] International gay leaders are planning a 10-day WorldPride
] festival and parade in Jerusalem in August, saying they
] want to make a statement about tolerance and diversity in
] the Holy City, home to three great religious traditions.
]
] Now major leaders of the three faiths - Christianity,
] Judaism and Islam - are making a rare show of unity to
] try to stop the festival. They say the event would
] desecrate the city and convey the erroneous impression
] that homosexuality is acceptable.

The one thing that can unite the world religions...

Clerics Fighting a Gay Festival for Jerusalem

] Pope John Paul II is receiving liquid feedings through a
] tube that was inserted through his nose and winds down
] into his stomach, Vatican officials announced Wednesday,
] raising new alarms about the pope's deteriorating health
] and his ability to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

Wasn't the vatican making a fuss about someone else's feeding tube recently?

Pope Is Being Fed With a Tube as Alarm Over His Health Rises

] Terri Schiavo, the severely brain damaged Florida woman
] who became the subject of an intense legal and political
] battle that drew responses from the White House to the
] Halls of Congress to the Vatican, died today, 13 days
] after her feeding tube was removed on the order of a
] state court judge.

Schiavo Dies Nearly Two Weeks After Removal of Feeding Tube

] "There's a chance for a miracle," said Christine
] Marriott, one of the protesters outside Schiavo's
] hospice. "Anything positive is a breath of life."

Tom, you hit the nail on the head with your previous comment.

Also, Jesse Jackson is getting involved now... and Pat Mahoney says Ralph Nader is the next guy on their call list. I can't imagine Nader taking up this cause...

Schiavo Appeal Rejected Again in Atlanta

] The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a
] conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their
] financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of
] strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady
] stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and
] conservative groups.

Disgusting.

List of Schiavo Donors Will Be Sold by Direct-Marketing Firm

] The Supreme Court expressed concerns Tuesday over
] allowing entertainment companies to sue makers of
] software that allows Internet users to illegally download
] music and movies, questioning whether the threat of such
] legal action might stifle Web innovation.

It seems like the justices definitely see tech's side of this so
it definitely isn't a slam dunk for the IP industry.

High Court Hear Arguments on File-Sharing Technology

] "Orphan Works" probably comprise the majority of the
] record of 20th century culture. These works are still
] presumably under copyright (only works published before
] 1923 are conclusively in the public domain), but the
] copyright owner cannot be found. The default response of
] archivists, libraries, film restorers, artists, scholars,
] educators, publishers, and others is to drop copyrighted
] work unless it is clearly in the public domain. As a
] result, orphan works are not used in new creative efforts
] or made available to the public due to uncertainty over
] their copyright status, even when there is no longer
] anyone claiming copyright ownership, or the owner no
] longer has any objection to such use.
]
] The Center has submitted the following two proposals to
] the Copyright Office on Access to Orphan Works and Orphan
] Films.

Linked from Groklaw. It sounds like the copyright office for
once gets it and actually wants to *do* something about it.

Orphan Works

] Last week the Environmental Protection Agency issued a
] rule to limit mercury emissions from power plants. But
] rather than requiring across-the-board cuts in emissions
] it gave companies the ability to buy and sell pollution
] allowances. In the short run, some plants could buy
] allowances from cleaner companies and delay making large
] expenditures to cut emissions.

I guess a downside of pollution credit trading schemes is that you can end up with hotspots instead of a uniform reduction.

New Hampshire Senate to Vote on Approach to Mercury Rule

Here's Lessig's column on price discrimination for drugs from Wired a few months ago.

Stop Making Pills Political Prisoners

] In this, my final, post, I%u2019d like to take up the
] troublesome topic of price discrimination %u2013 both
] with respect to the distribution of audio and video
] recordings and with respect to sales of pharmaceutical
] products.

William Fisher blogging on lessig.org.

William Fisher on Price Discrimination