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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 - 09:26pm Oct 19, 2002 EST (# 5068 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.

Attack On The Ad-Man

This trumpeter of nothingness, employed
To keep our reason dull and null and void.
This man of wind and froth and flux will sell
The wares of any who reward him well.

Praising whatever he is paid to praise,
He hunts for ever-newer, smarter ways
To make the gilt seen gold; the shoddy, silk;
To cheat us legally; to bluff and bilk
By methods which no jury can prevent
Because the law's not broken, only bent.

This mind for hire, this mental prostitute
Can tell the half-lie hardest to refute;
Knows how to hide an inconvenient fact
And when to leave a doubtful claim unbacked;
Manipulates the truth but not too much,
And if his patter needs the Human Touch,
Skillfully artless, artlessly naive,
Wears his convenient heart upon his sleeve.

He uses words that once were strong and fine,
Primal as sun and moon and bread and wine,
True, honourable, honoured, clear and keen,
And leaves them shabby, worn, diminished, mean.
He takes ideas and trains them to engage
In the long little wars big combines wage…
He keeps his logic loose, his feelings flimsy;
Turns eloquence to cant and wit to whimsy;
Trims language till it fits his clients, pattern
And style's a glossy tart or limping slattern.

He studies our defences, finds the cracks
And where the wall is weak or worn, attacks.
lie finds the fear that's deep, the wound that's tender,
And mastered, outmanouevered, we surrender.
We who have tried to choose accept his choice
And tired succumb to his untiring voice.
The dripping tap makes even granite soften
We trust the brand-name we have heard so often
And join the queue of sheep that flock to buy;
We fools who know our folly, you and I.

A.S.J. Tessimond.

bbbuck - 09:36pm Oct 19, 2002 EST (# 5069 of 17697)

I will post mountains of voluminous slop
I will post and post slop until I drop.
And just when you think I'm just about thru
I will slop I little extra, just for you.

rshow55 - 09:55pm Oct 19, 2002 EST (# 5070 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.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/350 includes this:

Lchic and I have been proceeding with our work on the NYT MD forum on the assumption (or fiction) that it is monitored by staffed organizations - and I'm posting this selection of links on the basis of that assumption. (for details, click rshow55 ). At a time when basic patterns of international law are being renegotiated, the discourse may be of interest to specialists - and the channel it represents may be of international use. If we're proceeding on the basis of a fiction, it is a fiction that may protype patterns that are not fictional at some later time.

Recalling efforts by many high status people in 2000 - efforts that have gone before, and reasons our NYT- MD thread effort was undertaken - concentrating on a new approach 4490-95 rshow55 9/23/02 8:10pm

4501 rshow55 9/24/02 10:46am I often ask what I ought to do - how I can do my duty - in ways that Bill Casey would approve of - placed as I am, knowing what I know, with the skills I have, and concerned as I am that the United States government is making serious mistakes, recklessly endangering the security and the prosperity of this nation - and imposing grave risks and costs on the world, as well.

I have a duty to warn 4508-11 rshow55 9/24/02 12:00pm

technical and moral issues: 4516 lchic 9/24/02 10:23pm

A key point about stability, and a story connected to Nash's background, mine, and Psychwar, Casablanca . . . and terror 4530-4531 rshow55 9/25/02 4:06pm

. . .

Well, if staffed organizations haven't paid any attention - we've guessed wrong.

But if we've guessed wrong - - what are mercenaries like you doing here? rshow55 10/19/02 10:26pm

Johnson, you can post as much filler as you want - -and it may distract casual readers - - but staff people won't be distracted.

And if there are no staff people - - well, I've just guessed wrong. Folks do that sort of thing.

out.

bbbuck - 09:58pm Oct 19, 2002 EST (# 5071 of 17697)

Go back to the guardian clown.

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