Category Archives: History

History, Security

US votes against control of illegal arms

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Apparently the illegal trade in arms is linked to 1,000 deaths per day. But that number does not impress the US National Rifle Association, as they apparently were upset by 2,000 international UN delegates working together last June to stem illegal trade in small arms:

The conference has drawn the ire of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful lobby of US gun owners which views it as a first step toward a global treaty to outlaw gun ownership by civilians.

Addressing those concerns, Annan stressed that there was no question of negotiating a global ban.

“Our energy, our emphasis and our anger is directed against illegal weapons, not legal weapons,” he said. “Our targets remain unscrupulous arms brokers, corrupt officials, drug trafficking syndicates, criminals and others who bring death and mayhem into our communities.”

The faces on the petition handed to Annan represented the million people who have been killed by small arms since 2003.

640 million illegal small arms floating around the world today and the NRA is worried about the impact to legal access? Who needs legal access when illegal is so prevalent? Besides, is the slope that slippery? If the NRA applied their argument to logging they would argue against someone being banned from cutting down protected species in the Amazon because it would somehow threaten the business of Christmas tree farms in the US.

Interesting to note who is at the top of the list of arms sale and what is defined as small arms:

Most deaths in conflicts around the world are caused by small arms, which are mainly exported by the United States, Italy, Brazil, Germany, and Belgium, according to a survey released by Small Arms Survey, the brainchild of a Geneva-based independent research project.

“Small arms” include handguns, pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns, mortars, grenades and light missiles. “Light weapons” comprise heavy machine-guns, mounted grenade launchers, anti-tank guns and portable anti-aircraft guns.

Sub-machine guns, mortars, and light missiles are the mainstay of the Taleban, Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda forces (to name a few in recent news). And 200,000 people per year are shot in homicides, with another 50,000 dead by gun suicide, as reported in the Guardian. So one would think that the US would favor trade restrictions that reduce the flow of illegal weapons, right? Actually, the BBC reports that the opposite appears to be the case:

The measure would close loopholes in existing laws which mean guns still end up in conflict zones despite arms embargoes and export controls.

It could also stop the supply of weapons to countries whose development is being hampered by arms spending.

Only the US – a major arms manufacturer – voted against the treaty, saying it wanted to rely on existing agreements.

It is probably less relevant that the US is an arms manufacturer than the fact it is interested in supplying arms to whomever it wants to. So the control of manufacturing is a good start, but the negative vote by the US as well as the abstentions by Russia and China, show that the bigger issue is controlling the countries who wish to proliferate arms to achieve geo-political ambitions. The BBC points out several countries manufacturing the arms actually voted for the measure:

Major weapons manufacturers such as Britain, France and Germany voted to begin work on the treaty, as did major emerging arms exporters Bulgaria and Ukraine.

This supports the point above that these countries have less national or political cause for trade in illegal arms. In fact, there may be room for disassociation between the arms companies and the government in these other states, unlike the US, Russia and China. That is to say, the US developed, armed and trained the Taleban in Afghanistan to fight a large conventional army (USSR) not because they wanted to profit on stinger missle sales but because they believed that destabilization of the region by militant extremists would serve their short-term political objectives. Were those light missles illegal then? Would they be illegal today? CBS news reveals that the NRA has been informing people that there is no need to waste time on such a distinction between legal and illegal arms and to oppose the control measure by the UN:

Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, said in a message on the NRA Web site that the conference seeks to draft a treaty that would “pass a global treaty banning ownership of firearms.”

That bit of hyperbole and misinformation (e.g. lie) resulted in hundreds of thousands of letters (approximately 4,000/day) sent to the president-designate of the UN by NRA members, with many of the letters based on a form from the NRA website. One can only hope, since these letters were based on pure fiction, that the US position was not influenced by them. Then again, the US did impatiently blow-off the UN and invade Iraq on the premise of imminent danger from WMD. The Bush administration pandering to highly partisan extremists and wearing reality blinders should not be a surprise to anyone:

All three of the public delegates chosen by the U.S. government are strong NRA supporters. In fact, two of the three delegates (Keene and Gilmore) are current board members of the NRA. The third, former Congressman John, received an “A+â€? rating by the NRA while in office. […] The appointment of the three public delegates is a symbolic reminder of the U.S. attitude towards the UN process – that the views of one interest group dominate the agenda.

