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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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wrcooper - 03:43pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3344 of 3348)

lchic 7/28/02 3:13pm

ILLINOIS RCN Chicago (21st Century Telecom Group) 350 North Orleans St., Suite 600 Chicago, IL 60654

My photograph isn't hanging in the office, but I'm a customer. My email address is wcooper@21stcentury.net. It's an address that was issued only to customers of 21stcentury Cable before that company was acquired by RCN. I couldn't have obtained this email address nor could I have it today unless I were a cable subscriber of RCN in Chicago who obtained service prior to RCN's acquisition of 21stcentury. In fact I get my cable feed from RCN on the lines that 21stcentury installed. I'm not going to give out my home address or home phone number (my wife wouldn't be too happy about that), which is unpublished, but my business phone is listed in the Chicago white pages under Wm R Cooper.

I'm real, and I live in Chicago. I'm only saying this because I feel badly for Bob Showalter, and think he has fallen victim to paranoid delusions. I've seen a real decline, and that's sad to me, because he's a smart guy and I think a good guy.

Bob, if I can convince you I'm not part of a weird conspiracy, maybe you'll pause to reconsider the other paranoid ideas you've been entertaining. Do you think the Director of National Security really is interested in you and follows your conversations in this forum? Do you really think a nationally prominent journalist, an author of several books, and a regular contributor to the NYT, really cares enough about you to bother posting under several pseudonyms to disguise his identity? Why would such a man do that? What does he have to gain? If George Johnson has something to say on any topic of interest to him, he can say it under his own name to a national audience. He doesn't need the NYT forums. And he doesn't need to hide from Bob Showalter. That idea is just insane, Bob. Really. Please talk to a professional about these bizarre ideas of yours. Do some checking on your mental state.

I wish you the best.

rshow55 - 05:47pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3345 of 3348)

Attribution of insanity is pretty heavy medicine for someone who "wishes me the best." I also wonder why you work so hard to defend Johnson - there would be some very easy ways to establish the questions I've raised about the distinction of identities between you, Mazza, Dirac, and Johnson. Ways you're going out of your way to avoid.

Are you calling lchic crazy as well?

All any human being can ever do is construct patterns from available information - and check them. The pattern formation can be right or wrong - and there is no way to tell, in the end, except to check the checkable. That's not a point that distinguishes sanity and insanity. It is the human condition.

For example, based on what I know, I think it likely that gisterme is either Condoleezza Rice, or a member of her team. I am sure that someone posts as gisterme who claims both a lot of knowledge about military and high political affairs, and who also, from time to time, acts as if s/he has authority. Before March, for example, there were some rather technical, and emphatic, discussions of the word "treason." And there's been quite a lot of technical discussion -- who ever gisterme is, s/he works at posting.

1255 rshow55 4/11/02 7:32am, for instance, refers to postings taking hard effort, and if s/he lives in the United States - hard effort at an inconvenient time for most people.

The following citations are lists, each link corresponding to 50 postings from gisterme - the bolded ones since March 2 of this year. I have them all.

2574 rshow55 6/17/02 8:09am ... 2475 rshow55 6/17/02 8:09am
2576 rshow55 6/17/02 8:11am ... 2577 rshow55 6/17/02 8:12am
2578 rshow55 6/17/02 8:12am ... 2579 rshow55 6/17/02 8:13am
2580 rshow55 6/17/02 8:14am ... 2581 rshow55 6/17/02 8:14am
2582 rshow55 6/17/02 8:14am ... 2583 rshow55 6/17/02 8:15am
2584 rshow55 6/17/02 8:16am ... 2585 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX? 13@167.FUEDa4i3PPu^3402330@.f28e622/3223
2586 rshow55 6/17/02 8:17am ... 2587 rshow55 6/17/02 8:18am
2588 rshow55 6/17/02 8:18am ... 2589 rshow55 6/17/02 8:19am
2590 rshow55 6/17/02 8:20am ...

There have been some postings from gisterme since, some of them powerful and much appreciated.

There's nothing crazy about my judgement about gisterme - even though it may be wrong.

Whoever gisterme is, s/he works hard -- and when Putin and Bush were meeting last year - was active, minute by minute, working on what seemed to me as "spin control." If gisterme is not affiliated with the administration -- s/he's an impressive loyalist indeed.

I might also be wrong about my guess that kangdawei , who posted about 80 times in August and September last year was Ann Coulter - though she did put Coulter's web site below her name.

All anybody can do is "connect the dots" - make patterns, and then check them.

rshow55 - 05:55pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3346 of 3348)

As for George Johnson, who you go to such an effort to defend -- my admiration for Johnson is quite real, in spots. But it has its limits. 3206 rshowalt 7/21/02 7:32am

3278 rshowalt 7/24/02 4:55pm

3316-3317 rshowalt 7/26/02 7:09pm

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