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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.
(13113 previous messages)
fredmoore
- 05:27pm Jul 23, 2003 EST (#
13114 of 17697)
Gisterme ...
Why do NYT keep this forum going? ... after the assiduous
big cull you'd be a dummy if you didn't wonder about NYT's
reasons. Could it be Robert? Could it be that it is a useful
editorial sounding board? Could it be an NYT party-favour for
some politician? Could it be Eisenhower's or Casey's ghost?
Stay tuned for the answers to these and many more questions
......
wrcooper
- 05:33pm Jul 23, 2003 EST (#
13115 of 17697)
As the French say, "Plus ça change, c'est plus la même
chose." The more things change, the more they stay the same.
After long avoiding this forum, I decided--alas--to see
what's going on. Lo and behold, I find that Bob's still
tagging gisterme as President Bush. At least I managed to
dispell his belief--by actually meeting Bob face to face--that
I was journalist and author George Johnson, and Lou Mazza
disabused him of the idea that he was a luminary who he was
not.
gisterme, if you want to put an end to Bob's entrenched
fantasy, you will have to provide him with proof of your
identity. You might have to set up a call with him during a
live televised Bush event attended by cabinet members Rice,
Powell and Rumsfeld. The State of the Union would be good. But
you'll need to figure out some way to convince him you're not
a stand-in.
But of course you probably loathe the idea of divulging any
personal information to someone you believe might be a
tad...you know. I no doubt lost my mind temporarily in
agreeing to the meeting I had with him. I thought it would
have a salutory effect on him. That he'd realize that since he
was wrong about me he might seriously entertain the possbility
that he was wrong about all the rest of it. Well, it didn't
work, did it? He and his wife concluded I was lying to them
about a particular message I had sent--a parody in which I
pretended for a second that I was George Johnson, to rib him.
I didn't remember writing it, and they thought that was a
falsehood. It wasn't. I'd probably had a drink or two and
tossed it off in a fit of mean sport. Anyway, the beat goes
on.
It's reassuring to see you folks are still at it. Some
things go on and on, predictable as clockwork. My God, Bob's
inexhaustible. He really does believe he's affecting national
policy at the highest level right here in this little ole
forum. He thinks he's got the president's ear, that he's front
and center in a mighty clash of the gods, two titans, himself
and George W. Bush, wrestling over the fate of humanity.
Well, good on ya, mates.
Cheers.
gisterme
- 05:37pm Jul 23, 2003 EST (#
13116 of 17697)
"Whoever Gisterme is - he sure pushes hard to support
Osprey..."
Not because it is Osprey; but because the technology being
developed holds some promise for helping solve some civil
transport problems that anybody who is sick of sitting in
commuter traffic can easily appreciate.
If the specific Osprey develpment makes our armed forces
more effective and especially if having an aircraft like that
may reduce the danger to our own servicemen (and women) then
just on that basis its worthwhile in my view.
That said, I can't help but think that a relatively high
speed and fuel effiecient VTOL aircraft (compared to a
helIcopter) that can carry as many people as a city bus and
can land anywhere a helicopeter could might give a whole new
meaning to the "park and ride" idea. The Osprey itself is
probably not that aircraft...but the technology developed
under the Osprey program could easily lead to that.
In my view, the main reason why so many commuters in
metropolitan areas don't use public transit is because they're
more comfortable sitting out a traffic jam in their own cars
than they are sitting out the same traffic jam on a city bus.
That's certainly been my reason. Most folks (myself
included) don't mind taking a short ride on a public transit
system. They just don't want to take a short ride that takes a
long time.
There would undoubtedly be plenty of new challenges to
integrating large numbers of VTOL commuter aircraft into our
sociteies, challenges like air traffic control, noise
abatement, how to quickly travel that last mile to your
workplace once you get off the aircraft and etc. But those are
problems that could be solved if we really wanted to.
gisterme
- 06:00pm Jul 23, 2003 EST (#
13117 of 17697)
Hi wrcooper!
Nice to hear from you. I had hoped you wouldn't really
leave and do hope you'll pop in as often as you like. I've
been sort of coming and going myself. :-)
My problem is that the longer I stay away from the forum,
the more strident Showalter becomes in expressing his fantasy
that I'm some sort of major poobah. After each absence I need
to sort of grab him by the collar and shake a bit or dump a
bucket of rhetorical water on him to bring him to his senses.
After that, usually, if I stick around for a while, he seems
to maintain a more even keel. Because of that he thinks I'm a
bully. Oh well. I think he's just a glutton for punishment
because, it would seem, he just keeps begging for it. Do you
suppose he could be a mochist?
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