Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Caviar for Ayatollah Sistani

Gary Farber is somewhat irate that only now are people like Wonkette and Marc Cooper noticing the existence of Sistani.org (in English, yet!), when Gary was posting about Sistani.org back in February. If they did their jobs and had the right weblogs on their daily reading lists, they would not be so far behind the curve...

Moreover, Robert Waldmann--back in January--was already discussing much more interesting parts of the Ayatollah's FAQ list, and was in fact advising the Ayatollah on fine points of Islamic dietary law as applied to the Caspian sturgeon and its caviar:

I... share Matthew Yglesias’ view that Ayatollah Sistani is one of the few reasons to have any hope for the future of Iraq. Therefore, I think it is important that we try to help him out when we can.... I... have something to tell the Ayatollah[: the]... Caspian Sturgeon is Halal. Ayatollah Sistani does not seem to be sure whether Caspian Sturgeon have scales. Now I have personally eaten part of a sturgeon and I recall that it had extremely large scales.... Caspian sturgeon is just a generic term for 3 species, including Beluga sturgeon, and... they have scutes... in the context of fish... a scute is a kind of scale. Thus IMHO moslems can eat caviar with no harm done.