flu again, SARS, the human form of mad cow disease, and many more such scares. Every single one proved exaggerated -- greatly, vastly so. To add insult to injury, when each scare fails to materialise, officials close ranks and congratulate themselves on averting it. The latest example is Britain's insulting official review of the swine flu fiasco, as described by Michael Fitzpatrick in Spiked: I am on holiday in the Idaho Rockies, in a house on the edge of what is in winter a fancy ski resort, the streets of which are clogged with sports cars, massive SUVs and even the odd Hummer. The shops offer all the extravagances a pampered plutocrat needs: from pet grooming to art galleries. Sent to buy bagels, I was faced with a bewildering ten different kinds. Sounds like I am complaining? Read on. From the patio of our house can be seen a constant procession of wonderful (and remarkably tame) birds, attracted by the effect of the the suburb's sprinklers in the usually dry landscape. Squirrels come to the trees; garter snakes to the wall; butterflies to the flowers. In the crystal stream at the bottom of the hill, wild rainbow trout rise to caddis flies and dippers, martins and sandpipers snack on huge stoneflies. In the woods along the valley are moose droppings and signs of the occasional black bear. In The Rational Optimist, I argue that the human technological and economic take-off derives from the invention of exchange and specialisation some time