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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?

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rshow55 - 02:33pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6482 of 6506)
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.

Mystery Enshrouds Kola Boof, Writer and Internet Persona By JULIE SALAMON http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/books/11BOOF.html

Kola Boof says she is the object of a fatwa ordering her death for criticizing the Muslim government in her native Sudan, but Sudanese officials have denied it.

Who is Kola Boof?

"She might be, as she claims, the object of a fatwa ordering her death because of her vehement criticism of the Muslim government in her native Sudan. Or she might be, as some have suggested, an author trying to bring attention to her books by fabricating a provocative public persona, using the specter of fatwa as a marketing ploy.

"Either way, the Kola Boof story demonstrates how flashpoints are reached in cyberspace, the new forum for underground literature and politics, where fact and myth become indistinguishable and publicity campaigns become a kind of performance art. Without the imprimatur of a major publisher or a mainstream review or a public appearance, she has managed to instigate anger and discussion about her work.

Does my work on this board differ? Without checking against objective facts - just within the framework of internet text "fact and myth become indistinguishable."

But checking, though it has some costs - can also be very good indeed. If the things I've claimed as facts on this board were checked (and a months work by a reporter or private detective could check a lot) - - reality could be distinguished from fiction by "connecting the dots."

I think the value of this board would be almost exactly the same - if people attended to the ideas - whether people found that they should "call me Ishmael" or not. (for the "story" I've been telling about my relation with Casey, and other things - hit "rshow55" in the upper left of this posting for details.)

Though I'd like to find ways to get the checking done - for some compelling reasons. And I'd like to be "off the hook" on some security problems that get in the way of my living my life.

In my case, an intersting wrinkle on the "new forum" of the internet is how reluctant people of all kinds can be to actually get checking done to closure.

almarst2002 - 02:45pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6483 of 6506)

"Today's terrorists recognize no chivalry, no proper behaviors."

The last century provided them with a great teachers.

BTW. Your F105 pilot provide a good example. Here the young man who probably never heared about such place as Hanoi, was sent to bomb those "underhuman communsts" with carpet bombing, napalm and Agent Orange from high above. Without a chance to see the dead and burned alive on the ground. Then he flies over and marvels to the "peaceful" sight.

Can anyone tell me anything more dreadful than that?

rshow55 - 02:48pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6484 of 6506)
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.

I knew Dan Berrigan just a little at Cornell (he was a campus chaplain) and he made that point very forcefully. It is a point that Americans need to understand much more clearly than they do.

Or at least, setting human feelings aside, they need to understand how most other people in the world think about it.

We need to do better than the "teachings" of the 20th century.

Maybe some progress is being made.

bbbuck - 02:49pm Dec 11, 2002 EST (# 6485 of 6506)
"You can't eat this, it's people, it's people"-B....."What about the cherry pie?"

A years worth of 'Brady Bunch' tapes?

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