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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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

bbbuck - 09:56am May 27, 2003 EST (# 12072 of 12075)

I once had a black and blue frisky little dog called smuckers[No, I had not heard of the jam, though ,later in life,I used to buy it, and it was pretty good]. The blue was a result of melting every blue and indigo crayon within a 3 mile radius. The crayons were sometimes purchased but when the money ran out I had to threaten smaller children with force to divest of their blue crayons. The kids bigger than me I let alone.

The crayons were then melted and just before they cooled too much, smuckers was dipped into the gooey liquid. This caused much laughter. Smuckers did not like it.

Anyway one day smuckers and I we're walking thru Komodo country on our way to a softball game between the Sydney Sweethearts and the Melbourne Mudbabbers, when we spied a beautiful canyon. Looking down on the canyon there was a huge silver object at the bottom of the canyon.

I thought my gosh I'm rich I've stumbled upon some giant nugget of silver. Smuckers went running down to the silver object to investigate and nudged it.

The object blew up.

So did smuckers.

The sky was painted blue.

Later I found out the nipsters had sent bombs over in hot air balloons and some of them had fallen and not exploded. O if smuckers had only been given proper unexploded bomb recognition training this tradegy may have been averted. But alas we were poor people and could not afford this luxury.

So long smuckers you were the best blue and black dog I ever owned. I miss you.

http://watch-out-smuckers.com/ or

http://gosh-look-at-that.com/ .

http://my-home-page.com/

rshow55 - 10:19am May 27, 2003 EST (# 12073 of 12075)
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.

I was impressed by jorian's 12072, reproduced below - and I'm glad almarst and Lchic noticed it. It isn't every posting on this thread that I discuss with my wife - but we did discuss this one -

jorian319 - 10:56pm May 26, 2003 EST (# 12072 of 12076) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.ctLbbAYdbWN.2123885@.f28e622/13697

"Robert, are you not fearful that when the CIA figgers out how much lchick knows about their inner workings, and particularly the scam to infiltrate NYT, they might take her out? Or ferret her away in some secret room to work on their latest encryption scheme? In Sing Sing even?

I've worried about such things - pretty carefully and for a long time. If the implication is as it appears to be - it seems to me that some people at the NYT should be ashamed - and concerned for the core of expectations that readers have of the TIMES. A TIMES that can be physically intimidated is a newspaper importantly diminished.

I'll be saying some more. Felt like reposting this.

http://talk.guardianunlimited.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/1281

lchic - 11:08am May 27, 2003 EST (# 12074 of 12075)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

The siege at a Russian theatre that left 170 people dead is to be made into a film

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/2932654.stm

---

Rock legend Sir Paul McCartney is fulfilling an ambition which eluded even The Beatles - playing live to fans in Moscow's Red Square. The star is staging the concert in the heart of the former Soviet Union, unthinkable during the Beatles' heyday.

Hours before the event, McCartney took tea in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Putin, who was a KGB agent when the Fab Four topped the charts around the world, admitted to his guest that The Beatles had been "a breath of fresh air" during Soviet times.

He said Beatles music "was considered propaganda of an alien ideology".

Mr Putin said that while Beatles' music was not banned by the Communist regime, "The fact that you were not allowed to play in Red Square in the 1980s says a lot."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2935244.stm

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