As early as this week, the full Senate may vote on the nomination of the conservative lawyer Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Estrada's nomination squeaked out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 10-9 party line vote: no Democrat supported it, and now liberal activist groups are calling for a filibuster. News coverage has frequently emphasized that Estrada has been appointed to the nation's "second most important court," but has rarely explained what this actually means, or why the Bush administration's desire to pack the DC Circuit with conservative judges is so troubling. From our upcoming March issue, Chris Mooney reports on this crucial but often neglected court:

It must take guts to be a "young-Earth" creationist. After all, imagine rejecting virtually all of modern science based on a literal interpretation of Genesis. Imagine opening yourself up to ridicule by insisting that Adam and Eve lived alongside the dinosaurs, Dinotopia-style, and that Noah crammed brontosauruses onto the Ark -- necessary inferences if you think the Bible is true and that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago. Sure, these views are way outside the scientific mainstream (though polls suggest nearly half of Americans may hold them). But young-Earth creationism is so rigid in its adherence to religious doctrine that there's almost a kind of perverse integrity to it.