We have been working hard to think about what our combined needs are going to be in the way of intelligence capabilities not today but 15 to 20 years in the future.

When a decision is made to go to war based on intelligence it is a fateful decision. It has ramifications and impacts way beyond the current months and years.

Within thirty years we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence.

I have had national security background 10 years on the Intelligence Committee the last two years as chair.

Emotional intelligence begins to develop in the earliest years. All the small exchanges children have with their parents teachers and with each other carry emotional messages.

We will have to continue to improve our human intelligence system-something that was unfortunately lacking in the years which led up to September 11. This is going to be a continuing process of change.

Since we launched the original 'Pop Idol' in England I've remained close with Simon Fuller. Working as executive producer on 'American idol' for its first seven years not only was an inspirational journey into the heart of American pop culture it opened my eyes to the untapped potential of the incredibly dynamic young people in this world.

Imagination! Imagination! I put it first years ago when I was asked what qualities I thought necessary for success on the stage.

Now I'm a failed political consultant. But sometimes fiction has a way of capturing people's imagination in a way that non-fiction doesn't. Conservatives typically haven't written much fiction - specifically political thrillers - over the years to educate inspire and mobilize people on issues of great import but we ought to.

Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories the streets the cathedrals of the imagination.