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Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update February 3, 2021
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Watch here:

Youtube: Update (YT Channel)
Facebook: Update (FB Page)

Headlines

369,519 Cases (+2,592), 3,863 Deaths (+51)
New cases by county: 424x Jefferson, 152x Fayette, 134x Kenton, 117x Boone, 107x Daviess, 87x Campbell, 85x Warren, 69x Hardin, 57x Madison, 57x Oldham, 50x Bullitt, 44x Christian, 44x McCracken, 36x Grant, 36x Marshall, 33x Laurel, 33x Pulaski, 32x Barren, 31x Nelson, 29x Knox, 27x Logan, 26x Pike, 23x Boyd, 22x Henderson, 21x Scott, 21x Taylor, 20x Floyd, 20x Greenup, 20x Hopkins, 20x Larue, 20x Lincoln, 19x Clark, 19x Graves, 19x Shelby, 18x Meade, 18x Menifee, 18x Whitley, 17x Wayne, 16x Butler, 16x Jessamine, 16x Ohio, 15x Bourbon, 15x Woodford, 14x Allen, 14x Calloway, 14x McCreary, 14x Mercer, 13x Hart, 13x Muhlenberg, 13x Simpson, 12x Anderson, 12x Edmonson, 12x Franklin, 12x Garrard, 12x Johnson, 11x Boyle, 11x Clay, 11x Grayson, 11x Perry, 11x Rockcastle, 10x Henry, 9x Breathitt, 9x Harrison, 9x Lawrence, 9x Livingston, 9x Mason, 9x Powell, 8x Fleming, 8x Marion, 8x Martin, 8x Webster, 7x Bracken, 7x Caldwell, 7x Casey, 7x Harlan, 7x McLean, 7x Montgomery, 7x Trimble, 7x Union, 6x Adair, 6x Breckinridge, 6x Jackson, 6x Monroe, 6x Washington, 5x Carter, 5x Letcher, 5x Metcalfe, 5x Rowan, 5x Spencer, 4x Bath, 4x Bell, 4x Carroll, 4x Fulton, 4x Green, 4x Hancock, 4x Russell, 4x Todd, 4x Trigg, 4x Wolfe, 3x Cumberland, 3x Estill, 3x Hickman, 3x Lewis, 3x Pendleton, 2x Elliott, 2x Gallatin, 2x Knott, 2x Lee, 2x Magoffin, 2x Nicholas, 1x Ballard, 1x Carlisle, 1x Crittenden, 1x Leslie, 1x Morgan
New deaths by county: 59 F Adair, 63 F Ballard, 85 F Bell, 29 F Boone, 79 M Boone, 82 F Boyle, 93 M Boyle, 93 M Breathitt, 72 M Calloway, 72 M Calloway, 51 M Campbell, 82 M Campbell, 87 F Carter, 60 M Casey, 75 F Fayette, 53 M Fayette, 86 M Fayette, 90 F Fleming, 68 M Franklin, 94 M Franklin, 53 M Gallatin, 62 M Gallatin, 85 F Hardin, 88 F Hardin, 81 M Hardin, 89 M Hart, 69 F Hopkins, 86 F Hopkins, 80 F Jefferson, 81 F Jefferson, 80 M Jefferson, 96 M Jefferson, 100 M Jefferson, 79 F Kenton, 77 F Laurel, 54 F McCracken, 65 M McCracken, 69 M McCracken, 63 F Marshall, 77 F Marshall, 71 M Meade, 80 M Meade, 64 F Mercer, 53 M Montgomery, 75 M Nicholas, 90 F Ohio, 88 M Trigg, 93 M Washington, 88 M Wayne, 87 F Whitley, 89 M Whitley
Good News.
- 1. The agency just reported today that the state's recordable non-fatal occupational injury and illness rate has fallen to the lowest point on record. The total recordable incident rate for all industries has fallen to the lowest level since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics began recording the data in 1996, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Program Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Report. So for 2020, based on 2019 BLS data, we were at 3.2 cases per 100 full time equivalent workers, for comparison that was 8.4 in 1996. What this means is this was the safest year, even in the midst of a pandemic, to be a worker in Kentucky.
- 2. The Justice and Public Safety Cabinet today is awarding more than $2M in grant funding from the Federal Violence Against Women Act STOP Formula Grant Program to 28 agencies across our state. This federal funding allows our state to better support the insurmountable work provided by victim advocacy services, law enforcement agencies, and local units of government to victims of violent crime.
- 3. Today we've announced the reopening of all Kentucky State Police post locations to the public to assist in the fight against the drug epidemic, through the Angel Initiative. KSP’s Angel Initiative is a proactive program designed to help people battle addiction, and it's available throughout the state. Anyone suffering from substance use disorder can visit a KSP post to be paired with a local officer who will assist them locating an appropriate treatment program. <...> KSP posts are open to the public Monday through Friday, 8am to 4:30pm and COVID-19 guidelines must be followed. In addition to seeking treatment, individuals may go to any KSP post to safely dispose of any drugs or contraband they may have in their possession without threat of arrest.
Vaccines: So what you see here is we will begin reporting, and updating on a daily basis, how many unique people have been vaccinated in Kentucky. That, we will show next to the total number of doses, first doses, of vaccine allocated to the state, and then you'll see a utilization percentage there. So the goal here is to show you for all the vaccine we receive, what percentage has been administered as a first dose to Kentuckians.<...> So, in this top chart you can see we've broken down the state program, those are all the allocations that came to us at the state level, and then we distributed out, or allocated out, to hospitals and local health departments predominantly to administer to Kentuckians. <...> Please remember, even though you hear that the quantities have been increased and the federal government said 16% last week, and an additional 5% this week, those are wonderful developments to have more vaccine. However, the doses we're getting are still 68,000 or so doses a week, it's gonna take a while to reach everyone who wants to be immunized. <...> So please, I know when you go to these sites, you make the phone calls, it feels like you're not able to get through. It's probably accurate for many of you, it's because we're only getting so much vaccine and the demand is so great. So please know they are vaccinating, they're using everything they're getting as quickly as they can. It's a matter of needing more vaccine to fulfill the demand right now, which is very large.
What made the state change the requirements to make sure only Kentucky residents are receiving the vaccine? -- We had people who lived and worked in other states coming over and trying to get in priority groups in our state that they didn't qualify for in their state.
Senator Robbie Mills today spoke to the very frustrations that you have mentioned that his constituents in Hopkins and Daviess county saying there's just no vaccines available, but he also said that they have a perception that Indiana is doing better than Kentucky, and that they're very frustrated by that. He also spoke to the need, what he perceived the need to be, more and better communication about vaccine availability from your administration. So I just would like for you to sort of speak to that perception that other states are doing better than us and also to his call for better communication. -- Well, we're a top 10 state for vaccinations, the last four weeks we vaccinated more people than we've received doses. If you go over 100% I think that's pretty good. I think in most statistics, we're ahead of Indiana, but I want Indiana to do well too. [...] And we've been communicating about supply, supply, and supply every day, you all have seen it. On our website we show exactly how many doses we get in and how many go out. Their providers have their amount, which is a public when they receive it, and they put it out. So we're getting it out as fast as we can. It's gone out, we believe, equitably across the state. In fact, in the beginning, rural Kentucky got more than urban Kentucky as we were directing it out towards healthcare workers. I think that there are multiple providers in the area that would say that they think that they are being treated fairly. But listen unfortunately a speech on the senate or house floor right now is in the silly season. I don't think they're going to get up and say anything positive. It's unfortunate but that's where we are but you know this is also a body that I hope will be more thoughtful, moving forward, on what they pass. You know, we had to go to court today to challenge three bills, one I'll give you an example was House Bill 1. It basically said no more the Governor's executive orders, “CDC guidance” is now the law. They didn't say which guidance, there are 174 CDC guidance documents. <brings up a stack of documents to the podium> Now, I guess every business would have to look through all 174 of these, which multiple ones will apply to them and try to figure out what they do or do not have to do. I mean we can't defeat a vaccine with this . What should you do to keep people safe? This . We’ve got to have clear consistent rules, and that's what the Supreme Court said, you know, just a couple months ago. So, whether or not people want to pull authority for me, let's be smart and how we address the virus and not say to our businesses “It's on you now here's all the paperwork”
Slides from Update

Full Notes

Good afternoon everybody, good afternoon Rachel. It's four o'clock, on Wednesday, that time we come together to remember that we're gonna get through this, and we're gonna get through it together. I'll start by thanking everybody for allowing me to move yesterday to today, we all struggle at times through this pandemic, and admittedly I just needed a day. But I am back at it, I’m ready, and we are going to defeat this thing together. We have a light at the end of the tunnel, it's a big, bright light, it's going to take us time to get there so continue to mask up, continue to do all those things that protect people and as you'll see, our numbers continue to look better and better with the exception of those that we are losing, which are result of that dramatic increase we experienced.
Let's start with good news, we need good news in our world and let's remember we can, rightfully so, we get caught up thinking all day long about the pandemic but there's still lots of good things going on.
First is worker safety. So I speak often about the importance of Kentucky's workforce, which is the backbone of the middle class, the glue that binds most of our communities together. It's also so many of you, our families, how you put food on the table. My administration is committed to providing well paying opportunities for growth and retirements marked by dignity and security. Above all, we treat all honest work as worthwhile, and we treat our workers with respect. The hard working folks at the Kentucky Labor Cabinet have played a major role in ensuring we're living these values during the pandemic. Most often, I talk about unemployment insurance or those who play a role in keeping us safe by investigating reports of non-compliance to the Kentucky safer hotline. But the cabinet is also responsible for enforcing Occupational Safety and Health Standards (OSHA) at workplaces throughout the Commonwealth. Those are the standards that are supposed to keep us safe, that identify unsafe hazardous or unhealthy environments, that stops practices that pose dangers. And when companies don't live up to those standards, cite them, and help them, and provide them the incentive to ultimately get things right, to make sure all of our Kentuckians are safe on the job. So today we’ve got some really good news to share on that front. The agency just reported today that the state's recordable non-fatal occupational injury and illness rate has fallen to the lowest point on record. The total recordable incident rate for all industries has fallen to the lowest level since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics began recording the data in 1996, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Program fiscal year 2020 annual report. So for 2020, based on 2019 BLS data, we were at 3.2 cases per 100 full time equivalent workers, for comparison that was 8.4 in 1996. What this means is this was the safest year, even in the midst of a pandemic, to be a worker in Kentucky. It means that our labor cabinet is doing it right but it means so many of you all are doing it right too. This is what happens when we enforce standards. when we create the right framework to ensure that our folks show up and they're productive, they're enthusiastic, and that they are also safe. So, 2020, having the lowest injury rate since it's been recorded, in 1996, is some pretty good news. It means a lot more people made it home at night to their families, and a lot more people made it home happy and healthy, and that's what we want every day here in the Commonwealth. We have seen a steady decline over time and let's keep it up. Let's get to the point where our workplaces are so safe that no one is ever injured. That sounds like it may be a tough task but I believe both our people and our employers are up for that challenge.
Second piece of good news. The Justice and Public Safety Cabinet today is awarding more than $2M in grant funding from the Federal Violence Against Women Act STOP Formula Grant Program to 28 agencies across our state. This federal funding allows our state to better support the insurmountable work provided by victim advocacy services, law enforcement agencies, and local units of government to victims of violent crime. Funds are received from the Office on Violence Against Women, a component of the United States Department of Justice. The Office on Violence Against Women require state administrative agencies allocate 25% for law enforcement, 25% for prosecutors, 30% for victim services, 5% for state and local courts, and 15% for discretionary distribution. The funding should be used for projects that serve or focus on adults and youth who are victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Some of the programs funded by the grant include, and these are a bunch of great organizations that I had a chance to work with as attorney general, and the work they do is so appreciated and here supported. Chrysalis House has been awarded $51,830 to continue funding a domestic violence therapist to ensure physical and emotional safety is established, prior to treatment for women who have experienced intimate partner violence. Merryman House Domestic Crisis Centers has been awarded $56,264 to increase safety of domestic violence survivors in the Purchase Area Development District by sustaining and improving collaboration efforts with local law enforcement and prosecution. The Nest Center for Women, Children, and Families has been awarded $116,780 which will allow it to continue to hire contract attorneys who will provide legal services at no charge to families, obtaining an order of protection against their perpetrator in 18 different counties. We’ve got to work together to stop the scourge that is domestic violence, to make sure that our people are safe. The long term ramifications go far beyond just the partner, the physical and emotional scars that it leaves on our children is something we all ought to be committed to stopping. I believe in a world without domestic violence, without sexual abuse, without child abuse, and it should be attainable, just takes all of us continuing to work every day. And these $2 million to organizations that earn the money are going to help us to get there.
Alright, one other piece of good news, which is our Kentucky State Police Angel Initiative. Today we've announced the reopening of all Kentucky State Police post locations to the public to assist in the fight against the drug epidemic, through the Angel Initiative. KSP’s Angel Initiative is a proactive program designed to help people battle addiction, and it's available throughout the state. Anyone suffering from substance use disorder can visit a KSP post to be paired with a local officer who will assist them locating an appropriate treatment program. KSP launched the Angel Initiative in 2016, this was done by the previous administration, through funding from the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. I committed that when I became governor we do the right things, and the right programs we build on. We wouldn't simply eliminate things or take action out of spite and we've lived up to that promise. The Angel Initiative was a good initiative created by our last commissioner of the state police and by our last governor. Reopening it to the public is the right thing to do and it's going to help people. KSP posts are open to the public Monday through Friday, 8am to 4:30pm and COVID-19 guidelines must be followed. In addition to seeking treatment, individuals may go to any KSP post to safely dispose of any drugs or contraband they may have in their possession without threat of arrest. One more program we can use to help those who are suffering.
So that's all good news. Aside from what we deal with every day in the pandemic there are lots of beacons of light out there, lots of people continuing to do good work even in challenging circumstances, and there's lots of people doing good work in working to defeat this virus. Our vaccination efforts right now are exciting to see. You walk into one of our vaccination centers and you see a workforce that is inspired and is moving. You see people clearly walking around with purpose. You see faith in action, and protecting other people. And you see people who've worked long shifts who are still smiling when that next person sits down because they're going to get their vaccine. We’ve got a short video here that recaps yesterday's opening of our first regional vaccination site at the Kentucky horse park, outside of Lexington and Scott County. Take a look, it's pretty special.
<VIDEO> This is an exciting day for Kentucky. Through this new and growing partnership with Kroger health, we will be able to vaccinate more Kentuckians as we received more supply from the federal government. We are here inside the Kentucky Horse Park’s Alltech Arena in Lexington, where Kroger health is launching the first regional vaccination site in the state. Across the Commonwealth we are seeing efficiency pick up and pick up every single week. We are getting better and better at vaccinating people, which means for every Kentucky in your time is coming sooner rather than later. The last four weeks we've vaccinated more people than we've received doses from the federal government, meaning our only limitation at this point is supply supply and supply. But we can't simply sit back, we have to continue to grow our capacity so when we have those additional vaccines, when the manufacturing picks up, when we have a flood of these life saving shots of hope, that we are ready to get them out there and get them in people's arms as quickly as humanly possible. So let's continue to mask up, let's continue to engage in social distancing, and when it's your turn and your time, let's roll up our sleeves and get this shot of hope.
The individual you saw getting vaccinated there is one of our veterans. He has several health conditions, but wanted to step up and to be an example. We were all excited, we were all moved to see him get that vaccine. On vaccines, today we've got Dr Stack, he's going to talk through how we're gonna change our reporting, what you see online, each and every day to be a better indicator of how quickly we are getting the vaccine to new people, because that's really what we want to focus on. Some look at doses out there but when you get a second dose it's got to go to a specific person. What we are focused on is how quickly we can get people that first part of their vaccination as efficiency. Now, I will remind you that we get these doses primarily on Tuesday-ish, late Monday, early Tuesday. So, Tuesday, Wednesday, there's always going to be the biggest difference between our supply and how many people were vaccinated. But what you'll see from the reporting is by the time we get through that next Monday, seven days after it, we're vaccinating more people every week of the past four weeks, then we get supply. We're not gonna be able to do that much longer, it's from extra from the first couple of weeks as we were ramping up and that is very quickly being used up. Thankfully, we're gonna receive, or we're now receiving, about 21-22% more vaccine. This next week will be the first week we reached that full increase since the new administration took over in Washington. Dr Stack?
You can all relate to this, this is a video conference world-- I had three screens open and I couldn't get to it. So Governor, thank you very much. I have two topics that the governor would like me to speak about tonight. And then I'll walk us through that.

