You Be the Judge: Fort Hood Shooter--Mentally Disturbed or Terrorist?

This morning's ABC report that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had made attempts to contact Al Qaeda raises even more questions surrounding the motives behind the recent Fort Hood shooting. Was the Fort Hood shooter just another mentally disturbed person bent on violence, or a homegrown Islamic terrorist? You be the judge.

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Artificial Intelligence in the Fight against Terrorism

Today I want to take you into the realm of Artificial Intelligence and look at its potential to create an impact in the fight against terrorism. The aim of AI (artificial intelligence) is to get at what is happening when one’s mind silently and invisibly chooses, from a myriad of alternatives, which one makes most sense in a very complex situation. In many real-life situations, deductive reasoning is inappropriate, not because it would give wrong answers, but because there are too many correct but irrelevant statements which can be made; there are just too many things to take into account simultaneously for reasoning alone to be sufficient. — Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid Today, artificial intelligence (AI) is a concept that is too big to ignore and too exciting to deny. We should not be frightened by it—either its “hype” or its implied shortfalls—but rather should use it as an aid in the development of practical tools. The concept has a wider appli...

You Be The Judge: Florida Child Strangled By Python

Police are expected to bring charges against the owner of a pet python that strangled a 2-year-old Florida girl in her crib, killing her. According to police, the snake's cage was not locked as mandated by Florida law, and the owner did not have a required permit to own the snake. You be the judge: Has this family been punished enough, or should criminal charges be filed? And if so, what sentence would you pass?

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