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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 - 10:44pm Jul 29, 2002 EST (#3343 of 3355)

Americans can feel and know pain - when it happens to certain Americans in 'homeland' zones: 9/11, trapped in mine shaft, and reading 'the bottom line figure' (Shares/Pensions/Savings).

Elsewhere pain - has 'Not the Nine O'clock News'* status.

This was
a *1979 clasic BBC comedy
^{http://britcom.hispeed.com/notnews/sounds.html}

almarst2002 - 11:35pm Jul 29, 2002 EST (#3344 of 3355)

George W. Bush is shattering records for the worst first 18 months in office for a U.S. president as measured by the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500. In his first year-and-a-half in the White House, Bush presided over a 36.9 percent decline, almost twice the percentage drop of Herbert Hoover, the president who led the nation into the Depression. - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/072202a.html

lchic - 11:38pm Jul 29, 2002 EST (#3345 of 3355)

Bet the Bush personal bank balance is riding higher than Hoover's ever did - relatively speaking.

[ The US market was said to be $7Trillion overvalued in the early Nineties ]

lchic - 11:44pm Jul 29, 2002 EST (#3346 of 3355)

Russian market is said to give the best returns - (some risks re mafia). A growth economy!

Legistlation is being put into place to assist the development of small business.

Currently 'big business' has been wiping out the small competition.

Developing a environment in which people can operate 'fairly' is a RU legislative emphasis. There ought to be a place for all as the economy grows.

~~~~

The Russians who moved over to Aussie have had golden achievements this week at the Commonwealth Games in Diving and HighJump.

lchic - 06:54am Jul 30, 2002 EST (#3347 of 3355)

Krugman "" The latest antics of the White House Office of Management and Budget have even the most hardened cynics shaking their heads. It's not just that projections for fiscal 2002 have gone from a $150 billion surplus to a $165 billion deficit in the space of a few months; it's not just that the O.M.B. projects a much smaller deficit next year, when everyone else — including the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee — says the deficit will increase. It's also the fact that O.M.B officials simply lie about what their own report says.

"The recession erased two-thirds of the projected 10-year surplus. . . . The tax cut, which economists credit for helping the economy recover, generated less than 15% of the change." So reads the agency's press release. Yet as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, the actual report attributes 40 percent of the budget deterioration to tax cuts, only 10 percent to recession. Maybe dishonesty in the defense of tax cuts is no vice.

State governments turned into banana republics in part because voters didn't realize that a charming, personable chief executive can also be an irresponsible opportunist, seeking political advantage through policies that ensure a fiscal crisis on someone else's watch. Now the same governing style has moved to Washington. And this time there's no safety net. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/opinion/30KRUG.html

lchic - 08:25am Jul 30, 2002 EST (#3348 of 3355)

"Just open a map," said a member of the Kuwaiti royal family in close consultation with Washington. "Afghanistan is in turmoil, the Middle East is in flames, and you want to open a third front in the region?" http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/international/30COST.html

rshow55 - 08:38am Jul 30, 2002 EST (#3349 of 3355)

I've had to postpone a trip East, to my great disappointment, and the disappointment of my parents, because of pressures from Cooper-Mazza-Dirac-Johnson - and some opportunites, as well.

There is a key problem, and this board has adressed it again and again (almost always in ways where details of my identity don't matter).

Question:

. Do the authorities, or people with status, have an unlimited right to lie, distort, and distract in the United States of America?

In a lot of cases, that seems to be the status quo. Getting that fixed is, in part a technical matter, and there has been a lot of effort on this thread to address that. Over time, almarst has been very helpful.

There are a lot of relevant things, some of the most interesting involving almarst , to be found by searching "Krugman" on this thread.

We'd have a much better world if the facts Krugman sets out - in a place in the NYT where some checking is likely to have occurred -- were checked to closure.

There are times when there ought to be compelling obligations to get facts straight.

Where politicians ought to expect this of other politicians, and voters should expect this of the people they judge.

That would be a great but needed change from that "culture of lying" that evolved in the 20th century - especially after WWII - which has degraded so much that we value in America.

lchic - 08:50am Jul 30, 2002 EST (#3350 of 3355)

"" Bush already has approved covert action against Saddam and directed the CIA to increase support to Iraqi opposition groups. Six Iraqi opposition leaders are visiting Washington for talks next month.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20262-2002Jul30.html

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