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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.

lchic - 08:33am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15072 of 15090)
TRUTH outs ultimately : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Ruby Tuesday

http://www.yimpan.com/Songsite/Lyric/lyric2text.asp?sid=1714

would never say where s/he came from

S/he goes and goes

Who could hang a name on you?

When you change with every new day

rshow55 - 08:43am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15073 of 15090)
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.

Re 5072 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.pt3gbZpgOjB.2622051@.f28e622/16783

Yes - getting origins straight is important in any organized society - and in the academy perhaps more than anywhere else - credentials really count.

Some years ago, the UW made a fine administrative effort to sort out some of my problems - and a very good mathematician met with me - and it was clear that his sense, and the sense of the committee process he was in contact with - was that I was a "natural genius" - something like Ramanujan http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Ramanujan.html . I was touched - but I didn't know how on earth to deal with the situation - without violating my security constaints. My background was very different from Ramanujan - I was not "untutored" .

There are all sorts of times where you have to be able to give a sense of where you came from - and where your ideas came from - under circumstances where issues of fraud have to be thought about from time to time.

I've made some headway about that - and now - if I had some things in writing from the government - I could work through problems that were impossible before - and put me and other people, including Paul Focke, in impossible positions.

gisterme - 08:45am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15074 of 15090)

"...Would these lines be pertinent?"

Maybe the answer is here, lchic.

"Don't question why she needs to be so free

She'll tell you it's the only way to be

She just can't be chained

To a life where nothing's gained

And nothing's lost

At such a cost"

What do you think?

rshow55 - 08:48am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15075 of 15090)
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.

For stability - you need to tell reasonably whole stories.

If things are awkward, well, people who feel they are getting a straight, workably complete story can accomodate that - in the academy and elsewhere. But you can't "pull rabbits out of a hat" very often.

I've been striving for a situation where - when people ask "how do you know that? " I can give honest answers.

To do that - I needed to get some security clearance issues sorted in 2000 - and, in ways that matter decisively in administration - there are some problems I need sorted now.

If the verbal message from the government " we have no interest in your work" was in writing - in an administratively traceable way - or if any other decent arrangement were made - I could get into stable positions.

rshow55 - 08:55am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15076 of 15090)
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've had some conversations with a ranking cop in the University of Wisconsin system - because of the awkwardness of the situation he was a reasonable contact - and I think he was very clear what I needed - and relayed that to the government.

I'd be astonished if he hadn't communicated, in some detail, with other people in the University system, as well.

To sort out my security problems so that I could function in the national interest should be easy - if the government wanted it to happen .

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