Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

Q: Foie gras is exactly as delicious as you've heard. It should nonetheless be banned. When a US judge struck down California's 2 1/2 year old foie gras ban on Wednesday , a Napa Valley chef said he'd been "jumping up and down for 90 minutes." I'll bet you were, dude . Foie gras hits you in your animal pleasure center with the force of a bullet train and gives you, experientially, a high closer to that of a narcotic than sexual gratification . I was 19 and at le Grand Vefour, the legendary Parisian restaurant, when I first ate foie gras . An unassuming ceramic tub of what looked and smelled a bit like cat food arrived at the table with a glass of Sauternes the color of a hepatitis patient's urine to wash it down . My first, tentative, nibble of foie gras resists any food critic hyperbole for which I could reach to describe how wonderful it was - and has been every time since . You can't argue convincingly with the extraordinarily pleasurable experience of eating foie gras . However ,  you also can't argue convincingly - although many foodies try- that gavage, the force-feeding process which produces the stuff, isn't torture or, at at minimum, animal cruelty of a most hideous type . I am an unapologetic omnivore who worships at the altar of good (and "bad") food - so, hardly an animal rights advocate - and I believe that, for the most part, people have the right to to put what they want in their mouths . But the State of California was correct to ban foie gras , and I sincerely hope Attorney General Kamala Harris fights to get the ban reinstated . Contemplate gavage for a moment : for two or three weeks, migratory birds (ducks, geese) are kept in cages . Three times a day they have steel funnels shoved down their throats ; an auger is turned ; and they are force fed . The birds' livers grow enormous - eventually taking up half the space of their lower body . Aquatic birds, like ducks and geese, evolved as creatures who spend most of their time on the water, only occasionally foraging on land . They are social animals who like to hang out in groups, preen and communicate with each other via display and call . Sitting in a cage for a few weeks being force-fed is a horrible fate for any sentient being , but it is particularly nasty for these migratory birds . Some foie gras lovers argue that gavage can be ethical : there are "good" poultry farmers who use flexible plastic tubes instead of steel to force feed birds who get to roam around barns . Anthony Bourdain famously commented that "you see worse [than gavage] in the pay-per-view film on the hotel channel- and that's people, for God's sake" . (Presumably he was referring to fellatio) . Then there's the "civilized" cultures argument: the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans used gavage to produce foie gras, therefore as a similarly "civilized" culture we should be similarly allowed to force feed birds . Possibly the most specious argument against the California ban came from the plaintiffs' lawyer, Michael Tenenbaum , who called the ruling " a victory for freedom." Tenenbaum wasn't ad-libbing : many chefs and foodies have held that banning foie gras is the equivalent to "cultural imperialism" and is an abridgment of their basic rights . If Tenenbaum, too, truly believes that , he should be litigating for chefs' rights to make shark fin soup, fry up songbirds, pour boiling oil into live monkeys' brains, and in general cook up anything they damn well please . I get nervous when people - even really smart, talented people - use the word "freedom" to mean"I get to do what I want" . In the case of foie gras bans, the argument is that, because this food is so delicious, you get to eat it, cook with it, produce it and make money off it - no matter that it's produced as the result of an inhumane practice which has been documented by scientists as causing severe, prolonged suffering to animals . The discontent of civilization, as Freud once pointed out, is that we don't all get to do what we want . The price of getting to live among our fellow humans in a truly civilized society is that we have to repress some of our urges . I love everything about eating foie gras - but I do it rarely , and I look forward to the day when I won't be able to find it on a menu .

