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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 - 03:49pm Feb 1, 2003 EST (# 8464 of 8472)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for 27 years, the US has this month(Jan) turned to an unlikely source of help - Iraq. Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state has doubled its exports of oil to America

http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,882512,00.html

lchic - 03:57pm Feb 1, 2003 EST (# 8465 of 8472)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

War (What Is It Good for?) .... ChicagoMuseum ... January 18 – May 18, 2003

“Absolutely nothing!” is the refrain answering this question posed by the emblematic 1960s song War! The exhibition “What is it Good For?” draws from works in the MCA Collection focusing on artists’ critical responses to war, its threat, and the politics that provoke it.

http://www.mcachicago.org/

wrcooper - 04:24pm Feb 1, 2003 EST (# 8466 of 8472)

TO THE FORUM

I met with Bob Showalter and his wife today in Chicago. Some posters have expressed an interest in this meeting and would like a report about what was discussed and of my impressions.

First, I want to thank Bob and his wife for making the trip to Chicago from Madison, WI. Bob had issues he wanted to try to resolve, and my motive for initiating the meeting was to reassure him of my identity, ending any speculation that I was in any way connected with the New York Times or the U.S. government.

I believe that the meeting was helpful in both respects. I am sure Bob will now confirm that I am not the person he thought I might have been. I have also explained to him the nature of a post that I apparently wrote some time ago and for which I apologized to him. I wrote a sarcastic post in which I mocked his claim that I was George Johnson. It was worse than a bad joke; it was hurtful. I cannot clearly remember writing it, so it's possible I did it late at night when I was tired or after having had a few drinks. I don't remember. I do remember having written a number of posts that I regretted soon afterward and hence deleted within hours or days of writing them. That must have been one of those. In any case, I take full responsibility for my lack of decorum and judgement, and I offered him my apologies. I meant it sincerely.

Bob took pains to lay out his personal history to me and to explain the predicament in which he believes he finds himself regarding his past involvement as a researcher doing classified work for the United States government. I expressed sympathy to him for his long struggle to obtain a satisfactory resolution of this problem.

I have no way of objectively determining how much of what Bob told me about his past was true, or to what extent his interpretation of real events is accurate. However, I believe that Bob is sincere; he is not deliberately misrepresenting any factual claims, and I believe that he sincerely feels that he has been dealt a raw deal by his past employers by being deliberately denied the opportunity to resume his engineering career due to potential conflicts of interest or violation of secrecy laws. I make no judgement about any of this. It's none of my business.

But let me state this clearly: Bob in every way comported himself with me as a gentleman and showed no sign of any mental instability or obvious aberration in behavior, so far as I could judge. I am not a mental health professional, but, for what it's worth, I have no reason whatsoever to conclude that Bob is mentally disturbed. Therefore, I retract and abjure any imputation I ever made in this forum of mental instability on his part, and I am heartily sorry that I ever caused him any degree of anguish by making any such imputation.

That said, I tried my hardest to express my personal view to him that his participation in the NY Times forum is almost certainly unproductive and perhaps counterproductive toward his achieving his stated goals. I believe that Bob is seriously misled in thinking that any posters active in this forum have any official connections to the government or are acting in any official capacity in posting messages on this newspaper message board. I think his oft-stated convictions in this regard are sadly mistaken and that he is wasting his time seeking redress of his grievances by participating in this forum. I urged him to take more formal, conventional steps legally and politically. I hope he does so.

For myself, I've learned a lesson about how to conduct myself on these forums. I allowed myself to become personally involved emotionally in my exchanges with Bob; I was angered at being called, in essence, a liar for my repeated denials of being George Johnson. I should have laughed it off and forgotten about it. I am through with this forum, and if I were smart, I'd be t

wrcooper - 04:28pm Feb 1, 2003 EST (# 8467 of 8472)

CUT OFF--MESSAGE CONCLUDED

I should have laughed it off and forgotten about it. I am through with this forum, and if I were smart, I'd be through with all these forums. They're addictive and basically a waste of precious time. Be that as it may...each to his own.

I wish Bob and his wife well. I wish him success in obtaining a positive resolution to his expressed predicament. On that note, I'm out of here.

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