All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy.

Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals

The technology industry shift's to internet-based software and services represents a massive and disruptive "sea change," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wrote to top-level executives in an e-mail aimed at rallying his troops against the new competitive threats the company faces.

Gates Feeling a Little Seasick

Bridget Dehl shushed her 21-month-old son, Gavin, then clapped a hand over his mouth to squelch his tiny screams amid the Sunday brunch bustle. When Gavin kept yelping "yeah, yeah, yeah," Ms. Dehl whisked him from his highchair and out the door.

Right past the sign warning the cafe's customers that "children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven," and right into a nasty spat roiling the stroller set in Chicago's changing Andersonville neighborhood.

As far as I'm concerned, there's only one side to this issue. It is completely inconsiderate to take small children that can't be quiet, sit still, etc, into an adult establishment like a coffee shop where they proceed to irritate the piss out of everyone else there.

At Center of a Clash, Rowdy Children in Coffee Shops

What seems certain is that bugs are here to stay. Here, in chronological order, is the Wired News list of the 10 worst software bugs of all time … so far.

Wired News: History's Worst Software Bugs

Decius wrote:

From the beginning, people have talked about building an Internet that wouldn’t depend upon the TLD hierarchy. It doesn’t mean there would be two or three Internets, but that you would have a domain name system that wouldn’t depend upon hierarchical naming. As long as there’s coordination across hierarchies about ownership of domain names, you wouldn’t necessarily produce any destructive results.

Lessig on UN on ICANN: Fragment it!

I actually don't think this sort of technical design is as simple as Lessig thinks. This would involve rewriting DNS and it would result in far slower queries. Furthermore, it wouldn't really eliminate the need for central authorities, as there would need to be some system that determines who gets to be a root and what rules they need to follow in order to claim domains. They aren't going to let just anyone do that. So we're back to where we started, with a bunch of technical bloat to add to our policy bloat.

If we could come up with a way to transition away from all of the non-country-code TLDs, then we might have a way out. Each country's diplomatic mission (to the UN or whatever) would disseminate that country's NS records and glue and the root zone would consist of the concatenation of those records. A federated root zone.

RE: Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: Battling for Control of the Internet

NASA intends to spend around $500 million over the next several years subsidizing development of commercial services for delivering cargo and possibly people to the International Space Station (ISS).

It seems like Delta (Boeing) and Atlas (Lockheed) are perfectly capable of doing this job, probably more cost-effectively than NASA can.

NASA Aims To Stimulate Commercial ISS Resupply Services

At the conclusion of last Thursday's proceedings, Judge Thompson stated that he would take Blank Rome's motion to revoke Thompson's license under advisement and is also considering a motion to have the entire suit dismissed via summary judgment because it violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Judge Moore scheduled no further court dates for the case at the conclusion of last Thursday's proceedings.

For those of you following the Jack Thompson flap on Penny Arcade and elsewhere...

Jack Thompson Withdraws from GTA Case

Polio was pronounced dead in the Western Hemisphere years ago, after one of the most successful public health campaigns in history. But now it is stealing through a tiny Amish community here in central Minnesota, spreading from an 8-month-old girl to four children on two neighboring farms.

Do you have the right to risk creating a major public health problem by not being vaccinated against preventable disease? Do you have the right to make that decision for your children?

Five Cases of Polio in Amish Group Raise New Fears

In Panama, Mr. Bush appeared merry as he toured the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal and then threw pitches to Einar Diaz, a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. Mr. Diaz was part of a small crowd of Panamanian baseball greats, including Mariano Rivera of the New Yankees, assembled with junior baseball teams on a local diamond to meet the president.

Mr. Bush, a former managing partner of the Texas Rangers, threw two pitches to Mr. Diaz. The first was a bit inside and the second was high, but both had some pop, according to the assessment of a small pool of reporters traveling with Mr. Bush.

Great. Just great.

Bush Endorses Widening of Panama Canal in Speech

BoC's new album. Amoeba has somehow gotten me interested in buying CDs again.

Boards of Canada : the Campfire Headphase