Jeez, I had no idea. I took off a full week, paid, for my daughter's birth here in Thailand, and could easily have taken two weeks. As the father.

For mothers themselves here, a google search says:
* 90 days of maternity leave
* Full pay: 45 days paid by the employer and 45 days paid from the Social Welfare Fund
* With a doctor's certificate a temporary change of duties either before and/or after the child's birth is allowed
* Protection from termination of employment due to pregnancy


Guess I can add that to the list of things that this corrupt, shady, and highly unstable government does better than my "world's primary superpower" homeland. (not saying it is a very long list, but it is more than a handful of items!)

In theory, I would suppose so.

But in reality, the one entity tasked with enforcing the legal frameworks of the EU, the European Commission, is also the entity behind many violations in the first place. So tough luck, I guess.

We have a saying in Germany that fits the activities since the beginning of the crisis rather nicely: "legal, illegal, scheissegal". Legal, illegal, who gives a shit.

Just a few appetizers:

- EU parliamentary inquiry says troika acts outside of legal framework, without any oversight
- Special Rapporteur: cuts in Greece would have never passed EU parliament, had to be done outside of any democratic control
- Portuguese Supreme Court rules cuts unconstitutional, European Commission calls court a group of activists
- Troika forced an end of collective bargaining in Greece, in violation of ILO agreements
- Troika forced Greek minister to use decree to cut minimum wage, circumventing parliament entirely
- EC and ECB violate law by being part of the troika
- Eurogroup acts as enforcer for EC wherever law needs to be violated
- Troika forced sale of Portuguese BPN (bank) under extremely shady circumstances
- Bailout, nationalisation and later privatisation of four largest Greek banks equally shady
- Cyprus/Piraeus
- Just about everything the Spanish government has done in the last couple of years

Nevermind all the treaty violations vis-á-vis financing/bailouts, etc. But you won't find a court willing to touch any of this. Nobody wants to destabilize this mess even further, despite all the gross violations. TINA, all the way.

Frankly, I'd be satisfied if these calls were made by parliaments instead of unelected and unaccountable officials.

Wall of text incoming. Again.

Sorry. Again.

tl;dr:

Debt relief right away was proposed, was neccessary, and was skipped to protect the European financial system.



You are 100% correct, we both are as convinced as one can be that a disorderly collapse would have been much worse for Greece. Might have turned it into a failed state, if things went really bad.

But the situation in Greece at the time the Troika got involved suggested a textbook approach would work just fine. Greece was insolvent, no two ways about it. A debt restructuring, including a haircut, was required to stabilise the system. Yet it was decided against it, thereby creating an enormous debt bubble that keeps growing to this day, destabilising everything.

Why?

People in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin knew in May of 2010 that Greece cannot service its current debt, nevermind pay it back. I remember rather vividly how it was presented to us, as it stirred up a lot of dust in Germany. They pretended as if the problem was a shortage of liquidity, even though they knew it was in fact an insolvency. And to provide an insolvent nation with the largest credit in history (€110-130b) is... well, we can all pick our favorite in accordance to our own bias: madness, idiocy, incompetence, a mistake, intent. They threw Greece into permanent indebtedness(?), and also played one people against another. People in Germany were pissed, still are. Not at the decision makers, but the Greek people.

Again, why?

Every European government, pre-crisis, drank the Cool Aid of deregulation, particularly with regards to the financial sector. When the crisis hit, they had to bail out the banks, a very unpopular decision in Germany, given the scandalous way it was done (different story). Like I pointed out before, when Greece was done for, German banks were on the hook for €17b+, and the French for €20b+. So no haircut for Greek debt.

