namespace nodes and their naming properties

The way namespace nodes interact with the ...NS() level 2 calls seems a
bit unclear to me.  XML-Infoset distinguishes attribute nodes from
namespace nodes, whereas apparently DOM does not, other than requiring a
fixed namespaceURI for them.

As I read the spec, the namespaceURI of namespace nodes is fixed as
"http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/".  What are the localName and prefix of a
namespace node?  Are they determined lexically in the usual way?

Also, suppose a document contains this element:

<x xmlns:foo="baz" xmlns:bar="http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/"
bar:foo="quux"/>

If using getAttributeNS(), wouldn't xmlns:foo and bar:foo be essentially
indistinguishable?  It appears that the only reliable way to locate (and
get or remove) namespace nodes is by their qualified name.

-- 
Jeffrey Hantin
Software Engineer
VeriSign, Inc.