Beth Plocharczyk writes about the problems that arise from their not being a market in bodies.#

It seems that the whole cadaver donation and trade business is in need of a dose of glasnost and perestroika. Better dissemination of information from medical school to donor, and from distributor to medical school about what might the body be used for and where should be standard and people should be allowed to receive money for their gifts. Currently, medical schools, body brokers, and all others are not allowed to pay donors for their bodies, which is part of the reason this situation came about in the first place. Had the army been allowed to offer $25,000 - $30,000 directly to potential donors, people could make informed decisions about what happens to their remains and body dealers would be in a worse position to act in a morally questionable way. Also, if a medical school pays someone (or his estate) for use of his remains, it is less problematic for the university to sell or transfer that property to someone else. If the body market behaved freely, information would exchange in a more transparent manner and people could better choose the destiny of their remains and benefit from the sale of their property.

Via AKMA is Jason Schulz post Steve Martin's script notes from The Passion.#

* Is there someplace where Jesus could be using an iBook? You know, now that I say it, it sounds ridiculous. Strike that. But think about it. Maybe we start a shot in Heaven with Jesus thoughtfully closing the top?

* Merchandising issue: it seems the Cross image has been done to death and in public domain -- we can't own it. Could the Cruciifixion scene involve something else? A Toyota would be wrong, but maybe there's a shape we can copyright, like a wagon wheel?

Russell Beattie tells you to stop it.#

Look - we live in a country with hundreds of millions of people, yet we have communications tools that make any event in any part of that society seem like it's in our living room. It's *not*. Every day the media presents the absolute worst, shocking news possible on the television and in the papers and on the web. They pander to the worst parts of every one of us and breed a society of hatred and division and suspicions and fear. Stop it. Stop paying attention to all that crap. Look, there are 6 billion people on the earth so the odds are that someone, somewhere is doing something incredibly bad and now it can be instantly beamed into your dinner newshour. But that has nothing to do with you and the society you choose to live in. Society is like traffic: you can't bitch about it and point fingers because guess what? You're part of it.

Michael Feldman reports on a gay marriage demonstration in Boston.#

Razib explains why the analogy of Protestant vs. Catholic for the Sunni vs. Shiite split does not work with Islam.#

On the Shia-Sunni thing, you can find a lot on this topic. So I'll give a quick sketch in the context of the mapping to Protestant vs. Catholic split. My cards on the table: I think we should dump this analogy, the mapping simply is too far from 1:1.

Sunni and Shia and started as a dispute over the succession to the Caliphate during the early period. Everyone knows this. What people don't know is that there are other groups. The Khajirites for instance, who led to the Ibadi sect of Oman (it is dominant there), and are often classed with "Shia." The Shia-Sunni "split" was very close to the genesis of the Muslim faith-Protestantism was a series of revolts against an established Church, initially Roman Catholic (itself a subdivision of the Christian community), later against "established" Protestant Churches, 1,500 years after the genesis of Christianity. While the period of possibly Protestant-Catholic compromise was short (the idea that Luther & co. were reforming the Universal Catholic Church rather than founding their own tradition)-the Shia-Sunni split did not truly crystallize for a few centuries, and even today, there is a somewhat fuzzy line between the two, the conversion of Sunni nomads in Iraq to Shiism in the 19th century showing how the change need not be radical.

Kelso Jacks, be my wife, you are sooo funny.#

Rifkin vs. Wuornos...

By Kelso Jacks

With all due respect to the victims, their families, and their friends:

If they could do it with Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, two make-believepsychos, why not try it with two bona-fide psycho serial killers? Only in this film, we up the ante by making it male against of female. Thanks to the Academy Award-winning film Monster, America now knows that, though rare, female serial killers do exist. We exploit that knowledge by pitting Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron reprises her role!), a prostitute who murdered her johns, against one of the many male serial killers who chose to off prostitutes. Considered for the male lead character: Gary "Green River Killer" Ridgway, Maury Travis of St. Louis, and Robert Yates Jr. of Spokane. However, we decided to go with Joel Rifkin of Long Island, NY, simply because like Wuornos he's from the East Coast. David Schwimmer, in attempt to distance himself from his role on Friends, will play Rifkin.

Chip Gibbons discusses al-Qaida and numerology.#

David Weinberger poses some questions about same-sex marriage and stirs controversy.#

If I could quiz one of the tens of millions of reasonable, good-hearted Americans who oppose same-sex marriage, here are the questions I'd ask.

Set #1

Do you believe that same-sex couples can fall in love?

[...]

Set #2

Do you believe that if same-sex couples are allowed to marry, it will affect contra-sex marriages? If so, how? Is there evidence to support this prediction?

Dave Winer comments:

After reading the comments here, I wondered what, just for the sake of argument, the people opposed to gay marriage would think if, in 2016:

1. We elected a gay president.

2. He or she took the position that only gay people could marry.

3. And that all hetero marriages were immediately anulled.

He or she explained that your hetero marriage is rogue and an offense to all good people.

What do you think?

The question I ask is not "Why don't gay couples have the same rights as straight couples?" But instead, "Why don't single people have the same rights as couples?" and "Why can't I define my own contracts about this sort of thing for my own use?"