Recall Snyder Petitions at front of Royal Oak Post Office

[313WX]

In all the years I have posted on this board, I have never hidden that am very conservative. No truth suddenly revealed there.=

I had already suspect that much based on your prior posts, but I did try to give you the benefit of the doubt. Although you never explicitly hid the fact, you didn't necessarily shout it from the top of the flagpole either as your comments typically consist of circular reasoning, argumentum ad temperantium and proof by assertion [[which, to some, makes it seem as though your opinions/arguments are based on facts / logic instead of partisan viewpoints).

So fair enough.

[Wesley Mouch]

I had already suspect that much based on your prior posts, but I did try to give you the benefit of the doubt. Although you never explicitly hid the fact, you didn't necessarily shout it from the top of the flagpole either as your comments typically consist of circular reasoning, argumentum ad temperantium and proof by assertion [[which, to some, makes it seem as though your opinions/arguments are based on facts / logic instead of partisan viewpoints).

So fair enough.

313, ask yourself why you think others often seem to hold partisan viewpoints.

Funny you should make this argument on a threat about a partisan recall of Mr. Snyder.

This mutual inability to see the other's viewpoint is something I'd like to better understand.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I had already suspect that much based on your prior posts, but I did try to give you the benefit of the doubt. Although you never explicitly hid the fact, you didn't necessarily shout it from the top of the flagpole either as your comments typically consist of circular reasoning, argumentum ad temperantium and proof by assertion [[which, to some, makes it seem as though your opinions/arguments are based on facts / logic instead of partisan viewpoints).

So fair enough.

Actually, I have quite a history of being rather loud about my political opinions, on thread of a political nature. I also love that you were giving me "the benefit of the doubt", as if to say that you didn't want to believe the "ugly truth" that I might want to assault Michiganders with low taxes or something. Thank you for being willing to spend your condescension on someone as unworthy as me.

I am not sure how much circular reasoning I engage in or proof by assertion, but I also realize that we don't generally try to prove court cases here. There are detailed studies by all sides on the causes of urban misfortune. I am not seeking to reprint or create that here. I state my opinions, sometimes with a stat or 2 thrown in if I have one handy, but generally my posts are just my thoughts. Those thoughts, as pertaining to Flint and Detroit are summed up as:

I contend that any loosely sober assessment of urban public policy quickly reveals the desperation in which many people in liberal cities live. The welfare state, aside from the corruption, fraud and mismanagement its overlords cause and enjoy, has stifled social and economic mobility. The Flint water crisis, like broken families, multi-generational poverty, and failing schools, has its roots in academic good intentions decades ago. You are free to disagree. I will go to my grave knowing that if urban voters elected people with a different set of ideas- or at least the willingness to try other ideas- those same voters would improve both themselves and their city.

[compn]

as one of the flint water senate committee heads asked the EPA region 5 admin [[the one who resigned iirc) how many vacation days she used while flint water was poisoned, i'm left wondering...

how many vacations did snyder take from april 2014 to oct 2015?

[BankruptcyGuy]

as one of the flint water senate committee heads asked the EPA region 5 admin [[the one who resigned iirc) how many vacation days she used while flint water was poisoned, i'm left wondering...

how many vacations did snyder take from april 2014 to oct 2015?

Wouldn't the parallel be the person at the DEQ? Wasn't that person fired?

The one part about this that I don't get [[other than political posturing, which I do get) is the misplaced parallels:

DEQ:EPA
Head of DEQ drinking water unit:Region 5 administrator [[both fired/resigned)
Head of DEQ:Head of EPA [[DEQ person resigned, no discipline on the head of the EPA)
Snyder:Obama

You can hold one agency or other more culpable; there is plenty of blame and crappy government services delivery to go around. But I can't tell if the lack of appropriate parallels is politics or ignorance. Again, in a normal world, there'd be a nice article in one of our papers on this. I'm not going to hold my breath.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

Bankruptcy Guy, I agree with your post entirely. The only people, in my opinion, who should be fired or recalled or resign are those who had direct personal involvement in the decisions made to switch and/or not treat the water, and those who became aware of the consequences without calling public attention to it. I don't expect either a governor or president to be monitoring local water issues.

Snyder is despised on the left* [[even though he is not particularly conservative) because the left hates emergency management [[it calls out the failures of their power structure and points to massive corruption in the urban-union-government complex) and because he signed the bill to make Michigan right to work. A little more freedom than the left feels comfortable with allowing the people to have.

