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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 - 04:56pm Apr 29, 2002 EST (#1888 of 1901)

When the stakes are high, when answers really matter, they have to be checked. At the level of language and logic, coherent stories, true or false, sound alike and look alike, until they are checked. Even with checking, usually, the best one can get is that "these results are consistent with the facts" -- and getting that far can be a good deal of work. But unless facts are checked, one story, gramattically correct, at a given level of complexity, sounds like another.

That ought not to be good enough on matters of life and death, and huge expenditure, such as missile defense.

Currently, even in the news media, conventions stand against checking. Often it is "comfortable." But it permits fictions. And often enough, these fictions are lethal.

Yesterday, I wrote in MD1839 rshow55 4/28/02 5:48pm

". . . . For a while, I've been concerned about getting some of my own situation established -
MD1235 rshow55 4/10/02 2:26pm ... MD1236 rshow55 4/10/02 2:38pm
MD1237 rshow55 4/10/02 6:37pm ... ...

"I've been asking "how to get some things things to closure?" Moore could help, if he could be interested. I'll be trying to contact him.

"If I can get some things about my background checked, well enough to permit me to function - a lot seems possible, and cooperative players seem to be around.

. . . .

Well, it is hard to get things checked. Here is an approach to checking, on key questions, that doesn't depend on my backgound at all, and doesn't depend on "trust" at all.

MD1238 rshow55 4/10/02 6:40pm

It includes key challenges, key circumstances, and key questions.

To answer those questions - which could be done in the open literature -- and to do it to closure -- would be to do something new, and to establish patterns that could be useful for peace, and for other things, as well.

MD1239 rshow55 4/10/02 6:44pm

Nation states are now being asked to "trust" . Distrust is safer - and we should arrange ourselves to accomodate it, when things actually matter. People, and nations, should check what actually matters.

lchic - 09:41pm Apr 29, 2002 EST (#1889 of 1901)

Shield of David - oh lord we pray - shield us from the glistening bulldust above !

almarst2020 - 10:34pm Apr 29, 2002 EST (#1890 of 1901)

shield_of_david 4/29/02 6:52pm ... eraserhead2 4/29/02 4:13pm

A split "personality"?;)

lchic - 04:03am Apr 30, 2002 EST (#1891 of 1901)

re-incarnate - amen!

lchic - 08:50am Apr 30, 2002 EST (#1892 of 1901)

Bio-terror cantabb "Science in the News" 4/30/02 5:03am

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MAYdayPEACE : The world won't listen

May Day protesters are demanding an end to exploitation and military aggression http://www.guardian.co.uk/mayday/story/0,7369,707704,00.html

lchic - 09:39am Apr 30, 2002 EST (#1893 of 1901)

Electoral - ^{AmericaLESSdemocratic - redistribution
Congressional redistricting
How to rig an election http://www.economist.co.uk/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1099030}

Weirdly shaped districts like these are signs that a crime has been committed.

lchic - 09:46am Apr 30, 2002 EST (#1894 of 1901)

Jews living on the Tunisian island of Djerba http://www.economist.co.uk/world/africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1103550

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