So, on our website we're going to change, and this should be updated tonight, we're going to change how we report the vaccines that are administered. Remember the single most important metric is how many people have been vaccinated, how many unique people have been vaccinated, because those are the persons who are on the road to protection from the vaccine. So what you see here is we will begin reporting, and updating on a daily basis, how many unique people have been vaccinated in Kentucky. That, we will show next to the total number of doses, first doses, of vaccine allocated to the state, and then you'll see a utilization percentage there. So the goal here is to show you for all the vaccine we receive, what percentage has been administered as a first dose to Kentuckians. Now, the other way to do this is to show all the doses, which include first dose and second dose, but we're committed to giving the second dose to everyone who gets the first dose-- that should happen as a matter of routine course. So the most important metric is who has started this journey, and received a first dose, which means they will be part of a two-dose immunization program and when they complete that they'll have the full benefit of the protection from the vaccine. And remember, if the third vaccine gets approved, if the Johnson and Johnson vaccine gets approved, and we're all cautiously hopeful that will happen later this month, that is only a one-dose vaccine. So again, in this paradigm that will be the metric that matters the most, is how many people have received their first dose, and therefore are on the path towards protective immunity from this disease. So, in this top chart you can see we've broken down the state program, those are all the allocations that came to us at the state level, and then we distributed out, or allocated out, to hospitals and local health departments predominantly to administer to Kentuckians. There's also the federal Long Term Care program, and so that's listed here is the LTCF Program, that was the partnership between the federal government and CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate licensed long term care facilities and assisted living facilities. Now, in this, you'll see 80,925 first doses, we had recaptured 13 trays of Pfizer, about 12,675 doses, back to the state program and reallocated it. And you’ll see the remaining doses in that program, they are working to do their second doses, and we'll go back for a third visit to finish up all of those nursing homes, and then they will use the remaining inventory to reach other populations and use up all of that. So, eventually, that will reach 100%, and then it will all be the state program going forward. You can also see in the lower table there that we will report to you on a week by week basis how many new vaccines we were allocated and how many unique persons were immunized that week. And the governor has already drawn attention to this, if you look down there at the week of January 12th, you can see we immunized 143% relative to the first doses. What that means is that backlog, that inventory that we did not use the first few weeks of the program in December, we used up very quickly once we swung into increased productivity in the month of January. Remember, I've said for a while, December was always going to be a challenge for a number of reasons. January was about bringing order to disorder. And now February is moving solidly into consistent, effective production and administration of vaccine and building a system that gives you confidence that you can sign up and get some clarity about when you may be able to be vaccinated, and then have certainty you will be vaccinated in a phased manner, which is what is necessary because of the quantities of vaccines we receive.

Please remember, even though you hear that the quantities have been increased and the federal government said 16% last week, and an additional 5% this week, those are wonderful developments to have more vaccine. However, the doses we're getting are still 68,000 or so doses a week, it's gonna take a while to reach everyone who wants to be immunized. And we have plenty of stories now, when health departments or vaccine sites turn on their scheduling, we find that, for example in one of the regions in the first hour that their phone lines were open they had 51,000 phone calls trying to schedule for the 700 doses they were given. In the first two and a half hours their phone lines were open 110,000 phone calls came in to try to access that 700 vaccines. So please, I know when you go to these sites, you make the phone calls, it feels like you're not able to get through. It's probably accurate for many of you, it's because we're only getting so much vaccine and the demand is so great. So please know they are vaccinating, they're using everything they're getting as quickly as they can. It's a matter of needing more vaccine to fulfill the demand right now, which is very large. And then I hope those who are maybe hesitant to receive the vaccine see how effective it is and how the others tolerate the vaccine so well, that other people will also want to follow along in the months ahead.

Last topic I want to talk about, . There's a small sporting event happening this weekend, the Chiefs and the Bucks should be playing with each other on the football field. Well you enjoy that game, for those of you who will enjoy, I need to ask you, please, please, please this is just like any other holiday or social event. You have to practice social distancing, you have to wear your masks, please. When people get together in private residences, in close proximity, that is one of the single most effective ways to spread this disease. We can't afford to have the disease spread now. With these mutations and these variants, every time we allow it to infect more people, it gives the virus the opportunity to mutate. It gives the virus the opportunity to learn how to defeat the antibodies that our bodies are forming based on the vaccines, or the natural infection. We just can't afford to have that. It dangers us all and could undermine the success we're also optimistic we're going to see in the months ahead as more people get vaccinated. So please don't hold any large gatherings.

Remember the current guideline was two households max and eight people or less. That was the current recommendation for the recent holidays and that still holds true now. It's good advice and I'd ask you to please follow it.

Six feet of distance or more between people.

Wear your masks at all times. It's difficult when you have parties because people eat and drink and you take your mask off and that's exactly what makes the infection easily spread. Please don't do that.

Have virtual Super Bowl parties. Enjoy the Super Bowl in the privacy of your own home. We're hopefully getting to the light at the end of the tunnel for this pandemic but if we take our eye off the ball, we can have more super spreader events and have more problems with more of these mutations and more spread of the disease.

So enjoy the Super Bowl this weekend. I'm not going to tell you who I would prefer to win, you can have your own favorites in that, but enjoy the game and do it safely. And please, there's a lot of wonderful stories out there. What I hear from folks go into these vaccine sites, there are smiles, there is clear, just unbridled happiness, in a way, perhaps, people haven't seen in a while because I think people feel empowered. They feel like they're able to take action, rather than feel like they're a passive victim of this disease, and that they're taking a positive step to bring it to an end. That's what we want to celebrate on and focus on-- is the optimism, the hope, the caring, and the kindness to all the good things about humanity. We could focus on all the negative sides too but ultimately, it doesn't help advance our cause and it doesn't help us rally together as a state, and as a community. So please, be good to each other, be kind, and we're working as hard as we can to get you vaccinated, and we'll do so as quickly as the vaccine qualities allow us. Governor, back to you. Thank you.

Thanks to Dr Stack, and everybody tune in tomorrow where we'll be announcing additional regional centers across Kentucky, building out our map as we go. We'll also be talking about local health departments, all of which are going to be getting a consistent supply for at least the next three weeks. Though that supply, remember, is limited and it's going to be dwarfed by the amount of calls, and interest. Again, that is a good thing. It means that we don't have the level of vaccine hesitancy we were worried about. We do have it in certain populations and we're going to work on that as we go in real time.

Positive cases today: 2,592 - That was about 100 cases more than this time last week, but significantly less than the two weeks before. Again, that is positive, in that we have significantly less virus than three weeks ago and we hope that this will be the first time by the end of this week that we have had four straight weeks, one month, of declining cases. Right now it looks possible at the very worst we think it will be close to what we had last week.

Probable cases: 861

Total confirmed cases: 369,519

Children Under 18: 416

We only have 106 red counties. Right now that's the fewest we've had in a while. We obviously need to decrease that.

New cases by county: 424x Jefferson, 152x Fayette, 134x Kenton, 117x Boone, 107x Daviess, 87x Campbell, 85x Warren, 69x Hardin, 57x Madison, 57x Oldham, 50x Bullitt, 44x Christian, 44x McCracken, 36x Grant, 36x Marshall, 33x Laurel, 33x Pulaski, 32x Barren, 31x Nelson, 29x Knox, 27x Logan, 26x Pike, 23x Boyd, 22x Henderson, 21x Scott, 21x Taylor, 20x Floyd, 20x Greenup, 20x Hopkins, 20x Larue, 20x Lincoln, 19x Clark, 19x Graves, 19x Shelby, 18x Meade, 18x Menifee, 18x Whitley, 17x Wayne, 16x Butler, 16x Jessamine, 16x Ohio, 15x Bourbon, 15x Woodford, 14x Allen, 14x Calloway, 14x McCreary, 14x Mercer, 13x Hart, 13x Muhlenberg, 13x Simpson, 12x Anderson, 12x Edmonson, 12x Franklin, 12x Garrard, 12x Johnson, 11x Boyle, 11x Clay, 11x Grayson, 11x Perry, 11x Rockcastle, 10x Henry, 9x Breathitt, 9x Harrison, 9x Lawrence, 9x Livingston, 9x Mason, 9x Powell, 8x Fleming, 8x Marion, 8x Martin, 8x Webster, 7x Bracken, 7x Caldwell, 7x Casey, 7x Harlan, 7x McLean, 7x Montgomery, 7x Trimble, 7x Union, 6x Adair, 6x Breckinridge, 6x Jackson, 6x Monroe, 6x Washington, 5x Carter, 5x Letcher, 5x Metcalfe, 5x Rowan, 5x Spencer, 4x Bath, 4x Bell, 4x Carroll, 4x Fulton, 4x Green, 4x Hancock, 4x Russell, 4x Todd, 4x Trigg, 4x Wolfe, 3x Cumberland, 3x Estill, 3x Hickman, 3x Lewis, 3x Pendleton, 2x Elliott, 2x Gallatin, 2x Knott, 2x Lee, 2x Magoffin, 2x Nicholas, 1x Ballard, 1x Carlisle, 1x Crittenden, 1x Leslie, 1x Morgan

Total tests conducted: 4,111,126 (PCR: 3,635,689, Serology: 108,611)

Positivity Rate: 8.53% - Shows you that this is real, it's not just a result of how many tests there are, we're seeing a decrease in the virus

Our hospitalization, ICU, and ventilator numbers are all really stable too. One’s up five, one’s down five, but again, we were able to take the steps we needed to, at a time when our healthcare capacity could have been overrun, like happened in so many other states-- we avoided that and now we've seen decrease.

Total hospitalized: 17,010

Currently hospitalized: 1,340

Total in ICU: 3,618

Currently in ICU: 368

On a ventilator: 171

Total recovered: 44,073

New deaths today: 51 - But the tough part about our days right now is the number of deaths. January was rough, it was our worst month, and February is going to be tough too. Today we're announcing 51 new deaths related to COVID-19, seven, or individuals 60 years or younger.

Total Deaths: 3,863

New deaths by county: 59 F Adair, 63 F Ballard, 85 F Bell, 29 F Boone, 79 M Boone, 82 F Boyle, 93 M Boyle, 93 M Breathitt, 72 M Calloway, 72 M Calloway, 51 M Campbell, 82 M Campbell, 87 F Carter, 60 M Casey, 75 F Fayette, 53 M Fayette, 86 M Fayette, 90 F Fleming, 68 M Franklin, 94 M Franklin, 53 M Gallatin, 62 M Gallatin, 85 F Hardin, 88 F Hardin, 81 M Hardin, 89 M Hart, 69 F Hopkins, 86 F Hopkins, 80 F Jefferson, 81 F Jefferson, 80 M Jefferson, 96 M Jefferson, 100 M Jefferson, 79 F Kenton, 77 F Laurel, 54 F McCracken, 65 M McCracken, 69 M McCracken, 63 F Marshall, 77 F Marshall, 71 M Meade, 80 M Meade, 64 F Mercer, 53 M Montgomery, 75 M Nicholas, 90 F Ohio, 88 M Trigg, 93 M Washington, 88 M Wayne, 87 F Whitley, 89 M Whitley

All losses are a loss for Kentucky. Let’s light those houses up green and let’s ring those bells at 10am. This is a reminder that we are thinking of the Kentuckians we’ve lost, their families, and their communities. It’s the color of compassion and renewal as their souls move from their bodies to a better place.

Racial breakdown of all cases: 85% White, 8.5% Black, 5% Multiracial, 1.2% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, 0.1% Pacific Islander

Ethnicity breakdown of all cases: 94.3% Non-Hispanic, 5.7% Hispanic

Racial breakdown of all deaths: 87.9% White, 8.7% Black, 2.7% Multiracial, 0.6% Asian, 0.1% American Indian

Ethnicity breakdown of all deaths: 98.1% Non-Hispanic, 1.9% Hispanic

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BLGO (BioLargo) popped up on OTCMarkets for me today, so I decided to do some research today. This company also got some attention here before (short post from a couple weeks ago). Their odor remediation technologies are the most mature, but other solutions coming to market this year and last target wastewater treatment and PFAS ("forever chemical") remediation.
BioLargo is an environmental engineering company that focuses on water & wastewater treatment, odor elimination, and remediation of PFAS (poly-fluoro-alkyl substances) contamination. BioLargo also holds a minority stake in Clyra Medical (which manufactures PPE disinfectant Clyraguard and wound care products). One mature & active product (CupriDyne Clean) has made strides into the market this year, and two more major products (microcontaminant & PFAS remediation technologies) are scaling up from pilots into larger-scale rollouts.
What's below isn't intended to be exhaustive, just the items that popped out at me. This ended up longer than I originally intended, but I was bored and there's a lot of reading material.
Some Numbers:

Market Cap: ~50.3m
Open: $.218
Average volume (300): ~955k
52wk range: $0.10-0.35
Shares Outstanding: ~231m (.06% institutional ownership, steady since late 2016)
2020 revenue: ~$2.4m (rises by ~30% relative to 2019)
Debt: Decreasing from ~$7m (late 2019) to $3m (Clyra Medical holds ~40% of this)

[Sources: OTCM, Fintel, slide deck]
Some Non-Numbers:

BioLargo has a fairly active web presence. Blog has ~3x weekly new short-form content. Not a bad sign.
Board seems like mostly old dudes, mixed between environmental engineering, biotech, and finance. Among "Key Team Members", those who caught my eye were Steve Harrison (President of Clyra Medical: managed a small telecom carrier in the early 2000s to profitability), Shawn Dougherty (probably brought on to manage Clyraguard e-commerce sales), and Tonya Chandler (veteran of water treatment sector, specializes in sales growth). People I checked (a handful, more or less at random) seem to be real and actually employed there (engaging on social media with BLGO content).
Has an active engineering segment, BLEST, giving direct access to potential IP (rather than resorting to licensing). BLEST also does environmental impact consulations (i.e., it's not just R&D). Typical duration between idea inception and mature, revenue-producing product is 3-8 years.

