Celebrating the Eids of March

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March 15, the eids of March. On this date in 44 BC (2060 years ago) 5 centuries of republican rule in Rome came to an end to be followed by chaos, civil war, and then Empire. Augustus, Claudius, Nero. That was not the aim of the senators and colleagues of Julius Caesar when they took to assassinate Julius Caesar, first citizen of Rome. They acted out of excessive republican purity, and excessive fear. Their aim was for a pure republicanism where there would be no first citizen, and their fear was that Julius might become the emperor – the emperor that Augustus, Claudius, and Nero became.

Brutus on the face side of an Eids March coin, with two daggers and the legend "Eid Mar" on the obverse. Clearly the conspirators were proud of their act

Brutus on the face side of this Roman coin and two daggers and the legend “Eid Mar” on the obverse. The conspirators were proud of their act.

Shakespeare considers Brutus to be the noblest Roman of them all, but Dante considers him among the worst of the worst. Dante’s Devine Comedy consigns Brutus to the very center of Hell along with Cassius and Judas. What do you think? BTW, why it’s this a comedy?

The difference between a republican government and a democracy is that a democracy can elect a dictator (as Germany did and Iran has) or can choose to execute a citizen for being annoying to the majority, as democratic Athens did to Socrates. In a republic, even the majority is bound by a set of constitutional limitation providing some-measure of inviolable rights, generally that life, liberty, and property can not be taken without due process or the violation of a more-or-less clear law. All other systems are, to a greater or less extent a rule of whim. When the founders of the US picked a model for government, they picked republican Rome, not democratic Athens nor a limited monarchy as existed in England. Their motivation was the observation that power corrupts, and that inequality under the law attracts the worst elements to the position of least check on their power.

Mark Anthony and his wife, Octavia, Octavius's sister.

Mark Anthony and his wife, Octavia, Octavius’s sister.

The death of Caesar set forces in motion that would install Octavius (Augustus) Caesar and Anthony to take over as co-emperors. Here is a coin showing Mark Anthony with his wife, Octavius’s sister. already, neither look as lean as Brutus or Julius Caesar. Shortly thereafter, Octavius would have Mark Anthony killed to cement his power and republican rule would be over until 1776.

Robert E. (beware), March 14, 2016. I suspect this same drive for purity and fear is driving the Republican party today. Don’t fear the Rino, just make sure there is a balance of power.

if everyone agrees, something is wrong

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I thought I’d try to semi-derive, and explain a remarkable mathematical paper that was published last month in The Proceedings of the Royal Society A (see full paper here). The paper demonstrates that too much agreement about a thing is counter-indicative of the thing being true. Unless an observation is blindingly obvious, near 100% agreement suggests there is a hidden flaw or conspiracy, perhaps unknown to the observers. This paper has broad application, but I thought the presentation was too confusing for most people to make use of, even those with a background in mathematics, science, or engineering. And the popular versions press versions didn’t even try to be useful. So here’s my shot:

Figure 2 from the original paper. For a method that is 80% accurate, you get your maximum reliability at the third to fifth witness. Beyond that, more agreement suggest a flaw in the people or procedure.

Figure 2 from the original paper. For a method that is 80% accurate, you get your maximum reliability at 3-5 witnesses. More agreement suggests a flaw in the people or procedure.

I will discuss only on specific application, the second one mentioned in the paper, crime (read the paper for others). Lets say there’s been a crime with several witnesses. The police line up a half-dozen, equal (?) suspects, and show them to the first witness. Lets say the first witness points to one of the suspects, the police will not arrest on this because they know that people correctly identify suspects only about 40% of the time, and incorrectly identify perhaps 10% (the say they don’t know or can’t remember the remaining 50% of time). The original paper includes the actual factions here; they’re similar. Since the witness pointed to someone, you already know he/she isn’t among the 50% who don’t know. But you don’t know if this witness is among the 40% who identify right or the 10% who identify wrong. Our confidence that this is the criminal is thus .4/(.4 +.1) = .8, or 80%.