Sure...

History, Poetry, Security

Macavity: The Mystery Cat

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by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw —
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no on like Macavity,
He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air —
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!

Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly doomed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square —
But when a crime’s discovered, then Macavity’s not there!

He’s outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s.
And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair —
Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there!

And when the Foreign Office finds a Treaty’s gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scap of paper in the hall or on the stair —
But it’s useless of investigate — Macavity’s not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
“It must have been Macavity!� — but he’s a mile away.
You’ll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macacity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibit, or one or two to spare:
And whatever time the deed took place — MACAVITY WASN’T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!

I can get behind it, up until the end. Napoleon was devastated in Waterloo by Wellington and the Coalition army…who/what would be the defeat of Macavity? Could it be Sherlock Holmes?

Food, History, Misc, Security

US bans Aussie spread: Vegemite a cereal killer?

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The Courier Mail reports that the US has found another threat to national security — Vegemite

Former Geelong man Daniel Fogarty, who now lives in Calgary, Canada, said he was stunned when searched while crossing the US border recently.

“The border guard asked us if we were carrying any Vegemite,” Mr Fogarty said.

“I was flabbergasted.” Paul Watkins, who owns a store called About Australia in San Antonio, Texas, said he had been forced to stop importing Vegemite six months ago.

“We have completely stopped bringing it in,” he said.

Vegemite Made by an American company (Kraft Foods) in Australia, Vegemite contains a form of B-vitamin called folate. Folate is considered beneficial to health, but it is now a regulated substance in the US according to the National Institute of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS):

In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published regulations requiring the addition of folic acid to enriched breads, cereals, flours, corn meals, pastas, rice, and other grain products. Since cereals and grains are widely consumed in the U.S., these products have become a very important contributor of folic acid to the American diet.

Beef liver and black eyed peas seem to have the most folate. The only food higher on the NIH-ODS chart is breakfast cereal fortified with folic acid supplements. Something tells me people are not going to switch from cereal to liver and peas for breakfast, so could it be that the American cereal lobby is behind this ban on Vegemite? They are probably loathe to think that people would rather spread nutritional Vegemite on toast in the morning than fill up a bowl with yummy supplements. And what about the milk lobby? Got folate?

But seriously, there appears to be no reason to ban Vegemite. Actually, the opposite seems to be true since the NIH-ODS points out that folate is extremely beneficial (especially for women and children), while having no risks:

Folate intake from food is not associated with any health risk.

How often do you see that? Sounds like great stuff, no? In medical terms, again from the NIH-ODS, here are the advantages:

Folate helps produce and maintain new cells. This is especially important during periods of rapid cell division and growth such as infancy and pregnancy. Folate is needed to make DNA and RNA, the building blocks of cells. It also helps prevent changes to DNA that may lead to cancer. Both adults and children need folate to make normal red blood cells and prevent anemia. Folate is also essential for the metabolism of homocysteine, and helps maintain normal levels of this amino acid.

Better stop that Vegemite at the border, America! You would not want women and children to lead happy healthy lives without consuming sugary cereals, now, would you? The story gets even stranger when it turns out the FDA promotes active folate consumption and requires it to be added to grain products:

“Adequate folate should be eaten daily and throughout the childbearing years,” said Elizabeth Yetley, Ph.D., a registered dietitian and director of FDA’s Office of Special Nutritionals. Folate’s potential to reduce the risk of neural tube defects is so important that the Food and Drug Administration requires food manufacturers to fortify enriched grain products with folic acid. This will give women one way to get sufficient folate: by eating fortified breads and other grain products, such as enriched pasta, rice, waffles and cereal bars.

Again, at the top of the list of high-folate foods is liver, followed by cereal (with supplements), and then lentils and chickpeas. Vegemite? Not on the list.

