In the world of ideas, there’s a battle currently underway between forces that, No 1, believe the brain is often best left with minimum interference to figure out what’s in its own best interest, and No 2, believe the brain needs to experiment with better ways to intervene and shape what is being decided...

Barack Obama gave a speech that his disciples compared favorably to the Gettysburg Address and the Sermon on the Mount, but which I thought came a lot closer to Richard Nixon's "Checkers" speech, a desperate attempt to keep himself from being relegated to the trash heap of history...

Some of you are digging through receipts, looking up interest payments, rounding up mileage and contributions...

When: Panel discussions from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., April 14, 2008, and pre-dinner speaker Yuri Yarim-Agaev from 6:45 to 7:30 p.m., April 14, 2008...

A lecturer said Monday that Russia's politics is defined by three moral failings: corruption, an undemocratic mentality and a lack of democratic safeguards - and that undemocratic mentality has led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths...

We do agree: Violence is not the essential reason that schools are unsuccessful. We agree that violence is not caused by schools, and that in every community the schools are the safest environment that students are likely to encounter...