Well it looks like the MT4 experiment was a complete disaster.
Let us never speak of this again.

Nothing major today, just a few interesting links and thoughts:

• Page Six reports that a movie is in the works covering the rise and fall of electronics retailer Crazy Eddie. Aging New York couch potatoes no doubt remember Eddie’s frenetic commercials – our prices are innnsaaaaaaaaaaannnnne. As it turned out that Eddie Antar was crazy like a fox, fled to Israel and eventually was sentenced to 8 years in prison for massive fraud and assorted SEC violations. Page Six reports that Danny DeVito will play the role of Eddie.
• Apparently if you try too hard to get out of jury duty, you might wind up facing one yourself. A Cape Cod man is facing charges for making up excuses in the hopes of an exemption. What’s interesting here is that we have a real life case of the classic Liar Paradox
  

  “I’m frequently found to be a liar, too. I can’t really help it,” Ellis added.
  “I’m sorry?” Nickerson said.
  “I said I’m frequently found to be a liar,” Ellis replied.
  “So, are you lying to me now?” Nickerson asked.
  “Well, I don’t know. I might be,” was the response.

  Ok so he doesn’t know if he’s lying but even if he was, how could he have answered the question? The exchange continues:

  “I have the distinct impression that you’re intentionally trying to avoid jury service,” Nickerson said.
  “That’s true,” Ellis answered.

  Or is it true? There’s just no way to tell. And for the coup de grâce:

  Ellis could face perjury and other charges.

  In other words, Ellis is facing perjury for lying in court when he said he was a liar.

• Shaya sends in an AP story from today covering the declining state of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge which we recently visited. The article implies that the marsh is deteriorating due to increased levels of nitrogen from the city. It would be a shame to lose the marsh, even if so few people know it exists. If you’re in the NY area, try stopping by one nice Sunday while it’s still there.

A few bits of bookkeeping today:

• My father has been posting some articles on UTJ Viewpoints. Despite the erratic typesetting, you may find it worthwhile.
• Jewess has a very good report of the Mt. Sinai Town Hall meeting from a few weeks back, and delivers a fair reporting of what transpired.
• While the new commenting policies have largely been a success there have been some complications with lost comments. If you forget to comment in the new field, all you need to do is hit “back” on the browser or the link provided and the text of your comment should be saved for resubmission.
• Finally, this Shavuot I will be giving shiur on Halakha V’Ein Morin Kein at some point in Washington Heights. I don’t have the schedule yet and to be honest I don’t have the shiur finished, but I’ll keep you posted when I know more.

It looks like we made the finals for the Jewish Blog Awards in all the categories for which we were nominated:

• Best Small Blog
• Best Anti-Establishment Blog
• Best Jewish Religious Post (for the Response to the Conservative Teshuva on Homosexuality post)
• Best Series (For the complete coverage of the Conservative Teshuva)

While it would be a nice ego boost to win in any category (i.e. go vote!), I realize that it’s a popularity contest and we’re up against stiff competition in all categories. When YUTOPIA started nearly four years ago there was no expectations of readership let alone awards – and the same goes for the individual posts. Personally I am proud of the posts on the Conservative Teshuvot as an honest Orthodox response to a watershed moment in American Judaism and regardless of the voting outcome the contents are still there people to find and read.
Thanks to everyone who voted in Round 1 and feel free to continue voting the the Finals (and pass it on). Either way we’ll keep blogging sporadically as you all expect.

We’ve been nominated for the Jewish Blog Award for “Best Anti-Establishment Blog as well as for our coverage of the Conservative teshuvot on homosexuality. It seems to be an open voting (read: popularity) contest which given the open nomination process needs to be conducted in rounds.
Anyway, if you’d like to vote for YUTOPIA and give me the opportunity to add another snazzy graphic to the sidebar, you can start with the best in class voting (the best post and series voting is not open yet).
I’ll post updates as needed.

In a move sure to placate literally tens of people, I have removed the TypeKey requirement for commenting on the blog. As an alternative, all you need to do is enter the name of this blog (case insensitive) in the supplied field and your comment will be posted automatically. Otherwise you will not see an error, but your comment will be labeled as “junk” and will likely been discarded with the blog-spam. If you were one of the few who registered, your TypeKey account will still work and will let you bypass the filter.
Hopefully people will find this mechanism to be less intrusive than having to register with TypeKey.
Thanks again go out to Shaya for the plugin installation.

Dear Loyal Readers,
Some of you may remember my attending an O.A.R. concert at MSG last year. This Saturday night at 8:00 O.A.R is once again playing MSG, but this time I have *two* tickets since I thought it would probably be more fun to go with someone else this time around.
So here’s the deal: I’m looking for someone to come with me and occupy Section 2 Row R Seat 3 or 4. Ideally, someone who is be easygoing, genuinely cool1, and appreciate O.A.R. or at least that type of music.2 Not knowing the legal ramifications, I’m hesitant to announce this as an official contest but anyone interested should either leave a comment or e-mail – proxies on behalf of others are accepted as well – and I’ll select a “non-winner” later in the week.

1. To provide much needed balance
2. Folk/Rock/Indie/Reggae. Or you can go to their website for samples.