In this story, the last he ever wrote, broadcaster, journalist, and author Bill Cameron describes his journey into what he called "Cancerland"

The Walrus Magazine | Chasing The Crab

This research brief examines how technology changes — in economic development, health, environmental quality, and military power — will play out differently across the globe.

Global Technology Revolution 2020: Technology Trends and Cross-Country Variation

In 2020, areas of particular importance for technology trends will include biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials technology, and information technology. The authors of this report assessed a sample of 29 countries across the spectrum of scientific advancement (low to high) with respect to their ability to acquire and implement 16 key technology applications (e.g., cheap solar energy, rural wireless communications, genetically modified crops). The study’s major conclusions are that scientifically advanced countries such as the United States, Germany, and Japan will be able to implement all key technology applications evaluated; countries that are not scientifically advanced will have to develop significant capacity and motivation before barriers to technology implementation can be overcome; and public policy issues in certain areas will engender public debate and strongly influence technology implementation.

The Global Technology Revolution 2020, Executive Summary: Bio/Nano/Materials/Information Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications

In 2020, areas of particular importance for technology trends will include biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials technology, and information technology. The authors of this report assessed a sample of 29 countries across the spectrum of scientific advancement (low to high) with respect to their ability to acquire and implement 16 key technology applications (e.g., cheap solar energy, rural wireless communications, genetically modified crops). The study’s major conclusions are that scientifically advanced countries such as the United States, Germany, and Japan will be able to implement all key technology applications evaluated; countries that are not scientifically advanced will have to develop significant capacity and motivation before barriers to technology implementation can be overcome; and public policy issues in certain areas will engender public debate and strongly influence technology implementation.

RAND | (Technical) Reports | The Global Technology Revolution 2020, In-Depth Analyses: Bio/Nano/Materials/Information Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications

What, then, is the Truman Standard, and how does the Bush Administration really measure up to it?

The Truman Standard - Council on Foreign Relations

Not much good news trickles out of Iraq these days.

The Haditha Factor - Council on Foreign Relations

IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT the United States isn't easy on its scholars and public intellectuals--that they are not accorded the prestige and respect that they are given in the Old World. This complaint, usually made by left-wingers struggling against the tide in the United States, isn't totally without merit. A good literary scholar or classicist in the United States perhaps doesn't quite have the same social cachet as would a similarly accomplished scholar at Oxford or the Sorbonne. But when scholars do make it in the United States--and there certainly seem to be vastly more European scholars hoping to make it in America than Americans trying to snag a sinecure in Europe--there is simply no comparison in the eminence, influence, and renown that they can achieve.

The Last Orientalist

The single most important thing about The Moral Imagination is the challenge it poses to its readers. To make sense of this book, you must have your brain turned on every step of the way. Your first problem is to figure out what the title means. (Burke introduced the phrase "moral imagination.") The author isn't so much interested in novel or imaginative ethical systems as in thinkers who present moral realities in original ways.

The Art of Thinking

LAST WEEK the Washington Post featured a story on Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, the Spanish-Syrian al Qaeda strategist who wrote the 1,600 page Call for a Global Islamic Resistance. The Post story provided a revealing look at Nasar who, despite his capture, remains the leading ideological architect of al Qaeda's war against the United States. But the Post also missed a number of important points in Nasar's career.

An Omission of Note

Supporters of the war have engaged in a vigorous debate, in these pages and elsewhere, about how better to fight this war. It would be encouraging if more people at senior levels of the military seemed to be engaged in this kind of serious thinking and rethinking. It would be encouraging if more civilians high up in the Pentagon were engaged in such a debate. It would be encouraging if a single person in the White House seemed to be engaged in a real effort to learn from mistakes, so as to adjust our policy to make success more likely.

Haditha Handwringing