Now I wonder, did these crisps come from a salt and pepper crisp tree? Let’s check those ingredients.

Select potatoes, sunflower oil, potato maltodextrin, potato starch, sea salt, black pepper, yeast extract, citric acid from sugar beet molasses, black pepper extract

How many of those are natural? Answer is not too many.

Potatoes are an artificially engineered version of a nightshade family plant once native to South America. They bear little resemblance to their natural ancestor and do not exist in nature.

Sunflower oil? You need to specially and artificially process sunflower seeds to get it.

Potato maltodextrin is made in large steel reaction vessels by the partial hydrolysis of potato starch. It is entirely artificial.

Potato starch is extracted from mashed up potatoes using solvents.

Sea salt is specially treated to remove all the things in seawater which will, given a chance, make you very ill. So again, it’s artifically refined.

Black pepper, for a change, is actually natural. Well, after we artificially process it. The berries of the pepper plant piper nigrum are dried in large factories which use giant fans to blow hot air over them. Once dried, they’re peppercorns ready for use.

Yeast extract is used because it contains massive amounts of monosodium glutamate and glutamic acid, two nutrients essential for life and good tasting. Flavourings, basically. It’s made by either hydrolysis or autolysis: Kill the yeast, filter off the cell walls and the contents of the yeast cells are the “yeast extract”.

Citric acid from sugar beet again requires extensive refinement to filter off the vegetable matter and the sugar. Artificial citric acid is much purer, as is citric acid from citrus sources – Sugar beet is just far cheaper.

Finally, black pepper extract. This is probably some piperine or some concentrate of it. Piperine is the slightly toxic chemical in black pepper that gives them their characteristic heat. This is used because it’s dirt cheap and means that less actual black pepper is needed to give it the same hot taste. It’s a cost-cutting measure, that’s all.

On the back of the pack are even more bold statements:

We don’t add MSG

Yes you do. What on earth do you think’s in that yeast extract? Yep, the exact reason you’re even using yeast extract – Because it contains huge amounts of MSG and that’s a flavour you just can’t get any other way.

We never use artificial flavours or colours

Calling cultured, processed and refined yeast “natural” is rather like calling a steel bar natural just because the iron ore was. Yep, that’s a flavouring.

We don’t use hydrogenated fat

I’m sure you don’t use diamonds either. Why are you telling us this? Hydrogenated fats would be unsuitable anyway!

We know the origin of all our ingredients

So what? As long as they meet quality standards, does it matter if they come from Surrey or Scotland? Better yet, why aren’t you telling us the origins?

We only use sunflower oil

Because it’s cheaper than the other suitable oil, olive oil.

The colour of our chips is determined by natural sugars in the potatoes we use

Same with everyone else’s.

Exactly how abstracted from nature do we need to get before something becomes artificial? Kettle Foods seems to think that drying, washing with solvent, filtering off the solvent and all different kinds of refinement means the resulting chemicals are still “natural”? Indeed, processing potato feedstock until it no longer contains any naturally occuring components means the end product is still natural?

By that logic, a car is perfectly natural. The aluminium came from natural bauxite, the steel from natural iron ores, the plastics from natural oil.

The islands were first administered by France in 1764. 1765, Captain John Byron explored and claimed another island in the archipelago for Britain, 1766 saw more islands being claimed for Britain.

From 1770 to 1771, Britain withdrew from the islands, allowing Spain to move in, though the British did not relinquish their claim of sovereignty. Spain ruled until 1811 before withdrawing to support its struggle against Bonaparte back home.

The United Provinces of the River Plate (United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata) claimed the islands in 1820, which wasn’t taken seriously by anyone – since both British and Spanish claims were still outstanding, leading Luis Vernet to ask permission of the British to set up a settlement, since the Spanish were in no state (nor had the will) to be colonising the few islands.

From 1826 to 1828, The United Provinces of the River Plate (later to become the nation of Argentina) obtained permission from Britain to operate a settlement on the islands with the understanding that the settlement would provide reports and materials to the British in return for British protection, should Britain decide to return to a permanent occupancy on the islands. The Argentine effort was led by Vernet who was made governor of the islands.

