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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.

rshow55 - 09:06pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3013 of 3033)

If you have x, y, z information with decent resolution, and can process polynomials with reasonable efficiency - - and do some simple signal processing, such as noise subtraction - - you can shoot manned aircraft down inexpensively -- with air-air missile technology well developed prior to 1960, and simple radio controls also well developed prior to 1960.

Here is a reference, slightly encripted (encripted as I was instructed to do.) http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/pap2

With some work, man-made technology can be as capable as bird, bats, and other animals have been for tens and hundreds of millions of years.

But there is still a BIG thing to learn. Two big things.

We need to learn how to make peace.

And we need to learn mercy. Both when it is useful, and when it is not.

rshow55 - 09:17pm Jul 11, 2002 EST (#3014 of 3033)

Bad example:

Bush 2000 Adviser Offered To Use Clout to Help Enron By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 17, 2002

" Just before the last presidential election, Bush campaign adviser Ralph Reed offered to help Enron Corp. deregulate the electricity industry by working his "good friends" in Washington and by mobilizing religious leaders and pro-family groups . . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22380-2002Feb16.html MD158 rshow55 3/3/02 3:54pm

Good example: http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html MD2796 rshow55 6/30/02 8:04pm

Among followers of Islam, one can also find good and bad examples.

Do we have to blow up the world?

We could. People have to learn to solve their own problems, and find the courage to do so, step by step.

The golden rule http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.eece621/0 is worth remembering.

rshow55 - 08:08am Jul 12, 2002 EST (#3015 of 3033)

It seems to me that the defense contractors can improve their prospects, and find some profitable things to do, in the national interest - if they learn a little math, remember a little O.R., and look at a few ideas. Or think for themselves, about a few things they actually know how to do. Could be wrong, of course. But I'm going to contact a person I respect very much, who works for one of the biggest and best of the contractors, and see if I might make some contacts. I don't have the right contacts and security clearances, but this person does.

I think a number of things can come together neatly, in the interest of the US and the world, and hope that people, especially those in the capital markets, calm down - and think how easily some of the "hopeless problems" that have them so worried might be fixed.

rshow55 - 08:14am Jul 12, 2002 EST (#3016 of 3033)

MD2913 rshow55 7/8/02 5:31pm

The Insider Game By PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/12/opinion/12KRUG.html

We need solutions where most people make more money, and are more secure. Solutions where everybody is treated fairly, and with reasonable mercy.

Doesn't look so hard to me. We can do better than we're doing, anyway. At least in spots.

lchic - 08:29am Jul 12, 2002 EST (#3017 of 3033)

One way of moving towards improved delivery is to anticipate future need and develop methods, process and product to meet it.

Also look at the underutilization of human resources - intellectual, logistical and physical power - and put a $ figure on wastage lost to the system.

Let in those locked out of the loop who will then be more able to make current and future provision for themselves.

lchic - 01:09pm Jul 12, 2002 EST (#3018 of 3033)

Peeling back to truth - Pakistan
^{http://abc.net.au/news/2002/07/item20020713000133_1.htm}

lchic - 01:16pm Jul 12, 2002 EST (#3019 of 3033)

US scandals show financial crises can happen anywhere: IMF The International Monetary Fund says the recent wave of corporate scandals in the United States shows the shortcomings uncovered by the Asian financial crisis of 1997 are also present in developed countries.

"the US legal system is a tough legal system and it is fair that we should expect that people [involved in the scandals] will be going to jail".

^{http://abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-13jul2002-1.htm}

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We handled plane crash aftermath badly: Swiss minister Swiss Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger hs acknowledged that officials made mistakes in handling the aftermath of a plane crash that killed 71 people, most of them Russian children.

^{http://abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-13jul2002-4.htm}

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Clinton, Mandela urge AIDS activists not to lose hope

Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela have urged campaigners never to lose heart in their war against the AIDS pandemic, even if the news from the battlefront is almost relentlessly bad. (ABC)

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