What's More Fun Than A Book Of Lists? By James DiGiovanna WHAT'S MORE FUN than a book of lists? Everyone enjoys the quick overview and attention-deficit variety of such things as the Harper's Index or the Casey Kasem count-down. Taking this form and infusing it with well-researched facts and fully documented references, authors Zepezauer and Naiman have provided an encyclopedia of our government's worst spending decisions. Organized into categories like "Military Waste & Fraud," "The S&L Bailout," and the extremely disturbing "Nuclear Subsidies," the book is entertaining simply by virtue of how appalling these acts of legal fraud are. For example, between 1955 and 1995, $28 billion was simply lost due to poor accounting and mismanagement by the Pentagon. Hard to believe, but well documented: They just don't know where that money went. Aside from those billions that fell out of Colin Powell's pocket while he was asleep on the couch, there's another $31 billion about which the Pentagon simply refuses to say where it went. Then there's the billions in subsidies for U.S. companies who build nuclear reactors--even though the last reactor built in the U.S. was finished in 1973. This list of amusements goes on and on, and is capped with a bibliography of more in-depth sources and a compendium of things you can do to try to stop the perverse potlatch. Meet the authors at a signing and discussion at 7 p.m. Friday, June 20, at Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Ave. Call 792-3715 for information.
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