Google has been pulling the DMOZ description for 6-8 months now for a number of sites in a number of keyword searchs. MSN started doing it in November.

There is no reason to assume that the use of the DMOZ description has anything to do with the ranking of the site.

Google have been doing this for a long time now, they do a lot of testing and must have reached the conclusion that using the DMOZ description rather than a description that is SEO manipulated provides a better presentation of the search results to the user, on the balance of other factors --- MSN have appeared to have reached the same conclusion.

There is no such thing as "ranking" in DMOZ - its random.

CBP