New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 05:07am Jul 4, 2003 EST (# 12838 of 12843)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

I'm interested in 'grants', of wishes, from fairy godmothers only .... Gisterme, have you directed any Pantomimes lately -- do you fit the bill?

rshow55 - 05:13am Jul 4, 2003 EST (# 12839 of 12843)
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.

gisterme 12843 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.c0fUbTdzmVy.324894@.f28e622/14505

"That seems to run contrary to the way the real world works, Robert. I can hardly think of a single thing that starts big and then gets small or starts long and then gets short.

"Ideas start small and then grow.

Most ideas in science may "start small" - but the word count and paper count usually gets very high - and then a set of summary facts condenses. When people are trying to figure out what to do - even when the answer in the end is simple - there is a lot of talk, and then a condensation. That's true for basic logical reasons. Gisterme is dead wrong. As he often is.

Lchic asks tough questions: USA unemployment rose in June ||| Most States can't live within their budgets ||| so what-how-when will the world economy be 'boosted'?

We have to work to make the basics of our economies work better. The whole world is under economic pressure - and it is plain that no nation state now has all the answers it needs. Bush's essentially religious response that we should "just trust the market" is too simple. We have to do better. And that will take work and analysis.

Bush's Record on Jobs: Risking Unhappy Comparisons By DAVID LEONHARDT http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/03/business/03JOBS.html

For George W. Bush, the race has begun to escape comparisons to Herbert Hoover.

With more than two million jobs having disappeared since Mr. Bush took office in January 2001, he finds himself in danger of becoming the first president since Hoover to oversee a decline in the country's employment.

lchic - 07:21am Jul 4, 2003 EST (# 12840 of 12843)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

It's interesting how the reaction to unemployment is sometimes to blame the unemployed .... rather than look at the big picture of an economy with it's need for squares on which the human pawns can dance.

lchic - 07:42am Jul 4, 2003 EST (# 12841 of 12843)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

"If she is going to be president," said Mr Hammond, "I'm here to tell her no more wars."

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,991131,00.html

(2 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense