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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 - 08:17am Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3000 of 3014)

' how do you keep 'em down on the farm ... after they've seen Paris? ' give them a subsidy http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=313957

lchic - 08:26am Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3001 of 3014)

Repression within the USA

"" Adam Shapiro is among those who have paid a price for their beliefs. He is a Jew engaged to an American-born Palestinian, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement who was trapped in Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the spring while administering medical aid. After telling CNN that the Sharon government was acting like "terrorists" while receiving $3bn a year in US military aid, Shapiro and his family were savaged in the New York Post. The paper slandered Shapiro as the "Jewish Taliban" and demeaned his family as "traitors". Israeli supporters publicised his family's address and his parents were forced to flee their Brooklyn home and seek police protection. Shapiro's father, a New York public high-school teacher and a part-time Yeshiva (Jewish day school) teacher, was fired from his job. His brother receives regular death threats.

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=313235 FISK

< Didn't see the above in the NYT! >

"" Just how The New York Times – which boasts William Safire and Charles Krauthammer, those giants of pro-Israeli bias, among its writers – could be anti-Israeli is difficult to see, although it is just possible that, amid its reports on Israel's destruction in the West Bank and Gaza, some mildly critical comments found their way into print. The New York Times, for example, did report that Israeli soldiers used civilians as human shields – though only in the very last paragraph of a dispatch from Jenin.

rshow55 - 03:36pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3002 of 3014)

Much to be done, but I just got a communication that leads me to think that I've got a pretty good chance of sorting my situation out, in a way in the reasonable interest of the nation, myself, and others.

Anyway, I saw evidence of sophisitication and good faith from a quarter I respect (and fear).

Once problems and constraints are identified things often go well.

Perhaps, I'll have a chance to make any contributions I can make. In ways that fit the needs of others, as well.

It seems to me that, just lately, the US political system is doing a number of things right. I'm feeling good right now - and trying to move carefully.

You never know what good things might happen, if people start doing honest, careful accounting, and facing their problems.

lchic - 04:03pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3003 of 3014)

"" In the first six months of 2001 controllers filed 20 overload reports but this had increased to 44 over the same period this year.
^{http://www.guardian.co.uk/airlines/story/0,1371,753445,00.html}

rshow55 - 04:08pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3004 of 3014)

Maybe the need technology that makes their jobs inherently more doable - and more effective. Might be possible.

lchic - 04:20pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3005 of 3014)

They've been complaining about 'HIGH STRESS' for decades .... concerned they'll miss seeing a problem that leads to disaster!
Not something to want or want to have to live with - restless nights!

lchic - 04:28pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3006 of 3014)

Showalter - I got good feed back on this poem - (sci poetry)

Adults have secrets
lies and fictions

Live in their world
of contradictions

lchic - 04:59pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3007 of 3014)

.... have never publicized their use of attack dogs for fear of awakening memories of the dogs used in Nazi death camps ...
^{http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Attack-Dogs.html}

rshow55 - 05:00pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3008 of 3014)

Some, but maybe I've been a little severe about them, in spots . . . though maybe not. Love your poem lchic 7/11/02 4:28pm . . . a prominant conservative made a similar point in words:

" The young are naturally romantic, and given to moral absolutes that necessarily make the real world of compromise, half-measures, and self-seeking appear corrupt."

...Chapter 1 .... Robert H. Bork, SLOUCHING TOWARDS GOMORRAH: Modern Liberalism and American Decline MD2639 rshow55 6/20/02 12:57pm

Let me dig around about MD issues that might be called "Any lies, fictions, contradictions" but might be referred to by softer words, such as "Self deceptions, false assumptions, wishful thinking and muddles." Problems that are no less of a concern, when subject to the softer language.

The kinds of careful accounting that we need in business is needed in engineering, too -- back in a while.

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