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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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almarst2002 - 08:13am Aug 6, 2003 EST (# 13251 of 13267)

U.S. Marks Hiroshima Anniversary By Holding Top Secret Summit to Discuss Expanding Nation’s Nuclear Arsenal - http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/05/1455235

jorian319 - 10:30am Aug 6, 2003 EST (# 13252 of 13267)

Will -

But how do you really feel?

Fred -

Well said! This can indeed be fun, and for me that is the beginning and the end of it. I really like your posts because they are observant and entertaining, without pretense to lofty purpose. Same for most of the posters on this thread, if not for most of the posts.

Unfortunately, most of the posts on this thread are generated by the super-serious minority that seems to think that some significant discernible effect will be attained if only they can come up with sufficiently provocative and alarming verbiage. That is, IMHO, a very sad joke.

We should need no grandiose illusion of global efficacy to set our fingers to tapping the ephemeral content that comprises this thread. My credo on this - "if it ain't amusing, it's abusing."

wrcooper - 11:40am Aug 6, 2003 EST (# 13253 of 13267)

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133523@.f28e622/14937

jorian319

But how do you really feel?

I wanted to eliminate in Robert's mind any lingering impression that I was not forthcoming and fully honest. I think I've said my peace. Now, until the discussion returns to missile defense, I think I'm out of here...again.

Robert can relax back into cruise control.

almarst2002 - 12:39pm Aug 6, 2003 EST (# 13254 of 13267)

AFP) - Hiroshima's mayor lashed out at the United States' nuclear weapons policy during ceremonies marking the 58th anniversary of the city's atomic bombing, which caused the deaths of over 230,000 people. Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said the United States worshipped nuclear weapons as "God" and blamed it for jeopardising the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.

"The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the central international agreement guiding the elimination of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse," Akiba said in an address to some 40,000 people. - http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=world&cat=japan

rshow55 - 03:35pm Aug 6, 2003 EST (# 13255 of 13267)
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.

The process of "connecting the dots" - forming judgements - is essentially the same whether the judgements are right or wrong - what counts is what can be checked. What cannot be. That's the human condition.

I was wrong about Cooper's identity for a time. I admitted that. But after meeting with him, and in light of all the circumstances - my wife felt, and I felt, that we did not owe him an apology.

4186 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133523@.f28e622/5281

4187 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133523@.f28e622/5282

I think others in our position might have felt the same, and that recent postings from Cooper can't be expected to change that.

In postings in this (MD) thread gisterme has often taken the position of an officer of state - with a treatening degree of power not far from reach.

13105 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133523@.f28e622/14784

13106 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.Z9exbJU7wf8.2133523@.f28e622/14785

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/455 includes useful summaries, and a key point:

" . . I was encouraged to do things. I was assigned projects. Every single thing I was assigned to do required some essential support from a nation state in two ways.

First of all, they all involved such complex cooperation that they were fragile - they could be stopped with "a few well placed phone calls."

Secondly, they all involved such complex cooperation that occasionally, the idea that the government wanted the work done had to be conveyed.

That's an abnormal circumstance for a person to be in - and I appreciate the chance I've been given to state my case. When I went to the Patent Office Monday, things went very well - and I left more confident than I had been that getting world energy problems solved, and solving global warming, were technically straightforward.

The social problems involved have been a major subject of this board over time - and it seems to me that headway has been made.

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