Americans are in danger of losing their competitive edge in the world economic system. This idea seems to have widespread, bipartisan support, which is rarely heard of in Washington these days. Despite the recent focus on this burgeoning issue, there seems to be little agreement about the solution. Lately, one of the most frequent responses is to look to U.S. K-12 school systems as a target of reform, but even ways of doing that are controversial.

The outcome of last week's election is now clear with the Democrats taking over the legislative branch. The dust, however, is far from settled. Democrats have the opportunity to make a profound and lasting impact on technology policy. What shape this will take is unclear, because much of it will be dictated by the new House and Senate Chairpersons who have not organized or set any agendas yet.

One of the common explanations for the falling enrollment in CS, among women in particular, is "programming." The frequently repeated story is that students think that computer science is only about programming, and they don't like programming, so they don't enroll in computer science. I've had a couple of experiences over the last few months that demonstrated to me just how much students dislike programming, at a deeper level than I had expected.

When nearly 1300 geek girls invaded San Diego on October 4, their mission was not hostile. In fact, a more ebullient invading force would be hard to imagine.