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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 - 05:43am Jul 15, 2002 EST (#3067 of 3068)

Is London simply paradise, or a paradise for the lost - SAFIRE quoting poet John Milton while MarketWise submerging himself in LUNDUN and lundun-vernacular

_{We wuz misinformed (from a tart Humphrey Bogart line in "Casablanca") by financial media that failed to dig into rosy press releases or challenge the celebrity culture that made dot-com demigods out of financial half-wits. The cautionary voices of Floyd Norris of The Times, Robert Samuelson of The Washington Post and Allan Sloan of Newsweek and relatively few others were unheeded in the cacophony. But yesterday's lapdogs have turned into a wolfpack, savaging reputations to satisfy popular demand for vengeance.}
^{http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/opinion/15SAFI.html}

rshow55 - 06:47am Jul 15, 2002 EST (#3068 of 3068)

Are they "savaging reputations" that deserve to be "savaged?" Could "evaluated" or "looked at" or "checked" have been better words to choose than "savaged"?

Safire's implication that "the problem is all the response to a market bubble, and the usual market problems" sounds good. He states it in such clear language that it is persuasive - as clear statement always is. But does what he says reasonably correspond to what is being said by the people he refers to? Does he properly report the concerns that the market players, betting their money, are really feeling and thinking?

Safire is superb at "collecting and connecting the dots" - - and has even taken note of the phrase "connect the dots" -- but is his collection and connection of the dots in this case a balanced and complete one?

Once Safire "connects the dots" -- does he understand that he is just a human being, like any other, who can jump to a wrong conclusion just as easily as to a right one? (In fact, without hard work, much more easily.)

Does Safire correct the dots - - does he keep looking at his conclusions, refining them in light of evidence, and look for a workable, balanced truth?

Or is he just a superb and powerful, but corrupt propagandist? I think he's a little corrupt, in a few spots anyway.

But powerful.

Just musing . . a webcast, starring Safire and Krugman, on the subject matter of Hence, Loathed Melancholy http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/opinion/15SAFI.html would be interesting. I bet with a phone call, the NYT could get any of a number of foundations to fund the expenses of such a meeting -- with fact checkers added if that seemed right.

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