I doubt most consumers have even noticed

From the New York Times…

As American dairy farmers increased their shipments of powdered milk, cheese and other dairy ingredients to foreign markets, their incomes rose. And the demand surge helped drive up the price of milk for American families. The national average for whole milk peaked at $3.89 a gallon in July, up from an average of $3.20 a gallon in 2006.

But now, demand for dairy products is stalling amid a global economic slowdown and credit crisis, even as supplies have increased. The result is a glut of milk — and its assorted byproducts, like milk powder, butter and whey proteins — that has led to a precipitous drop in prices.

The price of powdered skim milk, used in infant formula, dairy products and processed foods, has fallen to roughly 80 cents a pound today from about $2.20 in mid-2007. Other dairy products have declined as well. Whole milk at grocers has not declined as rapidly as wholesale powdered milk, but it has dropped to $3.67 a gallon, down nearly 6 percent from the peak.

While consumers are undoubtedly pleased by the lower prices, dairy farmers are struggling.

Before I read this article, I had not realized that so much milk was being exported. I always thought it was mostly consumed in house. Which I guess it was until recently.

Kony has moved to a new location

From the Telegraph….

Rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army have murdered about 500 people in a series of massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The good news in all this is that Uganda army seems to have finally got its act together enough to kick Kony drive him far away from Uganda. They should have done that a long time ago. The bad news is that it is not likely that anyone in Congo will be able to deal with Kony. Unless Rwanda takes it into its head to do something about him, that is. But then, Rwanda has its own problems.

Is it a fluke or a sign of something bigger coming?

From the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory….

Yellowstone seismicity increased significantly in December 2008 due to an energetic earthquake swarm that commenced on December 26. This swarm, a sequence of earthquakes clustered in space and time, is occurring beneath the northern part of Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park. As of this writing, the largest of these earthquakes was a magnitude 3.9 at 10:15 pm MST on Dec. 27. Through 5:00 pm MST on Dec. 31, the sequence had included 12 events of magnitude 3.0 to 3.9 and approximately 20 of magnitude 2.5 to 2.9, with a total of at least 400 events large enough to be located (magnitude ~1 or larger). National Park Service (NPS) employees and visitors have reported feeling the largest of these earthquakes in the area around Yellowstone Lake and at Old Faithful and Grant Village.

The hypocenters of the swarm events cluster along a north-south-trending zone that is about 7 km long. The vast majority of the focal depths are shallower than 5 km. It is not possible to identify a causative fault of other feature without further analysis.

If I was a Jew I would move

From Brussels Journal…..

But now, more than 500 years later, Spanish anti-Semitism is on the rise once again. According to a recent study published by the Pew Research Center, nearly half of all Spaniards have negative views of Jews, a statistic that marks Spain as one of the most anti-Semitic countries in Europe. According to Pew, 46 percent of Spaniards hold negative opinions of Jews, up more than double from the 21 percent of Spaniards with such views in 2005.

Spain is also the only country in Europe where negative views of Jews outweigh positive views; only 37 percent of Spaniards think favorably about Jews. By comparison, 36 percent of Poles have negative views of Jews while 50 percent have positive views; in Germany, 25 percent negative versus 64 percent positive; in France, 20 percent negative versus 79 percent positive; and in Britain, 9 percent positive versus 73 percent favorable. (According to Pew, 77 percent of Americans have favorable views toward Jews, compared with 7 percent unfavorable.)

Pew’s latest research about Spanish anti-Semitism corroborates the findings of other, similar surveys. For example, a report about European anti-Semitism published by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League says that 54 percent of Spaniards believe that “Jews have too much power in international markets.” And 51 percent of Spaniards believe that “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country.”

This article has a big flaw. It wants to blame antisemitism in Europe entirely on the left. This has no relation to reality in Europe. Go to any culturally conservative web site that is based out of Europe and I can just about guarantee you will find some seriously antisemitic comments. The Brussels Journal is no exception. Look at the comments at the bottom of the post that was quoted from above.

To be sure, the left in Europe is plenty antisemitic themselves. Indeed, antisemitism is far more common across the political spectrum in Europe than it is in the US.

In the US, we are prone to call anyone who is to harsh on Israel antisemitic. But over in Europe, a lot of people are out and out hostile to all Jews and they do not bother to hide it.

Blood sugar relates to memory?

From the New York Times…

Spikes in blood sugar can take a toll on memory by affecting the dentate gyrus, an area of the brain within the hippocampus that helps form memories, a new study reports.

Researchers said the effects can be seen even when levels of blood sugar, or glucose, are only moderately elevated, a finding that may help explain normal age-related cognitive decline, since glucose regulation worsens with age.

Israeli Defense Force Has Its Own You Tube Channel

The channel can be found here. A sample is below. But over all the channel is not that interesting really. But it sure is kicking up a lot of fuss. Some clips have even been banned by You Tube as a result of complaints, although it is my understanding that most of them have been put back up.

When I watch the clip above, I can’t help but think of these boys.

Interesting Comparison

From David Copperfield….

I’ve been out here for just over a year now and a few people have asked me what the main differences between policing in the UK and in Canada.

For those that don’t know, David Copperfield started the whole British police blogging thing. But he suited his actions to his words and left the UK for Canada. This is his comparison one year into his new job.

You could argue that he is still in his honeymoon period so he can hardly make a fair comparison. But what I found most striking was his comparison of the legal powers he had as an officer in the UK compared to what he has in Canada. With out spoiling the post, let us just say that more powers does not make for better crime fighting.