When the Americans invaded Falklands waters to hunt seals, Vernet had the crews arrested and tried for violating restrictions on seal hunting. In 1831, the USS Lexington destroyed the entire Puerto Luis settlement to show that might makes right. That incident provoked the British Foreign Office to re-assert its claim of sovereignty over the islands. Fresh from their beating by the British in the War of 1812 and knowing the Revolutionary War insurrection was a lucky break, the Americans did not wish to engage the Royal Navy over a few barren pieces of rock. HMS Clio and HMS Tyne were not long in arriving to enforce the will of the British, each of which far more than a match for anything the US Navy could muster. By 1833, Britain was in direct administration of the islands once again.

It is recognised that Argentina never actually had a legitimate claim to the islands as, overlapping their own claim, both the Spanish and the British had claims pre-dating it. Indeed, Vernet’s operations were done with British permission (if not under her flag) and without any prejudice as to the British claim of sovereignty.

Argentina’s claim was mostly smoke and mirrors until 1982, when an invasion force was launched by the Argentinian military junta. Believing the British would not enforce their rightful sovereignty, the deeply unpopular military dictatorship thought it would win the hearts of the people by controlling the islands. Alas, Britain did wish to enforce the will of her people and gave the military junta the biggest kicking of its short life, resulting in its eventual collapse.

This had the unfortunate effect of steeling British will and, via the principle of self-determination, ensuring that Britain would defend her territory in perpetuity. With a military might hugely in excess of anything Argentina can possibly muster and with the proven ability to project that might, any complaint would have to be reserved to diplomatic channels.

Which brings us to today. Argentina’s already weak claim, based on barely five years of occupancy under British licence, is arguing against 177 years of continued British presence and administration. While the usual crowd of Venezuela and Peru have banded behind the Argentines, most nations are dismissive of Argentina’s claims. If a territorial claim from almost two hundred years ago could be resurrected, it would result in global chaos.

With the discovery of commercially exploitable oil reserves, Argentina is once again asserting its sovereignty of surrounding waters, extending its territorial waters claim way out from its own coast in a suspiciously convenient finger arcing through the Falkland Islands, forcing British vessels to undergo all manner of unreasonable searches and detaining those carrying oil industry equipment. Argentina has already ruled out any military action (probably on the grounds of attacking a first-world nuclear nation with an extremely powerful navy being not entirely wise) and instead wants to sway international opinion against the British.

Hugo Chaves, the humourously deluded amateur TV personality and president of Venezuela made this amusing statement: “Queen of England, I’m talking to you. The time for empires is over, haven’t you noticed? Return the Malvinas to the Argentine people.” In it, he’s quite strangely neglecting that Argentina has never owned the islands, so such a “return to the Argentine people” makes not a shred of sense.

Indeed, in 1995 the British agreed with Argentina to share proceeds of any oil development around the islands in international waters. Argentina then wanted to expand the agreement to Falklands territorial waters, which Britain was most unhappy with and refused, resulting in Argentina unilaterally tearing up the deal.

The Argentines know that any military action against the British islanders, with Venezuelan support or not, will be met with overwhelming response from the Royal Navy and so does Chavez, the dictator well known for grandoise claims and little known for grandoise action.

Expect this kind of rubbish from time to time. It’s the Argentina’s way of reminding everyone that it still claim those little islands which it has no historical claim to, so Argentina simply makes a lot of noise and hopes no historians are listening.

One such surrealist, a certain Pauline Hanson, set her political career all about anti-immigration with her party One Nation. Like certain elements over here, she claimed it wasn’t at all racist.

Let that be forever buried: She’s becoming an immigrant herself! Why? Why doesn’t it count when she’s the immigrant? Apparently because she’s white.

And that’s not racist.

Pauline, my dear, can you pick somewhere other than Britain to bring your pathetic immigrant arse? We’re getting about full of racist pondlife, we plain don’t have enough ponds. I hear Siberia is nice at this time of year.

Australians, what the hell is wrong with you people? Is this some elaborate scheme to prove that you’re incapable of self-rule so we’ll take you back?

Oh yes. Australia continues to hurtle along the line of a government approved Internet only. Clueless Communications Minister Stephen Conroy wants mandatory ISP censorship of any content ‘refused classification’ by the government and recently set his sights on dissenters on YouTube.

Wanting Google to filter YouTube of any comments critical to the rulers, Conroy stated in the state-filtered media “Google at the moment filters an enormous amount of material on behalf of the Chinese government,” moments after trying to justify it with “in Australia, these are our laws and we’d like you to apply our laws” where it’s clear that Conroy admires the Great Firewall of China and wants to build his own Great Internet Barrier Reef.

