New Jersey versus General Ripper

I realize that this is going to push me on wrong side of the angels, but really, folks, take a good hard look at the wheels before jumping on any bandwagon.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a year.

Yep, a reprint, but New Jersey's under attack by do-gooding, mean-welling folk who need to find a new hobby, 

A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

General Jack D. Ripper
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Ah, March madness.

I recently suggested that beer in moderation may be better for my health than milk. My first responder, Mr. Anonymous, lumped me together with "the anti-vaxxers, & anti-fluorides."

OK, I confess--I oppose fluoridation of my local water supplies.

Please read that carefully. I am not opposed to the use of medical grade fluoride applied by a dentist. I am not opposed to prescribing medical grade fluoride for use by a child so long as an adult in the home can carefully follow directions.

I do, however, oppose fluoridation of the water that comes out of my tap, especially if the fluoride used comes from industrial waste.

In regard to the use of fluosilicic (fluorosilicic) acid as a source of fluoride for fluoridation, this agency regards such use as an ideal environmental solution to a long-standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized, and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them.

Rebecca Hanmer, 1983
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water, EPA, back then

I'm sure Ms. Hanmer is a decent person. She's the former director of the Chesapeake Bay Program, she's won the President’s Distinguished Federal Executive Award, and she's a wonderful advocate for clean water.

Still, she advocated putting industrial waste into my water supply. That's the way it was done a quarter century ago. That's the way it's done today.

Florida has a few lucrative industries, and not all of them are Mickey Mouse. Florida produces tons of phosphate fertilizer. It also produces tons of hazardous waste. Fluorosilicic acid, a mixture of waste products from pollution scrubbers used during the processing of phosphate fertilizer, is shipped all over the country.*

Yes, it's diluted over 100,000 times when used for fluoridation. Yes, it helps prevent dental cavities.

No, I don't want my government deliberately dumping toxic waste into my water supply.

No, really.

And it's not just because I own a tinfoil hat.

*Yes, you can buy this stuff--Lucier Chemical Industries will sell it to your town. Yes, it's Lucier, not Lucifer.

Fracking logic

According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, fracturing fluids typically contain about 90 percent water, about 9 percent propping agents like silica sand and less than 0.5 percent chemicals.

International Business Times, August 11 2011

*thunk*

When experts spew out statements like this, hiding absolute numbers behind safe-sounding percentages, when they deliberately obfuscate the word "chemicals" to make a political point, and when "journalists" cannot be bothered to research what the "less than 0.5 percent chemicals" contains, my heart trembles for any hope of an enlightened citizenry.

But all that sounds like fearful piffling on my part, and even responding to it makes me sound like a liberal loser wonky type.

Heck, air is mostly nitrogen, with a small chunk of oxygen tossed in. I wonder if the committee that spewed this nonsense would mind sitting in a room with only 0.5% carbon monoxide during one of its meetings.

No, that was not a threat. Allowing fracking near someone's water supply, however, is a threat.
We're letting them frack with our water--what would Thomas Jefferson do?

Cartoon lifted without permission from here.