{"id":32546,"date":"2016-01-14T12:39:07","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T20:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/?p=32546"},"modified":"2016-01-26T22:06:33","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T06:06:33","slug":"the-third-world-ization-of-america-continues-apace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/?p=32546","title":{"rendered":"The third world-ization of America continues apace."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"giphy-embed\" src=\"\/\/giphy.com\/embed\/KlulsTyJiED4I\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Welcome to World #3, Michigan, we will be joining you as soon as President Trump takes office.\u00a0The people in Flint, Michigan have been drinking water so lead-ridden that they are basically becoming human versions of those lead weights you use to sink yourself to the bottom when you scuba dive. While that sounds all delightful and science fiction-y, people actually do not enjoy having lead course through their bloodstreams. Particularly the bloodstreams of their children, since lead totally stunts brain development.<\/p>\n<p>Now, having watched so many GOP debates, you may be feeling like everything anyone says is craven craptastic hyperbole at best and outright malicious lying at worst. But this is the science! From the socialistic WHO:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Having high amounts of lead in your water is so bad for kids that we don\u2019t even really have a way to joke about it.According to the World Health Organization, \u201clead affects children\u2019s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs. The neurological and behavioral effects of lead are believed to be irreversible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Flint, Michigan, lies about 70 miles from the shores of the largest group of fresh water bodies in the world: the Great Lakes. \u00a0So, WHY is the water supply lead based? And why isn&#8217;t the rest of the state? Well, Flint used to get its water from Detroit, which has a purified water system. But! as<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"> <a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Decline_of_Detroit\">Detroit slid<\/a> <\/span>into an almost comically craven level of financial disarray,\u00a0\u00a0the state decided to save money by switching Flint&#8217;s water supply from Lake Huron (which they were paying the city of Detroit for), to the Flint River, which is notoriously<a href=\"http:\/\/flintwaterstudy.org\/2015\/09\/test-update-flint-river-water-19x-more-corrosive-than-detroit-water-for-lead-solder-now-what\/\">\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">corrosive as fuck<\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">.<\/span> Seriously, the\u00a0Flint River features water that is basically a tall not-sparkling glass of sludgy death.\u00a0The lead lead leaches into the Flint River water as it passes through old water-service lines and pipes in Flint homes.<\/p>\n<p>The switch to the filthy rive water was supposed to be temporary while a new state-run supply line to Lake Huron was ready for connection. The project was estimated to take five years.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-32552\" src=\"http:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RickSnyderGMPresidentMichiganGovernorwTOhffH2eWdl-1.jpg\" alt=\"Rick+Snyder+GM+President+Michigan+Governor+wTOhffH2eWdl\" width=\"225\" height=\"290\" srcset=\"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RickSnyderGMPresidentMichiganGovernorwTOhffH2eWdl-1.jpg 279w, https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RickSnyderGMPresidentMichiganGovernorwTOhffH2eWdl-1-233x300.jpg 233w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/flintwaterclassaction.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/11\/mays-complaint-with-time-stamp.pdf\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">A lawsuit<\/span> <\/a>had been filed last year by a group of residents who noticed that they were\u00a0drinking metallic sludge, but \u00a0that the city and the state knew about it and did nothing. Flint was already well on the way to being your laboratory for horrible retro diseases popping up. Maybe it\u2019s those big glasses of lead, maybe not, who can say? The one <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"http:\/\/comically terrible Governor Rick Snyder\">comically terrible Governor Rick Snyder<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0knows\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">f<\/span>or sure is that if\u00a0the expenditure of public funds will promote the health and well-being of the vast majority of people, then it must be stopped, at all costs. This is not what public funds are for. Public funds are to be used to pay back campaign contributors.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0September 2014, the\u00a0city decided it would be a good idea to tell people to <em>boil<\/em> the foul-smelling muck that was coming out of their faucets, because that\u2019s what they do on Little House on the Prairie. Now, the boiling thing\u00a0runs contrary to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s guidelines on lead in drinking water, which state that heating or boiling water will not remove lead. In fact, \u201cbecause some of the water evaporates during the boiling process, the lead concentration of the water can actually<em> increase<\/em> slightly as the water is boiled,\u201d according to the CDC.<\/p>\n<p>Late last year,<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0laughably atrocious Governor Snyder<\/span><\/span> roused himself from a winter slumber to fully investigate the matter. find a fall guy and allow his Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant to &#8220;quit&#8221; and spend more time with his family. Weirdly, the people of Flint \u00a0did not really feel like that fixed the problem of how they were drinking lead.