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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.

lchic - 08:27am May 6, 2002 EST (#2048 of 2062)

"Nice" is an amazingly rare quality among writers Couthard

I read down to the end .... "Nice" didn't show in the last paragraph!

Aren't writer's NICE?
Or is it Couthard's perception that writers aren't nice?
What does she find 'threatening' about other writers ... perhaps they aren't as right-wing as she ... making them not so "Nice".... or perhaps they're questioning of her intentions ....

lchic - 08:37am May 6, 2002 EST (#2049 of 2062)

There's a trend for Journalism Departments (academia) to be the gateways through which new knowledge - read new truths, filter into the outer world.

If the gatekeepers have viewpoints that are extreme, redundant, conservative, retrograde ... then would this block certain types of truths or new knowledge moving through.

Academics are the HUMAN CAPITAL of Nation with depth and specific knowledge and/or viewpoints.

The taxpayers ultimately fund research via tax, or via consumer-goods hidden taxes.

If the gatekeepers prohibit knowledge/truth filtering into the world - then the general public who fund the Institutions and their people, aren't reaping the rewards of their investments.

Academic Freedom is enshrined in law in New Zealand ... the movers and shakers of the world may be registered here / yet work elsewhere .. to ensure they have academic freedom! ^{http://www.google.com/search?q=New+Zealand+Academic+Freedom+law&btnG=Google+Search&num=20&hl=en&newwindow=1}

lchic - 09:16am May 6, 2002 EST (#2050 of 2062)

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.eecacd2/0

"Meanwhile, despite opposition by the administration, House and Senate appropriators are leaning toward giving Israel an additional infusion of $200 million in military aid to offset the costs of its anti-terror campaign"

<http://www.msnbc.com/news/743627.asp?0si=->

rshow55 - 09:21am May 6, 2002 EST (#2051 of 2062)

That being the case, the US can't be the only arbiter and negotiation channel for finding a workable peace in the middle east. There's too much bias, both real and apparent.

I'm glad that is being recognized to some extent by the administration.

rshow55 - 09:23am May 6, 2002 EST (#2052 of 2062)

lchic 5/6/02 8:37am . .

"If the gatekeepers prohibit knowledge/truth filtering into the world - then the general public who fund the Institutions and their people, aren't reaping the rewards of their investments. "

That's VERY true, and the gatekeeping patterns can make certain kinds of progress almost impossible -- especially in awkward circumstances. Sometimes the situation is complex, and responses need to be complex. But a sense of honor matters a great deal -- and it is very easy, in large organizations full of gatekeepers, and distributed veto power - - to shut down progress for long times. I've been involved in such a circumstance. http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/klinerec -- and so to some extent has the NYT (a gatekeeper, too) and the University of Wisconsin. One of the people who has been involved is Sharon Dunwoody, Dean and Professor, who had the last words in It's Alive! It's Alive! By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/weekinreview/05STOL.html

"There is an unacknowledged current running through the debate over cloning: a fear of science, and a corresponding desire to rein it in."

Dunwoody has some reasons to be cautious about her gatekeeping (where she is influential indeed) - for reasons the end of Stolberg's article makes clear.

"But people still worry about genetically modified foods, and nuclear power has never recovered from the Three Mile Island disaster. So Sharon Dunwoody, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin who studies the public understanding of science, said scientists ought not deceive themselves by thinking public knowledge equals public acceptance.

"I see scientists all the time making this mistake," she said, "assuming that the more you know about us, the more you are going to love us."

So gatekeepers have some reason to be wary. That's particularly true for institutions in the United States, as society with A Penchant for Secrecy http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/weekinreview/05GREE.html . For many reasons, we need some solutions better than we have, and some exception handling better than we have, when we deal with levels of complexity or uncertainty that now defeat us. Defeat us in ways that now impoverish us economically, culturally, and morally.

lchic - 02:43pm May 6, 2002 EST (#2053 of 2062)

Spooked - bang bang

Israeli soldiers who killed a Palestinian mother and two young children, meanwhile, were "spooked" by the sound of a tank tread coming loose, the Israeli military said. The army initially said that a mine blew up near the tank, but said today no traces of an explosion were found. It said it regretted the deaths.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,710839,00.html

lchic - 03:37pm May 6, 2002 EST (#2054 of 2062)

EU Information - Informing People
^{http://www.warsawvoice.pl/v705/News01.html
http://www.warsawvoice.pl/v705/News02.html}

(8 following messages)

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