Destruction, Natural and Man-Made by Harry Browne

Harry Browne writes:

"This past week the TV screen has been full of pictures showing people in Southeast Asia returning to their villages after the tsunami, only to find their homes completely destroyed.

"Unfortunately, that isn't the only place where people are returning to devastation. The same thing is happening in Fallujah, Iraq...

"Why haven't we seen these pictures on TV? Because the U.S. military has banned TV cameras in the city. (For security reasons, I'm sure.)...

"Speaking of the tsunami: As soon as someone could find George Bush at his Texas ranch and inform him of the disaster... he immediately announced that the U.S. government would donate $15 million in relief funds, and within days had raised that to $35 million. After he was accused of being too stingy, he upped the figure to $350 million.

"Of course, this wasn't his own money he was pledging. He was being generous with your money. And he had no authority to commit even $1 of federal money to anything that hadn't been approved by Congress – which in turn had no Constitutional authority to commit even $1 of federal money to any charity, in the U.S. or overseas...

"Speaking again of the tsunami: One of the unfortunate aftermaths of the tidal wave is the epidemic of malaria that will follow in its wake. Forty years ago that wouldn't have been much of a problem, because the affected areas could have been sprayed with DDT. In fact malaria itself was pretty much eradicated throughout the world, because DDT helped kill the mosquitoes that cause malaria.

"But benevolent souls in the U.S. got together and saw to it that DDT was banned worldwide, because it had interfered with the procreation of bald eagles in America – and because Rachel Carson in her book Silent Spring had asserted, without proof, that DDT could damage the health of human beings. And so every year more than a million souls die of malaria. Fortunately, some countries are repealing their DDT bans. But not the U.S., of course...

"A lot of people have come to realize the folly of saving birds at the expense of humans...

Destruction, Natural and Man-Made by Harry Browne