*When I use the term "the left" I am referring to politicians, union leaders, political academics, professional activists, and many in the press. I am not referring to [[most) liberal voters or union members. I think most of the latter have good intentions, unlike their leadership.

[bust]

Leftist policies destroy cities. Especially when administered unchecked for decades.

Funny you should say that. The Economist, a decidedly conservative magazine, ran an article about the most liberal and conservative U.S. cities with a population of 250,000 or higher, based on research by a team from UCLA and MIT published in the American Political Science Review:

Economist Article
UCLA/MIT study [[long academic article / pdf)
Figures from the study [[lotta data / pdf)

And according to the research, the ranking of those cities from most liberal to most conservative is the following:

1 San Francisco, CA
2 Washington, DC
3 Seattle, WA
4 Oakland, CA
5 Boston, MA
6 Minneapolis, MN
7 Detroit, MI
8 New York, NY
9 Buffalo, NY
10 Baltimore, MD
11 Chicago, IL
12 Portland, OR
13 St. Paul, MN
14 Austin, TX
15 St. Louis, MO
16 Philadelphia, PA
17 New Orleans, LA
18 Los Angeles, CA
19 Pittsburgh, PA
20 Denver, CO
21 Newark, NJ
22 Atlanta, GA
23 Miami, FL
24 Cleveland, OH
25 Kansas City, MO
26 Honolulu, HI
27 San Diego, CA
28 Memphis, TN
29 Sacramento, CA
30 San Jose, CA
31 Raleigh, NC
32 Long Beach, CA
33 Milwaukee, WI
34 Columbus, OH
35 Dallas, TX
36 Albuquerque, NM
37 Tucson, AZ
38 Cincinnati, OH
39 Santa Ana, CA
40 Houston, TX
41 Toledo, OH
42 Charlotte, NC
43 Tampa, FL
44 Indianapolis, IN
45 Louisville, KY
46 El Paso, TX
47 Riverside, CA
48 Lexington, KY
49 Phoenix, AZ
50 Las Vegas, NV
51 Wichita, KS
52 Nashville, TN
53 San Antonio, TX
54 Corpus Christi, TX
55 Fresno, CA
56 Fort Worth, TX
57 Anchorage, AK
58 Aurora, CO
59 Tulsa, OK
60 Omaha, NE
61 Anaheim, CA
62 Arlington, TX
63 Jacksonville, FL
64 Colorado Springs, CO
65 Virginia Beach, VA
66 Oklahoma City, OK
67 Mesa, AZ

Pair that with a recent New York Times article that describes the cities doing best in our recent economy, and a graphic that accompanies it detailing the change in unemployment in U.S. cities from 2000, to 2009, to 2016.

NY Times Article
NY Times Graphic

It's interesting to note the cities doing best are all among the most liberal. It's also interesting to note that among all cities, Detroit has seen the most dramatic positive change in employment. And more to the point, who wouldn't take San Francisco, D.C., New York, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Austin, and yes, Detroit over Arlington, Tulsa, Omaha, Mesa, Oklahoma City, Anchorage, Anaheim, Corpus Christi, Jacksonville, Colorado Springs, or Virginia Beach any and every day? I can't speak for them, but I'm pretty sure most young people who know a thing or two about what's out there would agree.

Liberal and conservative are crude terms that have little meaning, as they mean different things to different people. Political left and political right likewise. But clearly your simplistic assessment is wrong. There must be more to it.

It would be interesting to explore how liberal cities fare in the context of conservative state and federal governments. What happens when cities are choked of resources in the name of reduced state and federal taxes to create a "pro-business environment". Do you remember Flint in the 60's and 70's? Now let's remember the 80's, when "trickle-down" economics became the law of the land. It was Michigan's own David Stockman, Reagan's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, who said Reagan's "supply-side" marketing of his tax policy was just a more palatable way to sell the "trickle-down" theory.

Atlantic Article on David Stockman

Let's also investigate the result of state and federal policies that incentivize sprawl at the expense of density, when mass transit is de-funded for the benefit of expressways that lead the tax base to abandon our urban cores. Maybe we'll find part of the explanation there.

