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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Snopes says her methods are legit

    Rubin says she is certified on a device known as a handheld XRF, or X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. Such a machine is used extensively in a variety of scientific disciplines and can provide a basic assessment of the chemical composition of an object by exciting the object’s molecules with X-rays and seeing what secondary X-rays are emitted, according to Thermo Fisher:

    XRF analyzers determine the chemistry of a sample by measuring the fluorescent (or secondary) X-ray emitted from a sample when it is excited by a primary X-ray source. Each of the elements present in a sample produces a set of characteristic fluorescent X-rays (“a fingerprint”) that is unique for that specific element, which is why XRF spectroscopy is an excellent technology for qualitative and quantitative analysis of material composition.

    Experts agree that this method is a valid first approach for the detection of lead in a sample. A 2013 study performed by researchers at the California Department of Public Health Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch suggests that XRF “is an effective screening method for food and similar items with lead content > or = 10 ppm [parts per million], provided the operator is trained to identify lead spectra.”

    We reached out to an expert via email: Howard Mielke, a professor of Pharmacology at Tulane’s School of Medicine, who heads a research unit into lead contamination and once served alongside Rubin as a board member for Lead Safe America. We asked him if XRF was a valid method for Rubin’s purposes, and he told us that it was, but only as a first step. The second and more expensive step involves seeing how much if any of that lead is capable of being transferred to a child: “The use of the XRF is suitable as a first step in determining lead in an object. The second step involves evaluating whether or not the lead is readily picked up on hands or ingestible through the use of the object. The second step is the expensive step but it provides information critical to understanding the possibility of lead poisoning from the object.”

    Note that the story here says the toothpastes have lead in them, not that they’re necessarily causing lead poisoning, so it seems entirely accurate.

    Shame on the Guardian

    They’re not the only ones reporting this,

    https://fortune.com/well/article/toothpaste-brands-toxic-metals-lead-arsenic-mercury-cadmium/

    https://gizmodo.com/a-new-report-suggests-we-all-may-be-brushing-our-teeth-with-lead-and-other-toxic-metals-2000591000

    https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/popular-toothpaste-brands-contain-dangerous-heavy-metals-new-research-finds-101744975079972.html










  • The problem is these are Republicans were dealing with. Unless somebody on this site has a few million dollars to throw at them there’s nothing tangible we can offer them personally, and we wouldn’t have gotten here in the first place if they had any basic sense of right and wrong we could appeal to.

    However, the good news is that we can honestly point out the very simple situation they’re obviously in, and if enough of us do that often enough reality might finally break through to them. The situation is that Donald Trump has a list of people he wants to hurt and they’re all definitely on it because they could threaten his power. Being nice to him might move their name down the list but it won’t get them off of it. The only way they can protect themselves is by taking Donald Trump’s power from him before he gets to them.

    We don’t need Republicans to be good people to deal with this situation (which is good because they absolutely are not and haven’t been for decades and decades), we just need them to be slightly less stupid than they’re currently being.

























  • I feel like that’s unlikely and that a lot of the people dissenting online are the same ones who are protesting, calling their lawmakers, etc.

    Also, it’s not like any of the IRL stuff has been effective yet anyway. Online dissent probably gets seen by more eyeballs than any one protest sign or IRL action that doesn’t end up with the person doing it being arrested or killed (and thus unable to continue resisting this administration), so if it really is an either/or situation I think online dissent is more effective than IRL peaceful protest or writing yet another letter to my lawmakers.

    That all said, I really don’t think it is an either/or situation, so I think we can and should be encouraging all the kinds of dissent.