Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 17, 2010

Cryptic, ain’t she?

And cats steal babies’ breath! It’s true!

Wives and Mothers-in-law. Run away, Mike.

[Leo’s Mom and Mike’s Mom make me wonder if Trudeau has issues in his own life.]

Mike’s mother has been using that line for…how many years now? She ain’t dead yet!

Wait, wasn’t warning the guests her idea in the first place?

Don’t they hitch rides on hosts? Whom has been there recently? The only one that comes to mind is that biker boyfriend of Nana Doonesbury!

Unless Alex brought some back with her on a visit, or Kim and Mike picked some up while at a hotel on a business trip, or anyone from a comfy sofa at a hip coffee drinking establishment. Major news reports that come to mind mention Hotels, Homes, Dormatories, Dressing rooms at an upscale clothing store. The list goes on.

….Clutter and grime and the smell of old people!

Especially the smell of old people!

fbjsr, I don’t know enough about DDT to comment on its use at lower levels. However, of all the technologies that have been leveraged to make the world a better place, the introduction of chemical pesticides worldwide are probably the most responsible for enabling the increase of world population than any other resource. If all pesticides were banned tomorrow, 2 billion people would probably starve to death next year.

That’s fine, as long as one of them is my ex-wife!

Or traveled on Amtrak. I’ve picked up bed bug bites there, and probably that infestation some years ago that I managed to quash with nasty chemicals .

Grime and clutter don’t attract them – just makes it harder to kill them.

Mike’s mom takes a Malthusian position that seems to be the target of GT’s satire. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) calculated that population growth, which had surged with the Industrial Revolution, would be checked by natural limitations including war, sickness, and famine. (Compare Nemesys, above: “If pesticides were banned tomorrow, 2 billion people would probably starve to death.”)

Mom could apply Malthusian logic by noting that bedbugs are a form of plague: they limit or at least disrupt our reproductive activity. Any plague that interferes with sex and marriage will also affect society.

That’s how Mom—who’s “dying” and (unlike Nemesys) must deplore the population explosion–-gets to the politics of bedbugs.

(And Malthus, both in his lifetime and after, was always called the opposite of “adorable.” I doubt that Doonesbury fans would describe GT or Hillary as adorable, either. Reserve “adorable” for the next Sarah Palin or Christy O’Donnell.)

Some people are sure counting on the idea that we will forget about how awful Bush and Cheney really were. We will never forget. Just because Obama doesn’t walk on water won’t change the fact that Bush and Cheney were awful. Just because I don’t like my cell phone company doesn’t mean that I will change over to doggie doo. Stop insisting on 60 votes for everything and we will see how effective our current prez can be. 60 votes was not always required.

palin, I’m scratching my head at your comments (and no, not from bed bugs!)

How do you link Mom’s “mother-in-law”-ish comments with her deploring the population explosion? I don’t think either of us gave any hints regarding our feelings about the population explosion being “good” or “bad”. My remarks simply support the idea that killing bugs has had generally positive effects upon the proliferation of people.

The Malthus story was interesting, and is still valid. There are natural limits to how much population the earth can support. However, are our modern approaches to disease (via vaccinations), famine (via modern farming methods) and war (limited small engagements) un-natural ways that have eliminated his limitations?

As a futurist commenting on industrial technology, it’s interesting that Malthus left the impact of future technologies out of his predictions. Edward Cornish does not - his analysis of trends makes good reading for those interested in what the 21st century will be like.

WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just noticed some of the disinformation about DDT that have appeared in the last few days here. Here are the facts:

Manufacturers (in 1956) were noticing that DDT was creating a SUPER Mosquito over a DECADE before it was banned. They were phasing out DDT at that time. IN many parts of the world, DDT is useless in killing mosquntos.

Widespread spraying in North America actually INCREASED the mosquito problem.

The mosquito problem in North America was mostly licked 4 decades before the invention of DDT by DRAINING SWAMPS and other ponding water.

DDT doesn’t work well in tropical regions like subSaharan Africa for a NUMBER of reasons. There, lifecycles of mosquitos are continuous.

DDT is found in human children born DECADES after wide spread sparying was outlawed. It has been shown to be dangerous to humans.

Deaths due to malaria are due to POVERTY, CIVIL UNREST, CORRUPTION, INCREASED IRRIGATION, and SUPERSTITION as the disease itself is DECIDEDLY treatable. IN other words, people with malaria are dying BECAUSE they are malnourished and weakened.

This isn’t a left/right issue … it is an informed/uninformed issue.

Thank you for setting us straight, misterwhite. While you’re at it, please inform the World Health Organization of your information, as they’re still under the impression that DDT kills mosquitos, and that mosquitos with malaria kill people, particularly children.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr50/en/

“Finally, with WHO’s unambiguous leadership on the issue, we can put to rest the junk science and myths that have provided aid and comfort to the real enemy – mosquitoes – which threaten the lives of more than 300 million children each year.”

It’s true that we’ve realized since building the Panama Canal that draining swamps is the best way to control mosquitos, but how realistic is that in countries within rain forests?

palin drome your argument is more Desmond Morris than Malthus but what the heck

oh…the heating thing. The room must be 50 C for 5 hours. for a 2000 sq ft home that would require 6 industrial (propane) heaters…the kind with blowers built in.

one more thing. if you are going the heat route remember to remove all wax candles, vinyls, deodorants, cosmetics etc. anything that would soften and deform and/or melt.

Well said misterwhite, keep it up … the posts.

So, misterwhite, let me try to understand one thing that you said, children born after DDT was outlawed are suffering the effects of it? So, this isn’t something you can wash off?

glenardis,

50°C is only 122°F.

Yeah, W6, only 122 Farenheit.

<=====metric spoken here. yup 50C (can’t make the little degree symbol cause <===== computer not spoken very well here)

anyhoo, successful Canadian company is eliminating them effectively with 50C for a minimum of 5 hours - reference MacLeans magazine, Nov 15 issue. it is hot enough to warp your vinyl records and make your decorative candles sag though. lipstick becomes a bit gooey apparently.

Washing off DDT is not the issue. It was not only ON our food for years, it started to appear IN it. That is, animals that ate plants took in the DDT that was on and in the plants, and stored it in their bodies.

Then the animals that ate those animals took in the DDT that had accumulated, and stored it in their own bodies. So even though DDT has not been in use in much of the world for decades, it continues to appear in ever greater concentrations in new organisms, including people.

This is called “bioaccumulation” and here are the web definitions: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGLLenUS395US397&defl=en&q=define:Bioaccumulation&sa=X&ei=LamTNvTAsiBnAe1i9naDQ&ved=0CBMQkAE

So animals – including birds and people – that are many generations away from the use of DDT nevertheless have DDT continuing to accumulate in their bodies.

The anti-environment gang tries to sell the story the way it originally appeared decades ago: shells on certain birds’ eggs were found to be so thin that those bird populations were dying out. But that was only the canary in the coal mine – now we know that we all have DDT in our own bodies, and DDT has been linked to many reproductive disorders in both sexes.