In the States I came from, politicians view any catastrophe like this as a career opportunity.  By now they'd all be trampling over one another looking for TV cameras, demanding that everybody and his kid sister be locked in belly chains and leg irons for the duration of the emergency - for which read "forever."  Nine time out of ten, the public would obligingly let themselves be stampeded by that kind of dumbassedness. - L. Neil Smith, "The American Zone", p. 32