Lead pipes have a lifespan of about 75 years — and America's lead pipe are about 75 years old. 3,000 American municipalities have 1.2m miles of lead pipe, and it's all overdue for replacement, but there's no plan in hand to do so, and any workable plan will cost about $1 trillion to execute.
An independent investigation by The Guardian found 33 cities in 17 US states (including Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee) are systematically cheating on the tests to monitor lead levels in the municipal water. 21 of those cities used the same cheating techniques that led to criminal charges in the Flint water scandal.
Authorities investigating Flint water crisis seize mobile devices from former Gov. Rick Snyder and 65 other officials.
Brazilian artist Butcher Billy was commissioned by STATE bags to create #FlintsFantasticFive, a series of images depicting several key voices in addressing the Flint water crisis.
The city of Flint, Michigan notoriously poisoned a generation of its children with lead in the water supply, having ignored and covered up reports from whistleblowers and denied complaints from residents.
Corrine Miller was Michigan's director of epidemiology at the state Department of Health and Human Services and oversaw the mass-poisoning of the largely black population of Flint, Michigan; as punishment for her admitted role in the deaths and lifelong suffering caused by her negligence, she will have to write and publish an apology to the victims of her malfeasance.
When Marc Edwards was a young Virginia tech engineer, he landed a job with Cadmus Group, an EPA subcontractor who'd been hired to investigate problems with the DC water-supply, but when he discovered a lead contamination crisis and refused to stop talking about it, he was fired.
In light of Flint lead catastrophe, John Oliver gets the cast of Sesame Street to update their 20-year-old segment warning kids to steer clear of lead paint, making it over into an economic parable about moral hazard and aligning incentives. — Read the rest
Years before the complaints from Flint's citizenry about their water provoked action from the state, Governor Rick Snyder spent $440,000 to supply better water to the GM factory, where the new water supply was corroding the car parts on the assembly line.
Michael Moore, perhaps Flint, MI's most famous son, has written an open letter to people who are heartsick at the thought of a whole generation of mostly poor, mostly black children being given permanent brain damage through lead poisoning, thanks to the deliberate indifference of the state's Republican administration and the greedy people who elected them.
Last month, a controversial political machination at the top levels of Brazil's government saw the removal of its elected left-wing president, Dilma Rousseff, and her replacement with an appointed, neoliberal "interim president" President Michel Temer, who has now been convicted of committing election fraud and barred from holding elected office in Brazil for 8 years.
Andreas Pernerstorfer of Gobelsburg, Austria was renovating his wine cellar when he found something extraordinary: a pile of Stone Age mammoth bones.
According to the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the bones—from at least three different mammoths—are approximately 30,000 to 40,000 years-old. — Read the rest
The red wave was nowhere to be seen last night in Michigan, where Democrats won control of both the state House and Senate, according to Detroit Free Press. This is a legislative sweep not seen in the Great Lakes State since 1983. — Read the rest
There can be only one. Since The Simpsons created the modern adult animation boom (we didn't forget about you, Fred Flintstone), there's always been a show that captures its zeitgeist. I'm not talking about personal preference here; I'm talking about the show that was undeniably the most popular entry in the adult animation genre. — Read the rest
Some books change your world in deep and lasting ways. For me, one of those was architect, builder, and design theorist, Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language. Published in 1977, A Pattern Language was an interactive design directory of numbered patterns of living and building that Alexander put together, much of it inspired by the world's vernacular architecture and time-tested solutions to building design challenges. — Read the rest
Ron Perlman is not only one hell of a great actor, but he's also a fierce defender of the First Amendment, as evidenced by this message he posted to Fred Flintstone lookalike Ron DeSantis, who recently signed Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill onto law. — Read the rest
Anti-science pastor and lawmaker Jeff Hoverson (R–ND) organized an anti-vaccine rally, set for today. The Q-injected gentleman then caught Covid-19 and was forced to miss his own rally.
Although yesterday Hoverson posted about his case of Covid on Facebook, saying "Quarantining and each day is getting better," today the ailing state representative changed his tune. — Read the rest
WCAI Massachusetts has an inspiring story about a Mashpee-Wampanoag woman who was given a rare opportunity to grow a traditional corn strain on its native land again, after Puritan colonists had tried to ravage the crop. During a particularly bloody conflict known as King Philip's War, which ran between 1675 and 1676, colonists destroyed thousands of acres of Wampanoag crops. — Read the rest
"This is the greatest embarrassment in the history of our country," says Trump, introducing and summarizing this montage of humiliations he lavishly presented to the world during his days as president. Set to circus music, MeidasTouch's "America's Biggest Loser" highlights just a fraction (there's only so much time) of Trump's embarrassing moments, from covfefe to his toilet paper shoe-tail to staring directly into the sun to world leaders laughing at him — and so much more. — Read the rest
Between Father's Day, the start of summer travel season, and the loosening of COVID restrictions, this moment couldn't be more perfectly suited to outfit Dad for a journey into the great outdoors.
If your father is an adventurous soul, then he likely has many pieces of critical equipment and fun accessories for making his wilderness episodes count. — Read the rest
