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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 - 11:38am May 7, 2002 EST (#2064 of 2076)

Showalter these guys aren't so uplifted - wonder if faulty NUKE equipment is also off-loaded :

In the case of the second-hand submarines, it appears the government didn't even bother to do much research on its cost-saving purchase. A study prepared for Australian parliamentarians found that the same subs were known to have faulty torpedo tubes and other safety problems. http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,711241,00.html

rshow55 - 02:06pm May 7, 2002 EST (#2065 of 2076)

People don't check things -- and with secrecy, and gatekeeping as it is, often they can't. So things can be MUCH more dangerous than people expect. For example, when military equipment doesn't get checked - and details get forgotten. (Our nuclear arsenal is now old.) The costs and risks of secrecy -- and the unwillingess to check that it spawns, can be huge -- and have been.

Just fininshed a very fine book

Secrecy The American Experience by Daniel Patrick Moynihan , with and introduction by Richard Gid Powers, Yale Press, 1998.

Powers was also quoted in New Details Emerge From the Einstein Files By DENNIS OVERBYE http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/physical/07EINS.html

For a while I've been struggling with the following questions -

" How, given the rules of security laws, and my particular circumstances, am I to live my life? How can I practice any ordinary profession, or talk extensively to anyone - in the ordinary, day-to-day manner people do?

" How can I do these ordinary things - without putting both myself and others at risk?

I've felt boxed, given the awkward sitation I've been been in for years, and complicated (thinking I had no choice, and was doing my duty) by postings on these threads.

That set of questions has involved awkwardnesses on these NYT threads, and I believe for NYT staff, since 1997, and especially since 1999.

And some awkwardnesses for the University of Wisconsin, too. MD2052 rshow55 5/6/02 9:23am

Reading Moynihan's book, I'm more hopeful than I've been. And I learned a great deal about how weak the statuatory base of secrecy is.

In mathematical circles, things like the following are sometimes said

Godel's proof shows that you can't prove anything.

But if you could prove anything . . . you could prove everything.

Of course, life isn't that simple. All the same, I've felt, for a long time, that if I could solve ambiguities about my security situation -- I could solve all the other problems before me in a satisfactory manner.

And that a number of things very much in the national interest could happen.

An interesting fact in Moynihan's book. As of the time it was written, there was only one case where a person was convicted for giving classified information to the press -- a guy gave a picture of an unfinished Russian aircraft carrier to Janes .

Maybe I've been much too afraid. But maybe not.

Still, I notice that somebody may care what I say. When I made an off-the-cuff comment in MD1233 rshow55 4/10/02 1:53pm it drew very prompt responses (the first within 15 minutes) from gisterme.

I've been very afraid to do ordinary things -- and people associated with me have been afraid, as well. Maybe the fear hasn't been necessary? Perhaps I've just been intimidated for no reason?

It would be nice to get some clarification about that. Might be possible. -

lchic - 08:52pm May 7, 2002 EST (#2066 of 2076)

Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of Harrods and Punch magazine, is to sue the Sunday Telegraph after he was named in a story about a uranium smuggling ring.

He described the article, published last Sunday, as "a scandalous, outrageous, fraudulent and blatantly false attack on me".

"My spokesman made it clear to the Sunday Telegraph that I knew nothing of this matter or any of the people involved and that the allegations against me were wholly spurious," Mr Fayed said in a press statement today.

"Yet the newspaper still gave prominence to the story using my picture in front of a stockpile of uranium and suggesting that I did know something of the supposed scandal.

"I cannot understand how any newspaper could believe a story like this without any substance and give it such prominence." http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,711345,00.html ... linked with a shipment of uranium headed for Afghanistan from Russia.

Mr Fayed's spokesman claimed the story was picked up from a French paper, Le Journal du Dimanche, which has published a correction but "will face further legal action this week which could result in substantial damages".

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Where did the Fyad fortune come from, how was it made, were 'arms' ever a feature?

lchic - 08:56pm May 7, 2002 EST (#2067 of 2076)

Interesting how Sharon, of 1982 butchery fame, has skipped out of Washington - fast. Seems those folks in Palestine, for whom he is mentor and protector, still have strong feelings!

lchic - 09:06pm May 7, 2002 EST (#2068 of 2076)

Media-Communications : Browsers :

So a search for "uk news" puts the BBC's news site top and the Guardian's second, both being listed as one of the site's recommended sites. http://www.guardian.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,711370,00.html

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