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If all animal agriculture disappeared to today, corn and bean production would hardly drop a whit.

This assumes that government incentives would not change. I think that is a faulty assumption. While I do recognize that the farm lobby is powerful, there is only so much excess production that they can justify. It's easy to justify an overproduction so that even a severely bad year does not lead to a food shortage - it's not so easy to justify double that again. Soybean production in particular is 90% dedicated to animals and would be very hard to direct elsewhere.

I have and they're universally horse shit.

The vast majority of nutritional studies are indeed horseshit. But there have been some pretty solid studies which point to a benefit of a plant-based diet.
Dietary fiber intake is inversely correlated to colorectal cancer
Red meat is correlated to colorectal cancer (but not poultry, and fish is inversely correlated)
EPIC also has yielded studies showing a correlation between dairy intake and prostate cancer, as well as saturated fat and breast cancer.

You should investigate the history of those who promote a vegetable-based-diet

Yes, there have been many charlatans. But let's stick with science and avoid the temptation to use ad hominems.

Because of vitamin B12, we are obligate carnivores-- there are simply no natural dietary sources of B12 sufficient for humans other than meat

Agreed, but we are also a lot smarter than dogs. If we can get B12 from an artificial source, I have no justification to reject that. You CAN live a healthy lifestyle today without any animal products whatsoever. It takes a lot of tenacity and - I agree with you - it's not the natural state of things. But the fact that it is possible shows that, in the future, it should be possible to do so with a lot less effort. Few of us live in anything like our "natural" state, except for a handful of miserable subsistence tribes living in Savannah-like conditions.

Just look at how the pill has effected women.

Yeah let's do that shall we?

The pill has resulted in
1) Higher levels of education and income for women
2) Freedom to choose career opportunities other than domestic servitude
3) Reduced incidence of diseases including endometrial and ovarian cancers
4) Puts women on an equal footing with men regarding reproductive choices
5) Ability to plan to have a family when it is convenient and appropriate
6) Increased happiness both in men and women
7) More talent in the work force
8) Fewer abortions and fewer adoptions needed
9) Healthier children

Yeah it's been a real downer... [/sarcasm]

Hard pass.

Given your attitude I'm pretty sure that's what women will say to you.

A scientist would say, "OK, what are the variables? Let's quantify them."

I started getting curious actually, and found this study. It looks like the primary factors are the loss of forest in the winter habitat areas (Mexico, although the butterflies spend the winter in other places, too) and loss of milkweed in the northern areas (as farmers have used more effective herbicides).

What do they call people who use cars without wearing a helmet?

More than half of deaths within 1.5 hours of a car crash are due to head injuries: 46 percent of the deaths occurred within half an hour, 24 percent between half an hour and an hour and a half and a total of 90 percent within 24 hours. Of the deaths occurring during the 1.5 hours following injury 52 percent were the result of head injuries

Race drivers wear helmets.Helmets should be mandatory in cars.

Cunnilingus or Fellatio? We all know which musical abilities correspond to excellent oral sex (harmonica vs. flute). But which athletic sport promotes the best oral sex performance?

The NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) has finally published a long awaited research paper examining tongue muscle performance in weightlifters and runners. If you are shopping for specific talents in the bedroom, you need to check this out.

A comparative study: tongue muscle performance in weightlifters and runners.

After reviewing this study, our preliminary tests confirm the results to our great satisfaction. We may even nominate the authors for a Nobel prize. Science is great - and so very satisfying!

White males are dying at a 40% higher rate than Hispanics (age adjusted of course.)
This is about the same as the gender gap in death rate, which starts from birth. Males are much more likely to die in cots, or as toddlers in pools.
Is the racial gap across life like that, or appearing in middle age from diet-related disease?

30 seconds with google finds the answer:

Hispanic-White Differences in Lifespan Variability in the United States

TLDR:
Two-thirds of it is due to suicide, accidental poisoning and lung cancer among whites.
Almost all of the remaining difference is due to greater age dispersion - some whites live a lot longer than other whites, but then they start croaking really fast once they start getting all those age-related conditions.

It is already well measured and understood that life expectancy is about lifestyle not genetics.

Not precisely. In a way, everything is genetics. Human lifespan is fundamentally determined by our genes, and lifestyle typically affects that only in a narrow range.
An ideal diet and exercise will only add a couple of years to your life expectancy over average. Fruit flies have short lives, and tortoises long because of genes.

The real question is how much of the variance within a particular defined cohort, or difference between the average of two particular defined groups, can b explained by heritable factors. The answer may vary wildly depending on which groups you look at. And it gets harder because genes and lifestyle are not independent variables. Your genes affect your eating and exercise habits, in a way that interacts with environment (culture, opportunity). And genes also correlate strongly in ways that are not causal. So it is a difficult question.

If you are looking at a more genetically homogeneous society like Japan, you can expect environment to explain a greater portion of the variance, compared to a more diverse society like the US, where there is much greater variance, and genetics obviously plays a proportionally larger role. The question is always "how much" nature vs nurture, with qualifiers. Never a black and white answer.

For example, Japan has the longest life expectancy. Japanese-Americans who eat a traditional Japanese diet have life expediencies similar to people in Japan. And Japanese-Americans who eat a typical American diet have a typical American life expectancy. This was already well-established decades ago.

Really!? Source? I see no data to support your assertion. The majority of Americans of Japanese descent are now well-integrated into American lifestyle, and the life expectancy is still far higher. Be cafeful of picking one old study that supports what you want to hear, and ignoring everything else.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

  Also, it would be a terrible mistake to extrapolate that to the whole world, even if it were true that Japanese and white Americans had similar genetic influences on lifespan.

For individuals (in the same society), twin studies suggest "about 25 % of the variation in human longevity is due to genetic factors.".

This is one of the more cyberpunk tidbits I've heard within the last 3 months, but some tattoos were really throwing off facial recognition. And they found that you could paint your face and effectively fool the system into no longer recognizing your face as a face. So all that really weird face makeup you see in Blade-runner, cyberpunk2020, and Shadowrun could retro-actively be argued as a means to avoid being tagged and identified.

Yes had they been identical this would have been a valuable approach. Obviously this has been happening under the radar in other countries for a while but what concerns me about this is that CRISPR has been shown to result in unintended "edits" or mutations. I can't locate the more interesting link I was reading yesterday but for instance

Your anecdotal evidence is not a statistical indication of the elderly's ability or lack there of. My own anecdotal evidence in dealing with three elderly (mom and in laws) is mixed. I've mentored them through things that I learned myself (and I'm 60, but have been in tech since the 70s) They have various issues such as carpel tunnel and arthritis that make it difficult to use a touch screen. I'd suggest you read this and the issues pointed out during the study..

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Hmm. Let's try having the islands outgrow the sea level rise caused by climate change. How well does that work out long term?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Not so well, it seems.

Isn't it already required to be publically available if it was funded by the NSF? Most of these peer-reviewed articles are probably already on PubMed, or at least the abstract is, if you want to bookmark it and wait until it becomes free.

Marinol can be distinguished from natural cannabis:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

It remains less common in women, and far less successfully diagnosed for them. There is a good NIH study on the issue at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... .

How is he supposed to know who is qualified for the job if he doesn't even understand what the job is?

No executive is an expert in every job of his subordinates.

There must be some way for people to be good at judging competence in areas they themselves are not expert in. Because it happens all the time.

I've heard this argument before and its 100% weapons grade BS. You are right that nobody can be an expert in anything. But you are forgetting about Dunning-Kruger where ability confers the ability to judge other's ability. How on earth could this computer illiterate possibly hope to be able to tell good cybersecurity from something that couldn't stop your average 15 yro?

This is why the myth of a pure manager needs to die. Skill in management itself is maybe 30% of the job in management. The strategy, talent assessment, and organization is far more important and those things require knowledge of what your team will be doing. That's why nobody believes this guy will be at all good at this job. The excuses we offer as to why this might not be so bad are more a psychological self-preservation technique than anything.

See, they didn't do their homework. Cows are better represented by parabolas according to the National Institute of Health...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

2/3 of Americans are either overweight or obese.

That has Severe health care costs impacts.

The aggregate national cost of overweight and obesity combined was $113.9 billion.

21% of all health care dollars spent in the US are due to obesity related health problems. That doesn't even count the loss of work time and other secondary factors impacting the economy.

If Americans want cheaper health care, there are many factors involved, but this one is squarely in their hands.

Except that is wrong. And people have died form this addiction. The business of video games is as unscrupulous as all gambling houses throughout history. They really don't care what the games do to you, as long as they get paid.

I was a bit curious about that as well. I think they mean the PubMed archive, PubMed Central, not the PubMed index. Yes, confusing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Add to that the discovery that neurons have differering genomes. They're modified via retrotransposons.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
https://www.scientificamerican...
http://epilepsygenetics.net/20...

So we've a genetic algorithm inside each neuron in the neural network, on top of everything you mentioned.

Possibly, but influencing medical professionals is a big part of the industries propaganda arm. Typically this includes manipulation of research targeted towards medical professionals: "The tobacco industry uses several vehicles to publish the findings of its sponsored research, including symposium proceedings, books, journal articles, and letters to the editor in medical journals."

Inefficient? Yes, but somehow the world hasn't come up with a better way yet. We can't even get decent peer review in many cases because there's simply no money/glory in reviewing other people's work. The peer review system has mostly been broken for a long time because of that simple fact.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
https://www.wired.com/2014/12/...
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20...

Here is a published paper from the National Institute of Health. It works quite well for kneecaps, for example.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

For the brain, the papers are filled with obfuscating language. One clear study from the National Institute of Health is listed here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

It's a very interesting paper. As an example of difference, the male brain is typically 10% larger.

Here is a published paper from the National Institute of Health. It works quite well for kneecaps, for example.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

For the brain, the papers are filled with obfuscating language. One clear study from the National Institute of Health is listed here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

It's a very interesting paper. As an example of difference, the male brain is typically 10% larger.

Thanks for the response!

Except the memo (and most laws) consider sex and gender to be the same thing.

If Trump was putting out a memo recognizing they were different you would have a point. He isn't. He's putting out a memo that considers sex and gender to be the same thing, and only recognizing sex.

I would disagree with you. The government has no bearing on gender. A biological man cannot be arrested for wearing a dress as a result of anything Trump does, regardless if that man is doing it for drag or because they are transitioned. This still seems like the NYT is creating a mountain out of a mole hill to generate clicks.

What, exactly, is making light of it?

The far left kinda treats it as a feeling based thing that would be full of sunshine and rainbows. The far right treats it as a made up thing that is nothing but a mental disorder. The truth is somewhere in between.
It's kinda like the abortion thing. Far right: murder. Far left: let's make a song and dance about getting our abortions!

And their suicide rate goes way down post-transition.....unless you start demanding they be treated as their birth sex.

Do you have a source for this?
Hmm, most of the sources I've looked over doesn't mention the pre/post transition rates, but show that even while transitioned they have higher than usual rates. http://theconversation.com/fac... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

This shows that the rate is NOT significant influenced post-transition (going from 60% to 40% is a factor, but is still too damn high to call it "way down"). http://williamsinstitute.law.u...

Though it shows that people who "pass" as the gender have the lowest rates, but it is still 1/3. Interestingly enough, male-to-female suicide rates are higher, mirroring the higher rate of mens suicide compared to women. Makes sense if the hormonal development (testosterone) is responsible... but then you would think that hormone therapy would be better at preventing suicide attempts than counseling which doesn't seem to be the case.

They may or they may not be. Which is why the normal treatment is to block puberty until they are older and able to figure it out for sure. In the meantime, you gender them as they want to be.

Yeah, I guess I worded that one poorly. At the same time, kids can go through phases and want to please their parents. It is a tricky thing to be sure.

"the type of brain cancer
observed is similar to a type of brain tumor linked to
heavy cell phone use in some human studies."

From the article: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/heal...

However, the studies question the long-held
assumption that radio frequency radiation is of
no concern as long as the energy level is low and
does not significantly heat the tissues.
Did NTP find health effects other than cancer?
NTP found lower body weights among newborn
rats and their mothers, especially when exposed to
high levels of RFR during pregnancy and lactation,
yet these animals grew to normal size.

What factors contributed to the NTP conclusions?
In addition to seeing tumors in the male rats with
higher exposures to RFR, NTP scientists also observed
other changes in the hearts of exposed male and
female rats that supported their conclusions.

The evidence for tumors in the brain and adrenal
glands was not as strong as what NTP scientists
saw in the heart. However, the type of brain cancer
observed is similar to a type of brain tumor linked to
heavy cell phone use in some human studies.
3

LOL - peer review? Really? You really have no clue how that works, do you? It's pretty much worthless; even journals say its flawed and when you have hundreds of "peer reviewed" papers yanked because of fraud, and even fake papers being published even though they are "peer reviewed", you really are out there on faith. Let me ask you - would you expect a paper to be peer reviewed and published even if the data was not provided - just the summary? Because that's happened plenty in the whole AGW debate - hundreds of papers published with ZERO data provided, just summaries and conclusions.

If you put your trust in peer review without data, then you might as well put your faith in the Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man coming down to give you a rainbow-farting unicorn!

...according to the biggest study (Jahnke, Sara A. (June 2018). "Maternal and Child Health Among Female Firefighters in the U.S.". Maternal and Child Health Journal. 22 (6): 922â"931., paywalled I'm afraid)....

What bullshit. Even the abstract makes it clear that the study is not about fitness, yet you claim this study shows women to be more fit. The "study" is basically a survey about how women feel about getting pregnant on the job.

"Methods" A total of 1821 women firefighters responded to requests to complete a self-report survey of questions about pregnancy.

The study is self-reported (not clinical with doctors giving exams, or even coaches recording lap times or weights lifted, etc.) and is mainly about the policies involved. Probably things like health insurance, time off, etc.

"Women answered questions about their departments' policies and practices"

Does the study itself say that women are just as fit as men?

"Results: Female firefighters reported that nearly a quarter of their first pregnancies while in the fire service ended in miscarriage"

Your last argument about improved building and technology merely proves that all firefighters are becoming less necessary. You get negative 1 million points for dishonestly citing a study that has almost nothing to do with what you are trying to prove. (Either that or you truly are so stupid as to not know the difference, but I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here.)

Some very old myths there. Let's look at female firefighters. For a start, they tend to be MORE fit than their male counterparts according to the biggest study (Jahnke, Sara A. (June 2018). "Maternal and Child Health Among Female Firefighters in the U.S.". Maternal and Child Health Journal. 22 (6): 922â"931., paywalled I'm afraid).

The lowered standards thing is largely a myth too. Most female firefighters want to be held to the same standards as their male counterparts, and since men continue in the service into their 50s and those standards are lower than many presume anyway (the days of carrying people down long ladders are mostly over, not least because of the obesity crisis and buildings designed to avoid the need for it) it's not actually difficult for women to reach that level anyway.

On top of all that there is no statistical evidence of things getting worse as women were allowed to join fire fighting. Instead things have been consistently getting better, mostly due to improved technology and fire dampening systems.

I don't go to Youtube for science, thanks. I'm not qualified to analyze raw data from somebody else's experiment, and neither are you, clearly. Since you don't know how to cite a study, and the title you're referring to doesn't exist, I can only assume that you're referring to this study, which has a similar title: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

There is no "Mann" in this study, so whatever youtube stuff you're referring to is irrelevant.

Even if you did completely understand this study (which make no reference of man-made effects on climate change), this is one study of tens of thousands reviewed by the IPCC. There is no one study that can prove or disprove such a massive system as the Earth's climate. "Gotcha!" isn't how science works. You're describing the Jerry Springer show, maybe.

If you don't know what you're talking about, it's best to just stop commenting so that you don't make yourself look more stupid than you already do.

Let's not forget that carbon nanotubes make asbestos look like cotton candy, healthwise. In animal studies, exposure to CNTs induced sustained inflammation, fibrosis, lung cancer following long-term inhalation, and gene damage in the lung.

It's observable for farm workers.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

So the solution seems to be to not allow women to work on farms.

The anecdote is just to express scepticism and call for real evidence.

Can you give me the citations that prove that the evidence is not real? Well, Ask any ye shall recieve.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

http://depts.washington.edu/op...

These are just a few of many available citations. Your challenge is to refute them since you appear to know that these reports are not real.

The anecdote is just to express scepticism and call for real evidence.

Can you give me the citations that prove that the evidence is not real? Well, Ask any ye shall recieve.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

http://depts.washington.edu/op...

These are just a few of many available citations. Your challenge is to refute them since you appear to know that these reports are not real.

So many are using it? This is only 0.04% of Swedes. More people die from bee stings than are even doing this.

You're several orders of magnitude off there, bud. Swedish bees are relatively docile and seldom sting. Over a ten year period, one death due to bee stings was recorded.

There's a long history of scents affecting many real physical attributes, so it's no surprise that something as commonly loved as Lavender would have such an effect also.

It is caused by High Fructose Corn Syrup consumption and obeisity does correlate directly to that

Correlation is not causation. HFCS consumption went up in America along with obesity. But many other countries also became obese, some worse than America, and they did NOT consume much HFCS, because they have no corn lobby pushing it.

Dietary surveys of Americans show a weak correlation between HFCS and obesity. Many people that avoid it got fat. Many people drinking several sodas per day stayed skinny. Some sodas are made with cane sugar, and people that drink those get fat at the same rate as people that drink HFCS soda.

There is plenty of evidence that all types of sugar are bad for you in excess. There is not much evidence that HFCS is worse than other sugars.

Animal studies are inconclusive. Some show a correlation of HFCS with weight gain, but most do not.

NIH: Lack of evidence that HFCS causes obesity

List of countries by BMI. America is 17th.

because it gives us perspectives that we can't hold ourselves,

Big buttons and big normal text because their eyesight isn't that good. Time-critical tasks would need to be slower. Reminders of "what to do on this page". No neologisms or trying to be "hip". Boom, perspective of the elderly accounted for. It's like we have the ability to read and learn things and can have a set of design standards for the elderly. Just imagine a whole class of people who had the job of... I dunno... designing things or something. Instead of every website dev team needing to hire one of every group of... however you want to split it, the designers could simply read up on their target audience. If it's important. Most the the time the boss will tell you to get it out the door fast as possible and not care about edge-cases.

Of course, the presumption that seniors don't know how to use computers is less true than it was before. Simple because the old die and there is a newer younger wave of seniors coming in. Because we'd hate to be ageist wouldn't we?

But hey, I'm not arguing against diversity. I'm saying that the gains from diversity are less than you're selling as people can read about and accommodate different perspectives. Automation has taken that job. It's a book. Maybe a large pamphlet. But diversity is still a good thing. Party composition is a thing. If you've got 4 wizards, on the chance that you run into some beholders, having a fighter in the party is going to pay for itself. There's utility there. What ISN'T a good thing is penalizing people based on their skin-color. That's racist. And accepting lower-quality applicants instead of having the higher-quality applicant read a book on "How to cater to your target audience" is a net LOSS.

What has been happening however is that plants are getting bigger from the increases in CO2, and their nutritional value has been rapidly decreasing, which has a knock-on effect.

That is only half the story. - and the scare-mongering side at that.

Yes, increasing CO2 does decrease nutritional value per unit volume by about 8%. However, increasing CO2 also cuts water use by 5-20% and increases plant volume by 40%.

So yes, you need to eat 8% more to get the same nutritional value, but you end up with 40% more to start with, so it's not an issue. You can, in fact, feed more people (approximately 28% more people) and also increase your freshwater reserves significantly as well. A higher CO2 level would, in fact, provide a solid food/water bump for the world.

A woman with ten years martial arts training will beat the shit out of a man with 1 year or 3 years.

I believe that is the effect of training, is it not?

Is a woman with 10 years martial arts training equal to a man with 10 years training? In raw power likely not, in technique: yes.

And? I'm not arguing that women do not have physical skills, or are unable to master technique. In matters of dexterity, they generally excel over males, although there is some correlation with size. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... But I'm not certain that particular experiment is applicable to all dexterity factors.

