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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.

lunarchick - 10:45am Nov 8, 2002 EST (# 5549 of 5556)

brain - illusion - moon

"Finally I said, 'why don't we just measure it?' There must be a way we can make an experimental measurement of what the brain is doing as opposed to what people are concluding," he said.

Ponzo illusion
http://www.sandlotscience.com/Distortions/Ponzo_java.htm
http://fates.cns.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycfair/ponzo.htm

...... The brain uses a variety of different cues to give meaning to the size of objects -- to keep small objects looking small even if they are nearby, and large objects staying large even if they are far away.

The perceptual system encounters difficulty with celestial objects, though.

"At those vast distances, you can't get an accurate perception of distance," Kaufman continued. "The moon is 240,000 miles away and it's 4,000 miles across, and it doesn't look like its 4,000 miles across."

At the horizon, details in the foreground allow the brain to determine -- even if it can't tell exactly -- that the moon is, at least, very far away. "If you were to look toward an elevated moon where there are less salient cues to the distance to the moon, you locate it at a closer distance and therefore it is perceived as being smaller," he said.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/bigmoon_000105.html

lunarchick - 11:00am Nov 8, 2002 EST (# 5550 of 5556)

Iraq

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq/thestory.html

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.3ba775cd/0

rshow55 - 11:12am Nov 8, 2002 EST (# 5551 of 5556)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

U.N. Panel Vote Is Unanimous By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq.html Filed at 10:42 a.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The Security Council unanimously approved a new Iraq resolution Friday, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face ``serious consequences'' that would almost certainly mean war.

The vote came after eight weeks of tumultuous negotiations and was seen as a victory for the United States, which drafted the resolution together with Britain.

If the result is war, it will be a great human failure and tragedy - but the consequences for the world will still be far better than they would have been without the negotiation. If the result is peaceful, practical disarmament - it will be a great and historical step toward a better world.

I'm glad the vote went as it did, and that the negotiation went as it did.

One could look at
Oct 30: 5380-81 rshow55 10/30/02 11:34am
Oct 31: 5409 rshow55 10/31/02 12:19pm
Nov 1: 5437 rshow55 11/1/02 8:40am
Nov 1: 5441 rshow55 11/1/02 12:23pm
Nov 1: 5442 lchic 11/1/02 2:06pm
and some other postings, and think that the MD forum may have been influential and useful in the discourse about Iraq at the United Nations.

I hope so - and think that, at the least, lchic and I have succeeded in setting out some arguments congruent with some useful discussions that have gone on at the UN.

rshow55 - 12:13pm Nov 8, 2002 EST (# 5552 of 5556)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

U.N. Panel's Vote Is Unanimous By TERENCE NEILAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/international/08CND-NATI.html

mazza9 - 02:36pm Nov 8, 2002 EST (# 5553 of 5556)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

lchic:

Aren't you ecstatic that the Bali bomber admits the act but mitigates the Australian deaths since he really meant to kill Americans?, (NY Times front page).

Murder and mayhem. such an interesting form of 'suasion!

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