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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.

gisterme - 01:42am Sep 5, 2003 EST (# 13520 of 13525)

Will -

"...Just do it, gisterme ! You're taking no risk. I would reveal the name of the state where you live and the city, if it's a big one. I would tell him your occupation and give him general information about your personal history. I would answer all his questions about your participation in the NYT forums..."

You should realize that when dealing with paranoid delusional people no amount of convincing, even hard provable evidence would be likely convince them of what they don't want to believe. Such folks tend to create conspiracies in their own minds to explain the evidence away.

If Robert is such a person, please remember that he only thought you were George Johnson. Thinking that even he wouldn't expect that George Johnson would have "transcendental" powers to create any appearance desired.

Robert thinks I'm the freakin' President or somebody close to him. That's a whole different ball game. No doubt he could easily imagine that the President has the power to send a staffer (one of the ones Robert imagines follows this thread) to impersonate gisterme in order to deceive him. So if Robert is a paranoid delusional person, as I suspect might be the case based on his posts, even if I published everything about myself right down to my weight, blood type and fingerprints, and handed that information to him personally, it would be meaningless to him. He'd think it was just a lie.

Just look at some of the crazy stuff he's said recently:

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?16@13.DF3WbOv4DPv.7358437@.f28e622/15202

"...A big step for the whole world would be to find out - and publicise - who Gisterme is..."

Oh really???? :-)

and

"...Whoever gisterme is - his connections would be interesting indeed - and would clarify a lot..."

I've told Robert repeatedly that I have no government connections. That should clarify a lot for him because it's the truth.

"...From where we are - the things I hoped for at the beginning of the year might yet be accomplished if the leaders of nation states found a way to clarify who gisterme is..."

Why would the leaders of the nation states care who gisterme is or what Robert Showalter hoped to accomplish at the beginning of the year? It seems highly unlikely to me that "the leaders of the world" would even have a clue what someone who mentioned gisterme or Robert Showalter was talking about.

"...GWB should be asked - in ways where he cannot effectively lie - and has to answer..."

I, for one, would be absolutely astonished if President Bush would have a clue what anyone who asked him such a question was talking about. He'd probably say "Huh?" and Robert would likely say "Ah hah! I knew it was a conspiracy! There's no way that the President can't know who gisterme is!"

That whole last (italic) quote above from Robert's post is silly anyway. As an example, Will, just consider how you or I might go about asking Robert a question in "ways where he cannot effectively lie and - and has to answer". Wonder Woman's magic lariat comes to mind. :-) Sans that, there's always torture or sodium penathol (that last is probably not spelled right). Of course, on this board, Robert has previously advocated torture as a sometimes necessary way to get to the truth.

I hope he's not advocating doing something like that to the President of the United States. If he is, he belongs in a loony bin or worse.

To me, the rantings listed above are downright frightening.

Will, I'll respectfully ask you to please not beg me to reveal my identity to a person who seems so frighteningly unstable to me. I just won't do it. If Robert is delusional and paranoid, it wouldn't make any difference anyway for the reasons stated above, except that in case of an eventual onset of reality, it might give him a tangible target to blame all his perceived problems on

gisterme - 01:44am Sep 5, 2003 EST (# 13521 of 13525)

continued:

...it might give him a tingible target to blame all his perceived problems on. I'll say "no thanks" to being that. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

fredmoore - 02:10am Sep 5, 2003 EST (# 13522 of 13525)

"Mien Punkt"

wrcooper - 09:11am Sep 5, 2003 EST (# 13523 of 13525)

gisterme

'Nuff said. I respect your feelings entirely.

almarst2003 - 11:14am Sep 5, 2003 EST (# 13524 of 13525)

To get a sense of how swift has been the conversion of the UN into after-sales service provider for the world's prime power, just go back to 1996, when the United States finally decided that Annan's predecessor as UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, had to go. - http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08302003.html

Open subscription for the 21st Century bestseller: "The Story of Annan... B'annan... UN'nan and the "New International LOW of or-Der"

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