vintage computers and lead poisoning?

Quothe SHAUN RIPLEY, from writings of Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 10:17:41PM -0700: Why? As long as your child is smart enough not to eat paint flakes or lick the dust, there isn't much to worry about. People have grown up living in houses with lead paint for many years and survived. Lead was taken out of gasoline primarily because some inner city children were senseless enough to eat dirt containing lead particles, etc. All of that overprotectiveness, like required car seats, bicycle helmets, etc. for children is just a way for certain corporations to reap large profits with the help of the government (can you say "successful lobbying and corrupt politicians" boys and girls?). Then some people go looney and install outlet protectors, place child-proof locks on cabinets, etc. Let's see a show of hands: how many of us grew up without outlet protectors and killed ourselves by sticking fingers and tongues into live electrical outlets or went into cabinets under sinks and ate cleaning products? Overprotected as children, they'll expect to continue to be overprotected as adults, which is part of the reason that some of us live in countries that have turned into so-called "nanny states" with seat-belt laws, etc. Relax, don't panic. Realize that they'll get more lead exposure from soldering or from pencils and don't waste your time worrying about it. Surely not that big a risk to them; they'll get exposed to more dangerous substances and other problems from food; herbicides and pesticides sprayed by you or neighbors; and schoolmates with poor hygiene. You'd be better off worry about those real problems instead, they're bigger problems. So? If she's taught to mind, she won't bother them. You want to teach her not to touch them anyway, since she might damage them with static electricity or otherwise break them. Anyway, you don't want her crawling around in your computer room, electronics lab, etc. and damaging things, do you? Just keep her out of there. -- Copyright (C) 2004 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & her other creatures, using dogma to justify such www.rddavis.org 410-744-4900 beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.