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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 - 06:44am Aug 11, 2002 EST (#3632 of 3643)

On truth and lies http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/superheroes/wonderwoman.shtml

lchic - 09:57am Aug 11, 2002 EST (#3633 of 3643)

Muddy Waters

To evade the point in question by artifice, play upon words, caviling, or by raising any insignificant or impertinent question or point; to trifle in argument or discourse; to equivocate.

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=quibble

lchic - 10:04am Aug 11, 2002 EST (#3634 of 3643)

Bush rhetoric is scaring Europe, says Mandelson

Close Downing Street ally voices fears that President Bush is alienating public opinion.

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,772584,00.html

... new poll revealed two-thirds of voters in the (Blair) Prime Minister's own constituency do not back military action against Saddam Hussein

... 'Bill Clinton was adept at speaking an international language that seemed to embrace every quarter of the world,' he added. 'Bush hasn't mastered that technique.'

.... is a lack of two-way empathy between President Bush and people around the world,' ... 'He does not seem to speak a world language

UK Poll ... Only 17.6 per cent said that Blair was right to support the bombing of Iraq

lchic - 10:12am Aug 11, 2002 EST (#3635 of 3643)

BBC Talking Point Isreali Palestine (live NOW)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm

"Middle East: What hope for peace? Palestinians are holding their first high-level talks in months with a sceptical US administration - as tensions on the ground show no sign of easing. What hope is there of peace being achieved in the Middle East?"

Palestine talking of refom

Isreali's not focused on (reform) vision Bush articulated ...

Caller1 says - Israeli-Palestine country is too narrow-small to be two countries ..

Caller2 says - people have to 'live together'

lchic - 10:17am Aug 11, 2002 EST (#3636 of 3643)

Citizen Kane - the greatest .... ?

" ... the great thing about cinema is that it isn't books, it isn't theatre, it isn't painting - it's all of those and more. It is the quintessentially modern art form, changing from year to year and democratically open to every person in the world, from the ivory towers to the Ivory Coast. Kane can't be Shakespeare because ...

http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,772532,00.html

lchic - 10:41am Aug 11, 2002 EST (#3637 of 3643)

Africa : Angola : Mai Farrow

has said the United States has a

moral responsibility

to help Angolans recover from civil war

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2186112.stm

lchic - 11:26am Aug 11, 2002 EST (#3638 of 3643)

Rogue USA Feb. 25, 2002

In its unilateralist disregard, U.S. is the real 'rogue state' By Richard B. Du Boff and Edward S. Herman

Most people believe that their own country is virtuous and that only others misbehave enough to qualify as international outlaws. But the United States has elevated this popular sentiment to the level of national policy - by designating certain countries, of its own choosing, as "rogue states." The dictionary defines rogue as "a fierce and dangerous animal, like an elephant, that separates itself from its herd." By this standard, the United States, not the piddling tyrannies named by the State Department, is the world's number one rogue.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/2740812.htm

rshow55 - 01:29pm Aug 11, 2002 EST (#3639 of 3643)

The Odds of That By LISA BELKIN

"In paranoid times like these, people see connections where there aren't any. Why the complex science of coincidence is a conspiracy theorist's worst nightmare. Go to Article http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/magazine/11COINCIDENCE.html

• Links: Web sites devoted to coincidence, including the Sept. 11 theory. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/magazine/11COINCIDENCE.html#links

This would be a great article to have 5th graders read - especially if reading instruction improved so that they could read it. It contains information everybody ought to know.

One basic piece of information is that the process by which human beings "connect the dots" -- form patterns in their minds -- is the same process - - whether the particular relationship "seen" happens to be real or coincidental. You have to check.

If there is enough interest, it makes sense to cull the coincidences - and verify and focus the real patterns - patterns that can be precious.

What if the process of culling is forbidden, or not done? Just that problem occurs now.

Everybody gets ideas. Including bad ideas.

This, which I posted on Oct 9, 2001, still seems reasonable to me:

I'm concerned about avoiding death and injury to people . To flesh and blood.

To avoid that, there are times when bad ideas have to be killed -- that is, denied credibility among people who are socially credible themselves.

That means checking, when stakes are high, has to be morally forcing.

. . . . .

Now, it seems, whenever anybody with "power" or "credibility" objects - checking to closure is blocked. In fact, it seems to me that checking is forbidden - people are indignant when such checking is suggested -- because something would be taken to closure -- somebody would lose, on a particular point.

The rules are a public relations man's dream - - but expensive and costly to us all - in countless ways.

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