Now you bring in the second witness. If this person identifies the same suspect, your confidence increases; to roughly (.4)2/(.42+.12) = .941,  or 94.1%. This is enough to make an arrest, but let’s say you have ten more witnesses, and all identify this same person. You might first think that this must be the guy with a confidence of (.4)10/(.410+.110) = 99.99999%, but then you wonder how unlikely it is to find ten people who identify correctly when, as we mentioned, each person has only a 40% chance. The chance of all ten witnesses identifying a suspect right is small: (.4)10 = .000104 or 0.01%. This fraction is smaller than the likelihood of having a crooked cop or a screw up the line-up (only one suspect had the right jacket, say). If crooked cops and systemic errors show up 1% of the time, and point to the correct fellow only 15% of these, we find that the chance of being right if ten out of ten agree is (0.0015 +(.4)10)/( .01+ .410+.110) = .16%. Total agreement on guilt suggests the fellow is innocent!

The graph above, the second in the paper, presents a generalization of the math I just presented: n identical tests of 80% accuracy and three different likelihoods of systemic failure. If this systemic failure rate is 1% and the chance of the error pointing right or wrong is 50/50, the chance of being right is P = (.005+ .4n)/(.01 +.4n+.1n), and is the red curve in the graph above. The authors find you get your maximum reliability when there are two to four agreeing witness.

Confidence of guilt as related to the number of judges that agree and your confidence in the integrity of the judges.

Confidence of guilt as related to the number of judges that agree and the integrity of the judges.

The Royal Society article went on to a approve of a feature of Jewish capital-punishment law. In Jewish law, capital cases are tried by 23 judges. To convict a super majority (13) must find guilty, but if all 23 judges agree on guilt the court pronounces innocent (see chart, or an anecdote about Justice Antonin Scalia). My suspicion, by the way, is that more than 1% of judges and police are crooked or inept, and that the same applies to scientific analysis of mental diseases like diagnosing ADHD or autism, and predictions about stocks or climate change. (Do 98% of scientists really agree independently?). Perhaps there are so many people in US prisons, because of excessive agreement and inaccurate witnesses, e.g Ruben Carter. I suspect the agreement on climate experts is a similar sham.

Robert Buxbaum, March 11, 2016. Here are some thoughts on how to do science right. Here is some climate data: can you spot a clear pattern of man-made change?

Of horses, trucks, and horsepower

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Horsepower is a unit of work production rate, about 3/4 of a kW, for those who like standard international units. It is also the pulling force of a work horse of the 1700s times its speed when pulling, perhaps 5 mph. A standard truck will develop 200 hp but only while accelerating at about 60 mph; to develop those same 200 horsepower at 1 mph it would have to pull with 200 times more force. That is impossible for a truck, both because of traction limitations and because of the nature of a gasoline engine when attached to typical gearing. At low speed, 1 mph, a truck will barely develop as much force as 4-5 horses, suggesting a work output about 1 hp. This is especially true for a truck pulling in the snow, as shown in the video below.

Here, a semi-truck (of milk) is being pulled out of the snow by a team of horses going perhaps 1 mph. The majority of work is done by the horse on the left — the others seem to be slipping. Assuming that the four horses manage to develop 1 hp each (4 hp total), the pull force is four times a truck at 1 mph, or as great as a 200 hp truck accelerating at 50 mph. That’s why the horse succeed where the truck does not.

You will find other videos on the internet showing that horses produce more force or hp than trucks or tractors. They always do so at low speeds. A horse will also beat a truck or car in acceleration to about the 1/4 mile mark. That’s because acceleration =force /mass: a = F/m.

I should mention that DC electric motors also, like horses, produce their highest force at very low speeds, but unlike horses, their efficiency is very low there. Electric engine efficiency is high only at speeds quite near the maximum and their horse-power output (force times speed) is at a maximum at about 1/2 the maximum speed.

Steam engines (I like steam engines) produce about the same force at all speeds, and more-or-less the same efficiency at all speeds. That efficiency is typically only about 20%, about that of a horse, but the feed cost and maintenance cost is far lower. A steam engine will eat coal, while a horse must eat oats.

March 4, 2016. Robert Buxbaum, an engineer, runs REB Research, and is running for water commissioner.

The Parker house waitstaff hates you

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There are many offensive Americans, but perhaps the most offensive must be those who eat at the famous Parker House restaurant, Boston; see photo taken by a friend of mine, historian Jim Wald. Parker House is the home of Parker House rolls and Boston Cream Pie. It’s also famous for its customers: e.g. the Saturday club of Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Agassiz, Dana, and Charles Dickens (Dickens lived in the Parker Hotel for two years). But more remarkable still is that a good number of the staff have so hated their customers that they went off and became revolutionary enemies of all things capitalist and American. And it only took a few months working at the Parker House.

The Parker House restaurant, Dec. 2015, photo by jim Wald, perhaps showing the next world leader.

