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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 - 08:27pm Oct 28, 2002 EST (# 5362 of 5364)
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.

People respond as they do (and you've made 700 responses ) in terms of "working definitions" clear enough to produce the responses.

4956 gisterme 10/16/02 10:36pm includes this (among other things) from gisterme

" I wouldn't bother with this thread if I didn't think the "stakes" (your word) are a joke. Who would? Many lives are at stake here, perhaps including yours and mine. Those are high enough stakes for me.

High enough for me, too.

I appreciate all the effort from gisterme - - - people can click links from rshow55 10/28/02 6:16pm and judge that effort for themselves.

Not everybody is consistent about everything. Especially when an election is close.

I like the links in 5334 rshow55 10/28/02 7:50am , and think voters ought to, as well.

Worth repeating, I think:

Bush 2000 Adviser Offered To Use Clout to Help Enron Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 17, 2002; Page A01 b http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A22380-2002Feb16&notFound=true

" Just before the last presidential election, Bush campaign adviser Ralph Reed offered to help Enron Corp. deregulate the electricity industry by working his "good friends" in Washington and by mobilizing religious leaders and pro-family groups. . .

The whole of Stephens piece bears reading - it has a certain grim family resemlence to a great deal of other "persuasive technique" the Bush administration shows.

The New Jersey Ethicist by BILL KELLER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/21/opinion/21KELL.html

" Allow me to quote my favorite moral philosopher, Karl Rove. Remember what he told Republican candidates back in June? "Focus on war." (O.K., he's no troubadour, but the man gets to the point.) D'you think he meant, "Let's all focus on the war and have a moment of silence and feel blue?" Of course not, knucklehead, he meant, "Take the war, and run the wussy Democrats into the ground with it."

Some responsible politicians, of both parties, ought to be asking careful questions. Leaders of other nation states should be asking them too. And wondering about the motivations behind things being done.

Out.

mazza9 - 09:07pm Oct 28, 2002 EST (# 5363 of 5364)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

Gisterme:

I read an article about the latest acedemic ho hah! It seems that incomprhensibility is the fashion, nay the norm, for communications in the world of academe! Single sentence paragraphs are used. Sentences are hundreds of words long. Telegraphic is not in their vocabulary. "Get to the point" is a lost art.

It appears that to be a deep thinker you must communicate in such a fashion that doesn't inform. Lesser mortals ponder these gargantuan pronouncements and say, "He/She must be smart", because he/she constructs these edifices!

Of course, you and I know what verbal diarrhea is. Now we need to feed Robert and lchic some Pepto Bismol!

rshow55 - 09:30pm Oct 28, 2002 EST (# 5364 of 5364)
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.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/312

A number of pieces have run in the NYT that I've been glad to see, perhaps this one most of all:

Playing Know and Tell by John Schwartz http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/weekinreview/09BOXA.html .

Schwartz's piece ends:

" Listen. "

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/321

I've been doing the best I could, under supervised circumstances. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/331

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/332

Maybe I'm "Ismael" - - http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/289 - - that could be checked - - - and whatever the answer, the work remains http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/346

MD1999 rshow55 5/4/02 9:39am

I'm proud of the work done, and I think lchic and The New York Times should be, as well.

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