Also in the "how much are you consuming" category

People are looking carefully into the flavenol profile of red wine to determine why, in some cases, red wine leads to debilitating headaches.  Perhaps we might do well to look to Proverbs 23 and ask "Just how much of the stuff did you drink before you got those headaches?".  I've been enjoying red wine for many years, and in the "dosage" I favor--a glass or two at the most--I've never had a problem.  

Maybe time to rephrase RFK Jr.'s phrase again; "Make America Less Gluttonous". Even apart from questions like flavenols, alcohol, and the like, the "wine-bibber" is going to have a serious problem with the number of calories taken in--or if he's smart enough to restrict other eating, he'll have some nutritional deficiencies.

OK, this is wild

    Apparently Tyson Foods is eliminating synthetic dyes from its meat and poultry products.   Writing as an avid cook, this is weird to me, because the most appealing colors inherent in meat and poultry products are the same ones that God gave them.  Can one improve on the golden brown exterior and creamy white interior of a properly crafted Wiener Backhendl or Chicken Kyiv, or even basic chicken nuggets?  I think not!

So what's being said here, really, is that they've been using synthetic dyes to cover up for either a lack of skill, or a compromise on ingredients, that would impair the wonderful Maillard reaction in frying.  We can have huge arguments over whether synthetic dyes are a problem--my response is a firm "maybe a little one"--but it strikes me that the big problem we've got is that many food manufacturers are using them to cover up for a lack of quality ingredients and skill making the product.

I might rephrase RFK Jr.'s slogan as "make America cook again".  When you know how to cook, and know the difference the right ingredients and techniques make, your health will follow.

On those dangerous food dyes?

Apparently the studies that "linked" red dye #3 to some cancers were done at a dosage of about 200 times tha maximum likely dosage of .25mg/kG of body weight.  OK, let's parse this out.  At my body weight of close to 100kG, we are talking about a maximum dose of 25mG.  In terms of what they were feeding the lab rats, we're talking about 5 grams per day, suggesting a scene of Democrats chugging bottles of food dyes because Trump wanted to ban them.  

It really suggests that we need a revival of instruction about hormesis, the tendency of many chemicals to be harmless or even slightly beneficial at low doses, despite being poisons in high doses.  I am again no fan of foods with a lot of red dye, but the comparison here is basically getting all of one's nutrition from foods with this dye, and then ignoring the fact that what's really dangerous is all the sugar in them.

Make incarceration great again?

Regarding President Trump's proposal to re-open Alcatraz as a supermax prison, supplanting the current supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, the question that comes to mind is "Why?".  Yes, "why?", and that's because Alcatraz is built in an earthquake zone with intensive exposure to salt air--which means that it's far more expensive to keep buildings operational there than it is elsewhere.  At the time it was closed in 1963, it was over three times as expensive to operate as similar prisons, and proximity to San Francisco makes it especially problematic if people escape.  In contrast, Florence is about 40 miles from the nearest good sized city, Colorado Springs.

I get that "The Rock" holds an outsized image in our country due to the former residency of Al Capone and other gangsters, but re-opening it would open a large gash in budgets that is simply not necessary.   

An inadvertent confession from Putin

He would presumably like us to forget that his job in East Germany--a job that got him rapid-fire promotions at a young age--was to support the Stasi, a secret police essentially the same as the Gestapo, but with a hammer and sickle instead of a swastika.  He would like us to forget that he characterized the re-unification of Germany as "colonization", and that he's been having his Russian Red Army fly the hammer and sickle, and that he installed statues of Lenin in some cities in Ukraine.

Now, for their victory day celebrations, he's having the airport in Volgograd carry its former name: Stalingrad.   In related news, Putin is claiming that he's fighting Naziism and anti-semitism while....Russia has concluded a defense treaty with Iran.  Iran, of course, is aiming to destroy Israel and the United States, and is a major publisher of Farsi and Arabic translations of a book called Mein Kampf, as well as versions of Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

If you doubt that Putin is 100% in favor of Communism and anti-semitism, and that his government is in great need of de-Nazification and de-Communization, read the above again.  Do not listen to what he says; watch what he does.  It should be no more acceptable to honor Stalin than it is to honor Hitler, and Putin has crossed that line, and many others.

