NAS and NSTA do not have to endorse the Kansas Board of Education's decision to teach intelligent design. The theory isn't supported by science, and Kansas should not be able to imply that teaching it comports with NAS or NSTA standards. United States trademark law would certainly prohibit Kansas from claiming NAS or NSTA approval for its alternative curriculum. But instead, the organizations are leveraging their copyrights in the standards manuals to get Kansas to accept evolution theory.

I've avoided commenting on this discussion for a couple weeks specifically because I think the devil is in the details here, and no one talking about this has really illuminated the details to the point where I feel comfortable taking a position.

In general, I don't like the idea of copyright controlling derivative artistic works, because I think it limits people's freedom of expression, but there is a problem here. Ultimately, if you are taking a large chunk of my IP, you really aren't making a "fair use" of the material, particularly if the thing you are publishing serves the same purpose that mine does. So you need to pay me. Its impossible for the legal system to distinguish between a scenario where I refused to sell you the rights because you can't meet my price, and I refused to sell you the rights because I hate you. So ultimately, copyright holders are going to have some control over the artistic nature of derivative works. It cannot be avoided.

Furthermore, if you accept the line of reasoning that copyright should only serve a financial purpose you MUST reject the GPL, and you must at least raise questions about BSD licenses. These licenses do not require payment for a work. They simply impose a set of controls on the use of that work by others. How is that for a philosophical pandora's box? I'm not sure I'm afraid to open that box. Hence my unwillingness thus far to talk about this question.

Why is this science standard copyrighted? Does that copyright exist entirely for the purpose of control, or do they charge for it? If they charge for it, and Kansas wishes to use it almost in it's entirety but with criticial changes, is it not within their rights to refuse to sell it. Is all use of copyright for control bad?

I think the standard that we have is that you can use copyright to control, but only certain kinds of control are ok. You cannot prevent comment, criticism, etc... You can prevent the release of closed source modifications, or competitive works that are largely derivative. These balances are muddy and messy and still evolving. I don't think there are any bright lines here. I do wonder if the fair use exemptions for educational purposes might apply to Kanas in this case?

On the other hand, Its not clear that this decision by this science board is simply an attempt to stifle criticism. It may be an attempt to prevent a copyrighted work from being used to produce a competitive, mostly derivative work which the original authors object too. It may be more the sort of control that we accept rather then the sort of control that we don't accept. I don't think anyone has made a clear case about where it falls on that spectrum. More details about what is specifically going on are needed. Seems like it might make a meaty trial...

I'm not sure terms like "conservative" and "liberal" make sense in the funhouse world of artificial scarcity. But, to the degree that they do, Granick is not a copyright liberal. GPL is copyright "liberalism." Her perspective requires it's rejection. She is a copyright minimalist. A public domainer. A Copyanarchist.

Intellectual Property Evolutionists Are Wrong!

But they also declare that basic Darwinian theory — that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life — has been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.
In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

They also redefined math so it is no longer limited to the quantitative assessment of problems.

Evolution Critics Score Win in Kansas - Yahoo! News

This is some beautiful stuff someone captured. Apparently someone at CNN trying to put together a map of the areas of France not currently in flames and bursting with rioters managed to really screw up using Google Maps.

Check it out, it's almost like a public school student's attempt at making their own map of a country they know nothing about.

The World According to CNN

The Wall Street Journal Online is free this week.

Free This Week Only: WSJ.com

They pop up their meat-adorned heads through holes in a platform like so many "whack-a-moles," and this big goddamned hungry toothy lizard crawls around seeking lunch in an agitated, confrontational manner.

Japanese people are crazy.

Boing Boing: Japanese TV: lizards vs. humans in meat hats

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.

However, much of what Lessig says about ICANN is down to earth.

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

The unemployment insurance system is expensive and fails to create the right incentives. It's easy for people who don't need it to collect and lie on "looking for work" statements without seriously pursuing a job. It only exists for a short time period that is not taylored to individual circumstances.

Solution: Replace unemployment insurance with unemployment loans that must be repaid.

My second idea.

Unemployment Loans | SinceSlicedBread.com

The addition of 75 million people each year to an already overcrowded globe is exacerbating the problems of pollution, desertification, underemployment, epidemics, and famine.

Wow, the CIA world fact book has an entry on the earth. Clearly this would only be necessary if they planned to add other planets as well. :-p

The World Economy

On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.

I had no idea that this kind of thing was grounds for loosing tax exempt status. Lots of meaty philosophical questions in here. No, I don't buy the idea that this is politically motivated in absense of data that demostrates a pattern across a spectrum of cases.

Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning - Los Angeles Times

That's what we've done with this email time capsule. Simply fill out the fields below, decide how long you want the capsule to be sealed for, and hit send. We'll do our best to make sure the message gets delivered.

The E-Mail Time Capsule - Forbes.com