Frazz by Jef Mallett for November 12, 2023

The last cars that were made to be run on leaded gasoline were the 1978 Hondas with the CVCC engine. All other cars went to unleaded only for 1975. GM had unleaded capable cars in 1971, but they could still use leaded. I guess that they needed 20 years for most of those pre-1975 cars to be taken off the road.

Wee dum"

The same law firms and ad agencies (yes, the VERY same ones) that waged disinformation campaigns in favor of leaded gasoline, cigarets, and acid rain are now working for the big fossil-fuel companies to try to discredit the science (and danger) behind global warming.

It wasn’t really about the lead and toxicity, it was about giving big business plenty of time to adapt to the new situation.

Nah, I’m 86 and I can pass all those IQ tests on TikTok.

The Flynn effect suggests that every generation does better on IQ tests than the one that came before it. Jury still out on why.

Not amazing?

Lead from leaded-petrol use is still in the environment today, so (probably) still affecting health.

We are so dumb from leaded gas all we ever did was put men on the moon.

The approximately 170,000 small airplanes that have standard internal combustion engines use aviation gas that still contains lead.

Although We all know Caulfield believes himself at least 10 points ahead of everyone else

The concentration of lead in the soil directly linked to leaded gasoline is as high as 1250 ppm. The permissible exposure limit for lead in the soil established by OSHA is 400 ppm. Lead doesn’t go away. It just gets buried deeper over time. That problem will be a problem for a very long time.

To be fair, the engineering benefits of tetraethyl lead in internal combustion engines was known long before the detrimental physiological effects were noticed and studied.

Interesting timing, just a week after going off DST.

One short-lived thing when I was in high school in the early Sixties was to remove the gas cap on a car and inhale the fumes. You could get a little bit of a buzz. I did it a couple off times and then stopped.

And they claimed that unleaded gas cost more because they had to take the lead out… the lead they put in. Going to screw you either way.

Apparently Franklin hasn’t been to a lot of modern day colleges, a lot of people are graduating college dumber than when they went in.

Here in the U.S our tests scores in math and science compared to other countries are pathetic and are atill declining. In a lot of our high schools a lot of students are graduating and can barely read or do math.

That’s not even getting into all the social and political stuff that younger generations are exposed to. At least older generations know what a man and a woman is and that it’s a genetic and biological fact that you can’t change your gender through drugs and surgery.

So I am a little skeptical of the claim that younger generations are five iq points higher.

Going to a cruise night with lots of old cars without catalytic converters shows me how everything used to stink. That, plus when everyone smoked everywhere.

had a 1959 Studebaker that only ran, without engine knock, using 100 octane gasoline. I miss that car 35 mpg highway/30 mpg, slant 6 engine, local driving.

As a child of the 50s I can still remember the strong smell of the exhaust from my neighbor’s car as he backed out of the driveway past my bedroom every morning. I have always had trouble keeping things “straight” and am smart enough to know I have always been a slow learner. Was I born this way or did 18 years of breathing in that exhaust every morning (my mother insisted on always having a partially open window in every room, even in winter) have an effect on me?

So, at my age, which is about 25 years older than Spaetzle, I guess I’m about 3 quarts short of a gallon in the IQ department. So no change since I’m a kid . . . er . . . um . . . uh . . . OK. I’ll go with that.

Fluoride also lowers the gereal IQ, and it’s still added to most tab water in the US.

Intelligence is potential. You have the potential to become wise, that only happens through life experience. If you survive, and are intelligent, you will become wise and have good judgement.

And somehow, people were smart enough to see the problem in the 1970’s and start pushing for unleaded gasoline. We’re not so smart in the present, and they weren’t so dumb in the past.

We’re so smart now we’re tearing down electric power plants while building electric cars.

Duuu …. What?

There was an article on Slate . com this week about the chemical hazard associated with tire weardown.

There is a surprisingly good statistical correlation between falling environmental lead levels (due to the phase-out of leaded gas in cars) and rates of violent crime (which have been falling since the early ‘90s). Now, correlation does not guarantee causation, but it is worth noting that (a) late teens-early 20s is the age range in which people are most likely to commit violent crime, and (b) anger and self-control problems are a symptom of chronic low-level lead exposure. So it’s very plausible (though not yet proven) that at least some of the drop in violent crime can be traced to a generation whose brains were not marinated in lead during their childhood reaching the age when they would be most likely to commit violent crimes.

When one is restoring an old (say’60s or older) vehicle one has two options for the engine. One is to retro-fit (install) a modern engine. The other is to have a machine shop rebuild the engine with hardened valve seats, so the engine can burn unleaded without damage. The ethanol in modern gas can also have a bad effect, and changes must be made to address that fact of (engine) life.

The story of the scientist behind the lead in petrol has a rather tragic path, Thomas Midgely Jr came up with the idea, later he also developed the use of flourocarbons in refrigerants, which lead eventually to the ozone problem, upon becoming crippled, he invented a device to get in and out of bed, he got snagged in it and strangled to death. Perhaps his career advisor should have suggested a different course.

IQ is always normalized to make the average score 100. The test result to achieve ‘average’ has increased consistently for generations: >

Lead in gasoline. Lead in pipes. Lead in the paint in your house.

And yet the government allows MSG… a neurotoxin, to be in so many or of our processed foods… just because it intensifies flavor, so people will buy it?? And for those people who know what it is, they give it “aliases” on the list of ingredients so you won’t know it’s in it??!!

Us old-timers always knowed that there’s a difference between smarts and wisdom, between bein’ a wise guy and bein’ wise.

But it also means now gasoline engines regularly run a 100,000 miles before needing to clean the plugs. Used to change oil at about 5k and clean the plugs at the same time. In the late 60’s Gulf sold unleaded gas with 91 octane—cheaper than leaded 93 octane. My owner manual said nothing about leaded gas, only specified an octane above 90. I need a valve job at only 60k.

The same GM engineer who gave us tetraethyl lead also came up with the ozone destroying freon that was banned in the 1990s.

Just because the average intelligence of the lead-breathing generation might be lower than that of the generation prior doesn’t mean that the best and brightest of that generation were less so than those of the prior one. Also, there’s the fact that the later generation had greater information about the problems of lead than the prior one did; intelligence relies on information in order for it to be usefully applied.

Population growth. There were fewer smarter people alive when they started putting lead into gasoline.