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WHOEVER has been mailing them must be delighted. For the price of a few
stamps and precious little actual anthrax, they have succeeded in spreading
panic across the globe and endowing white powders of all kinds with the power to
clear buildings and ground planes. Even a Florida postmark can now strike fear.
In a world made so jittery, even the clumsiest hoaxer cannot fail to get a
result. We all feel less safe. Terror has triumphed.

But why has it triumphed? Certainly not because of the reality of the anthrax
threat. One death so far and several dozen individuals…

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