The Bush administration is objecting to the creation of a top-level .xxx domain, which was scheduled to receive final approval next week.

According to this C|Net story:

After ICANN’s vote to approve .xxx, conservative groups in the United States called on their supporters to ask the Commerce Department to block the new suffix. The Family Research Council, for instance, warned that “pornographers will be given even more opportunities to flood our homes, libraries and society with pornography through the .xxx domain.”

Anyone who has been online more than 12 seconds knows the absurdity of that argument. As I wrote in June, the .xxx domain makes a lot of sense, and will actually make it easier for parents and libraries to filter sexual content.

Of course, these probably aren’t the issues at hand. The minutae of implementing .xxx can’t possibly be on the administration’s radar screen … but bringing the topic of online porn into the public discourse? You betcha.

A recent Adrants discussion on Soflow focused on religion and advertising, and eventually turned to the question of whether evolution is a theory or a fact.

Philosophical considerations aside, it’s interesting to note that such religious debate is even being played out on Dictionary.com: Search for the definition of “theory” and you’ll see Google AdWords placements for evolution- and creatonism-themed Web sites and products.

By the way: Search for “fact” and you get ads for loans.

Looking to fill your computer or your iPod with some classic literature? Over at audiobooksforfree.com, you can download works by Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Sun Tzu, Edgar Allen Poe, and more. The selection isn’t overwhelming — we’re talking hundreds of books, not thousands or tens of thousands — and the design is very 1997 (spinning .gifs!), but there’s plenty of good stuff to keep you busy, new books are being added all the time, and the price is certainly right.

This CNN.com article is kind of interesting. The upshot: According to British researchers, men and women tend to like different sorts of Web site designs.

Women seemed to like pages with more color in the background and typeface. Women also favored informal rather than posed pictures.

Men responded better to dark colors and straight, horizontal lines across a page. They also were more pleased by a three-dimensional look and images of “self-propelling” rather than stationary objects.

Takeaway for marketers: Designing a site for a strictly male or strictly female audience? This research probably underscores what your designers (hopefully) already know.

“No man can be a failure if he thinks he’s a success. If he thinks he is a winner, then he is.”
—Robert W. Service