New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 08:13pm Jul 15, 2002 EST (#3078 of 3091)

Senate Passes Business Fraud Bill By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/politics/15WIRE-SENATE.html

WASHINGTON -- Without dissent, the Senate approved on Monday the most sweeping changes in corporate accountability since the Depression, creating stiff penalties and jail terms for company fraud and tightening oversight of the accounting industry.

If people keep checking - on issues of corruption - a tremendous amount of good could come of it.

The things Eisenhower warned about in his FAREWELL ADDRESS of January 17, 1961 http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm have happened.

We need to fix things. Practically. In the ways Americans often fix things, once they've seen enough to get to it. With more honest accounting , we can.

MD2899 includes a joke I liked written by Mark Twain:

I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately

We need not insist on "justice" from every possible perspective. Sometimes, when all is discovered, there are better resolutions. But sometimes holding people responsible is absolutely necessary. We're taking steps in the right direction.

MD2913-2914 rshow55 7/8/02 5:31pm

rshowalter "Science News Poetry" 2/14/01 7:18am

The Cold War should be over . We'd all be a lot safer, and most of us much more prosperous, if it were. We need to keep checking . Americans, and responsible people from other nations as well, should insist on it. I'm hopeful.

I'd like a chance to tell my story -- set out at length on this thread, and have it checked . Maybe I'm "a little oversensitive" about nuclear dangers. I'd like to have some things checked . I'm afraid the world might end - because of easily preventable stupidities - and easily documentable frauds gone terribly wrong. MD3058-3064 rshow55 7/14/02 7:36pm

Perhaps especially rshow55 7/14/02 7:56pm

wrcooper - 08:18pm Jul 15, 2002 EST (#3079 of 3091)

Here's an interesting story, Bob.

rshow55 - 08:55pm Jul 15, 2002 EST (#3080 of 3091)

It is an interesting story. Does it discuss a disorder, or a healthy response to circumstances? Does it discuss disorder, or ordinary human function?

Ever looked at word counts, for ordinary human beings, in ordinary communication? Why all the talking?

A key question, at the end of the talking - is what can be checked?

wrcooper - 09:43pm Jul 15, 2002 EST (#3081 of 3091)

rshow55 7/15/02 8:55pm

Can the wisdom of the following adage be checked? "Brevity is the soul of wit."

wrcooper - 09:49pm Jul 15, 2002 EST (#3082 of 3091)

Bob:

I would have to say that hypergraphia is a disorder associated with temporal lobe epilepsy. What do you think?

lchic - 04:13am Jul 16, 2002 EST (#3083 of 3091)

wrcooper - sorry to hear about your epilepsy ... wasn't your moniker mAzzA last time you were on the board - perhaps memory loss is a temporary disorder and normal memory services will be restored to the cranimum before the day is out.

Why not try for job as UK ambasador to USA - here's the application form http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,755915,00.html

lchic - 06:12am Jul 16, 2002 EST (#3084 of 3091)

Painting by numbers - numbero UNO

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/BushCorpFraud/main.asp

lchic - 06:36am Jul 16, 2002 EST (#3085 of 3091)

Self Obliteration by Dots / Yayoi Kusama (1968)

http://www.bombsite.com/archive/kusama/portfolio/image17.htm http://www.bombsite.com/archive/kusama/portfolio/image16.htm http://www.bombsite.com/archive/kusama/portfolio/image14.htm http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/?aid=49&eid=38&wid=1508

http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/?aid=49&eid=38&wid=1510 http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/?aid=49&eid=38&wid=1511 http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/?aid=49&eid=38&wid=1513 http://www.bombsite.com/archive/kusama/kusama1.html#videoDots1

lchic - 07:15am Jul 16, 2002 EST (#3086 of 3091)

"Fairfax - Home of the Taliban Fighter"

"I don't see him as a great threat to the nation."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,756218,00.html

(5 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense