At the moment the big issue seems to be "the war", but which war - the War in Iraq? The War on Terrorism? Or the vague neo-conservative project to transform the world through an endless series of wars? Beneath the issue of "the war" is really a question of what the great project of government is, what the deep and abiding mandate it rests upon is. And from that mandate, comes a meaning - the meaning, from which all activity flows. If you want to know what a candidate is about, in the end, it is in what the greeks would call the doxe that emenates from them.

So, Robyn Gee from the Sierra Club just got in touch with us asking for help preparing their upcoming report, "10 Technologies That Can Save the World." We're a little swamped at the moment, what with new teammates, a site redesign on the way, the book about to come out and a national book tour/ research voyage/ road trip to plan, but we thought you might be able to help us answer her questions. After all, the community of people who read Worldchanging include in our ranks folks who are pretty much the greenest techies around.

Here's what they're looking for:

The goal of the report would be to promote the value of innovation rather than exploitation as a way to meet our global challenges.

The Cato Institute (a conservative thinktank) has released an outstanding paper, A False Sense of Insecurity (PDF), which makes the point that in any rational assessment, terrorism is really just not that big of a threat to the average person. For instance, about as many Americans have been killed by terrorists as have been "killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts." Whatsmore, many WMD threats are overblown and largely preventable. Indeed, with exhaustive research, the authors can conclude that:

Assessed in broad but reasonable context, terrorism generally does not do much damage.

Connecticut May Be a 2008 Preview
Washington Post - 1 hour ago - American politics this year has been running on two divergent tracks. The first is intensified partisan combat in ...