Monday, April 16, 2007

THE MONDAY LAMEBRAIN: And those who love them

He that speaks lavishly shall hear us knavishly.

"Five years ago, [A British cosmologist named] Rees posted this prediction: 'By 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to 1 million casualties in a single event,'" wrote John Tierney, someone from the New York Times.

"He reasoned that 'by 2020 there will be thousands -- even millions -- of people with the capability to cause a catastrophic biological disaster. My concern is not only organized terrorist groups, but individual weirdos with the mind-set of the people who now design computer viruses.'"

"[Rees] didn't get any takers on LongBets.org, which seems to me a missed opportunity. So I've posted an offer there to bet him $200 -- not a huge sum, but enough to put both our reputations on the line. I realize that betting on disaster may sound ghoulish, but neither of us will personally profit (if I win, the money goes to the International Red Cross)," adds Tierney.

Hmmm, 200 dollars as a conflicting-of-interest reason to hook something that's been written about in the same way many times before into the pages of the Times? Sound about right to you?

(For those with longer memories, the Times has had its hand in bioterror scare pieces, something Tierney neglects to mention. Its editorial page furnished space for a previous prophet of doom to suggest terrorists putting botox in milk could cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.)

"No matter how good their intentions, prophets face strong temptations to hype," Tierney writes, rather obviously.

He could have added, "And like many other windbags, I'm willing to enable it."

In any case, DD colleague Milton Leitenberg is cited in Tierney's piece with the counter to the standard horrible-bioterror-is-inevitable cant.

But, as usual, it gets second billing.

A copy of the original is here.

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