Word: reasonlies
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Behind this action lay his scientific hero--Matthew Meselson, who inspired Nixon's move. And it is for him that Dyson reserves his greatest praise. "Seldom in history has one man, armed only with the voice of reason, won so complete a victory," he says. And Meselson is not the only of Dyson's heroes. There's Frank Thompason, the idealistic poet, who went down in action in Yugoslavia, a political hero fighting for a noble cause; there is the humble black woman who served with Dyson on a committee to decide if DNA research was to be allowed...
Such scenes reinforced the U.S. concern that the Iranian government and even Khomeini himself were being swept along by events. But from the Ayatullah's point of view, there was ample reason to welcome some political diversion. He has fared poorly in bringing the Iranian economy back to prerevolutionary levels. Industry is estimated to be operating at only 40% of capacity. With workers' councils sitting in on managerial decisions, many managers are afraid to make decisions on anything but issuing paychecks. Chaos prevails at the docks and at highway customs posts along the main truck route from Europe. Inflation...
...hurting from the two-month loss of Iranian crude earlier this year, almost any new interruption in supply, no matter how modest or brief, will lead to tighter markets and higher prices. In their present jittery state, Americans are ready to start topping off gas tanks for almost any reason. Not only does the memory of a summer spent in gas lines remain fresh and infuriating, but so does the specter of the 1973 Arab embargo, which ushered in the age of energy upset...
...sharp curtailments of the agency's never very energetic enforcement of pollution laws. The chief casualty of this political pressure is the Hazardous Waste Management Division, which has been unable to prevent some 80 billion pounds of dangerous industrial by-products from contaminating reservoirs, drinking wells and rivers. One reason for this colossal failure is the division's miniscule funding, which amounts to less than 1 per cent of the total EPA budget--and is being cut even more by the White House Office of Management and Budget...
Internal memos indicate that a more likely reason for EPA inaction may be incompetence. One federal official who toured a regional office reported, "It seemed as if no one really knew what they should be doing and how to accomplish it." The regional staff seemed unable to gather basic information on dumpsites, sample hazardous materials, or even follow elementary safety precautions; several staff members were injured and hospitalized because of poor sampling methods. To make matters worse, "material documenting hazardous conditions at waste facilities have been sitting in files for years," says branch chief Kaufman. "It would look very...