Great video on German mittelstand companies

Great video on German mittelstand companies

Germany's Mittelstand Companies - CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/24/business/german-economy-mittelstand/

Incredible commentary by the exec on how public listing of companies takes away from long-term vision. Determination to pass the company on rather than sell it and buy a yacht.

Interesting comparison of French vs. German management styles

French and German management styles : practical case study

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWhKMYwLFGM

Is it true across the board in each country? Even if not, interesting comparison.

Great sheet from a UK elementary school about site & situation and other urban topics

Great sheet from a UK elementary school about site & situation and other urban topics

http://geography.amesburyschool.co.uk/revision/ce4settlement.pdf

EEZs in the European Atlantic

EEZs in the European Atlantic
Notice on this map that Norway, which has chosen not to join the EU, has an Atlantic EEZ nearly as large as that of the EU, due to its long coast and remote islands. Iceland also has an EEZ that far outsizes the country and the population and also is not part of the EU. Greenland, with just a tiny population of 57,000, has an enormous EEZ. See the book Windfall: the booming business of global warming for a chapter on Greenland's move to independence driven by the promise of wealth from natural resource futures (oil, gas, fish, minerals) to be found in their EEZ and from new land exposed as its massive glaciers slowly melt.

Great blog entry on the history and geography of nightshades

Great blog entry on the history and geography of nightshades
https://botanistinthekitchen.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/making-ratatouille-like-a-botanist/#more-1154

Nightshades all come from the New World i.e. the Americas originally and include many common plants: potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, eggplant, tobacco, etc. Most nightshades made it to Europe only after the era of exploration and the Columbian Exchange began.

However, the article makes an interesting note about halfway down under "Old World nightshades" answering the question how did a few nightshades make it to the Old World (Europe/Asia/Africa) before the era of Transatlantic exploration? The article suggests that is was birds which carried them over oceans to new continents:

"Long before European ships began transporting charismatic Solanaceae [nightshade] species home from the Americas, a few American nightshades made the transoceanic voyage on their own, probably assisted by birds.  Something like 15 to 17 successful dispersal events are necessary to account for the present-day distribution of Solanaceae native to Pacific Islands, Africa, Australia, and Eurasia (Olmstead 2013).  Some modern descendants of three of these dispersal events are shown on the phylogeny in red: Chinese goji berries (Lycium barbarum and L. chinense); European deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna); and, of course, the eggplants."

Europe's Muslim populations

Europe's Muslim populations
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/09/map-frances-growing-muslim-population

EU Common Fisheries, pretty amazing

Europe has always been closely tied to the sea. So it is pretty amazing to me that the EU has agreed to basically share common waters under the EU Common Fisheries Policy.

So the EU has one single EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) that any EU fisherman can fish in.

http://britishseafishing.co.uk/conservation/common-fisheries-policy-cfp/

"This meant that EU fishermen could effectively fish anywhere in the EU’s EEZ, and the same rules and regulations would apply to all. Fishermen from any EU nation can fish freely within any other EU countries waters (although licensing and quotas still apply)."

Fishing is one reason (not the only reason) why Iceland is not in the EU--they would have to give up whaling, which is not a huge industry but is a deep, ancient part of culture in Iceland.