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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.

lunarchick - 12:24pm Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7315 of 7323)

... follow that - setting up a computer is both engrossing and tedious ... your flickering monitors lead into horses ...

Poised in anticipation, Firebird listens for danger carried on the changing wind or the crescendo of distant hooves. This stallion is as graceful as a ballet dancer; his burnished coat is the color of flame.
Ever on the alert, Firebird's eyes are wide, his ears flicker. His nostrils flare, drinking in the smells and sounds that may send him blazing across the horizon.

and then there's Trigger

Known as the "Smartest Horse in the Movies," the famous golden palomino Trigger performed with the legendary cowboy Roy Rogers for 28 years. Now available in bisque.

Humans seem to relate better to their old four legged friends who encompass order, symmetry and harmony; than to military stocks that turn to rust.

lunarchick - 12:42pm Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7316 of 7323)

Caught a news item of Bush pep-talking to the human side of the military ... 'liberation - not conquest' was the theme .... people need an understanding as to what they're about.

Using the browser it seems that 'liberating Iraq' has been the theme for past months.

Chomsky moves the novel idea of Iran (war weary) liberating Iraq http://www.counterpunch.org/chomsky1118.html - why not Iraq liberating itself?

'Big name' former presidents live on as military transporters ... roving the globe ... and now making a b-line for the Gulf ... so will UN efforts dissipate/liquidise without positive conclusion over Iraq ... will Saddam be 'physically' ousted ... and at what cost?

lunarchick - 01:13pm Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7317 of 7323)

Noted the NYT header re 'differenciation of products' wrt retailing.

Moving to culture - what are the differences that others might find to be of aesthetic interest to them?

Here's a cultural example passed on to me from a teacher in Korea ...

"" The other day in my class student kept carrying on about not liking my hair worn back.

It kept going something like "Moon _______, give me the answer to number 12 please."

Answer: "Why you have your hair like that? I want it like yesterday! Yesterday was good. Today no good"

Eventually the girls started whining too: "Teacher we want the curly hair! We want the curly hair teacher!"

rshow55 - 01:37pm Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7318 of 7323)
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.

To know what matters, quite often, you have to check, and do so in the context that is there. You can't guess, or "trust your gut". Unless you know that you're dealing with a very predictable element of common culture - and know a LOT more.

America can't, and George Bush can't, know enough to "tell people what to do." Not in ways that fit well, that are orderly, symmetric, and harmonious in the minds of the people involveed. Not even close. Not without violations that look, and feel, like rape in a lot of ways. Courtship is better than rape - unless there are enormously over-riding interests - preferably never. Though coercion happens in all social organizations, at some levels, sometimes.

Some things - the things that matter - can and must be sorted out in a way that works - with livable order, symmetry, and harmony from both sides point of view. That isn't easy - but when it matters enough to do the work, and stay honest, it is possible.

Most things, most of the time, people have to decide for themselves. Look at the way they are connected - and isolated. There are some things that no imaginable God could change. People have to be responsible for what they do, and decide for themselves, about a lot of things. Though the choices are also constrained, sometimes tightly, by precidents and circumstances.

Almarst is right about a lot of things. But the needs that the U.S. validly has, in its own terms, can be achieved well. So can the needs of others.

Though sometimes, at least about ideas, there has to be a fight. If the idea-fights are well done - and facts are checked - fights that rend flesh and wrench guts can be avoided much more often than has been the case in the past.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense