rewriting the /etc/hosts file

[Peter Amisano]

I am having an issue with Ximian's Evolutions.  After googling a bit, I
discovered that Evolution doesn't like the spaces in the /etc/hosts
file.  I remove the spaces and everything works fine.  However, every
time I reboot, I have to remove the spaces from the hosts file.  

I am not too familiar with the process which writes the the hosts file,
but is there a way to use a static hosts file?

I tried removing all write permissions from the file but that doesn't
work.

Thx,

Pete