• When bad theology meets bad biology. PZ Myers retells the story: "A woman donates one of her kidneys to another woman in need. Later, the recipient leaves the Christian faith. Now the donor wants her organ back. 'Smith [the donor] was aghast when she heard of the conversion, and she quickly wrote a letter asking Felks [the recipient] to reconvert to Christianity or return the organ, saying it was donated under false pretenses. "I feel helpless," she says. "Part of my body, my DNA, is stuck inside a person who's going to hell."'" Myers probes the layers of idiocy here, and in the process reveals the denominational choices of several of his own organs.  [UPDATE AND APOLOGY:  THIS STORY IS BOGUS.  The fact that PZ and many others were also taken in doesn't make me feel any better.]

• "Appearances are not deceptive; it only seems as if they are." Considered by John Quiggin at Crooked Timber.

• A female science prof is married but doesn't wear a ring -- and many people in her life object. "I keep thinking that eventually some of my relatives might change their mind about the significance of a wedding ring, as my husband and I remain happily married and my ring-wearing siblings/cousins and others divorce, but it hasn't happened yet."

• What is the most absurd thing you believe? Some answers here and a few more here. Not sure I'd want to have lunch with these people, though. (Note: Not quite the same as the book What We Believe But Cannot Prove.)

 

• What would A. A. Dornfeld think?  The Beachwood Reporter isn't alone in being fed up with the Sun-Times's local-journalism-as-stenography these days. It is alone in finding the best put-down: "This is Chicago: If your mother says she loves you, you ask a few officials if it's true and then print it."