Among Parker House employees we find Malcolm X, he worked as a busboy under his original, given name: Malcolm Little. We also find Ho Chi Minh, a pseudonym taken — it means, the enlightened one or the one who will enlighten (strangely enough, Genghis Kahn also means the enlightened one — in Mongol) was a pastry chef. he arrived in Boston as a ships cook, and worked in the hotel as Nguyen Cung. After Boston, he moved to Paris where he again made cakes and pies but changed his name to Nguyen O Phap (Nguyen who hates the French). Eventually, he and Malcolm X revolted against America and managed to turn the tables, as it were, on their customers.

Why do Parker House workers go off this way. Perhaps it’s because the hotel tries to hire hard-working, intelligent workers. You’ll notice, in the photo above that the waiters look at least as sharp as the customers and more physically fit. Beyond this, I suspect that the waitstaff are constantly exposed to socialist discussions from the customers. They are then sent off for coffee, or ignored, or perhaps insulted or groped, or not tipped. The Hotel seems to attract liberal libertarians — it was a favorite spot for John F. Kennedy.

My guess is that Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh became socialist revolutionaries because of what they experienced from the customers at Parker House. So what can you do if you eat at Parker House, or any fancy restaurant? I think it pays to tip. Don’t do it in a way that makes your server feel like a beggar. It would help to chat too, I think. It’s important if your waiter is homicidal — or if your waiter becomes famous some day, or writes a book, or becomes a world dictator. You’d like to get a positive mention in that book, or have a positive story to tell — “I gave Genghis his first $10 bill…” And tipping is important so he/she doesn’t hate you. I’m given to understand that one main reasons people hate Satan so much is you can serve him, but he never tips.

Robert Buxbaum, February 29, 2016, updated August 24, 2017. I run REB Research, and I’m running for drain commissioner. Vote for me.

Michigan, an emerging economy

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Between 2009 and 2014, Michigan’s per-capita GDP grew at 14% per year, an amazing growth rate similar to that of an emerging, tiger economies. According tot the Bureau of Economic analysis, the only US states that grew faster were Texas and North Dakota, and these oil states were hit badly in the current year 2015-16.
GDPGROWTH

 

Unfortunately, Michigan remains relatively poor despite it’s growth. Its per-capita GDP, $20,263 (2016), lags behind even perennial backwaters like Vermont, Oklahoma, and Missouri. The wealth gap in Michigan is growing, as in an emerging economy, and the cities, e.g. Detroit and Flint, are known for high murder rates, and a large-scale bankruptcy.

Michigan population change, Detroit Free Press

Michigan population change, Detroit Free Press

Then there’s pollution and flooding. Our beaches close for e-coli after every major rain, and we recently found that the drinking water in Flint was contaminated with lead; it seems other MI cities have lead problems too. Add to this, that we’ve  had major floods, a result of mismanagement, cronyism, and rampant growth, and Michigan keeps looking more and more like Vietnam, China, and India.

Everything here isn’t third world, though. We replaced our hapless, ex-governor Granholm with a relatively competent (in my opinion) nerd, Rick Snyder. We’ve jailed the of worst crooks, e.g. Detroit’s walking-crime-wave mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, and his father, “Pay-for-play”, and the corrupt city manager, Bobby Ferguson. Under the previous administration, the state population shrank. It is now growing slowly.

Flood of 2014; the view at 696 and Mound rd. It's just incompetence.

Flood of 2014; the view at 696 and Mound rd. It’s part incompetence and part growth.

 

We passed a needed roads bill. Taxes are high, but not as bad as Illinois, and even Detroit is beginning to look good, at least in the center city. Industry is coming back, and so is Michigan real-estate. Here are some of my ideas going forward: pay our teachers well, and don’t imprison for so long. Some ideas to keep us on the upswing.

Robert Buxbaum, February 23, 2016. I’m running to be the Oakland county water commissioner, by the way.

Ginsberg poem about Bernie Sanders

It’s 30 years to the day since Alan Ginsberg wrote “Burlington Snow” a poem inspired by Bernie Sanders, the socialist mayor of Burlington Vermont. It’s a snapshot of the wonder and contradiction of socialist government. And now Bernie is running for president.

Birlington Snows, April 24, 1996

Burlington Snow, February 21, 1996 by Alan Ginsburg.

