There's often a fine line between the alarmism of the Daily Mail (I daren't read the Express) over atypical migrants who want to keep their Belgravia house (I'm not making up that one) or of Migration Watch and the complacency about numbers and absorbability which ministers sometimes display.
This being Venezuela, known for its beauty queens as well as its oil, the meeting shared a conference centre with a fashion show.And yet, behind all the alarmism, there is equilibrium of a sort in Venezuela.
Some right-wing newspapers promoted alarmism about vaccines as a way to attack the left-wing government that administered them; others did so simply because scare stories sell papers.
Abdul Bari Atwan, editor of a radical Arab daily, Al Quds al Arabi, outlined a scenario whereby Israel would be made "the trusted sentry guarding the oil fields while the Arabs, or what remains of them, revert to rearing camels".Such alarmism has triggered calls for a stronger diplomatic response.
The other part of Mr Djukanovic's (rather contradictory) message to NATO is that, given the disarray of Serbia's opposition, he offers the only real counterweight within Yugoslavia to Mr Milosevic.Is this alarmism, or a cynical pitch for aid, on Montenegro's part?
When his alarmism over the Y2K computer bug turned out to be wrong, for example, it made him realise that his own personal computer was a poor proxy for the world at large, which is "modular, shockproof and robust".
Mr Bush is less likely than some of his predecessors to take a relaxed view of such talk.That is because this would play to the alarmism of the far-right fringe of the Republicans in Congress.
There should be no place for alarmism in this debate.Nor should specific risks be exaggerated.
(The italics are ours).There are ample other causes for alarmism for the dedicated pessimist as the century's end nears.
The government is approaching the problem with an odd mixture of alarmism, complacency and bravery.
When Michael Nazir-Ali, a Pakistani-born Anglican bishop, said some urban areas in Britain were becoming out of bounds for non-Muslims, he was denounced for alarmism.
