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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 - 02:49am Aug 13, 2002 EST (#3685 of 3700)

Looking at MD using

who ~ what ~ where ~ when ~ why ~ how

Those irresponsible enough to see Nukes as an answer!

That before the big Nuke accident!

History is in the mind - the backward historical glance!

It stopped when those darned fools got too darned arrogant!

Why - because they were off on a SuperpowerEmpire EGO-trip!

Said to be an accident .... yet aren't all accidents QUALITY failure .. and that's something to do with STATISTICS !!!

lchic - 02:54am Aug 13, 2002 EST (#3686 of 3700)

"" Tumbleweed .... it's a survivor. In southern Nevada, where many nuclear weapons were tested above ground, the tumbleweed was always the first plant to start growing at Ground Zero. Like the cockroach and the frog, the tumbleweed will inherit the earth. http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/trek/4wd/Over69.htm

lchic - 03:27am Aug 13, 2002 EST (#3687 of 3700)

Afghan CAM
Angola CAM
Congo CAM

CAM
CAM
CAM

CAM can
CAM CAM
again!

kalter.rauch - 04:05am Aug 13, 2002 EST (#3688 of 3700)
Earth vs <^> <^> <^>

rshow55 8/10/02 9:11am

Line for line, it seems to me that lchic's postings on this thread are more impressive even than the fine work that appears in the NYT print paper, day after day.

Have you LOST YOUR MIND, TOO??? Are you talking about the following example of lchic's "fine work"......

Are you into a comparison of the state of mind of a Chinese Prisoner (who might be shot for body parts) as against a CampXray prisoner who's mind is being shattered for ....... a political body, in parts!......lchic 8/10/02 6:57am

THAT'S the kind of disjointed nonsense that lchic's been filling these forums with since DAY 1!!! All she's doing is entering paranoid anti-US slogans into Google and then pasting the results into whatever forum for our "edification"!!!

rshow55 - 08:14am Aug 13, 2002 EST (#3689 of 3700)

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?224@@.ee74d94/5493

Attack On The Ad-Man

This trumpeter of nothingness, employed
To keep our reason dull and null and void.
This man of wind and froth and flux will sell
The wares of any who reward him well.

Praising whatever he is paid to praise,
He hunts for ever-newer, smarter ways
To make the gilt seen gold; the shoddy, silk;
To cheat us legally; to bluff and bilk
By methods which no jury can prevent
Because the law's not broken, only bent.

This mind for hire, this mental prostitute
Can tell the half-lie hardest to refute;
Knows how to hide an inconvenient fact
And when to leave a doubtful claim unbacked;
Manipulates the truth but not too much,
And if his patter needs the Human Touch,
Skillfully artless, artlessly naive,
Wears his convenient heart upon his sleeve.

He uses words that once were strong and fine,
Primal as sun and moon and bread and wine,
True, honourable, honoured, clear and keen,
And leaves them shabby, worn, diminished, mean.
He takes ideas and trains them to engage
In the long little wars big combines wage…
He keeps his logic loose, his feelings flimsy;
Turns eloquence to cant and wit to whimsy;
Trims language till it fits his clients, pattern
And style's a glossy tart or limping slattern.

He studies our defences, finds the cracks
And where the wall is weak or worn, attacks.
lie finds the fear that's deep, the wound that's tender,
And mastered, outmanouevered, we surrender.
We who have tried to choose accept his choice
And tired succumb to his untiring voice.
The dripping tap makes even granite soften
We trust the brand-name we have heard so often
And join the queue of sheep that flock to buy;
We fools who know our folly, you and I.

A.S.J. Tessimond.

lchic - 11:40am Aug 13, 2002 EST (#3690 of 3700)

A S J Tessimond (1902 - 1962)

This guy - all thanks to the wonders of the browser - it seems actually wrote advertising copy. His reflections are a 'take' on the world half a century ago.

It was about this time that the wonders of Nukes were being palmed-off, positioned in - the heads of both the free and curtained world.

How much propaganda?

What checks for truth were made?

Regulations over the retail world may now have moderated the claims by the Ad-Agency regarding cars, cigarettes, and sandwich spreads ......

Are there any regulations over 'security' claims?

Are there any checkable standards?

Do Ad-men~/~Ad-women in the guise of PR (public relations) scripters put out verbage that

skews minds, adjusts 'truth', papers over, covers-up, contains, muddy's the waters, de-limits, de-focuses, de-tracts, dis-tracts, moves the spotlight from A to B .... are PR players the new guise of 'The Ad-man' .... ?

How many as compared to journalism ?

Which flit between ?

Is the day of the investigative reporter past?
Or still flourishing?

How does 'the reader' know if that put forth is true or skew?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

lchic - 11:44am Aug 13, 2002 EST (#3691 of 3700)

You've 'flipped' in your own space ship(s)
here <^> <^> <^> kalter.rauch 8/13/02 4:05am

I stand by my pointing out that

'mental trauma' is being suffered by prisoners incasarated world wide - especially in laxly monitored systems with little recourse to appeal.

(9 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense