Missile Defense

Reads OK to me. The number and date on the post says it all. Cantread probably missed that! I've added a few mods but the idea is pretty clear. What do others think? Is Cantabb an obsessive compulsive freak or does he do some service here? You all know my answer.

Cantabb,

FIRST, know what "obsession" really means to help you find an appropriate behaviour for this forum.

AS for your useless comments: Blowharder! ... you may bust something and give the forum a break from your childish barnyard behaviour for a while.

PS1. I suppose you use the Foghorn Leghorn barnyard dictionary. I've no idea what the definition of obsession is in that. Probably something to do with Mme Defarge NOT knitting when she in fact does, I suspect.

rshow55 - 06:12am Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14618 of 14620)
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.

Such a lot of posting since yesterday morning 14507-9 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.k710bY0lLIl.1124158@.f28e622/16217

14509 includes this:

A lot has gone on since this was filed and accepted - and much of it is to the credit of the Times. http://www.mrshowalter.net/CommendationTo_Kolata_EichwaldandNYT.htm

Not all. And the meaning of things change with changes in context that can come with time. http://www.mrshowalter.net/CommendationTo_Kolata_EichwaldandNYT.htm links to a great deal. Can all of that great deal - or enough to matter - be kept secret if it comes to matter to an organized group outside the TIMES?

An article this Sunday casts an interesting light on issues connected to this.

Leaks and the Courts: There's Law, but Little Order By ADAM LIPTAK http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/weekinreview/05LIPT.html

. . . . "Reporters ordered to reveal their sources almost never do, on the theory that they and their colleagues would have little chance of persuading other sources to trust them if they did. They generally prefer to be held in contempt of court. Reporters have spent time in jail and publishers have paid substantial fines as a consequence.

What if the issue is an unwillingness of reporters and corporate officers to reveal who they are? And a willingness of reporters to use the implicit presumption of their connections - without taking responsibility for them - to obscure and defame?

The exercise of irresponsible power that I've been subjected to is significant - of long standing - and much that has happened is not to the credit of the Times. Though some is.

Those issues are involved here - and contexts are serious. The NYT isn't automatically in the right about this. The issues connected to the Jayson Blair case are small by comparison.

- - -

It is a long time since Watergate

Assessing Watergate 30 Years Later By RICHARD REEVES

"President Richard Nixon would have loved the coverage of the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in last week. The scandal that drove him from office has been pretty much reduced to a little guessing game about who did or didn't whisper in the ear of a young Washing- ton Post reporter that there were some bad things going on in the White House. Who was Deep Throat? Who cares? The press cares, that's who. http://www.mrshowalter.net/Assessing%20Watergate%2030%20Years%20Later.htm

In the intervening time - things have gotten more complicated - and uncorrected problems of irresponsible power have gotten more serious.

With new tools for "connecting the dots" - a lot more can be sorted out than was possible before.

Irresponsible power - including irresponsible power of the press - is vulnerable in new ways.

(2 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense