Drink Your Mercury posted by Ben

Yahoo! News - Mercury Risk Overstated, House Panel Says

If the Republicans tell you that mercury won't really hurt you and a majority of scientists says that the stuff will poison and eventually kill you, who are you going to believe?

Reminds me of the English scientist Hooke, one of the first members of the Royal Society back in 1600's Britain. The man was utterly brilliant, both as a keen observer of natural phenomenon and as a practical and ingenious engineer. He was also known for drinking quicksilver, which he claimed would heal the aches and pains in his body that kept getting worse and worse as the years past.

Now, we know better than to willingly ingest that poison into our systems today. However, the Republicans now believe that mercury emissions in the air have nothing to do with mercury levels in fish. Even the medieval alchemists (who were eventually set aside by the Scientific Revolution, which Hooke helped to jump start) knew that the elements of air and water could mix. Apparently, the notion that something like... rain... could move mercury from the air into the water is now ludicrous.

"After an exhaustive review of all the science surrounding the mercury debate, it is clear that some special-interest groups are crying wolf," said the panel's chairman, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif.

By special interest groups, does he mean scientists, or worse, environmentalists?

Environmentalists said the committee's conclusions are contradicted by health advisories from FDA, EPA and state agencies across the country. "The House report represents outrageous misinformation that reads like the utility industry's talking points," said John Walke, the NRDC's director for clean air.

Of course, that claim is inane. What possible reason could the Bush administration have for taking the word of the utility industry over that of the scientific community? It's not like Cheney built our energy policy in closed-door sessions with the energy community, right? Right?

So if you want to be a true patriot, now's the time to shut up and drink your kool-aid.. uh.. mercury. Remember:

Dangers of toxic mercury pollution in the environment have been overstated... no link between mercury from coal-burning power plants and levels of mercury in fish has been scientifically established.