Re: NASA TRIES, FAILS TO WITHHOLD PLANETARY DEFENSE REPORT

So I am ignorant. Pray, how do you find facts out. If some years ago I
had been told that the intelligence services of a major western
country would concoct a *** and bull story about WMD and yellowcake
from Niger, I would have said that was loony. yet it is a matter of
historical record. OK you don't like it, it is acknowledged as being
accurate. What is even worse, when the illegal war they had lied about
came about, they made a complete mess. According to the Al Jazeera
estimates, which lie somewhere between the British academic estimates
(600,000) and the "official" estimates, are probably the most
credible.

Basically I you have provably lied about major aspects of fact, people
are rightly going to suspect everything. I don't know why you are
going out of your way to support the religious right, I would have
thought that support for them was definitely out of place in a
scientific discussion group. So BTW is getting so deeply into
politics, but I will return to this later. The Religious Right are
where the evidence is pointing, the most crucial being the evidence of
the graphologist that the notes were written by a child.

Of course the CIA could have used a graph plotter to produce the notes
and make it look like a child. That would be even more conspiratorial
would it not. No it is not MO. The CIA would have used a fairly
standard dot matrix printer that would be impossible to trace.

I don't know why you wish to defend or cover up for the RR. They have
absolutely no place in any scientific discussion.

The Universe began with a Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago. That
is to say if Omega=1. If we do not have dark matter the age goes up to
some 19 billion years. The solar system was formed some 4.55 billion
years ago. If you are investigating for example the material out of
which comets were formed, these figures come immediately into view.
Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium were formed in the Big Bang (after about
3 mins stable nuclei could exist). All the other elements were formed
inside stars and released by supernova explosions. LISA (I mean
gravitational wave LISA) is going to detect gravitational waves from
collapsing (and exploding) stars and there is the tantalizing prospect
of the Big Bang itself. Is this relevant - Is it hell! These are the
central planks of Intelligent Design, which you appear to be
implicitly supporting.

Could someone please tell me how the administration can evaluate the
rival merits of LISA and Dark Matter for example.

Lets take something else and try to use our brains for once. Hydrogen
Peroxide. In the recent attacks (some of which went wrong) a dilute
solution of hydrogen peroxide was boiled on a stove. Anyone with any
chemical ability would soon realize that to get Hydrogen Peroxide in a
reasonably pure state you need a reflux condenser with a desiccating
agent being used in the final purification. How can AQ go from this to
the complex processes needed in the purification of Anthrax or
Smallpox? What I am told simply does not make sense. I may be
ignorant, but what I am being asked to learn is not coherent, it does
not make sense.

We have been told a great many things. The Shuttle was to have brought
in a era of cheap spaceflight - In fact it cost kilogram for kilogram
twice as much as Ariane that itself was not exactly cheap. Going into
Iraq was supposed to reduce terrorism. In fact it quickly exploded
into violence. Whether or not defeat in Iraq, which is now next door
to inevitable, will mean an increase in terrorism in the Western
heartland - Bush is confidently telling us it will, is an open
question. I personally believe that after a withdrawal Iraq will
probably get to its own equilibrium. This may not be an equilibrium
which the Western politicians will like (possible Iranian take over)
but it will be an equilibrium which will prevent international
terrorism.

There is one thing on which the Religious Right is correct, though not
in the way they mean it, and that is the assertion that America
brought 9/11 on itself. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
Reagan channelled arms to the Afghan opposition via OBL and Pakistani
intelligence. Come the end of the war, the US loses interest, the
Taliban and OBL, backed by the ISI took over. What happened next?
First of all OBL backs the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army. The US
promptly bombs the hell out of the Serbs. After 9/11 there is a
complete volte face, nothing gets said about Serbia, the number one
enemy is OBL.

This does indeed tell us something about the way in which decisions
are taken. Reagan of course was long out of office on 9/11. 9/11
strikes me somewhat as a speech in 1984 where Oceania is fighting
Eurasia. Suddenly the Ministry of Truth delivers a note - No we are at
peace with Eurasia, East Asia is the enemy. In fact whenever you have
an "elective" war, as opposed to a war in which your country is
DIRECTLY fighting for its interests. Fighting an elective war is not
necessarily wrong although it usually is. You see, if you fight a war
as a third party, you are stepping into a complex and often murky
situation. Generally speaking third parties make a bad situation
worse. The US cannot win wars now because all its wars are elective
third party wars, such wars are intrinsically unwinnable. I think the
extent to which elective war increases existential risk can be
exaggerated. It sure does not reduce it though.

As I said Stephen Hawking is talking twaddle and dangerous twaddle.
You cannot have "siege" colonies without huge advances in technology.
Dangerous twaddle because politicians and generals probably don't know
this when they do their calculations. A siege colony demands rapid
transition to Type 1. Kurzweil talks about the "Singularity". Because
of Ks emphasis on Biology and Psychology I tend to part company with
him and not use the S word. However what he says about the misuse of S
technology by governments is interesting. It is clear that
comparatively small advances in AI will bring about a situation where
access to information will become a lot more transparent. I could not
envisage such as thread as the one we have had with us "jogamos
Bridge" instead of "puente". retrieval based on meaning will enable
information that is on file anywhere to be brought up as you type in
text. his of course is the holy grail that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft
are all pursuing.

The specific point on the senators has been answered.


- Ian Parker

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