Starving

I don't know how much food people are getting in Gaza. But there is information about hunger and starvation in general that should be kept in mind when reading the reports.  Going on fasts for religious reasons provides pretty good evidence that a healthy adult who is hydrating can go up to about forty days without incurring permanent damage. That is taking in no food at all. With zero food, organ damage starts to set in and death occurs about 2-3 weeks later. Taking in some food, even below what is considered necessary to sustain life, can extend life much farther. Organ damage still occurs, but at a slower pace. During famine, people can be underfed for a year and still be alive, though they may never fully recover even when nutrition is restored. 

It is quite different for children. Zero food can mean organ damage in two weeks and death in three.  It is difficult to get good information on the organ damage and death parts because the organisations that keep the statistics are often focused on "food insecurity," or being "underfed" rather than malnutrition and death. It is a classic motte-and-bailey fallacy of trying to discuss starvation only to have them retreat into "well 1 in 5 children is underfed." Similarly there are questionnaires (and I have administered them) about whether mothers worried whether their children would have enough to eat at least x number of days in the past month. "Oh, so you don't care whether those children are hungry?"

Boothbay Harbor

We went up to take the three-hour tour out to East Egg Rock to see puffins and other seabirds and had a marvelous day for it. Misty, cooler days bring them out more, and I got to stand in in the wind and light rain on the way out. Puffins are smaller than expected and lots of fun to look at. Tracy added three birds to her life list.

We were on brand, running into people from both Transylvania and William and Mary while on the tour.  Wild coincidences are available if one only looks for them and strikes up conversations. 

We went to the Maine Wild Blueberry Fair on Moxie Day, then drove over to Wyeth Collection at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. We had exceptionally good gluten-free fish and chips and GF fried scallops at Shannon's on the road out of Boothbay.  They have been a roadside stand and are now expanding to have indoor seating, converting their garage. A workman was in-and-out the whole time we were there, so we felt like we were getting in on the ground floor on the changes. 

One of Maine's motto's is "The Way Life Should Be."  I don't fully agree, but they have a point. 

  

Wyman's Blueberries are not related to us, though my great-grandfather did grow them in Nova Scotia and shipped them to Boston.  But in Maine, Wyman's was one of the original companies for wild blueberries.  

 

 

We also got to see the young women rehearsing for the Miss Maine Blueberry Pageant and visit all the 4H exhibits at the agricultural fair. 

 

Badger's Law

Rational Wiki has an entry about Badger's Law, which was named in 2016. We have discussed the concept here since the beginning in 2005, that anything with the word truth in its title is more likely to be opinion that they don't want to have to defend. 

Ironically for a site named Rational Wiki and doubly so for a discussion of truth, the link above does not include any liberal sites as having a problem, though Truthout certainly qualifies as opinion that discourages discussion, and Truthdig, Citizentruth, and An Inconvenient Truth are specifically mentioned as exceptions. 

Good Genes

Almost everything has been said, and said better by others.  I will note for the context of our long-standing discussions here that mentioning genes at all is the third rail, as it imperils the worldview and the vested interests of many people who believe that environmental influences, and legislating according to environmentalist presuppositions should be where we spend our money. 

One piece of evidence for this is reflexively raising the specter of eugenics in order to shut down any discussion for social and political reasons. The science has gotten away from them, the culture is getting away from them, and they have to blame Trump as part of the two-minute hate every day.