IP: will the anthrax "terror" disappear like the power "shortage"?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 10:59:25 -0700
> To: farber () cis upenn edu (Dave Farber), freematt () coil com (Matthew Gaylor),
>    Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
> From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
> Subject: will the anthrax "terror" disappear like the power "shortage"?
>
> Shortly after Bush was elected -- in December and early January, when 
> there wasn't anything even *close* to maximum power demand -- Californica 
> <sic> was hit by massive power "shortages" and rolling blackouts.  But 
> this wasn't classified as a terrorist attack, and those power producers -- 
> many of them and their energy source being in Texas -- were never charged 
> with collusion or anti-trust actions, nor fully investigated for illegally 
> withholding power.
>
> See the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE's Electricity Usage, 1998-2001 graph at:
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/sfgate/object.cgi?object=/chronicle/pictures/2001/03/11/mn_calelectricity.jpg&paper=chronicle&file=MN213155.DTL&directory=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/11
>
> By spring, terrified California politicians had stampeded to reward the 
> power cartel for its artificial, self-created "shortage, giving it 
> billions of tax-dollars, and freeing it to raise rates by several hundred 
> percent (to the "market" rates ... in a cartel "market").
>
> As soon as they got what they wanted, the "shortage" suddenly disappeared 
> -- without ANY substantial new generation capacity coming online.  Even 
> during the peak load-periods of the summer, there were few if ANY of 
> rolling blackouts that terrified citizens, business and law-makers in the 
> low-demand winter months!
>
>
> Now, some one or two(?) people -- increasingly suspected of being local 
> miscreants rather than international terrorists -- have sent some mild, 
> non-military forms of fully-treatable anthrax to the most visible of 
> public-opinion molders plus some soft-on-crime Democrat leaders.
>
> Using the legitimate threat exemplified on 9/11, plus an endless media 
> drumbeat of terror-mongering about the half-dozen or so mild anthrax cases 
> (and one death), the administration's enforcers and snoops have almost 
> finished stampeding the Congress-critters (when they dare return to their 
> offices) into giving enforcers massive new powers that trash much of the 
> tattered remains of our constitutional civil "liberties" -- lengthy 
> detention without judicial review, covert electronic search without court 
> order, star-chamber "trials" without any right to confront evidence and 
> witnesses, massive new surveillance of financial records and purchases, 
> forced continuous tracking of the locations of all cellphones all of the 
> time, and so on.
>
> I can't help but wonder -- will the anthrax "attacks" suddenly disappear 
> as soon as the enforcers get their massive new freedoms to be excessive 
> ... just like the power "shortage" disappeared as soon as the energy 
> cartel got what it wanted?
>
> --jim


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