Saturday, July 08, 2006

Who's Counting: Cheney's One Percent Doctrine
ABC News Commentary

In his heralded new book, The One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind ... describes the Cheney doctrine as follows: "Even if there's just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty."
Mathematics professor John Allen Paulos looks at the consequences of an "if at least 1 percent, then act" doctrine. He also notes a bit of inconsistency:
A companion to the Cheney 1 percent action doctrine is the administration's non-action doctrine (if the probability is less than 99 percent, then don't act). This latter doctrine is generally invoked in discussions of global warming, where it seems absolute certainty is required to justify any significant action.
Yeah, now you're begging me to go back to comic books, aren't you?!

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