Good Morning Plutonium

[hodgdon@homer.yankee.com (hodgdon@yankee.com)]

Looks like there's good and bad news.  

The good news is that botulism is more toxic than plutonium.  Plutonium 
inhaled requires 25mg to kill and 0.1mg to double cancer risk.  Botulism
takes 0.00005mg to kill.  This is what I gather from the correspondence.
It may be good news but is it true?  Expert help appreciated here.

The bad news is that there is no institutional check on shows like Good 
Morning America and 60 Minutes.  

It would be worse news if there were institutional checks: it would mean
censorship.  

I am perplexed.  Imagine the show were done live to an audience of 50,000 in
a large stadium.  Imagine further that the contents and tone of the 
presentation incited a riot.  It would be illegal.  

However, presented over TV it incites thousands of "private" riots in the 
livingrooms of its viewers.  The damage is not immediate.  There are no
broke windows to be seen the morning after.  The damage accumulates slowly
and expresses itself as vague disaffection with science.

Does the Riot Act of 1715 need new definitions?  

Have we seen the invention of the virtual riot?  

If we have, then we certainly haven't yet figured out how to deal with it.

Any suggestions?

Andrew Hodgdon
hodgdon@yankee.com