And let's look deeper into the history of GM with Flint. They're much more responsible for Flint's historical fortunes than local ideology. And let's look at the federal laws that facilitated GM's exit. There are so many devils in the details of corporate law, tax structures, inter-state commerce, international trade agreements, and their effects. I'm sure we'll find some insights there too.

Or if you're intellectually lazy it's so much easier to skip all that and just repeat what the blowhards on the radio have to say.

[313WX]

Funny you should say that. The Economist, a decidedly conservative magazine, ran an article about the most liberal and conservative U.S. cities with a population of 250,000 or higher, based on research by a team from UCLA and MIT published in the American Political Science Review:

Economist Article
UCLA/MIT study [[long academic article / pdf)
Figures from the study [[lotta data / pdf)

And according to the research, the ranking of those cities from most liberal to most conservative is the following:

1 San Francisco, CA
2 Washington, DC
3 Seattle, WA
4 Oakland, CA
5 Boston, MA
6 Minneapolis, MN
7 Detroit, MI
8 New York, NY
9 Buffalo, NY
10 Baltimore, MD
11 Chicago, IL
12 Portland, OR
13 St. Paul, MN
14 Austin, TX
15 St. Louis, MO
16 Philadelphia, PA
17 New Orleans, LA
18 Los Angeles, CA
19 Pittsburgh, PA
20 Denver, CO
21 Newark, NJ
22 Atlanta, GA
23 Miami, FL
24 Clevelnad, OH
25 Kansas City, MO
26 Honolulu, HI
27 San Diego, CA
28 Memphis, TN
29 Sacramento, CA
30 San Jose, CA
31 Raleigh, NC
32 Long Beach, CA
33 Milwaukee, WI
34 Columbus, OH
35 Dallas, TX
36 Albuquerque, NM
37 Tucson, AZ
38 Cincinnati, OH
39 Santa Ana, CA
40 Houston, TX
41 Toledo, OH
42 Charlotte, NC
43 Tampa, FL
44 Indianapolis, IN
45 Louisville, KY
46 El Paso, TX
47 Riverside, CA
48 Lexington, KY
49 Phoenix, AZ
50 Las Vegas, NV
51 Wichita, KS
52 Nashville, TN
53 San Antonio, TX
54 Corpus Christi, TX
55 Fresno, CA
56 Fort Worth, TX
57 Anchorage, AK
58 Aurora, CO
59 Tulsa, OK
60 Omaha, NE
61 Anaheim, CA
62 Arlington, TX
63 Jacksonville, FL
64 Colorado Springs, CO
65 Virginia Beach, VA
66 Oklahoma City, OK
67 Mesa, AZ

Pair that with a recent New York Times article that describes the cities doing best in our recent economy, and a graphic that accompanies it detailing the change in unemployment in U.S. cities from 2000, to 2009, to 2016.

NY Times Article
NY Times Graphic

It's interesting to note the cities doing best are all among the most liberal. It's also interesting to note that among all cities, Detroit has seen the most dramatic positive change in employment. And more to the point, who wouldn't take San Francisco, D.C., New York, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Austin, and yes, Detroit over Arlington, Tulsa, Omaha, Mesa, Oklahoma City, Anchorage, Anaheim, Corpus Christi, Jacksonville, Colorado Springs, or Virginia Beach any and every day? I can't speak for them, but I'm pretty sure most young people who know a thing or two about what's out there would agree.

Liberal and Conservative are crude terms that have little meaning, as they mean different things to different people. Political Left and Political Right likewise. But clearly your simplistic assessment is wrong. There must be more to it.

It would be interesting to explore how liberal cities fare in the context of conservative state and federal governments. What happens when cities are choked of resources in the name of reduced state and federal taxes to create a "pro-business environment". Do you remember Flint in the 60's and 70's? Now let's remember the 80's, when "trickle-down" economics became the law of the land. It was David Stockman, Reagan's Director of the Office of Management who said Reagan's "supply-side" marketing of his tax policy was just a more palatable way to sell the "trickle-down" theory.

Atlantic Article on David Stockman

Let's also investigate the result of state and federal policies that incentivize sprawl at the expense of density, when mass transit is de-funded for the benefit of expressways that lead the tax base to abandon our urban cores. Maybe we'll find part of the explanation there.

