Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Diana Duncan <art2mis AT nc.rr.com>]

Just because I'm not in the mood to sign up for anything today, may I 
assume you are talking about the Pentagon's plan to offer a 
"free-market" bidding site on terrorist attacks?  That was on the front 
page of the N&O today, and I agree, is incredibly bizarre.  I grabbed 
this link from news.google.com

http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2241421

My favorite quote from the N&O article (the one that scared me the 
most), which, unfortunately, I can't find a link to online...

"Wyden explained it this way: 'For instance, you may think early on 
that Prime Minister X is going to be assassinated, so you buy the 
futures contracts for 5 cents each.  As more people begin to think the 
person's going to be assassinated, the cost of the contract could go up 
to 50 cents.  The payoff if he's assassinated is a dollar per future.  
So if it comes to pass, and those who bought at 5 cents make 95 cents.  
Those who bought at 50 cents make 50 cents.'"

The very real fear of critics of the plan is that terrorists will go 
ahead and bid on stuff they plan to do, then cash in when they do it.  
Speaking of which, I just re-read an eerily prophetic book that came 
out in Sept 2001 (and was set in early Sept 2001) about a real bastard 
of a terrorist.  Unfortunately, this is a Scottish author who is not 
really available in the States, but I would encourage anyone interested 
in biting satire and beautifully written rants to check this out:

http://www.brookmyre.co.uk/book6.htm

I especially recommend reading the extract (there's a link from above) 
- but not if you are still likely to be upset and sensitive to anything 
reminiscent of Sept 11th.  Remember, this was written before.  Craig 
couldn't read the book until this year, largely because of this first 
chapter.  He just had to set it aside.

Cheers!

Diana

On Tuesday, Jul 29, 2003, at 08:42 US/Eastern, Maria Winslow wrote:

> This today in the NY Times (free registration required) -
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/29/politics/29TERR.html?th
>
> A new Sim World? A tool for mass hysteria?
>
> Maria