While some want to turn this into male against female, that is just silly. It refutes evolution with as much aplomb as creationism. In general, women are smaller and without as much raw strength as men. Their physiology lends itself toward reproduction in matters o pre-natal organ and skeletal adaptations and post natal food production. Males are in general larger, stronger, and their contribution to reproduction is mostly in providing a support structure. But the male is completely replaceable, if the first one dies defending the woman and children, another one can be plugged in with little problem.

The very strange thing is that females, as the most important part of humanity, seem hell bent on emulating the less important, disposable utility part of the duo.

A lot of this might be attributable to the fact that humanity is not anywhere near the brink of extinction, so reproduction isn't as critical an issue as it once was. And that's good. If a woman is interested in things other than reproduction, she's able to pursue them. But denying evolution and it's effects is silly. Perhaps the feminists who are dosing young boys with puberty inhibitors will start daily dosing of young girls with testosterone as a next step. They do seem to have an affinity for chemical intervention.

And topping this: never underestimate a woman with a dagger or a sword ... she simply slices and dices you as quickly as a man would.

Starting to entertain violent thoughts now, eh? Relax, homie. This is just conversation.

You like movies - here's my response to your violent themed reply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Under the guise of compassion, UBI really just turns us from stakeholders or even citizens to mere consumers.

That's all we are now - consumers. And having to work two jobs and STILL not be able to afford health insurance is a flaw in free market capitalism. Or the fact that housing is affordable to many people. To afford to just have an apartment in my area of Metro-Atlanta, Family Promise says that a person needs to make $18.62 an hour and that's assuming he's getting scheduled 40 hours a week. My sub division is being scooped up by private equity firms. Every time a house goes on sale, they come in and buy it. They then rent it.

Prices are no longer restricted by people's income. It's controlled by capital. And the bridge? Debt. Making us all serfs.

My point is that the negatives they are harping on have already happened without UBI.

Healthcare is the most regulated industry, it is filled with exceedingly complex regulations and prices exploded when the Government really stepped in. Far from being a "free market capitalism" issue, it's essentially the result of Government trying to manage an industry whilst simultaneously being greased (via contributions) by the industry it's seeking to manage. Obamacare was a massive giveaway to insurance companies (guaranteed consumers, restitution payments, guaranteed sales of services not needed - like men paying for OB/GYN and childless adults paying for pediatric), and only made the situation worse.

If you want to talk housing, house prices in some areas are exploding (SF, NYC, etc) mainly because Government restricts supply. San Francisco's housing shortage has it's own Wikipedia page where we find:

San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area have enacted strict zoning regulations.[6] Among other restrictions, San Francisco does not allow buildings over 40 feet tall in most of the city, and has passed laws making it easier for neighbors to block developments.[7] Partly as a result of these codes, from 2007 to 2014, the Bay Area issued building permits for only half the number of needed houses, based on the area's population growth.

Fill the area with new-found wealth from tech and you have massive bidding wars forcing prices so high only those with 7 figure budgets can even think of living there. Strict regulation has, once again, turned out to be the source of pain for most.

The summary is a mess. Still, there are quite many studies that indicate that non-nutritive sweeteners are associated with increased risk to develop obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... And their effects on gut bacteria is the main suspect for this.

Thats the thing though. These people are all about punishing women.

Think about all the arguments used for abortion.

You left out the most telling point. The people who are wish to ban abortion in all cases, are also overwhelmingly opposed to the availability of other forms of birth control, which if used - shall we say "religiously"? - would prevent said abortions from even being an issue. They are even opposed to accurate education about sex.

He was 41 and a marathon runner. He was probably killed off by his ChiCom overlords.

Most definitely suspicious -- middle-aged marathon runners never die of sudden heart attacks.

I'm just pointing out that your assertions above don't match up with what you claimed from the article. This is correct as you admitted in a response, they come from a different source.

I went back and explicitly checked for the things you claimed above. You're incorrect on your initial assertions, that the levels were lower than Americans were exposed to prior to 1995 (the last year that levels were higher than 1.5 micrograms on average was 1990) and that the general air quality has been at or near the new level since 2010. It should also be noted that the article also states that the smelter was the primary source of lead for 1 of 2 areas in the US that failed to meet the 1.5 micrograms limit. That's not surprising since the soil in a relatively large area around the plant is so polluted with lead that it is a superfund site and that repeated removal and replacement of soil has been done in an attempt to clean up at least 700 residences. And failed.