Google, naturally, told the repressive regime to go screw itself. Conroy’s comments come just days after Google’s spat with the Chinese authorities and Google’s decision to stop self-censorship in China.

The idea is that the Australian govermnent wants to block anything it doesn’t like the smell of using the Australian movie, video games and entertainment ratings board. If the government gives out a “Refused Classification” notice, said content disappears from the Internet.

Australia, you are a tiny economy and a negligible player on the world stage – Any prestige you may have was inherited from us. If you want a policy of isolation, don’t be surprised when people treat you as the totalitarian hell hole without respect for basic human rights that you are. You’re already facing huge skills shortages and let’s face it, a land which is variously deadly venomous or on fire isn’t an attractive target for skilled workers. Adding a power-obsessed regime into the mix makes it not just unattractive, but a place to avoid.

Death from asteroid or meteorite strike: 1 in 1,960,000,000
Injury due to asteroid or meteorite impact: 1 in 210,000,000
Death due to earthquake (UK): 1 in 120,000,000
Death from anthrax: 1 in 55,053,000
Death from an act of terrorism (2008): 1 in 44,000,000 (note 5)
Death from venom (snake, jellyfish, spider, etc.): 1 in 54,050,000 (note 1)
Death from accidental fall: 1 in 45,000,000 (note 2)
Poisoning by cleaners, paints, other chemicals: 1 in 27,000,000
Death from an act of terrorism (1987): 1 in 19,000,000 (note 5)
Under 16 killed by stranger: 1 in 17,800,000
Any specific combination of 24 coin tosses: 1 in 16,777,216
UK National Lottery, all six numbers: 1 in 13,983,816
Death due to police action: 1 in 11,000,000
Death from salmonella: 1 in 10,587,115
Property damage due to earthquake: 1 in 4,900,000
Under 16 killed by his/her own family: 1 in 4,300,000
Death from lightning strike: 1 in 3,100,000
UK National Lottery, 5 numbers + bonus ball: 1 in 2,330,636
Randomly selected person is a paedophile: 1 in 1,300,000
Death from necrotising fascitis (flesh eating bacteria): 1 in 1,250,000
Death in a plane crash: 1 in 660,000
Royal flush in five card poker: 1 in 649,739
Death in a rail accident: 1 in 525,000
Death by firearm in England and Wales (1990): 1 in 510,000
Death by poisonous gases or vapours: 1 in 495,000
Death by electrocution: 1 in 493,000
Death by a falling object: 1 in 375,000
Death due to MRSA infection (2007): 1 in 300,000
Death by firearm in England and Wales (2007): 1 in 264,000
Death due to being stabbed in Greater London: 1 in 240,000
Death due to lack of healthcare: 1 in 83,720
Death in a residential housefire: 1 in 83,025
UK National Lottery, 5 numbers: 1 in 55,491
Death in a road accident: 1 in 6,500
Death from suicide (England and Wales, 2008): 1 in 4,350
Death from influenza: 1 in 4,100
Death from badly treated diabetes: 1 in 4,000
Death from accidental self-inflicted injury: 1 in 2,900
Death from chronic respiratory disease (asthma, cystic fibrosis, etc.): 1 in 2,200
Death from a stroke: 1 in 1,650
A Dutch dyke will flood in the next year: 1 in 1,250
Odds you will never marry (2007 rate): 1 in 1,200
UK National Lottery, 4 numbers: 1 in 1,032
Thames Barrier will flood in the next year: 1 in 1,000
Death from cancer: 1 in 500
Death from enemy action during active duty: 1 in 480 (note 4)
Death from heart disease: 1 in 390
Sharing a birthday with a randomly selected person: 1 in 370.4 (Note 7)
Being involved in any knife-crime in England and Wales (2005): 1 in 177 (note 8 )
Odds you will marry in the next year (2007 rate): 1 in 111
Britons as a proportion of global population: 1 in 100
UK National Lottery, 3 numbers: 1 in 57
UK National Lottery, any win: 1 in 54
Card deal is any specific card: 1 in 52
Odds police will arrest you for something that isn’t illegal (2009): 1 in 36
You are ill right now: 1 in 30
Home computer being an Apple Mac: 1 in 25
Being on the UK DNA Database: 1 in 19
Next meal is fast-food: 1 in 10
Developing or having an incurable disease of any severity: 1 in 10
PCs having at least one item of malware: 1 in 8
Undergraduate achieving a First: 1 in 7
Driver has an endorsed licence: 1 in 7
Randomly selected couple will be infertile: 1 in 6.7 (Note 6)
Chance you went to church last Sunday: 1 in 6
Die throw is any specific number: 1 in 6
Attending a private funeral in the next year: 1 in 5.6
A randomly selected child is obese: 1 in 5.5
Your front door has a CCTV camera aimed at it: 1 in 5
Odds a 13-17 year old has performed some act which was legally paedophilia: 1 in 4.2 (note 9)
You are obese: 1 in 4.1
Odds you have an illegal item in your household: 1 in 4
Odds that a car driver will break the law during his next journey: 1 in 3.2
Broadband speed is less than half of that advertised: 1 in 3
Black man being on the UK DNA Database: 1 in 2.7
Odds two children in a class of 23 will share a birthday: 1 in 2
Odds your first sexual encounter was legally paedophilia: 1 in 2 (note 3)
You have used illegal drugs: 1 in 1.9

