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 Senate today passed by unanimous consent the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act of 2005, legislation introduced by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space. The legislation authorizes NASA for Fiscal Years 2006 through 2010, establishes a policy objective of uninterrupted U.S. spaceflight capability and requires completion of the International Space Station (ISS).

Senate Approves Sen. Hutchison's NASA Authorization Bill

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

An amateur British archaeologist says he has located Ithaca, the homeland of Homer's legendary hero Odysseus.

Funny this should come out while I'm in the middle of reading the Odyssey.

Search 'locates' Homer's Ithaca

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

What brings the girls to Dr. Waaldijk - and him to Nigeria - is the obstetric nightmare of fistulas, unknown in the West for nearly a century. Mostly teenagers who tried to deliver their first child at home, the girls failed at labor. Their babies were lodged in their narrow birth canals, and the resulting pressure cut off blood to vital tissues and ripped holes in their bowels or urethras, or both.

This is really awful. Africa is a such a mess.

Nightmare for African Women: Birthing Injury and Little Help

As the city slept, the truck and its armed escorts slipped away from the reactor, at a Czech Technical University campus on the outskirts of the city, and passed through deserted streets, stopping at last near a runway at the capital's airport. Soon a Russian cargo plane landed to carry the uranium to a more secure storage center in Russia.

The nuclear reactor at the campus, which for 15 years had stored nuclear material in a lightly guarded setting, was now free of a fuel that terrorists might covet. As the cargo plane's rear hatch locked shut, a team of American nonproliferation officials watched with approval.

Prague Ships Its Nuclear-Bomb Fuel to Russian Storage

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

But renting might deserve another look right now. After five years in which rents have barely budged while house prices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and elsewhere have doubled, renting has become a surprisingly smart option for many people who never would have considered it before.

I'd heard this before. Here's the Times writeup. Take the difference between the total cost of home ownership and your rent and buy the SP500 or something.

Is It Better to Buy or Rent?