njlauren
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quote:
ORIGINAL: descrite
That wing-spreading thing is called "mantling," which many raptors do all the time (whether or not you were there, watching).
Birds of prey are nasty, smelly, filthy, and ill-tempered. They often carry many parasites.
Banded or not, there is no such thing as a "tame" bird...even calling one "trained" would be a stretch-- more "conditioned," really.
And the shell-softening claim about DDT is hyperbole bullshit. Rachel Carson's craptastic preaching probably resulted in more human deaths and misery than most totalitarian regimes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2012/09/05/rachel-carsons-deadly-fantasies/
And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming on Faux News, "Obama: Socialist or Muslim Terrorist, we give you the facts, you decide"
The DDT thing was not bullshit, and the proof is in the pudding, the fact that the raptors and birds like Ospreys have returned from near extinction is testimony to what that ban did. Rachel Carson was not lying, and the only people still whining about DDT are the pesticide manufacturers, the same people who claimed agent orange (an herbicide) was safe and who got their buddies in the GOP to prevent Vietnam vets from getting treatment for the horrible effects it had on them, that forbes article is written by a shill for the pesticide companies who has no science background.
And yes, I have heard all the whining from Ortho and such that banning DDT consigned millions to death and so forth, and that is such bullshit I don't know where to start. First of all, DDT wasn't used to control malaria in the US, it was used as a general purpose insecticide like malathion and sevin, it was sprayed on farm fields, on forests, it was sprayed by towns to try and keep down the mosquito populations (hint, malaria is not common in the US in most places, especially the areas where the raptors live), the chemical companies promoted DDT as this wonder chemical that could do it all, and they used it like they were spraying water.
What they are talking about in Africa is not broad based spraying, they are talking about spraying around huts and such to keep the malarial mosquitoes at bay, it isn't spraying tons of DDT from crop dusting planes and trucks like they used to do when I was a kid, it is targeted, rather narrow use, and there is a big difference. DDT was banned because in the US, there wasn't a need for its use at all, there were plenty of ways to control mosquitoes and such and we simply don't have the malaria problems they do in Africa, and where there is there are plenty of other ways to control it. BTW, in Africa, you don't have to use DDT either, simply mosquito netting, that is cheaper than DDT, works just as well without the consequences, but then how could dow and ortho make oodles of money off it? The chemical industry are some of the biggest fucking liars in history, GE claimed dumping PCB's in the Hudson river was no big deal, then when they had testimony on the levels of PCB's in the water, GE said it went into the sediment and levels in the river were well below EPA levels...until they showed that those testifying literally shifted a decimal point, so 2.4 ppm was really 24 PPM. Industry denied for years that asbestos was unsafe, even though they knew it wasn't sage and denied that workers who processed it got sick from it. For all the excesses on the other end (with asbestos, the left made it seem like if you just looked at asbestos it was deadly, and it got to the point that if asbestos was found in building, they treated it like it was ricin or something, firms made a bundle being 'asbestos handling' firms, when it can be removed if need be using simple precautions, and as long as it is sealed in, could be left in place, but not before many billions were wasted on hysteria). Same thing with the mold epidemic, while mold is a major issue, several years ago they made it seem like everyone was going to die from black mold......), industry has shown that it will lie and so called conservatives will swear to it, all in the name of a few dollars profit.
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RE: Hawk - 
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