" I heard it through the AgLine"

July 20, 2011

 

 

·       Food laws: Unhealthy food vs. nanny state

·       FBI arrests 16 in computer hacking probe

·       Electronic tongue assesses fruit quality

·       Kenyan prison farm grows unique ‘pomato’

·       Elderly braceros fight for stolen pensions

 

 

Food laws: Unhealthy food vs. nanny state

 

(Time) – The city of Cleveland took a stand against unhealthy restaurant food this year, adopting a ban on added trans fats. The new law could have helped reduce heart disease in the city, but before it could take effect, the Ohio state government stepped in — and overturned the ban.

 

In recent years, cities have become more aggressive about trying to make the food sold within their borders healthier, at a time when heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. and a main cause of disability.

(See 5 ways to improve your diet on the cheap.)

 

Most notably, San Francisco last year banned Happy Meals, or more precisely, it passed a law barring restaurants from offering free toys with meals that have more than certain defined levels of fat, sugar and calories. New York City passed a trans-fat ban in 2006 and has a law requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts. In 2009, Baltimore implemented its own trans-fat ban.

 

There have long been government efforts to persuade people to eat better — from the 1992 U.S. Department of Agriculture food pyramid, which urged eating lots of grains and rice and not much fats and oils (and which was recently revised) to First Lady Michelle Obama's current healthy-eating initiative.

 

But these municipal laws are different: rather than just encouraging people to voluntarily change their eating habits, they carry penalties for the food purveyors who fail to comply. Last year, Baltimore's city health department handed out its first citation (including a $100 fine) to a repeat offender of its trans-fat ban — a barbecue stand that had been found to be using margarine that did not meet the city's standards.

 

As more cities have adopted healthy-eating laws, critics have been fighting back — led, not surprisingly, by the restaurant industry. In addition to the Ohio law, a recent New York Times rundown noted that Alabama and Florida have recently adopted limits on cities' authority to ban unhealthy food, and Arizona enacted a law prohibiting its localities from adopting San Francisco–style bans on fast food sold with toys and other "consumer incentives."

 

These state bans on city bans raise two issues.

 

First is the substantive one of whether healthy-eating laws are a good idea. Supporters of the bans say that Americans are seriously threatened by the food they are eating, especially fast food.

 

Trans fats, a common ingredient in fried food and processed cookies, crackers and potato chips, are associated with high levels of bad cholesterol (LDL) and low levels of good cholesterol (HDL), and they have been linked to heart disease and early death. Since trans fats can easily be replaced by healthier alternatives, the supporters say, the bans are promoting public health and saving lives.

 

In the case of labeling requirements, supporters argue that disclosure is a good thing because it gives people the information they need to make healthy choices. And the burden they impose is no greater than the sort of warning labels that are a common requirement on product labels. Critics of the laws, however, say the bans raise costs and limit consumer choice. If people want French fries fried in trans fats, or if they want their children to have a toy with their hamburger and fries, the argument goes, it should be up to them. To the critics, food-safety laws are an extreme case of the nanny state run amok — an overreaching government denying citizens the right to make the choices they want about their own lives.

 

But beyond the issue of whether there should be food-safety laws is the question of who should decide. Under American law, cities are weak and states are strong. On many substantive issues — including food safety — states generally have the power to overrule cities' laws.

 

People who support greater power for cities — or home rule — argue that municipal governments are closer to the people, and that cities can serve as laboratories to experiment with laws before implementing them on a wider basis.

 

Letting cities decide can also mean that more people end up with the laws they want. If San Francisco residents do not want to have Happy Meals sold, a local ban grants them their wish, while leaving the rest of the state, which may like Happy Meals, free to buy them.

 

Supporters of greater state authority counter that businesses are entitled to a certain level of uniformity. They say it is inefficient, and oppressive, to expect a major chain restaurant to come up with products that meet the requirements that any California city might decide it wants to impose if rules don't apply statewide.

 

Interestingly, this is an unusual battle in which both sides seem to be gaining steam. More states are passing laws banning the bans. But there are also more localities enacting bans in states that still allow them. In April, California's Santa Clara County adopted its own version of a Happy Meal ban. The food wars — critics of unhealthy food vs. critics of the nanny state — are unlikely to end anytime soon.

 

Cohen, a former TIME writer and former member of the New York Times editorial board, is a lawyer who teaches at Yale Law School.

