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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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rshow55 - 07:43am Sep 10, 2002 EST (# 4253 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.

If the NYT wanted foundation support for web digests, and other extensions of the medium, especially in cooperation with other news operations here and abroad - it would only have to ask people in the foundation community - carefully - and with issues of status and protocol handled gracefully.

Would there be problems, operational and ethical, to deal with? Sure. But they could be worked out.

Some of the problems that newspapers fail to solve can be solved - and solutions could be found fairly soon. There would be work required at the level of technique (and the engineers court format discussed on this thread could be a test bed for resolving most of these). But in addition, for particular purposes -- journalistic powers will have to ask for help to supplement their work for valid pubic purposes. They could get that support -- and should.

Not even the TIMES is rich enough to do without such support - or widely trusted enough to do without broader contacts and patterns of cooperation than it now uses.

Missile defense would be a very good prototype for discussion, in part because the "missile defense" boondoggle involves so many of the same patterns as enronation.

There are many other subjects that could also serve that prototyping purpose well.

In the middle east -- both with respect to the Israel-Palestine mess, and the Iraqi mess -- a number of things need to be clearer than the are. With the internet, and resources around, the nation and the world could do much better.

Everybody's opinions could be questioned. But some facts and relations - considered enough, would crystallize to clarity. And everybody within speaking distance of mainstream discourse could, and could be asked to look for themselves.

That's what persuasion takes in jury trials. When it matters enough - "here -- look for yourself" is the standard. People know how to meet that standard quite often - and they could meet that standard more often than they do.

The technical barriers to meeting that standard are less daunting than they used to be, and some of the social barriers are lower, too.

lchic - 12:42pm Sep 10, 2002 EST (# 4254 of 17697)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Iraq - Indonesia

http://www.abc.net.au/am/s671740.htm

Times writer looks at Iraq attack 09-09-2002 There are not many journalists writing today who can say they have won three Pulitzer Prizes, but that distinction belongs to New York Times writer Tom Friedman.

As foreign affairs columnist for the Times, Friedman has always had the broadest of briefs - to interpret the world for American readers.

But since the events of September 11 last year, he now has the freedom to explore what he has called "the biggest single news story in my life". [Hear the audio]

http://abc.net.au/lateline/

see also lateline 10th Sept Kissenger

Kissenger sees current terrorism as akin to the upheaval of The 30 Years War (1618-1648) Reformation era.

lchic - 12:54pm Sep 10, 2002 EST (# 4255 of 17697)
ultimately TRUTH outs : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Citizens of the USA 'funded' the terrorism of Norhtern Ireland .... that took young boys .... undereducated boys ... turned them into murderers and set them lose on their neighbours.

The 'boys' now men - many having spent time in prison - grown and matured - reflect back .... so what was the Northern Ireland issue about?

The problems of NI that may have related to sectarianism and economic poverty were in many ways wiped out with improved legislation. Yet the Terror went on .... fed and funded by 'misguided' Americans --- what did they think they were doing?

http://www.nd.edu/~observer/02252000/Viewpoint/0.html

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