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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?

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rshow55 - 01:03pm Apr 5, 2002 EST (#1113 of 1127)

I responded to MD1073 mazza9 4/4/02 10:17am

with a reference to extensive missile defense discussions in MD1076 rshow55 4/4/02 12:20pm

MD1077 rshow55 4/4/02 12:21pm responded to a question Mazza asked, and included this.

Some of my background, which you also know, was on this thread before March 2, and is now set out on a Guardian thread .. Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror

217-219 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/228

273-277 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7a163/289

278-279 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/294

Yesterday, I summarized some of the work on this thread in http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/297

It is very important that we find a way to "connect the dots" so that facts can be focused, and established. If we can find a way to do that, this is a very hopeful time. But as of now, patterns are such that nothing is taken to closure - and the world is far uglier in consequence. Facts, when they matter enough, need to be checked.

Paul Krugman's The Smoke Machine http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/opinion/29KRUG.html

and

Connect the Dots http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/02/opinion/02KRUG.html

give good reason for the whole world to worry about a "vast right-wing conspiracy" -- a conspracy not only dishonest, but none too competent.

today, Krugman asks in At Long Last? http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/05/opinion/05KRUG.html "where is decency?"

Journalistic and political technique needs to be refined, so that decency can be enforced -- which means that facts have to be checked to closure, and patterns as well, when they are important enough.

lchic - 01:05pm Apr 5, 2002 EST (#1114 of 1127)

... now which 'bit' of the defense area does Carlyle not engage in ?

Ans: Defense Technology (Venture Capital)
'more MISS than HIT' ?
http://www.redherring.com/vc/2002/0111/947.html

rshow55 - 01:06pm Apr 5, 2002 EST (#1115 of 1127)

Facts like the ones about Carlyle cannot be allowed to just "shed off" like "water on a duck's back" without effect.

To much is at stake for that.

lchic - 01:17pm Apr 5, 2002 EST (#1116 of 1127)

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/opinion/29KRUG.html

.... death by association !

Associative psychology - links

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Munster/Industrial/chap21.htm

Levin (1987). Associative effects of information framing. Bulletin of the Psychnomic Society, 25, 85-86.

Levin, Chapman & Johnson (1988). Confidence in judgments based on incomplete information: An investigation using both hypothetical and real gambles. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1, 29-41.

Levin, I. P. & Gaeth, G. J. (1988). How consumers are affected by the framing of attribute information before and after consuming the product. Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 374-378.

~~~~

Truth is seldom evident in history except when it coincides with what is desired by each historian. "Official truth" should always be suspect. The word "Pravda" meant truth. No doubt today it has another meaning in the USSR. Propaganda used to mean "to enlighten the people to the truth." Since Hitler's time and that of his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, it has come to mean something sinister — although it may well have always meant something sinister to the the American Indian. How many students are aware that Columbus wrote in his diary upon his "discovery" of America:

They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton ... They willingly traded everything they owned ... They were well built with good bodies and handsome features ... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made out of cane ... They would make fine servants ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want (Zinn, 1980, p.1). From 1492 to 1508, over three million people in the Americas had perished from war, slavery, and working the mines. (Zinn 1980). http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume5/j5_2_5.htm

lchic - 01:19pm Apr 5, 2002 EST (#1117 of 1127)

The comments/feel re Carlyle (internationally) are that the US suppresses FREE SPEECH - 1st Amendment - on such matters!

lchic - 01:23pm Apr 5, 2002 EST (#1118 of 1127)

As I pointed out above 1-3 ... the USA isn't a democracy - if it were it would be run by the people via Congress - it ain't.

The US tripartite system of government seems to be :

1. The military machine

2. The President

3. Corruption with Agency

and a long way behind ... the people/Congress

lchic - 01:25pm Apr 5, 2002 EST (#1119 of 1127)

One and Two above are OUT of CONTROL and run by the non-elected / improperly-elected.

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