Notes:
1. World-wide.
2. Age dependent.
3. 53% of the population is not virginal at the age of 18 (2009 estimate)
4. Assumes you’re already a soldier.
5. Terrorism deaths that year divided by population that year.
6. Defined as no conception after one year of unprotected sex.
7. It isn’t one in 365 as randomly selected 365 people could have all different birthdays! Given by 1-(365/364).
8. Includes merely carrying a blade longer than 3 inches in a public place
9. From estimated “sexting” rates.

It causes vaccination takeup rates to plummet and caused the deaths of hundreds of children from easily preventable diseases.

Dr. Wakefield failed to disclose that he was being paid by lawyers looking for someone to blame autism on, failed to disclose that he’d paid children £5 at a birthday party for blood samples (hardly clinical accuracy or professional integrity) and carried out invasive tests on children “against their best clinical interest”. The General Medical Council ruling that Wakefield had acted with “callous disregard for any pain they might suffer” and considered the case proven on both counts in a ruling made public yesterday (27th Jan).

As the medical world geared itself up for another ‘thalidomide’ type case in 1999, researchers around the world started to discover that they weren’t able to reproduce Dr. Wakefield’s results. If there was a link between MMR and autism, they couldn’t find it. Nobody could. Only Dr. Wakefield and the lawyers paying him were able to find a link. How surprising is that?

After numerous independent doctors called into question Wakefield’s study, Lancet came out and admitted it didn’t meet standards of integrity and accuracy and should never have been published. Lancet’s reputation took quite a beating in the aftermath.

Even a newspaper got in on the story, The Times of London, bringing up clinical abuses and inconsistencies in the way Wakefield had conducted the study and demanding he be held to trial for it.

The end seems in sight for the corrupt doctor’s career, as he seems certain to be struck off by the General Medical Council as the two and half year investigation draws to a close, with a verdict of “serious professional misconduct” being almost predetermined at this point.

In this case, it was greedy lawyers who bought off a corrupt doctor, but it wasn’t just the lawyers. Wakefield also had financial interest in a company who was trying to market an alternative to the MMR vaccine. However, the alternative vaccine was less effective and hadn’t been adopted anywhere. If Wakefield could discredit MMR, then he stood to make a fortune. The end result of their greed has been dead babies.

In the end, science roots out bad eggs due to its distributed, competitive and independent nature. But there’ll always be bad eggs in science or any field of human endeavour. Ill-informed or outright ignorant parents are just as much to blame, however.

Why would anyone want to contaminate milk with melamine? What’s there to gain?

Usually milk is tested for concentration, to ensure it isn’t watered down or adulterated, and this is done by testing its protein content. Watered down milk, or milk powder cut with flour, will contain less protein as it contains less milk.

The standard test done is simply measuring nitrogen content, since in milk most of the nitrogen is in protein. Protein in milk is usually around 15% nitrogen by mass. However, melamine is 66% nitrogen by mass and so can be added in to watered down milk to make it appear to be undiluted.

Normally this would be almost undetectable, without specific reason to test for melamine. Melamine is about as toxic as normal table salt, you could drink melamine contaminated milk every day for your whole adult life and merely have a heightened risk of kidney stones, nobody would notice without specifically testing for it

It’s fraud, plainly and simply. By passing off the milk as undiluted and passing off animal feed as higher in protein than it is, the companies who buy the stuff to use it are being ripped off.

