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Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

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101–110 of 117 posts

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#101
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess part of systematic ethnic cleansing by the government in general?

No, the systemic cleansing party didn't hold onto their seat very long. This is “merely” the organic actions of individuals, when those individuals are a substantial portion of the population. The racist undercurrents in this city are _strong_.

s/city/country

Starlight Tours have been documented in many major cities in Canada, with actual evidence and related cases in Saskatoon, Montreal, and Winnipeg. It is also widely suspected that it is still a practice in some communities.

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#102

Kind of random but none the less still horribly brutal.

No, it's not random. If it were random, there would be other folks represented in the victim population.

This is a clear example of the racism and acceptance of extrajudicial violence against Indigenous people in Canada.

That said, I know that is not really what you meant by random in this context.

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#103
post #99
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How mobile is the lead today? There are a number of extremely insoluble lead salts, such as the sulfide, the phosphate, the chromate, the titanate, some of the oxides, and even the carbonate and the sulfate. My mental model is that lead metal and the above-mentioned salts are basically immobile in the soil: you can have all the lead sulfide or metallic lead you want in your soil without it leaching into the groundwat…

Lead in soil gets stirred up by wind, rain, humans and animals into the air all day long. Of particular risk as far as food contamination is concerned are leafy vegetables and shrubby fruits that grow near the ground (surface contamination, eventually binding to the food - not internal uptake necessarily). There are studies measuring these effects, you don’t have to take my word for it. Here is what the CDC has to sa…

Thank you!

This CDC page seems to say that swallowing or breathing lead-contaminated soil is a problem (most of the minerals I mentioned won't withstand strong solutions of hydrochloric acid, such as stomach acid) but it doesn't even suggest that lead-contaminated soil is a potential source of groundwater contamination or contamination of plants grown in it. Nor does it suggest that soil being stirred up by wind and rain is a significant danger, though presumably a sufficiently strong windstorm would be.

It links an EPA page https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/le... which does talk about "eating fruits or vegetables grown in contaminated soil". More specifically it recommends not growing root crops such as potatoes in soil with over 100 ppm lead, low-growing leafy vegetables in soil with over 400 ppm lead, or fruits and vegetables in soil with over 1000 ppm lead. It still doesn't mention anything about groundwater.

Unfortunately it doesn't cite any of the studies so we can find out what levels of lead contamination occur in crops grown in contaminated soil or to what degree they're dependent on lead not being locked up in the mobile forms I described (can potato roots digest galena?), nor to what degree lead-compound dust on poorly washed lettuce results in human lead poisoning.

Since the CDC didn't link any, which studies would you most recommend reading?

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unbalanced representations only fuel the fire of antagonism; far too many examples on both sides of justice in the last sixty years, for a single summary right?

How do you ‘both sides’ murder?

In the context of this topic, one would have to internalize white supremacy first.

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#105
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garden hoses are absolutely awful for their plasticizer content (xenoestrogen) as well

It seems like there's no winning. Is there any conceivable way those chemicals could make their way into food? Should people use a watering can? Is there any avoiding contaminants in food? Do we live in a post-contaminant society? Even our compost is contaminated.

> Do we live in a post-contaminant society?

the answer seems to be yes for most part of the world

https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/13/a-chemical-hunger-p...

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#106
post #2

> According to the report, a "police spokeswoman acknowledged that the section on starlight tours had been deleted using a computer within the department, but said investigators were unable to pinpoint who did it." Can't even solve a case within their own dept, what's the hope for anyone else?

I don't think that is a criminal matter.

Maybe not, but they haven't even laid charges on the officers who dropped these people off outside of town in deadly conditions. That is a criminal matter. It's more cover up for a situation they'd rather ignore.

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#107
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The documentary "The Economics of Happiness" [1] deals with this subject but in the context of Ladakh. Specifically how the introduction of globalized culture introduced sentiments of poverty, unworthiness, cultural repression, and substance abuse within the Ladakh community. [1] https://www.localfutures.org/programs/the-economics-of-happi...

My dad grew up in the region around Ladakh. His village got a single paved road in 1982 and a single electric connection in 1985. Relatives would have to walk MILES in the cold and high elevation to get an elementary education, and child malnutrition and mortality was significant (my grandmother and a number of her peers had lost at least 1 child to diseases like typhus, cholera, etc). All this happened before the de…

Thank you for your contribution. I understand that viewing it from said perspective doesn't account for the complete picture. That said, I believe we can agree that both sides can be true simultaneously? Standard of living is improved and worsened in certain regards. OP and the reference I'm sharing discuss some of the negative impacts to local cultures.

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#108
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friendly reminder that leaded gasoline is still used today in airports all over the USA. If you live near an airport you are still affected by this in 2022.

Can you attempt to quantify the effect? Because from my understanding it is basically nothing.

There are a few studies out there.

This article references a couple studies as recently as 2020 which mention increased lead particles around airports.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...

Link to actual EPA study:

https://countyairports.sccgov.org/sites/g/files/exjcpb686/fi...

This study mentions the lead levels in children living in proximity to airports:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/

2021 Santa Clara study found lead levels in children near airports similar to Flint michigan:

https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/study-commissioned-coun...

Again, we are allowing leaded gas, which we know to be harmful, to be used in 2022, with demonstrable increases in lead levels especially for individuals living near airports.

Re: Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

#109
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to sweeten wine, which survived into the Middle Ages as people soaking lumps in cheap wine to improve the flavor. There’s a plausible theory that tomatoes were mistaken for poisonous due to lead dinner plates of that era. With the possible exception of the counterfeit wine example, that’s all very ethically different from pumping it into the air.

lead... as a sweetener?? :: looks on past in abject horror ::

And yet every time I get water down the wrong pipe - basically attempting to drown myself just trying to take in one of our most basic life-sustaining inputs - I realize that not only are we still basically monkeys but we haven't really evolved half as much as we think we have as a species. It's a miracle we live long enough to reproduce.

You are literally a winning lottery ticket, so enjoy it while you can.

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