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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  /

    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.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (4709 previous messages)

gisterme - 06:42pm Oct 2, 2002 EST (# 4710 of 4720)

I've only had time to browse a couple of hundred of the approximately 1,900 posts put up since I last had some time for this forum. I only found six of those that included any mention of missile defense...four were the usual Showalter one-sentence claim of "boondogle", one was some other poster saying the president is crazy and one was an lchic equivalent to the "boondoggle" claim. Of course for one to accept the "boondoggle" claim a great deal of faith is required since absolutely no evidence of a "boondoggle" is ever presented along with the claim or elsewhere.

In browsing those couple of hundred posts, I only found one that wasn't by Showalter, lchic or Lou Mazza. Of the five or six that Lou Mazza wrote a couple of those were devoted to complaining that this forum no longer has anything to do with missile defense. Lou's other posts were responding to semi-outrageous statements having nothing to do with MD.

What's up with that, Ms. forum administrator?

I think this forum which was once vibrant, functional and entertaining to participate in now has only a handful of readers because it is no longer on topic and so has become disfunctional.

Apparently the missile defense issue is no longer of enough importance to warrant any real discussion. Perhaps, rather than losing the arguement, the principal opponents to missile defense (both of them) would rather just fill the forum with unrealted garbage so that nobody longer wants to participate. That would be because those other would-be participants can't get a word in edgewise. Sure, they can post what they want, but the Showalter/lchic strategy is to bury views of any other participants with pages of unrelated stuff before anybody else can have a chance to read them or respond. Showalter posts long diatribes about his personal mental problems and lchic posts unrelated news articles, mostlty of the far-left flavor. That strategy seems sort of like the strategy of reducing a fly infestation by releasing huge numbers of strile flys into the population. The result?...fly problem goes away. In this context any participation by MD proponents (flys) or opponents (other flys) is quickly swept away from the current page. I've said before that this is like trying to hold a topical discussion among a group of interested people where one or two participants insist on continually shouting over others who try to speak. The Showalter/lchic technique is the web equivalent of shouting. There's no productive result whatsoever. The strategy seems to achieve what Showalter and lchic want: to make this forum both usless and devoid of any entertainment value for any who can't devote the full-time effort that they do. Makes one wonder where they get their daily bread dosen't it?

Robert, unless you're just fascinated by seeng your own words on your screen (as I suspect), unless you're not at all interesed in MD discussion (as I suspect), you should give others who don't have their full-time to devote to this a better chance to participate.

You and lunartic both got banned from this forum before for doing the same thing...and while you were gone the forum gradually regained its vibrancy. It began to have many different participants. Then you came back under a new moniker, promising to "try not to" do the same thing again, but here you are...and so much for Showalter promises. He tried but he couldn't do it. By so doing, you've demonstrated that you're the one emplying deception of exactly the same kind that you accuse others of. The difference is that your deception is right there for everybody to see...continuously undemining the words of unsubstantited accusation you so freely fling at others. If you want to have any credibility, don't be such a hypocrite. If you want the forum to be ruined...then you've achived your goal.

This forum could use some fresh ideas about missle defense...or even some new "takes" on old ideas; there have be

gisterme - 06:44pm Oct 2, 2002 EST (# 4711 of 4720)

Continued...

This forum could use some fresh ideas about missle defense...or even some new "takes" on old ideas; there have been no such for some time.

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