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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 07:00am Feb 5, 2002 EST (#11260 of 11295)

mazza9 2/3/02 2:11pm reads as follows:

"You call Gisterme a liar.

""intentionally deceptive" was your choice of words.

"You should not make such outrageous statements without proof. It's time for you to put up or ...."

LouMazza

Well, gisterme seems to be working pretty effectively to help me make that case. Either that, or he and the people he gets information from are too incompetent to be trusted spending public funds.

Could it be that we're moving toward closure?

rshow55 - 08:28am Feb 5, 2002 EST (#11261 of 11295)

Right answers matter, and I'm taking some time to try to act in the public interest. -- If people in power had the courage to look straight at the right answers, on questions of fact, there would be many opportunities for good.

Issues of trust and believing "good people" in the sense of not checking their facts, have been the subject of this board pretty often -- often central to the arguments of gisterme and Mazza .

MD11206 rshow55 2/3/02 1:22pm quotes Enron Panel Finds Inflated Profits and Few Controls by KURT EICHENWALD http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/03/business/03ENRO.html and the language on that fine article (part of a fine series!) is worth looking at again. Connections between the "culture of deception" at Enron , and deceptions in the missile defense establishment are too close for comfort.

The issue of stability , and the dangers of instability, have concerned me at many levels. Wrong answers, incorrect assumptions, and deceptions lead very often to instability.

The things people have to do are unstable in a simple sense. There are lots of ways for them to go wrong. For things to go right, many actions have to work together, and in sequences, often complicated ones. For that, information applied to cases has to fit those cases.

People are clear that this applies to the jobs an auto mechanic has to do. Mistakes are easy, and possible mistakes very many. Success is hard. This applies to the conduct and maintenance of military function, or alliances, or businesses, as well.

gisterme and Mazza work to deflect attention from right answers on questions of plain fact, and act as if "good people" can get around key facts. That isn't responsible behavior. There should be an obligation to get right answers, on matters of fact. MD11207 rshow55 2/3/02 1:29pm

rshow55 - 10:37am Feb 5, 2002 EST (#11262 of 11295)

Mazza , gisterme , would you like to ask "what intentional deceptions?"

Would you like to comment on "intentional deceptions" of my own, for balance?

mazza9 - 11:24am Feb 5, 2002 EST (#11263 of 11295)
Louis Mazza

RShow55:

Sure. Gisterme and I keep bringing up Enron in this missile defense forum because ...OOPS...You're the one who can't seem to stay on point and make meaningful similes and analogies.

Your foil was foiled and now you don't know what to say. In the movie GoldFinger, James Bond is shackled to a table and a laser beam is slicing throught some gold foil and is moving towards his...we'll you've probably seen the movie. The COIL laser on the ABL will do that to a boost phase missile.

lchic: there is a health care regimen for your stuttering

LouMazza

lchic - 03:04pm Feb 5, 2002 EST (#11264 of 11295)

Leach Therapy ... may be what you had in mind?

From Middle English leche, leachate, from Old English *lece, muddy stream see

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