probably doesn't have much of a range though, so it's more of a replacement for mosquito nets than for DDT... *sigh*... if only a safe version of DDT existed, malaria would be gone in a jiffy.

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^Hanns:
One musn't underestimate the ability of organisms to adapt to an environment, including finding other food sources once the fire ant population is more controlled.

One problem they've had with the flies is that they can't survive extreme conditions like fire ants can (freezing temps, extreme droughts, ect) so they have to release more flies occasionally to keep their numbers up.
It's possible that they'll seek out other ants eventually, but fire ants aren't that friendly to other ants to begin with. I'm not sure how else to control the fire ants effectively. Hopefully they take these possibilities very seriously (which they seem to be doing).


Other ants??? Who fucking cares about these borrowing into the brains of other ANTS??? Don't you watch movies? Gimme a can of DDT cuz those little mofos are NOT gonna get me!

I'm trying to figure out your troll angle here.

Does a troll-angle have three sides? My right to comment is as valid as yours.

Are you saying that having faith in general is sacrosanct? I always took you for a conservative Christian, not a panentheist.

I am not a Christian; I believe Christianity is a legitimate pathway to God-Consciousness, as are many others.

I find it hypocritical to accuse only religion of influencing science while ignoring the politics that gave us junk science resulting in imaginary polar bear genocide, man-made global warming, and tobacco smoke that would have already killed most of the human race by now were it as lethal as claimed. What fueled the ban of DDT? Politically motivated junk science. Well, that self-righteous attitude and Rachel Carson's lies are now responsible for needless deaths in the millions from the resurgence of malaria. How often blind faith and modern junk science share the same toothbrush.

Atheism will never catch fire because humans are not logical, or robots.
Humans are creatures of imagination and emotion, and listening to Dawkins talk about DNA, while interesting, will never replace religious storytelling. I understand the beef with fundamentalists, but they are small in number in most religions.

Fraudbama is a perfect example of how the power of myth trumps logic. He's gotten this far appealing only to imagination (a bright future) and emotion (hope) with only vague hints and promises of what he'll do.

As a former atheist, I'm not asking anyone to convert. I'm (occasionally) requesting atheists to consider the utilitarian usefulness of faith, and lose the bigotry long enough to grudgingly admit religion's done more good than harm.

>> ^Thunderhorseman1:
Save the Earth from environmentalists!!!! They fuck up the Earth and kill more people than most of the "evil" corporations. The banning of DDT causes a million more people to die from malaria in third-world countries each year. Recycling is the reason there is so much plastic in the ocean, only a few types of commercial-grade plastic can be recycled, the stuff that isn't gets shipped to third-world counties and burned as fuel. I would quote resources, but nobody will ever read this......

...or you don't have anything reliable to site

Save the Earth from environmentalists!!!! They fuck up the Earth and kill more people than most of the "evil" corporations. The banning of DDT causes a million more people to die from malaria in third-world countries each year. Recycling is the reason there is so much plastic in the ocean, only a few types of commercial-grade plastic can be recycled, the stuff that isn't gets shipped to third-world counties and burned as fuel. I would quote resources, but nobody will ever read this......

That list of possible avenues, is as dead-end as any other-wtf would be gained, for example , by sending everyone in NYC to private university??? How about everyone in Nebraska....

I'd create a new university, patterned after the vision of the Bauhaus, Bucky Fuller's, future of civ., etc. Have departments dedicated to the research of Tesla, Wilhelm Reich.


Better yet, how about a back to basics approach: Use the money to teach people in so-called first world countries, (if there even exists such a definition) how to eat properly. Diet alone, would supplant the necessity for any more goddamn doctors-Ounce a prevention, is worth a pound of cellulite or love handle, and heart disease would disappear, nearly overnight.

DDT, saved more African lives than anything to date, innit???

what a bunch of BUNK!

DDT is good for me!
http://www.archetype-productions.com/nfo/flouride/DDT-Household-Pests-USDA-Mar47c.jpg

Fluoride is totally safe and healthy!
http://www.archetype-productions.com/nfo/flouride/Fluoride_Water_Main_600.jpg
http://www.archetype-productions.com/nfo/flouride/sludge.jpg

thanks for the awesome find of this video!

Seriously Slyrr, every time you post you manage to reach new intellectual lows.

I won't address your moonbat theories, since obviously you show large favoritism towards big business that is more willing to rape America for a dollar then give a shit about it's future generations. Instead we'll look at your so called "facts".

Clearly you didn't read the paper that you simply link to, because if you did you would know that Micheal Crichton comments were on that belief in purported scientific theories without a factual basis is more akin to faith than science. That is true and I agree with that, what you fail to mention is that the speech was delivered in 2003. Nearly 4 years ago.

Why did Crichton do it? He had a book called State of Fear. Many of Crichton's publicly expressed views, particularly on subjects like the global warming controversy, have caused heated debate. An example is meteorologist Jeffrey Masters' review of State of Fear:

"Flawed or misleading presentations of Global Warming science exist in the book, including those on Arctic sea ice thinning, correction of land-based temperature measurements for the urban heat island effect, and satellite vs. ground-based measurements of Earth's warming. I will spare the reader additional details. On the positive side, Crichton does emphasize the little-appreciated fact that while most of the world has been warming the past few decades, most of Antarctica has seen a cooling trend. The Antarctic ice sheet is actually expected to increase in mass over the next 100 years due to increased precipitation, according to the IPCC. Additionally, Crichton points out that there has been no rise in hurricane activity in the Atlantic over the past few decades (a point unchanged by the record four hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004)."

