Israeli Cows are Greenest in the World

Dalia Mazori of Ma’ariv reported last week (28.02.2008) that Israeli cows were awarded "The Most Environmentally Friendly Cows" at the annual conference of International Dairy Federation (IDF). Dr. Yisrael Palmenbaum explained that the methane gas emitted by cows, is caused from the fermentation of food in the cows digestive system. Israeli cows are fed a rich diet of seeds as opposed to their counterparts in New Zealand and other grazing countries, that feed on a lot of green fiber, which takes much longer to digest causing more methane gas in the process.

The Benefits of Industrialized Agriculture

Here's an interesting clear-eye article from the International Herald Tribune (having nothing to do with Israel or the mideast), showing the benefits of Industrialized Agriculture. Not to take away from the many benefits of Organic farming, this article shows why on mass the world needs industrizlied farming and the dangerous effects PC ideololgoy has on millions of Africans.

FOOD FANTASIES: Africa's organic farms

By Robert Paarlberg

...Nearly all of Africa's farms are thus de facto "organic." Poor and non-productive, but organic.

Cereal crop yields in Africa are only one-third as high as in developing Asia, and only one-tenth as high as the United States. Average income from this kind of farming amounts to only a dollar a day, which is why nearly 80 percent of all those officially classified as poor in Africa are farmers, and why one third of all farmers are chronically malnourished.

Without modern agricultural science, food production in Africa has fallen ominously behind population growth. Total agricultural production per capita today has fallen 19 percent below the level of 1970. Increasingly, Africans must depend on imported food aid...

In this fashion, and perhaps without realizing it, wealthy countries are imposing the richest of tastes on the poorest of people. The rich are, in effect, telling Africa's farmers they should just as well remain poor.

Robert Paarlberg is a professor of political science at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and the author of "Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa.

Former Brazilian-Israeli Behind Google's Now-Famous Logo

Google's Operating Systems Blog has an article this month titled Designing Google's Logo that's interesting to read from a design perspective and cites Ruth Kedar as the graphic designer who developed the now-famous Google logo.

The article goes on to say that Kedar met Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page through a mutual friend nine years ago at Stanford University, where she was an assistant professor.

Wikipedia cites that Ruth Kedar was born in Brazil, moved to Israel where she received a degree in Architecture from the Technion – a leading Israeli Institute of Technology. She later came to the US to attend the Stanford University Masters Program in Design. More about Ruth Kedar’s graphic design studio can be found at Kedar Designs and other digital art work of hers at Ruth Kedar's Art Studio .

Israeli Singer Accompanies the MacBook Air Commercial

VC Café the tech-blog that tracks Israeli tech startup news from a Silicon Valley perspective reports that the woman's voice behind the Apple MacBook Air commercial is 29 year old Israeli singer Yael Naim: Israeli singer serenades launch of MacBook Air. The article goes on to say that Yael was born in Paris to Tunisian parents who immigrated to Israel when she was 4 years old.

Solel Solar inks huge solar power deal in California

by Merav Ankori
Globes www.globes.co.il
July 25, 2007
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/DocView.asp?did=1000235907&fid=1725

Solel Solar Systems Ltd. will sell 553 megawatts of electricity to California's PG & E Corp. (AMEX:PCG) (Pacific Gas and Electric Company) from a solar power plant that the company will build in the Mojave Desert at an investment of some $2 billion. PG & E's nine-square mile Mojave Solar Park is due to begin operating in 2011. PG&E said that the power, enough for 400,000 homes, will go to customers in northern and central California. The Mojave Solar Park project is now the world's largest single solar commitment.

New Ad Campaign Uses Everyday Israelis

From the Advertising section of Today's NYTs

(Read the full story here: travel.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/business/media/30adv-w.html)

The North American office of the Israel Ministry of Tourism is running an $11 million ad campaign - the ministry’s largest ever - that suggests visitors will “love Israel from the first ‘Shalom.’ ”
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Featuring a cross-section of welcoming Israelis who include an archeologist, chef, cowboy, dancer and high-tech executive, the ads are part of a plan to double North American tourism to Israel by 2010, said Arie Sommer, Israel’s Tourism Commissioner for North and South America. Approximately 600,000 North Americans traveled to Israel last year, 30 percent of the country’s total and its largest single group of visitors
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Mal MacDougall, chief creative officer of Communications Plus in New York, the ministry’s ad agency, said these individuals “are a cross-section, real Israelis. They’re not models or famous, they’re real, everyday people.”

He also said they were chosen because they represent the “breadth Israelis have. For example, the dancer does studies in the animal world. We tried to get people who were not just a doctor, who do nothing but be a doctor.”

The campaign’s tagline, “You’ll love Israel from the first ‘Shalom’ ” was chosen, Mr. Sommer said, because it reflects the “warm feelings between American people and the people of Israel.”

Maya Weiser, the dancer in the campaign, is shown posing on a beach in Tel Aviv. The copy asks, “Who can say ‘Shalom’ more eloquently” than she, and explains that she has danced since she was 6 and been a member of the Batsheva Dance Company, and that she now studies animal science at Hebrew University.
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