China endorsed a Russian compromise proposal for breaking the stalemate over Iran's nuclear program Thursday and joined Iran's visiting nuclear negotiator in calling for patience and more discussions on the Russian idea.

China Endorses Russian Proposal on Iranian Nuclear Program

SpongeBob is not your friend.

That is the message of a lawsuit announced yesterday, asserting that characters like SpongeBob SquarePants - despite his ever-present grin - are harming children's health by hawking what the plaintiffs' consider to be junk food.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Boston-based group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and two parents served notice that they intended to sue Viacom, the maker of the popular children's TV show "SpongeBob SquarePants," and the Kellogg Company, a big marketer of food to children, which features the lovable SpongeBob on packages of cereal, Pop Tarts and cookies.

Kellogg and Viacom to Face Suit Over Ads for Children

The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

Vatican paper article says 'intelligent design' not science

Reactions are starting to come in to the draft of the GPLv3, and they are favorable. I'd say it is a success. Of course, this is the first draft and there will be more. I believe the next is in June. If you have comments you wish to make to FSF to make the draft better, they go here. Endearingly enough, the process is that you select text and then type "c" to submit comments. You can also email them. Instructions on that are here.

Groklaw on GPLv3.

Reactions to the GPLv3 Draft and a GLPv2-V3 Comparative Chart

The first draft of GPLv3 is up...

A few notes:

1. RMS did not add the much-feared affero-GPL clause that triggers the GPL if you're running a public (web) service. This would have caused a huge schism and I applaud RMS for recognizing that fact and being pragmatic!

2. They added a narrow patent-retaliation clause which is (I think) narrower than the one that the Apache foundation adopted awhile back.

3. They state that no GPLed program is part of a "technological protection measure" for the purposes of the DMCA, etc. There is some other, related anti-DRM text added.

They also ammended the definition of "complete corresponding source code" such that I can't give you a box that only runs signed binaries with a bunch of GPLed software on it unless I also give you the signing program, keys, etc. Though they don't explicitly mention trusted (treacherous) computing, I think this is targeted at that.

4. They're taking a new tack on compatibility with other licenses. They enumerate the kinds of additional requirements other licenses can or cannot make. In particular, I think this is designed to help with the problem that came up a year or two ago when the Apache foundation added a patent retaliation clause and FSF felt that it wasn't compatible with the GPL and this caused a big mess.

Otherwise, there seems to be bits of fine-tuning to deal with copyright laws in other countries better.

It'll probably be a mess for Linux which is explicitly GPLv2. I understand how Linus made that decision at the time back in 1991; he was afraid that RMS would do something crazy in a future version. But they probably want a lot of this fine tuning but it would probably be a nightmare to try to get every contributor to sign off on it.

GPLv3 Draft — GPLv3

If the experts are right, some time this month, perhaps somewhere in the suburban South or West, a couple, most likely white Anglo-Saxon Protestants or Hispanic, will conceive a baby who, when born in October, will become the 300 millionth American.

Come October, Baby Will Make 300 Million or So

In a national campaign aimed squarely at Wal-Mart Stores, lawmakers in 30 states are preparing to introduce legislation that would require large corporations to increase spending on employee health insurance, according to the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which planned to announce the initiative this morning.

Wal-Mart in Their Sights, States Press for Health Benefits

Many economists have long suspected that official government statistics here provided only a shadow of reality.

With China's announcement on Tuesday that its economy was considerably bigger than previously estimated, economists and financial prognosticators are scrambling to rethink their assessment of China's rise and its role on the world stage. China's new figures suggest that it probably has passed France, Italy and Britain to become the world's fourth-largest economy.

Some economists are even accelerating their timetables for when China may eclipse the United States as the world's biggest economy. With the new figures offering a more expansive view of economic activity, some said China could overtake the United States as early as 2035, at least five years earlier than previous projections.

That Blur? It's China, Moving Up in the Pack

On the campaign stump, Evo Morales liked to say that if he was elected president of Bolivia, he would become America's nightmare. After his election on Sunday, a State Department official said essentially the same thing, calling Mr. Morales "potentially our worst nightmare."

The Bush administration says it fears that Mr. Morales will follow through on his promise to join Hugo Ch�vez, the Venezuelan president, as an anti-American, leftist leader, while also carrying out his promise to reduce restrictions on his nation's production of coca leaf, the primary ingredient of cocaine, much of which finds its way to the United States.

U.S. Keeps a Wary Eye on the Next Bolivian President

"When you have multiple eyes in the sky, what you're doing is creating a transparent globe where anyone can get basic information about anyone else," said Mr. Gupta, the Sandia analyst. His recommendation to the Indian government, he said, would be to accept the new reality: "Times are changing, and the best thing to do is adapt to the advances in technology."

Governments Tremble at Google's Bird's-Eye View