“Socialist snow on the streets. Socialist talk in the Maverick Bookstore. Socialist kids sucking socialist lollipops. Socialist poetry in socialist mouths — aren’t the birds frozen socialists? Aren’t the snow clouds blocking the airfield social bureaucratic apprentices? Isn’t the socialist sky owned by the socialist sun? Earth itself socialist, forests rivers, lakes, furry mountains, socialist salt in oceans? Isn’t this Poem socialist? It doesn’t belong to me anymore.”

Dr. Robert Buxbaum, February 21, 2016. If anyone would write a poem about me, or water commissioner (I’m running) or pollution or drinking water, or anything like that, I’d be awfully honored. It doesn’t have to be complimentary, or even particularly good.

New REB hydrogen generator for car fueling, etc.

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One of my favorite invention ideas, one that I’ve tried to get the DoE to fund, is a membrane hydrogen generator where the waste gas is burnt to heat the reactor. The result should be exceptional efficiency, low-cost, low pollution, and less infrastructure needs. Having failed to interest the government, I’ve gone and built one on my own dime. That’s me on the left, with Shua Spirka, holding the new core module (reactor, boiler, purifier and purifier) sized for personal car fueling.

Me and Shua and our new hydrogen generator core

Me and Shua and our new hydrogen generator core

The core just arrived from the shop last week, now we have to pumps and heat exchangers. As with our current products, the hydrogen is generated from methanol water, and extracted 99.99999% pure by diffusion through a metal membrane. This core fit in a heat transfer pot (see lower right) and the pot sits on a burner for the waste gas. Control is tricky, but I think I’ve got it. If it all works like it’s supposed to, the combination should be 80-90% energy-efficient, delivering about 75 slpm, 9 kg per day. That’s the same output as our largest current electrically heated generators, with a much lower infrastructure cost. The output should be enough to fuel one hydrogen-powered automobile per day, or keep a small fleet of plug-in, hydrogen-hybrids running continuously.

Hydrogen automobiles have a lot of advantages over Tesla-type electric automobiles. I’ll tell you how the thing works as soon as we set it up and test it. Right now, we’ve got other customers and other products to make.

Robert Buxbaum, February 18, 2016. If someone could supply a good hydrogen compressor, and a good fuel cell, that would be most welcome. Someone who can supply that will be able to ride in a really excellent cart of the future at this year’s July 4th parade.

Alcohol and gasoline don’t mix in the cold

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One of the worst ideas to come out of the Iowa caucuses, I thought, was Ted Cruz claiming he’d allow farmers to blend as much alcohol into their gasoline as they liked. While this may have sounded good in Iowa, and while it’s consistent with his non-regulation theme, it’s horribly bad engineering.

At low temperatures ethanol and gasoline are no longer quite miscible

Ethanol and gasoline are that miscible at temperatures below freezing, 0°C. The tendency is greater if the ethanol is wet or the gasoline contains benzenes

We add alcohol to gasoline, not to save money, mostly, but so that farmers will produce excess so we’ll have secure food for wartime or famine — or so I understand it. But the government only allows 10% alcohol in the blend because alcohol and gasoline don’t mix well when it’s cold. You may notice, even with the 10% mixture we use, that your car starts poorly on the coldest winter days. The engine turns over and almost catches, but dies. A major reason is that the alcohol separates from the rest of the gasoline. The concentrated alcohol layer screws up combustion because alcohol doesn’t burn all that well. With Cruz’s higher alcohol allowance, you’d get separation more often, at temperatures as high as 13°C (55°F) for a 65 mol percent mix, see chart at right. Things get worse yet if the gasoline gets wet, or contains benzene. Gasoline blending is complex stuff: something the average joe should not do.

Solubility of dry alcohol (ethanol) in gasoline. The solubility is worse at low temperature and if the gasoline is wet or aromatic.

Solubility of alcohol (ethanol) in gasoline; an extrapolation based on the data above.

To estimate the separation temperature of our normal, 10% alcohol-gasoline mix, I extended the data from the chart above using linear regression. From thermodynamics, I extrapolated ln-concentration vs 1/T, and found that a 10% by volume mix (5% mol fraction alcohol) will separate at about -40°F. Chances are, you won’t see that temperature this winter (and if you you do, try to find a gas mix that has no alcohol. Another thought, add hydrogen or other combustible gas to get the engine going.

Robert E. Buxbaum, February 10, 2016. Two more thoughts: 1) Thermodynamics is a beautiful subject to learn, and (2) Avoid people who stick to foolish consistency. Too much regulation is bad, as is too little: it’s a common pattern: The difference between a cure and a poison is often just the dose.