It gets even better. The entity most experienced in these matters is, of course, the IMF. But IMF couldn't get involved. Its own regulations demand debt to be sustainable for it to become involved in any debt restructuring. Strauss-Kahn had the rules changed in a very hush-hush manner (hidden in a 146 page document) to allow the IMF to lend vast sums to Greece, even though they knew it would not be payed back. Former EC members are on record saying the Strauss-Kahn decided to protect French banks this way as a part of his race for President in France. So they changed IMF rules and ignored European law to bail out German and French banks, using the insolvent Greek government as a proxy.

Several members of the IMF's board were in open opposition. The representatives of India, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland are on record, saying this would merely replace private with public financing, that it would be a rescue package for the private creditors rather than the Greek state. They spoke out in favor of negotiations of a debt relief.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's an IMF email, dated March 25th, 2010, that was published by Roumeliotis, formerly IMF. They put it very bluntly:

"Greece is a relatively closed economy, and the fiscal contraction implied by this adjustment path, will cause a sharp contraction in domestic demand and an attendant deep recession, severely stretching the social fabric."

Even the IMF, who chose parameters according to their own ideology, thought the European program to be too severe. That's saying something.

All that is just about the initial decision. The implementation is another story entirely, with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats telling a democratically elected government what to do. There are former Greek ministers on record, telling how Troika officials basically wrote legislation for them. Blackmail was common, bailout money held as leverage. The Memorandum of Understanding was to be followed to the letter, and the Troika program was as detailed as a government program, so they really had their hand in just about everything.

The specifics of the program are a discussion of their own, with all the corruption going on. The Lagarde list (2000+ Greek tax dodgers) was held in secret by order of an IMF official – that alone should trigger major investigations. The nationalisation and sell-off of the four largest Greek banks, or the no-bid sale of the Hellenikon area to a Greek oligarch – all enforced by Troika officials.

The haircut of 2012, ~€110b wiped out, came two years late. As a result, it didn't hit any German or French institutions in a serious way. Most of the debt was in the hands of these four largest Greek banks -- NBG, Piraeus, Euro, Alpha – who subsequently had to be recapitalised by Greece to the tune of €50b. Cut by 110, up by 50 right away. Banks were nationalised and shares later sold again, at 2/3 the price. Lost another €15b, because the Troika demanded the sale to appease the markets.

The legal aspects of all this are nightmare-inducing as well. They violated numerous European laws, side-tracked parliaments, used governmental decrees, etc.

Let me just say this: when they forced Cyprus to give away two banks' branches in Greece for a fraction of their worth, Cyprus lost €3.5b, at a GDP of €17b, and those two banks went belly-up. It was pure blackmail, do it or you're out. Piraeus Bank received those €3.5b, and its head honcho had €150m of personal bad credit wiped clean right then and there, all at the command of the Troika. Those €3.5b had to be taken from ordinary folks by "suspending" the deposit insurance, perhaps the most stupid decision they had made so far.

Why did they do it? Because Greece was more important than Cyprus, and Cypriot banks were involved in shady deals with Russian oligarchs. Still illegal, and massively so.

Edit: I cut my post in half and it's still too long.

I agree it seems shady to advertise the 4 GB if only 3.5 GB is full bandwidth... there should have at least been an asterisk on it. Not sure the complaints about the ROPs is as big a deal... I mean if I purchased just off specs I would perhaps be, but really, I look at performance for the dollar. The two articles linked still say they stand by the recommendation due to performance for the dollar, which is the main metric I look at. Then again, if I was running more than 1080p I'd probably be a bit more concerned... That or if the few games that require 4GB to run in ultra wouldn't run in ultra on my card that supposedly has 4GB...

Name your dog "Shady" and that's what you should expect!

I wish they'd started recording earlier to see the ferret lure the dog into position with a cleverly placed treat.

Believe it or not, I think I was already wondering about those type of topics at that age (as I had always been a HUGE space and science fan, I knew by age "3" essentially that I wanted to be an Astronaut; which I'm sure my parents got a kick out of).

However, here is the problem with asking that/those type of questions (as I believe many people have more than likely been down this road). The community and the adults around you shape parts of your reality AND how you decide to continue to ask or answer that question(s). In my case, the problem was: religion. The answer to ALL my questions back then were: religion...

