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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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lunarchick - 12:00pm Dec 23, 2002 EST (# 6978 of 6987)

Headlines - Churchillianly-simple English?

Harold Evans in his book News Headlines (Heinemann, 1974), said good headlines should be self-contained telegrams. "Simplicity, informality and impact are the essence . . . It must be a clear signal; swiftly readable; economical in editorial, production, and reading time, and in newsprint space; proportionate to the news; and flexible."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,639433,00.html

lunarchick - 12:02pm Dec 23, 2002 EST (# 6979 of 6987)

One hears of 'smart bombs' etc .. yet none sufficiently 'smart' to post here .... still waiting!

rshow55 - 01:02pm Dec 23, 2002 EST (# 6980 of 6987)
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.

I'm not as smart as I'd wish - but I posted a thread - Detail, and the Golden Rule on the Guardian on September 10, 2000, and then again on July of this year, and I've put it up at http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md01000s/DetailNGR.htm

It includes this:

---------------------------------------------- rshowalter - 03:30pm Jul 7, 2002 BST (#9 of 41)

Here's the crux of the message - not a very complicated one:

Bigotry comes from all sides - and nobody CAN see every other point of view. Few enough are clear about their own ideas.

Tolerance that is sophisticated enough to be workable is intellectually harder than intolerance, or pat answers.

I think if Jesus was alive today, he might cry out.

" Hey, you guys didn't get it the way I hoped you would about the Golden Rule -- you have to think , and think hard, to figure out how to make the Golden Rule apply to complicated circumstances, and real people. .

“ And you have to check to see that you haven't missed something, if things matter enough to be careful about."

Maybe that'd be all the new message that'd be needed.

- - - -

That wouldn't solve all our problems, by a long shot. But it might be useful in spots. For us, and in our dealing with (and expectations of) Islamic radicals and N. Koreans.

Some of the details have a large intellectual content - and some philosophical content, too - about "what it means to be a human being."

This post doesn't do justice to some of gisterme's recent posts - but I'll try to do more later.

robkettenburg01 - 09:37pm Dec 23, 2002 EST (# 6981 of 6987)

"If you put away those who report accurately, you'll keep only those who know what you want to hear. I can think of nothing more poisonous than to rot in the stink of your own reflections." - Frank Herbert

RobKettenburg

lunarchick - 06:19am Dec 24, 2002 EST (# 6982 of 6987)

" More a family falling out than a clash of civilisations

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,864994,00.html "

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