Ronald Bailey Wants to Give You a Panic Attack! (Attn, DC Reasonoids and All the Ships at Sea…)

Reason's own science correspondent, Ronald Bailey, will be taking on the precautionary principle and other misguided notions at the following DC event on February 14:

Panic Attack: The New Precautionary Culture, the Politics of Fear, and the Risks to Innovation

Tuesday, February 14, 2006 9:00 AM--4:30 PM

American Enterprise Institute
Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

Ron will be talking specifically on a panel about how media and science interact. He'll be joined by Reason contributor James K. Glassman and friend of Reason, the Institute of Ideas' Tony Gilland.

Bonus points: Reason contributing editor Charles Paul Freund will be moderatin' a panel earlier in the day.

More details--including how to RSVP for a free lunch--here.

More about the Institute of Ideas, who cosponsored a transhumanism conference with Reason back in 2001 amid the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center, here.

Comments

[theCoach]

Is this the same James K. Glassman that wrote in March of 2001 in the Jewish World Review:

The Joy of Debt: The last thing we should want is a U.S. Treasury flush with cash

LAST week, investors, panicky over banking troubles in Japan, drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 300 points in the first few minutes of trading. Bloomberg Business News reported a worldwide "flight to quality"?from stocks into U.S. Treasury securities. But imagine if there were no such securities to buy. That's not such a farfetched notion. According to the latest estimates by budget experts, in five years, the market for Treasuries?the safest, most liquid, most popular investment in the world?will disappear.
Squirreled away on page xvi of the latest report of the Congressional Budget Office there's a very tiny but very scary graph. It shows a flat horizontal line at zero from the years 2000 to 2006, then a sudden soaring trajectory, like a cruise missile, blasting off at a 45-degree angle, then arching ever more vertically. By 2011, the graph shows the line exceeding $3 trillion, which is the equivalent of about $30,000 for every family in America.
The graph depicts something that has never happened before, in America or anywhere else in the world. It shows a government that has retired all the debts it can and begun accumulating vast "uncommitted funds"?a concept so new that the CBO had to invent the phrase. In theory, these surplus tax dollars will just sit there and sit there. In practice, however, they will be put to use. And that's the scary part.

...follow the link for more comedy/parody approaching the absurdity of predicting the Dow Jones to be at 36,000 by now.
The obvious question is: What does it take for someone to be disqualified from punditry?

Clearly it has nothing to do with being spectaculary wrong, or with unethical financial support for opinions.

I will say it again. Reason does its credibility no good by associating with Tech Central Station. I would also recommend not running reviews by Mary Rosh...

[theCoach]

Sincere apologies for the missed closing tag on the link - follow it here:
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/glassman032201.asp
if you are interested.

[amazingdrx]

Trying to harvest some of that good old corporatist think tank cash? Good for you!

It's ultra-clean and full of corporationy goodness! Because it's a tax free donation.

[joe]

Please, Mr. Glassman, tell us what we'll have to worry about in the future.

[anon]

Speaking of panic, I was just what you folks would recommend that I do about this problem I'm having with my poop coming out all yellow and foamy and smelling like garbage.

[happyjuggler0]

More details--including how to RSVP for a free lunch

Milton Friedman would not approve. 🙂

[Yogi]

What's the best time of year to go to the D.C. area? I'm ashamed to admit that I've never been. Thinking about taking a road trip this year and would like to make it during the best time of year to see everything and yet miss the stupid tourists.

[Yogi]

btw, sorry about the threadjack. Seemed to be the best thread to do so.

[joe]

Yogi,

I lived in and about DC for a few years, and would say that April and May are the best months to take in the city.

Go to the monuments at night.

[johnl]

Fly into National. It's worth paying extra for the view.

[Stephen Milloy]

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/01/paying_for_jour.html

[James Hansen]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html

[mk]

As odd as it may be to encounter someone who disagrees with joe, I'm going to have to say that I don't think that Spring is the ideal time. Fall in DC is beautiful and not overly hot or muggy. It's an especially nice time of year if you are from out west and unfamiliar with copius Autumn foliage.

[joe]

Good point, mk.

Spring has the cherry blossoms. Fall has the foliage.

[Phil]

More importantly if you're trying to avoid tourists, Yogi, April has the Cherry Blossom Festival and May has the early out-of-schoolers.