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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 - 12:16pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5915 of 5933)

X-nyc-mayor (with Status) being lined up to become chairman of WorldCom, the bankrupt telecommunications giant.

lunarchick - 12:22pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5916 of 5933)

Benn on EU

"" One of Benn's main criticisms was that there is not enough democracy in Brussels, a point with which it is hard to argue.

The European commission, he reminded the audience, is not elected and therefore not accountable, and the European parliament, he told crestfallen MEPs, is not a parliament in the real sense of the word.

Its occupants are anonymous, since people vote only for parties and not representatives (European elections use proportional representation), and the assembly's powers to legislate are limited. (It has joint competence on only a selected number of policy areas).

The real parliament and the real power is the EU's council of ministers, he added, where many decisions are taken in secret and where ministers agree laws unencumbered by national parliamentary scrutiny - despite the fact that those same laws will have a profound and irreversible effect on the people of Britain. And that, he suggested, is not democracy or anything coming close to it.

The most important question to ask someone in power, he quipped, was how you go about getting rid of them, and in the case of the European commission the disturbing answer is you can't.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,842422,00.html

However, in its current form the EU is, he believes, too big and too flawed to be truly democratic. There is simply no room for real debate, street politics or a meaningful link between the elected and the electors. And with the union poised to take in 10 new countries as early as 2004, he argues, things can only get worse from a democratic point of view.

lunarchick - 12:44pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5917 of 5933)

Iran - generational change? (bbc)

2/3rds of population under 30yrs of age -
are 'internet saavy'
Huge demand for American Products ...
but sanctions prohibit their 'offical' purchase
Germany biggest market partner.
Iran has just reformed it's investment policy. (James Whittiker)

lunarchick - 12:56pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5918 of 5933)

For young Iranians, not to have access to a constant stream of beautifully bottled Coke is an ugly complex matter ...

Showalter 'To make good theory, in complex circumstances, beauty coming into focus must be judged, and shaped, in a priority ordering - and even though the priorities may be shifted for different attempts at beauty, the priorities need to be remembered, and questions of "what is beautiful" and "what ugly" have to be asked in terms of these priorities.

lunarchick - 01:06pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5919 of 5933)

Organizations help us achieve goals more effectively than we can as individuals http://www.mindspring.com/~bigscience/psy2220/workteams.html

Span of control - calculator
http://www.icce.rug.nl/qr/ssocc.html

Span of control - Tall v Flat organisations
http://www.revisionguru.co.uk/business/span.htm

lunarchick - 01:10pm Nov 18, 2002 EST (# 5920 of 5933)

The Profession and the Code of Ethics - for 'The Conservator-Restorer' ... could these guidelines applying to 'things' be adapted to apply to the restoration of 'rusty-nations'? http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/ecco/library/ethics.html

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