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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.

cantabb - 02:21am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17221 of 17228)

fredmoore - 01:39am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17217 of 17220)

Bbbuck,

Bob Hope says he wants to come to the picnic but he says that if you bring Chester, he wants to bring Phyllis. ....... he'd be willing to share them if you can get him an Oscar.

Fine, but don't forget to bring your "muster" ! OK?

lchic - 04:27am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17222 of 17228)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

"" ... Soldier Möckel from my company, who had lived in England for many years, called to the British in English, and soon a lively conversation developed between us."

A couple of soldiers from each side then climbed out of their trenches, shook hands in no man's land, and wished each other a merry Christmas. They agreed not to shoot the following day.

"Afterwards, we placed even more candles than before on our kilometre-long trench, as well as Christmas trees," Zehmisch wrote. "It was the purest illumination - the British expressed their joy through whistles and clapping. Like most people, I spent the whole night awake. It was a wonderful, if somewhat cold, night."

According to Jürgs, the fraternisation involving mostly Catholic Saxon and Bavarian regiments was only possible because many of the German soldiers spoke good English as they had previously been employed in Britain. "They had worked as cab drivers and barbers in places like Brighton, Blackpool and London," he said. "When war broke out in August 1914 they were forced to go home. Some even left families behind in England."

One German soldier had worked in the Savoy; when the war started British soldiers would apparently shout "Waiter!" across their newly dug positions. Another German infantryman described how on Christmas Day, when both sides climbed out of their trenches and over the barbed wire, a British Tommy had set up a makeshift barber's shop in no man's land. The barber was "completely indifferent" to whether his customers were German or British, and charged a couple of cigarettes per haircut, Bavarian Josef Sebald observed. "This was war... but there was no trace of enmity between us," he added.

The informal ceasefire stretched all across the 500-mile western front where more than a million men were encamped, from the Belgian coast as far as the Swiss border. The truce was especially warm along a 30-mile line around the Belgian town of Ypres, Jürgs notes. Not everybody, though, approved. One Austrian soldier billeted near Ypres complained that in wartime such an understanding "should not be allowed". His name was Adolf Hitler. ...

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/history/story/0,6000,1082441,00.html

fredmoore - 04:54am Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17223 of 17228)

Barntabb,

Did I hurt or feelings? You great turkey ... you have to post HARDER if we are going to get to 20,000!

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense