I still don't understand the dairy industry (and a segue into Heat In India)

There are two recent articles about the problems with the Australian dairy industry:   one in Fairfax by Peter Martin, and this one in The Conversation:  Murray Goulburn and Fonterra are playing chicken with dairy farmers, but I still don't really understand what is going on.

To do so, I need to understand more about dairy internationally. What happens to all the New Zealand exported dairy, for example? And I thought that to a large extent, New Zealand's recent financial success had largely been built on the back of their cows. If there are some international changes hurting the industry there, how will it affect their farmers, and budget bottom line?

It's funny, though, how it would seem that the sense most people have probably had for a few years now, that the price of supermarket milk just seems too cheap to be viable, may finally be being shown to be true.

Or, I could be wrong on that, too. I mean, I also find the price of carrots hard to believe; and have my doubts about how asparagus farmers in California, Mexico or Peru could find it worth their while to fly produce to Australia.  The economics of food seems full of surprises, to me...

Update:  by the way, which country do you think would be the world's biggest producer of milk?   According to the Times of India:

NEW DELHI: Dairy business provides livelihood to 60 million rural households in India and the country continues to be the largest producer of milk in the world, but global warming could result in adversely impacting the overall output in the coming years. 

 Speaking of India and climate change:  did you see the new all time record set last week of 51 degrees?   It's hard to believe that this is not killing hundreds of people there, but that aspect of the recent heat is not getting much publicity.  

Oh, here we go, a recent news story confirming the deaths caused in just one city:

NEW DELHI: Even Dante would’ve winced. Since the last week, with temperatures climbing  to 47 degree Celsius, Delhi is hot as hell. Around  350 have died on the streets. Water shortage of 7,949 lakh litres a day is dehydrating the city; a family uses 225 liters of water a day. Power outages are up to five hours daily as a result of a 20 per cent increase in demand up to 6,044 megawatts. But “no sweat” is the attitude of the Delhi government, which has no on the ground to handle the situation. In 2014, the Delhi High Court constituted a Joint Apex Advisory Committee (JAAC) to look into lack of summer shelter homes, but the committee has not held a single meeting in the last two years. The reason being Delhi government officials are too busy in “some other work” to even participate in any initiative to address the issue. But Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has promised to compensate those affected by unscheduled power cuts issued a threat to power companies and asked them to limit power cuts to two hours on Saturday. “I have copies of official communication from Delhi government where it has said that the JAAC meeting can’t be held as officials are busy in other work. It seems that government is not concerned about people dying on street because of heat,” said Sunil Kumar Aledia of Centre for Holistic Development (CHD).
A majority of heat related deaths were of the homeless, their bodies found on roads, pavements and other open areas like parks, says CHD. The organisation works with the state government’s Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) for improving the conditions in shelter homes.

 I get the feeling that the lack of news reporting about deaths caused by heat waves may be explained by a couple of things - that it happens to some extent most summers, and also, the politicians don't like it to be publicised.

Weekend round up

*  Finally managed to bribe my kids to accompany me in seeing The Jungle Book, but only one of them so far is admitting that it was an enjoyable movie.  (The other is deliberately depriving me of the pleasure of saying "you were right:  I did like it.") 

It's hard to believe that anyone could really take a positive dislike to it - it has charm; looks great; the animated animals do such good animated animal acting (it really is amazing to think how much the people who create these in the computer must think about it - they sometimes just convey meaning through the slightest movement of the eyes, for example); and it has a certain gravitas that I like to see in children's movies.  If any reader does see it, you must also stay during the credits to listen to some good versions of the songs which play on over them.   I was very impressed.

*  Made good osso buco in the pressure cooker.  This is easy, but my special ingredient is - when frying off the meat (liberally dusted in seasoned flour) in the pressure cooker first, near the end throw in a teaspoon of fennel seeds, and maybe half a teaspoon or so of cumin seeds. 

The rest of the recipe:  take the meat out, then fry up some diced onion, celery and carrot, as well as cup or two of skinned diced roma tomatoes.   (I think fresh tomatoes give a nicer result than canned, but of course, they'll work quite well too).  Then put the meat back in, top up the liquid with some wine (a cup or so?), put the lid on and cook at pressure for 30 minutes or so.  Very tasty.

By the way, it was on some cooking show by an American Italian mother (I forget her name) that she recommended a bit of sugar when cooking tomatoes into a sauce.  Helps bring out the flavour, she said.   I tend to do that myself now, but on Saturday, I also used a not very dry rose for the osso buco - a somewhat sweeter wine than would usually be recommended for cooking meat.   But maybe that was why the sauce seemed to come out particularly nice this time?    I'm not sure...

*  Election round up - I heard it said on Insiders that polling for Labor in Queensland is not looking good.  Can this account for why the betting markets seem increasingly sure of a Coalition win, but Newspoll keeps showing a very close result, with national TPP in favour of Labor?

Why would the Queensland voters have turned strongly against Labor?   It's not as if any defence spending has been thrown Queensland's way, and how can Labor take the blame for Clive Palmer's failure to keep his plant open in Townsville?   I have long said that voters in Queensland are just weird and fickle.  They can never be properly understood.

What fool in the AFP made this decision?

It's absurd to think that it would have not have occurred to the AFP that conducting a "raid" on a Labor Senator and Labor staff on a matter not relating in any way to national security during an election campaign would be potentially politically damaging to the raided party.

And although the primary risk of political harm is to Labor,  there is a chance that Turnbull is also annoyed, given a risk of "blowback" due to suspicion that the government had a role in the timing, no matter how improbable that might be.

[Oh, I hear someone thinking - well, if the political risk is to both parties, then the AFP may as well go ahead anyway.   I would not agree - if the investigation is into a non urgent matter, not relating to national security, and has obvious potential to influence voter's perceptions no matter how it is explained them, then it is foolish of the AFP to be raiding any political party during an election campaign.]

I am curious as to what the Right wingers in the media will say about this.  I don't have high hopes - they are completely on side with Border Force bribing people smugglers on the high seas, and acting completely without public scrutiny under cloak of fake "operational matters" secrecy; but I could be wrong....

Update:  happily, I was wrong, in that even Andrew Bolt is questioning the AFP decision.

Oh dear

Henry Kissinger’s War Crimes Are Central to the Divide Between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

I didn't realise when I mocked Trump saying he'd meet Kissinger for foreign policy advice that Hilary Clinton says she sought his "counsel" when she was Secretary of State!

I also had missed this part of the Kissinger sin (from the same article above):

Personal involvement in a plan to kidnap and murder a journalist living in Washington, D.C.

I see from Googling Hitchen's book on Kissinger, that this was to do with Greek journalist Elias Demetracopoulos, and it was a Greek government plan which, by virtue of some pretty strong indirect evidence, Kissinger had approved.  

A bit of a worry...

England’s chief medical officer warns of ‘antibiotic apocalypse’ | Society | The Guardian

Bohm may be back

Pilot-Wave Theory Gains Experimental Support | Quanta Magazine

I hadn't heard of this recent support for Bohm's approach to quantum physics until this article - but Bee tweeted it, so it must be OK.  

Stop thinking you are a computer

Your brain does not process information and it is not a computer | Aeon Essays

Good essay.

Yet more on Trump stupidity

The Know-Nothing Tide - The New York Times

This paragraph was interesting, in particular:

Speaking of Israel, Trump says, “President Obama has not been a friend
to Israel.” Right, he has not been a friend to the tune of over $20.5
billion in foreign military financing since 2009. He has not been a
friend by providing over $1.3 billion for the Iron Dome defense system
alone since 2011. He has not been a friend by, in 2014, opposing 18
resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly that were biased
against Israel; by helping to organize in 2015 the first U.N. General
Assembly session on anti-Semitism in the history of the body; and by
working tirelessly on a two-state peace, not least on the security
arrangements for Israel that are among its preconditions. He has not
been a friend by turning the other cheek in the face of what Nancy
Pelosi once called “the insult to the intelligence of the United States”
from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The parties' weakest members

An election campaign is generally pretty dull until you get to the policy speeches, and this one is certainly no exception.  But I thought I would list those characters who are obviously the most annoying from each party:

Liberals:   Peter Dutton wins hands down.  It's hard to imagine anyone liking him, no matter what side of politics, isn't it?  George Brandis perhaps comes in at a close second.  He seems to occasionally laugh at himself, however.  Dutton seems like a zombie.

Labor:  Stephen Conroy:  an annoying haircut, accent and general manner in a man who frequently lets his mouth run ahead of his brain.  Keep him off the airwaves as much as possible, Bill.

Nationals:  George Christensen.   An unpleasant, buffoony appearance in which the exterior matches the interior character.  Or so it seems.  Maybe he's a lovely man in private.  (Just kidding, it's too hard to imagine.)

Greens:  Adam Bandt:  just when the party gets a heterosexual, more or less reasonable sounding, leader, we still get reminded of the "preciousness" of a large part of the Greens whenever Bandt gets his head on TV. Sorry, I find him annoying. 

A genuine fool

Exclusive: Skeptical Trump says would renegotiate global climate deal | Reuters

The thing about him is that he is such an obvious fool, but he flip flops on most issues (save climate change, where he is continually wrong) that he well be malleable by advisers around him.  However, who could possibly trust his judgement about the quality of the advisers he would chose?

Not cheerful news

Scientists predict extensive ice loss from huge Antarctic glacier -- ScienceDaily

By studying the history of Totten's advances and retreats,
researchers have discovered that if climate change continues unabated,
the glacier could cross a critical threshold within the next century,
entering an irreversible period of very rapid retreat.


This would cause it to withdraw up to 300 kilometres inland in the
following centuries and release vast quantities of water, contributing
up to 2.9 metres to global sea-level rise.

 A full 300 km retreat may take "several hundred years", but still...