However, 28 hurricanes and tropical storms took place in the 2005 season, which was 7 more than the meteorologists had names for because historically, 21 names seemed far above what was needed for a season. In addition, Peter Doran, author of the paper in the January 2002 issue of Nature which reported the finding referred to above, that some areas of Antarctica had cooled between 1986 and 2000, wrote an opinion piece in the July 27, 2006 New York Times in which he stated "Our results have been misused as 'evidence' against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel State of Fear".

Crichton has also been criticized for having the protagonist of State of Fear assert,

"Since the ban of DDT, two million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. The ban has caused more than fifty million needless deaths. Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler."

Even though the DDT ban specifically exempts any and all use for disease prevention from any regulation, and even though the total number of deaths from malaria worldwide in the period described is actually less than fifty million. None of it is true. USAID, the World Bank, and WHO, all fund DDT for malaria prevention.

Please next time find out what you are talking about before posting.

Bamdrew don't even bother, Quantumushroom is really a political polemist from the Republican right wing, ever since he joined his prerogative has been to muddle the arguments taking place across contentious issues such as the war in Iraq, torture, global warming and others.

He doesn't represent anything but the right wing need to mess up the argument so much that easy, clear, decisions suddenly become clouded via the addition of question extraneous to this debate. Like you know that - Everyone kept saying Iraq is on the brink of a civil war, and Right Wing polemists would instantly say "Well what is a civil war?", suddenly the whole goddamn country spends 3 weeks deciding if the escalating violence is really a civil war or not.

Let's look at his arguments:

1 . "Is the earth warming? Sure. Climate is a dynamic system with constantly changing temperatures. We're supposedly long overdue for another ice age."

This is has been proven wrong by ice cores records from the poles, which contain a temperature record going back some 650,000 years. Climate is dynamic system but the temperatures remain within definable scientific bars, various data across the world show that the rising temperature is causing problems. It just proves that his arguments come from right wing talking points.

2. "Did human activity cause the current warming trend? Unlikely. Global temps were higher during the Middle Ages."

Again. This is has been proven wrong by ice cores records from the poles, which contain a temperature record going back some 650,000 years.

3. "The people crying about this are the same who want government to micromanage everyone's lives. Freedom frightenes them. They lie(d) about gun control, tobacco, and the "epidemic" of obesity. If you want to take it to the next level, they're the same liars that banned DDT, causing the needless deaths of hundreds of millions to malaria."

Remember what I said? He brings in arguments that have nothing to do with the discussion.

Seriously I won't even bother answering your paranoid idea that somehow global warming policy institutes an infringement on personal autonomy when the only people affected via global warming policy change are actually large corporations willing to overcharge their consumers for profit, but unwilling to increase their costs to save the enviroment (see oil companies).

They lied about tobacco and epidemic obesity? Really? Then why did Cigarette companies settle with the American people to the tune of 246 billion over 25 years in November 1998? Why is heart disease the number one cause of death in america? Obesity my friend.

Quantum clearly you don't know facts about studies done on DDT, while proven to be beneficial against malaria, the dosage required for it to fight effectively would cause preterm birth and early weaning, abrogating the benefit of reducing infant mortality from malaria. Toxicological evidence shows endocrine-disrupting properties; human data also indicate possible disruption in semen quality, menstruation, gestational length, and duration of lactation. The research focus on human reproduction and development seems to be appropriate. DDT could be an effective public-health intervention that is cheap, long lasting, and effective. So you are telling me when presented with all this evidence from Lancet you are still willing to spray your populace with DDT?

If it's so beneficial maybe we should start using radioactive medicines for our ailments like they did in the 30s and 40s?

Now of course next you're going to say that change in environmental policy will be deterimental to Economic prosperity and growth. That's just bullshit from people who know nothing about current market forces and policies. American big businesses unwillingness to institute environmental policies is only costing them market share in the world.

Currently Detroit's car manufacturing industry is suffering behind Toyota and Honda, because both these companies still aim to produce high range SUVs with MPG rates that are so dismal that American cars can't be sold in China because they don't meet environmental standards. Hell it's most parts of the world that American can't export it's cars to anymore, because it does not meet MPG requirements. Remember when GM was the number one? It's not anymore it's Toyota. Which is ironic because GM almost cornered the market on electrical cars with the EV1. Notice how I talk about MPG, MILES PER GALLON not even CO2 emissions or such. MPG.

This is human hubris, what kind of world do you want to leave to your kids? grandkids?

-------------

"A very successful PR campaign perpetuated by extraordinarily powerful companies has injected the idea that there is still debate on these issues among scientists, when there very much is NONE."

The same has been applied to the ideas of evolution. Creationists and ID supporters keep saying there is a debate among scientists about where or not evolution occurred, when again there is no such debate and there is consensus.

There was also a time when "everone agreed" the earth was flat.

Is the earth warming? Sure. Climate is a dynamic system with constantly changing temperatures. We're supposedly long overdue for another ice age.

Did human activity cause the current warming trend? Unlikely. Global temps were higher during the Middle Ages.

The people crying about this are the same who want government to micromanage everyone's lives. Freedom frightenes them. They lie(d) about gun control, tobacco, and the "epidemic" of obesity. If you want to take it to the next level, they're the same liars that banned DDT, causing the needless deaths of hundreds of millions to malaria.

Keep these people out power if you value your freedom. Or end up Canadian.

This has been on the sift before, but the audio was out of synch and I can't relocate... I caught this woman on local evangelical radio last night talking about how Liberals were godless and wanted Africans to die because they didn't want DDT being used to control malaria. I was going to wait for the call in number, but couldn't stomach it any longer.

Oh Ladybug I just know the DDT will take care of both you and ant!

no need to fight me off!!! you were just sprayed with DDT while i was ducking behind you!

Fools, ants and lady bugs be damned!

*Sprays DDT all over!*

Muahaha!

The bag hit alone deserves a ddt