02/17/10

At Hot Air

Rachel Carson, Mass Murderer

Who is the worst killer in the long, ugly history of war and extermination? Hitler? Stalin? Pol Pot? Not even close. A single book called Silent Spring killed far more people than all those fiends put together.

Published in 1962, Silent Spring used manipulated data and wildly exaggerated claims (sound familiar?) to push for a worldwide ban on the pesticide known as DDT – which is, to this day, the most effective weapon against malarial mosquitoes. The Environmental Protection Agency held extensive hearings after the uproar produced by this book… and these hearings concluded that DDT should not be banned. A few months after the hearings ended, EPA administrator William Ruckleshaus over-ruled his own agency and banned DDT anyway, in what he later admitted was a “political” decision. Threats to withhold American foreign aid swiftly spread the ban across the world.

 

Another excellent article by Doctor Zero at Hotair.com go here to read it.

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Most recently the EPA has banned Diazinon and Dursban, which were about the only chemicals effective on the South American fire ant which makes our lives miserable here in Texas. We all know to be careful where we step or sit. There bite feels like a burn and then develops into an itchy blister that can easily become infected. Multiple bites  from the swarming ants can kill small mammals (human babies are mammals). Some people think Texans are "rednecks because they chew tobacco; naw, that's so they can spit on the fire ant mounds. It doesn't kill them, but it annoys them enough that they might move over to the neighbor's place.

Some of our "enviromentalist" garden authorities preach that we don't need inorganic toxins like Diazinon and Dursban to control the fire ants. By golly, you just dust that mound with oatmeal, or drench it with garlic tea. The gullible gardeners who tried that approach wound up with the fattest, stinkiest fire ants you ever saw.

Having played a recurring role in my youth in Uncle Sam's Southeast Asia Road Show, I've always had a fondness for napalm and fuel-air explosives. Nothing deters fire ants better than drenching the mound in flammable liquid and throwing a match at it. (Lots of precautions on this method though, like don't do it near the house or the pickup or anything else of value, don't do it when the lawn is dry, and no matter how much you hate those SOBs, a little flammable liquid goes a long way. Also, it takes a couple of months for the grass to recover the resultant burn scar.)

Fire ants become crispy critters