Comic colonialism I: How the US got Guam without a fight.

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America is often criticized for land it acquired by war e.g. Guam in the Spanish-American War. Though Spanish were corrupt and incompetent, and had (it seems) sunk the USS Maine by accident, the idea is that conquest is bad. Well, for better or worse, here’s how the US acquired Guam in a comic bloodless non-battle that provides an example of God laughing as he protects children, fools, and the U.S. of A.

It’s mid June, 1898, the Spanish-American War has raged for two months, and Theodore Roosevelt is in Cuba. Four ships lead by the USS Charleston leave Hawaii on a secret mission with orders to be opened only at sea. Captain Glass of the Charleston find he is to try to take Guam and destroy its fortress before proceeding to the Philippines for the major battle of the war. Glass is informed that Guam Harbor is defended Spanish warships plus a thick-walled fort housing many heavy cannon. A land assault will face, he’s told, over 1000 fighting men, dug in, heavily armed, and thoroughly familiar with the terrain. As it happens, military intelligence had vastly overstated the challenge. There are only 56 soldiers on Guam, and Span has neglected to tell the garrison that there’s a war on.

USS Charleston

The USS Charleston, victor of the non-battle of Guam.

Expecting a fierce battle, our soldiers and naval gunners practice shooting at towed targets and get excellently proficient, or so Glass believes. Fortunately, he’s wrong. On June 20, 1898, The Charleston steams into Guam’s harbor and finds no resistance. The only major ship is a Japanese trader sitting at anchor. No shots are fired, and there is no apparent activity on shore. In some confusion, Captain Glass order that 13 shots be fired at the fort. As it happens, it’s a fortuitous number. Also fortuitous, is that all the shots miss. In complete ignorance, the folks on shore think it is a 13 gun salute: that the Charleston is here for an official, state visit.

Now, the normal response would be for folks on Guam to return the 13 gun salute. If they had, it would have likely begun a cycle of death and destruction. But God is the protector of fools, and the fortress is out of gunpowder. The Spanish send an officer to the Charleston to ask for gunpowder and apologize for not returning the salute. After what must have been a most uncomfortable parlé, it is agreed that our nations were at war; that the officer was now a captured prisoner; and that he is being released to request surrender.

Coins celebrating our colonial territories.

Coins celebrating our colonial territories. None have senators or congressmen. Only DC gets to vote for president, a result of the 23rd amendment, 1961.

As soon as he is sent off, captain Glass begins to worry: maybe this is a trap. Maybe the guns are now focussed on him and his men? Maybe he should resume fire on the fort! Right about then, a friendly whaleboat sails by flying the American flag. It’s captained by Francisco “Frank”Portusach-Martinez from Chicago, an old friend of an officer aboard the Charleston. Captain Portusach comes on board, shows his US bona-fides, and explains that it’s no trap, just ignorance. Taking his advice, Captain Glass lands with a small party, arrests all 56 soldiers without a fight, and raises the American flag. The Star Spangled Banner is played, and Glass doesn’t quite know what to do next. What would you do in his shoes?

Captain Henry Glass

Captain Henry Glass, man with a mustache.

Having no experience or other orders, Captain Glass appoints Portusach as the first US Governor of Guam, and leaves to join Dewey in the Philippines. He does not destroy the fort as he finds it in such poor repair that he can claim it’s already destroyed. And that’s how we got Guam. Credit to Captain Glass for not screwing things up or angering the locals needlessly. One hundred and eighteen years later, Guam is still a US territory, though there have been movements for statehood, for union with Hawaii, and for independence. Until the folks on Guam decide otherwise, they are US citizens, but can not vote for president or have representation in congress. They pay federal income taxes, but not state taxes. Bill Clinton is the only US president to ever visit Guam.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum. February 1, 2016. I’ve written previously on the ways of peace, and on what makes a country, and on beards: why only communists and Republicans have them. Stay tuned for “Comic Colonialism II: Canada’s Queen.”

How to help Flint and avoid lead here.

