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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.

lchic - 08:04am Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 7990 of 8009)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Lord JUDD - more time required for proper political dialogue - Chetchnya - where people fight for political independence. bbc

rshow55 - 08:08am Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 7991 of 8009)
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.

Debates are clarifying - and I'm still encouraged. Lchic's posts are wonderful - again and again and again they connect this thread to the outside world - to issues of context that can be used to center, to relate, to crosscheck - and to provide more-or-less independent ways to look at things - so that the probability of "connecting the dots" wrongly gets smaller and smaller - fast.

There are times when a great deal of progress can be made quickly. <a href="/webin/WebX?14@93.hBEPaSTL1JD.0@.f28e622/9512">lchic 1/24/03 4:23am</a>

We're at such a time now.

lchic - 08:11am Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 7992 of 8009)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Showalter liked this link

http://www.new-tradition.org/civilevents.htm

lchic - 08:17am Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 7993 of 8009)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

GU talk - fuzzy cognitive map

Could fuzzy cognitive maps solve politics?

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.3ba7b2af/0

lchic - 08:30am Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 7994 of 8009)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Google | Fuzzy Cognitive Maps demo

Cognitive Systems: Demos

... Traveling Expert Advice): Description: fuzzy expert system ... classic studies in the cognitive psychology through ... Kohonen self-organizing feature maps with full ... www.emsl.pnl.gov:2080/proj/neuron/cogsys/demos.html

lchic - 08:38am Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 7995 of 8009)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

'Under Construction' is the www fuzzy logic battle cry! |>

lchic - 10:40am Jan 24, 2003 EST (# 7996 of 8009)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

The Environmental Fall Out of War (One Planet : bbc)

What is the environmental impact of war?

The cost of conflict may more often be measured by the number of citizens who are killed or injured, but

the damage to people's environment can be a terrible long term legacy

One Planet comes from Kosovo, where, four years after the war, the impact on the land is still clear.

Despite massive clean up operations, unexploded armaments will be a danger in Kosovo for decades to come.

And there are more subtle problems - farming is facing severe difficulties, not least because of a highly sensitive issue post conflict: who owns the land.

Meanwhile, decades after the war in Vietnam, people are still living with a terrible environmental legacy, from agent orange to deforestation.

[ This program notes that land mines have to be cleared - by those who lay them .... but ... cluster bombs aren't cleared and undepleted uranium by the ton (gulfwar) has not been cleared.

The holistic COST of war has to be considered by those dropping bombs, mines, missiles, chemicals; by those closing off land, factories and the means of survival of civillian populations. ]

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