For all you budding Kasparovs out there, a team of cognitive scientists has worked out how to think like a chess grand master. As those attending this week's Cognitive Science Society meeting in Chicago, Illinois, were told, the secret is to try to knock down your pet theory rather than finding ways to support it - exactly as scientists are supposed to do.

An editorial in the New York Times comparing strategic planning with scenario planning in uncertain times.

Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis
By Robert J. Lempert, Steven W. Popper, Steven C. Bankes
Copyright 2003

I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
- Dwight Eisenhower

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Don't assign to stupidity what might be due to ignorance. And try not to assume your opponent is the ignorant one-until you can show it isn't you.
- M.N. Plano

One can resist the invasion of an army; one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.
- Victor Hugo

Never interrupt your enemy while he's
making a mistake.
- Napolean

Sun Dec 22, 1:12 PM ET

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Today's claims about Iraq could become tomorrow's call to arms. But not all the statements coming from the Bush administration have been supported by evidence, and some that haven't are central to the question of whether Americans should go to war.

The overarching claim, that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, may have the weight of probability behind it, but it has yet to be backed by proof shared with the public.

Behind that is a cast of supporting allegations, some veering off into murky territory.

In the dictionary the word deception means to deceive, to cause another to believe what is not true. To mislead. At face value, this is quite immoral. Generally, we would say it would be highly improper to mislead anyone to believe something that is not true. Yet Sun Tzu endorsed this practice in his Art of War. Like many concepts in life (and as you might expect), nothing is as simple as it seems.

In 206 B.C., Cao Cao (155-220), a great statesman, artist of war and man of letters, led his army to attack the city of Huguan. As the city was strategically located and very difficult to access, Cao's army could not take it in spite of great efforts. Cao got extremely outraged and said, "Once I get into the city, I will have all those in it buried alive."

Soon his words were spread throughout the city. As the defenders in the city feared that it would really happen to them, they waged a desperate resistance. As a result, Cao's army found it even harder to win the battle. They made months of attempts to get in but in vain. Cao became more uneasy and consulted with his generals for a scheme.