[Futurework] Perfect storm?
Peak oil; climate change; the global financial mess; and now food. I have a friend who is certain the Biblical judgement day is coming. He may have a point. Ed Rice prices 'to keep on rising' Rice prices are set to keep rising as demand for the staple is outstripping production, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has said. The Philippines-based body said in its Rice Today publication that more research was needed in how to increase rice productivity. The price of rice has risen by as much as 70% during the past year, with increases accelerating in recent weeks. Several rice-producing countries have put curbs on exports in recent weeks. 'Research needed' Longer term demand-supply imbalance is clearly indicated by depletion of stock that has been going on for several years, said Sushil Pandey, agricultural economist at the IRRI. We have been consuming more than what we have been producing and research to increase rice productivity is needed to address this imbalance. The institute said several factors were behind the rise in rice prices. Land for producing rice and irrigation water is being lost to industrialisation and urbanisation. The growing appetite among Asia's burgeoning urban middle class, especially in India and China, for meat and dairy products is also leading to less land for rice production. Factors such as the flooding in Indonesia and Bangladesh and recent cold weather in Vietnam and China have also hurt production, it said. Export restrictions are in place in major rice producing countries such as India, China, Vietnam and Egypt Rice is the staple food for about three billion people worldwide. The prices of soybeans, corn and wheat are also near historic highs. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7341978.stm Published: 2008/04/11 06:41:46 GMT © BBC MMVIII ___ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
[Futurework] Fw: English will be the official language
Subject: English will be the official language The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as Euro-English. In the first year, s will replace the soft c. Sertainly , this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard c will be dropped in favour of k. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome ph will be replaced with f. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent e in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing th with z and w with v. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary o kan be dropd from vords kontaining ou and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas. If zis mad you smil , pleas pas on to oza pepl. ___ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
Re: [Futurework] Fw: English will be the official language
Check out these sites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unifon http://www.unifon.org/htm/unifon%20alphabet.htm Then, ask me why we continue to use such a ridiculous system of writing English. As the article says, no other language except french and english are impaired by this idea some batty academics have that the spelling of words is supposed to reflect its history, instead of how it is pronounced. The only problem I find with UNIFON is that it is done using a midwest American accent. Even in unifon, 'zebra' ends with an A not a U, and 'ark' still starts with A not O. But at least I can fix the problems myself and write with a proper Canadian, er, Kanajan, accent. I can stop fighting with my spell checker over spelling 'labor' as 'labour'. By the way, it does not look like anyone has designed an optimal unifon keyboard yet. tr On 11-Apr-08, at 4:41 PM, Ed Weick wrote: Subject: English will be the official language The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as Euro-English. In the first year, s will replace the soft c. Sertainly , this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard c will be dropped in favour of k. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome ph will be replaced with f. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent e in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing th with z and w with v. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary o kan be dropd from vords kontaining ou and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas. If zis mad you smil , pleas pas on to oza pepl. ___ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework ___ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
