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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 - 06:02pm Aug 17, 2002 EST (# 3778 of 3787)

More on the CIA on this thread . . .

3547 rshow55 8/7/02 1:47pm ... 3586 rshow55 8/9/02 12:47pm
3600 lchic 8/10/02 6:04am ... 3621 rshow55 8/10/02 6:55pm
3660 lchic 8/12/02 9:24am ...

rshow55 - 06:05pm Aug 17, 2002 EST (# 3779 of 3787)

Links to The Bourne Identity or the NYT review, that I thought (maybe projecting) also connected to me: Debuting: On Spy, Unshaken by GEORGE F. CUSTEN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/23/weekinreview/23CUST.html

3290 rshowalt 7/26/02 7:15pm ... 3103 rshow55 7/17/02 1:29pm
3006 rshow55 7/11/02 8:09pm ... 2960 rshow55 7/10/02 7:21am
2866 mazza9 7/4/02 11:33pm ... 2861 rshow55 7/4/02 12:06pm
2808 rshow55 7/1/02 2:32pm ... 2697rshow55 6/23/02 10:05pm
2784 rshow55 6/30/02 10:26am ... 2778 rshow55 6/29/02 8:18pm
2766 rshow55 6/29/02 11:25am ... 2740 rshow55 6/27/02 10:26am
2732 lchic 6/26/02 12:02am ... 2730 rshow55 6/25/02 4:28pm
2727 rshow55 6/25/02 1:07pm ... 2719 rshow55 6/25/02 7:59am
2692 rshow55 6/23/02 10:05pm ... 2690 rshow55 6/23/02 5:11pm

My story has similarities to the Bourne story in some ways, but in other ways is much more credible to the United States, and to the CIA which is, after all, made up of American citizens.

rshow55 - 06:40pm Aug 17, 2002 EST (# 3780 of 3787)

Lcihc had a very wonderful run of postings from 3751 lchic 8/17/02 12:38am on. I was especially touched by #3763 lchic 8/17/02 4:09am , about the terribly sad difficulties and revulsions people have with math. (As they also have with reading.)

Some of the most basic things are especially hard for a person (or a culture) to figure out for themselves - and so we have to be especially careful to get the most basic things straight. And teach them, concisely and gracefully - because they matter so much.

For example, people have to know that "how much questions" arise all the time - that quantity matters. How many people are comfortable with the connection. Even the basic things.

For instance, how many people know, in detail, and comfortably, that the basic things about math come from the core facts of four basic and interacting sets of relations?

These are Arithmetic
and Algebra (arithmetic with symbols)

and

Geometry
and Analytic geometry and calculus

With interactions between these four fields (every which way) at the core of all the math that is frequently needed and used?

People can't figure this out unassisted. But a six year old could be told these things -- and the reasons why they matter. Maybe a six year old doesn't need to be told. By junior high school, everybody should know.

Now, they don't.

And on basics of other things, people need to be told, as well. It matters a lot.

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