Melamine itself is harmless, but mix it with cyanuric acid (again totally harmless) and the two form melamine cyanurate, which is insoluble and forms crystals in the kidneys, kidney stones. An adult’s kidney is large enough to simply expel the crystals before they grow any larger, but a baby (or small animal) cannot.

If melamine contaminated milk finds its way into infant formula, then the problems start. A baby’s kidney will form melamine cyanurate itself, infants do not have the same kidney function or renal chemistry that adults (and older children) do, meaning melamine is much more harmful, rapidly forming kidney stones which can prove fatal in babies.

It’s not just milk formula, however. Other products tested and sold by protein content are also known to have been contaminated in the 2006-2008 timeframe, such as animal feed. This is harmless to humans, but did kill 1,500 raccoon dogs being bred for fur and can find its way into eggs produced from chickens fed with contaminated feed.

China already sentenced two people to death for their part in the 2008 scandal (which affected 300,000 children, hospitalised 50,000 of them and killed six) , it’s likely more will follow. China is very protective of its booming export trade and will deal very harshly with people or companies which threaten confidence in its exports.

For around £30,000, he would sell you an “explosives detector” (Iraq spent about £52 million on them) which worked using the “body’s own static electricity” for power. The device had a wand on a loose hinge and “detector cards” would slot into the base to make it detect different things, in ATSC’s claims anything from TNT to semtex to elephants with the ADE-651 (the device in question). I didn’t make that last one up.

Except that BBC’s Newsnight got hold of one of the cards, one for TNT, and had it analysed. It turned out to be nothing more than a simple retail anti-theft tag. In essence, the device is a dowsing rod, which have never been shown to work any better than dumb chance in any trial. Iraq has ordered an investigation, the UK has banned their export and Mr McCormick is looking at time behind bars.

I’d like to know what the hell Iraq was thinking of? The FBI had had warnings out since 1995 not to use “bogus explosives detectors”, the ADE-651 had never passed a single effectiveness test and James Randi offered McCormick his $1 million USD prize for proof of paranormal power should the ADE-651 pass a controlled effectiveness trial.

All the warning signs were there, yet Iraq still blew £52 million on a piece of plastic, a few clothes tags and a bent coathanger which was even claimed by its own vendors to operate in a “non-scientific” way.

You have? You’ve actually seen one of these forbidden films?

Congratulations, you’re a vile fetishist and a danger to society. According to Australian lawmakers, in a law passed to cover “violent pornographic fetishism” and to “protect children”, any movie with an R18+ rating (BBFC 18 here) cannot be promoted, advertised or displayed. Such movies must be displayed in “plain packaging”, which is defined as a blank cover with merely the name of the movie displayed.

Organisations such as the Labour Party (who have already banned “violent pornography” with a wonderfully broad definition which means the Sharon Stone movie “Basic Instinct” is now technically illegal), Conservative Party and Internet Watch Foundation seek to bring such laws to the UK. Should we support them?

Surely I have to be making some kind of bad joke?

Absolutely not. Let me explain.

Britain’s climate is controlled by the jet stream, in the winter it hovers over Britain, deflecting air masses which would otherwise be coming down from the Arctic, the jet stream’s moist but not so cold air from the North Atlantic (warmed by the Gulf Stream). This keeps us much warmer than our latitude would suggest, after all, we are as far north as Moscow, Edmonton and Minsk and further north than Winnipeg.

(Note: This is why usually in winter when we have snow, it’s when easterly or south easterly winds bring up air masses from the continent and it’s the source of the phrase ‘it’s too cold for snow’, since when it really gets cold in Britain, it’s usually a stationary winter anticyclone)

However, the jet stream never came north this winter, it remained over the Mediterranean, giving Spain some terrible floods in December 2009. Without the jet stream protecting us, the northerly winds from the Arctic could freely blow south over Britain, giving us the sort of weather our northerly latitude would otherwise consider to be perfectly normal.

Why would such a thing happen?

The jet stream changes course as it cools from summer to winter, but the jet stream was too warm to head north, so it remained in its summer position. Back in 2007 a similar thing happened, the jet stream didn’t cool down enough in the winter (2006-2007 was an exceptionally mild winter) to head south for the summer, so remained over us in its winter position and dumped off a ton of rain from the North Atlantic which gave Spain a hell of a bad drought and was meant to be distributed across the Mediterranean as far as Egypt, instead we got it all.

The same problem both times: The jet stream was too warm.