotta's apologies and invited them to visit him at the Islamic Center of Olympia.