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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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lchic - 11:59am Jan 25, 2003 EST (# 8032 of 8040)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

ART - Impressionism - take two

Can't see wood for trees? Stand back and look again ... dots too close-up can be daunting ...

"Much of what we know is akin to an impressionist painting," an administration official said. "It's a compilation of several different strands of information that are then triangulated to draw a conclusion. If you have an intelligence background, it's compelling. If you don't, you might say, `There's no forest here. It's 400 unrelated trees.' "

As evidence of the sensitivity over the release of documents, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told the Council on Foreign Relations this week that he had been forced to substitute three words in his speech for "two rather stunning paragraphs, on the grounds that we would say too much about what we're observing even today."

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"" Impressionist painting comprises the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques. The most conspicuous characteristic of Impressionism was an attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and colour. http://www.artinside.com/blue/education/glossary-fine-arts.html

""The typical Impressionist palette included white, madder red, vermilion red, yellow, orange, cerulean and ultramarine blue, green, yellow ocher, burnt sienna, cobalt violet and black. When used, black was used for emphasis in solid areas but not in paint mixtures to create tones. Often brown was omitted completely from the palette.

Impressionists start with pure color, moved to pure pastel tints and then to white for highlights to creature their exquisite lighting effects. http://painting.about.com/library/blimpressionistpalette.htm

"" Impressionism – A 19th century Western art movement characterized by the use of small touches of pure color, painting outdoors in order to catch the essence of a fleeting time of day and depictions of contemporary life. http://www.elpasoentertainment.com/fe/Calendar/RenoirEd/glossary.html

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'the essence of a fleeting time of day'

... and the time on the face of the Iraqi Hour Glass .... is ..... the big hand pointing to _____ and the samll hand pointing ....

lchic - 12:18pm Jan 25, 2003 EST (# 8033 of 8040)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Perspective - Trees - Bagdhad

The world can witness on-line the bombing of Bagdhad. On the planet Earth we learn with suffering and pain, as with our individual lives.

The Earth, the terrestrial globe the Greeks called Gaia, returned to the cultural scene with the sensible hypothesis that our planet is an alive being. For Gaia, who is bigger and older, as well as more honorable and stronger than us, both you and I are the same as one of its infinite circumstances.

When we look to Earth so that it fills our visual field, as if from outer space, we the humans are as invisible as are the cells of our body when viewed from a similar perspective.

... Each tree is a benign cell on Gaia's body, the Earth. Analogously, we can identify skin, nails, fur, lungs, heart, artery, brain. Yes, a brain. http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n01/elson/artelson_i.htm

Iraq ... farmers here have always grown citrus trees beneath date palms - for temperature control in both summer and winter .... (UN Oil For Food (OFF) - The program’s notorious bureaucracy means .... http://www.mcc.org/areaserv/middleeast/iraq/diaries/water.html

rshow55 - 12:34pm Jan 25, 2003 EST (# 8034 of 8040)
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.

Connect, They Say, Only Connect By EMILY EAKIN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/25/arts/25WATT.html is a beautiful, distinguished piece on network theory.

On this thread, lunarchick , the most useful mind I've ever been in contact with - has worked with me to perfect the notion of "connecting the dots" - a phrase that I believe entered the language after Erica Goode wrote an article containing the phrase

Finding Answers In Secret Plots http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/weekinreview/10GOOD.html

and lunarchick and I discussed and elaborated the notion on this thread.

If we use things that we are learning - that are now just within reach - the incidence of agony and destruction from war can be far less than it has been - and we can be much more prosperous than we've been, as well. If this thread were checked - and that would take some help from some people with real power - we could make the world a much safer place.

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