And let's look deeper into the history of GM with Flint. They're much more responsible for Flint's historical fortunes than local ideology. And let's look at the Federal laws that facilitated GM's exit. There are so many devils in the details of corporate law, tax structures, inter-state commerce, international trade agreements, and their affects. I'm sure we'll find some insights there too.

Or if you're intellectually lazy it's so much easier to skip all that and just repeat what the blowhards on the radio have to say.

Thank you for that well thought out post.

You said it all better than I could.

[313WX]

The one part about this that I don't get [[other than political posturing, which I do get) is the misplaced parallels:

DEQ:EPA
Head of DEQ drinking water unit:Region 5 administrator [[both fired/resigned)
Head of DEQ:Head of EPA [[DEQ person resigned, no discipline on the head of the EPA)
Snyder:Obama

You can hold one agency or other more culpable; there is plenty of blame and crappy government services delivery to go around. But I can't tell if the lack of appropriate parallels is politics or ignorance. Again, in a normal world, there'd be a nice article in one of our papers on this. I'm not going to hold my breath.

The dubious claims about they're plenty of blame to go around is political posturing in itself, as the only people who seem to be making those claims are supporters of the style of governance and leadership that royally screwed the people of Flint and all of the taxpayers sin Michigan.

All of the objective facts and independent reports we have seen so far point to the State of Michigan being entirely culpable in this debacle.

So I'm not sure what changes or what is gained by creating these "parallels" you ask for.

If this was an issue caused entirely by people who all reported to Snyder and his appointees [[who not only caused the problems in the first place by their careless and calloused "I know better than you do" style of governance, but then stonewalled the EPA by delaying the release of and/or withholding critical information and then covered up the significance of the problems by ridiculing the residents who raised concerns), what does Obama and the heads within the EPA have to do with any of this? I'm just curious to know.

[Wesley Mouch]

Funny you should say that. The Economist, a decidedly conservative magazine, ran an article about the most liberal and conservative U.S. cities with a population of 250,000 or higher, based on research by a team from UCLA and MIT published in the American Political Science Review:
...
And according to the research, the ranking of those cities from most liberal to most conservative is the following:

1 San Francisco, CA
2 Washington, DC
3 Seattle, WA
4 Oakland, CA
... the blowhards on the radio have to say.

Successful cities are certainly more 'liberal'. The question unanswered is whether this is cause or effect. But there certainly is a correlation to be sure.

I don't think Toronto suffered economically because of Rob Ford, nor NYC because of Bloomberg. My opinion is that liberalism is a result of economic success, and ignorance of just how difficult that success was on their parents.

[bust]

Successful cities are certainly more 'liberal'. The question unanswered is whether this is cause or effect. But there certainly is a correlation to be sure.

I don't think Toronto suffered economically because of Rob Ford, nor NYC because of Bloomberg. My opinion is that liberalism is a result of economic success, and ignorance of just how difficult that success was on their parents.

I agree it seems to be a phenomenon that work ethic often suffers among the descendants of wealthy families beginning a generation or two after the family wealth is earned. It's just one reason I think estate taxes are a good and fair source of government revenue. But in no way do I believe there is an equivalency between lazy wealthy kids and liberals.

Meanwhile Bloomberg would be considered a liberal by many measures, many places. He's pro-choice, advocates for stricter gun control laws, supports gay marriage, raised cigarette taxes, and attempted to levy a tax on pop and sugary beverages, for starters. And I think few would disagree: our parents' San Francisco, New York, and Seattle were more liberal places than they are today.

Sorry, we've gotten off-topic...

[compn]

Wouldn't the parallel be the person at the DEQ? Wasn't that person fired?

The one part about this that I don't get [[other than political posturing, which I do get) is the misplaced parallels:

DEQ:EPA
Head of DEQ drinking water unit:Region 5 administrator [[both fired/resigned)
Head of DEQ:Head of EPA [[DEQ person resigned, no discipline on the head of the EPA)
Snyder:Obama

sure , i'll agree with you that snyder is equivalent to obama if you can point me to where obama was running flint with an EM that reported only to him. and that obama ordered his EM to switch water intake to the flint river water.

but you cannot, because snyder and obama have different involvements in flint.

you are trying to say that snyder is like Jim Ananich, flint's rep in the senate. except ananich wasnt running the city via dictatorship either.

who was in charge at the time? EMs appointed by snyder. nothing to do with obama, but good try. nothing to do with democratically elected flint mayors or flint city councilmembers either.