Ok, now I’m getting really confused. A search for the FDA decision in 1996 just brings up more and more support for pushing folate into the diet. Here is an example of the tone of a Folic Acid Fact Sheet published by the FDA:

The message to pregnant women is clear. A little investment in nutrition now pays off richly in your baby’s health later.

For that reason, the Food and Drug Administration proposed last October that all bread and grain products be fortified with folic acid, one of the B vitamins. Just 0.4 milligrams (mg) of the nutrient every day can greatly reduce the risk of neural tube defects, which affect the brain and spinal cord.

[…]

Despite this benefit, the decision to add folic acid to food is difficult because it’s so tricky to estimate what people eat. Most of the folic acid studies have been done with vitamin pills, not plates of food. It’s hard for scientists to translate the results of those controlled studies into recommendations for the ever changing eating habits of Americans.

“As a scientific and policy matter, it is one of the more difficult issues I have confronted,” said FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler, M.D., addressing a meeting of the March of Dimes last January. “Before we fortify the food supply for 250 million Americans, we have to make sure we get it right.”

Is it just me, or does it seem like the FDA should be importing gallon-sized jugs of Vegemite into the country. Or even better, why doesn’t the agency persuade Kraft to setup domestic production to create jobs as well as improve health? The FDA fact sheet suggests that inscreased consumption of folates would significantly reduce the “number one disabling birth defect”:

There is good reason for health officials to seek to reduce the number of neural tube defects.

Neural tube malformations are serious birth defects that cause disability or death. They are the most common disabling birth defects, affecting between one and two infants out of every 1,000 births in the United States.

[…]

Scientists are in general agreement that folic acid reduces the risk of neural tube defects. What remains to be seen is the effect it will have on the general population if it is added to breads and grains.

Ahem, what is going on here? Banning imports of Vegemite is like banning healthy babies? Has America gone completely bananas? Why is Vegemite not stacked on shelves at the pharmacy and prescribed to pregnant women? Harmless yet able to prevent serious birth defects? Beneficial without any known harms?

A quick scan of the Federal Register for 1996 brings up the regulatory language in question:

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
21 CFR Part 172

Docket No. 91N-100F

Food Additives Permitted for Direct Addition to Food for Human
Consumption; Folic Acid (Folacin)

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Final rule.

The introduction, although establishing the new rules to regulate folates, gives some room for hope:

(3) restrict to breakfast cereals the foods for which standards of identity do not exist, to which folic acid may be added; (4) continue to permit the use of folic acid in infant formulas, dietary supplements, and foods for special dietary use;

Vegemite is a dietary supplement, no? (Hint to Kraft: print new labels for the US market with fancy marketing labels. Start a media blitz on the wonder-supplement from down under for healthy women and babies). I would have said that they should use the “supplement” exception noted above, but the FDA removed supplements from the list of approved folate sources.

Since publication of the proposal, however, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) was enacted. The DSHEA amended the act to exempt dietary ingredients, including vitamins, used in dietary supplements from the definition of a “food additive” (section 201(s)(6) of the act). Therefore, there is no need to provide for the use of folic acid in dietary supplements in the food additive regulations.

Or does that mean Vegemite would be exempt if it were classified as a supplement? Apparently supplements are discussed elsewhere (note the conclusion) as though they must be things that are hard to digest. I’m clearly not a doctor.

Much of the discussion in this final rule document is actually related to finding a “safe” ceiling for folate and/or folic acid intake. Should it be 1mg per day, more, less…? Ironically, they appear to resolve that because they have no proof of any harm, they will set the maximum allowed daily folate intake at 1mg:

the agency concludes that, because of the lack of evidence to support the safety of intake at levels greater than 1 mg folate daily, and the potential for serious harm to some persons from such intakes, the safe upper limit for daily folate intakes is appropriately set at 1 mg, the highest intake level that meets the safety standard for food additives that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm from use of the additive.

Playing it safe, they wanted reasonable certainty of no harm by trying to enforce a 1mg dosage, but that was ten years ago. Today the NIH says that there is no associated health risk from folate consumption. Strange if none of the people working on this study bothered to think about studying the Vegemite-eating Aussies. A serving of Vegemite (5g) is apparently 29% of the RDI for breastfeeding women, and 100% for children. History sites suggest that the British approved it in the 1930s and so Australians had Vegemite included in their rations. Might be a good source of information on side-effects from that controlled period, no? And even today, I wonder about studying people (like me, occaisonally) who eat three or four cereal folic acid-supplemented servings at a time?

