Being born in the earliest of the seventies, hopefully I got just enough lead poisoning to give me a bit of an edge over all these cheerful young people with healthy brains.
The best lack all brain damage, while thte worst
Are full of passionate lead poisoning
Is it a hijack if I talk about a closely related issue? As in, Kevin Drum's repeated charts telling us that the Flint lead crisis is over, and the water is almost certainly cleaner than it's been in 90+ years?
I'm really fucking annoyed that "while Flint still doesn't have clean water" has become an all-purpose rejoinder in lefty discourse. And it's not just Twitter randos--you see it on protest signs all over the country.
Guys: there was a problem, caused by all the usual suspects. Activists (and regulators?) discovered, it, raised hell, culprits were fired, tens of millions of dollars were spent, and now the water is clean. That's a victory! Claim it, and use it to pivot to talking about the myriad cities (like mine!) where nobody's been fired and nobody's spent millions of dollars. But it seems to be much more useful as a cudgel against... well, anything, really. I've seen it deployed against basically anyone in the world who isn't a Flint resident.
To the OP, I still marvel that this hypothesis has passed every test, most of the skeptics have accepted its validity (even if they argue at the edges), but it's had almost zero effect on anything. It's a really useful window into all sorts of things, from corporate malfeasance to the '94 crime bill to drug decriminalization, but AFAICT the only people who know are wonks and people who talk about politics online.
Is it that the people of Flint don't trust the determination? Which I think they might have good reason to. I don't know the nature of the facts.
Also, the title of the post is great.
The time lags are interesting to me. Lead, then crime, then much less lead, then much less crime, then, another decade later, activism for people who are incarcerated.
The time lags are interesting to me. Lead, then crime, then much less lead, then much less crime, then, another decade later, activism for people who are incarcerated.
We can still use lead to sweeten wine if we don't give wine to children, right?
I believe that both 3 and 5 are true. (At least the first sentence of 5, anyway).
The residents of Flint being still worried about their water is understandable. The people who are still yelling and cudgeling are people who like to yell about things.
I'm completely convinced by the lead hypothesis. You know the guy who invented lead additives for gasoline also invented ozone-layer destroying CFCs? That's some efficient world-destroying there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
Oppenheimer was too narrow of a thinker.
11: This is my favorite awful science fact! If I remember correctly, Midgley got really ill after washing his hands in tetraethyl lead to show how safe it was.
11/13, This, from the wikipedia entry, is amazing:
In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. In 1944, he was entangled in the device and died of strangulation.
and +1 for great post title. You're on a roll.
4th Midgley claim to fame: Early in his career he got shards of metal in his eye after a lab mishap and got it out by bathing his eye in mercury.
What did he use to get the mercury out? Acid?
Maybe he left it in and that's what turned him evil.
18: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ie50117a017. It's a perfectly good liquid, should just run off the eye. (Shiver.)
If I remember correctly, at the time they already had anti-knocking agents that worked pretty well. Ethanol? But whatever it was, tetraethyl lead had a significant advantage: it was patentable.
This reminds me that I saw this article arguing that cell phones caused the drop in crime. I was going to read it to see if it was worth sending in as a post, but then forgot to read it. When I read it, I was disappointed that the thesis wasn't "Millennials can't even look-up from their phones long enough to kill somebody."
23: You just wait until someone figures out how to gamify murder.
(That's probably already a Charles Stross plot point.)
Apparently, millennials have already stopped using doorbells for some reason.
They say they text people instead of ringing the doorbell, but if you text somebody before leaving a flaming bag of dog poop on their walk, it really doesn't work at all.
The theft protection system on my car is a) bimodal (100% effective against some thieves) and b) a manual transmission. Also resale value of the vehicle is low, I suspect that the sets: nearby junkie community and: nearby central americans who can drive stick and also are sketchy and also figure out if a car is worth stealing do not overlap.
Ryan North came up with the best explanation for Thomas Midgley.
I just realized I'm Generation Lead. Now I can hate and resent more people, one of them Cthulthu. Yay.
"Generation Lead" sounds like the person responsible for the whole generation's behavior.
I'm already Level 40 in the regular one. Not starting over.
Reading about Midgley led me here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_their_own_inventions
OT: sorry, Barry, you did ask earlier and I didn't answer; I will be visiting NYC from 17th to 20th June. I have to attend a state dinner* on the 18th but other than that, can I be the first to suggest, etc. Sadly the Selkie can't make it as she has a nest of gaunts to clear out* and her boss won't let her hand it off to the new kid.
