STARK RAVING MAD

Mike, from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, called the Rush Limbaugh program of March 17, 1995, to express his concern about his second-grade child's public school Outcome Based Education classes. Mike became concerned when his child reported the great news that all of the children in the class made the honor roll. Then Mike learned about the grading system which uses a scale of "M, S, or N.'' An "M'' grade on a recent spelling test required seven or fewer wrong answers. "M'' stands for "most of the time;'' "S'' stands for "some of the time;'' and "N'' stands for "not yet.''
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a book about the contamination of a monkey colony near Washington, DC, with a rare virus that is sometimes fatal for humans. In this case there were no human fatalities, but epidemics are always a danger. Preston offers this explanation for the existence of dangerous viruses: "In a sense, the earth is mounting an immune response against the human species. It is beginning to react to the human parasite, the flooding infection of people, the dead spots of concrete all over the planet, the cancerous rot-outs in Europe, Japan, and the United States, thick with replicating primates .'' Preston describes the human race as "a very large quantity of meat.''
The "World Resources Institute'' in its February 1995 Issues and Ideas has launched an attack on all fully fluorinated compounds (FFCs). Say good-by to Teflon and all its lower molecular weight cousins. These are described as having approximately 10,000 times more global warming potential than carbon dioxide and atmospheric lifetimes of thousands of years. Maybe we should roll with this and trade them the FFC's for plutonium, carbon dioxide, and CFCs.

•	Science, Technology, and Defense
•	A PERPETUAL FRONTIER
•	AN UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY
•	GROWING FUEL
•	ATMOSPHERIC OZONE AND TEMPERATURE
•	DEATH OF A HYPOTHESIS
•	THE COST OF LOST TECHNOLOGY
•	*STARK RAVING MAD*
•	GOOD READING

Vol. 22, No. 8

Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
Volume: Issues
Issue/No.: Vol. 22, No. 8

Date: April 01, 1995 04:04 PM
Title: Science, Technology, and Defense