Destroying the Village in Order to Save it

         

"It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

-- An American major after the destruction of the Vietnamese Village Ben Tre

Now, while not on the same scale of human tragedy, I was reminded of this by Microsoft`s OneCare anti-virus progam, and its approach to infected e-mail.  Delete the whole mail file, including all your history.

As several posters to the forum note, the cure is undoubtedly worse than the disease.  Maybe another quote is in order:

Arnaud Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux: best remembered for his instruction before the massacre of Cathars at Beziers. In Latin "Cædite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius"; in English "Kill them all. God will know his own"

Frankly, only satire can hold a light up to this kind of idiocy.