-- On 3 May 2003 at 10:01, Tyler Durden wrote:
It gets easier when one remembers that cigarette smoke was inches away from being declared a "class A carcinogen", but the tobacco companies through much dinero into the debate. That would have put smoke in the same category as asbestos. So now replace a public smoker with a guy playing tossing around a big blob of asbestos, and watch various cypherpunks start taking out their shotguns.
Not this cypherpunk -- the evils of asbestos are ninety percent hot air. The superstitious and ignorant tend to believe in black magic killers, invisible imperceptible causes of great harm, and award colossal damages on that basis. Supposedly biotechnology will make the cows milk dry up. In reality, if someone is exposed to enough asbestos to be a problem, he is painfully aware of it. Only a minuscule minority among those now receiving stupendous awards were exposed to that level of asbestos. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 8gm9gCyQYFsIMdu+WBfQDsch65rBj3PGxaGDX58F 4/6al9vqF/sHVMF7iikxBjrsqugs4W7kRkOUPPUFA