Why the food dye bans are problematic

I should start this by noting that I'm not a guy who uses or injests a lot of food dyes.  I outgrew Froot Loops and other "radioactive" cereals in my childhood, don't drink Kool-Aid or alcopops or bug juice, and usually pass on brightly decorated cakes that appear to be from Wal-Mart or the like.  Maybe a bit on birthday cakes--and I guess with six kids, three sons-in-law, and a grandchild, I eat a bit of that--but all in all, I'm probably in the bottom quintile for use of food dyes.

However, I am bothered by the Trump administration's attempt to ban a bunch of them.  The reason is simple; it does not appear that they've done the necessary scientific and regulatory work to establish that there is indeed a statistically significant risk.  Now for food dyes, that's no big deal--OK, no Froot Loops, and Kool-Aid needs to use beet juice for its color.  Whatever, and kids might learn to eat real food without garish colors being added to the mix.  In itself, probably a net win.

What is significant is that the broader perspective that chemicals can be banned without a serious look at whether or not they pose a hazard, and that means we're talking about pesticides (including mosquito repellent), herbicides, fertilizers, and a lot more.  It would nationalize and worsen one of California's nastiest laws, Proposition 65, whereby if a chemical causes cancer in any concentration, no matter how ludicrous that concentration is in real life, it will be labeled with "may cause cancer."  In this case, however, it goes well beyond Proposition 65 in actually banning those chemicals from use.

To draw a picture of what the impact might be, typical maize/corn yields a century ago were about 40 bushels per acre, whereas today's combination of hybrids, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides have yields up around 200 bushels per acre.  So if RFK Jr.'s approach to food dyes is applied broadly, we have a situation where we could seriously crimp the amount of food available to feed us, and with no overall health benefits.

A bit of how it ought to be

Jay Leno comments on how he is enjoying caring for his wife, who is suffering from dementia.   That is, to a degree, how things ought to be when one makes marriage vows, and reminds me of when the head of Columbia Bible College, John McQuilkin, resigned to care for his wife.  

It is also some tough work, really.  Now I know that theoretically, Leno can buy a lot of help, but even with help, it's tough for a man to care for someone with dementia who often does not know who he is, even if the sufferer is of the "happy drunk" category and not the "mean drunk" type.  (or woman, for that matter)  Well done, Mr. Leno.

About those "evil" seed oils

In reading this article about the economic consequences of eliminating seed oils from the diets of Americans,  one thing stuck out for me; the average consumption of seed oils per capita in our country is 58 pounds.  Doing a little bit of math, this means that the average American uses 72 grams of seed oils per day with a total caloric value of nearly 650 calories.

Now thankfully, Americans waste a lot of their food, but if the average waste of 30-40% holds, this still means that the average American is getting the first 400-450 calories of their diet from seed oils.  This does not include fats in meats, fish, poultry, dairy, or other foods, and it is in addition to the ~17 teaspoons (about 250-300 calories) of added sugar in our diet.  If we assume an actual caloric need of 1800-2000 calories per day, what this means is that approximately the first 650-700 calories of our diet is added sugars and fats, and any other dietary fats are in excess of the USDA recommendation of about 20% of overall calories.

We might infer that, yes, there is some truth to RFK Jr.'s claim that seed oils are killing us, but the first reason is not that there's anything intrinsically unhealthy about them.  It is, rather, that we are eating so darned much of them and supercharging obesity and heart disease.

Just askin'

A man says his wife is the worst "backseat driver".   Perhaps just a turn of phrase, and the husband needs to find his inner Petruchio, but the instant question I had is "Why is his wife in the back seat instead of beside him?  That might have something to do with her mood while traveling."

Whatever the facts of the matter, sounds like they have much bigger problems than I can either diagnose or solve here, so my prayers are with them.

A brilliant illustration of why hasty deportations are a bad thing

I realize this is satire, but this "truthy" blurb from the Babylon Bee illustrates why we don't just want to deport illegal immigrant criminals without punishing them first.  When we deport people before they serve a rightfully earned prison term (or execution), they are then free to escape prison in their home country (far less secure than our prison) and....come right back here.

