The Vatican is preparing to publish a statement on the use of condoms by people who have Aids, a senior Roman Catholic official has said.

'Bout time... AIDS in Africa is a far more immediate emergency then the western culture war over sexual morality. The later cannot be resolved quickly, the former must be. Although, at this point it may be too little, too late.

Vatican 'may relax condom rules'

In what might resemble a horrifying moment in a science fiction film, astronauts aboard the International Space Station will toss an empty spacesuit overboard next week.

The Russian suit will carry three batteries and a ham radio transmitter and antenna. Amateur radio operators on Earth will be able to listen to its transmissions over several days until the batteries fail.

Um, yeah. Sure.

An Orbiting Spacesuit With Transmitter

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

A tentative deal to extend the government's antiterrorism powers under the law known as the USA Patriot Act appeared in some jeopardy Thursday, as Senate Democrats threatened to mount a filibuster in an effort to block the legislation.

I'm glad they narrowed the National Security Letters but I'm not sure this bill really meets muster. This is one environment where the filibuster may be an honorable thing to do. On the other hand, it may just be a way of extending the existing law without the changes while creating the appearance of discourse.

Extension of Patriot Act Faces Threat of Filibuster

President Bush nominated Ben S. Bernanke, his top economic adviser, to replace Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Everyone seems to be quietly pleased with this nomination. This is a relief.

Bush Nominates Bernanke to Succeed Greenspan as Fed Chief

As the Gulf Coast reels from two catastrophic storms in a month, and the Carolinas and Florida deal with damage and debris from hurricanes this year and last, even some supporters of coastal development are starting to ask a previously unthinkable question: is it time to consider retreat from the coast?

The problem is that there are major earthquake risks in most of the rest of the US, but those things happen much less frequently. Ironically the safest areas in the country are probably the west-central quaridor (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Montana, etc..) which are also the least populated.

Some Experts Say It's Time to Evacuate the Coast (for Good)

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.

EU Tries to Unblock Internet Impasse

We are gearing up for the 2005 Loveparade in San Francisco on Saturday September 24th. This years parade starting location is at Market & 2nd Street and opens at 12 Noon. The parade is schedule to start at 1pm and parades west on Market Street to the festival location at Civic Center. Once at the festival area the floats will park and all the participants can enjoy the multiple genres of music that will be played. We are asking for a $5 donation upon entering the festival location, this will go to supporting our community partners and other national non-profit organizations.

Please join our newletter and be the first to know! This is not your ordinary parade. Instead of standing on the sidelines watching it go by, everyone is encouraged to dance in the streets with the floats as the parade moves by.

This rules. San Francisco needs this. Although many people in the city go to Burning Man it moved out of town early in its history and isn't tied directly to the city's culture. Halloween has always been a big deal in San Francisco but its also obviously not a local event and people who don't live in the city don't know about the revelry there. There are also various GBL celebrations but they obviously don't represent the whole city. This is something that can be broadly representative of the city's culture and has the potential to become a permanent fixture like Mardi Gras in NOLA or its elder version in Berlin.

Love Parade SF

Before the end of the next decade, NASA astronauts will again explore the surface of the moon. And this time, we're going to stay, building outposts and paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond. There are echoes of the iconic images of the past, but it won't be your grandfather's moon shot.

NASA - How We'll Get Back to the Moon | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

The White House has approved NASA's plan to replace the nation's aging fleet of winged spaceships with a new generation of vehicles meant to carry human explorers back to the Moon and onward to Mars and beyond, aerospace experts said yesterday.

White House Backs NASA Plan for Vehicles