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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 - 05:01pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17344 of 17358)

rshow/lchic:

It's 8 AM (11/12/03) in OZland, and 4 PM in Madison, WI: Do you know where your SPAMS and threats are !

bluestar23 - 05:22pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17345 of 17358)

"entertainingly by Phillip Adams -- For Men, War is Swell http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5673211%5E12272,00.html"

this link of rshow55's doesn't work.....

bluestar23 - 06:07pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17346 of 17358)

rshow55 seems mentally incapable of answering even the simplest of direct questions..Mr. Showalter, when someone asks if it's raining outside, you don't say....

"But there are a few comments I'd like to make about it. I'd like to make them carefully. The things I want to say are simple - but it seems to me that they are technically important. Don't want to screw those statements up."

You say, "Yes, it is raining" or, "No, it's not raining."

mazza9 - 06:24pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17347 of 17358)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

Kate:

What makes you think that Robert, LChic and the other malefactors won't hijack another NYTimes forum and continue to post off topic and waste bandwidth?

jorian319 - 06:30pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17348 of 17358)

The tragedy is that he could embody far more elegance (and eloquence). The "is it raining" quetsion is a good example.

Is it raining????

Failing the ability to speak directly to the request of the person asking the question, Robert could point out that yes, it is raining, but that the question of where it is raining may or may not preclude either a positive or a negative response to the question, or even both, depending on temporal flux.

BUT NOOOOoooo... First Robert has to lay the groundwork by diseminating foundational information like what he had for breakfast, making sure you know that he "needs assurance", praising the piece of asset, etc. Then, and only then can he take the bold step of failing to answer the question.

****sheesh!****

bluestar23 - 07:05pm Nov 11, 2003 EST (# 17349 of 17358)

Thanks, Jorian, your helpful explications are always amusing...do you and the others regularly post elsewhere, such as "Science in the News" Forum..?

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