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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 - 04:53pm Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8163 of 8171)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD8150 rshowalter 8/26/01 8:52am ... MD8151 rshowalter 8/26/01 8:53am

This thread is extensive, and when the text is sampled, it reads as serious stuff. There is a subjective sense, on my part, that the thread has been of interest to leaders and staffs of nation states --- and useful to dialog among them.

I certainly could be wrong about that. And there may be reasons why people may want this channel "deniable."

Even so, there are ways to check that might reinforce (or destroy) my presumption.

It seems to me that it is becoming important to get that checking done.

Because, if I'm right, and people of good will and resources believed that - - we might be able to establish a number of FACTS about missile defense, and related issues, that it is important to check. Because right answers matter here, for the American national interest, and for the interest of all people in the world.

rshowalter - 04:53pm Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8164 of 8171)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Facts are essential to right action. Toward that end, I've made a proposal, that might work.

MD7935 rshowalter 8/20/01 9:08pm ... MD7936 rshowalter 8/20/01 9:08pm

The proposal, for checking of key technical points by professional engineers, with writers of PE exams serving as umpires, would involve some action by people with some power and independence.

MD7940 rshowalter 8/20/01 10:45pm . . . MD7944 rshowalter 8/20/01 11:09pm

In an environment where "deniability" is the convention, and with credential problems that are serious, I'm asking "how do we get some checking done?"

That hinges on the question:

Has this thread been influential or not?

Getting that answered well enough for action, if that is to happen, will require someone with some rank and position to call up some other people with some rank, and, through a series of contacts, many involving status exchanges, get some issues checked.

Maybe there's some hope for that. We're involved in an issue of classic paradigm conflict here, with some additional complications. In my opinion, the stakes could hardly be higher.

rshowalter - 05:02pm Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8165 of 8171)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD7655 rshowalter 7/31/01 3:02pm

If nation states decided they wanted right answers on these issues, the work required for real checking would happen.

lunarchick - 05:28pm Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8166 of 8171)
lunarchick@www.com

How Green is my Canyon?
~ http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2001/08/27/015.html

rshowalter - 07:05pm Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8167 of 8171)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I don't know just exactly where Bush's ranch is, but I lived in Waco for a while, doing some automotive research work, on mixing fluid mechanics for pollution control, using space and some mechanics at TSTI.

Not very far from Crawford, after a heavy rain, I came across some fresh erosion of an old oyser bed -- 75 million years old, in fact --- and got a few bushels of grapea micronata (somewhat like oysters, but prettier) with the shells in such condition that the mother-of-pearl looked better than some of the old shells in shell piles of oyster bars.

Great fossil hunting. You've got evidence of evolution all around that part of Texas.

But it is HOT in the summertime.

Nice to see the MoscowTimes with some friendly, personal interest coverage.

lunarchick - 08:50pm Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8168 of 8171)
lunarchick@www.com

Yep! Fossilisation is mapped as one hell of a problem out there at Crawford!

lunarchick - 09:01pm Aug 26, 2001 EST (#8169 of 8171)
lunarchick@www.com

Thinking in the Socio-Linguistic sphere, fossilisation is the term applied when a family migrates from country A to B in one decade, and place the expectations on their children of behaviour appropriate to A's and the decade of their migration - without regard for the fact that the culture of A continued to evolve after their leaving.

Looking at this in US American terms .. then the far_Right may represent the mindset of decades past. Yet the bodies with those minds live in a contempory environment that they somehow 'miss' seeing.

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