All in all, the more I read about Vegemite, the more it seems that the US needs a policy to encourage its import and regular consumption instead of blocking it at the borders. Perhaps if those wishing to import it would carry a copy of the FDA regulation and ask for clarification of where and how Vegemite would not be allowed…

Edited to add (Oct 26):

The FDA has been quoted saying the media reports were a suprise to them and denied any control or ban of Vegemite imports:

“There is no ban on Vegemite,” US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokesman Mike Herndon told AAP.

[…]

“One of the Vitamin B components (in Vegemite) is folate,” Herndon explained. “In and of itself, it’s not a violation. If they’re adding folate to it, boosting it up, technically it would be a violation. “But the FDA has not targeted it and I don’t think we intend to target Vegemite simply because of that.”

This makes no sense. How could Kraft not be adding folic acid? We’re talking about a spread, not fresh legumes or liver, right? You can’t kill a chicken and take out its Vegemite gland.

Joanna Scott, spokesperson for Vegemite’s maker, Kraft, reportedly has said, “The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t allow the import of Vegemite simply because the recipe does have the addition of folic acid”. But Herndon said, “Nobody at the FDA has told them (Kraft) there is a ban”.

So there would be a ban, if the FDA or someone else in the US government thought about it and felt like enforcing it, but nobody is saying that they have thought about it or wants to admit enforcing the ban.

Seems to me that all it takes is one eager-beaver border patrolman…is it just me or does the US seem like the biggest bunch of idiots in the world to everyone right about now? Building walls with its neighbors? Banning healthy import foods? What is this, the 1950s USSR?

On top of the confusion above, a quick search of the FDA site for the term “Vegemite” found “Refusal actions” given to a British export company by the FDA based on the fact that Kraft has not registered and documented the process used to manufacture the spread:

Nisa International
Grimsby , GB
NYK-DO 084-1013637-1/47/1
25HCT99 KRAFT VEGEMITE SANDWICH SPREAD, DOES NOT REQUIRE FCE/SID
19-JAN-2006

NEEDS FCE
NO PROCESS

Reason: NEEDS FCE
Section: 402(a)(4), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: It appears the manufacturer is not registered as a
low acid canned food or acidified food manufacturer pursuant
to 21 CFR 108.25(c)(1) or 108.35(c)(1).

Reason: NO PROCESS
Section: 402(a)(4), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: It appears that the manufacturer has not filed
information on its scheduled process as required by 21 CFR
108.25(c)(2) or 108.35(c)(2).

Papers please…

History, Security

How many died from the Inquisition?

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I stumbled onto an interesting paper by David A. Plaisted, professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, which discusses the estimates of dead from the Inquisition. Perhaps most striking was this quote:

Bertrand, the Papal Legate, wrote a letter to Pope Honorius, desiring to be recalled from the croisade against the primitive witnesses and contenders for the faith. In that authentic document, he stated, that within fifteen years, 300,000 of those crossed soldiers had become victims to their own fanatical and blind fury. Their unrelenting and insatiable thirst for Christian and human blood spared none within the reach of their impetuous despotism and unrestricted usurpations. On the river Garonne, a conflict occurred between the croisaders, with their ecclesiastical leaders, the Prelates of Thoulouse and Comminges; who solemnly promised to all their vassals the full pardon of sin, and the possession of heaven immediately, if they were slain in the battle. The Spanish monarch and his confederates acknowledged that they must have lost 400,000 men, in that tremendous conflict, and immediately after it-but the Papists boasted, that including the women and children, they had massacred more than two millions of the human family, in that solitary croisade against the southwest part of France.

— Bourne, George, The American Textbook of Popery, Griffith & Simon, Philadelphia, 1846, pp. 402-403.

Full pardon of sin and possession of heaven if they were slain in battle? That sounds scarily familiar…