New York Times on the Web Forums Science
Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans
for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be
limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI
all over again?
(6276 previous messages)
lunarchick
- 08:24am Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6277
of 6290) lunarchick@www.com
I was thinking about this today ... a Third-World leader takes a
loan from the world bank .. he 'spends' big on a fleet of luxury
cars. Four years later the fleet are heaped in the scrap yard, but
the loan still has to be repaid.
If the item purchased changed from 'luxury car' to 'missile' ..
the logic would be the same. The 'missile' has no value to a country
in that it can't be used to produce product leading to wealth, it
deteriorates, it has to be paid for, sometimes via a loan.
If the item reads 'land mine' then all the above apply, and
additionally the victims of the mine have to receive state support
for up to the next hundred years. [how long will it be before
countries that are subject to destruction make claims on the makers
of the products of destruction ... retrospectively ?]
-----
Additional to this, which products can be made entirely within a
country, and used within it, thereby creating wealth through
monetary velocity (circulation).
If a State wishes to improve the lot of the people, focusing on
humanitarian approaches and developing product from within it's
boundaries (for the most part), then what can be produced,
processed, marketed, purchased and either consumed, or used to make
further product for consumption. How much 'wealth' can be created
within the Nation State - raising it from abject poverty to
reasonable living standards ? Didn't everyone live within their
Nation State prior to the expansion of in/visible trading ?
lunarchick
- 08:43am Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6278
of 6290) lunarchick@www.com
Process, and the licensing of efficient quality process, is
important to build wealth.
The Franchising of process is a means of exporting and
exploiting process to give wealth.
rshowalter
- 09:15am Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6279
of 6290) Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
There's a lot of room for progress, with very little
additional capital, in Russia -- though more money will help a lot.
And if the waste in dollars and manpower in the US military
budget was devoted to productive purposes -- life would look up -
for just about everybody in the world.
Except for a few people -- a tiny group, compared to world
population -- people of the lie -- who ought, perhaps, to be asked,
or forced, to make some modifications in their behavior -- and some
amends.
Perhaps they could do it gracefully.
Back in a couple of hours.
rshowalter
- 09:20am Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6280
of 6290) Robert Showalter
showalte@macc.wisc.edu
If perchance, some of these people are religious, they should
think of what their religion might lead them to expect -- in my view
-- even the imagination of Dante, or Johnathan Edwards, would be
taxed -- imagining what justice for some of these people would be
--- unless they change.
Of course, I'm not sure that any of the people who've told these
lies, and exploited so much, have any real religious beliefs at all
-- it seems to me possible that they're just enjoying the chance to
make fools of a lot of people.
lunarchick
- 09:32am Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6281
of 6290) lunarchick@www.com
*
lunarchick
- 11:48am Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6282
of 6290) lunarchick@www.com
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/china/pla/index.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2000/china06222000.htm
http://www.maoism.org/msw/vol4/mswv4_23.htm
http://www.washingtoninquirer.com/archive/03-06-00/ChineseBudget.htm
---
~ http://tibet.org.actadivina.com/
This fact sheet identifies the most common types of abuses,
including arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment of
prisoners, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and
association and violations specific to women.
Controls on Expressions and Associations Torture and
Ill-Treatment of Prisoners
According to prisoner reports, methods commonly used by guards
include: beatings using electric batons; rubber truncheons on
hands and feet; long periods in handcuffs and/or leg irons, often
tightened so as to cause pain; restriction of food to starvation
levels; and long periods in solitary confinement. Furthermore,
corrupt authorities at detention centers, prisons and labor camps
have extorted large sums of money from families of detainees for
the state's provision of "daily supplies" and "medical expenses
Lackof Judicial Independance and Due Process Death Penalty
On a single day, 9 January 1993, 356 death sentences were
handed down by Chinese courts; 62 executions took place that day.
During that year alone, 2,564 people were sentenced to death. At
least 1,419 of them are known to have been executed. The total
number of death sentences and executions is believed to be higher.
Defendants do not always have access to lawyers, and when a lawyer
is available, he or she usually has no more than one or two days
to prepare a defense. Death sentences have been imposed based on
forced confessions and are often decided in advance of the trial
by "adjudication committees," thereby circumventing defendants'
rights to a fair and public hearing and presumption of innocence.
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Missile Defense
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