The trial presents a particular challenge for the journalists from science magazines. In the courtroom hallway during a break last week, Celeste Biever, a reporter for NewScientist, was interviewing a courtroom regular, a bearded local pastor who says he considers evolution a lie.

"You want half-bird, half-fish?" she asked, drawing a dotted line on her notepad.

"Yeah, why not," the pastor said.

In Pennsylvania, It Was Religion vs. Science, Pastor vs. Ph.D., Evolution vs. the Half-Fish

President Bush nominated Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, as his choice to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor this morning, his second nominee for the Supreme Court in the past two and half months.

Longtime Confidante of Bush Has Never Been a Judge - New York Times

Decius wrote:

The United States and Europe clashed here Thursday in one of their sharpest public disagreements in months, after European Union negotiators proposed stripping the Americans of their effective control of the Internet.

These people are silly. Threatening to leave the DNS system just because you don't think you have enough influence? What do you want them to do differently? Have you made reasonable proposals that have been ignored? Don't you realize that if you can leave the DNS system so can I, and so your influence cannot be coercive?

It is inevitable that the DNS system is going to fragment... I'm all for it. We ought to start talking about what kinds of tools we need to support multiple roots on one computer, and put an end to this government puffery as well as vile sitefinder once and for all.

Imagine if Barnes and Noble kept all of the books in the store ordered by ISBN. Then there would be a big fight over how ISBNs are assigned, who controls the registry, etc, which is presently AFAIK uncontroversial. I think the situation with DNS is similarly assinine. Just as end users never think about ISBNs, they shouldn't think about hostnames either.

RE: EU Tries to Unblock Internet Impasse

The United States and Europe clashed here Thursday in one of their sharpest public disagreements in months, after European Union negotiators proposed stripping the Americans of their effective control of the Internet.

EU Tries to Unblock Internet Impasse

A high-level review led by John D. Negroponte, the new intelligence director, is stirring a major upheaval within the country's spy satellite programs, beginning with an overhaul of a $15 billion program plagued by delays and cost overruns.

Review Leads to Upheaval in Spy Satellite Programs

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.

This just in...

DeLay Indicted in Texas Campaign Finance Probe

Cheryl F. Halpern, a major Republican fund-raiser selected Monday to be the next chairwoman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, vowed to continue to encourage "objectivity and balance" in public television and radio.

*sigh*

Nominee to Lead Public Broadcasting Promises to Pursue Balance

Google has been sued by the Authors Guild, and a number of individual authors.

Right on.

Lessig on the Google Print lawsuit

A private commission led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III is proposing new steps to strengthen state election procedures and recommending that Congress require the political parties to hold four regional presidential primaries in election years rather than allowing states to hold primaries whenever they wish.

Why wouldn't you just have a single nationwide primary?

Voting Panel Will Propose New Calendar for Primaries - New York Times

IN THE WAKE of Hot Coffeegate author Steven Johnson, the man behind "Everything Bad Is Good For You", has written an open letter to Senator Hillary Clinton, the woman largely behind launching the avalanche that has buried Take Two, Rockstar and half the gaming industry up to its neck in trouble. We’ll let the letter do the talking.

Heh.

A bit of Hot Coffee for Senator Clinton's mind