if granholm had put in an EM that did the same thing i'd be petitioning to remove granholm too.

this is not an R v D political fight, this is to PREVENT MORE CITIES IN MICHIGAN FROM BEING POISONED. MDEQ and MDHHS are still full of incompetent , lying, coverup conspirational dirtbags. snyder, aside from firing two? employees still has not gotten rid of the rest of them.


epa has way less blame [[but still some blame) for this. MDEQ has a lot of blame. until we know who ordered the switch, snyder does not seem to have blame for the switch.

i blame snyder for not hearing about flint water for 2 years.
i blame snyder for signing the em law [[after rejection by voters) and installing a bunch of EMs in flint, including the EM that ignored and kept silent when he learned about the poisoned water.

i also blame flint water treatment plant for not getting more expert advice when mdeq lied and failed.

i blame lt gov brian calley, Andy Dillion, gennessee county health dept, city council members, mayor wailing,senator ananich,epa [[except miguel del toral- who is a hero), mdeq,mdhhs and snyders' administration [[dennis muchmore, rich baird etc) and all other involved federal, state and local employees for not sounding the call when each of them heard the water was poisoned.

i blame brad wurfel for lying, misleading and attacking medical studies submitted to the people of flint and michigan. also for insisting multiple times that the water was safe to drink.

i even blame newspaper reporters who just reported the crap brad wurfel coughed up without asking some experts or doing investigations.

[BankruptcyGuy]

sure , i'll agree with you that snyder is equivalent to obama if you can point me to where obama was running flint with an EM that reported only to him. and that obama ordered his EM to switch water intake to the flint river water.

but you cannot, because snyder and obama have different involvements in flint.

you are trying to say that snyder is like Jim Ananich, flint's rep in the senate. except ananich wasnt running the city via dictatorship either.

who was in charge at the time? EMs appointed by snyder. nothing to do with obama, but good try. nothing to do with democratically elected flint mayors or flint city councilmembers either.

if granholm had put in an EM that did the same thing i'd be petitioning to remove granholm too.

this is not an R v D political fight, this is to PREVENT MORE CITIES IN MICHIGAN FROM BEING POISONED. MDEQ and MDHHS are still full of incompetent , lying, coverup conspirational dirtbags. snyder, aside from firing two? employees still has not gotten rid of the rest of them.

So if I were to point you to a massive water poisoning event that had no state involvement of any kind, would you be calling for Gina McCarthy to resign?

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28...ll-lie-beneath

Gina McCarthy is directly appointed by President Obama. Is President Obama now culpable?

[compn]

but ok you want to compare obama to snyder.

obama appoints region 5 admin susan hedman in 2010
snyder appoints dan wyant MDEQ admin in 2011

march 2015 susan hedman calls mdeq and asks them about corrosion control due to flint water resident asking for help. mdeq lies to epa saying they have corrosion control.

susan hedman again contacts mdeq and finds out there is not corrosion control.

mdeq then says epa has no authority to control mdeq , nor is legally able to force mdeq to apply corrosion control.

so you have susan hedman trying to get mdeq to fix flint water.
and you have mdeq doing everything possible, including lying to epa, to prevent fixing flint water.

epa and mdeq do not get the same blame.
snyder appointees and obama appointees do not get the same blame.

susan hedman gets blame for the statements about Lead and Copper rule being vague, and comments about miguel del toral's report, and failing to sound the alarm to the people.

dan wyant gets blame for allowing his dept to lie to the epa, fighting the epa with legal threats. his dept also ignored repeated reports about water quality from residents, flint water treatment employees, flint city council, flint mayor, flint senators and epa and marc edwards from virginia tech. etc etc etc.

[compn]

So if I were to point you to a massive water poisoning event that had no state involvement of any kind, would you be calling for Gina McCarthy to resign?

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28...ll-lie-beneath

was it people that were poisoned? according to the article, no.

sorry, this is a different situation [[but also terrible).

whats a tiny river even compared to 100,000 people in flint?
i'd also say the oil spill and dispersants in the gulf of mexico are worse than the river.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I hate to tell you, Bust, but The Economist is very far a conservative publication. It is left of center on most issues, although generally a free trade supporter. It is based in London and favors a European vision of relation of citizen to the state.

If the goal of anyone is to "prevent another Flint" from happening, I suggest a 2 fold approach.