Regarding your second claim, that it was lower than what everyone was exposed to prior to 1995, where are your exposure numbers? The only thing I could find was that previously referenced generic chart going back to 1980 that does not list the meager 6 locations tested, and some references to a 1965 study that showed that modern air levels of lead were 100s of times higher than those from before the industrial revolution.

Your follow up misses the actual date of the lead banning legislation as 1978, although you do get the 1990 extension through 1995 correct. It should also be noted that lead toxicity in children did drop 80% from 1980 as compared to 1999. That can mostly be attributed to the banning of leaded gas.

This has nothing to do with being confrontational unless your ego is so fragile that you take any correction of your now obviously incorrect statements as an affront instead of educational opportunity. You're being more than a little disingenuous with your liberal heaping of backdoor confrontation yourself: "grandstanding", "poor behavior", and other derogatory allusions to character, intelligence, etc.

Wait, you're trolling, aren't you?

The Obama era limitation amounted to no more than 6 grams (0.013 pounds) per gigawatt-hour. There, feel enlightened?

Why did they set that particular limit?

At the time the mercury limits were set (2011), there was considerable uncertainty about the exact impact in the population, although there was good reason to suspect mercury emissions were a problem. Mercury and mercury compounds found in combustion by-products are potent neurotoxins and can have a very long half-lives in the human body, in some cases nearly thirty years. This, along with its ability to bioaccumulate through the food chain, makes the economic effects of mercury emissions a serious concern.

Children exposed to the kind of mercury compounds found in coal plant emissions have reduced intellectual capacity. The net impact on the US economy in lost productivity due to lost intellectual capability alone has been estimated at 87 billion year 2000 dollars (soruce). Naturally if you put error bars around that figure they would be huge.

So given the uncertainty, why 0.013 pounds/GWh? Why not 0.02, or 0.005? Probably because it was as much as technologically feasible without forcing coal plants then operating to shut down. Since that point there have been measurable effects in population mercury levels, and the net long term benefits of the restrictions have been estimated at 43 billion annually (source).

Nonetheless, there are uncertainties. Nobody can tell you what the precise effect of a 6 gram limit has been, particularly in an era when coal-fired electricity plants have been closing due to competition with natural gas; still there isn't much doubt that coal-based mercury emissions are a bad thing.

Given the natural economic decline of coal, this regulatory change probably won't have much measurable economic impact. Will it harm people? Well, it's reasonable to assume that some children and infants downwind from the remaining coal plants might be harmed, but you won't be able to point to any one person with high mercury levels and quantify precisely how many IQ points he's lost or say with certainty his behavior control issues wouldn't have happened anyway. That was the status quo under the Obama era MATS regulations anyway.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Roundup has been linked to Parkinson's Disease and suspected to be linked to other human neurological diseases as well. Now it looks like it is killing pollinators too. It's probably time to find a better weed killer.

What? Alcohol causes more deaths than firearms?!

Duh. People have greater access to alcohol so this should surprise no one. That said it depends on exactly when you measure it. During a war firearms clearly are the bigger danger. Also I'm not especially worried about someone pointing a beer at me even if they are angry.

Well, there's one way to fix that - ban alcohol! Make it illegal, and alcohol-related deaths should pretty much stop happening.

Comparing regulation of a mild recreational drug to regulation of a purpose built weapon is a fairly ridiculous comparison. That said there is plenty of evidence that prohibition did have positive effects regarding mortality despite arguably being bad policy. Likewise regulation of firearms in countries that took the matter seriously has been shown to reduce mortality from firearms. Again it might or might not be good policy but it does have a measurable effect on mortality rates.

No, biologically and by the standards of the past few thousand or so years of human society, a 16 year old is an adult.

Bullshit biologically. 16 year olds are almost always in the middle of some fairly rapid and dramatic changes in brain development. See e.g.:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Treating them like a child is an extremely recent cultural development due to the increased length of education typically required to get a job rather

Certainly true. But it's still not true tht adolescents behave identically to mature adults.