A: Foie gras hits you in your animal pleasure center with the force of a bullet train and gives you, experientially, a high closer to that of a narcotic than sexual gratification
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Q: US economy: Why I'm optimistic about growth in 2015. Could 2015 be the breakout year for the economy? Last week we got very joyful news :. All of this is good news as we ring in the new year . And the best may be yet to come . So why is the economy finally shifting into a higher gear? This isn' t a story of government-directed growth or stimulus spending . It's the opposite : Washington's role in the economy is starting to shrink after years of Obama administration activism . The private sector is starting to take over . The growth was propelled by a big rise in business investment, up nearly 9 percent; personal consumption, up 3.2 percent; and exports, up 4.5 percent . Government spending, which is a negative for the economy, grew by 4.4 percent, thanks to a big rise in military spending , but domestic spending is still restrained . The news was so good that even the threat that the Fed will now have an excuse to raise interest rates hasn't deterred the bulls on Wall Street . Here is the case for optimism going forward . First ,  a huge factor in the economic rebound has been the fall in energy costs . As the price of oil has fallen from $105 a barrel this summer to closer $70 by September,(and at the end of December it was at $53) the cost of oil imports has tumbled . Imports fell by nearly 2 percent , and this alone added almost 0.2 percentage points to GDP growth . Even that greatly understates the economic windfall from cheap energy . Production costs fall when energy costs do , so the supply of American-produced non-oil and gas products, such as manufactured goods, rises when gas is cheap . Gas prices should continue to fall , the good-news story rolls on , and the addition to GDP from energy should be even higher . Thank you, Texas and Oklahoma and North Dakota . And thank you, fracking . Second , businesses are clearly feeling less trepidation about investing , and some of the wet blanket of Obama's anti-business, anti-shareholder agenda has dissipated as the Republican Congress repels his worst ideas: cap-and-trade, minimum wage hikes, new taxes on the energy industry and massive new spending initiatives out of Washington . Gridlock now looks to be built into the political system for the next two years, and in many ways that's reassuring . Third ,  government spending has fallen a lot more than people think . Despite the boost in military spending in the last quarter, the biggest story of the U.S  economy over the last three years has been the retrenchment of government spending . Federal spending has fallen from 24.4 percent of GDP in 2009 and 23.4 percent of GDP in 2010 to 21 percent of GDP in 2014 . Even better news is that in the fourth quarter of 2014, federal spending as a share of GDP fell to below 20 percent, according to a new analysis by Dan Clifton of Strategas, an economic policy consulting firm . This is creating an anti-Keynesian boost to growth, because the government is taking fewer private sector resources each month . The 4 percentage points less of GDP that the government is spending means 4 percent more GDP for private businesses and families to spend . That's close to $700 billion a year more for private investment and construction and spending . This, by the way, shows the foolhardiness of the Keynesian notion of a government-spending free lunch . Five years ago the Obama economics team was talking about multiplier effects from higher federal outlays -- the stimulus bill spent $830 billion-- that would juice the economy with even more private spending . It never happened . Even President Obama's own economic analysis found the economy grew more slowly than it would have without the government debt- financed spending . The real effect of government spending is to crowd out private spending . A final reason for optimism is that the incoming class of Republican governors and conservative state legislators across the country should mean more growth policies coming out of state capitals . At least a dozen governors from Massachusetts to Illinois to Tennessee are talking about tax cuts to create jobs . So even if we don't get tax reform at the federal level , states should be providing an additional tax cut stimulus . Skeptics will say that Obama's executive actions on climate change, immigration, energy policy and so on will continue to be a restraint on growth . That's for sure . This recovery from recession is still nearly $2 trillion behind where we should would be if we had a Reagan-paced boom . This is still one of the most anemic recoveries , though it is belatedly picking up steam . It's also true that wages are still flat for most workers , so the big challenge for the economy is raising productivity so Americans get a well- deserved pay raise . As 2014 comes to a close, here's where we are : Interest rates are as low as they've been in 40 years ; inflation is tame, thanks to the surge in oil and gas output ; and corporate profits remain high . The rest of the world economy, from Germany to Japan to Russia, is a debacle . But that's all the more reason to bet on the USA in 2015 . And ,  no, Mr  President, you didn't build that .

A: Could 2015 be the breakout year for the economy?