Recent Developments:

ONM Environmental (wholly-owned subsidiary) acquired EcoMist, a deodorizing & sanitizing spray for solid waste receptacles. Customer can self-install sprayer system on garbage truck, and driver actuates sanitizing spray (works with front-, side-, and rear-loading vehicles). Spray solution is environmentally safe and biodegradable, and costs ~$.008 for a standard municipal garbage bin. BLGO claims this is a unique product, and I have not been able to locate a competitor [Source: BioLargo Blog, EcoMist demo video]
Teamed up with Garratt-Callahan (water treatment company, >100 years old) to collaborate in producing a wastewater treatment solution aimed at commercial wastewater conversion into usable water. G-C appears to own the idea, and will manage distribution through existing network; while BioLargo will develop the product. Partnership may progress to market existing BioLargo technologies through G-C distribution channels. [Source: Blog with video]
Clyra Medical (48% owned subsidiary) has sold Clyraguard through Amazon since mid-October 2020, and generated ~$125k prior to mid-December [Source: sponsored Edison research].
Five-year deal announced in 2019 (yeah, yeah, I know, not super recent) with Cannabusters to market & distribute deodorizing CupriDyne Clean to cannabis and hemp producers. [Source: Yahoo news]
Piloting a water purifier in Montreal, which is claimed to be unparallelled in micropollutant removal from water. A predecessor technology had been tested at an Alberta poultry facility, and demonstrated compliance with EPA safe discharge standards. [Source: Smart Water Magazine]
Tests of 40 Orange County, CA water wells finds significant PFAS contamination, with estimated total lifecycle remediation costs of $1.3bn for those sites alone. AEC technology produces orders of magnitude less solid (contaminated) waste than conventional carbon solutions ("truckload size vs briefcase size") [Source: Corporate Presentation]
According to narrated corporate presentation, CupriDyne won several municipal contracts for odor control in December 2020 (blog suggests that at least some are Southern California landfills--there may be others) [Source: Corporate Presentation, Blog]

Possible Future Developments & Analysis:

Joe Biden campaigned on a pledge to designate PFAS chemicals (or a subset thereof) as "hazardous substances" under CERCLA, which lets the EPA force companies to clean up a polluted site and makes the reporting requirements for designated substances much stricter. Michael Regan (Biden's EPA nominee, whose nomination was advanced today by Environment and Public Works Committee) has pledged to prioritize regulating PFAS chemicals. This regulation is also possible through Senate action. Bottom line: PFAS regulation becomes much more likely in new administration, meaning remediation efforts will rise, potentially increasing revenue for remediation technologies like those owned by BLGO [Sources: Regan nomination, Biden admin. analysis]
Possible impact of EcoMist sales on revenue: assuming a household size of 2.53 (2020 US average), a city of 100,000 people adopting EcoMist would spend ~$4100/qtr to spray household garbage cans, which is ~.45% of BLGO 2020 Q4 revenue. Assuming sanitizing solution cost scales with container surface area, it would cost ~$.017 to sanitize a standard, 4yd commercial dumpster (capacity 800lbs). A city of 100k that has ~200 restaurants (incl. both full-service and limited-service), each emptying their dumpster 3x/wk (average restaurant produces 100k lbs of trash per yr), would pay ~$135/qtr to sanitize & deodorize. Another useful revenue data-point for a city that size (assuming trash volume of 2.89 lbs/person/day, all packed into 50%-full 4yd dumpsters), is $2241/qtr (Note: I'm unclear whether the underlying figures include non-industrial, commercial disposal as well as household waste, so it may not be valid to add this figure to the one above). Bottom line: EcoMist sales to municipal waste disposal in 10 cities of 100k population would increase revenue by ~4.5% (before 10% royalties paid) [Sources: dumpster size, restaurants/capita, yearly waste/capita]
Revenues through Clyra Medical contributed ~11% of revenue in 2020Q4, and based on the raw numbers, it seems like most of this was Clyraguard deodorizer & disinfectant product, which they marketed heavily in print media. I'm not convinced this is a viable long-term play, but it's good to see them marketing and selling the product. Bottom line: If PPE usage is long-lived, ~$100k/qtr revenue from Clyraguard sales may stick around. [Source: slide deck]
Possible cannabis legalization opens up avenues to distribute more widely through Cannabusters. Projected revenue does not appear to include this expectation, so consider this a low-percentage, moderate-reward possibility.
Clyra Medical to launch new products in 2021. Water purification solutions (AOS and AEC) set to increase revenue this year though commercial pilots and small customers. AEC has $1.6m+ order backlog [source: slide deck]
Research on PFAS contamination is slim, and though there is some evidence they cause health problems, more research is needed. The threat level from bioaccumulated PFAS hasn't been clearly characterized, which may slow adoption of remediation techniques. Bottom line: Bioaccumulated PFAS contamination may not be hazardous enough to spur regulation and remediation. [Source: FDA on PFAS]
Existing debt of ~$1.085m comes due or converts in August 2021. This has some potential to dilute shares. [Source: Corporate Presentation]

I have shallow pockets, but since I think they have potential to grow revenue during the next year, I'm in today for 500 @ .205. This is not investment advice, just my observations: this stock could progress nicely, or it could disappear entirely.
I'm also happy to hear critiques of this DD from people with more experience, or counterpoints/discussion.

DD for $BLGO: wastewater treatment, PFAS remediation, PPE & cannabis deodorizing (x-post from /r/pennystocks)

BLGO (BioLargo) popped up on OTCMarkets for me today, so I decided to do some research today. This company also got some attention here before (short post from a couple weeks ago). Their odor remediation technologies are the most mature, but other solutions coming to market this year and last target wastewater treatment and PFAS ("forever chemical") remediation. I posted this DD on /pennystocks earlier today, and was asked to also put it here. I hope this is useful, and sparks some discussion.
BioLargo is an environmental engineering company that focuses on water & wastewater treatment, odor elimination, and remediation of PFAS (poly-fluoro-alkyl substances) contamination. BioLargo also holds a minority stake in Clyra Medical (which manufactures PPE disinfectant Clyraguard and wound care products). One mature & active product (CupriDyne Clean) has made strides into the market this year, and two more major products (microcontaminant & PFAS remediation technologies) are scaling up from pilots into larger-scale rollouts.
What's below isn't intended to be exhaustive, just the items that popped out at me. This ended up longer than I originally intended, but I was bored and there's a lot of reading material.
Some Numbers:

Market Cap: ~50.3m
Open: $.218
Average volume (300): ~955k
52wk range: $0.10-0.35
Shares Outstanding: ~231m (.06% institutional ownership, steady since late 2016)
2020 revenue: ~$2.4m (rises by ~30% relative to 2019)
Debt: Decreasing from ~$7m (late 2019) to $3m (Clyra Medical holds ~40% of this)

[Sources: OTCM, Fintel, slide deck]
Some Non-Numbers:

BioLargo has a fairly active web presence. Blog has ~3x weekly new short-form content. Not a bad sign.
Board seems like mostly old dudes, mixed between environmental engineering, biotech, and finance. Among "Key Team Members", those who caught my eye were Steve Harrison (President of Clyra Medical: managed a small telecom carrier in the early 2000s to profitability), Shawn Dougherty (probably brought on to manage Clyraguard e-commerce sales), and Tonya Chandler (veteran of water treatment sector, specializes in sales growth). People I checked (a handful, more or less at random) seem to be real and actually employed there (engaging on social media with BLGO content).
Has an active engineering segment, BLEST, giving direct access to potential IP (rather than resorting to licensing). BLEST also does environmental impact consulations (i.e., it's not just R&D). Typical duration between idea inception and mature, revenue-producing product is 3-8 years.

Recent Developments:

ONM Environmental (wholly-owned subsidiary) acquired EcoMist, a deodorizing & sanitizing spray for solid waste receptacles. Customer can self-install sprayer system on garbage truck, and driver actuates sanitizing spray (works with front-, side-, and rear-loading vehicles). Spray solution is environmentally safe and biodegradable, and costs ~$.008 for a standard municipal garbage bin. BLGO claims this is a unique product, and I have not been able to locate a competitor [Source: BioLargo Blog, EcoMist demo video]
Teamed up with Garratt-Callahan (water treatment company, >100 years old) to collaborate in producing a wastewater treatment solution aimed at commercial wastewater conversion into usable water. G-C appears to own the idea, and will manage distribution through existing network; while BioLargo will develop the product. Partnership may progress to market existing BioLargo technologies through G-C distribution channels. [Source: Blog with video]
Clyra Medical (48% owned subsidiary) has sold Clyraguard through Amazon since mid-October 2020, and generated ~$125k prior to mid-December [Source: sponsored Edison research].
Five-year deal announced in 2019 (yeah, yeah, I know, not super recent) with Cannabusters to market & distribute deodorizing CupriDyne Clean to cannabis and hemp producers. [Source: Yahoo news]
Piloting a water purifier in Montreal, which is claimed to be unparallelled in micropollutant removal from water. A predecessor technology had been tested at an Alberta poultry facility, and demonstrated compliance with EPA safe discharge standards. [Source: Smart Water Magazine]
Tests of 40 Orange County, CA water wells finds significant PFAS contamination, with estimated total lifecycle remediation costs of $1.3bn for those sites alone. AEC technology produces orders of magnitude less solid (contaminated) waste than conventional carbon solutions ("truckload size vs briefcase size") [Source: Corporate Presentation]
According to narrated corporate presentation, CupriDyne won several municipal contracts for odor control in December 2020 (blog suggests that at least some are Southern California landfills--there may be others) [Source: Corporate Presentation, Blog]

Possible Future Developments & Analysis:

Joe Biden campaigned on a pledge to designate PFAS chemicals (or a subset thereof) as "hazardous substances" under CERCLA, which lets the EPA force companies to clean up a polluted site and makes the reporting requirements for designated substances much stricter. Michael Regan (Biden's EPA nominee, whose nomination was advanced today by Environment and Public Works Committee) has pledged to prioritize regulating PFAS chemicals. This regulation is also possible through Senate action. Bottom line: PFAS regulation becomes much more likely in new administration, meaning remediation efforts will rise, potentially increasing revenue for remediation technologies like those owned by BLGO [Sources: Regan nomination, Biden admin. analysis]
Possible impact of EcoMist sales on revenue: assuming a household size of 2.53 (2020 US average), a city of 100,000 people adopting EcoMist would spend ~$4100/qtr to spray household garbage cans, which is ~.45% of BLGO 2020 Q4 revenue. Assuming sanitizing solution cost scales with container surface area, it would cost ~$.017 to sanitize a standard, 4yd commercial dumpster (capacity 800lbs). A city of 100k that has ~200 restaurants (incl. both full-service and limited-service), each emptying their dumpster 3x/wk (average restaurant produces 100k lbs of trash per yr), would pay ~$135/qtr to sanitize & deodorize. Another useful revenue data-point for a city that size (assuming trash volume of 2.89 lbs/person/day, all packed into 50%-full 4yd dumpsters), is $2241/qtr (Note: I'm unclear whether the underlying figures include non-industrial, commercial disposal as well as household waste, so it may not be valid to add this figure to the one above). Bottom line: EcoMist sales to municipal waste disposal in 10 cities of 100k population would increase revenue by ~4.5% (before 10% royalties paid) [Sources: dumpster size, restaurants/capita, yearly waste/capita]
Revenues through Clyra Medical contributed ~11% of revenue in 2020Q4, and based on the raw numbers, it seems like most of this was Clyraguard deodorizer & disinfectant product, which they marketed heavily in print media. I'm not convinced this is a viable long-term play, but it's good to see them marketing and selling the product. Bottom line: If PPE usage is long-lived, ~$100k/qtr revenue from Clyraguard sales may stick around. [Source: slide deck]
Possible cannabis legalization opens up avenues to distribute more widely through Cannabusters. Projected revenue does not appear to include this expectation, so consider this a low-percentage, moderate-reward possibility.
Clyra Medical to launch new products in 2021. Water purification solutions (AOS and AEC) set to increase revenue this year though commercial pilots and small customers. AEC has $1.6m+ order backlog [source: slide deck]
Research on PFAS contamination is slim, and though there is some evidence they cause health problems, more research is needed. The threat level from bioaccumulated PFAS hasn't been clearly characterized, which may slow adoption of remediation techniques. Bottom line: Bioaccumulated PFAS contamination may not be hazardous enough to spur regulation and remediation. [Source: FDA on PFAS]
Existing debt of ~$1.085m comes due or converts in August 2021. This has some potential to dilute shares. [Source: Corporate Presentation]

Fluoride is even worse than what we thought

by Andreas Schuld 9-19-2006 from Rense Website
About the Author .
Andreas Schuld is head of Parents of Fluoride Poisoned Children (PFPC), an organization of parents whose children have been poisoned by excessive fluoride intake. The group includes educators, artists, scientists, journalists and authors, lawyers, researchers and nutritionists. It is active in worldwide efforts to have the toxicity of fluoride properly assessed. For further information, visit their website at www.bruha.com/fluoride.
In 1999 the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) released a glowing report on the fluoridation of public water supplies, citing the procedure as one of the century's great public health successes.1
Ironically, the same report hints that the alleged benefit from fluorides may not be due to ingestion:

"Fluoride's caries-preventive properties initially were attributed to changes in enamel during tooth development because of the association between fluoride and cosmetic changes in enamel and a belief that fluoride incorporated into enamel during tooth development would result in a more acid-resistant mineral."

The CDC report then acknowledges new studies which indicate that the effects are "topical" rather than "systemic."

"However, laboratory and epidemiologic research suggests that fluoride prevents dental caries predominately after eruption of the tooth into the mouth, and its actions primarily are topical for both adults and children."

