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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 - 07:54pm Sep 26, 2002 EST (# 4575 of 4581)
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.

Here's one of my favorite limericks, and perhaps the cleanest. (Maybe the most philosophical, too.)

A (censored) one night in Rangoon
Took a lesbian up to his room.
They turned out the light,
But argued all night,
Who'd do what,
and with which,
and to whom.

As stated, a nice schema-exemplar for unconsummated negotiation among free actors -- and if one is not offended by the language or innuendo -- easy to imagine, and neither logically nor morally complicated.

Here are the last two lines, with with a tense change, so that "do" becomes "done" . Now, the result, though still easy to imagine as an exemplar of human function, is both logically and morally complicated.

(They) argued all night,
Who'd done what .. and with which .... and to whom.

The not-yet-done is undetermined, or at the discretion of actors.

The present is. For those beyond quantum limits, reality is ... that is, in a sense that is operationally important, reality is fixed, and independent of opinions.

The past, which is the sequence of present moments that are now past, must logically be fixed in the same way.

And yet, for real people, what we can know of the past is a construction.

Often enough, our future depends on getting facts straight - and ideas and relationships, too.

Clarification is worth doing when it is worth doing. Stakes are high enough to justify a good deal of trouble now.

Enron looked great - and was widely respected - until people started doing some careful matching - checking for consistency - and saw some patterns. Seeing those patterns has made a difference.

If we checked MD, and other military contracting - there'd be patterns, too.

Including a lot of enronation.

mazza9 - 11:16pm Sep 26, 2002 EST (# 4576 of 4581)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

"A (censored) one night in Rangoon"

(censored) = lchic!

lchic - 03:56am Sep 27, 2002 EST (# 4577 of 4581)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Johnson you've lost me, and, limerick's are not my style - weren't you once 'the list man' ideation - that moniker - Gunk did you Junk?

Are you concerned that the news isn't getting out ...

Join Project Censored's director Peter Phillips and founder Carl Jensen in greeting authors and publishers of the Top 25 Censored News Stories of the year at .....

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the experts mind, there are few. / S Suzuki

lchic - 04:59am Sep 27, 2002 EST (# 4578 of 4581)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

A sense of propriety

"" Australia's top intelligence agency is being undermind by sex scandals, nepotism and corruption according to a dossier of complaints leaked by a group of disgruntled spies.

almarst2002 - 09:17am Sep 27, 2002 EST (# 4579 of 4581)

An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease- producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American- exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran. - http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak26.html

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