*This is an exaggeration.
From 34's link:
Henry Smolinski (died 1973) was killed during a test flight of the AVE Mizar, a flying car based on the Ford Pinto and the sole product of the company he founded.
Talk about a cursed car.
Apparently, millennials have already stopped using doorbells for some reason.
It's not because I'm a millennial; it's because the doorbell makes the dog bark, which wakes the baby, which is a class-one felony in Virginia.
The doorbell alone won't wake her up. She's got too much grit for that nonsense.
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I just sent an unnerving email to a colleague telling him that when he makes a big show of camping out in neutrality, politically, in front of students, and acting like that is true wisdom, he's being a total fucking asshole. I'm a bit rattled.
|>
Maybe he ate too much lead as a child?
35 My brother and his kids leave on the 17th so that's iffy but June 19th or 20th works for me.
40: Elaborate on his behavior? My lecturers made a point of not revealing their personal positions on disputes under discussion*, and I took that to be absolutely the correct approach: the university should teach and reward learning to think, not adopting particular positions.
*And I've been legitimately appalled to hear this is apparently not the norm in the US.
There are academic and political issues where "neutrality" is awful. What is the "neutral" position on climate change?
As it happens, I was just reading Professor Bainbridge who is appalled that Republicans and the religious are underrepresented in legal academia. Surely he is right that a more neutral approach, for certain values of neutral, would be to replace something like half of the current law faculty nationwide with Christians and Republicans.
The neutral position on climate change is that we're all going to die, but that's fine because we deserve it.
The department head in my major in college always made a big show of being neutral and not revealing his actual opinions in classes. I thought this was silly, given that his political orientation, broadly speaking, was obvious: He was a center-right type, always making a show of reasonableness in support of the status quo. I was subsequently astounded when he wrote a fire-breathing leftist op-ed for the local African American newspaper. Either way, he was a good guy, and he really did listen to people and take in what they had to say without judgment.
So I think neutrality can be a real virtue, but not when it comes to truth vs. falsehood, or decency vs. Trumpism. As the wise man said: "Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Moderation in *all* things, kid.
42, 46: I can show up on the 19th -- I'll see who else I can corral.
And I have the same questions as 43. I can imagine behavior that would be lousy that would also count as performing neutrality, but it's not obvious to me what's going on from what you said.
I hear cattle do gather at salt licks.
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Sihanouk ordered that the young man's execution be filmed and broadcast in movie theaters for the next month, as an example to the population.|>
People always need to know about cinematography.
I was reading about Sihanouk yesterday too, but it was in his capacity as a composer of easy-listening music. Check this out!
Second fact I learned: Sihanouk's government of Cambodia in exile during the Pol Pot years was called "GRUNK". Governement Royal d'Union Nationale du Kampuchéa.
61 is the ideal soundtrack for
operating a "string of bordellos at the edge of the city."
The work of Sihanouk and the Rundfunk-Tanzorchester Leipzig is very far from the best the Youtube channel "Funked Up East" has to offer. Probably my 2nd favorite music Youtube channel.
After what? The Maoist Verse Set to Music channel?
(Not that I'm judging, I'm listening to 61 right now. Dude has taste.)
In the next four years, he would write, direct, produce, and often star in a series of nine movies.And here I was thinking Moby was just being tasteless. I am humbled.
I was only intending to be tasteless.
66: After "NewRetroWave", if you must know.
Some favorites from Funked Up East:
Jože Privšek / RTV Ljubljana Big Band
Kazimierz Jonkisz Quintet
Marius Popp, Panoramic Jazz Rock
Funky soundtrack to East German cop show "Das Unsichtbare Visier"
Duo Bednarek-Zgraja (flute and bass duo)
Vagif Mustafa Zadeh's jazz piano
Urszula Dudziak (she's too famous to be in this company)
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stories about trucks full of severed heads being sent back to Phnom Penh circulated in the capital|>
46 to 45.
(Alternatively, 25 or 6 to 4.)
60: That was a great article Mossy. Thanks for sharing it!
