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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 - 06:58pm Jan 29, 2003 EST (# 8322 of 8326)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

KATE quits

"" .. paid tribute to Adie, describing her as a "legend".

"In many ways she wrote the book about [war reporting]. Kate's a legend," he said. "She has always run her career in the way she wants to.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,7521,884542,00.html

lchic - 07:02pm Jan 29, 2003 EST (# 8323 of 8326)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

800 missiles

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/25/1042911596206.html

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GU talk

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.3ba7b491/0

Jotavitch - 02:46am Jan 26, 2003 GMT (#1 of 151) That sounds nasty! Do you think President Hussein will retaliate in the territory of invading powers? Lind of guerrilla / terrorist warfare?

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rshow55 - 07:09pm Jan 29, 2003 EST (# 8324 of 8326)
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.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/calendar1.htm is a calender page, with links to day-by-day postings on the NYT Missile Defense thread starting on May 25 2000 and continuing to July 17 2002. ( I joined the thread, at the suggestion of KateNYT , on September 25, 2000 .) (Perhaps I can continue the Calender page to the present.)

A central purpose of the thread has been to show how useful the internet can be - how important and challenging "collecting the dots" is, if there is to be any hope for a correct, balanced, and beautiful "connecting of the dots."

rshowalter - 07:44am Jun 14, 2001 EST (#5073

A major source of credible information, though only one of many, is the output of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

A sampling, from this source, gives, I believe, a sense of what a challenge it is to consider "all the credible data" -- indeed, what an impossible challenge it is.

Even so, I'm posting places where this thread cites specific NYT articles -- (which are about 1/3 of total citations on this thread) to give a sense of how much information there is out there to integrate. For every NYT article I posted, I read perhaps 20.

The following postings, though extensive, make a point about the extent of information related, in various ways, to ordinary human argument -- and will be useful, I believe, if staffs wish to consider and coordinate arguments here -- or in threads in the future that use some of the crossreferencing techniques this thread shows.

People "make sense" of their world in a kind of statistical way -- and it matters very much, whether the "information" they condense generalizations from is right or wrong. The only way to see is by crossmatching, and a good deal of intellectual work. This is work that all people, everywhere do, and have to do to be human. We make sense of the world, by a lot of talking, and a lot of thinking -- and bring patterns into focus. Often those patterns are wrong -- but when we look at the same information -- organized in a certain way, most of us, most of the time, make the same patterns.

On June 14, there was an extensive discussion of New York Times pieces cited on the Missile Defense thread up to that time, with many links and postings. . http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md5000s/md5070.htm

Other summaries of NYT articles, in terms of missile defense - served a similar purpose - and were filed on

June 18, 2001

July 31, 2001

August 8, 2001

August 10, 2001

August 19, 2001

August 26, 2001

September 2, 2001

and September 9, 2001

and I believe that these summaries and collections of articles were useful. They illustrate how important it is - not only to "present the information as a stream" but also to collect the information, as a corpus, so that it can be considered.

On issues of war, peace, and complex negotiation - the task of "collecting the dots" is important -and the internet makes a great deal possible that was not possible before. A major reason I've been working here as hard as I have is to show what can be done. With some funding, some credibility, and the US government either helping me, or getting out of my way, or fighting me on a basis that is with conventions - a lot more can be accomplished.

Cooper and I have some disagreements - and here is one where I respect his position - which is a standard one - but think my position in useful, too. Cooper seems to value ideas because they are high in status - I think, with Edison, that the most important things are the "things common to human beings" the points of shared space - and I have no apologies for what I've done on this board.

If people used some of the things demonstrated here - a lot of prob

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