The obvious question is this: How can the CDC consider the addition of fluoride to public water supplies to be a public health success while admitting at the same time that fluoride's benefits are not "systemic," in other words, are not obtained from drinking it?
The truth, now becoming increasingly evident, is that fluoridation and the proclaimed benefit of fluoride as a way of preventing dental decay is perhaps the greatest "scientific" fraud ever perpetrated upon an unsuspecting public.
Even worse, the relentless promotion of fluoride as a "dental benefit" is responsible for the huge neglect in proper assessment of its toxicity, an issue that has become a major concern for many nations. As there is no substance as biochemically active in the human organism as fluoride, excessive total intake of fluoride compounds might well be contributing to many diseases currently afflicting mankind, particularly those involving thyroid dysfunction. In the United States, most citizens are kept entirely ignorant of any adverse effect that might occur from exposure to fluorides.
Dental fluorosis, the first visible sign that fluoride poisoning has occurred, is declared a mere "cosmetic effect" by the dental profession, although the "biochemical events which result in dental fluorosis are still unknown."2,3,4 The quantity of fluoride needed to prevent caries but avoid dental fluorosis is also unknown.5
What is Fluoride? Fluoride is any combination of elements containing the fluoride ion. In its elemental form, fluorine is a pale yellow, highly toxic and corrosive gas. In nature, fluorine is found combined with minerals as fluorides. It is the most chemically active nonmetallic element of all the elements and also has the most reactive electro-negative ion. Because of this extreme reactivity, fluorine is never found in nature as an uncombined element.
Fluorine is a member of group VIIa of the periodic table. It readily displaces other halogens--such as chlorine, bromine and iodine--from their mineral salts. With hydrogen it forms hydrogen fluoride gas which, in a water solution, becomes hydrofluoric acid.
There was no US commercial production of fluorine before World War II. A requirement for fluorine in the processing of uranium ores, needed for the atomic bomb, prompted its manufacture.6
Fluorine compounds or fluorides are listed by the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) as among the top 20 of 275 substances that pose the most significant threat to human health.7 In Australia, the National Pollutant Inventory (NPI) recently considered 400 substances for inclusion on the NPI reporting list. A risk ranking was given based on health and environmental hazard identification and human and environmental exposure to the substance. Some substances were grouped together at the same rank to give a total of 208 ranks. Fluoride compounds were ranked 27th out of the 208 ranks.8
Fluorides, hydrogen fluoride and fluorine have been found in at least 130, 19, and 28 sites, respectively, of 1,334 National Priorities List sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).9 Consequently, under the provisions of the Superfund Act (CRECLA, 1986), a compilation of information about fluorides, hydrogen fluoride and fluorine and their effects on health was required. This publication appeared in 1993.9
Fluorides are cumulative toxins. The fact that fluorides accumulate in the body is the reason that US law requires the Surgeon General to set a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for fluoride content in public water supplies as determined by the EPA. This requirement is specifically aimed at avoiding a condition known as Crippling Skeletal Fluorosis (CSF), a disease thought to progress through three stages. The MCL, designed to prevent only the third and crippling stage of this disease, is set at 4ppm or 4mg per liter. It is assumed that people will retain half of this amount (2mg), and therefore 4mg per liter is deemed "safe." Yet a daily dose of 2-8mg is known to cause the third crippling stage of CSF.10,11
In 1998 EPA scientists, whose job and legal duty it is to set the Maximum Contaminant Level, declared that this 4ppm level was set fraudulently by outside forces in a decision that omitted 90 percent of the data showing the mutagenic properties of fluoride.12
The Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, 5th Edition (1984) gives lead a toxicity rating of 3 to 4 (3 = moderately toxic, 4 = very toxic) and the EPA has set 0.015 ppm as the MCL for lead in drinking water--with a goal of 0.0ppm. The toxicity rating for fluoride is 4, yet the MCL for fluoride is currently set at 4.0ppm, over 250 times the permissible level for lead.
Water Fluoridation
In 1939 a dentist named H. Trendley Dean, working for the U.S. Public Health Service, examined water from 345 communities in Texas. Dean determined that high concentrations of fluoride in the water in these areas corresponded to a high incidence of mottled teeth. This explained why dentists in the area found mottled teeth in so many of their patients. Dean also claimed that there was a lower incidence of dental cavities in communities having about 1 ppm fluoride in the water supply. Among the native residents of these areas about 10 percent developed the very mildest forms of mottled enamel ("dental fluorosis"), which Dean and others described as "beautiful white teeth."
Dean's report led to the initiation of artificial fluoridation of drinking water at 1part-per-million (ppm) in order to supply the "optimal dose" of 1mg fluoride per day--assuming that drinking four glasses of water every day would duplicate Dean's "optimal" intake for most people. Now, according to the American Dental Association, all people, rich or poor, could have "beautiful white teeth" and be free of caries at the same time. After all, the benefits of water fluoridation had been documented "beyond any doubt."13
When other scientists investigated Dean's data, they did not reach the same conclusions. In fact, Dean had engaged in "selective use of data," using findings from 21 cities that supported his case while completely disregarding data from 272 other locations that did not show a correlation.14 In court cases Dean was forced to admit under oath that his data were invalid.15 In 1957 he had to admit at AMA hearings that even waters containing a mere 0.1ppm (0.1 mg/l) could cause dental fluorosis, the first visible sign of fluoride overdose.16 Moreover, there is not one single double-blind study to indicate that fluoridation is effective in reducing cavities.17
So What's the Truth About Tooth Decay?
The truth is that more and more evidence shows that fluorides and dental fluorosis are actually associated with increased tooth decay. The most comprehensive US review was carried out by the National Institute of Dental Research on 39,000 school children aged 5-17 years.18 It showed no significant differences in terms of DMF (decayed, missing and filled teeth).
What it did show was that high decay cities (66.5-87.5 percent) have 9.34 percent more decay in the children who drink fluoridated water. Furthermore, a 5.4 percent increase in students with decay was observed when 1 ppm fluoride was added to the water supply. Nine fluoridated cities with high decay had 10 percent more decay than nine equivalent non-fluoridated cities.
The world's largest study on dental caries, which looked at 400,000 students, revealed that decay increased 27 percent with a 1ppm fluoride increase in drinking water.19 In Japan, fluoridation caused decay increases of 7 percent in 22,000 students,20 while in the US a decay increase of 43 percent occured in 29,000 students when 1ppm fluoride was added to drinking water.21
Dental Fluorosis: A "Cosmetic" Defect? Dental fluorosis is a condition caused by an excessive intake of fluorides, characterized mainly by mottling of the enamel (which starts as "white spots"), although the bones and virtually every organ might also be affected due to fluoride's known anti-thyroid characteristics. Dental fluorosis can only occur during the stage of enamel formation and is therefore a sign that an overdose of fluoride has occurred in a child during that period.
Dental fluorosis has been described as a subsurface enamel hypomineralization, with porosity of the tooth positively correlated with the degree of fluorosis.22 It is characterized by diffuse opacities and under-mineralized enamel. Although identical enamel defects occur in cases of thyroid dysfunction, the dental profession describes the defect as merely "cosmetic" when it is caused by exposure to fluoride.
What is now becoming apparent is that this "cosmetic" defect actually predisposes to tooth decay. In 1988 Duncan23 stated that hypoplastic defects have a strong potential to become carious. In 1989, Silberman,24 evaluating the same data on Head Start children, wrote that "preliminary data indicate that the presence of primary canine hypoplasia [enamel defects] may result in an increased potential for the tooth becoming carious."
In 1996 Li 25 wrote that children with enamel hypoplasia demonstrated a significantly higher caries experience than those who did not have such defects and, further, that the "presence of enamel hypoplasia may be a predisposing factor for initiation and progression of dental caries, and a predictor of high caries susceptibility in a community." In 1996 Ellwood & O'Mullane26 stated that "developmental enamel defects may be useful markers of caries susceptibility, which should be considered in the risk-benefit assessment for use of fluoride."
Currently up to 80 percent of US children suffer from some degree of dental fluorosis, while in Canada the figure is up to 71 percent. A prevalence of 80.9 percent was reported in children 12-14 years old in Augusta, Georgia, the highest prevalence yet reported in an "optimally" fluoridated community in the United States. Moderate-to-severe fluorosis was found in 14 percent of the children.27
Before the push for fluoridation began, the dental profession recognized that fluorides were not beneficial but detrimental to dental health. In 1944, the Journal of the American Dental Association reported: "With 1.6 to 4 ppm fluoride in the water, 50 percent or more past age 24 have false teeth because of fluoride damage to their own."28
The Wonder Nutrient? On countless internet sites, fluoride is proclaimed as the "wonder nutrient," the "deficiency" symptom being increased dental caries.29 It boggles the mind that a cumulative toxin and toxic waste product can be described a "nutrient." Nevertheless, such claims are repeatedly made by pro-fluoridationists.30
On March 16, 1979, the FDA deleted paragraphs 105.3(c) and 105.85(d)(4) of Federal Register documents which had classified fluorine, among other substances, as "essential" or "probably essential." Since that time, nowhere in the Federal Regulations is fluoride classified as "essential" or "probably essential." These deletions were the immediate result of 1978 Court deliberations.31 No essential function for fluoride has ever been proven in humans.32,33,34,35,36
"Nature Thought of It First"
A popular slogan employed by the ADA and other pro-fluoridation organizations is, "Nature thought of it first!" The slogan creates the impression that the fluoridation compounds used in water fluoridation are the same as those discovered many years ago in the water in some areas of the US.37 The fluoride compound in "naturally" fluoridated waters is calcium fluoride. Sodium fluoride, a common fluoridation agent, dissolves easily in water, but calcium fluoride does not.9
Animal studies performed by Kick and others in 1935 revealed that sodium fluoride was much more toxic than calcium fluoride.38 Even worse, toxicity was recorded for hydrofluorosilicic acid, the compound now used in over 90 percent of fluoridation programs, Hydrofluorosilicic acid is a direct byproduct of pollution scrubbers used in the phosphate fertilizer and aluminum industries. Our government adds it to water supplies even though it is also involved in getting rid of its own stockpile of fluoride compounds left over from years and years of stockpiling fluorides for use in the process of refining uranium for nuclear power and weapons.39
In the Kick study, less than 2 percent of calcium fluoride was absorbed and this was excreted quantitatively in the urine. But even calcium fluoride is not benign. As the animals given calcium fluoride also developed mottled teeth, it was clear that such compounds could produce changes on the teeth merely by passing through the body, and not by being "stored in a tooth" or anywhere else. No calcium fluoride was retained.
In 1946 Samuel Chase, one of the authors of the Kick study, became president of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR). This organization promoted the idea that only the fluoride ion in the various fluoridation compounds was of importance. Yet he well knew that sodium fluoride did not behave like calcium fluoride. Unlike calcium fluoride, sodium fluoride was retained in great amounts in the body and was very toxic. Rock phosphate and hydro-fluorosilicic acid experiments yielded the same information.
New areas with "natural" fluoride are appearing all over the world, as now all areas not "artificially" fluoridated are considered "natural." The problem is that this "natural" fluoride is the result of direct water and soil contamination from petrochemical land treatment, uncontrolled fertilizer use, pesticide applications, ground water contamination from industrial waste sites, rocket fuel "burial grounds," and so forth. Suddenly we have "natural" fluorides showing up in areas previously deemed "fluoride deficient"!
Total Intake
It is well established that it is TOTAL fluoride intake from ALL sources which must be considered for any adverse health effect evaluation.40,41,42 This includes intake by ingestion, inhalation and absorption through the skin. In 1971, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated:

"In the assessment of the safety of a water supply with respect to the fluoride concentration, the total daily fluoride intake by the individual must be considered."41

Exposure to airborne fluorides from many diverse manufacturing processes--pesticide applications, phosphate fertilizer production, aluminum smelting, uranium enrichment facilities, coal-burning and nuclear power plants, incinerators, glass etching, petroleum refining and vehicle emissions--can be considerable.
In addition, many people consume fluorine-based medications such as Prozac, which greatly adds to fluoride's anti-thyroid effects. ALL fluoride compounds--organic and inorganic--have been shown to exert anti-thyroid effects, often potentiating fluoride effects many fold.43
Household exposures to fluorides can occur with the use of Teflon pans, fluorine-based products, insecticides sprays and even residual airborne fluorides from fluoridated drinking water. Decision-makers at 3M Corporation recently announced a phase-out of Scotchgard products after discovering that the product's primary ingredient--a fluorinated compound called perfluorooctanyl sulfonate (PFOS)--was found in all tested blood bank examinations.44 3M's research showed that the substance had strong tendencies to persist and bio-accumulate in animal and human tissue.
In 1991 the US Public Health Service issued a report stating that the range in total daily fluoride intake from water, dental products, beverages and food items exceeded 6.5 milligrams daily.42 Thus, the total intake from those sources alone already greatly exceeds the levels known to cause the third stage of skeletal fluorosis.
Besides fluoridated water and toothpaste, many foods contain high levels of flouride compounds due to pesticide applications. One of the worse offenders is grapes.45 Grape juice was found to contain more than 6.8 ppm fluoride. The EPA estimates total fluoride intake from pesticide residues on food and fluoridated drinking water alone to be 0.095 mg/kg/day, meaning a person weighing 70 kg takes in more than 6.65 mg per day.45b Soy infant formula is high in both fluoride and aluminum, far surpassing the "optimal" dose46,47 and has been shown to be a risk factor in dental fluorosis.48
Tea
In their drive to fluoridate the public water supplies, dental health officials continue to pretend that no other sources of fluoride exist. This notion becomes absurd when one looks at the fluoride content in tea. Tea is very high in fluoride because tea leaves accumulate more fluoride (from pollution of soil and air) than any other edible plant.49,50,51 It is well established that fluoride in tea gets absorbed by the body in a manner similar to the fluoride in drinking water.49,52
Fluoride content in tea has risen dramatically over the last 20 years due to industry contamination. Recent analyses have revealed a fluoride content of 17.25 mg per teabag or cup in black tea, and a whopping 22 mg of soluble fluoride ions per teabag or cup in green tea. Aluminum content was also high--over 8 mg. Normal steeping time is five minutes. The longer a tea bag steeped, the more fluoride and aluminum were released. After ten minutes, the measurable amounts of fluoride and aluminum almost doubled.53
A website by a pro-fluoridation infant medical group states that a cup of black tea contains 7.8 mgs of fluoride54 which is the equivalent amount of fluoride from 7.8 liters of water in an area fluoridated at 1ppm. Some British and African studies from the 1990s showed a daily fluoride intake of between 5.8 mgs and 9 mgs a day from tea alone.55, 56, 57 Tea has been found to be a primary cause of dental fluorosis in many international studies.58-70
In Britain, over three-quarters of the population over the age of ten years consumes three cups of tea per day.71Yet the UK government and the British Dental Association are currently contemplating fluoridation of public water supplies! In Ireland, average tea consumption is four cups per day and the drinking water is heavily fluoridated.
Next to water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. Tea can be found in almost 80 percent of all US households and on any given day, nearly 127 million people--half of all Americans--drink tea.71
The high content of both aluminum and fluoride in tea is cause for great concern as aluminum greatly potentiates fluoride's effects on G protein activation,72 the on/off switches involved in cell communication and of absolute necessity in thyroid hormone function and regulation.
Fluoride and the Thyroid The recent re-discovery of hundreds of papers dealing with the use of fluorides in effective anti-thyroid medication poses many questions demanding answers.73,74 The enamel defects observed in hypothyroidism are identical to "dental fluorosis." Endemic fluorosis areas have been shown to be the same as those affected with iodine deficiency, considered to be the world's single most important and preventable cause of mental retardation,75 affecting 740 million people a year.
Iodine deficiency causes brain disorders, cretinism, miscarriages and goiter, among many other diseases. Synthroid, the drug most commonly prescribed for hypothyroidism, became the top selling drug in the US in 1999, according to Scott-Levin's Source Prescription Audit, clearly indicating that hypothyroidism is a major health problem. Many more millions are thought to have undiagnosed thyroid problems.
Environment
Every year hundreds and thousands of tons of fluorides are emitted by industry. Industrial emissions of fluoride compounds produce elevated concentrations in the atmosphere. Hydrogen fluoride can exist as a particle, dissolving in clouds, fog, rain, dew, or snow. In clouds and moist air it will travel along the air currents until it is deposited as wet acid deposition (acid rain, acid fog, etc.) In waterways it readily mixes with water.
Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), emitted by the electric power industry, is now among six greenhouse gases specifically targeted by the international community, through the Kyoto protocol, for emission reductions to control global warming. The others are carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), methane and nitrous oxide (N2O).
SF6 is about 23,900 times more destructive, pound for pound, than carbon dioxide over the course of 100 years. EPA estimates that some seven-million metric tons of carbon equivalent (MMTCE) escaped from electric power systems in 1996 alone. The concentration of SF6 in the atmosphere has reportedly increased by two orders of magnitude since 1970. Atmospheric models have indicated that the lifetime of an SF6 molecule in the atmosphere may be over 3000 years.76
The ever-increasing fluoride levels in food, water and air pose a great threat to human health and to the environment as evidenced by the endemic of fluorosis worldwide. It is of utmost urgency that public health officials cease promoting fluoride as beneficial to our health and address instead the issue of its toxicity.
REFERENCES (All web addresses were visited before Fall, 2000)