Yes, it costs money to prosecute and incarcerate them, but given that failure to do so will indeed cost lives and a lot of property, it's worth it.

Here's a Hobson's choice for you

A DOJ lawyer has been suspended by Attorney General Bondi for failing to "zealously advocate" for the positions of leadership.  OK, fair as far as it goes, but what the prosecutor was being asked to do was cover up the fact that critical evidence required by the court was being withheld by the DOJ.

So the lawyer had the choice between being suspended or fired, and being prosecuted himself for obstruction of justice and contempt of court.  Pam Bondi seriously needs to consider what she's asking the DOJ to do, because it could destroy all federal prosecutions if she's not careful.

And yes, arguably the DOJ was doing it the other way during the Obama and Biden administrations, and arguably even during the first Trump administration.  However, that doesn't make it right or smart.

How not to do things

As a rule, I like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but I think in his recent criticism of Randy Fine, he goes over the top.   

Now to be fair, there are reasons that I would favor someone else over Fine.  Fine has apparently made statements supporting increased gun control, opposing immigration enforcement, and even seems to have hinted at sanctuary cities.  

But that said, DeSantis said instead "he's a squish", and he did so the day after Fine won the election.  Pro tip; you might get a bit further if you simply noted policy differences, and did so in a timely manner, rather than going after him when he's about to be sworn in.  My take is that if I were Randy Fine, and DeSantis were going to ask me for favors, I'd have to be persuaded to do so.

And it's not just DeSantis; this is just a good, recent example of the phenomenon I'm seeing far too much lately; politicians are using ad hominem (fallacious) attacks instead of legitimate policy differences to differentiate themselves from others.  The end result is that too many of us are at each others' throats when we really ought to be having a good, full throated debate.

The leaders and ....what?

Former Michigan offensive coordinator Matt Weiss is now being indicted for allegedly stealing the personal pictures of about 3000 mostly female athletes, and for getting into the medical records for about 150,000 more NCAA athletes.  

We might joke that it is a good thing that Michigan was stealing signs from their opponents, because obviously Weiss probably didn't have much time to actually run Michigan's offense with all those pictures he was looking at, and perhaps their bowl losses those years had something to do with Weiss's lack of preparation as well.

On a darker side, somehow it seems odd that the database Weiss accessed actually had the social media accounts and private pictures of those students.  I ran a little in college, and if my coach had insisted on seeing all the private pictures I had, we would have had a talk, especially if those pictures had included some that I didn't want my parents to see.  (thankfully, my college life was a little more boring than that of some athletes...)

Perhaps more instructively, 150,000 records is about 80% of the 190,000 student-athletes at the D1 level, and another level of investigation is whether Weiss was using those medical records to screen athletes for possible recruitment.  If so, it would be yet another level of cheating by Michigan, and one that would have to have some technical assistance for Weiss--it would be a big deal.  It would, along with the sign stealing getting three coaches fired and two more censured, indicative of a pervasive cheating culture in Ann Arbor.

Update: here's the list of devices seized from Weiss, about half a dozen computers and phones, and a large number of external storage devices, too.  Suffice it to say that the guy seems to have had a library going, and this could get a LOT uglier.

On the light side....

My daughter came back from a Florida spring break trip looking a little bit like Rachel Zegler (absent the dark brown/raven hair), and now that she's peeling, she looks a little more like Snow White, sad to say.  

(seriously, Disney, if you want to jettison pretty much everything about the original movie, just give it a new name...) 

Just thinking....

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has noted the cases of Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley, and Rachel Morin as reasons for the mass deportation of Venezuelan illegal immigrants.  

Now apart from the legality of deportation, let's think about the wisdom of deportation.  Miller is telling us, more or less, that his approach to illegal immigrants who rape and murder is to....deport them to a country where they know the language, and where they have a better chance of escaping?

No, sir, I'm all in favor of keeping them in our prisons, where we can make sure they can't cause problems until their hair falls out or turns gray.  So if this is indeed a major part of our deportation drive, let's think about what we're doing here.  No sane person wants these guys to escape from a Salvadoran prison to again come north and rape again.