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Living Terrors
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The Phantom Menace was the title of their lead piece. We are driving at the bomb-shelter hysteria of the 50's.
I'm not saying that a biological terrorist threat is impossible. I'm saying that the hysteria surrounding it is causing our representatives and senators to justify pumping billions into preparedness programs that could be better spent elsewhere. If just one economist sat down (liberal or conservative) and did a CBA of this situation the sound of that jaw jitting the floor would be heard for miles. It's insane. It's comparable to $20 dollar screws and $100 screwdrivers.
More frustrating than the spending is the way in which people are buying this without skepticism. Without even questioning the legitimacy of the attack, damage, or threat, they are behind the spending and engrossed in the fear - the vivid images of death and gore, bags of sugar, the images of aerosol cans, salad bars, subway cars.
There are bigger threats to the health of our nation and they aren't solved with military budget increases - as the author mentioned, the problematic state of our health system - could perhaps be the biggest threat to the health and safety of americans.
More money is lost every year due to people missing work than to bio-terrorists. More money needs to be sent reforming healthcare than on anti-terrorist activites. I haven't had a chance to read this book, but I've read other articles along these lines and it sounds like books like this, taken in the wrong context (and even take straight-up) fan the flames of fear and knee-jerk spending.
I will read this at my library, but I'm not buying it.
_Dictionary of the Khazars_ by Milorad Pavic. Pavic wrote a fascinatingly complex book about the power of fate and dreams. Scholars have often cited Pavic as _arguably_ the first "hypertextual" author. The book is actually three dictionaries of bizarre mythological entries. Each entry is a tale that follows the path of dream hunters linked to each other through time. When one is awake, the other dreams what he sees and vice versa. They are all connected in the search to reconstruct the body of Adam and learn more about the ancient tribe known as the Khazars. The book offers you the chance to skip around and read individual tales or it can be read straight through. Noting the readership of/. I thought people might like to check this out. English translation from Serbo-Croatian by Christina Pribicevic-Zoric First Vintage International Edition, 1989 You can read more about Pavic here: http://www.khazars.com/index-e.html
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The Phantom Menace was the title of their lead piece. We are driving at the bomb-shelter hysteria of the 50's.
I'm not saying that a biological terrorist threat is impossible. I'm saying that the hysteria surrounding it is causing our representatives and senators to justify pumping billions into preparedness programs that could be better spent elsewhere. If just one economist sat down (liberal or conservative) and did a CBA of this situation the sound of that jaw jitting the floor would be heard for miles. It's insane. It's comparable to $20 dollar screws and $100 screwdrivers.
More frustrating than the spending is the way in which people are buying this without skepticism. Without even questioning the legitimacy of the attack, damage, or threat, they are behind the spending and engrossed in the fear - the vivid images of death and gore, bags of sugar, the images of aerosol cans, salad bars, subway cars.
There are bigger threats to the health of our nation and they aren't solved with military budget increases - as the author mentioned, the problematic state of our health system - could perhaps be the biggest threat to the health and safety of americans.
More money is lost every year due to people missing work than to bio-terrorists. More money needs to be sent reforming healthcare than on anti-terrorist activites. I haven't had a chance to read this book, but I've read other articles along these lines and it sounds like books like this, taken in the wrong context (and even take straight-up) fan the flames of fear and knee-jerk spending.
I will read this at my library, but I'm not buying it.
_Dictionary of the Khazars_ by Milorad Pavic. Pavic wrote a fascinatingly complex book about the power of fate and dreams. Scholars have often cited Pavic as _arguably_ the first "hypertextual" author. The book is actually three dictionaries of bizarre mythological entries. Each entry is a tale that follows the path of dream hunters linked to each other through time. When one is awake, the other dreams what he sees and vice versa. They are all connected in the search to reconstruct the body of Adam and learn more about the ancient tribe known as the Khazars. The book offers you the chance to skip around and read individual tales or it can be read straight through. Noting the readership of /. I thought people might like to check this out. English translation from Serbo-Croatian by Christina Pribicevic-Zoric First Vintage International Edition, 1989 You can read more about Pavic here: http://www.khazars.com/index-e.html