CDC: "Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999 - Fluoridation of Drinking Water to Prevent Dental Caries" MMWR 48(41);933-940 (1999), http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwpreview/mmwrhtml/mm4841a1.htm
Gerlach RF, de Souza AP, Cury JA, Line SR - "Fluoride effect on the activity of enamel matrix proteinases in vitro" Eur J Oral Sci 108(1):48-53 (2000)
Limeback H - "Enamel formation and the effects of fluoride" Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 22(3):144-7
Wright JT, Chen SC, Hall KI, Yamauchi M, Bawden JW - "Protein characterization of fluorosed human enamel." Dent Res 75(12):1936-41 (1996)
Shulman JD, Lalumandier JA, Grabenstein JD -"The average daily dose of fluoride: a model based on fluid consumption" Pediatr Dent 17(1):13-8 (1995)
The Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition (2000), http://www.bartleby.com/65/fl/fluorine.html
Phosphoric Acid Waste Dialogue,Report on Phosphoric Wastes Dialogue Committee, Activities and Recommendations, September 1995; Southeast Negotiation Network, Prepared by Gregory Borne for EPA stakeholders review
Government of Australia, National Pollutant Inventory, http://www.environment.gov.au/epg/npi/contextual\_info/context/fluoride.html
ATSDUSPHS - "Toxicological Profile for Fluorides, Hydrogen Fluoride and Fluorine (F)" CAS# 16984-48-8, 7664-39-3, 7782-41-4 (1993), http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts11.html
Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, Subcommittee on Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, Committee on Toxicology, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council, August 1993, p.59
World Health Organization - Fluorides and Human Health, p. 239 (1970)
Carton RJ, Hirzy JW - "Applying the NAEP code of ethics to the Environmental Protection Agency and the fluoride in drinking water standard" Proceedings of the 23rd Ann. Conf. of the National Association of Environmental Professionals. 20-24 June, 1998. GEN 51-61, http://rvi.net/fluoride/naep.htm
American Dental Association, http://www.ada.org/consumefluoride/facts/benefits.html#2
J.Colquhoun, Chief Dental Officer, NZ, International Symposium on Fluoridation, Porte Alegre, Brazil, September 1988
Proceedings, City of Orville Vs. Public Utilities Commission of the State of Carlifornia, Orville, CA, October 20-21 (1955)
AMA Council Hearing, Chicago, August 7, 1957
NTEU - "Why EPA's Headquarters Union of Scientists Opposes Fluoridation, " Prepared on behalf of the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 280 by Chapter Senior Vice-President J. William Hirzy, Ph.D. , http://www.bruha.com/fluoride/html/nteu\_paper.htm, http://www.cadvision.com/fluoride/epa2.htm
Yiamouyannis, J - "Water fluoridation and tooth decay: Results from the 1986-1987 national survey of U.S. school children" Fluoride 23:55-67 (1990). Data also analyzed by Gerard Judd, Ph.D., in:Judd G - "Good Teeth Birth To Death", Research Publications, Glendale Arizona (1997), EPA Research #2 (1994)
Teotia SPS, Teotia M -"Dental Caries: A Disorder of High Fluoride And Low Dietary Calcium Interactions (30 years of Personal Research), Fluoride, 1994 27:59-66 (1994)
Imai Y - "Study of the relationship between fluorine ions in drinking water and dental caries in Japan". Koku Eisei Gakkai Zasshi 22(2):144-96 (1972)
Steelink, Cornelius, PhD, U of AZ Chem Department, in: Chem and Eng News, Jan 27, 1992, p.2; Sci News March 5, 1994, p.159
Giambro NJ, Prostak K, Denbesten PK - "Characterization Of Fluorosed Human Enamel By Color Reflectance, Ultrastructure, And Elemental Composition" Fluoride 28:4, 216 (1995) also Caries Research 29 (4) 251-257 (1995)
Duncan WK, Silberman SL, Trubman A - "Labial hypoplasia of primary canines in black Head Start children" ASDC J Dent Child 55(6):423-6 (1988)
Silberman SL, Duncan WK, Trubman A, Meydrech EF - "Primary canine hypoplasia in Head Start children" J Public Health Dent 49(1):15-8 (1989)
Li Y, Navia JM, Bian JY -""Caries experience in deciduous dentition of rural Chinese children 3-5 years old in relation to the presence or absence of enamel hypoplasia" Caries Res 30(1):8-15 (1996)
Ellwood RP, O'Mullane D - "The association between developmental enamel defects and caries in populations with and without fluoride in their drinking water" J Public Health Dent 56(2):76-80(1996)
Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, Subcommittee on Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, Committee on Toxicology, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Commission on LifeSciences, National Research Council, August 1993 p 47-48
"The Effect of Fluorine On Dental Caries" Journal American Dental Association 31:1360 (1944)
Examples: http://ificinfo.health.org/insight/septoct97/flouride.htm; http://www.wvda.org/nutrient/fluoride.html
Barrett S, Rovin S (Eds) -"The Tooth Robbers: a Pro-Fluoridation Handbook" George F Stickley Co, Philadelphia pp 44-65 (1980)
Federal Register, 3/16/79, page 16006
Federal Register: December 28, 1995 (Volume 60, Number 249)] Rules and Regulations , Page 67163-67175 DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Food and Drug Administration, 21 CFR Part 101 Docket No. 90N-0134, RIN 0910-AA19
The Report of the Department of Health and Social Subjects, No. 41, Dietary Reference Values, Chapter 36 on fluoride (HMSO 1996). "No essential function for fluoride has been proven in humans."
"Is Fluoride an Essential Element?" Fluorides, Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 66-68 (1971)
Richard Maurer and Harry Day, "The Non-Essentiality of Fluorine in Nutrition," Journal of Nutrition, 62: 61-57(1957)
"Applied Chemistry", Second Edition, by Prof. William R. Stine, Chapter 19 (see pp. 413 & 416) Allyn and Bacon, Inc, publishers. "Fluoride has not been shown to be required for normal growth or reproduction in animals or humans consuming an otherwise adequate diet, nor for any specific biological function or mechanism."
National Center for Fluoridation Policy & Research (NCFPR) http://fluoride.oralhealth.org/
Kick CH, Bethke RM, Edgington BH, Wilder OHM, Record PR, Wilder W, Hill TJ, Chase SW - "Fluorine in Animal Nutrition" Bulletin 558, US Agricultural Experiment Station, Wooster, Ohio (1935)
US MINERALS/COMMODITIES DATABASE http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/fluorspa280396.txt
"The problem of providing optimum fluoride intake for prevention of dental caries" - Food and Nutrition Board, Division of Biology and Agriculture, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Pub.#294, (1953) ".. a person drinking fluoridated water may be assumed to ingest only about 1 milligram per day from this source ... the development of mottled enamel is, however, a potential hazard of adding fluorides to food. The total daily intake of fluoride is the critical quantity."
World Health Organization, International Drinking Water Standards, 1971."In the assessment of the safety of a water supply with respect to the fluoride concentration, the total daily fluoride intake by the individual must be considered. Apart from variations in climatic conditions, it is well known that in certain areas, fluoride containing foods form an important part of the diet. The facts should be borne in mind in deciding the concentration of fluoride to be permitted in drinking water."
Review of Fluoride Benefits and Risks, Department of Health and Human Services, p.45 (1991)
200 papers to be posted at: http://www.bruha.com/fluoride
Washington Post - "3M to pare Scotchgard products," May 16, 2000 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15648-2000May16.html
(a) FLUORIDE IN FOOD http://www.bruha.com/fluoride/html/f-\_in\_food.htm; (b) Federal Register: August 7, 1997 (Volume 62, Number 152), Notices, Page 42546-42551
Silva M, Reynolds EC - "Fluoride content of infant formulae in Australia" Aust Dent J 41(1):37-42 (1996)
Dabeka RW, McKenzie AD -"Lead, cadmium, and fluoride levels in market milk and infant formulas in Canada." J Assoc Off Anal Chem 70(4):754-7 (1987)
Pendrys DG, Katz RV, Morse DE - "Risk factors for enamel fluorosis in a fluoridated population" Am J Epidemiol 140(5):461-71(1994)
Meiers, P. - "Zur Toxizität von Fluorverbindungen, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Onkogenese", Verlag für Medizin Dr. Ewald Fischer, Heidelberg (1984)
Waldbott, GL; Burgstahler, AW; McKinney, HL - "Fluoridation:The Great Dilemma" Coronado Press (1978)
Srebnik-Friszman, S; Van der Miynsbrugge, F.-"Teneur en Fluor de quelques thØs prØlevØs sur le MarchØ et de leurs Infusions" Arch Belg Med Soc Hyg Med Trav Med Leg 33:551-556 (1976)
Rüh K - "Resorbierbarkeit und Retention von in Mineralwässern und Erfrischungsgetränken enthaltenem Fluorid bei Mensch und Laboratoriumsratte" Diss. Würzburg (1968)
Analyses conducted by Parents of Fluoride Poisoned Children (PFPC) at Gov't -approved labs. Contact: [email protected]
BabyCenter Editorial Team w/ Medical Advisory Board (http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/674.html#3)
Jenkins GN - "Fluoride intake and its safety among heavy tea drinkers in a British fluoridated city" Proc Finn Dent Soc 87(4):571-9 (1991) Department of Oral Biology, Dental School, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.
Opinya GN, Bwibo N, Valderhaug J, Birkeland JM, Lokken P - "Intake of fluoride and excretion in mothers' milk in a high fluoride (9ppm) area in Kenya" Eur J Clin Nutr 45(1):37-41 (1991) Department of Dental Surgery, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Diouf A, Sy FO, Niane B, Ba D, Ciss M - "Dietary intake of fluorine through of tea prepared by the traditional method in Senegal" Dakar Med 39(2):227-30 (1994)
Cao J, Zhao Y, Liu J - "Brick tea consumption as the cause of dental fluorosis among children from Mongol, Kazak and Yugu populations in China" Food Chem Toxicol 35(8):827-33 (1997)
Cao J, Bai X, Zhao Y, Liu J, Zhou D, Fang S, Jia M, Wu J - "The relationship of fluorosis and brick tea drinking in Chinese Tibetans" Environ Health Perspect 1996 Dec;104(12):1340-3 (1996)
Sergio Gomez S, Weber A, Torres C - "Fluoride content of tea and amount ingested by children" Odontol Chil 37(2):251-5 (1989)
Cao J, Zhao Y, Liu JW - "Safety evaluation and fluorine concentration of Pu'er brick tea and Bianxiao brick tea" Food Chem Toxicol 36(12):1061-3(1998)
Wang LF, Huang JZ- "Outline of control practice of endemic fluorosis in China."Soc Sci Med 41(8):1191-5 (1995)
Olsson B -"Dental caries and fluorosis in Arussi province, Ethiopia" Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 6(6):338-43 (1978)
Diouf A, Sy FO, Niane B, Ba D, Ciss M - "Dietary intake of fluorine through use of tea prepared by the traditional method in Senegal" DakarMed 39(2):227-30 (1994)
Fraysse C, Bilbeissi MW, Mitre D, Kerebel B - "The role of tea consumption in dental fluorosis in Jordan" Bull Group Int Rech Sci Stomatol Odontol 32(1):39-46 (1989)
Fraysse C, Bilbeissi W, Benamghar L, Kerebel B- "Comparison of the dental health status of 8 to 14-year-old children in France and in Jordan, a country of endemic fluorosis."Bull Group Int Rech Sci Stomatol Odontol 32(3):169-75 (1989)
Villa AE, Guerrero S - "Caries experience and fluorosis prevalence in Chilean children from different socio-economic status."Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 24(3):225-7 (1996)
Chan J.T.; Yip, T.T.; Jeske, A.H. - "The role of caffeinated beverages in dental fluorosis" Med Hypotheses 33(1):21-2 (1990)
Mann J, Sgan-Cohen HD, Dakuar A, Gedalia I - "Tea drinking, caries prevalence, and fluorosis among northern Israeli Arab youth."Clin Prev Dent 7(6):23-6 (1985)
Schmidt, C.W.; Leuschke, W. - "Fluoride content of deciduous teeth after regular intake of black tea" Dtsch Stomatol 40(10):441 (1990)
Press Releases/Market Figures - Tea Council http://www.stashtea.com/tt060595.htm
Struneckß, A; Patocka, J - "Aluminofluoride complexes: new phosphate analogues for laboratory investigations and potential danger for living organisms" Charles University, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Physiology and Developmental Physiology, Prague/Department of Toxicology, Purkynì Military Medical Academy, Hradec KrßlovØ, Czech Republic http://www.cadvision.com/fluoride/brain3.htm
History: Fluoride - Iodine Antagonism http://bruha.com/pfpc/html/thyroid\_history.html
Fluorides - Anti-thyroid Medication http://bruha.com/pfpc/html/thyroid\_page.html
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION PRESS RELEASE, May 25,1999 Iodine Deficiency
Miller AE, Miller TM, Viggiano AA, Morris RA, Vazn Doren JM - "Negative Ion Chemistry of SF sub 4" Journal of Chemical Physics 102(22):8865-8873 (1995)

Symptoms of Fluoride Poisoning

· Black tarry stools · Bloody vomit · Faintness · Nausea and vomiting · Shallow breathing · Stomach cramps or pain · Tremors · Unusual excitement · Unusual increase in saliva · Watery eyes · Weakness · Constipation · Loss of appetite · Pain and aching of bones · Skin rash · Sores in the mouth and on the lips · Stiffness · Weight loss · White, brown or black discoloration of teeth

Long Term Effects of Fluoride

· Accelerated aging · Immune system dysfunction · Compromised collagen synthesis · Cartilage problems · Bony outgrowths in the spine · Joint "lock-up"

G Proteins

Signals or communications from one cell to another, and from the outside of the cell to the inside, are made possible by the action of special proteins called "G" proteins, which are found in all animal life, including yeasts. G proteins are so called because they bind to guanine nucleotides, a major component of DNA and RNA. G proteins mediate the actions of neurotransmitters, peptide hormones, odorants and light. In other words, G proteins make it possible for our nervous systems to function properly and, in particular, allow for night vision and the sense of smell.

All thyroid function is mediated by G-protein activity. Both aluminum and fluoride interfere with the activation of G proteins. Thyrotropin, the thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), is considered the natural G-protein activator. Its action is mimicked by fluoride and vastly potentiated by the presence of aluminum. Pharmacologists estimate that up to 60 percent of all medicines used today exert their effects through G-protein signaling pathways. Vitamin A from cod liver oil has been used successfully to bypass blocked G-protein pathways due to vaccination damage. (See Autism and Vaccinations.)
Myristic acid, a saturated fatty acid having 14 carbons, plays an important roll in G-protein function as these signaling proteins require myristic acid added to one end of the protein. (See Kidney Fats.) Thus, diets deficient in vitamin A and saturated fats can be expected to contribute to nervous disorders and vision problems.

OBLIGATORY FILLER MATERIAL…Lights, camera, carnage!