First, regularly test both water supplies and home/business water for signs of contamination. Also, identify lead [[and other contaminant) pipes, fixtures, and sediment. Then schedule replacement and/or cleanup even where water currently meets standards.

Second, and this is also crucial, elect local leaders competent of managing local affairs. I mean that both in terms of finances and outlook. Competent local leadership in Flint would have avoided both the bankruptcy and would have asked the right questions and hired the necessary environmental engineers and public health specialists to manage something as large and consequential as changing a metropolitan water supply. Flint's officials failed on managing their affairs, and lost power to the state appointed EM. And then they were silent as a much-too-hasty decision was made by the EM's team. Silent except for those who supported the switch. Flint's residents were only failed by the state after they were failed by their local leaders. I can agree to place a lot of blame on the Snyder/EM/DEQ team. But I can't pretend that the dominoes were not set in motion in Flint, and allowed by people in Flint [[and Lansing and Washington) to continue to fall for months longer than the initial mistake would have caused unto itself.

[compn]

so you are blaming the victims.

[bust]

I hate to tell you, Bust, but The Economist is very far a conservative publication. It is left of center on most issues, although generally a free trade supporter. It is based in London and favors a European vision of relation of citizen to the state.

Here's the Economist's own explanation [[they say they are neither left nor right):

http://www.economist.com/blogs/econo...lains-itself-0

...Though almost no one in the U.K. would say The Economist is left.

And I agree, on almost every issue, U.S. "conservatives" out-do Europeans in spades. Thus what I said about the veritable meaningless of the terms liberal and conservative, left and right. It depends on your context and perspective. Besides, our complex universe doesn't neatly fall onto a simple line between two dots. On the issue of immigration, people like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump would probably align best with fringe right parties like Le Pen's National Front, Germany's PEGIDA, or Greece's Golden Dawn. But William F. Buckley Jr.'s example of conservatism denounced racism and advocated for a strict separation of church and state. How quickly the popular definition of that term has changed.

Meanwhile, back to Flint. The New York Times wrote an editorial about it. Below, I've copied the first half. It may be a good use of your monthly allotment of free articles to read the rest.

An important new report makes clear the principal cause of the water crisis in Flint, Mich.: the state government’s blatant disregard for the lives and health of poor and black residents of a distressed city.

The report released Wednesday by a task force appointed last year by Gov. Rick Snyder to study how Flint’s drinking water became poisoned by lead makes for chilling reading. While it avoids using the word “racism,” it clearly identifies the central role that race and poverty play in this story. “Flint residents, who are majority black or African-American and among the most impoverished of any metropolitan area in the United States, did not enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards as that provided to other communities,” the report said.

Mr. Snyder, a Republican, and many Republicans in Congress have tried to deflect and minimize the state’s responsibility for the Flint crisis. Mr. Snyder has said the crisis represented a collective failure of local, state and federal governments. And congressional Republicans like Jason Chaffetz of Utah have sought to pin virtually all of the blame on the Environmental Protection Agency, which many of them oppose for ideological reasons.

The task force cut through to the truth and said the agency most at fault was the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which reports to Mr. Snyder. The agency failed to instruct officials in Flint, which was under state control at the time, to treat its water with chemicals that would have prevented lead from leaching from pipes and plumbing fixtures into the drinking water. The agency continuously belittled the concerns of local residents and independent experts, and lied to the E.P.A., telling it that Flint was properly treating the water.

Mr. Snyder’s office comes in for harsh criticism for relying on the department’s assurances that the water was safe despite mounting evidence that it was in fact poisoning residents. The emergency managers Mr. Snyder appointed to run Flint’s city government decided to switch the city’s water source to the Flint River from the Detroit water system and later refused requests by residents and the City Council to reverse that decision, because it would cost more money. The E.P.A. made mistakes, too, by not intervening forcefully enough until it issued an emergency order in January, even though some of its employees began raising concerns about Flint’s water early last year...

Finally, since we're sharing our ideological beliefs, I'm a proud American and I revere our Constitution, but I make no qualms saying I am certainly not a conservative — especially not by today's popular American definition of the term.

[Wesley Mouch]

so you are blaming the victims.

Well, they aren't blameless. And they aren't victims, either, IMO.

I don't think placing the label of 'victim' on people here is anything but Racist.

