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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 - 02:55pm Oct 19, 2003 EST (# 15240 of 15241)
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.

Negotiation skills need to be higher than they now are. The hopes expressed in

. Courageous Arab Thinkers By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/opinion/19FRIE.html

largely depend on better negotiation skills than people usually display.

The problems set out in

. Global Village Idiocy By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/opinion/12FRIE.html

, that have so frustrated the hopes in Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree need to be understood well enough so that they can be routinely and repeatedly solved.

I think that's possible - and that people involved on thread, including "powers that be" might gain status and money doing it.

We need to strengthen international law,

. From Bosnia to Berlin to The Hague, on a Road Toward a Continent's Future by ROGER COHEN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/weekinreview/15WORD.html ends as follows:

without forgetting that Hobbesian realities that still exist. That looks possible to me. And necessary.

Unless we can do this, the hopes that motivate steps like Bush Says He's Open to Security Assurances for North Korea By REUTERS Published: October 19, 2003 Filed at 10:25 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-bush.html can't come to a stable, good fruition.

Short term solutions, applied again and again - without enough flexibility or foresight - have had ugly consequences in Korea for the half a century since

. TEXT OF THE KOREAN WAR ARMISTICE AGREEMENT http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/korea/kwarmagr072753.html

- notably over the last decade.

I've been giving a lot of advice about " win win" negotiations - and these last postings are intended to be part of a win-win negotiation.

At least an attempt at one that fits the criteria I've set out on this thread, and can be referred to as such.

The long and the short of it is - you need both long and short. The long and the short have to fit together. And the long and the short, together, must meet the tests that actually apply.

Recent postings will be an appendix, for reference, connected to a short proposal - one page in length at the "top dog's" level - intended to be "win-win". http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.D7EPbzbLPEn.3527741@.f28e622/16937

Eisenhower might not think I've been so smart, but I think he'd approve of the effort, anyway. James Reston might, as well.

bluestar23 - 03:13pm Oct 19, 2003 EST (# 15241 of 15241)

showalter:

"My nervous breakdown. : I had been trained to identify and solve differential equations, and sometimes simple systems of them, using the power series method (as described in Kreyzsig's Advanced Engineering Mathematics and many other texts.) I did these computations in my head - and spent much of my time doing so. This was arduous, and involved a lot of concentration. I overdid it, at a time when I believed the solution of the "hidden problem" above was cracking "before my eyes" - when I'd been told that, on delivery of that solution, AEA investors would be made whole, and AEA would be funded for success by the government. My head blew -- I collapsed, and there was memory damage -- serious enough that I had a difficult time relearning to read, and relearning much else. On this matter, only so much can be checked. But a lot can be checked. There are quite complete records on my psychiatric condition since the early 1980's."

Before reading this post, I regularly used the term "mental illness" to describe Showalter. Now, I realize I was all too correct. But the general description of Showalter's post can be read to describe his first schizophrenic break with reality....probably within the normal age range for the onset of the disease. It's just sad to see such individuals, who could be helped with modern medication, go so obviously and publicly untreated.

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