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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
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(2063 previous messages)
rshow55
- 01:06pm May 7, 2002 EST (#
2064 of 17697) 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.
People don't check things -- and with secrecy, and
gatekeeping as it is, often they can't. So things can be MUCH
more dangerous than people expect. For example, when military
equipment doesn't get checked - and details get forgotten.
(Our nuclear arsenal is now old.) The costs and risks
of secrecy -- and the unwillingess to check that it spawns,
can be huge -- and have been.
Just fininshed a very fine book
Secrecy The American Experience by Daniel
Patrick Moynihan , with and introduction by Richard Gid
Powers, Yale Press, 1998.
Powers was also quoted in New Details Emerge From the
Einstein Files By DENNIS OVERBYE http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/physical/07EINS.html
For a while I've been struggling with the following
questions -
" How, given the rules of security laws,
and my particular circumstances, am I to live my life? How
can I practice any ordinary profession, or talk extensively
to anyone - in the ordinary, day-to-day manner people
do?
" How can I do these ordinary things -
without putting both myself and others at risk?
I've felt boxed, given the awkward sitation I've been been
in for years, and complicated (thinking I had no choice, and
was doing my duty) by postings on these threads.
That set of questions has involved awkwardnesses on these
NYT threads, and I believe for NYT staff, since 1997, and
especially since 1999.
And some awkwardnesses for the University of Wisconsin,
too. MD2052 rshow55
5/6/02 9:23am
Reading Moynihan's book, I'm more hopeful than I've been.
And I learned a great deal about how weak the statuatory base
of secrecy is.
In mathematical circles, things like the following are
sometimes said
Godel's proof shows that you can't prove
anything.
But if you could prove anything . . . you
could prove everything.
Of course, life isn't that simple. All the same, I've felt,
for a long time, that if I could solve ambiguities about my
security situation -- I could solve all the other problems
before me in a satisfactory manner.
And that a number of things very much in the national
interest could happen.
An interesting fact in Moynihan's book. As of the time it
was written, there was only one case where a person was
convicted for giving classified information to the press -- a
guy gave a picture of an unfinished Russian aircraft carrier
to Janes .
Maybe I've been much too afraid. But maybe not.
Still, I notice that somebody may care what I say. When I
made an off-the-cuff comment in MD1233 rshow55
4/10/02 1:53pm it drew very prompt responses (the first
within 15 minutes) from gisterme.
I've been very afraid to do ordinary things -- and people
associated with me have been afraid, as well. Maybe the fear
hasn't been necessary? Perhaps I've just been intimidated for
no reason?
It would be nice to get some clarification about that.
Might be possible. -
lchic
- 07:52pm May 7, 2002 EST (#
2065 of 17697) ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to
be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong
foundation
Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of Harrods and Punch magazine,
is to sue the Sunday Telegraph after he was named in a story
about a uranium smuggling ring.
He described the article, published last Sunday, as "a
scandalous, outrageous, fraudulent and blatantly false attack
on me".
"My spokesman made it clear to the Sunday Telegraph that I
knew nothing of this matter or any of the people involved and
that the allegations against me were wholly spurious," Mr
Fayed said in a press statement today.
"Yet the newspaper still gave prominence to the story using
my picture in front of a stockpile of uranium and suggesting
that I did know something of the supposed scandal.
"I cannot understand how any newspaper could believe a
story like this without any substance and give it such
prominence." http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,711345,00.html
... linked with a shipment of uranium headed for Afghanistan
from Russia.
Mr Fayed's spokesman claimed the story was picked up from a
French paper, Le Journal du Dimanche, which has published a
correction but "will face further legal action this week which
could result in substantial damages".
____________ ____________
Where did the Fyad
fortune come from, how was it made, were 'arms' ever a
feature?
lchic
- 07:56pm May 7, 2002 EST (#
2066 of 17697) ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to
be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong
foundation
Interesting how Sharon, of 1982 butchery fame, has skipped
out of Washington - fast. Seems those folks in Palestine, for
whom he is mentor and protector, still have strong feelings!
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