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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 - 01:52pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5927 of 5933)
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.

lunarchick 11/18/02 1:49pm - - sometimes cleaning up messes does mean cleaning up mess makers.

There are some very strong reasons for getting rid of Saddam - even at very substantial human cost - because not doing so would be worse.

Saddam himself should be able to argue honestly against these - with balanced countervailing reasons - and if he can't - he should be gone.

lunarchick - 01:56pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5928 of 5933)

If the x-military - x-dictatorship in Indonesia are now said to be the 'terrorists' of that country, trying to destabalise civillian government.

Then, looking to a revised Iraq Iran ... how will the 'old guard', the 'old thugs', 'fit' within a forward looking and forward thinking State?

Can they be made to adjust?
Or .... !

lunarchick - 02:05pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5929 of 5933)

Feedback - pattern

Interesting graphic here Showalter - shows the 'date' of articles cited.

On that scale, the shape of this thread would have an interesting 2002 end-loaded graphic.
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/allan96incremental.html

lunarchick - 02:11pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5930 of 5933)

Change Methods - Large Scale Organization Development http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~rouda/background.html

lunarchick - 02:16pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5931 of 5933)

Friedman - http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.3ba77ea7/0

rshow55 - 02:40pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5932 of 5933)
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.

lunarchick 11/18/02 2:05pm - - a lot of connections, and temporal correllations - to the notion of "connecting the dots", as well. My own guess, based on a little statistics as well as personal judgement - is the we, along with Erica Goode, have had some role in shaping the language - and the associations connected to "connecting the dots."

Of course, a central kind of "connecting the dots" is the polynomial fit - something I've been working on a while - and if it happens that the "dots" - the data points - are well measured - and really due to a causality describable by a polynomial - that kind of "connecting the dots" can teach a lot, quickly http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/pap2

Polynomials are right near the interface between the smooth, continuous world of the mathematics that describes classical physics and the lumpy world of the symbol.

On system transitions - lunarchick 11/18/02 1:56pm - - a lot of things are possible - but not everything.

Unless considerably better constraints can be placed on lying - so that feedback for decision is much better than it is now - - - some transitions necessary in Iraqi terms as well as ours are essentially classified out of existence.

The case of characters like the one Burns treats today is reason for some careful thought about what - "step by step" transition can mean - and when wrenches are necessary. When It Comes to Iraq's Boss, What Is Face Value? By JOHN F. BURNS http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/international/middleeast/18BAGH.html

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