That reminds me of a story…
OK, OK.
I know it’s been like, forever, since I posted an updated Demolition Days entry. Plus, I still have to finish the saga of how Esme and I escaped from the Middle East. However, these past few weeks really deserve their own entry.
So here it is.
So there.
Anyways…
I’m sitting in my office over betwixt the Geology and Petroleum Engineering Departments as I’m currently under contract for both.
Oh, and here’s a bit of an update: so is Esme.
Yep. She decided that she has way too much free time on her hands around campus so she’s going to go after her very own geology Ph.D. Just think, she finishes and the Rocknocker household will hold a real paradox.
Pair o’ docs…get it?
Really?
Some days it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps…
Continuing.
Khan is growing like a weed and often accompanies us to our office in the departments.
He’s been accepted by everyone as one rather large, outsized, and rambunctious Rig Dog; sort of the Geology and PE Department’s unofficial mascot. I have no lack of volunteers when it comes time for Khan’s walkies. He’s such a lovable, slobbery doofus, everyone’s kind of taken with him.
So, we’re sitting in our office, Khan wandering the halls looking for scritches and I’m working on my next article for Fuel Magazine, while also working on a fresh Greenland coffee.
“Rock”, Esme states categorically, “I’m not like you. I can’t sit and hammer a keyboard eight hours straight. I’m going to the house and start dinner. Should I take Khan home or will you bring him along later?”
“Hell if I know where he even is right now, Dear”, I reply, as Khan has wandered off again and is probably slathering over some brontosaur femur in the school’s vertebrate paleontology museum.
“Fair enough, Hon”, Es states, stands and cracks like a stack of tinder. “I don’t know how you can sit there, slurp Greenlands all day and still be able to move at night.”
“All part of being an ethanol-fueled, carbon-based organism,”, I smile back. “Plus, the more I write now, the less I’ll have to do over the holidays; so there’s that dynamic keeping me going as well.”
“OK”, she agrees, “Don’t stay too late. I’m planning on Ossobuco tonight. Can you drop by the bottle shop and pick up a nice red for dinner?”
“Chinese or Soviet?” I asked.
She simply ignored the feeble joke and told me to use my better judgment.
I was going to ask her which, but I decided to just smile and tell her I would and I’d be along in a few hours.
I’m working on some of the more unconventional aspects of a very large asset here is one of the local sedimentary basins. It’s one where they have to drill 10,000 feet deep, turn sideways and drill another 15,000 or so feet, then hydraulically fracture the living fuck out of the reservoir because it’s tighter than Dick’s hatband. Just another day in the trenches.
Suddenly, Dean of the department wanders in and fixes his own Greenland coffee from my supplies.
“Y’know Roc”, Dr. Per says, “It’s weird having a 60+-year-old doctoral candidate here.”
“Oh?”, I innocently ask, “How so, Junior?” as I’m at least 20 years his senior.
“Well, for some reason”, he continues, ignoring my comment after slurping at his soupçon, “Many people in the department have taken to keeping bottles of booze in their desks and the rate of cigar smokers around here has skyrocketed.”
“I see no obvious correlation between the two events”, I replied modestly.
“The hell you don’t”, he laughed. “You’re a perambulating bad example. You swear, you smoke, you drink and you make no bones about it.”
“That’s all very fucking true”, I snicker back, “And…?”
“And we wouldn’t have it any other way.” He laughs. “Once the news hit that you were going to be studying for your DSc here, we’ve had all sorts of inquiries. Many from prospective students, a load from the Oil Patch, and even one or two from the government, if you follow the way I’ve drifted…?”
“Oh, you mean Agents Rack and Ruin of the Agency?”, I replied, “Did you finally meet them?”
“Oh, I spoke with them months and months ago.” He explained. “But it’s the calls from Russia, China, and North Korea asking about you that gives me just the slightest bit of pause. Do you really know someone from the NKVD named ‘Olga the KGB Lady?’”
“Olga called?” I started, “And you didn’t tell me?”
Dr. Per sighs. “Damn, I knew it just had to be true. It’s too weird to be make-believe.”
“I’m the original prototype.” I smile as I drain my coffee, “A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”
“And well-read, evidently”, Dr. Per chuckles.
“Of course”, I replied. “There was something else you wanted?”
“Oh, yes.”, he replies, “We’ve got a request from the Humanities Department. There’s a bunch of fourth-year film students doing a movie. Evidently, they got a grant from some crowd out of Hollywood. Gave them a load of dosh to make their student film, which from what I understand is a cross between ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Godzilla’; but much artsier, of course.”
“Of course”, I replied.
“Anyways”, he continued, “They’re going ‘old school’, as they put it. ‘Man in rubber suit-mation’. That means detailed miniatures.”
“And…?”, I smile broadly, hoping he’ll fill in the rest.
“Explosions”, he finally says, “Lots and lots of explosions. But they need someone who’s licensed…you see where this is going. Right?”
“Let’s see”, I summarized, “They want the kindly, wizened old Dr. Rocknocker to provide the pyrotechnics for their film extravaganza?”
“Yeah, that’s it in one”, Dr. Per replies, “But remember. This is all in miniature. The pyrotechnics here are going to be seriously fractional to what you’re used to.”
“Dr. Per?” I asked, “Are you a fully licensed and tenured master blaster?”
“No,” he replies truthfully.
“Then leave the explosions to me”, I snickered.
“Gladly”, he smiles back, shakes his head in mock disbelief, and refills his Greenland coffee mug before departing.
The next day, I have several visitors from the Film Department.
Now, far be it from me to cast any sort of aspersions or bow to stereotypes, but at this particular university, we have an outsized Asian population. Which is especially weird considering the currently frosty climate here.
Decidedly most un-Asian. Not a single jungle or rice paddy to be seen.
Ahem.
No, I’m not trying to be stereotypical, or racist, just truthful. As the film crew consists entirely of Asian students. A group of mainland Chinese, one Vietnamese, a couple of Japanese, and one or two odd Koreans.
There’s Xuan Jiahao, Fan Ling, Wan Yating, Geng Zhelan, Yin Zexi, and Duan Zedong. Then there’s Nguyễn Xuân Hãn, Tatsuno Miyuki, Fukutsuchi Yoshimatsu and Ya Na-Woon, and Pang Byeong-Cheol.
And that’s just for starters.
We’re all assembled in the main conference room, and it looks like it’s going to be a multi-media spectacular. They’re going ‘Full Monty’ on us, showing us all they’ve got, figuratively speaking, to try and entice me to work with them.
Plus, they want me to do it for cheap or free. Preferably the latter.
Hell, any chance I get to blow shit up, that’s payment enough. But I’m not about to tell them that, at least, not yet.
Once we’re all settled in the conference room, I decide I’ll be the Master of Ceremonies, for at least the beginning.
“Well”, I began, “Good day and welcome to the University’s Geology and PE Department. I’m, as you already know, Dr. Rock, and I’m the one that will potentially be handling all the pyrotechnics for you during the filming of your latest epic. Please, just call me ‘Rock’, if you don’t mind. Also, please state your name or nickname before replying. Sorry, but I’m a tad bit overwhelmed with your numbers. Just for a while until I get you all in some sort of order.”
“I’m Fan, sir”, Fan Ling began, “I am the group leader here.”
“OK, Fan”, I reply, “It’s just ‘Rock’, as I’ve never been knighted. Yet. Please tell me about your project and what small part I can play.”
So, over the next three hours, several Greenland coffees and tots later, I have a pretty firm grasp on what they are setting out to do.
Gad.
They are a batch of senior year film students from around the globe, as there is another mob, sort of more behind the scenes, whom I haven’t yet met. They somehow got the attention of a bunch of big film producers in Hollywood and wrangled a fairly hefty grant from them so they can complete their picture.
It’s going to be a kaiju/superhero/animation/folklore/anime/manga mash-up of some sort or other; I really didn’t follow whatever was considered to be the plot. However, it’s going to have some pretty nifty CGI, “Suitmation” for some of the kaiju, and some incredibly ethnic superheroes; like “Sushi Man”, “Mao Man”, and “ARVN Man”.
It has elements of comedy, horror, gore, giant monsters, and miniatures; all being stomped and blown up. If one looks at the thing for a sort of skewed meta-viewpoint, it does have things to say about racism, bigotry, and prejudice today, just delivered with a soft double-tap to the head.
All in all, I can’t wait to both be a part of the flick and see the thing when it’s finished.
The trouble is, none of them have the foggiest notion of what pyrotechnics are nor how they are handled.
“Doctor, sir Rock, you can help us?” Duan asked hopefully.
“Just try and hold me back!”, I grinned widely.
They all laughed and clapped. They were happy I was on board. They were happy their movie could go ahead. They were happy they could report to their investors that they had a pyrotechnician.
I was happy I could go out and blow the living shit out of things again. Hell, it’s been almost solid months…
But first, some ground rules. If I’m going to be handling the pyros, and yes, I looked into the legality of all this. I sent off for the proper tests and accreditations, found that I was heavily overqualified, and brought into my blasting portfolio the necessary documents to be included in the credits of this mainstream extravaganza.
However, if I’m to be working on the set as a pyro wrangler, then I’m the boss. The hookin’ bull. You all know the drill. I am the Motherfucking Pro from Dover, and things that go boom are my sole bailiwick.
Everyone readily agreed as I set down some ground rules. In fact, one clear Saturday morning, I took my little crowd of lens-folk out to a local limestone quarry, which was now defunct, unfortunately.
As a bit of an aside, when I got here to university, I made myself known to the locals. I personally know every rancher, oilfield operator, and owner of sand pits, gravel pits, peach pits, limestone, granite, or serpentinite quarry. Ditto with the many farmers possessed of recalcitrant glacial erratics out in their fields of plowed Pleistocene glacial alluvium. I’ve already removed several large erratics for Farmer Bowen and in fact, his north 40 was going to be transformed into a movie set soon.
But I found some scenery that’s even better.
Nonetheless, today it’s “Let’s all get acquainted while Dr. Rock blows a lot of shit up for your education, edification, and entertainment” field trip.
We wheel the two 15-seater university vans into the old limestone quarry. I know the owner of the land, one stodgy old curmudgeon by the moniker of Augie Steinhauer. We get along famously. He doesn’t give two furry rat’s asses what I do out in this old quarry; as long as I keep him in the loop.
“However, Dr. Rock”, he says to me the other day over shots and beers I brought with to smooth the way, “If you could prune up that jagged east wall, I’d be most appreciative. My damned blighted fool of a brother-in-law goes in there to try and find crystals; and some moron sold him dynamite. I’m afraid that bonehead’s gonna bring down that entire east wall on his fuckin’ noggin. Plus, I could use a couple-few yards of gravel as well, if you know what I mean…”
“Sure, Augie”, I say as I lean over and hand him a lighter for the Cuban he filched out of my vest pocket. “Next Saturday, I’ll clean up that east wall and make a bunch of little ones out of big ones for you.”
I continued with the movie angle and he sort of glazed off into the ether. He wasn’t concerned with movies, but he desperately wanted a pond out back where he could water his herds of horses and dairy cows.
“OK, Augie”, I say, “Here’s the deal. You let me and the kids shoot their movie out on the south pasture, particularly on the oxbow in Steinhauer Creek you’ve got over there.”
An oxbow is a really tight bend in a river, creek, or brook. This one out in the south pasture covered about an acre or so, about equal to 43,560 square feet, 160 square rods, or 4.25x10^-30 square parsecs. One acre is equivalent to 0.4047 hectares (4,047 square metres).
A nice size for a stock pond.
However, it was currently occupied by an unruly acre of sand, gravel, sneezewort, itchweed, and crawdads. Which was just the right place for all the miniatures to be placed and have some of the Suitmation guys go a-stomping.
See? Everyone benefits.
So, back to the quarry and I’ve brought along a traveling case of some of my more usual and unusual noisemakers.
Of course, I’ve got dynamite. I also have some home-brew nitro, complete with my special additive that makes it 75% less twitchy and 100% just as boomy. I’ve got PETN, RDX, a little gelignite, some Seismogel, a couple of different binaries, some C-4, of course, and all the adjuncts: Primacord, caps, superboosters, demo wire, my galvanometer, and Captain America with the big, shiny, red button.
Just the necessities, don’t ya’ know?
So, as usual, everyone in the quarry is wearing their PPEs, which I insisted upon and also which they thought were very cool and were destined to make it into the film one way or another.
I had set up a folding table with my traveling case, and a huge sign which read in great garish red letters, “BLASTING ZONE : HAPPY HOUR 1400-1800 HOURS”.
I let folks mill around and get the feel of a quarry. I pointed out some hazards, like loose rocks, talus slopes, and the occasional irritated rat, badger, and weasel.
They thought it was all great fun to be in the wide-open outdoors with some gonzo chap who wandered around wearing a very cool, highly polished aluminum hardhat, smoking a huge cigar, and wearing field boots, shorts, field vest, and a Hawaiian shirt in -3^0C weather.
I called the meeting to order and decided on some small demonstrations.
Blasting caps go “Pop”. Caps and super boosters go “BLAM”, Primacord goes “ZZZZIZIP! KERPOWIE!” and C-4 makes quarry walls echo and people’s ears ring.
However, before all this, I got their universal attention and ran through the usual pre-blast folderol.
I told them how to clear the compass.
North? CLEAR! And all that.
I told them how to look for any sort of organic lifeform that might be in danger’s path when the blast was initiated.
I told them all about “Look once, look twice. Then look again.”
I showed them the blaster’s airhorn and how it blares.
Then I told them all about “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”
With that, I explained we were good to go and I hit Captain America’s big, shiny, red button.
A 12-ton block of dolomitic limestone was rapidly and noisily reduced to a couple of cubic meters of nicely shattered high-magnesium limestone gravel.
I accepted applause munificently.
They were all scribbling like mad when I showed them the difference between 60% Extra Fast dynamite and 40% regular stick. They oohed! And ahhed!
When I set off a 2-kilo charge of C-4 to prune that east wall of the quarry, and like Shaka, the walls fell; they whooed.
They kept writing and asking for more demonstrations.
So, I took this as the opportunity to go big or go home.
Next was a solid 3-kilos of PETN. Great for really good vibrations. I gave them excitations…
Then, RDX, or “Torpedo-charge”. I decided to spread it around and clean up the talus slope at the foot of the east wall. With a couple of pounds of liquid binaries, I pruned that east wall back about 2 or three meters. Now, Mr. Steinhauer will have all the gravel he needs for some time to come.
Finally, the finale. I ran some primacord around an old, dead jack pine that’s been giving me the metaphorical red-ass since it’s always one way or another in my way. I placed some of my special nitro concoction around the base of its dead roots interwoven, bifurcating, and anastomosing through the cracks, fissures, and fractures of the dolomitic limestone.
Funny enough, 60 seconds later, that old jack pine was gone, as were its roots and the stranglehold it had on hanging a hard right turn and getting equipment to the backside of the quarry.
The crowd went wild.
I packed most everything up and was ready for Q&A time.
“Dr. Rock!”, Nguyễn asked, “Those were great effects. Can you make them smaller?”
“You know, no one’s ever asked me that before, “ I admitted in full Burt Gummer mode, “Sure. I suppose I could.”
“Can you show us?” he asked.
“I’m a little uncertain what you want me to do.”, I replied, “Smaller explosions? Why?”
“Oh, our miniatures”, he responded, “And our actors in the suits…”
“Of course”, I said, realization hitting, “But, I think it would be better to use bigger explosions and just add them in post-processing, don’t you? Little explosions have such a tinny sound to them. It really makes the effect look really cheesy.”
There was a lot of conversation and I realized that I was only the pyrotechnician, not the film producer. It’s their show, so I should do what they want, right?
In the end, it was decided to try both. We’d meet the next day out in the south pasture oxbow and they’d bring along their cameras, suit guy, and some miniatures. We’d blow them up as they thought; with little, itty-bitty explosions, then, afterward, we’d set off some proper blasts. They’d film them in slow motion, or fast motion, I forget which, but whatever, they’d run it eventually at normal speed and it would look all that much more momentous.
It’s all jargon and gobbledygook to me. I’ll make big booms. I’ll make little booms. Just tell me where and when.
So the next day, there’s a mocked-up generic city on the sand of the oxbow. Some guy in a pseudo-Godzilla suit, complete with shiny back fins, was going to stomp his way through town. They wanted smoke. They wanted explosions. The wanted fire. But they wanted it all in miniature.
Where’s the fun in that?
It was a bit of a wiring clusterfuck, but some balloons filled with gasoline, some with acetylene and some mighty light blasting caps later, we're ready for some test rolls.
Fakezilla starts stomping his way down the mini-avenue. Crunch goes one model car and I flick a switch. Flame erupts from the smooshed car and there’s a cheery little pop as the mini’s gas tank explodes. A model train gets derailed into a fuel depot and I had a pretty good time, in spite of myself, setting off a load of little charges.
POP!
PTWEU!
KER-pow!
All very cinematic and fake, if you asked me.
Then, there’s the finale of the scene where the monster is herded into a cul-de-sac of high rises by the wildly firing military. All the huge skyscrapers are blasted at their base to fall inward and bury the poor, misunderstood monster under huge piles of building rubble.
Those scenes were in the can, as it were, so we reset the set, as it were, with my take on what explosions and fire should really look like.
We watched the rushes on one screen and as the monster virtually trampled the buildings again, I set off my charges.
OK, a gallon of 100-octane flight fuel was a wee bit much perhaps, but damn, that lens flare of the refinery going up would have done J.J. Abrams proud.
I used superboosters, C-4, and primacord around the base of the skyscrapers and set them off one after another. I had timed it so they would first go into slow-motion explosions, then all about meet halfway and well, let gravity take the rest onto the monster to bury him; at least until the next scene.
They had to admit, the acoustics were much better with my explosions. They decided to go for a mixture of miniature explosions, primarily for close-ups, and my explosions, run in slow motion in the film, for the general carnage and destruction establishing shots and slightly more distant scenes.
The grand finale of the movie was the total destruction of the city, much to the alarm and remorse of the creature as well as all the inhabitants of Mini-City, SE Asia. They wanted total destruction. An ‘Age of Ultron’ finale-sort of blowing up the entire city and putting it into low earth orbit.
Which would work out well with my creation of a stock pond for the landowner.
I called in a few markers and had some of the geology department, who wanted some time drilling, to bring the VibraCore unit out to the Steinhauer place and meet me at the south 40 pasture.
We took several VibraCore cores cross-sectioning that classic oxbow. We extracted the 15-meter long cores and properly laid them into the appropriate core boxes.
We had great core recovery numbers, over 98%. I told them to leave the thin aluminum pipe sleeves in the oxbow as I was going to need that next week. The aluminum pipe had a wall thickness of slightly more than industrial-grade tinfoil, but since we buzzed them down some 45 feet or so, they’d serve as very useful conduits for the AFNO I planned to have pumped into the ground over the next couple of days.
Some of the guys in one or another of the oilfield service companies owed me a favor or 12 and had some leftover AFNO from a couple of jobs that screened out. Knowing how much of a pain in the ass the paperwork is for returning unused explosives, they naturally turned to me and asked if I wanted any part of it.
I sent them maps and specific details of what I needed to be done. The AFNO was to be cut to slurry grade so it would flow easier; basically, all they needed to do was add a bit of extra diesel. Then, they could just hook up a Coflexip hose and pump the slurrified explosive down one or more of the 4 aluminum pipes that we had vibrated down to clay level.
This worked a treat, as the first truck, and only one I had thought, pumped away over 1,500 pounds of AFNO.
Told me “It flowed like melted butter”.
So much so, that back at base, word got around that I was hosting a home for wayward explosives. Over the next week, no less than 6 trucks had come over to Mr. Steinhauer’s south pasture and emptied the remnant slurries out of their tank trucks.
Free explosives! All well and good, but I was pleased with the first bill of lading. The second was not too terribly disconcerting. The third, fourth, and fifth gave me pause. By number seven, my calculator was having a meltdown as I realized they had pumped over 8,500 pounds of ANFO away and it was all sitting there waiting for an initiator.
Luckily, the oxbow was basically an acre-wide bowl or more precisely, basin, first lined with nicely impermeable clay. Filling that is was the 50 or so vertical feet of fine fluvial sands, gravels, and conglomerates. So, through thorough testing, I found that no ANFO had leaked out of the closed oxbow, but I was still standing on 4.5 tons of deflagrating explosive.
Now AFNO may be a crackerjack explosive, but it’s lazy as hell. It needs one hell of a good short, sharp shock to initiate. As I noted, it’s a deflagrating, not detonating, explosive. I told my film guys that there was a “fair amount” of explosives under the place where the set was to be placed and where filming of the finale was going to happen.
They decided that if I said it was safe, then they could take that to the bank. There really was no danger, it’s not like they’re tromping around on nitro or anything so twitchy. Still, I made certain to shield all the smaller explosions at the surface just to be extra sure. Sheets of corrugated tin floored the set, so we were doubly insulated from any untoward accidents.
The shoot of the almost-finale went off without a hitch. Buildings were destroyed, refineries were blown up, there were cars stomped and trains derailed. It was all filmed with multiple cameras, multiple types of cameras: slow-motion, thermal, high definition, and the like.
They were shooting hundreds of miles equivalent of whatever the hell they store film on nowadays. We all sat in the gazebo that had been set-up off-site so we could review the rushes and re-film any scenes that didn’t quite come up to snuff.
There were a couple of scenes that needed some re-dos, but now the set was mooshed well and proper, now they needed to be really blown the fuck up so we can proceed right to the ultimate shot where I set off the AFNO.
Before that, but after filming some smaller explosions in the ersatz city, I instructed everyone to get back.
Way back.
I had them set up cameras at 1 kilometer.
I had them set up cameras at 500 meters.
I had them set up unmanned cameras 50 meters from the oxbow.
They groused, the bitched, and they kvetched; but they listened.
I went over the safety dance with the whole crew right after lunch and before any of them took off for distant locales. I impressed upon them that this was going to be a one-hit-wonder.
There are no re-takes.
“But Dr. Rock”, Fukutsuchi asked me, “Why not?”
“Several reasons, Mr. Yoshimatsu”, I replied, “Chief among them is that it’s going to be a huge explosion and by this time tomorrow, the only thing left of the set will be a lake.”
“Oh, jolly joke Dr. Rock!”, he replies, not realizing that I was quite serious.
“Live and learn, Herr Yoshimatsu”, I mused quietly to myself.
We spent the next couple of hours filming some small, infill explosions. Since we had some time to waste while the director waited for the ‘perfect time, right when the sun eclipsed the treetops’, the guys out on the remote cameras were getting antsy.
“Camera 1 to base! Camera 1 to base! Systems status. What’s happening?” came a frantic call.
“Base to Camera 1, hold your water. It’ll be a little while.” Came the response.
“Camera 2 to base. I need relief, right now. Can’t wait.” Came another frantic call.
“Base to camera 2. Use the pucklebrush 20 meters to your north. Then get back on camera!” Came the exasperated reply.
“Camera 3 to base! Camera 3 to base! I’m being attacked by cows. What should I do?”
“Relax. Guernsey cows aren’t carnivores. Give them a good tip and be ready to roll!” came our reply.
Novices.
Finally, time and tide aligned and the director decided it was showtime. After radio checks and to ensure Camera 3 wasn’t consumed by an errant Black Angus or Hereford, everyone was ready and rolling.
“3…2…1…Firing!”
“Well, that was different”, I replied once I found the director and disinterred him.
Seems that Late Pleistocene clays are a great refractory material. The 4.5 tons of ANFO went off without a hitch. A good portion of the blast energy went up. A bit went sideways, but a fair amount went down, struck the impermeable clay layer, and rebounded upward with a newfound zeal.
In other words, there was a smoking crater left that measured some 10 or so meters deep and with a nominal diameter of approximately 27 meters.
Great huge throbbing clouds of sand, gravel, and creek mud were thrown, well, one fuck of a large distance from ground zero. Camera 1 at one kilometer distant reported dodging high-velocity dirt clods immediately after the explosion.
Fully 21 cameras caught the explosion from an amazing number of angles and in a variety of styles. Infrared, false color, high-speed, 3-D…the whole Megilla.
The director was incredibly excited once his hearing returned. He was in the gazebo, once we unburied it and set it up again, seems they can’t handle shock waves worth a shit.
However, he was slavering over the footage the different cameras had recovered.
“This will be great for the finale! We can use this shot here, and cut to the infrared, then cut over to …” and so on and so on.
I pulled out a flask, took a healthy tot, and sparked a fresh cigar.
“Yeah. It was a good gig.” I muttered to no one in particular.
I was pleased to see that Mr. Steinhauer’s pond was already filling. Should be good for rock bass and crappie by spring.
So, we packed everything up, replaced some of our smaller divots and headed back to our normal lives. Me at the Geology/PE Department and them at the Humanities ward or wherever the hell these characters hang out.
A few days later, I get a call. Seems that a letter had arrived for me via the Film Department.
Would I want them to bring it to my office?
“Sure”, I replied, “I’m here all day”.
A short while later, Ya, Pang, and Geng drop by and present me a letter, handwritten, all the way from Hollywood, California.
I zip the envelope open and see it’s on the stationary of one of the larger, meaning that I’ve actually heard of it, production companies out there on the Whack Coast.
The letter, in brief, was thanking me for my participation in the student’s film. The author of the letter said he was particularly impressed with the “reality” and “impressive results” of the practical pyrotechnic effects; particularly the film’s finale.
“Well, that’s nice”, I smiled quietly to myself.
Then I read the closing comments.
“We are looking into getting our pyrotechnicians blaster’s permits and having them spend some time in local oilfields.”
Guess my reputation precedes me here as well.
“We are also looking into what brands of vodka and cigars are preferred there in [redacted state].
Very truly yours,
James F. Cameron.”

