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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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bluestar23 - 06:52pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15990 of 16032)

Cantabb:

But aren't the numbers way up, the best for nearly twenty years, eh..?

bluestar23 - 06:53pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15991 of 16032)

"(at least till the Election time) ?"

Bets President Bush wins forty-five States...

bluestar23 - 07:00pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15992 of 16032)

Cantabb:

"First, let's spend $87 B !"

Cantabb, it is a committment of Honour to the Iraqi people, and must be carried through to prove a man keeps his word....

cantabb - 07:44pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15993 of 16032)

bluestar23 -

But aren't the numbers way up, the best for nearly twenty years, eh..?

Growth rate (yes); Joblessness (yes, too)

Bets President Bush wins forty-five States...

Am not so sure ! NOT if the Dems push someone forward and early (unbloodied in the primaries).

Cantabb, it is a committment of Honour to the Iraqi people, and must be carried through to prove a man keeps his word....

I know we feel morally responsible for their restoration. I know that it'll pass the Congress, one way or the other. But imagine we could have shared this burden lot better with others (through UN). ALL this, still under a cloud of the real reason we felt we had to go in, all by ourselves (with UK).

lchic - 08:54pm Oct 30, 2003 EST (# 15994 of 16032)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Bluey knows not a Dickens about expenditure! .... Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness.

http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.1/bookid.51/sec.12/

""

'My dear young friend,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I am older than you; a man of some experience in life, and - and of some experience, in short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow but advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that - in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am the' - here Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself and frowned - 'the miserable wretch you behold.'

'My dear Micawber!' urged his wife.

'I say,' returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling again, 'the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!'

'My poor papa's maxim,' Mrs. Micawber observed.

'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'your papa was very well in his way, and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall - in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print, without spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense.' Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: 'Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the contrary, my love.' After which, he was grave for a minute or so.

'My other piece of advice, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and - and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!'

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the College Hornpipe.

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back.

'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'God bless you! I never can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.'

'Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'farewell! Every happiness and prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel that I had not occupied another man's place in existence altogether in vain. In case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident), I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your prospects.'

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