[JBMcB]

I saw the graph. What I didn't see was anything that suggests the numbers in that graph were related to the quality of the water.

Of course it was related to the water. The major vectors of lead exposure have been leaded gasoline fumes, lead paint, and water. Leaded gas fumes haven't been a factor in decades. The bio-availability of lead paint via ingestion is very low, as it's bound up in molecules that are difficult for the body to absorb, and there just isn't that much in paint to begin with. To hit the levels seen in Flint, kids would have to be scraping paint off the walls and sprinkling it on their cereal every morning. Besides, most homes in Flint were built after 1950, when high-lead paint was being phased out.

[313WX]

Of course it was related to the water. The major vectors of lead exposure have been leaded gasoline fumes, lead paint, and water. Leaded gas fumes haven't been a factor in decades. The bio-availability of lead paint via ingestion is very low, as it's bound up in molecules that are difficult for the body to absorb, and there just isn't that much in paint to begin with. To hit the levels seen in Flint, kids would have to be scraping paint off the walls and sprinkling it on their cereal every morning. Besides, most homes in Flint were built after 1950, when high-lead paint was being phased out.

The fact is lead poisoning can come from a number of different sources.

What you seemed to conveniently omit from my post, and I'll state it again, is that Flint was receiving a finished product from the city of Detroit. If they were getting a finished product, and Detroit is still highly regarded as having some of the cleanest water in the world, why would the quality of water in Flint had been any worse?

I should also mention, the children in Detroit have much higher lead levels than the children in Flint. But Marc Edwards' test showed that the levels of lead in Detroit's water is negligible at worst.

What that chart does show [[which you admit) is that the switch in the water supply and the decision to not treat it was solely responsible for the spike saw between 2014 and 2015.

BTW, Flint's population boomed prior to the 1950s, just lie Detroit's. So where did the 150,000+ people in Flint live before the 1950s? In tents and tractor trailers?

[JBMcB]

The fact is lead poisoning can come from a number of different sources.

The majority of which have been, historically, lead paint, water and leaded gas vapors.

What you seemed to conveniently omit from my post, and I'll state it again, is that Flint was receiving a finished product from the city of Detroit.

It wasn't teleported into Flint's homes. It was going through the same lead pipes, and lead soldered pipes, that caused the current crisis.

If they were getting a finished product, and Detroit is still highly regarded as having some of the cleanest water in the world, why would the quality of water in Flint had been any worse?

Detroit does have some good water. It has four dedicated water filtration facilities in the area. Flint's plant is on Lake Huron, where the "finished product" is pumped through roughly 60 miles of pipe. So you're really talking about two different things.

I should also mention, the children in Detroit have much higher lead levels than the children in Flint. But Marc Edwards' test showed that the levels of lead in Detroit's water is negligible at worst.

Again, two different things.

BTW, Flint's population boomed prior to the 1950s, just lie Detroit's. So where did the 150,000+ people in Flint live before the 1950s? In tents and tractor trailers?

Median housing age in flint: 59 years - putting it at roughly 1955
http://www.bestplaces.net/housing/city/michigan/flint

[313WX]

It wasn't teleported into Flint's homes. It was going through the same lead pipes, and lead soldered pipes, that caused the current crisis.

Detroit has the same lead pipes that Flint has, but the reason Detroit doesn't have high levels of lead in its water and Flint did after the switch is because Detroit's water is treated while Flint's new water source was not treated.

^^^I thought the above facts were pretty clear, not sure why I have to keep re-stating them...

Median housing age in flint: 59 years - putting it at roughly 1955
http://www.bestplaces.net/housing/city/michigan/flint

That pretty much contradicts your statement earlier, as just going by what your latest comment about the median housing age, at least half of the homes in Flint were built during a time when lead paint was still being sold and used.

[JBMcB]

Detroit has the same lead pipes that Flint has, but the reason Detroit doesn't have high levels of lead in its water and Flint did after the switch is because Detroit's water is treated while Flint's new water source was not treated.
^^^I thought the above facts were pretty clear, not sure why I have to keep re-stating them...

Because treating the water for lead contamination doesn't necessarily mean there is no lead in the water.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...ater/83013420/

[Shai_Hulud]

To answer your question, they'll be taking signatures from 6am to 4pm every Saturday at the Eastern Market.

They're also arranging to have signatures taken at the Main Post Office.

Thank you,