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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 - 06:10am Feb 4, 2003 EST (# 8558 of 8565)
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.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md511.htm includes this:

" Kalter , I think that you may know personally of some of the following circumstances. In addition to some extensive web postings on the math and related neural modeling, I had extensive and intense correspondence (many hundreds of pages) with a NYT associated writer, mostly paced by him, not by me. There was a period of many months when a NYT reporter asked me question after question, occupying essentially all my time, and much of his own. There was then a period where I was involved in dialog with TIMES writers and editors. That dialog was rough, and seems to have culminated in some "checking" by people the Times knew, though that checking was never made available to me in a way I could use. However, the following text appeared in a Feb 27,2000 Week In Review piece "Correspondence Uncovering Science; A Perpetual Student Charts a Course Through a Universe of Discoveries" by Malcolm W. Browne . . . "

http://www.mrshowalter.net/bhmath/ shows a piece of work I'm proud of - that represented a good deal of work, I believed, from George Johnson, too. When I first posted it on this thread - it was taken down without my consent - then reinstated.

The situation involved here was complicated and awkward - because I had a secret that I was duty bound to tell only under careful circumstances - and was keeping promises that Casey had been very explicit about - for what I thought were compelling reasons. I did the best I could - and when I told what I was keeping secret - at gisterme's suggestion, the NYT forums went down for some days. Perhaps that was a coincidence. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/352 and postings thereafter on the Guardian are clear about the point - and refer to many links clear about the point on this thread.

. It is now technically easy to shoot down every winged aircraft the US or any other nation has, or can expect to build - to detect every submarine - and to sink every surface ship within 500 miles of land - the technology for doing this is basic - and I see neither technical nor tactical countermeasures.

My life circumstances, since I was nineteen years old, have hinged around the point above. Some of my interactions with the Times have been awkward - I had promised to only give this information to a senior officer of the United States government - after establishing a relationship of trust. It was suggested that, if all else failed, the only way to do this - after my situation was clear enough - and I could explain some key things I was also assigned to do - was to get help from the New York Times. When I finally posted the information - at gisterme's suggestion - I had been doing my very best to follow my orders, and keep my promises - for a long time. The promises I'd made, given the stakes as I understood them - did not seem disproportionate - and the things I did seemed to me to fit the obligations I was under. It still seems that way to me.

rshow55 - 06:26am Feb 4, 2003 EST (# 8559 of 8565)
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.

8548 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@93.9pa0a1tJ2VJ.742784@.f28e622/10074 includes this:

"it seems to me to be important for leaders of nation states to determine if I'm right that gisterme either is, or is close to, the President of the United States. Because if that is correct, we have on this thread a very good corpus of material on how Bush thinks - the kind of thinking he approves of, and the kinds of arguments he uses.

I've said some negative things about gisterme , and I can't think, right off hand, of anything I'd like to take back (perhaps if I think a while . . . . . )

But I'd also say this. If other nation states work as hard - and think through their interests with as much attention as gisterme devotes to his perceptions of the needs of the United States - we could sort the problems before us out much, much better than they look like they're sorting out now.

almarst2002 - 06:49am Feb 4, 2003 EST (# 8560 of 8565)

The $1.26-billion program is the latest step in a little-publicized campaign by some senior administration officials, members of Congress and their supporters in the defense community to press for a new generation of smaller nuclear weapons - http://www.latimes.com/la-na-nukes3feb03004428,0,6347310.story

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