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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.

rshow55 - 09:23pm Jun 19, 2002 EST (#2632 of 2641)

I feel in need of a haircut. MD1591 rshow55 4/21/02 2:08pm ...

MD1594_1596 rshow55 4/21/02 3:07pm ..

I really meant the things I posted on September 25, 2000
MD1597 rshow55 4/21/02 3:14pm ... MD1598 rshow55 4/21/02 3:15pm

and especially this:

"Human actions work best according to the following pattern:

" Get scared .... take a good look ..... get organized ..... fix it .... recount so all concerned are "reading from the same page ...... go on to other things."

"I believe that elimination of nuclear weapons should proceed according to this pattern, with details well crafted enough so that the pattern worked for almost all people in the world. It would be a major challenge to disarm in a way that was aesthetically pleasing, and understood to be honorable, by all concerned. I believe that people are artistically perceptive enough to meet this challenge.

It seems to me that MD1599 rshow55 4/21/02 3:16pm to MD1603 rshow55 4/21/02 3:22pm -- are worth reading, whether I was dealing with Bill Clinton or not. The risks referred to were real then, and are just as real now.

If people show some courage, and find ways to get beyond the paralysis Bill Keller refers to in Fear Factor http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/15/opinion/15KELL.html we have a LOT to hope for. All it takes is a little courage, and intelligence.

gisterme - 04:05am Jun 20, 2002 EST (#2633 of 2641)

Paralysys seems to be your modus operandi, Robert.

You consistently refer to "issues" that can be soved, "problems" that don't seem too difficult to solve, ones you can't solve alone...but, you just as consistently fail to mention just what those might be.

You seem to have fallen into the deep end since I've been away. Most of what you've posted lately seems to be pure nonsense!

If you want help solving a problem, any problem, why not say what the problem is? How can you expect to recruit any sort of intellectual help when all you present is verbal confusion? You seem to have a real gift for saying much without saying anything at all. I must grudgingly give you credit for that; but for what purpose? Look back over your last twenty or so posts. They are representative of hundreds or maybe thousands you've made before...they don't really say anything substantive at all; lots of words with almost zero substance...it's like verbal cotton candy.

Cotton candy looks big when you're paying for it but amounts to less than a soon-vanished teaspoon of sugar when placed on the tongue.

Finding a trash bin in which to deposit the left-over paper cone is the usually the most gratifying part of the entire cotton candy expreience. That's because the paper cones that are the lasting artifact of cotton candy, being a sticky nuisance to carry around, are the only part that really has to be dealt with in the end.

lchic - 05:44am Jun 20, 2002 EST (#2634 of 2641)

Samson, thou in need of a haircut, in all but one instance, abstained ....

rshow55 - 10:07am Jun 20, 2002 EST (#2635 of 2641)

gisterme 6/20/02 4:05am

I don't think it is a bad thing to introduce damping into dangerously unstable systems. I've felt that progress has occurred - for me and for others, in the last little while.

I'll be back to you by 1:00, NY time.

I think a simple solution, that Bill Casey, Eisenhower, McArthur, Robert Bork, and maybe most of my old AEA associates would be likely to approve of - - might permit me to do whatever good I might be capable of, cleanly, neatly, and at fairly low cost

I'll try to suggest things that I think "average readers of The New York Times" would be likely to approve of, too.

If I had the right situation - which might be a "trash bin" from some perspectives, that might suit me just fine.

Back within three hours . . and gisterme , thanks for your response.

As for solving intellectual problems -- we're well along with that. The biggest problem, now, is just facing up to what we know, and finding graceful, efficient solutions to the specific problems we have, as we are, where we are, step by step.

lchic - 12:37pm Jun 20, 2002 EST (#2636 of 2641)

On facing up to problems: BOB HERBERT (Op-Ed) says there's 'No Margin for Error' as environmental issues start to press heavy in the melting pack-ice ....

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/20/opinion/20HERB.html

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