As of yesterday mosquito season has begun in DC. Soon it will peak and the back-yard at Chez Wheat will be unusable until November. RC2 wants DDT back. Seriously. The evidence that it hurt any wildlife was always dubious, and in the meanwhile why must I tolerate my parents being threatened by West Nile Virus & my kids being threatened by malaria, for Pete's sake, in the !#$&* 21st. century?!
In my plan, we'd spray DDT only once every 5 years (since the original claim --unproven, by the way-- was that continous exposure thinned certain bird's egg shells) to kill back the mosquito population. When RC2 was a kid, mosquitoes were a minor nuisance. You went out at dusk, you came home w/ a few bites. No big whoop. Have you all encountered the so-called "Asian tiger" mosquitos in your neighborhoods yet? These buggers are out at all times of the day, they swarm aggressively, can bite through clothes and sometimes even hurt. If you go out to pick tomatoes (mine are doing well, thanks for asking; predicting June 30 tomatoes!), after a mere 10 minutes you have some 30-40 big itchy welts. It's ridiculous.
Anyway, RC2 thought she was the only one having this scandalous un-PC thought, but here comes an important article from Andrew Kenny arguing that banning DDT was the single most murderous act in history. His case is persuasive. Here's the link, but you have to subscribe to the London Spectator to read it. For a lengthy excerpt, use this link to see ninme's post on it.
