(Pic from Watchmen blogged here)
I hope I don't go blind. Sorry for not posting yesterday. I'm tired of saying it, and you must be tired of reading it, but it's this darn manuscript riding me like a pony. Soon, so soon, it will fly away to Canada and I'll celebrate. Until then, there were some wicked juicy updates on subjects of at least my continued interest.
1) Please bring DDT back! I've said it before, I know. John Jalsevac's article on Life Site is wonderfully attributed (with the tiny exception of using a fact from Wikipedia which I just can't feel solid about without corroboration) and recounts the history of DDT's development, use, and unwarranted disgrace. Differing estimates place the death rates from malaria since the ban anywhere from 50 to 80 million. Meanwhile...
One study saw volunteers consume 35mg of raw DDT daily for a period of two years with no short or long-term ill effects .(7) One anti-DDT-ban scientist began his every lecture on the subject by ingesting a teaspoon of DDT powder.(8) Of the workers who applied thousands of tons of DDT without any protection, none have shown an increased risk of cancer or any other illness. Even the alleged thinning of the eggshells of raptors that environmentalists now tout as a last and desperate reason for continuing the archaic ban has been proven false.
The author also details how DDT's rating as a carcinogen is lower than women's birth control pills, and what liberally minded person wants to see those withheld from the developing world? I can only hope that people keep raising the issue and that a whirl of activity and words around it can reopen the subject for the permanent debunking it deserves.
The seventies were an era drunk with free love, rock-n-roll, ecology, anti-traditionalism, and anti-authoritarianism among other things. Under the influence, great music was made, the drumbeat for women's rights became inescapable, and the 70's gave Uncle Sam a punch in the shnozzer he probably earned. However, it wore a couple of embarrassing lampshades, too. The continuing DDT ban is something compassionate people must oppose. It was a tragic victory of situation over substance that doomed millions to death.
2) Per Gateway Pundit, my other least favorite outrage is crapping on his country and people again. I freakin' hate that guy. Not to be all Henry II about it, but will no one rid us of this meddlesome Mugabe?
3) Re: socialized medicine or my disdain of same, here's a small pilot program in Colorado where the seriously disabled are in charge of spending their own Medicaid funds. Quality of service and satisfaction have gone up, and the participants have been allowed to use the cost savings to make approved purchases that will further their independence. One MS patient bought voice-activated phones. A quadripalegic bought art supplies for his mouth painting. This combination of enhanced bugetary accountability, efficiency, and direct patient choice to favor their individual priorities is exactly the kind of program I can get behind.
Like a magpie, I've been gathering attractive links of the odd and revolutionary. Tomorrow, I will display my necklace of skulls.
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