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Re:Unsafe Lead Levels in Tap Water Not Limited to Flint by Gibbon1 on Tuesday February 09, 2016 @10:45PM (#11070622)
Yeah and they knew that was bad too. Probably if they had a good way of testing for lead acetate, they'd probably have thrown the occasional wine merchant to the lions.

I have a copy of De re Metallica[1] it has a whole chapter on stuff like this and that's 1500's Europe. Lead is kinda tricky since it tends to get passivized most of the time by sulfate and phosphate. Except when it doesn't and then it's insidiously bad.

[1] Translated Herbert Hoover (yes that one).

Re:Unsafe Lead Levels in Tap Water Not Limited to Flint by officemonkey on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @06:31AM (#11072010)
Hoover was a pretty amazing man and a pretty miserable president. A mining engineer who made his pile working in China. He claimed he was literally first Stanford University student (he showed up days early when the college first opened and he stayed in the dorms by himself.)

He and his wife (who was also a geologist) were fluent in Chinese and would speak in it if they wanted privacy.

He became known for international humanitarian missions during and after the first world war. He became a national figure by directing flood relief operations during the 1927 Mississippi Flood, which catapulted him into the White House a year later.

He was a much better humanitarian than he was a president. And pretty good geologist and linguist too.

Re:Unsafe Lead Levels in Tap Water Not Limited to Flint by Rayearth on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @12:07PM (#11074150)
He was also chosen to tour and report on post-Second World War Germany due to his experience from similar humanitarian missions he undertook in Europe in the aftermath of the First World War.

Does anyone think that it's possible that there will be another career engineer as POTUS? I've heard that there remains a sort of stigma to such a thing, perhaps in part due to the Hoover administration.

Re:Unsafe Lead Levels in Tap Water Not Limited to Flint by gozur88 on Thursday February 11, 2016 @12:03AM (#11078338)
I don't know why there would be a stigma on engineers and not not college professors. Wilson was a far worse president than Hoover.
Re:Unsafe Lead Levels in Tap Water Not Limited to Flint by officemonkey on Thursday February 11, 2016 @08:31PM (#11084733)
Eisenhower was the President of Columbia University. Clinton and Obama both taught in Law Schools.

I think there's a better batting average for college professors than engineers.