Today I am joining thousands of others bloggers and writing a post about world hunger. The sheer number of people not only around the world, but right here in Vermont that will be “celebrating”… if they can get enough to eat today, tomorrow and the next day… is overwhelming. The statistics behind this huge problem are absolutely staggering:
• Right now, more than 500 million people are living in “absolute poverty” and more than 15 million children die of hunger every year.
• The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the population is underfed and another third is starving.
• Even in the United States, 46 percent of African-American children and 49 percent of Latino children are considered chronically hungry.
The Brewers Association has announced it’s annual list of the top 50 brewing companies. Included in the press release are lists for both Top 50 Craft Brewing Companies of small and independent craft brewers plus a Top 50 Overall Brewing Companies list. Rankings are based on sales volume in 2008. See both complete lists at http://www.beertown.org/craftbrewing/statistics.html.
The Brewers Assocation has just named Vermont as the state having the most breweries per capita in the United States for 2008. According to their site statistics, Vermont has 19 breweries and 621,270 people… that’s one brewery for every 32,698 people… how awesome is that?! The other top 5 states in breweries per capita are Montana, Oregon, Maine and Colorado. The state with the least number of breweries per capita is Mississippi with only 1 brewery for nearly 3 million people. The article offers a downloadable PDF version of the complete report on how all of the other states ranked.
I have been working to add some new features to this blog, but many of them will not be readily visible to regular users of the site. In addition to adding a mobile version of the site (visible to mobile users only, of course), I have added database management and backup, a site maintenance notice, a blog security scanner, have linked the site RSS feed to FeedBurner and have added a theme preview plugin that would allow me to preview new themes (should I wish to change). These are all changes that mostly benefit ME… but will make the site more secure, makes it available to a broader range of users and makes it easier for me to manage and keep track of… ultimately/hopefully these changes benefit everyone.