A dangerous precedent

Rodrigo Duterte’s Talk of Killing Criminals Raises Fears in Philippines - The New York Times

Reading about the trouble the Philippines has had with criminals and lawlessness in relatively recent history, it strikes me again as odd how some of the most overtly Catholic countries can have major trouble with gangs -  Italy's mafia, Mexico's drug gangs, and the Philippines with whatever their criminality has been about.

A very tricky issue

There's No Such Thing as Free Will - The Atlantic

This perhaps isn't the best article on the matter of free will, and the consequences of not believing in it, but still worth reading, I think.

As it happens, I noticed that the edition of Philosophy Now magazine  currently at my local newsagent had several articles on free will.  I haven't finished them all, yet, but I'll probably get around to mentioning one of them here, later.

[I keep thinking, incidentally, that the current way young folk in particular in Western society are thinking about gay and transgender issues is influenced not just by Freud, but by their increasing and almost unconscious acceptance that free will is not real, and our feelings are all determined by a dance of atoms that we have no control over.]  

An interesting result

Magic-mushroom drug lifts depression in first human trial : Nature News & Comment

As readers would know, I'm the last person to endorse recreation use of drugs (beyond alcohol), but persistent and deep depression is a very serious thing, and if one dose of a hallucinogen seems to be shown to help most people with the condition, it's worth considering.

The biggest buffoon to ever run for President

I had missed the "Trump complains about modern hairspray" story from last week, but here it is, covered by Colbert:



You would have to be seriously stupid to consider voting for this clown.

Oh look - Steve Kates is still making sympathetic posts about him.   (And a bunch of Right wing culture warriors still think he's great, 'cos he annoys "Leftists".)   I see that some anonymous contributor to the blog is also now re-posting items from a Fox News commentator about Hilary Clinton.   Seriously, the place has become so dire that you can feel it slowly sucking intelligence out of the universe. 

Probably a bad thing...

If California legalizes marijuana, consumption will likely increase. But is that a bad thing? - LA Times: The data from Colorado and Washington, where voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, are still preliminary. We do know, however, that the number of Coloradans who reported using marijuana in the past month increased from about 10.5% in 2011-12 to nearly 15% in 2013-14. In Washington, reported use increased from just above 10% to almost 13%.

Given that both states' preexisting medical systems already provided quasi-legal availability, it is hard to imagine that commercial legalization did not account for at least some of these increases. (That said, other factors could influence marijuana use and it will be some time before researchers have enough data to conduct rigorous analyses. Some of the increase could also come from respondents being more honest now that marijuana is legal in their states).

But is an increase in marijuana consumption a bad thing from a public health standpoint? Not necessarily.

I didn't realise the increases were that large, but this article is from a pro-legalisation advocate.

On the matter of public health, the problem is partly the length of time it takes to work this stuff out.  The rate of increase in smoking in the relatively young is the major issue, but its full effect may take years to clearly establish.

Given that the worst possible health effect (apart from possible car accident death) is a really debilitating mental illness (schizophrenia), surely you don't need too much of an increase in the rate of that to say that its increased use is a real public health negative.

Good grief

Donald Trump to meet with Henry Kissinger on foreign policy.

I see that Kissinger is 92 now.  Mind you, his safe "use by" age was probably 40.

Viewing recommendations

Greece With Simon Reeve | SBS On Demand

This documentary/travel show about Greece (last night on SBS) was very good, if somewhat depressing, viewing.   From the (pretty obvious) environmental degradation of the Mediterranean sea around Greece, to the surprisingly nutty men of Crete, it was fascinating in a way I didn't quite expect.

After that, although I missed part of it, there was Matthew Evans' show What's the Catch, about where our seafood comes from.  This is a repeat, evidently, but I had missed it the first time around. 

Again, this was very eye-opening.   The fishing practices around Thailand, to make the fish meal that is fed to their cheap farmed prawns that I already refuse to buy at the supermarket, were a real worry.  The problem is, places like Dominoes pizza will source their prawns from countries with such dire environmental practices.

Anyway, all praise SBS and ABC, again: for running educational material you won't see on commercial television.

Looking at why evangelicals would support Trump

Trump’s success with evangelical voters isn’t surprising. It was inevitable. - The Washington Post

The short answer:  because the modern, politically engaged, American evangelical typically has views that are not really Biblically based at all - except when it comes to homosexuality, I guess. 

On the other hand, NPR has an article about some evangelicals who are saying they can't in good conscience vote for Trump.

Letting Laffer off lightly

Cutting taxes to balance the budget? You're having a Laffer - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

It seems to me that when journalists here write about Art Laffer, they tend to let him off pretty lightly.   (Kansas rarely gets a mention, strangely enough.  How's it going?  - still terribly, I see - you have to go to somewhere like Forbes to find a "free market" proponent to run the Laffer line that it'll all work out for the good - just you wait and see; give it a decade or so.  Oh, and universities and highway funding - who needs them? It's all a "spending problem", not a revenue one.  Lol.)

But nonetheless, Ian Verrender's explanation of what's happened with low interest rates (companies are paying out big dividends, while simultaneously having earnings decline) was interesting.