New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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.

rshow55 - 11:21pm Jun 6, 2002 EST (#2477 of 2493)

Pity the SEARCH capability has gone away again.

Whistle-Blower Recounts Faults Inside the F.B.I. By DAVID JOHNSTON and NEIL A. LEWIS http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/07/politics/07INQU.html

Coleen Rowley told Senators on Thursday that the F.B.I.'s bureaucracy discouraged innovation and punished agents seeking to cut through layers of gatekeepers.

I have no records -- nothing but circumstantial evidence to support what I say (though there are many ways to "collect the dots" and "connect the dots" and many ways to check, if effort is expended.) But I say again that my instructions from Bill Casey were that I was not even to attempt a "direct approach" to CIA - since my objective was to actually get something done. Casey told me, even after my head blew, to keep working - that I was working on problems of national importance. I was told that I would be watched, and that if I put, properly encoded but conspicuously placed, information saying I was making real progress - there would be a way to "bring me in." I was astonished, after doing the work, and posting http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/pap2 - -- that it didn't happen. A Modified Equation for Neural Conductance and Resonance http://xxx.lanl.gov/html/math-ph/9807015 But I had been told that I had to have reasoning that would "make it through the system" -- and Steve Kline and I worked very hard, within our geekish limitations, on polishing our reasoning.

(If only I'd known lchic at the time - we might have done much better. She has an artistic-associative gift we knew nothing of.)

I was also told that, if nothing else worked, my only real chance was to "come in through The New York Times ". I found out, and have continued to find out, that the NYT also has its "layers of gatekeepers." And has its gatekeeping procedures.

Even so, there have been times that I've thought that Bill Casey gave me his best judgement.

Other times, it seems to me that Casey simply couldn't bring himself to tell me that truth --- that there was no hope for me at all - - and just wanted to keep me working.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/07/politics/07INQU.html bears careful reading, and seems to me to be ominous, but a clear warning. How much more hopeful the world might be if people asked "what matters" -- clearly and competently enough. The stakes are so high that the question "what matters" matters for our decency and survival.

People of literary interest might find this sermon moving - as I do, and an aid to imagining, in human terms, the obligations and challenges we now face.

WHEN THE FOUNDATIONS ARE SHAKING ..... by Dr James Slatton . . . . River Road Church (Baptist) in Richmond, Va ......available in RealMedia, Quicktime, and Windows Media7 formats http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html

People of secular inclinations might want to skip the first 9:27 of the sermon . Thereafter, it tells the story of a Russian colonel, in the USSR's nuclear forces, who kept is head, and by doing so, kept nuclear war from destroying us all.

This contrasts, I feel, with another kind of "gatekeeping" and "logic keeping." - - - Not all Southern Baptists are the same MD158 rshow55 3/3/02 3:54pm

Bush 2000 Adviser Offered To Use Clout to Help Enron By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 17, 2002

" Just before the last presidential election, Bush campaign adviser Ralph Reed offered to help Enron Corp. deregulate the electricity industry by working his "good friends" in Washington and by mobilizing religious leaders and pro-family groups . . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22380-2002Feb16.html

I like the call for judgement in http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html much better.

applez101 - 01:30pm Jun 8, 2002 EST (#2478 of 2493)

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/international/asia/09JAPA.html

Anyone care to place bets on what Japan's reaction would be to an NMD-reactionary Chinese nuclear build-up programme?

mazza9 - 03:48pm Jun 10, 2002 EST (#2479 of 2493)
Louis Mazza

Japan has the wherewithal to produce nuclear weapons. However, they realize that being a island,nation with a high density population there would be no future in a nuclear exchange. I suppose they would jump on the NMD bandwagon real quick!

LouMazza

mazza9 - 04:50pm Jun 11, 2002 EST (#2480 of 2493)
Louis Mazza

Hello! Hello! Hello!

Is anyone there? Is anyone there? Is anyone there?

Is that an echo echo echo?

almarst2002 - 06:05pm Jun 11, 2002 EST (#2481 of 2493)

"The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base," he said. "That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." - President Harry Truman, Aug. 6, 1945

almarst2002 - 06:24pm Jun 11, 2002 EST (#2482 of 2493)

PIPELINE POLITICS - http://www.worldpress.org/specials/pp/front.htm

"Central Asian oil is important. It is potentially important to the United States, which consumes more energy than any other country in the world and must import roughly half its oil. But it is surely more important to Central Asia. It is in this context that we consider the issue of oil and gas in Central Asia."

almarst2002 - 07:40pm Jun 11, 2002 EST (#2483 of 2493)

The Geopolitics of Oil in Central Asia - http://www.hri.org/MFA/thesis/winter98/geopolitics.html

(10 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense