Nanoweapons followup: near-term only?

Big debate over at Howard Lovy’s on the nanoweapons-of-mass-destruction concept, mentioned here previously. Most notable to me is that both Howard and Charles Choi imply that only near-term possibilities are worth discussing today: “there’s no real danger of that happening anytime soon” and “If studies raise convincing evidence that near-term nanotechnology can lead to a new generation of CBW (and of course ‘near-term’ will get pushed back as time progresses), I will report the results of those studies…” Er, guys, can’t we discuss both near- and long-term issues? Meanwhile, don’t miss the link about THONG versus Eddie Bauer — photos of THONG are always fun to see.