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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 - 01:25pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8398 of 8405)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Triangle : Truth art Writer art Lies

Fiction is lies. There is the Great Lie, the simple fact that the story is a story and not reportage. Fiction writers, therefore are liars -- and they have to be good ones. George Scithers & Darrel Schweitzer, 1988

"The good ended happily and the bad unhappily -- that's what fiction means..." Oscar Wilde

"Telling the truth in fiction can mean one of three things: saying that which is factually correct -- a trivial kind of truth; though a kind central to works of versimilitude; saying that, which by virtue of tone and coherence, does not feel like lying, a more important kind of truth; and discovering and affirming moral truth about human existence -- the highest truth of art." John Gardner

In Fact & Fiction in the Novel, David Lodge writes of "imitating..." and "giving to fictitious character and events an illusion of reality..." of "exaggerating and deforming reality for literary purposes" of "crossing and recrossing the frontier between the two worlds (of fact and fiction) feeling like a double-agent, always vulnerable to accusations of treachery, always fearful of being exposed..." and, as he says, whenever facts and the needs of fiction conflict the good novelist will always choose the latter. ... It was the "accident" of trying to write a few pages as a woman (Caz Flood) that set me free and let me discover the joys of real fiction, ie: lie your head off and get paid for it, a bit like being a politician, I guess.

There are lots of techniques of lying we writers employ. Viewpoint is a good one. We can choose to limit the viewpoint to a single character, or see the world through the eyes of two characters, three perhaps, or be Gods and see what everyone is doing, what everyone is thinking, what is behind every door.

Did Steinbeck know that every single migrant worker was a victim of the profit system? If he had found evidence that it wasn't so bad, would he have burned his manuscript? Of course not. He was writing a feeling, an impression, trying to reveal one facet of the truth as J Steinbeck saw it and felt it. He knew enough to know that he had one good shot at persuading, so why help the opposition by including contrary facts?

"Plot reassure the reader of order in a chaotic world." Oakley HALL

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/may99/keegan19.htm http://www.picassomio.com/services/writers/en/ http://www.picassomio.com/index/en/

rshow55 - 01:29pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8399 of 8405)
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.

Billions and tens of billions dollars worth of loss- priceless lives - a lot of agony - and a great setback to international law could be saved if some reasonable people, connected to some nation states with persuasive power, could get some facts checked.

A time comes when the only way to do that is to match against real things - and enough - and in enough ways - to get to closure.

If we could settle on some key facts - - it would be in the interest of everybody decent in the world.

America is a free country in many ways - and astonishingly unfree in others. It is not, for example, free from fear. Under current circumstances, it is intolerably risky - if not suicidal - for me to talk to Postol, or Postol to talk to me. That should change.

We shouldn't be entirely scandalized if other countries, including Iraq, have some inflexibilities, too - and some that their own leaders don't even understand (or only understand at the level of psychological repression.)

We are logically close to a situation where the incidence of agony and death from war can be taken way down from where it is. But for that to happen - some courage is required, and some resources.

Lunarchick and I can't even start to do it alone. Especially without decent, open, questionable umpiring.

lchic - 01:30pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8400 of 8405)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

'The Poster' --- posts 'no content' --- just hot air by the balloon ..... to detract from the postings above on

'TRUTH --- Missile Defence(MD) Postal-MIT'

lchic - 01:34pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8401 of 8405)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Looking for truth, connecting MD dots .... WOW EE !!!

Google | Postol MIT funding

http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=Postol++MIT+funding&btnG=Google+Search

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