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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Resource Area for Forum Hosts and Moderators  /

    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.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (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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