Sidebar Feature of the Week: The Western Environmental Law Center

I Read It So You Don't Have To: Class with the Countess (by LuAnn de Lesseps)

After my most recent adventure through the topsy-turvy mind of Kelly Bensimon in I Can Make You Hot!, it seems only fitting that my next literary endeavor provides a complementary perspective on self-improvement from another of RHONY's most erudite minds. That's right -- I extend to you all a most cordial invitation to join me as I master the fine art of manners with the queen of compunction herself, Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, in her debut literary work, Class with the Countess: How to Live with Elegance and Flair.
Looking at the book's cover, I immediately feel a warm sense of reassurance as my eyes light upon the weighty gold chain hanging pendulously off of LuAnn's neck, a dozen jewel-toned baubles dangling haphazardly and drawing my attention away from the slight hint of cleavage exposed by her fitted salmon scoop-neck. It is 2009 again, and I am eager to return -- at least for the next 258 pages -- to a simpler time. A time when the Black Eyed Peas reigned, a year when the VMAs were Kanye's biggest controversy, an era when LuAnn de Lesseps was still rightfully titled with her well-deserved Countess honorific.
And possibly a time before the invention of sarcasm, if this quote on the back cover gives any indication. It would take a lot to convince me that this review was given with anything less than complete ironic disdain. I could have copied it word-for-word into my own book report and no one would have been the wiser.

"Being an extremely low-born and gauche person, I rely heavily on the Countess for tips on good manners and etiquette. She has also taught me how to be more sassy and alluring." -- Simon Doonan, author of Eccentric Glamour

A hearty cheers to you, Simon Doonan, although it feels a bit unsettling to be shown up so early in my journey. Nevertheless, I must admit that I'm eager to learn how I myself can become more sassy and alluring, so I open to the Introduction ("How Does a Countess Come to Be on Reality TV?") and begin to read. LuAnn begins by sharing with us the reason she felt so compelled to write the volume I hold before me:

Since the first season of The Real Housewives of New York City began to air, I have been deluged with e-mails and letters asking my advice on everything from what to wear to knowing what to say, from table manners to how to radiate confidence.

I steadfastly refuse to believe that there is even one single person in the world who wrote out the question "How do I radiate confidence?" on a physical piece of paper and proceeded to the nearest mailbox to mail that letter to the only person they believed could possibly answer the enclosed query with any modicum of finesse, the inimitable Countess LuAnn de Lesseps. Let alone anything close to a "deluge" of them. But I digress.
LuAnn promises that she will share with us her "distinctive advice on how to navigate our sometimes rude world with elegance," but first explains briefly how she came to be the reality TV megastar she is today. As someone who has "always been daring and adventurous," LuAnn needed little convincing when Jill Zarin suggested she might be interested in filming. She explains her most compelling motivation as such:

First, I wanted the history of the de Lesseps family to be better known in the United States. They are so respected in Europe and little known here. From building the Suez Canal to presenting the Statue of Liberty to the United States for the French, their international contributions have been exemplary and deserve more recognition in my own country.

LuAnn continues by bemoaning that "we are constantly assaulted by offensive, coarse, selfish behavior." Examples of this brazen incivility include such unimaginable horrors as "the enthusiastic chewing of gum in public" and "the sight of jeans and running shoes at the theater or opera." As one might expect from someone who has endured such torment and come out the other side standing tall, our author assures us that her tale "is an entertaining and, I hope, inspiring story." We are reminded once again that LuAnn attributes her success to "my penchant for being daring and open to new possibilities," and she briefly opines about how delightful Italy is, because "even young boys knew how to appreciate a woman." With a few concluding words ("I hope that imparting the experiences and lessons I have learned will help you to live a richer, more satisfying life -- one animated by a profound joie de vivre."), we finish the Introduction and begin Part One: "The Art of Being Yourself (in Any Situation)."
LuAnn thoughtfully begins the chapter with photographic proof of her qualifications -- specifically, this nonchalant snapshot of our good-taste guru "being myself in Capri." She remarks, in a passage titled "Confidence is the Key,"

I have to confess: I was born confident. Being a shrinking violet was never my style.

As someone with a clinically diagnosed anxiety disorder, I feel confident endorsing the utility of the following cutting-edge tips that LuAnn offers up as "Quick Confidence Boosters:"

Reminder: No one is perfect.

Don't take yourself too seriously.

Pump yourself up with positive thinking.

I wish I'd purchased this book two years ago -- I could have saved a boatload in therapy bills. But at this point, all I can do is move forward, committed to gleaning every pearl of wisdom from the tome before me (ugh, I still can't use the word tome without thinking of Simon van Kempen).
We cheerily follow LuAnn back to a story of a trip to Italy, where she met a handsome Italian man -- "like a Roman god." She continues: "we became close friends, and eventually he was my lover." A few paragraphs later, we return once more to Italy, where LuAnn wins the "Lady Universe" pageant and changes the course of her life forever. As she reflects:

I was no longer just LuAnn, I was Lady Universo! Believe it or not, this is what opened up the door for me in Europe, because the moment you have a title, any title, you are in.

It is both hilarious and entirely on-brand that LuAnn de Lesseps would gallivant around Europe calling herself a "lady" after winning a bootleg beauty pageant without, I'm sure, bothering to correct anyone who might just happen to accidentally get the wrong idea and assume she had some sort of noble heritage. Regardless, she soon got roles as a background model in a series of Italian TV shows. She recalls:

The Italians adopted me as their own. Everybody just loved the American girl. They loved showing me the ropes and expressed their enthusiasm openly. They were introducing me to everything and everybody. I'd get my derrière pinched on the bus.

My impulse to interpret this as sexual harassment (at the very least!) is clearly just a sign that I am not yet classy enough to understand the world as accurately as the Countess, and for her guidance I remain eternally grateful. Proving her cutthroat savvy, she continues her Italian saga by unceremoniously dropping her first boyfriend when "Roberto Gancia" comes along. Roberto "had a higher level of sophistication," by which LuAnn means he was very old and incomprehensibly wealthy.
The anecdote concludes and we move into another section, titled "Be Curious and Learn from Everything and Everyone." As LuAnn tells us:

I have always suspected that my profound respect for older people derives from my Native American roots. Elders are so important in Native American culture.

She also hints at her cabaret future to come with a remark that "I also love to sing -- Bette Midler comes to mind -- all kinds of music from cabaret to country rock." I suppose we should just be grateful that LuAnn didn’t pursue a Country Rock career (or perhaps disappointed?).
I'm impressed, reading the following passage, by LuAnn's dogged refusal to admit to having done anything wrong ever, even in a hypothetical scenario. As she explains;

The motivating principle in my life is to take chances without fear or hesitation. Jump on the train or you'll miss it. I live that way. I've taken chances and followed my instincts. Nothing exciting would have happened to me if I had been timid and afraid. I'd probably still be living in Connecticut. And you know what? I'd still be happy, because I choose to be.

LuAnn doesn't let us go long without another reminder of how valuable her ancestry has proven to be: "An instinctive ability to observe closely is another quality that I attribute to my Native American heritage." She rounds out the chapter by listing some of her charity efforts, described with the bizarrely stilted phrase, "we help with the orphans of Myanmar."
The next chapter ("What's Outside") opens with this picture, from LuAnn's modeling days, that I'm actually super into, as well as a description of what it means to be elegant. Perhaps I'm biased after so recently reading Kelly's book-length fever dream about HOTness, but I find the following passage comfortingly coherent:

Elegance means handling all aspects of your life with self-confidence and aplomb. Elegance has no shelf life or expiration date. Elegance is a quality that does not age. It is an aura that enchants those around you, regardless of your stage in life or your station.

LuAnn gives the personally horrifying advice that "you should start with a full-length mirror and an unforgiving magnifying mirror for your face," which is guidance I know myself well enough to only take if I would like to wake up tomorrow having fruitlessly tried to extrude every whitehead, blackhead, and hint of a pore from my tortured face. I would hazard a guess LuAnn does not have this problem, as she proceeds to make an offhanded comment about "why I love mirrors in elevators" (because she loves to look at herself, she clarifies for the confused). I can almost picture her coyly winking as she delivers the rule, "Lingerie is visible…only if you want it to be."
We are next treated to a bit of diet advice, in which LuAnn confesses:

I like the Blood Type Diet, because I think that each person actually is a carnivore or an herbivore. Since I'm Type O, I need more meat and my body craves it.

I'm somehow not even surprised that LuAnn self-identifies as a carnivore. Between this and KKB's personal definition of what "organic" should mean, I'm quickly losing hope for the nutritional savvy of the eastern seaboard. She also gives the following piece of confounding wisdom…

Try not to drink while eating -- not even water -- because digestion begins in the mouth.

…before telling us about how yoga has "saved [her] from the effects of a traumatic experience." The traumatic experience in question is a terrifying car wreck with her children, which I can only imagine would send anyone into distress. Of course, only a ingenue with LuAnn's caliber of social circle would get in such an accident while on the way "to celebrate Elle Macpherson's son's birthday in Gstaad." Alas, we must find a way to be content with our own lots in life nevertheless.
Ever the generous soul, LuAnn remarks:

If I had one wish -- after world peace and an end to poverty -- it would be for a hair and makeup person every single day.

She also gives the less-financially-privileged among us thoughtful advice about choosing "a more modest salon" or buying supersized beauty products "at the price clubs." After which she immediately proceeds to deliver the following painfully unhip line..

My break-dancing son would call it do-rag [sic] style. I call it my style.

…and promptly erodes this goodwill. She also refers to blush as "blusher," which I can only assume she's doing on purpose to sound more sophisticated and/or European. I catch myself getting more irritated than I have any right to be about the fact that LuAnn correctly stylizes the brand "Lancôme," then promptly abandons the very notion of a diacritical mark by the time "Lancome" is mentioned two pages later.
As we begin Chapter 3 ("Fashion and Style"), LuAnn immediately informs us that dressing for television is a special challenge:

For example, the tailored white shirt that is a staple for me would not vibrate on TV.

She encourages us to wear more vests ("I love vests and don't think they are used enough"), as well as to purchase "an outerwear jacket that's a cross between a biker jacket and a blazer." She unsurprisingly notes that she likes "cocktail rings and big-statement necklaces," and tells us her favorite hair ornament is "a silk flower, because they never get stale and they add a touch of drama." A list of fashion faux pas includes "Pale-Leg Syndrome" and "leggings or no leggings" (which doesn’t seem to be a faux pas so much as a set of two possible situations, but who am I to judge?).
In a unintentionally poetic line, LuAnn encourages the reader to wear low-rise thongs or panties because "we live in a low-rise society." She also gives cryptic advice to add "a witty evening purse" to jazz up a plain outfit, rounding out the first part of the book. With LuAnn's alluring silhouette guiding the way, we proceed to Part Two: "The Art of Making Other People Comfortable."
We are treated to another cheeky nod to LuAnn's imminent cabaret stardom, as she shares the following joke with the titillated remark, "being just a little bit naughty often has great appeal."

