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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.

gisterme - 01:19am Jan 21, 2003 EST (# 7857 of 7868)

rshow55 - 08:31pm Jan 18, 2003 EST (# 7800...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/international/middleeast/19SAUD.html

"...Increasingly desperate to avoid war, Saudi Arabia is engaged in a campaign to incite Iraqi security forces to overthrow Saddam Hussein if he continues to refuse to step down or go into exile, officials here say..."

This is one example of the mounting "pressure for peace" that is being applied by the UN and all the coalition players. It's good to see. I sincerely hope and pray that war can be avoided.

Best post you've made in a long time Robert. You seem to be a little more relaxed. Glad to see it. :-)

gisterme - 01:40am Jan 21, 2003 EST (# 7858 of 7868)

lchic 07:02am Jan 19, 2003 EST (# 7804...)

...

Michel Foucault -

http://www.california.com/~rathbone/foucau10.htm

"..."[All power] can do is forbid, and all it can command is obedience. Power, ultimately, is repression; repression, ultimately, is the imposition of the law; the law, ultimately, demands submission." (Dreyfus & Rabinow, p. 130) ..."

Of course, without law (repression by this definiton) there can be no transgression.

If there can be no transgression, then what???

Anarchy and chaos, of course.

Equating cultural rules (law) to repression must serve somebody's purpose...I wonder who's purpose it might serve? I wonder what that purpose might be?

Even animals follow rules within their groups.

gisterme - 02:52am Jan 21, 2003 EST (# 7859 of 7868)

rshow55 - 07:57am Jan 19, 2003 EST (# 7805...)

"...I was moved when lunarchick wrote this:

". Adults need secrets, lies and fictions.

. To live within their contradictions" . .

I was moved too, Robert...toward the toilet to barf.

A secret is a secret. That in and of itself is not bad. It isn't a lie or a contradiction. Not telling everybody or anyone everything you know isn't dishonest. A secret is only harmful if by keeping it you allow others to be harmed. If a secret prevents harm to others or oneself it can be a very good thing. For example, the character string that your password consists of is a secret.

A lie is a contradiction to the truth that creates a false perception. A fiction (in this context) is a construct of such contradictions.

Lies and fictions are more contageous and dangerous than any deadly disease.

So one definately does need more lies and fictions to support one's previous lies and fictions...or as lunarchick/lchic puts it, "to live within your contradtions". But, doesn't every kid learn by the time they're a teenager that if you lie, you have to tell more lies to cover the original lie? Nothing new about that. The number of lies in a fiction can grow exponentially...usually to the point where the liar can't keep up and gets caught...and the entire fiction collapeses into a stinking heap of disgrace.

Why not just stick to the truth in the first place and avoid all that complexity?

Better to take one pill at first and be well than to take none and be shamed at the end of the day.

Now that I'm past the gag-reflex, I've gotta wonder...how does lchic manage to come up with such brilliant statements? Could she be wrapped around the axle?

"...It would have been MUCH easier for me, when I was a kid, if I'd been clearer about that...."

Robert, are you saying you'd have been better off if you'd just lied any time it seemed convenient? I hope not. Still, that seems to be the sort of behavior that lunarchick would want to justify by her statement.

Little children don't know how to lie until they've learned from someone else...brings to mind an ancient story I heard somewhere about a thing that happened in a garden...

lchic - 04:21am Jan 21, 2003 EST (# 7860 of 7868)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Film | Secrets and Lies

Hortence, a young, black middle-class optometrist decides to find her natural mother after her adoptive parents die. What she doesn't anticipate is that her search will lead her to a very sad white woman, Cynthia, and her argumentative daughter.

Director: Mike Leigh | starring: Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn certificate: 15 | running time: 141 mins

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