Showing posts with label france. Show all posts
Showing posts with label france. Show all posts

The French Eat Golf-Ball Chips

We do live in a weird world where everything is possible but the odd thing, you think, would be impossible. In the modern world you would think a machine could be developed that could sort real golf balls from freshly picked potatoes. Unfortunately, this problem persists in France.

A golf course is situated next to a potato field. When miss-hit golf balls fall among the potatoes the machine carefully picks up potatoes and golf balls together. When the golf balls and potatoes are then processed in the chip factory the golf balls are cooked and sliced with the potatoes. They do know that a fat, juicy golf ball produces 18 slices of "chips".

The real problem arises when cooking and slicing is completed and golf ball chips and potato chips look the same. Apparently, people have actually eaten the golf ball chips from the packet. There have been complaints, however. Customers have said that it could endanger health, so a new machine will be created to identify golf balls in the potato field. Just how long this will take is not known.
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Society
TwitThis
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More Support for Euthanasia

Hopes rise for the right to die as the world population ages. Opponents, generally based on a fixed belief system about the afterlife, fight on to stop it. Despite greater tolerance in Western countries toward religious belief, strongly religious people continue to force their views on others. Everyone is entitled to follow some form of religion, established or otherwise. The right to choose when and how to die, as well as abortion will always be areas of contention.

As the proportion of elderly people in the world population increases, a point will be reached where there will not be sufficient resources to look after them. Euthanasia will then be seen as a potential option. In the bible it is said: "Though shalt not kill". Nowhere does it say: "Though shalt not take one's own life". The problem should not be fought on religious grounds.

The new French President has said he supports euthanasia "under strict conditions". Politicians in other countries are waiting for one 'mainstream' government to bring it into law. Then the floodgate will open. Germany will probably follow France. With half of all medical costs being spent on the last six months of life, clearly some change has to be made. More and more people are flying into Switzerland to end their lives in a way that they chose, with little impact on others. Even close relatives are in favor of it because it reduces suffering.
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Society
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Europe Will Bring the World into Depression

The European economic situation is becoming a world problem. There seems to be no way the Euro can be saved. There will definitely be a flow-on effect to the world economy. Despite the new agreement, without the UK, nothing has really changed. The regulation and punishment for spending too much is too late for Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy. When these countries ultimately default, and they will, France and Germany will be drawn into Depression with them because their banks have continued to lend to these deficit countries.

There will be another problem in Europe that no one has highlighted. When unemployment gets too high in the struggling countries life will be unbearable. Labor is free to move across borders in the EC. Workers will move to where the work this. That is Germany and to a lesser extent France. Economic refugees will flood across the borders. The UK will not be exempt from this. For centuries England, Scotland and Wales have been destinations for workers from Ireland leaving due to lack and work and political problems. When Ireland defaults hundreds of thousands will move out.

Welfare systems in these "target" countries will be burdened to the extreme. Unemployment benefits will have to be reduced, per person, to cope. Lack of demand in Europe means lower production in the US and Asia. The future also looks bleak for Australia, the main provider of basic resources to China.

Going for a budget surplus in 2012 may be politically justified and the Australian Government may just make it in time for the next election with tough cutbacks. However, no matter which political party wins government it will have to go straight back to spending to keep the Australian economy moving with the sharp cutbacks forced on China by the failing world economy.
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Politics
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World Cypress Disease Came From California

California may be a great place to live with its good weather, but it is the source of a dangerous tree-killing fungus. Seiridium cardinale actually began its spread across the world from the San Joaquin Valley. Cypress trees are dying by the thousands from cypress canker disease. Ninety five per cent of pine plantations primarily of cedars and junipers are affected.

The fungus jumped the Atlantic to France about 80 years ago when seedlings were imported from California. Italian cypress planted there were devastated. This pretty tree occurs all over southern Europe. Landscapes have been changed irreversibly.

Cracks in the bark are entry points for the disease that produces toxins obstructing the flow of sap, water and nutrients. The fungus clones itself asexually as well as reproducing sexually. There are two variants of the fungus. Only one of these variants is found in Europe. The second variant has found its way to the southern hemisphere. Work to develop resistant strains of cypress is proving difficult. The best way to fight the damage its to monitor the movement of trees through trade.
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G
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Agriculture Was Brought into Western Europe by Southern European Males

Learning has not been linear for human beings. Advancement can be different from one place to another. It is now known from DNA analysis of 5,000 year old skeletons in a French cave that women did not travel into western Europe. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down only from the mother which shows that European women had local ancestry. On the other hand the Y chromosome passed down through males shows movement of males into new European regions. Knowledge of farming came into new areas when the males moved in and mated with local females.

Analysis of DNA from 29 skeletons found in France, highlighted this difference between the mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome. Males had moved from the Mediterranean to western Europe. Most of the males in the 29 skeleton group were related, so when the males arrived they stayed on the land with their new hunter gatherer wives.

The southern males had a problem: they did not have the lactose tolerant gene of central Europeans. They had to drink fermented milk from sheep and goats. Adult central European males could easily digest milk from cows.

More work is being done to further clarify how and when agriculture spread across Europe.
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History
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The French Eat Golf-Ball Chips

We do live in a weird world where everything is possible but the odd thing remains impossible. In the modern world you would think a machine could be developed that could sort real golf balls from freshly picked potatoes. Unfortunately, this problem persists in France.

A golf course is situated next to a potato field. When miss-hit golf balls fall among the potatoes the machine carefully picks up potatoes and golf balls together. When the golf balls and potatoes are then processed in the chip factory the golf balls are cooked and sliced with the potatoes. They do know that a fat, juicy golf ball produces 18 slices of "chips".

The real problem arises when cooking and slicing is completed and golf ball chips and potato chips look the same. Apparently, people have actually eaten the golf ball chips from the packet. There have been complaints, however. Customers have said that it could endanger health, so a new machine will be created to identify golf balls in the potato field. Just how long this will take is not known.
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