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the prince issued a radio broadcast from Beijing to proclaim the creation of an umbrella resistance organization, the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK)|>
Honestly, I'm a pretty pragmatic person, and *I* don't trust that the Flint water is safe. Authorities at all levels of government in the VERY recent past have either outright lied, misled, or otherwise behaved in corrupt and dangerous ways toward residents. Almost none of them have faced meaningful discipline or consequences - only now is the criminal case getting under way. Under those circumstances, with the permanent health and safety of your children at risk, would you drink the water? I wouldn't.
It's not as good as Yuengling, but I'm still boycotting them.
Apparently, some of my neighbors have run out of cats to rescue and started rescuing baby raccoons with rabies and the county department of health would like them to please stop and maybe go see a doctor.
77: It's almost literally the least I could do.
78: Yeah, a friend up in the Allentown/Bethlehem area told me that animal control told him that they now automatically assume that ALL raccoons have rabies, because it's so darn common.
79: And yet, so many people refuse to do it.
I think it used to be skunks with rabies, but I'm guessing nobody tries to rescue them.
I will be visiting NYC from 17th to 20th June.
Ajay! Eh, I will be in the NYC area for those dates. Will there be an unfogged meetup? Let me be the first (or second, or third...) to suggest...
See above - there will be a meet up, usual place, and your attending would increase its size by 50%.
No, 33%; LB and Barry will also be there plus whatever LB can round up.
I am hoping Rory Stewart doesn't turn up but one can never tell these days, dude is just wandering around everywhere talking to random people like I used to at my parents' parties when I was 5.
I like the 'whatever'. I may bring a llama.
74: The issue with the lead testing is the sampling point. They are not going into homes and testing tap water; they're testing at the source post-water treatment (this is standard practice and not an issue unless cities have a bunch of lead pipe . . . oh wait). The city is slowly replacing lead lines into homes, but it's expensive. The disastrous switch in water sourcing permanently damaged a lot of lead pipe that was OK-ish, so the leaching is not abating enough to provide safe tap water in homes and businesses. The numbers are misleading.
86: if not, just persuade JM and Blandings to wear the llama costume again.
Did the change in water sourcing permanently damage the lead pipe? I thought the problem was that the more acid water removed a protective layer of oxidation and the pipe began leaching, but with the acidity back down the protective oxidation would reform.
Also, the Wikipedia article describes testing being done in homes and finding that lead levels are generally low again. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
And here's a news story from February describing testing done in high risk homes and saying the same, that lead levels are down: https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2019/02/independent-tests-in-flint-reveal-water-is-well-below-action-levels-match-city-results.html
We have a home lead test by haven't heard it.
For toxic materials tests it may be better to go with a well-known brand, even if the price is a little worse.
86 Let me know if you do and I'll bring a camel.
81. My recollection is that a few decades ago, almost all the raccoons in MA had rabies and ultimately they died of it. So for quite a few years there were hardly any raccoons here. Now they are apparently breeding massively and there are raccoons everywhere (including road kill). Yes, some of them have rabies. /lather /rinse /repeat
...until the rabies becomes less lethal and more pervasive.
I just assume all your typos are straight lines.
It was a free test, because we had much more minor issues, but similar concerns as Flint.
Flint in the drinking water must play hell with your teeth.
You were supposed to say something about flouride.
9 out of 10 dentists recommend it. The tenth is just trying to get more business drilling teeth.
there was a rabid raccoon outside my moms house in maryland once who inspired true terror because he was so unnatural (though of course nothing could be more natural than dying painfully of rabies). he managed to push one of the big trash cans all the way over and was feasting on rotten food, and then he came right within the cone of light from the house, and taunted us. he danced and growled and picked things up in his strangely knuckled little hands to throw or simply gesture with. we were quite safe on the porch but we didn't feel safe at all. he even, and this is true, managed to get up on his head and use his hands to spin around. he barked and screamed at us, and shuffled side to side with his little gleaming eyes on us all the time. it was deeply unsettling. we couldn't shoot him as we live in a suburb of close-set houses, which was too bad really, since it would have been kinder to him and safer for everyone else. I do now assume all raccoons are rabid. in my feckless youth I was less careful and, although I was bitten by a thai beach dog while brutally stoned, declined to seek medical attention on the grounds that it was too difficult.
The dog was probably safe because there are no racoons in Thailand. At least, none that I have been informed about.
Ok seriously fuck raccoons. I'm never setting foot in North America.
No one has even mentioned how deadly their shit is.
Thanks for putting that right, dal.
Also I bet that goddamn raccoon did its recon and knew al wouldn't have a clear line of fire.