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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.

rshow55 - 06:55pm Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4181 of 4187)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

For much of today, the 3d most e-mailed story was from yesterday - From Here to Infinity: Obsessing With the Magic of Primes by George Johnson http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/03/science/03ESSA.html

Studying primes, those mathematical quarks from which all numbers are made, is a game anyone can play, and become obsessed with.

4140 wrcooper 9/2/02 8:37pm reads as follows.

"This is George Johnson this time.

"You can examine me in light of Piaget all you want, but it's not going to change how I think, and it's not going to change the fact that your opinions represent a dangerous aberration that requires the strongest possible refutation.

"You will be checked and checked thoroughly.

"It is not for naught that we saw to it that you began posting here in the New York Times. This is a controlled venue. We know who you are and where you are.

"Don't call the CIA again. It won't do you any good. If you want to talk to us, just whisper into your pillow.

Looking at this from a Republican and national interest point of view exclusively - it seems to me that "Johnson's" position is bad policy and bad politics - to say no more. If wrcooper is Johnson, that can't be hidden if anybody cares much about getting at the truth. Especially for the TIMES. But others could get at the truth, as well. Some old investors of mine would be well justified in funding a lawsuit, for instance. Any number of journalists, with a little work and chutzpah, could get to the answer as well. So could any of many politicians.

rshow55 - 06:57pm Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4182 of 4187)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

My relationship with George Johnson and his many pseudonymous characters, including Patrick Gunkel, goes back a long way - since before http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/klinerec

For a long time, I was hoping to have him as a partner - and there was reason to suspect some mutuality on the matter.

4146 rshowalt 9/3/02 7:41am

My respect for some aspects of Johnson's work is great - for instance I thought From Here to Infinity was a fine piece of standard journalism. Johnson's written some fine things - here is one I liked enough to put on the web http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/finearts from his book Machinery of the Mind .

I respect Johnson's achievements, but my admiration for both his work and his person has its limits.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense