In the heyday of the East India Company, the single biggest cause of death of the company's employees was not mad dogs or scorpions, but the familiar drug of alcohol (aggravated by bad diet and lack of exercise).

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But whether Palmer has the equivalent of an over-subscribed Kickstarter on his hands or not, his project, mad as it seems, has captured the popular imagination.

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Most of us are not interested in what mad thoughts drove Madoff to steal or justify the theft, but what could have been done to prevent it.

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There is a second fascinating question too: how and when does it become clear that markets are stressed not for mad irrational reasons but because banks are in fact insolvent or bust?

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Whether Holmes was bad or mad when he allegedly caused so much misery to so many people will not get resolved by a technique beloved by Hollywood movie directors but not by scientists.

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True or not, it was a sound excuse not to join the seemingly mad Icelanders hurling themselves into the 3.5C (38F) water of Reykjavik harbour on a pitch dark November evening.

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At the moment, the South Koreans do not, due to Mad Cow concerns, allow the importation of beef from cattle 30 months or older.

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