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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 - 03:43pm Jun 14, 2003 EST (# 12529 of 12537)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

""Fleming was the son of a stockbroker who helped raise the capital for the Atcheson, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad. After Valentine Fleming was killed in World War I, his sons and their mother flitted through London society. Ian learned both the spoken language and body language of the high life, and these would forever color his perspective, attitude, and actions.

After brief periods as a stockbroker and reporter, Fleming was drafted into the secret service. MI5 offered him the chance to use his social graces, his intimate knowledge of liquor and women, and his fascination with cars and all things mechanical. As a spy, he made a name for himself as a man who could get things done-dangerous things. In time, he became a member of the group who created the prototype organization for the CIA. He even met with John F. Kennedy to discuss plans to embarrass Castro and generate his fall from power. Ian Fleming : The Man Behind James Bond By Andrew Lycett Turner, / ISBN 1570363439 http://www.bookpage.com/9606bp/nonfiction/ianfleming.html

fredmoore - 04:19pm Jun 14, 2003 EST (# 12530 of 12537)

What on Earth to make of this

James Bond Indeed

while emergent systems are prick'd and bleed

and Lchic remembers and then forgets:

There's always tiiiime .... for ONE last K.I.S.S.

lchic - 04:39pm Jun 14, 2003 EST (# 12531 of 12537)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Fleming 'became a member of the group who created the prototype organization for the CIA'

Compare and contrast, then and now, prototype-realtype .... sounds like an assignment for Bond.

lchic - 05:53pm Jun 14, 2003 EST (# 12532 of 12537)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Uk report - climate change - planning [Risk Uncertainty]

http://www.ukcip.org.uk/risk_uncert/risk_uncert.html

cost of climate change versus cost of climate stabalisation

rshow55 - 08:28pm Jun 14, 2003 EST (# 12533 of 12537)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Fredmoore's http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.rL3rbgbgfnm.603623@.f28e622/14185 is great:

"There's always tiiiime .... for ONE last K.I.S.S. "

Point taken.

K.I.S.S. stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid" or, more recently and positively "Keep It Smart and Simple."

12500 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.rL3rbgbgfnm.603623@.f28e622/14154

"There's a problem with long and complex. And another problem with short. . . . . The long and the short of it, I think, is that you need both long and short.

From the long - the short condenses. ( And, with enough care, can condense reliably to useful answers, fit to purpose. )

Before a responsible person or group condenses a discourse to the short answers that a leader can use - that many people can remember - those answers better be right. Or right enough. That's often forgotten.

Here are some "KISSes"

" Be sure you're right. Then go ahead. - - - - has to happen at different levels - and in cycles - till it converges in the ways that matter.

It isn't so hard to find out the ways that matter - and get to convergence - if people check their work in the ways that make sense and keep at it ( for important problems, keep at it even after it gets "boring." )

Map making shows examples of the main problems that matter in description. The map has to fit what it is supposed to. That takes matching - and often different points of view. But there are right and wrong answers - and by matching you can tell which is which.

" Optimal solutions to technically defined problems, in a clear context EXIST. They are worth finding and funding.

They can be found, and funded.

Once the physical solution is identifying - it is much clearer what that social arrangements needed to implement the solution are. It is very hard to go the other way around.

I'll try to think of KISS more often.

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