 

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FBI arrests 16 in computer hacking probe

 

(Cnet News) – Sixteen people were arrested in the United States today in connection with hacking attacks by the Anonymous group of online activists, as well as one person in the U.K. and four people in the Netherlands, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

 

The decentralized Anonymous collective has been targeting computer attacks on government and corporate Web sites, including Monsanto, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the City of Orlando, and Sony, as well as government sites in Egypt, Turkey, and Tunisia. Anonymous often issues warnings and statements saying the attacks are done to protest Internet censorship and alleged government corruption or corporate malfeasance.

 

An indictment filed last week in San Jose, Calif., names 14 people accused of conspiring to intentionally damage protected computers at PayPal last December in retribution for PayPal suspending WikiLeaks' account to prevent supporters from donating to the whistleblower site. The arrests were made in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio, the Justice Department said. The defendants were expected to make initial appearances throughout the day in federal courts in their areas.

 

In two other separate indictments, a Sarasota, Fla., man was arrested on charges of intentionally damaging a protected computer for allegedly accessing the Web site of InfraGard Tampa Bay, an FBI partner, in June. The complaint alleges that he released instructions on how to exploit the Web site.

 

Another man was arrested in Las Cruces, N.M., for allegedly stealing confidential business information from AT&T servers and posting it publicly in April. The defendant, who works as a customer support contractor for AT&T at outsource provider Convergys, is charged with accessing a protected computer without authorization for allegedly downloading thousands of documents, applications, and other files and then posting them on the Internet, the indictment says. The LulzSec hacking group publicized the release of those documents on June 25, according to the filing.

 

The arrests of the defendants, who range in age from 20 to 42, followed the execution of more than 35 search warrants throughout the country by the FBI as part of its investigation into hacking attacks coordinated by the Anonymous online activist group, officials said. More than 75 searches have taken place in the U.S. to date as part of the investigations, the Justice Department said.

 

The charge of intentional damage to a protected computer carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine; each count of conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the Justice Department said.

 

Meanwhile, a 16-year-old was arrested in London who goes by the hacker handle "Tflow" and is believed to be a key member of LulzSec, Fox News reported.

 

And on news aggregation site Reddit, someone with the handle "reallyjay" reported that 20 FBI agents with guns drawn raided his or her house with a search warrant today believing that the owner's son had participated in the Anonymous attack on PayPal. "I think they were surprised (really?) that I knew about Anonymous. When they questioned my son, he admitted to downloading LOIC [Low Orbit Ion Cannon DDoS software] and fooling around with it for awhile. He does not know if he left it running for any amount of time," the Reddit user wrote. "Why would they spend all this time, energy, and funds to get a kid who was trying to be cool and follow Anon without knowing any of the consequences? What do I do to protect him? What can I expect? They seized two desk top computers."

 

As part of "Operation Payback," Anonymous organized a distributed denial-of-service attack that shut down PayPal's site, as well as that of Visa and MasterCard. PayPal cut WikiLeaks off citing violations of its terms of service after WikiLeaks released a large amount of classified U.S. State Department cables in late November.

 

The hackers primarily use DDoS attacks, which are designed to temporarily cripple Web sites. To do that, they enlist supporters to use software on their computers that sends so many requests to access a targeted Web site that it overwhelms the site with traffic, effectively shutting it down. The hackers also claimed to have compromised servers to steal data that was then released to the public.

 

Previously, there were dozens of arrests globally related to the investigations into hacking attacks by Anonymous. A 16-year-old was arrested late last year in the Netherlands for the DDoS attacks on payment companies that stopped enabling WikiLeaks to receive donations. That was followed by five arrests in the U.K. and 40 search warrants carried out in the U.S. in January. In June, three people were arrested in Spain for an attack on a Spanish government site (a Spanish police site was then attacked in retaliation), and 32 people were arrested in Turkey a few days later.

 

There has also been police activity related to the LulzSec hacking group, which is believed to be a spinoff of Anonymous, with whom they have joined forces in attacks under the AntiSec banner. Nineteen-year-old Ryan Cleary was arrested and released on bail in June after being charged with participating in attacks on the U.K.'s Serious Organized Crime Agency, an AntiSec target, and other sites. LulzSec members have denied that Cleary is a member of the group, saying that he only hosted one of the group's chat rooms on his Internet Relay Chat server. Also, an Ohio home was reportedly searched in June.

 

LulzSec, meanwhile, has turned its sights on media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who is embroiled in a phone voice-mail-hacking scandal that led to the closure of his British tabloid The News of the World and prompted the arrest of former editor Rebekah Brooks. The hackers yesterday redirected the home page of The Sun tabloid, also owned by Murdoch, to a fake story claiming Murdoch had died and released purported phone numbers of Murdoch employees and what appeared to be an old e-mail address and password for Brooks. The hacking happened after a former News of the World journalist was found dead.

