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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.

lchic - 04:31am May 25, 2003 EST (# 11961 of 11966)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

http://www.un.org/rights/

lchic - 04:37am May 25, 2003 EST (# 11962 of 11966)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

UK - truth

"" Peter Mandelson spoke the truth. It was a truth that it suits neither the Prime Minister nor the Chancellor to acknowledge, certainly not in public. That is why the other two sides of New Labour's founding triangle are so furious with him.

He caused so much anger because he was broadly right. He said that Gordon Brown is an 'obsessed' man, 'a politician right down to his fingertips, 24 hours a day, seven days a week'. That is indisputably true. That it is equally true of Mr Mandelson himself does not make it any less true of Mr Brown. After all, it takes one to know one. The obsessiveness with which the Chancellor approaches politics, his juggernaut willpower allied with his attention to detail, is what makes him such a formidable character.

Mr Mandelson also suggested that the Prime Minister is less 'political' than the Chancellor. I take him to mean by this that the Chancellor is the more cunning and accomplished political strategist of the pair. Again, Mr Mandelson touches upon a truth about their relationship. One of Mr Brown's huge strengths is his capacity to think five moves ahead - often, five years ahead.

Tony Blair is a brilliant politician in many ways. In several vital respects, he is a more gifted one than Mr Brown. But one of the Prime Minister's frailties is a weakness for not thinking through how he is going to translate his blue-sky visions into reality. The Chancellor has ruthlessly exploited that vulnerability.

http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,963043,00.html

lchic - 05:13am May 25, 2003 EST (# 11963 of 11966)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

'' So, energy at hardly any cost...

What would be the consequences of

• producing unlimited energy at a fraction of today's costs?
• Could we forget all our current fuel sources?
• Would we all be bootlegging the stuff in our cellars and cheating the Government out of taxes.
• What would be the 'up' and 'down' sides to such a discovery?

Thought provoking questions .. from a (GU Talk science thread)

lchic - 05:50am May 25, 2003 EST (# 11964 of 11966)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

UK nuclear bomb programme

Hundreds of extra scientists are being sought to work on Britain¹s nuclear bomb programme. Their job will be to maintain Britain¹s Trident warheads, to help ensure that new weapons can be designed in the future and to conduct joint research with the US.

But the recruitment drive has raised fears that Britain risks being sucked into fresh US research on low-yield nuclear weapons ­ so-called "mini-nukes" ­ for use as bunker busters on the battlefield.

Britain "is being dragged down the slippery slope towards new nuclear weapons and nuclear testing by the US," says Kathryn Crandall, an analyst with the British American Security Information Council, an independent think tank in Washington DC. ....

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993754

lchic - 07:30am May 25, 2003 EST (# 11965 of 11966)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

C19 author Charles DICKENS visited the USA in 1841 only to find that their interpretation of 'land of the free' meant, for him, NO ROYALTIES on book sales.

In honour of his memorable visit he wrote 'Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit' ... and vented a little of his rage stateside.

Dickens: As I had never, in writing fiction, had any disposition to soften what is ridiculous or wrong at home, so I then hoped that the good-humored people of the United States would not be generally disposed to quarrel with me for carrying the same usage abroad. I am happy to believe that my confidence in that great nation was not misplaced.

When this book was first published, I was given to understand, by some authorities, that the Watertoast Association and eloquence were beyond all bounds of belief. Therefore I record the fact that all that portion of Martin Chuzzlewit`s experiences is a literal paraphrase of some reports of public proceedings in the United States (especially of the proceedings of a certain Brandywine Association), which were printed in the Times Newspaper in June and July, 1843--at about the time when I was engaged in writing those parts of the book; and which remain on the file of the Times Newspaper, of course.

http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Dickens/chuzzlewit/ http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Dickens/

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