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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 09:36pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6586 of 6614)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Osprey as an example.

Would even a monkey trust the word of human animals under this much ecological pressure? Congress does !

Look at the box commanding officers put their officers in. How much leverage do they have? Can that be worth money? . . . . You bet it can !

MD978 rshowalter 3/14/01 5:22am ... MD979 rshowalter 3/14/01 5:25am
MD980 rshowalter 3/14/01 5:37am .... MD981 rshowalter 3/14/01 6:15am
MD982 rshowalter 3/14/01 6:18am ... MD983 rshowalter 3/14/01 6:25am
MD984 rshowalter 3/14/01 6:31am ... MD985 rshowalter 3/14/01 8:19am

lunarchick - 09:38pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6587 of 6614)
lunarchick@www.com

RS humans_monkeys have commonality!

lunarchick - 09:42pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6588 of 6614)
lunarchick@www.com

Quick story here regarding the very scarce but real Osprey. A film crew went record the nest .. it was (i think) on a disused rail line in a remote spot. Organising set-up for filming .. a guy stepped backwards ... on the EGG ... (he got scrambled!) ... shows that even when things seem to be going well, the human element can get out of step.

rshowalter - 09:43pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6589 of 6614)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Monkeys and people are similar in a lot of ways. Too many to be an accident.

But people handle abstraction a lot better -- they handle more complex logic sequences.

That means that they can do a lot more ...

BUT THEY ARE MUCH EASIER TO FOOL.

And for that reason, on "Star Wars" - the "military industrial complex" is "making monkeys" of us all.

Worse than monkeys, this time, about mistakes that could kill us all and destroy the world.

lunarchick - 09:47pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6590 of 6614)
lunarchick@www.com

Espionage:

In 1998 a stack of classified documents was filched and later found scattered on the lawn with monkey prints.

lunarchick - 09:50pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6591 of 6614)
lunarchick@www.com

Educated Monkey

rshowalter - 09:53pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6592 of 6614)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Even special, hardworking, trusted people, such as congressman, by trusting too much, can find that people have been making monkeys out of them.

Leading Scientists Push Missile Defense on CSpan. http://www.house.gov/curtweldon/missiledefense.html

If I were Curt Weldon I'd feel very ill used by this administration.

(search Weldon.)

lunarchick - 10:05pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6593 of 6614)
lunarchick@www.com

.. visualising all congress men with monkey heads they'd look smarter!

rshowalter - 10:06pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6594 of 6614)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD4507 rshowalter 6/5/01 12:20am

People are animals, but they are much more, too -- and the same things that can make them better, can make them worse than animals.

Points about this can be connected to four movies. . . . . . . The movies I have in mind are West Side Story , which is a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet ; Dr. Strangelove ; Mary Poppins ; and, in my view perhaps the richest of all movies, Casablanca.

All have animal aspects -- and show ways that people are both more than, and worse than monkeys. So we have to be careful.

Nuclear weapons don't make any sense, and "missile defense" doesn't work. We'll have to think for a change, and rise above animal standards, to get ourselves out of this mess.

lunarchick - 10:09pm Jul 4, 2001 EST (#6595 of 6614)
lunarchick@www.com

Agreed!

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