It wasn't until I was around 16 that I became highly suspicious and then began to bring up ALL of these questions I had "thought" WERE answered...but, they weren't at all. Finally by the age of 18 (into 19) I had shaken off the chains of religion that had held me down and to this day I have to wonder what would have become of me, what COULD have become of me, if I had an educated answer to my questions and not merely the answer that is given by those that don't know (a.k.a., I hate to say it, but it IS true: the stupid or ignorant people).

Religion DID, however, give me answers to some things I couldn't have gotten anywhere else. But, in the long run I must admit that--while a small amount of good came from it--it truly didn't out-weigh the tremendous amount of damage that had been done to me (as I bet others can attest to this being true for them as well). I was forced to go backwards through my entire life and then question myself on everything I believed and stood for, including "facts" and other such things that science uses as foundational elements--but, religion uses belief in the same manner as "facts" (as we were taught in some cases to say that we "knew" or "know" that something is true, rather than using "believe", "thought", or had "faith"...pretty shady right?!). This took a very long time, years on end, to finally "un-clutter" my mind.

Now I'm left wondering how well I would have done without all that nonsense pored into my mind DAILY (as I attended seminar...).

So I appreciate Neil's answer here in many ways. He is telling this kid to explore the world around him and to some degree, don't obey everything you are told (so long as it isn't dangerous). He is absolutely right. I merely wish I had people that told me the same things. As I didn't get "this idea" until FAR later in life (since my mind becomes "infatuated" with questions and ideas, getting the religious answer to my questions prompted me to literally think of everything possible within the religion to make things work "logically", and I was very much "zealot" like...because as I said, these questions consume me, so I cannot help but BE a "zealot")...

But, eventually I had a Physics class and that re-opened everything. I started to ask those questions again and NOW I found a new answer to what I had previously been told. The huge difference this time was: facts and proof; and also that it is all derived from logic. Physics was essentially undeniable. You could not refute it, because this was how we made things work around the world--via engineering--the math within it is used to control, make, and imagine anything you wish to engineer (or if you wish to do an experiment). I already had major issues with religion, but I was making logical "excuses" to make it work. But, with this huge influx of knowledge everything changed (how I wish we would have had Physics in Junior High; why do we not...don't we want engineers?).

I hate to add religion into this topic, but I thought it good to point out that this kid may be heavily influenced by Neil. This conversation that Neil directs towards him may end up being one of the most important events in his life. Just as mine was when I asked certain questions, I received religious based answers...practically deciding the path I would take...at least while I was a child/kid. But, had I been a slightly more stupid or just ignorant person, then I would still, right now, believe fully in religion.

So, when a child asks you ANY question like this do not joke around about it--while it is cute, you must remember that YOU are shaping their future and their destiny...

/lengthy

I'm definitely not seeing any actual legitimate censorship issue and no legitimate point or argument--and certainly no censorship "rule." There is no rule or law against showing nipples on the internet. The decision to blur the photograph was made entirely by this V Magazine at their own discretion for their own reasons.

Compared to many western countries, the United States is relatively light on censorship precisely because of the codification of the first amendment. There are very few circumstances in which the federal government uses criminal law to enforce censorship, and using civil law to do likewise (such as in cases of libel) is relatively hard. Naturally, the truth on the ground is always more complex, because of all of the ways you can sneak sort-of-censorship into local and state laws such school boards determining public school curriculums, shady contracts, and discriminatory public decency laws. That last, which is really more what this guy is arguing about in a ham-fisted way.

I certainly don't believe there should be different laws for men and for women. If a bare-chested man in public is acceptable, I believe a bare-chested woman should be just as acceptable. In this case, I'd go so far as to say I believe that should be federal law, but that can likewise backfire in ways I don't agree with (eg, I believe wether to allow concealed handguns should be a local decision), so I'm not quick to make blanket statements.