 

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Electronic tongue assesses fruit quality

 

(ScienceDaily.com)  — Researchers at the Centre for Molecular Recognition and Technological Development (IDM) and the CUINA group of the Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain) have developed a new electronic tongue system that can be applied to the analysis of the antioxidant power and other quality parameters of juices, fruit and fruit purées.

 

According to the UPV researchers, in recent years, electronic tongues have become an excellent alternative to traditional methods of analysis for controlling the quality of food products. "Electronic tongues, using electrochemical techniques, help us to sort food samples in situ and to quantify their physicochemical parameters, in a fast and economical way," said Ramón Martínez Máñez, a researcher at the UPV IDM.

 

The electronic tongue system designed by UPV researchers is based on techniques of voltammetry and impedance spectroscopy, and consists of a PC application and some electronic measuring equipment. In addition, the software that they have developed allows not only to perform tests but to store the data corresponding to the measurements obtained as well.

 

So far, UPV experts have tested the usefulness of this system in different antioxidant solutions -specifically, citric acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and malic acid, and binary mixtures of those-, and the results have been highly satisfactory.

 

"What we do is, we apply electrical signals to the solution and we measure its response. Thus we can quantify the antioxidant concentration in that solution," said Miguel Alcañiz, IDM researcher at the Universitat Politècnica de València.

 

Now, researchers at the IDM and the Group of CUINA Politècnica de València are working on the study of the degradation of vitamin C in juices. "We're starting to work very soon in the direct application of the electronic tongue to the evaluation of orange juice," said José Manuel Barat, a researcher at the UPV's CUINA group.

 

UPV researchers have also studied the application at the laboratory of this electronic tongue system to the detection of glyphosate, a weedkiller which is widely used in agriculture, and to monitoring water quality in sewage treatment plants.

 

This system has been presented within the framework of the V Workshop on Sensors and Molecular Recognition, organized by IDM, which took place recently at the UPV's School of Agricultural Engineering and Environment.

 

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Kenyan prison farm grows unique ‘pomato’

 

(Business Daily Africa) – A Kenyan prison farm has made a breakthrough in growing tomatoes and potatoes on the same stem through grafting, potentially helping save on input costs and maximising use of small land parcels in densely populated areas.

 

The Kiambu Prison started the trial two years ago, guided by literature from China that showed the tuber and the fruit could actually be grown on the same plant.

 

The prison did not involve the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute or the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate services until when the experiment was successful. They have now called in the scientists to assess the crossbreed - pomato - and results are in the pipeline.

 

The prison’s farm manager Samuel Manene and the deputy director of prisons farms Patrick Kariri displayed the new plant at the Kiambu district agricultural show held at Ndumberi grounds.

 

Corporal Manene said the two crops belong to the solanaceae family, which is sensitive to humidity and is loved by pests. “A farmer can now plant tomatoes and potatoes together and save on space, time and labour without affecting the quality of their produce.”

 

He added that farmers could carry out the simple grafting technique. “One only needs a scion from a producing tomato to graft with a sprouting potato stem,” explains Mr. Manene, who said the farm was planning two-day orientations for farmers from the area.

 

Mr Manene said farmers in Gachie in Kiambu County and Meru’s Kibirigwi area have already started planting the Potato with his guidance.

 

He said one has to cut the potato bud, dissect the stem for two inches from the bud and insert the wedge-shaped flowering tomato scion into the dissection before tying it up with a polythene strip.

 

The dissection is done high above the soil level to prevent bacteria and disease-causing organisms from infecting the upper plant. After grafting the tomato leaves continue making food for the potato tubers beneath the soil.

 

A grafted pomato seedling is being sold for Sh50 each. Potato and tomato blight caused by humid conditions and bacteria wilts are the main threats to tomatoes and potatoes in Kenya.

 

Farmers who cannot afford the chemicals are forced to give the crops a wide berth or risk failed harvests.

 

Mr Manene said the prison’s farm has started trials to graft tomatoes with sweet potatoes.

 

Senior superintendent of prisons in charge of Kiambu prison David Kiptoo said prisoners were learning the grafting as part of rehabilitation programmes that they may apply after completing their sentences to sustain themselves economically.

 

“Our agricultural officers are training them on basic agricultural skills the main one being the Pomato that has been discovered right here. With the skill, they can sustain themselves economically and stay away from crime,” he said.

