[brassplayersrock²]

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?t...20090207835181

[aberdeenwriter]

They are the harmless variety so what's the big deal?

[Maflynn]

Agreed. No big deal, I just need to step outside in the summer to get swarmed who cares if he unleashed a few harmless bugs

[Chongo]

Sure , no malaria, but what about Bird flu? What is some diseased person there is bit and that mosquito bites someone else?

[PB2K]

i really really like Bill Gates. He's a hero for me since he started doing this charity

[ghporter]

He made a valid point about a truly life-threatening disease with harmless insects. What's the big deal?

OH, you mean that you blame Bill for coding issues with Windows, and with the tens of thousands of holes found in the billions and billions of lines of proprietary (and thus not subject to the same sort of public scrutiny as Free-BSD upon which OS X is based) code? Yeah, Bill did that on purpose.

Lacking a working Sarcasmo-meter, and without any sort of commentary in this post-and-run thread, it's hard to see the point in starting it to begin with. Next time YOU donate a bazillion dollars to malaria prevention campaigns, maybe you can make this sort of comment and have it make any sense.

No, I do not have a sense of humor related to this subject.

[slugslugslug]

I didn't think brassplayersrock² was necessarily criticizing Bill Gates, just sort of opening this up for discussion, since it's been making the rounds in the news lately. I don't think the joke was all that mean-spirited.

I am also happy to concede that Gates has proved himself worthy of admiration for his philanthropy, even while I endure extreme frustration most times I use his company's software.

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

He made a valid point about a truly life-threatening disease with harmless insects. What's the big deal?

OH, you mean that you blame Bill for coding issues with Windows, and with the tens of thousands of holes found in the billions and billions of lines of proprietary (and thus not subject to the same sort of public scrutiny as Free-BSD upon which OS X is based) code? Yeah, Bill did that on purpose.

Lacking a working Sarcasmo-meter, and without any sort of commentary in this post-and-run thread, it's hard to see the point in starting it to begin with. Next time YOU donate a bazillion dollars to malaria prevention campaigns, maybe you can make this sort of comment and have it make any sense.

No, I do not have a sense of humor related to this subject.

The judicious use of a few gallons of DDT would take care of it. The EPA banned DDT, even though there was no proof that it was having the affects alleged in Silent Spring. Once the EPA placed a ban on the use of DDT, other countries followed suit. File it under "unintended consequences"

[d4nth3m4n]

Originally Posted by Chongo 

The judicious use of a few gallons of DDT would take care of it. The EPA banned DDT, even though there was no proof that it was having the affects alleged in Silent Spring. Once the EPA placed a ban on the use of DDT, other countries followed suit. File it under "unintended consequences"

are you really advocating the use of DDT?

[sek929]

Next to my old cinema was a dump for DDT, they burn the dirt now in a huge building surrounded by 15 foot tall fencing.

I'd imagine there's something bad about DDT to go through all that trouble.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Chongo 

The judicious use of a few gallons of DDT would take care of it. The EPA banned DDT, even though there was no proof that it was having the affects alleged in Silent Spring. Once the EPA placed a ban on the use of DDT, other countries followed suit. File it under "unintended consequences"

Originally Posted by d4nth3m4n 

are you really advocating the use of DDT?

Interestingly, while it isn't a "proof," the deleterious effects attributed to DDT overuse and environmental buildup decreased at just about exactly the rate that would be predicted by the breakdown of the chemical over time... In other words, even if it didn't "prove" that DDT was the culprit, it sure looks that way.

On the other hand, judicious and extremely limited use of DDT in very controlled situations is NOT like "nuke it from orbit-it's the only way to be sure." Without the "use this stuff on everything, the more the better" attitude fostered in the 1940s and 50s, very sparing use of this very powerful chemical could help eradicate certain mosquito populations in troubled areas (think about malaria...), or destroy fleas and ticks in a disaster area and thus limit the spread of disease due to infrastructure damage. Again it would have to be VERY limited; we're talking about a schpritz here and there, rather than the fire hose applications of the past.

[brassplayersrock²]

Glenn, if you had read the article more thoroughly, you would have caught where I got the thread title from.

From the article:


And yes, I did want to just share this article with the forums. I was not trying to trash Gates or anything, and the reason for the post and run thread was because I saw it, had a gig to get to and just posted. Just got back from said gig, and find knee jerking going on. No hard feelings though

Anyways, let keep discussing the article shall we

Originally Posted by ghporter 

He made a valid point about a truly life-threatening disease with harmless insects. What's the big deal?

OH, you mean that you blame Bill for coding issues with Windows, and with the tens of thousands of holes found in the billions and billions of lines of proprietary (and thus not subject to the same sort of public scrutiny as Free-BSD upon which OS X is based) code? Yeah, Bill did that on purpose.

Lacking a working Sarcasmo-meter, and without any sort of commentary in this post-and-run thread, it's hard to see the point in starting it to begin with. Next time YOU donate a bazillion dollars to malaria prevention campaigns, maybe you can make this sort of comment and have it make any sense.

No, I do not have a sense of humor related to this subject.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² 

Glenn, if you had read the article more thoroughly, you would have caught where I got the thread title from.

From the article:


And yes, I did want to just share this article with the forums. I was not trying to trash Gates or anything, and the reason for the post and run thread was because I saw it, had a gig to get to and just posted. Just got back from said gig, and find knee jerking going on. No hard feelings though

Anyways, let keep discussing the article shall we

You did catch me at a bad point, and while I scanned the beginning of the article, I only really read farther down. (News articles tend to have lots of fluff and stupid stuff at the beginning, like "since September 11, 2001, national security issues have been heightened" as if nobody had noticed that...so I almost always scan the first paragraph or so.) And the only thing I'd say more about it is to ask that instead of just posting a picture and a link, you might at least avoid the appearance of a "post and run" by saying something about what you're posting. Much easier to establish what you're trying to say by doing that than to come back later and have to say "how did this turn into a slam fest?"

I am really sorry for going off the way I did, but around here, lots of people do post as if they actually think Mr. Gates and his people think up ways to make their products suck, and having an idea about what he was doing at that particular event before seeing this post, I thought the title (all I had from you) was intentional spin. For the record, having had to put up with anti-malarial drugs for over a year because I was stationed in an area where it was endemic, I have a personal grudge against malaria and want to see the bug eradicated in my lifetime. So I sort of take this sort of issue personally, and what appeared to be a slam against Gates while he was making a point about saving people's lives just struck me the wrong way.

[brassplayersrock²]

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by d4nth3m4n 

are you really advocating the use of DDT?

Robert Gwadz of the National Institutes of Health said in 2007, "The ban on DDT may have killed 20 million children."

DDT was overused in many respects, but it's also not entirely clear that more good than harm was done by completely banning its use. Malaria and other mosquito vector viruses are terrible plagues on humanity, and it's really horrible if America's left-wing influenced choice to ban it (after we had our good and liberal use of it to eradicate a lot of mosquitoes) caused a ton of needless suffering to people in poor countries.

[stwain2003]

I'm not gonna lie, it's kinda creepy to say "there's no reason only poor people should be affected" and then not tell them they're harmless right away.

[Spheric Harlot]

Creepy, yes - but very effective at getting a point across.