"If you organize it as a concept map, then you have to understand the topic. We want kids to become knowledge constructors instead of just information consumers."

Concept Mapping Goes Global

Advertising insiders theorize that most companies will soon target multiple, smaller pools of consumers. The key will be finding audiences that are interested in the product to begin with. Fulfilling this vision will require significant changes in the ad industry.

New Ways to Drive Home the Message

There's nothing like a little mathematical rigor to dispel the myth of drama in reality TV.

We hate to admit two things: first, that we watch Fox TV's American Idol and second, that the contest is not as close as it appears.

While it may be the case that American's are truly divided on such issues (red and blue, and all of that), we suspect that it is the "idle" voting system that is accounting for the tightness of the contest, not a closely divided American public.

In the 2003 vote, around 240 million calls were made to the phone lines, but only 24 million calls got through. Thus, only one in ten calls did not get a busy signal.

Suppose that, indeed, one contestant has far more fans than the other, and as soon as voting begins both groups start to call. To keep things simple, let's assume fans keep dialing if they get a busy signal. If the phone system is not fast enough, then we might find ourselves in a situation where the voting closes, yet there are still fans on both sides trying to dial. While, of course, there are a lot more fans of the more popular contestant that are left dialing at the end, the vote totals are due to the callers who got through. Since the phone lines accept calls at roughly the same rate, the vote totals for the two contestants will be much closer than the actual fan base would indicate.

American Idle?

Felt said that if he had something for me, he could get me a message. He quizzed me about my daily routine, what came to my apartment, the mailbox, etc. The Post was delivered outside my apartment door. I did have a subscription to the New York Times. A number of people in my apartment building near Dupont Circle got the Times. The copies were left in the lobby with the apartment number. Mine was No. 617, and it was written clearly on the outside of each paper in marker pen.

Felt said if there was something important he could get to my New York Times -- how, I never knew. Page 20 would be circled, and the hands of a clock in the lower part of the page would be drawn to indicate the time of the meeting that night, probably 2 a.m., in the same Rosslyn parking garage.The relationship was a compact of trust; nothing about it was to be discussed or shared with anyone, he said.

How he could have made a daily observation of my balcony is still a mystery to me. At the time, before the era of intensive security, the back of the building was not enclosed, so anyone could have driven in the back alley to observe my balcony. In addition, my balcony and the back of the apartment complex faced onto a courtyard or back area that was shared with a number of other apartment or office buildings in the area. My balcony could have been seen from dozens of apartments or offices, as best I can tell.

A number of embassies were located in the area. The Iraqi Embassy was down the street, and I thought it possible that the FBI had surveillance or listening posts nearby. Could Felt have had the counterintelligence agents regularly report on the status of my flag and flowerpot? That seems highly unlikely, if not impossible.

Bob Woodward on his relations with Mark Felt.

How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat'

Can you successfully identify the subtext in this column? Think about it. (It's not in this quote.)

Bottom line: We urgently need a national commission to look at all the little changes we have made in response to 9/11 - from visa policies to research funding, to the way we've sealed off our federal buildings, to legal rulings around prisoners of war - and ask this question: While no single change is decisive, could it all add up in a way so that 20 years from now we will discover that some of America's cultural and legal essence - our DNA as a nation - has become badly deformed or mutated?

This would be a tragedy for us and for the world. Because, as I've argued, where birds don't fly, people don't mix, ideas don't get sparked, friendships don't get forged, stereotypes don't get broken, and freedom doesn't ring.

Tom Friedman talked about this column (and his daughter's eighth grade project) in his talk at MIT. If you haven't watched it yet, it's worth a listen.

America's DNA - Tom Friedman

The State Department recently called the Afghan drug trade "an enormous threat to world stability." The UN estimates that Afghanistan produces 87% of the world's opium.

The opium trade is booming, partly the result of the US strategy for overthrowing the Taliban and stabilizing the country after two decades of war.

As long as the Taliban pay cash, the warlords are pleased to let bygones be bygones.

"The idea is not to leave them in the provinces anymore, but to bring them on board in official positions in order to better control them."

Of course, this is known as the Dilbert principle of counter-narcotics.

The United Nations estimates that Afghan opium, morphine and heroin feed the habits of 10 million addicts, or two-thirds of the world's opiate abusers. Afghan narcotics kill about 10,000 people a year, it says.

One Kunduz trafficker estimated that there was enough opium stashed in village wells and other hiding places to keep labs and smugglers working for 10 to 15 years, even if poppy cultivation stopped entirely. Schmidt said that was probably an underestimation.

"Trying to get rid of drugs in Afghanistan is like trying to clear sand from a beach with a bucket," said an American counter-narcotics agent.

He predicted that the government crackdown would be good for business. Increased arrests and interdiction would cut competition and reduce the glut that forced down prices by two-thirds last year.

"The more restrictions, the more the business will boom," the trafficker said. "The price will go high, the number of dealers will go down, and my income will go up. The professional businessmen will remain. They have good connections. Whoever works hard in a business wins."

So, how's your liberal democracy doing in the war on drugs?

The Lure of Opium Wealth

... a stunning book -- both an essential document about the strange and oft-forgotten war against the Taliban, a withering policy critique and a proud memoir from an aging man who risked life and limb to try to kill al Qaeda's masterminds.

Into al Qaeda's Lair

In this way, analyzing the dynamics of item popularity at an active web site can help characterize the impact of a range of events taking place both on and off the site.

Traffic-based feedback on the web

"It's kind of troubling, like you were a physicist studying the laws of motion and you see an object that ignores gravity."

It's Not a Bubble Until It Bursts

With all the hullabaloo over Deep Throat, Tim Naftali got bumped from the Wednesday show.

Here's what is on tap for Thursday, June 2, 2005:

"FOX & Friends First"

Can the US effectively stop terrorism? We'll get a read from Tim Naftali, author of "Blind Spot."

I'm not a regular viewer of this program, but based on scanning through Wednesday's show, I don't expect the interview to last more than a few minutes.

FOX & Friends - Guests and Topics for Thursday, June 2, 2005