 

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Elderly braceros fight for stolen pensions

 

(New America Media) SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Their days were long, their nights short, but their labor under the hot sun were also driven by dreams of returning home to Mexico -- and the embrace of their loved ones. Back home, these Mexican workers hoped the U.S. dollars the earned would enable them to add a new room to the old house, or perhaps buy a cow or parcel of land.

 

Before dawn, migrant workers returned to the field where their dreams met the reality of hard labor — bending their backs, filling their baskets, plowing, climbing fruit trees sweating on the dry earth. They rarely paused to rest, cold weather or hot. Work breaks were not legally scheduled. Food was scant. Days off were few. Even so, they were happy because they could dream of a future.

 

Access to work in the United States began during World War II, when the United States opened its borders to these workers. Some 4.5 million Mexicans came to the United States from 1942 to 1967, to work in agriculture. They were called braceros, a term rooted in the Latin and Greek words for arms. Those in America’s bracero program had nothing else to offer besides the power of their biceps, the grip of their hands.

 

In the eyes of the United States government, los braceros were far from illegal. They were soldiers in the fields, filling the void created when American workers were recruited to fight in Europe or the Pacific theater.

 

The workers, grateful there was work aplenty, got bused from farm to farm across America. What did DDT spraying matter, or the crowded conditions in work camps?

 

Through all the years of salting American soil with their sweat, braceros turned over 10 percent of their earnings to the Mexican government, which promised in writing that all their money would be returned on the workers’ retirement.

 

Many braceros, enamored of the United States, decided to remain north of the border. They overstayed their visas, but found steady work in the fields. They became fathers and then grandfathers of future generations of U.S. citizens.

 

Others returned to Mexico, too deeply attached to their homeland. But once back, braceros and their families were nobodies in the eyes of their government. They had nothing, so they got nothing -- no schools, no health care, no jobs, no future.

 

But whether they returned or stayed, the braceros assumed that their 10 percent earnings, cut from their paychecks, would eventually be returned to them. Now, nearly six decades later, the braceros have learned that the money their government took from them is nowhere to be found.

 

“We already had calluses on our hands and still couldn’t make a living,” recalls Leobardo Villa, 75, a native from Puebla, who resides legally in Pomona, Calif. “We did everything we could to be selected and get across [the border].’’

 

Villa arrived in the United States in 1954, and just like the millions of other men who came during the 25 year-period of the bracero program, he picked oranges, grapes, avocados, lemons and every other possible fruit or vegetable growing north of the border.

 

“I was born in a ranch and never had the chance to go to school,” said Antonio Rodriguez, 63, a native from the Mexican state of Durango. “There was plenty of poverty.”

 

Most of los braceros learned only lately that the money taken from their paychecks was delivered by the United States to the Mexican government. When some ex-braceros began spreading the story of the lost money, the Mexican government denied any part in it.

 

In January of 2001, former braceros showed up at the federal courthouses in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., to file a lawsuit against both governments, demanding their funds be returned. Both governments tried to get the lawsuit thrown out.

 

The United States argued that the lawsuit belonged in Mexican courts. After declaring that it was immune from suits filed in foreign courts, the Mexican government argued that there was no documentation supporting the braceros’ claim. In fact, both governments had set up bank accounts for the transference of funds.

 

In 2002, Alfredo Corchado and Ricardo Sandoval, investigative reporters at the Dallas Morning News, found in the Library of Congress and the Mexican National Archives documents indicating that “the bracero program leaked money everywhere,” and the funds, sent to various Mexican government-run banks, was grossly mismanaged.

 

In 2005, after exhausting their denials, the Mexican government agreed to pay out a settlement of 38,000 pesos (about $3,000) to anyone who could prove with documentation that he or she had indeed worked in the bracero program. There was no credit given to any interest the funds had earned for six decades.

 

“According to our lawyers, the Mexican government owed the braceros an amount ranging between $500 million and a billion dollars, counting interest,” said Baldomero Capiz, leader of Union Binacional de Braceros.

 

“The Mexican government has cheated on the braceros, just like it has cheated on generation after generation of fellow Mexicans. Now they are proposing that they would pay (a total of) $3,000," over a three-year period, which amount to about $86 a month."What good is that?” asked Manuel Robles.

 

Robles is a retired professor, who every Sunday leads a group of braceros in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, in a demonstration at the central plaza to hear the latest good and bad news about their case.

 

Who knows? The legal maneuverings could outlast the braceros, who are now old men, many years after dreaming and working the fields.

 

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