WHAT makes a scientific revolution? Thomas Kuhn famously described it as a “paradigm shift”—the change that takes place when one idea is overtaken by another, usually through the replacement over time of the generation of scientists who adhered to an old idea with another that cleaves to a new one. These revolutions can be triggered by technological breakthroughs, such as the construction of the first telescope (which overthrew the Aristotelian idea that heavenly bodies are perfect and unchanging) and by conceptual breakthroughs such as the invention of calculus (which allowed the laws of motion to be formulated). This week, a group of computer scientists claimed that developments in their subject will trigger a scientific revolution of similar proportions in the next 15 years.

The scientific method | Computing the future | Economist.com

We're destined to be disappointed. That's because the NSS is overly optimistic in exuding ambition when both the American public and Congress have all but given up on what they see as the administration's adventurous foreign affairs.

'No, Really, _This_ War Will Be Awesome'

The approximately 1,200 Christian pastors who attended the National Pastors Convention came to San Diego to renew and revitalize, but not, apparently, to talk about potential porn addicts in their congregations.

Repent and Click No More

Bad choices leave bad choices. The war against Saddam Hussein may have been a strategic mistake from the beginning, but walking away now is not the same, either practically or morally, as having avoided the strategic blunder of war in the first place.

Now, the best of the bad alternatives is recognizing that the conflict in Iraq will be a long one and readying American forces for a long war.

The Defiant War

rather than reasserting the centrality of its preemption strategy, the Bush administration appears to have concluded that its enunciation of the preemption doctrine four years ago was a mistake. The preemptive use of force remains an essential tool available to policy makers in dealing with the threat of weapons of mass destruction and, indeed, other threats — but that it has always been. What was different in 2002, and what has now thankfully disappeared from the national security strategy, is the notion that preemptive war is the best available means to address these threats.

Whither Preemption?, by Ivo Daalder

The Bush administration's newly unveiled national security strategy might well be subtitled "The Irony of Iran". Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the invention of the phrase "axis of evil", the administration now highlights the threat posed by Iran – whose radical government has been vastly strengthened by the invasion of Iraq. This is more tragedy than strategy, and it reflects the Manichean approach this administration has taken to the world.

It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction. The administration's penchant for painting its perceived adversaries with the same sweeping brush has led to a series of unintended consequences.

Foreign policy good vs evil does not work, By Madeleine Albright

Fierce global competition prompted President Bush to use the State of the Union address to call for better math and science education, where there's evidence that many schools are falling short.

We should be equally troubled by another shortcoming in American schools: Most young people today simply do not have an adequate understanding of how our government and political system work, and they are thus not well prepared to participate as citizens.

This country has long exemplified democratic practice to the rest of the world. With the attention we are paying to advancing democracy abroad, we ought not neglect it at home.

Not By Math Alone, By Sandra Day O'Connor and Roy Romer

The Seventh Gathering for Gardner (G4G7), recently held in Atlanta, was an exhilarating event. It featured a potent jumble of mathematicians, computer scientists, artists, writers, engineers, magicians, inventors, puzzlists—both designers and master solvers—and more. Numbering nearly 300, they had all gathered to honor Martin Gardner, whose writings in recreational mathematics and magic over many years had exerted such a profound influence over their lives

Math Trek: A Gathering for Gardner, Science News Online, March 25, 2006

I saw an ad for this web site in the Metro.

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"a security clearance in the Washington area means money."

Spy agencies rethinking use of contractors / Pentagon is training people and then seeing them leave for better private pay