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As most folks know, Flint has a lead-poisoning problem that seems to have begun in April, 2014 when the city switched its water supply from Detroit-supplied, Lake Huron water to their own source, water from the Flint River. Here are some thoughts on how to help the affected population, and how to avoid a repeat in Oakland county, where I’m running for water commissioner. First observation, it is not enough to make sure that the source water does not contain lead. The people who decided on the switch had found that the Flint river water had no significant content of lead or other obvious toxins. A key problem, it seems: the river water did not contain anticorrosion phosphates, and none, it seems, were added by the Flint water folks. It also seems that insufficient levels of chlorine (hypochlorite) were added. After the switch, citizens started seeing disgusting, brown water come from their taps, and citizens with lead pipes or solder were poisoned with ppb-levels of lead. There was also an outbreak of legionaries disease that killed 12 people. It was the legionaries that alerted the CDC to the possibility of lead, since it seems the water folks were fudging the numbers there, and hiding that part of the problem.

Flint water, Sept 2015, before switching back to Lake Huron.

Flint water after 5 hours of flushing, Sept 2015, before switching back to Lake Huron.

The city began solving its problem by switching back to Detroit-supplied, Lake Huron water in October, 2015. Beginning in December, 2015, they started adding triple doses of phosphate to the wate. As a result, Flint tap-water is now back within EPA standards, but it’s still fairly unsafe, see here for more details.

There has been a fair amount of finger-pointing. At Detroit for raising the price of water so Flint had to switch, at water officials ignoring the early signs of lead and fudging their reports, at other employees for not adding phosphate or enough chlorine, and at “the system” for not providing Flint’s government with better oversight. My take is that a lot of the problem came from the ignorance of the water commission, and it’s commissioner. We elect our water commissioners to be competent overseers of complex infrastructure, but in may counties folks seem to pick them the same way they pick aldermen: for a nice smile, a great handshake, and an ability to remember names. That, anyway, seems to be the way that Oakland got its current water commissioner. When you pick your commissioner that way, it’s no surprise that he (or she) isn’t particularly up on corrosion chemistry, something that few people understand, and fewer care about until it bites them.

Flint river water contains corrosive chloride that probably helped dissolve the lead from pipes and solder. Contributing to the corrosion problem, I’m going to guess that Flint River water also contains, relatively little carbonate, but significant amounts of chelating chemicals, like EDTA, in 10s of ppb concentration. EDTA isn’t poisonous at these concentrations, but it’s common in industry and is the most commonly used antidote for lead poisoning. EDTA extracts lead and other metals from people and would tend to contribute to the process of extracting lead and iron oxide from the pipes surface into the drinking water. With EDTA in the water, a lot of phosphate or hypochlorite would be needed to avoid the lead poisoning problem and the deadly multiplication of disease.

Detroit ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has claimed that both Flint water and Detroit water were known to be poisoned even a decade before the switch. I find these claims believable given the high levels of lead in kids blood even before the switch. Also, I note that there are areas of Detroit where the blood-lead levels are higher than Flint. Flint tested at the taps in a way that fudged the data during the first days of the poisoning, and I suspect many of our MI cities do this today — just to make the numbers look better. My first suggestion therefore is to test correctly, both at the pipes and at the taps; lead pipes are most-often found in the last few feet before the tap. In particular, we should test at all schools and other places where the state has direct authorization to fix the problem. A MI senate bill has been proposed to this effect, but I’m not sure where it stands in the MI house. It seems there are movements to add lots of ‘riders’ and that’s usually a bad sign.

Another thought is that citizens should be encouraged to test their private taps and helped to fix them. The state can’t come in and test or rip out your private pipes, even if they suspect lead, but the private owner has that authorization. The state could condemn a private property where they believe the water is bad, but I doubt they could evict the residents. It’s a democratic republic, as I understand; you have the right to be deadly stupid. But I’ll take my own suggestion to encourage you: If you think your water has lead, take a sample and call (517) 335-8184. Do it.

Another suggestion, perhaps the easiest and most important, is drink bottled water for now, and if you feel you’ve been poisoned, take an antidote.  As I understand things, the state is already providing bottles of imported water. The most common antidote is, as I’d mentioned, EDTA. Assuming that Flint River water had enough EDTA to significantly worsen the problem, the cheapest antidote might be Flint River water, assuming you drew it in lead-free pipes and chlorinated sufficiently to rid it of bugs. If there is EDTA it will help the poisoned. Another antidote is Succinic acid, something sold by REB Research, my company. As with EDTA it is non-toxic, even in fairly large doses, but its use would have to be doctor- approved.

Robert E. Buxbaum, January 19-31, 2016. I hope this helps. We’d have to check Flint River water for levels of EDTA, but I suspect we’d find biologically significant concentrations. If you think Oakland should have an engineer in charge of the water, elect Buxbaum for water commissioner.