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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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almarst2003 - 07:26pm Aug 28, 2003 EST (# 13444 of 13450)

Dying and Lying - http://www.counterpunch.org/

rshow55 - 07:52pm Aug 28, 2003 EST (# 13445 of 13450)
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.

Almarst is indeed a big part of the answer. His postings surely seem important and impressive to me.

Today I collected Almarst's posts, and looked at a few hundred of them. I'll be making the collected lists and links available so that others can take a more focused look at Almarst's work - as analogous lists and links make possible a more focused look at Gisterme . Both sets of postings, it seems to me - would be worth staffed attention.

Between March 2001 and March 1, 2002, Almarst posted ( impressively ) about 690 times. I've sampled a good many of them today - and think they are worthy of a great deal of respect.

Since March 1, 2002, Almarst has posted about 1,750 times - with many perceptive comments and many, many links that bear reading. I've read a few hundred of his postings today, and some of his links, as a sample.

My eyes are tired from the reading - and from thinking about what those posts and links contain. And my mind is troubled, moved and impressed.

I have a great deal of respect for Almarst , the concerns he expresses, and the work he's done here. If more people understood his thoughts and concerns (incomplete as I sometimes think they are) we'd live in a safer, better world.

The idea of evidence has meaning in a context involving a pattern of ideas, assumptions, and context.

Without some decent specification of those patterns of ideas, assumptions, and context "what is your evidence" is a meaningless question.

I find almarst's posts, and gisterme's - evidence that dialog likely to effect the decision making of leaders is happening on this thread.

But I'm not sure I can match Almarst's eloquence just above

. . . " xx . . . "

- and my eyes are tired from reading, just now.

9003-9007 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.feMNbe3gCQH.0@.f28e622/10529 offer some background on this thread - and

13424 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.feMNbe3gCQH.0@.f28e622/15115 includes this:

Watergate was a big deal because the press took some responsibility, and exercised some real power. http://www.mrshowalter.net/Assessing%20Watergate%2030%20Years%20Later.htm

The Whitewater scandal occurred, much to Clinton's displeasure, because some reporters looked into things - and printed them.

For various reasons such as those, I've guessed that people in the White House, even high ones, might take an interest in this thread. If they haven't - I'm very flattered at the effort NYT staff seems to have gone to to simulate the interest.

The press has some zeuss-like powers - and have a good deal of influence, direct and indirect, about how people think about things. That's not complete power - it isn't enough to leash thunder bolts - but it does effect action. An intellectual makes suggestions - and when they are acted on - those suggestions can matter.

We're in a time of transition - and some of the ideas gisterme has been confident of have failed in practice. Serious negotiations and adjustments are going on. I believe that they'd go on more safely - and end up better - if some of the ideas on this thread were given weight.

Including the ideas the Almarst expresses, and brings to our attention.

I'll be writing more tomorrow.

almarst2003 - 09:50pm Aug 28, 2003 EST (# 13446 of 13450)

Report: Halliburton's Iraq Deals Larger Than Thought -

http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/ON/index.cfm?story=ON-20030828-000871-0819

almarst2003 - 09:58pm Aug 28, 2003 EST (# 13447 of 13450)

Children are dying of highly curable ailments, like diarrhea, in Baghdad hospitals because of Iraq's corrupt, bureaucracy-plagued, crime-ridden healthcare system -- and the failure of U.S. administrators to come up with a workable alternative more than four months after the fall of Saddam. Certainly, babies died under Saddam's rule, though the dictator blamed U.S. sanctions for medical supply shortages, and treated scenes of dead children as photo opportunities to try to shame Americans. In post-Saddam Iraq, though, the delivery system, at least, is far worse. And just as the U.S. is being blamed for failing to plan adequately for postwar chaos on other fronts -- from restoring power to keeping order -- a growing chorus is outraged about the medical crisis in Baghdad.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/08/28/babies/index_np.html

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