Only in America ccould this Reuters article, “It’s a boson:” Higgs quest bears new particle, appear in a political blog.  Only in America would the following statement describing the standard model in physics be controversial:

It is the last undiscovered piece of the Standard Model that describes the fundamental make-up of the universe. The model is for physicists what the theory of evolution is for biologists.

I think I like the following description of the Higgs boson.

Scientists struggling to explain the theory have likened Higgs particles to a throng of paparazzi photographers; the greater the “celebrity” of a passing particle, the more the Higgs bosons get in its way and slow it down, imparting it mass; but a particle such as a photon of light is of no interest to the paparazzi and passes through easily – a photon has no mass.