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Q: Just when the Ched Evans debate couldn't get any lower, up pops Gordon Taylor OBE. No matter how much anyone prayed that the Ched Evans "debate" had completed its race to the bottom this week, it was never going to have done so until we'd heard in full from Gordon Taylor . That pleasure was always in the post , and yesterday the PFA chief delivered, with what we might painfully cast as football's version of Godwin's law: a comparison with Hillsborough . "He wouldn't be the first person to be found guilty, maintained his innocence, and been proved right," Taylor opined to the BBC . "We know what happened with Hillsborough." Oh, man  ... Gordon Taylor . Or rather, GORDON TAYLOR OBE, as his name appeared in my inbox when he emailed me once . Sensationally dim, wantonly self-interested, wildly over-remunerated and frequently morally compromised, Gordon functions as an auto-satire on all the worst things people think about football . Reputed to be the highest paid union official in the world, and one who has been in his job for just the 33 years , Taylor has now said he didn't mean"to upset anybody" , though I need hardly add that he has no plans to consider his position after his latest display of incompetence . In which case, I hope he'll forgive my considering it for him - an act that has become as essential an annual event for me as putting up the Christmas tree or rewatching the early work of Steven Seagal . Unless Taylor's presence is dramatically revealed as the second-highest-profile instance of affirmative action for idiots in public life - the first being Iain Duncan Smith's position in government - then it hardly needs pointing out again that Gordon is no longer fit for purpose , if indeed he ever was . But more on his record shortly . That Taylor should have rifled through his Rolodex of metaphors and alighted on the absolute archetype of victim-blaming in order to continue obliquely victim-blaming in the Ched Evans case ... well, perhaps there's a mirthless laugh to be had there . But it would take a stronger stomach than mine to manage it . The sadness - or rather, one of many acute and diverse sadnesses - is that this was a week in which football was crying out for an intelligent and sensitive advocate, finding itself once more cast in a role it should never be required to occupy in a truly civilised society . All manner of people appeared convinced that the game should mitigate the deficiencies of the criminal justice system , just as a worrying number were keen to say Evans was absolutely welcome to work again - flipping burgers or sweeping the streets . These are the jobs that are fit for rapists , we must infer , which must feel hugely complimentary to those non-rapists who are putting in shifts doing the same for minimal pay right now . Meanwhile , as the Mail's Martin Samuel pointed out, footballers - footballers!-"are placed in the same bracket as doctors, teachers or legal professionals" . If that seems to you like a view of society worth shoring up , the week will have felt distinctly encouraging . As for football fans - the great "them" of many debates - they have spent the week being cast as too thick and impressionable to be able to make their own judgments about a convicted rapist . Evans could have been nothing but a role model, presumably to the vast tumult who turn out at Boundary Park each week (4,415 on average last season) . It's as depressing as it is disturbing . Such toxicity and lunacy have attached themselves to football and its place in our society that those who love the sport as well as those who play it really need the calm, cool intellect and charm of a Shami Chakrabarti to lobby in their real interests and those of the game . Instead ,  they have Gordon Taylor , whose focus was memorably dismissed by Peter Schmeichel during one stage of the Paul Gascoigne saga . "Instead of getting great deals on cars and other luxury goods for members," the former Manchester United and Denmark goalkeeper fumed,"PFA should commit more time and funds to help the like of Gazza." Taylor was stung - into self-defence, of course . "Peter doesn't know what we've done for Paul," he announced to the Press Association,"a lot of which has to be confidential." It certainly does . Except Gordon just couldn't bring himself to keep it that way . The next few days were spent with this union leader giving detailed interviews on Gascoigne's mental state and past treatment , in which he divulged telephone calls with the player, made off-the-cuff pseudo-clinical diagnoses, and - unbelievably - used the union's own website to warn : "If we're not careful , it is going to be akin to George Best." Then again, Taylor had form with sharing details of members' treatment, having done the same with Joey Barton only a few months previously . Anyway, on we go . In 2013 came the revelation that Taylor had amassed a? 100,000 debt to a bookmaker - almost an inevitability to those who recalled him pontificating about a "zero tolerance" approach to betting among players just a couple of years before . And no round-up of Gordon's greatest hits would be complete without a look at that endlessly intriguing confidentiality deal he signed with News International , which awarded him a? 700,000 settlement for phone-hacking in return for his silence . As the News of the World's lawyers later had it in a letter to the Commons culture, media and sport committee, Taylor's lawyers had informed them that he "wanted to be vindicated or made rich" . Given that he reportedly earns? 984,000 a year (maybe more these days) , you might judge him to be rich already - but of course ,  we know which option won out, a deal that precluded Taylor from breathing a word about phone-hacking to any of his union's members , who he might reasonably have concluded could have been victims themselves . As they were eventually proved(by others) to have been . So there you have him: the pastoral carer who reveals details of his members' mental health in the noble cause of self-defence . The gambler who wishes to outlaw gamblers . The ur-phone-hacking plaintiff who agreed to take the? 700,000 and say absolutely nothing about the matter, despite being responsible for players who of course turned out to have been targeted too . And now he is the victim-blamer's victim-blamer, in a week where, you might have hazarded, even Katie Hopkins couldn't have contrived to make a grim situation worse . Still ,  experience would indicate that Taylor ignores his detractors at the very opposite of his peril . So all that remains is for me to take the early opportunity to apologise for next year's inevitable appearance of this column, and bid Mr Taylor a cordial au revoir .

A:
Sensationally dim, wantonly self-interested, wildly over-remunerated and frequently morally compromised, Gordon functions as an auto-satire on all the worst things people think about football
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