Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Crocodile who wrote (49793)	5/1/2000 1:06:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

When I was a kid visiting family in Biloxi, Mississippi, the fogger truck would drive up and down the streets on summer nights - we didn't play in the fog but it soon dissipated, I think the droplets were heavy and fell to the ground. But I remember it smelling like regular bug spray. Chris is home today, he has a Master's degree in Environmental Health Science. I just asked him if that could have been DDT, and he started lecturing me about how DDT isn't harmful to humans. But of course the real problem with DDT was that it kept bird shells from hardening. You're right, mosquitoes do carry disease. I remember reading about yellow fever epidemics in New Orleans, thousands of people died. I didn't think about the connection between sod farms and herbicides. We bought 120 rolls of sod last year, 1 ft x 9 ft each, and the grass is so beautiful, so thick and green. You have to seed lawns around here if you don't let them go to seed (and of course one doesn't) because they don't spread by sending out runners or from the roots, like the grass I am used to in Louisiana. The lady who used to live here didn't seed, and the grass was very patchy and there was a lot of erosion, so we put down sod to keep the back yard from washing away. I know insecticides are made from the same chemicals that we use to make nerve gas, and is harmful to humans, but Chris doesn't know what herbicides are made from. He says plants don't have nervous systems, so it shouldn't be the same as insecticides.

To: Crocodile who wrote (49793)	5/4/2000 3:32:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

I take it, you being Canadian, that you have never had malaria. The widespread spraying of DDT throughout the tropics and semitropics played a major role in eliminating or reducing malaria in much of the world. In parts of the US southern states, much of the population had malaria. I remember people -- children -- experiencing attacks. It is said that much of the population explosion in the 50's came from malaria control. Malaria is coming back into prominence in some of the tropics -- parts of Africa. We need effective ways of controlling many insect pests. I lie still at night I try to home in on whining mosquitoes, and then hit myself viciously on the ear with an open hand. I do this several times. It either kills the mosquito or knocks me out.