FredT
Guest
Rant time.
The danger of metallic lead is WAY oversold by junk science. The only way to defeat junk science is to go to the quoted source, then go to the quoted source there, and keep going until you actually get to the source document. 90% or more of the media noise about any ban this stuff subject is advocate groups misquoting each other, or outright lying.
As a case in point the ban on lead shot is actually a USFW regulation concerning the take of waterfowl. This was done after the advocates published far and wide a few paragraphs of the ONE study on the harmful effects of lead shot. If you dig deep enough youll find the document quoted, and the study authors themselves admitted the study was seriously flawed IN THE STUDY REPORT! However, if you can get enough earth firsters and other eco-Luddites yelling about anything the ignorant politicos will listen. Throw in the media who are more than happy to stir up a controversy just to sell more add space and you now have the most common cause of junk science winning.
The chain runs something like this:
1. PETA (anti-hunting) misquoting some study claims shot harms birds.
2. The media prints and covers it like its true without checking ANYTHING but crediting PETA, not the original document.
3. The Audubon Society (also anti hunting) sends out a press notice re-quoting the PETA report.
4. The media prints this, attributing the find now to the Audubon crowd, and STILL not checking anything.
5. The Sierra club (anti-everything) now picks it up
6. So it goes until the source of the data is totally lost but the media hacks keep it up. After all this is copy that matches the reporters liberal bias so it must be correct and good to print, and the hack didnt even have to work for it! Please note that this works well for ANY of the liberal issues, and not at all for the opposition.
This is because reporters and editors (major media anyway) tend to be very distrustful of any conservative group, and will spin the conservative message to indicate the reporters disbelief, often without coming out and saying it. When it comes to environmental, religious, political coverage, and other sensitive issues the national media shows a slant of 80% or better to the liberal side. When it comes to self defense and firearm issues that goes to 90% or better against it.
As another classical case illustrating the method, the recent vote on allowing concealed weapons permits in MO was won by those against it almost exclusively by the votes from KC and St Louis. That vote was delivered by the blatant yellow journalism campaign carried on by the KC Star and the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Inside the daily circulation range of those two papers the vote fell about 80% against, while outside those newspapers circulation centers the vote went just as heavily the other way. Watching those two papers feed off each others disinformation campaign was watching pure voter manipulation genius at work. Editorials in one paper were picked up and run the next day as hard news by the other. No amount of voter education information (hard statistics of the other 20+ states with similar laws, etc.) by the referendums proponents had a prayer of overcoming the 3 to 5 full page ads in the form of yellow editorials, parroted yellow editorials, and fanciful press releases by the anti-self defense, anti-gun, and anti-freedom groups carried as hard news printed by those two papers every day in the 10 days leading up to the vote. It functioned as several hundred million dollars in free advertising for the opposition.
BTW The Incumbent Protection Act AKA the Campaign Finance Reform Act's primary function is to silence the oppositon, while allowing the media and politicos free reign. Obviously this worked so well in MO it's time to trot it out nationwide!
Enough on the method, lets get back to lead.
Spent waterfowl shot goes INTO the bottom almost everywhere ducks feed. Hard rock and clay bottoms hold almost no duck food (worms, snails, insect larva, grass, etc.) therefore they hold almost no waterfowl for the time period necessary for them to pick up significant quantities of shot by feeding. Lead, like gold, is quite heavy relative to normal sediments and migrates down to the hard bottom of bedrock or consolidated clay fairly quickly. Weight belts found on sand bottom either just got there or are located by bits of webbing sticking above the sand surface. In over 30 years diving and dozens of lost belts recovered I dont think Ive EVER pulled a weight belt up from sand that had a barnacle larger than ¼ across on the solid lead. Around here that size barnacle is found on things after about 3 months exposure to seawater.
A few points on metallic lead:
1. Metallic lead is NOT significantly soluble in stomach acid. Stomach acid is hydrochloric. Lead is marginally soluble in acetic acid(vinegar). Government testing for acid leaching of ingested lead is done with acetic acid. Go figure.
2. After 140 years the lead from spent mini-balls at the Gettysburg battlefield had leached at _detectable_ levels less than 6 from an undisturbed mini-ball. So much for lead contamination in the field getting to water supplies.
3. Metallic lead in quantities under 20 pounds or so is very dangerous only if it hits you at high velocity, or splashes on you. (Lead melts between 500 and 750°F depending on alloy.) Lead chunks over 20 pounds rearranges bones no matter how fast its going when it hits or lands on you. Lead vapor and lead salts are another thing entirely. NEVER expect a reporter or politician to know the difference!
4. Tetraethyllead is the additive once used in gas. Once burned it does form a salt. Loosing that may have been a good thing, but what replaced it is actually more of a health problem.
As far as the eco-Luddites against oil drilling and offshore platforms, the best I can say is that if they were REALLY for helping the environment theyd be working as hard as they can to put up as many offshore platforms as the oil reservoirs will support. Each is an island of life so intense its hard to believe until youve been under a few. On the other side the WORST spill POSSIBLE from a platform drilling or producing with todays technology is less than 1/10,000th of the CERTAIN spill if a VLCC (supertanker) wrecks and sinks! Loaded supertankers float due to the inherent buoyancy of the oil they carry, not due to any air in the hull. For one of those to sink the oil HAS to come out! The Dont drill here, well just import oil in tankers. attitude is the WORST POSSIBLE answer to acquiring the energy necessary to run a developed society.
The one hope we have is the law Bill Clinton signed as his term was coming to a rapid end. The Federal Data Quality Act (44USC s 3516) [http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020226-17304000.htm] prohibits the Feds from using junk science for regulatory or legislative purposes. This will provide no direct shot of sanity to California and the rest of the Left Coast, but may help the rest of us in fly over country.
FT
The danger of metallic lead is WAY oversold by junk science. The only way to defeat junk science is to go to the quoted source, then go to the quoted source there, and keep going until you actually get to the source document. 90% or more of the media noise about any ban this stuff subject is advocate groups misquoting each other, or outright lying.
As a case in point the ban on lead shot is actually a USFW regulation concerning the take of waterfowl. This was done after the advocates published far and wide a few paragraphs of the ONE study on the harmful effects of lead shot. If you dig deep enough youll find the document quoted, and the study authors themselves admitted the study was seriously flawed IN THE STUDY REPORT! However, if you can get enough earth firsters and other eco-Luddites yelling about anything the ignorant politicos will listen. Throw in the media who are more than happy to stir up a controversy just to sell more add space and you now have the most common cause of junk science winning.
The chain runs something like this:
1. PETA (anti-hunting) misquoting some study claims shot harms birds.
2. The media prints and covers it like its true without checking ANYTHING but crediting PETA, not the original document.
3. The Audubon Society (also anti hunting) sends out a press notice re-quoting the PETA report.
4. The media prints this, attributing the find now to the Audubon crowd, and STILL not checking anything.
5. The Sierra club (anti-everything) now picks it up
6. So it goes until the source of the data is totally lost but the media hacks keep it up. After all this is copy that matches the reporters liberal bias so it must be correct and good to print, and the hack didnt even have to work for it! Please note that this works well for ANY of the liberal issues, and not at all for the opposition.
This is because reporters and editors (major media anyway) tend to be very distrustful of any conservative group, and will spin the conservative message to indicate the reporters disbelief, often without coming out and saying it. When it comes to environmental, religious, political coverage, and other sensitive issues the national media shows a slant of 80% or better to the liberal side. When it comes to self defense and firearm issues that goes to 90% or better against it.
As another classical case illustrating the method, the recent vote on allowing concealed weapons permits in MO was won by those against it almost exclusively by the votes from KC and St Louis. That vote was delivered by the blatant yellow journalism campaign carried on by the KC Star and the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Inside the daily circulation range of those two papers the vote fell about 80% against, while outside those newspapers circulation centers the vote went just as heavily the other way. Watching those two papers feed off each others disinformation campaign was watching pure voter manipulation genius at work. Editorials in one paper were picked up and run the next day as hard news by the other. No amount of voter education information (hard statistics of the other 20+ states with similar laws, etc.) by the referendums proponents had a prayer of overcoming the 3 to 5 full page ads in the form of yellow editorials, parroted yellow editorials, and fanciful press releases by the anti-self defense, anti-gun, and anti-freedom groups carried as hard news printed by those two papers every day in the 10 days leading up to the vote. It functioned as several hundred million dollars in free advertising for the opposition.
BTW The Incumbent Protection Act AKA the Campaign Finance Reform Act's primary function is to silence the oppositon, while allowing the media and politicos free reign. Obviously this worked so well in MO it's time to trot it out nationwide!
Enough on the method, lets get back to lead.
Spent waterfowl shot goes INTO the bottom almost everywhere ducks feed. Hard rock and clay bottoms hold almost no duck food (worms, snails, insect larva, grass, etc.) therefore they hold almost no waterfowl for the time period necessary for them to pick up significant quantities of shot by feeding. Lead, like gold, is quite heavy relative to normal sediments and migrates down to the hard bottom of bedrock or consolidated clay fairly quickly. Weight belts found on sand bottom either just got there or are located by bits of webbing sticking above the sand surface. In over 30 years diving and dozens of lost belts recovered I dont think Ive EVER pulled a weight belt up from sand that had a barnacle larger than ¼ across on the solid lead. Around here that size barnacle is found on things after about 3 months exposure to seawater.
A few points on metallic lead:
1. Metallic lead is NOT significantly soluble in stomach acid. Stomach acid is hydrochloric. Lead is marginally soluble in acetic acid(vinegar). Government testing for acid leaching of ingested lead is done with acetic acid. Go figure.
2. After 140 years the lead from spent mini-balls at the Gettysburg battlefield had leached at _detectable_ levels less than 6 from an undisturbed mini-ball. So much for lead contamination in the field getting to water supplies.
3. Metallic lead in quantities under 20 pounds or so is very dangerous only if it hits you at high velocity, or splashes on you. (Lead melts between 500 and 750°F depending on alloy.) Lead chunks over 20 pounds rearranges bones no matter how fast its going when it hits or lands on you. Lead vapor and lead salts are another thing entirely. NEVER expect a reporter or politician to know the difference!
4. Tetraethyllead is the additive once used in gas. Once burned it does form a salt. Loosing that may have been a good thing, but what replaced it is actually more of a health problem.
As far as the eco-Luddites against oil drilling and offshore platforms, the best I can say is that if they were REALLY for helping the environment theyd be working as hard as they can to put up as many offshore platforms as the oil reservoirs will support. Each is an island of life so intense its hard to believe until youve been under a few. On the other side the WORST spill POSSIBLE from a platform drilling or producing with todays technology is less than 1/10,000th of the CERTAIN spill if a VLCC (supertanker) wrecks and sinks! Loaded supertankers float due to the inherent buoyancy of the oil they carry, not due to any air in the hull. For one of those to sink the oil HAS to come out! The Dont drill here, well just import oil in tankers. attitude is the WORST POSSIBLE answer to acquiring the energy necessary to run a developed society.
The one hope we have is the law Bill Clinton signed as his term was coming to a rapid end. The Federal Data Quality Act (44USC s 3516) [http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020226-17304000.htm] prohibits the Feds from using junk science for regulatory or legislative purposes. This will provide no direct shot of sanity to California and the rest of the Left Coast, but may help the rest of us in fly over country.
FT