Why don't condoms come in black?
…because they make you look too thin.

She next tells us "how to make an entrance," and, to be perfectly honest, I have trouble imagining someone consciously acting through the following steps and coming off as anything but heart-wrenchingly pathetic. But I'll let you decide:

Smile and pause for just a moment. Take a deep breath to bring light into your eyes. Let your eyes sweep the room and make eye contact when possible. Chances are someone will come up to greet you. If not, who cares?
If no one greets you, enter the room in a purposeful way. It's all about vitality. If you are utterly delighted to be there, I assure you that people will take notice.

The chapter continues with LuAnn's condemnations of contemporary society and its myriad ills:

People have lost sight of the fact that some rules make life easier. "Anything goes" has resulted in an abundance of unattractive, selfish behavior that assaults our senses. The wince factor is getting higher every day.

She informs us that anyone with any sense of politeness should stand when someone is being introduced "unless you're attached to an IV," then suggests that we smooth over any awkward introductions with the inane line, "How did you pronounce your name? You say it so much better than I do." On the issue of "traditional gallant courtesies," LuAnn quips, "Why not be put on a pedestal?" Indeed, as she breezily continues, "men essentially want to please you."
A section titled "Manners on the Move" informs the reader that they can make a New York City taxi driver laugh by "[asking] him to take you to Switzerland." I can only begin to imagine how utterly knee-slapping the Manhattan cab driver community finds these kind of kooky one-liners.
At this point in my reading, I'm starting to wish I'd kept a list of the times LuAnn starts a sentence with "There is nothing worse than…" In this particular example, "there is nothing worse than the tension of bill time," but I'm positive I've already read the phrase at least a dozen times in recent memory. Before I can reflect further, however, we're on to Chapter 5 ("The Art of Conversation"), which begins with this candid snap of a savvy, on-the-go LuAnn going about her day as the epitome of effortless elegance that she is. She offers a few "fail-proof opening lines," as conversation starters, such as:

Did you get hooked on The Real Housewives of New York City? I hear they are working on another season.

…as well as a few exceptionally subtle "half-truths" to help squeak your way out of a sticky situation.

The floral pattern is beautiful, but it's so bold it makes a big statement.

The curry was so exotic. That yogurt sauce was a perfect balance to the spiciness. That was so clever of you.

She goes on to tell us that she dislikes "bad gossip," which I interpret to mean "gossip about her," before treating her readers to the story of meeting her now-husband, Alexandre Counte de Lesseps -- at a dinner party in Gstaad. She recalls, "I had met princes and princesses and an occasional king, but I had yet to encounter a count." The anecdote quickly segues into a list of dining manners, customs, and preferences. For example:

Big napkins are so chic -- for me, the bigger the napkin, the more elegant the occasion.

LuAnn goes on to provide further details on her "passion" for the napkin and its associated arts, before dropping the single most rich-people-are-wild fact of the book thus far:

I have been to opulent dinners in Europe at which each guest had a liveried servant standing behind his chair to attend to his needs.

LuAnn next guides us on what to do if "crumbs fly" while we are breaking off a piece of bread: clean them up "nonchalantly, not as if you are a busboy or waiter." Again, I assume that I would understand what this means, were I only more elegant. She also warns us of the perils associated with taking inappropriate measures to clean up a spill:

Don't try to sop up red wine with your white napkin. Ask for help. You don't want to get the reputation as "the spotter" -- you'll never get invited again.

It's just like they always say: every friend group has a spotter. And if you don't know who that spotter is, it's probably you.
LuAnn describes her "chalet" in Switzerland, as well as the profound sense of joy she found in her surroundings:

I would often sit in the middle of the living room and relish the beauty of all the things that surrounded me. It gave me a warmth and tingle inside.

I, too, have previously been brought to orgasm by a particularly fine piece of antique furniture, so I find this sentiment relatable. LuAnn next works in another nugget of unabashed self-promotion by suggesting that we grab some friends and host a party to celebrate "a Real Housewives of New York City marathon."
A few selected tidbits to make sure your next soirée is as elegant as possible:

Make sure stacks of cocktail napkins are available. Coasters are for amateurs and the uptight.

If you don't have a DJ, iPod compilations are great.

It's nice to have fresh flowers or a single rose in the bathroom.

Sure, if you'd like your bathroom to look like the castle tower from Beauty and the Beast. Otherwise, having a single red rose in your bathroom seems like something a college boy with brown sheets would do to seem romantic. We are next treated to a peek behind the curtain with LuAnn's account of one of her most humiliating moments:

Taking your shoes off can be embarrassing -- and it happened to me. I arrived at a party to find that I was expected to leave my shoes at the door. No one had told me. The nail polish on one toe was badly chipped. I got resourceful, slipped away to the restroom, and covered that toe with a Band-Aid I had in my purse. I'm glad they were the nude kind and not Mickey Mouse.

I would truly never be able to show my face again! Continuing on with general social advice, LuAnn reminds us "you have to pick and choose your fiestas." Also, with regards to tactical untruths about your plans for an evening, "be careful. You don't want to be caught in a lie. Duck if you see a photographer!" She also provides a list of ideas for hostess gifts, only one of which actually matters at all:

The complete The Real Housewives of New York City on DVD

I absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt believe that LuAnn gives people boxed DVD collections of her own reality show as hostess gifts, and I refuse to sway on this issue. A "checklist for the perfect guest" includes tips such as:

Participate enthusiastically in any activities suggested by the host -- party games and singing come to mind.

and

Don't change place cards or seating arrangements at a dinner -- and get caught.

The next chapter focuses on raising well-mannered children, a topic on which LuAnn requires minimal guidance (Victoria, for example, always "[seemed] older than her years"). She does, however, provide a list of "manners for playdates" written directly to a young child -- "Say hello to the adult in charge." -- presumably on the off-chance that a particularly conscientious eight year old might have stumbled into Class with the Countess unawares. How prescient!
The following passage makes me feel particularly sorry for anyone in the wider social circle of LuAnn de Lesseps:

If you can manage to keep gum out of the hands of your children, do it. Bovine chewing is really obnoxious. I was at a party with the daughter of a friend who was chewing away. I could barely stand to be next to her. Gritting my teeth, I said to her, "I don't allow my daughter to chew gum in most places. She just can't handle it. I know all girls do it, but it's better to chew gum in the car alone with the closest of family." Guess what? She took that gum out of her mouth, realizing her chewing was out of control.

If my interest in this book had waned at all, it is instantly restored as I turn the page and am greeted with this image of a sultry LuAnn de Lesseps introducing Part Three: "The Art of Seduction." I'm glad to have someone like LuAnn at the helm of this particular ship, as I'm confident she will share her unedited thoughts on the issues at hand. For instance,

I know this is a controversial statement, but I believe there are not enough Betty Boops in this world.

Revolutionary! As she continues, "when you go to the office, don't look like a man." I appreciate this advice, and have since taken the time to sew a flirty pink tutu around the waistline of my lab coat to more accurately signify my feminine wiles. But of course, before you can seduce and ensnare your target, you must find a man in the first place. Where, you may ask?

Tech shops -- damsel in distress

Long plane trips -- business and first class are the best

Upscale men's stores -- discuss ties

And if you're particularly devoted? "Consider changing your career to urban real estate."
A list of questions to ask yourself "before you make too much of an effort" includes such assorted queries as

Is he truly single?

and

Do you have to fight him for the mirror?

LuAnn goes on to inform us that:

Men are fascinated if you seem to intuit things about them. Maybe knowing his sign in astrology will give you some insight into his character. Know before you go. Google is a lifesaver.

She sprinkles in tidbits about everything from how best to leave after a one-night stand ("You could leave a note -- maybe lipstick on the bathroom mirror" ) to how to break up with someone ("Don't send an e-mail."), to how to handle a breakup with grace ("If you cry, it's okay. There is nothing wrong with making him feel guilty!"). She also recounts a time when she dressed up "like a Moroccan princess" to surprise and seduce her then-husband, the Count, before ending with advice to "leave a trail of candy and lacy lingerie up the stairs and to the boudoir for your husband to find when he returns from a business trip." I'm trying to imagine what my boyfriend would do if he came home, exhausted after a business trip, only to be met by a haphazard trail of goopy, half-melted Twix bars leading down the hallway. I can't imagine it's exactly what LuAnn had in mind.
LuAnn informs us that every morning, as soon as she gets up, she brushes her teeth and applies blush (not blusher this time!) before leaving her bedroom. She adds cryptically, "I think I have French blood -- Canadian, that is." The subsequent advice to "try to do one nice thing a day for your partner" strikes me as vaguely concerning, in the same way as people who describe their ideal partner as "honest." If I get to the point in my relationship where I need a conscious reminder to even attempt to be moderately decent to my partner at least once over the course of a twenty-four hour period, I can only hope I'll admit it's time to throw in the towel. As LuAnn continues, "Every day I try to thank Alex for something, no matter how mundane it might be. He loves it." Shocking, that someone would enjoy having their efforts acknowledged. As always, our Countess is an empath to the extreme.
More advice to keep your man happy? "Don’t criticize him." Presumably ever, under any circumstances, which seems only reasonable to me. LuAnn then suggests treating your partner like a puppy in obedience school, which I'm sure some people find highly erotic:

Make a fuss whenever he does anything thoughtful or romantic. If he sees that something he's done has made you happy, he'll do it again.

The next section begins with the line, "Your partner is not your girlfriend." I can't wait until someone finally tells LuAnn about lesbians!!
She continues with a lesson about how men are simple and practical and women are complicated and hysterical. As we all know:

Most men's idea of torture is having to listen to women chatter away amongst themselves…So don't torment your husband by going on about how you are feeing, why you are angry, or how to deal with a problem in great detail.

I want to snark on this, but honestly, it just makes me sad. Imagine having such terrible men in your life that not a single one has ever listened to you talk about something you love with anything less than utter disdain? If my boyfriend made me think, even for a moment, that it was "torment" to listen to me share my feelings about the day, I would bundle all four of my cats under my arms and bolt right out the door to embrace my inner independent Cat Lady with all appropriate haste. But LuAnn continues:

Men really are different, and it should be that way.

For example:

Forget yoga class. There is a reason the class is filled with women; men can't stretch the way women can.

Unfortunately, I don't think LuAnn is open to hearing a treatise on the plethora of cultural factors that result in certain pastimes being unnecessarily gendered and subsequently diminished under the scrutiny of an inherently sexist society, so I'll save that for another time.
In the book's final chapter, "Seduction Makes the World Go 'Round," LuAnn extends her lessons on charm and temptation beyond the bedroom into the world at large. For example:

When new neighbors move onto our street, I take them a pie to welcome them to the neighborhood. Who does that anymore -- especially in New York?

Classic Countess, am I right?! Underscoring her common, pedestrian roots, she informs us that the reason she is so comfortable around "tradespeople" is because she grew up with a father who was a contractor. She also is apparently only superficially familiar with Abrahamic religious iconography, as the following passage indicates:

Noel used to bring apples to school for his teachers. It's an old-fashioned custom. Think of Adam and Eve!

Why, exactly, we would be thinking of Adam and Eve in the context of thanking an educator remains unclear, at least for those of us who lack the elegance to intuit LuAnn's intentions. LuAnn also officially confirms her place in the Parents-All-Teachers-Despise-With-A-Burning-Fury hall of fame, as she snidely references "the point [in a parent-teacher conference] at which they make some sort of comment that indicates your child is less than perfect." The classy way to respond in this situation is, as we learn, to respond with basic human decency and -- if that fails -- "[talk] to the head of the school."
In a note about childcare, LuAnn remarks that "some nannies are so spoiled it's like having another child." She reiterates:

Remember that she's working for you. Don't cater to her every whim.

That's Mrs. de Lesseps to you, thank you very much!
LuAnn rounds out her guidance about household staff by suggesting that you give "holidays and sick days" and that you consider "[pulling] a flower from an arrangement" for your housekeeper's room. The largesse is truly beyond comprehension.
She then suggests that any of us impoverished ragamuffins who don't have doormen simply "adopt the doorman in a neighboring building for his services," kind of like how in Georgian England, wealthy estate owners used to hire ornamental hermits to live in their gardens and contribute to a general sense of idyllic ambiance.
LuAnn next turns her attention to the decorum around best friends, who she informs us can be "like a therapist, something you should never expect of your husband." Best friends can help you do tons of other things, like "edit your closet." LuAnn promptly segues into a story about a time when she was seated next to Sean Connery at a dinner party, but then rudely forced to switch places by an inconsiderate hostess. Connery, as one might expect, was "baffled and disappointed" by his misfortune. The hostess, as one also might expect, is described generously by LuAnn as "an older women [sic] -- a tad bitter and unhappy."
In the book's final passage, titled "Fund-raising," LuAnn describes her then-husband by saying, "he has a long-term vision that runs in his blood." Given that this particular long-term vision apparently did not turn out to include LuAnn, this seems an inadvertently bleak note on which to end. So we'll soldier on through the Afterword, in which The Countess remarks, "I am really the person you see on the show. The camera doesn't lie." She continues,

If you haven't already learned from watching the [sic] The Real Housewives of New York City, you'll know after having read my book that a countess is no different from anyone else.

In her final paragraph, LuAnn puts out a call for any reader feedback -- "I would love to know what you found helpful in my book and what subjects I didn’t get to that you'd like to hear about." As she tantalizingly teases, "Who knows? I had so much fun writing this book, I just might start another."
We can only hope.

hazard signs on household products video

Symptoms of toxic exposure include dizziness, nausea, irritation in the respiratory tract, stinging in the eyes and skin, and both violent and mild allergic reactions. Fatalities can occur in serious cases. Proper labelling of household chemical products is required by the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. Chemicals are used in the home every day. They include cleaning fluids, plant food, paint and fuels. Homes even contain chemicals within plastics used for insulation and flooring. Getting to know the labels on chemical products will help protect you and your family from harm. 13 Dangerous Household Items You ... In a world of "going green" it's hard to tell which products produce a threat to your ... and plug in as much as they can—creating a huge fire hazard. “Health Hazard/ Harmful to the Ozone Layer” This symbol is generally reserved for household items, such as bleach, washing detergent and toilet cleaner. Products with this symbol can also cause serious environmental damage if not disposed of properly. Chemical Hazard Signs (5149) The worst chemical hazards are often the ones you can’t see. Exposure to explosive, flammable, oxidizing, corrosive, toxic, and other chemicals can cause severe physical as well as health hazards. This month we’re all about giving our home a fresh start and making it as clean and clutter-free as possible. Standardized pictograms, which immediately show the user of a hazardous chemical what type of hazard is present, will be on the supplier label, and safety data sheet (as the symbol or name of the symbol). But an accompanying sign mandating the use of a gas mask takes it a step ... This month we’re all about giving our home a fresh start and making it as clean and clutter-free as possible. So we’ve been putting our household cleaners to work big-time and we’re sure you have too. And the more we use some of these products, the more we notice hazard symbols on the packaging, and we realized we don't know all their meanings . 27th March, 2019. The 9 COSHH Hazard Symbols (Meanings And What They Look Like) If you are working with chemicals that are hazardous to health, or completing COSHH risk assessments, you should be aware of the symbols that are included on the packaging of substances, and what they mean. Product is corrosive and will burn skin, eyes, throat, or stomach. Examples include oven cleaner and toilet bowl cleaner. Product is flammable and will catch fire easily if it is near heat, flames or sparks. Examples include gasoline and hair spray. Product is poisonous and will cause illness or death if ingested. Types Of Hazard Symbols. There are many types of different hazard symbols, here are some recognisable ones which can be found on everyday household products and in work environments. The skull and cross bones symbol is used as a warning of poisonous or toxic substances that can be fatal to humans.

Product Chemical Hazard Labels Explained - VIP Clean

hazard signs on household products

hazard signs on household products - win

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General principles

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How do I sort all this?

Notes on TerraCycle and partner programs

Composting

Am I insane?

Shout outs

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update February 3, 2021