Certainly the US is socially and psychologically backward in many, many ways, but it's also better in that respect now on balance than it has ever been in the past.

He totally screwed up the part were River gained or had her "powers" naturally (she was only naturally/gifted mentally, that is, she was a genius or prodigy). That came from the experimenting FROM the Alliance... Same with her fighting abilities, that was also an Alliance "gift" (to use her as a "psychic weapon"). But I think Joss already made the point IN the show that Mal was indeed a very shady person, if you didn't get that you are an idiot!

You were supposed to know that the Alliance brought a lot of great things with them, but they also stole your freedom...essentially (in exchange for a world with lots of rules).

But, what the Alliance was up to "behind the scenes" is what was really everyone's main concern--which they covered in Serenity a bit... In Serenity we found out that they had been up to a LOT more terrible things than just taking individuals like River--they were in the business of thinking they knew how to make all people "better" people...and one day they would try to institute it in force, en masse...

It seemed like the show was more a story about the civil war had the wrong side won--to some degree; I think you could make an argument for both. But it was obvious from watching that "Mal's side" was the "Confederacy", but they didn't stand for the same things, it was just that the history of things were playing out the same in many ways...and that was the point.

If The Union had been lying about a huge amount of things and started to institute policies that you went into action then they'd seem so very much like the Alliance in the show (BUT, some actions are exactly like what The Union did to Confederate "states" after the war; which DID leave them in states of welfare were citizens were left to fend for the most basic of necessities on their own--the Wild Wild West didn't just appear from comic books... Even the citizens had to fight off Indian attacks here and there and most of these attacks were born from the legacy of military campaigns and other actions via The Union (or before the States went to war--but, it's easy to see what the "Reavers" were based on, at least I assume that is what he had in mind).

Ironically, right now in our government it's doing the things that Mal was so concerned over that many that HAD lived in the Alliance regions hadn't been as worried about: slowly eroding our civil liberties, our regular freedoms are being taken away or one-by-one being hamstrung, and regulation is being destroyed allowing the corrupt to make this circle all that much worse (of course one day this cycle will just feedback on itself and create a revolution--as it always has). That is what The Alliance was doing, especially to the planets that didn't join immediately...so it does have a lot in common with our history. As The Union did do some pretty annoying and considering all of the people that needed help and were not getting anything, they actually directly killed a large amount of completely innocent people...just to punish some wealthy land owners and other people that had something to do with the Civil War. They should have taken the matter directly into their hands, but there is a lot on that as well (just like the show...why the Alliance never intervenes in the outer planets...).

God how I miss that show. I can only imagine what Joss could have accomplished in 7 or 8 seasons (maybe more). He could have made a show that could easily be written about in a college setting, about the civil war and the topics related to it. How grand the adventure could have been, except for one dickhead producer at Fox...

(*I take no responsibility for the parts of my comment I messed up on...* )


*nerd rant*

I've seen that once. Might have been after one of the irish scandals, a guy holding a sign with a little kid and an old clergyman with a robe-tent approaching with his hands out like mr burns and a big grin. The thing is when it comes to paedophilia, you can't think it of anyone you think you know, so you discard images like that as silly fairy tales without thinking beyond the metaphor. You don't want to be wondering if the guy you just shook hands with gets drunk before sunday school and manipulates extra private tuition with the shy kid who doesn't have a dad and cries a lot.

Sorry to be so graphic there, but it is what it is in all its vileness, and everyone complicit ought to feel fucking ashamed of themselves. I'll stop before i derail, but the moral standards these people are hiding behind are very shady indeed, because somewhere in that chain of command someone knew and kept quiet about the institutional rape-centres the Catholics kept running for many decades. Unless they've leaned on their own faith-leaders to press for justice and HARD, their hands are dirty, and they are ridiculous to stand there shouting shame on someone else.

