Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Shrimp is kosher too, but only if eaten in a Chinese restaurant.

Looking at his rulings the guy is a liberal. You can do everything that is not explicitely disallowed and even than he tries to find some way around it. As for the food, Jews do not eat pork, Hindus beef, (some) Christians have fasts etc.

It is bad enough to be denied Margarita's and honey roasted ham, but to also be denied crabcakes and lobster bisque!

Don't lobsters count as just big shrimps?

He also seems to allow a lot of things that were illegal in large parts of America and Singapore until very recently.

He also has a category of things that are discouraged but not illegal which is very encouraging.

"I resolve daily that at dusk I shall repent
For a night with a cup full of wine spent.
In the presence of flowers, my resolve simply went
In such company, I only regret that I ever resolved to repent."

I'm sure Honorable Ayatollah is familiar with those words and rhymes, with the Persian originals, at least.

Link:

http://www.okonlife.com/poems/page1.htm

"(Omar) Khayyam's fame as a poet has caused some to forget his scientific achievements which were much more substantial."

J J O'Connor and E F Robertson said that.

Link:

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Khayyam.html

So whether something is halal depends on whether English-speaking people call it a "shrimp"?

What about brine shrimp? What about crayfish? I'm sure some languages classify them and shrimp as the same thing.

Leopold, Hindus do eat beef, what is forbidden is to kill a cow, but if they happen to die, in an accident for example, they can eat its meat.

Now if I am confused, there are quite a few Indian culture around here to point any error. Which points I would welcome.
DSW

Yomtov was kidding, I think. Shrimp are not kosher unless they chew the cud. To say nothing of monster, man-eating squid.

Be sure and check the Ayatollah's advice on sex. He gets way more explicit than you might imagine.

On the topic of sex, through this page I was also introduced to the concept of mutah -- temporary marriage. This is an excellent example of how Islam is, at its core, a more progressive religion than Christianity. If you read the instructions for mutah you can also see how it was a religion started by merchants...

"It is bad enough to be denied Margarita's and honey roasted ham, but to also be denied crabcakes and lobster bisque!"

Well, look, it is really no big deal any way. When you do something sinful, you just become sinner, you don't lose your religion. And no religion advises any severe punishment for committing a sin. It is between you and God.

Sharia, of course, in practice, it is a political regime, and as such, it is man-made, not really divine. So it is perfectly OK to change it. And if the regime does change, then, by Islamic belief, it would mean that Allah wanted it that way.

I'm sure Ayatollah Sistani is very much aware of all that.

If you are a religious person, however, then, obviously, there is going to be some amount of self-denial, completely on your own free will, which is perfectly OK and respectworthy as far as I'm concerned.