<\/p>\n<p>By the time Rick Snyder finally saw his way clear to throw $12 million at Flint so they can switch back to Detroit\u2019s water system &#8211; which is presumably not lead-based &#8211; and\u00a0requesting federal socialist support\u00a0(because at least he&#8217;s\u00a0good at one thing: asking other people to fix his fuckups), and activating the state National Guard to help distribute supplies at the city\u2019s five water resource sites, people were already dead.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Today we hear this alarming piece of information:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Michigan\u2019s top medical officer admitted to NBC News that an email from a state health worker \u2014 raising the alarm about lead poisoning in Flint<em> six months ago<\/em> \u2014 was a \u201cmissed opportunity\u201d(calling Condi Rice), \u00a0to attack the crisis that has sickened thousands of small children.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The epidemiologist identified a spike in kids\u2019 lead levels in July, August and September 2014, which was soon after Flint switched water sources to save money. She got the same results when asked to take a broader look at the numbers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You know&#8230;.I&#8217;m not sure I\u2019d describe this as a \u201cmissed opportunity.\u201d A missed opportunity is when you were going to get tickets for the opening night of the new Star Wars but didn\u2019t check until too late and had to go to a Saturday matinee after all your friends have already seen it and told you that (spoiler alert), Han Solo kicks. This is more in the category of \u201ccatastrophic fuckup.\u201d A handy metric: If you have to call in the fucking National Guard, things are probably pretty bad.<\/p>\n<p>They simply ignored the test results. Excuse me. They &#8220;misinterpreted&#8221; the test results by looking at the wrong testing criteria. The Invisible Hand is perfect. Humans, not so much.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services officials announced that the city and the surrounding area have seen a spike in cases of<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em> <a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires%27_disease_outbreak\">Legionnaires\u2019 disease<\/a><\/em> <\/span>\u2014 that fucking bacterial infection from the 1970&#8217;s. Legionnaire&#8217;s disease can be deadly for between 5 to 30 percent of those who contract it.\u00a0So far, 87 cases have been diagnosed since June, two months after Flint changed its water source to the Flint River, the Detroit Free Press reported. Ten of those cases were fatal.<\/p>\n<p>Rick Snyder mumbled something about how it just adds to the &#8220;tragedy they are facing&#8221;, which is a clever piece of passive voice, like it&#8217;s not of Man&#8217;s making, like the tragedy just wandered up the Great Lakes and chose Michigan, as opposed to being the logical result of decades of corruption and neglect.<\/p>\n<p>But, you know, I&#8217;d rather freak the fuck out about Muslims over 3000 miles away with literally zero actual infrastructure to harm us other than shitty YouTube videos. Fucking <em>Legionnaires disease<\/em> is back, 2016.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-32554\" src=\"http:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/14350652510_802d891fea_o.jpg\" alt=\"14350652510_802d891fea_o\" width=\"484\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/14350652510_802d891fea_o.jpg 597w, https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/14350652510_802d891fea_o-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 484px) 100vw, 484px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Well, sure, the people of Flint, Michigan don\u2019t have clean water to drink, but at least they have an awesome, kickass economy in exchange for lax oversight and enforcement of environmental standards, so they\u2019ve got that going for them\u2026 oh\u2026 wait\u2026<\/p>\n<p>There is literally <em>nothing<\/em> that could make this revolting, Dickensian story worse, nothing the\u00a0government could be doing that would make my blood boil worse than it is now. Wait. What? Flint, Michigan, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/the_slatest\/2016\/01\/13\/flint_sends_overdue_notices_for_water_payments.html\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">sending out notice<\/span>s<\/a> to residents who haven\u2019t been paying for their city water services? The notices say that services could be cut off if payment isn\u2019t received?<\/p>\n<p>Overdue notice. To pay for poison water. That you can\u2019t drink.<\/p>\n<p>You know, guys, humans have had a crack at this world. And we&#8217;ve kind of made an unmitigated mess out of everything. What say we burn it all down, salt the earth, and let the dolphins and the cockroaches and the pizza rats have a chance to run the place?<\/p>\n<p>(Libertarian rebuttal encouraged).<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to World #3, Michigan, we will be joining you as soon as President Trump takes office.\u00a0The people in Flint, Michigan have been drinking water so lead-ridden that they are basically becoming human versions of those lead weights you use to sink yourself to the bottom when you scuba dive. While that sounds all delightful [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32546"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32740,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32546\/revisions\/32740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}