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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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rshow55 - 12:43pm May 18, 2002 EST (#2276 of 2282)

lchic 5/18/02 10:54am is RIGHT ! http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?128@@.eecbb3b .. is definitely a must read ! ! !

While I'm rereading it, and savoring it, I just though it might be nice to post some links, in passing . . . "Security" is mostly a mechanism for hoarding information - (which is why good dbase practice is unthinkable to spooks) - mostly against the real national interest -- mostly to prevent embarrassment and block reasonable progress.

MD2035 rshow55 5/5/02 3:35pm ... MD2065 rshow55 5/7/02 2:06pm
MD2069 rshow55 5/7/02 9:12pm ... MD2077 rshow55 5/8/02 7:35am
MD2101 rshow55 5/8/02 7:51pm ... MD2104 rshow55 5/8/02 9:16pm
MD2105 manjumicha2001 5/8/02 11:15pm ... MD2116 rshow55 5/9/02 9:34am
MD2116 rshow55 5/9/02 9:34am ... MD2116 rshow55 5/9/02 9:34am
MD2116 rshow55 5/9/02 9:34am ... MD2116 rshow55 5/9/02 9:34am
MD2117 rshow55 5/9/02 12:29pm ... MD2122 rshow55 5/9/02 5:25pm
MD2129 rshow55 5/9/02 6:08pm ... MD2131 rshow55 5/9/02 8:41pm
MD2156 rshow55 5/11/02 11:11am ... MD2162 rshow55 5/11/02 12:58pm

These links have plenty to do with misssile defense as it is - - a set of boondoggles run amok.

I'll be writing more about a beautiful piece, keyed, in a number of spots from beginning to end, to the move Casablanca:

OP-ED COLUMNIST A Beautiful Friendship By BILL KELLER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/18/opinion/18KELL.html

An illustrated script of Casablanca http://www.edict.com.hk/movies/casablanca/casablanca1.htm

Casablanca is common ground, something culturally literate Americans know -- and that people the whole world over understand, at the level of sympathy, and intellectually, too. I used the movie as a point of departure in PSYCHWAR, CASABLANCA, AND TERROR , which tells a key story about the Cold War, interesting to American, Russians, and others. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0 Especially the core story part, from posting 13 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/12 to posting 23 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/22 There is a comment in #26 that I feel some may find interesting, as well...

lchic - 12:58pm May 18, 2002 EST (#2277 of 2282)

!?! http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=abstemious

rshow55 - 01:18pm May 18, 2002 EST (#2278 of 2282)

I'll be meeting with an official of the University of Wisconsin on Monday, with regard to subject matter set out in MD2131 rshow55 5/9/02 8:41pm . . which includes this:

" if I could get an official response on the classification status of information known to me, that would be progress.

"So far as I can see now, it would be progress, to get the official situation clarified , whatever the official position was.

"Whatever the restrictions were, if I knew them, and could communicate them to others on a basis that made those other people feel safe relying on them, I could deal with them.

" I do not personally believe that there is a single thing that I have ever written on this thread, or any guardian thread, that ought to be considered classified or restricted in any way.

"Perhaps someone disagrees.

" If so, I believe, they should say so now.

"It seems to me that if the government wishes to restrict any product of my mind in any way based on national security law - they should talk to me about what the restrictions are -- and in doing so, give some consideration of circumstantial evidence, and evidence that they may have, of what Bill Casey did or did not say to me, and did or did not promise me. Or some consideration to any other records they may have.

(I say again, as I have on this thread a number of times, that in the early 1970's I was told that all records pertaining to me had been destroyed, and Bill Casey was my only contact.) I believe that if government people won't talk to me - on a basis that can be documented - -I should be, as manjumicha2001 suggests, completely unshackled.

"Sometimes, things need to be clear . The current situation is one where there are enough ambiguities that closure can't be forced. I'm looking for situations where, within the law, it is possible to check matters that ought, by rights, to be in the open literature -- and check them to closure.

Some might be interested in looking at the circumstances described in http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?128@@.eecbb3b to get a sense of how difficult just getting clarity can be. In my case, getting clarity would be in my interest, and in the interest of the University of Wisconsin, as well.

And it would permit me to actually pursue some issues concerning missile defense discussed on this thread, often with interaction with gisterme , for a long time.

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