From: Timothy C. May If there's any meta-point I'm making is that people are best served by making their own security arrangements, be it home protection, financial security, health security, or the security from rioters, criminals, and terrorists being talked about here. Turning over increased powers to a government to do these things is a recipe for failure, at very high costs (economic and civil liberties costs). ...................................................................... This is what I also understood Tim's point to be. As long as transforming the whole world into a "kinder, gentler", safer, mix of countries, economies, politics, races, religions, recipes for living, etc., is but a remote possibility in a far-off future galaxy, and knowing that governments are typically unprepared to deal with the dangerous states of mind incited by their very own policies, then (as always) it is wise and adviseable that a person take up some responsibility for preparing themselves, mentally and otherwise, for dealing with threats of terrorism, the kind of which we are all aware of by now. This is not fatalism; it is facing the facts. .. Blanc