Red-baiting is a dangerous tactic in a country where even in the late 1980s the Communist party still boasted around 800,000 loyal members. They included a number of Hungary’s now shrillest super-patriots. But then, as the saying goes: “We are a small country; we only have one mob”.

Budapest diary: Open secrets | Economist

A new study links increased miscarriage risk to caffeine consumption, but other experts say a cup or two a day is fine. What's a coffee-loving mom to do?

Caffeine Linked to Miscarriages

“Trying to guess General Petraeus’s next assignment is the most popular parlor game in the Pentagon these days,” Mr. Morrell said.

Pentagon Weighs Top Iraq General as NATO Chief

Many people envision scientists as dispassionate characters who slavishly repeat experiments until "eureka"—something unexpected happens. Actually, there is a great deal more to the story of scientific discovery, but seeing "the big picture" is not easy. Connections: Patterns of Discovery uses the primary tools of forecasting and three archetypal patterns of discovery—Serendipity, Proof of Principle, and 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration—to discern relationships of past developments and synthesize a cohesive and compelling vision for the future. It challenges readers to think of the consequences of extrapolating trends, such as Moore's Law, to either reach real machine intelligence or retrench in the face of physical limitations. From this perspective,the book draws "the big picture" for the Information Revolution's innovations in chips, devices, software, and networks.

With a Foreword by James Burke and bursting with fascinating detail throughout, Connections: Patterns of Discovery is a must-read for computer scientists, technologists, programmers, hardware and software developers, students, and anyone with an interest in tech-savvy topics.

See the table of contents. Authors are H. Peter Alesso and Craig F. Smith.

Connections: Patterns of Discovery

With subtle accompaniment by longtime friend Herbie Hancock, and a slide show that has opened the minds (and pocketbooks) of CEOs across the country, Bill Strickland tells a quiet and astonishing tale of redemption through arts, music and unlikely partnerships.

Bill Strickland: Rebuilding America, one slide show at a time

In an 1897 issue of Saturday Night, the rise of the doughnut (and ice-water) is cited as evidence of American cultural domination.

So just when did doughnuts become so Canadian?

Penfold traces it to the 1980s, saying it was a result of a few things: a frustration with endless constitutional debates; a void in national identity and iconography and a simultaneous proliferation of doughnut shops.

Canadian eh? The hole truth

Until the late 18th century, parents took for granted their right to arrange their children’s marriages and even, in many regions, to dissolve a marriage made without their permission. In Anglo-American law, a child born outside an approved marriage was a “fillius nullius” - a child of no one, entitled to nothing. In fact, through most of history, the precondition for maintaining a strong institution of marriage was the existence of an equally strong institution of illegitimacy, which denied such children any claim on their families.

Even legally-recognized wives and children received few of the protections we now associate with marriage. Until the late 19th century, European and American husbands had the right to physically restrain, imprison, or “punish” their wives and children. Marriage gave husbands sole ownership over all property a wife brought to the marriage and any income she earned afterward.

...

The same things that have made so many modern marriages more intimate, fair, and protective have simultaneously made marriage itself more optional and more contingent on successful negotiation. They have also made marriage seem less bearable when it doesn’t live up to its potential. The forces that have strengthened marriage as a personal relationship between freely-consenting adults have weakened marriage as a regulatory social institution.

The Future of Marriage

Union 1812 shows that the fate of the American Experiment was not decided at the end of the American Revolution; instead, the ambiguous confederacy needed to be sewn together by the Herculean efforts of men like James Madison, who gave the nation it’s backbone in the U.S. constitution, and the strength and determination of the early presidents. Even then, it took a second war with Britain to galvanize the people and truly forge the more perfect union familiar to modern readers.

While the book mainly focuses on the War of 1812, author A.J. Langguth spends ample time on the formation of the Constitution. As he details the measures undertaken my Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and their fellow Federalists who argued for a strong central government, it becomes apparent that this was the decisive moment in determining what the United States would become.

One of the most amusing lessons to be learned from Union 1812 is that although American society may make great strides in certain respects, in the end, human nature is virtually immutable. The political campaigns of the time were marked with mudslinging and vicious partisan assaults. The press was cultivated and manipulated by shrewd politicians looking for an edge. Even Thomas Jefferson’s hands were dirtied in such activities; he provided a do-nothing job in the State Department to a man named Philip Morin Freneau in an effort to fund the man’s newspaper, the National Gazette, with the sole pursuit of haranguing the Republican Jefferson’s Federalist political enemies. Freneau’s criticisms of Hamilton and Adams weren’t erudite deconstructions of their political ideals. Instead, he took Hamilton to task for his “long nose,” and Adams for his “breath of belly.”

Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence

Warfare is the use of extraordinary power -- that is, power that seemingly violates the ordinary normative rules governing civil activity -- to compel an adversary to submit to one's political will; and, asymmetric warfare seeks to do so by avoiding an adversary's strengths while applying one's own advantage against the other's weaknesses.

In the face of overwhelming U.S. military and economic power, America's adversaries -- including non-state actors such as al Qa'ida -- are increasingly turning to asymmetric strategies to oppose U.S. interests.

This essay provides a brief overview of the 'information battlefront' in the confrontation with militant Islamic extremism. In particular, this essay outlines how terror networks are increasingly using advanced information technology and the global communications network to expand their capacity and capability to wage a global insurgency against U.S. interests and surveys what counter-strategies might be employed in response.

It is beyond the scope of this essay to address the broader political or policy issues relating more generally to the global "war on terrorism," or to address the legal or ethical implications of employing the counter-strategies discussed below in any specific context. Rather, this essay focuses simply on surveying some of the information operations strategies that might be used to counter certain online activities of insurgents.

Author is K. A. TAIPALE, of the Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy.

Seeking Symmetry on the Information Front: Confronting Global Jihad on the Internet

Last night I dreamed that angels stood without
The tavern door, and knocked in vain, and wept;
They took the clay of Adam, and, methought,
Moulded a cup therewith while all men slept.

...

Yet since the earliest time that man has sought
To comb the locks of Speech, his goodly bride,
Not one, like Hafiz, from the face of Thought
Has torn the veil of Ignorance aside.

A poem by Hafez, translated by Gertrude "Queen of the Quagmire" Bell, 1897.

The Angel at the Tavern Door