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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.

lchic - 10:15pm Oct 26, 2002 EST (# 5276 of 5291)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Information Feudalism: Who owns the knowledge economy?
au: Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite
pub:Earthscan

see full details
http://www.earthscan.co.uk/asp/bookdetails.asp?key=3794

Peter Drahos talked about his new book on intellectual property ..... it was informative and argued against extending copyrights too long because society was denied and couldn't build upon works (without heavy cost), mentioned the original 'intention' of such rights. FiveStar

The review below .... 1/2star :

ANY opinion about "intellectual property" is invariably foolish according to Richard Stallman, the apostle of the free software movement. That's because the term lumps together the different debates about authors' rights, patents and trade marks. We wouldn't mix up strawberries, toadstools and semen if bureaucratic convenience one day led to the formation of an International Reproductive Entities Organization in Geneva... would we?

Peter Drahos, an Australian lawyer and researcher at the University of London, and his collaborator John Braithwaite are vulnerable to this criticism. Worse, their account gives only the barest nod of recognition to the "authors' rights" that protect the creators of words, music and images in most of the world - and are akin to human rights. They deal in depth only with the Anglo-Saxon anomaly that, in contrast, sees copyright as property and hence as commodity - and with patents.

But this narrow view is forgivable, given the highly informative core of the book. IT IS a detailed account of how some American corporations decided that they didn't like the debates and tried to change the questions. As he tells it, the World Intellectual Property Organization, based in Geneva, was just too democratic, giving a voice to each member state, including developing countries and those with authors' rights. These countries are apt to form alliances for compulsory licensing of essential patented medicines and against Hollywood.

The corporate campaign went public with an article in The New York Times by an executive of pharmaceutical GIANT Pfizer. Drahos documents meticulously how it progressed through subtle alliance-building and straightforward use of US trade clout, to shift the debate downhill from WIPO to the World Trade Organization. There, a participant told him, fewer than 50 people shaped TRIPS, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and thus reshaped national laws - including the US's.

The book's title promises a new category of social organisation. It's hype. But if you HAVE ever done any kind of research, it's worth making the considerable effort necessary to read this account of the ownership of information under late capitalism. Who owns and controls your writings? And who should own and control them? Separately, who owns, or should own and control your patentable inventions? These debates are much more alive than this rather fatalistic book makes out.

Mike Holderness is a member of the European Federation of Journalists Authors' Rights Expert Group

lchic - 10:25pm Oct 26, 2002 EST (# 5277 of 5291)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Lies, Lies, Lies! The Art and Science of Deception
(book USA)
au: Mark Frank of RuggersU

Are we humans inherently deceitful?
When you get a gift that you hate what do you do?
You lie of course.
Is this a morally questionable thing to do or are some lies necessary for the sake of social cohesion?
Clearly lying can have dire consequences and a world leader in the subtle art of lie catching argues the popular mythology around detecting deception amongst police interrogators is having frightening implications.

Transcript: later 31Oct

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/s710317.htm http://abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/

Half the people on Death Row - are NOT GUILTY says Mike!

lchic - 10:29pm Oct 26, 2002 EST (# 5278 of 5291)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Prof-Mike speaks of 'micro' expressions ... fear / distress / fake-happiness

Someone good at spotting mirco expression is often good at getting to truth in an interview.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So taking this into the politcal zone ... how do we tell if Leaders are telling truths or untruths ... do Leaders actually know if the scripted words they read are true?

bbbuck - 11:16pm Oct 26, 2002 EST (# 5279 of 5291)
'The scoops are on the way'....

Do these freaks ever sleep?

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