Man, i think i'm in love with this woman..

It is really a stupid place. All the tourists go there, yet there's nothing to see there but other tourists and advertisements.
Other than shady scammers, us locals try to avoid times sq as much as possible.
Might as well just use Google Street View and save yourself time and money.

This post seems shady to me.
Hijacked content which leads to a Youtube page offering a free download of the movie - (A link I wouldn't touch in a million years)

The Youtube video was posted and then minutes later it's posted here on the Sift by someone who just made their account and has never watched or commented or posted before.

From Youtube:
Published on Sep 23, 2014
Download the full movie from the link below and enjoy it!
http://downloadconfirm.net/file/0xD68X (*Link edited to be inoperable)

I'm going to Suggest a *Ban for possible Self Post.
Anyone who wants to second this ban can do so.

@davidon We welcome new members to the Sift, but it seems you are Spamming. If you feel unjustly accused, let us know. Thanks

If you're still interested in emerging details of the NSA/GCHQ story, keep reading. If not, feel free to delete the comment.

As you might have heard, a parliamentary investigative committee was set up in Germany to shed some light on at least some of the claims made by the press. They don't want to pay too close attention to it, given that our own intelligence services are just as bad, but that's another discussion.

Today, two expert witnesses were supposed to testify, William Binney and Thomas Drake, Everything was to be broadcast, as is custom, but they decided not to broadcast it after all. Given that recent interviews with both Binney and Drake indicated that they were planning to reveal quite a lot about shady cooperation between NSA/GCHQ and our own services, a set of rather embarassing details might have emerged. What a coincidence... [see footnotes]

Additionally, one of our public broadcasters, in cooperation with Jacob Appelbaum, revealed a piece of source code from a selector of XKeyscore. Hardcoded within, for some reason, we find the IPs of all servers running a TOR directory authority, once of them owned and maintained by a German student. So now we have the names of two German citizens under surveillance, and it'll be significantly harder for our Attorney General to find ways not to open up an invenstigation into espionage.

Also part of the revealed code was a confirmation that using TOR gets you labeled as an "extremist" and your ass is now amongst those whose activities will be monitored, constantly. A Google search for it is enough to land on their shit list, same for Tails.

That's the day so far, and it's not even 1pm.

Edit #1: Binney and Drake are considered witnesses, their statements are exempt from broadcast/streaming. Opposition forced a vote on it, government prevailed, no stream available.

Edit #2: I'll provide a summary of the juicy bits once they are done.

Edit #3: Members of the US Congress present, curious to see some (yet unmentioned) names.

Edit #4: Well, 0:20 and they're finally done for the day. Here's a summary of today's session, though the source can sometimes be a bit of a mouthpiece for the government.

Yeah, there's a postal bank here in Japan and it is incredibly convenient. You even get an ATM card that's usable anywhere in the country. Just as you said, it promotes savings (they pretty much only deal with savings accounts). They do offer a variety of loans, although I don't know off the top of my head if they offer payday loans. Generally, those kinds of high-risk loans are served by shady places similar to the kind you find in the U.S.

How can you be mad at this, it's Capitalism, the only way for the world to work.

Greed is good, it makes jobs and innovation and what the world economy is built upon. If people had no chance to get even richer with their 100's of millions via shady tax evations schemes, there would be NO incentive to start bigass corporations that does all the wonderful things for our society! Think of all the jobs that won't be if they stop trying to get richer, oh the disaster of taxes and limitation of wealth. Don't fool yourself, the rich has to get richer, not contribute via some obscure idea that "the more you take, the more you should give back to the world that makes you rich". Think people, this is capitalism, the great glory of the globalized world - it's sooo good.


*coughsarcasmcough*

Politics is all about messing with the rules to get your way.

The Democrats used shady tactics to get the Un-Affordable Care Act passed because they did not have enough votes. Now the Republicans and using shady tactics to help fend off Obama care. Oh how things go in full circles.