"I've decided that it is necessary to comply with the injunction, irrespective of whether it should have been given by the (ECJ)...and whether it goes beyond the tribunal's competencies," [President Andrzej] Duda told the state agency PAP.

archived Nov
Financial scandal loosens grip of Poland's ruling nationalists
Supreme court justices who would have been forced to retire will be allowed to stay on.
practice, practice, practice

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The straw that broke the policemen's back : The government's concession to the Gilets Jaunes of a 100 euro bonus to low-paid workers... in the private sector.

The entry-level police salary is not far from the minimum wage...

AND they have been stacking up overtime for the last several years (mostly related to terrorism and "social unrest", with a big peak in recent weeks.

There is a bill of 274 million euros to pay... The calendar is now under negotiation with the police unions.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

The data show that in 2017, the average annual income for the lowest-earning decile in Finland was roughly 10,820 euros per person. By comparison, average annual incomes among the highest-earning decile last year was six times that of the lowest earners at 66,100 euros per person. The median annual income last year was 24, 860 or just over 2,000 euros a month.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday told critics of fuel tax hikes "you're right" after 1.15 million people signed a petition following violent "yellow vest" protests.
[...]
The concessions are expected to be brought to the National Assembly and Senate for votes before Christmas.

archived
Every time I read Anglo-merican reporting on this protest-rioting ...

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Verdi, one of Germany's biggest trade unions

has been calling on Amazon to conduct collective bargaining for its 16,000 workers.
[...]
The Leipzig workers are expected to strike until December 24, and the Werne workers until Tuesday evening. [What about North Rhine-Westphalia?] The actions are the latest in a campaign of frequent strikes the union has organized since 2013.

Verdi wants Amazon to be regarded as a retail and mail-order firm, but the US company says it is a logistics company. Pay rates for the two sectors vary considerably.

Amazon says its pay rates, starting at €10.78 ($12.20) per hour, are at the upper range for the logistics sector. Pay rates can rise to €2,400 per month with bonuses after two years, the company says.

In November, the Federal Cartel Office said it had received many complaints about the treatment of third-party sellers and would investigate if Amazon was preventing fair competition.

archived
Amazon workers strike in Germany, Spain on ["Inventory Dump"] Friday

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

At least they're consistent. https://t.co/duKrnVp0VD pic.twitter.com/wkdKxvXpFg

— JW Mason (@JWMason1) 12. Dezember 2018

So they say.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

"The new prudential [bail out insurance] will ensure more prudent provisioning of non-performing exposures while avoiding negative unintended consequences on the real economy and on consumers," praised Roberto Gualtieri (Socialist and Democrats), co-rapporteur of the European Parliament.

After a swift negotiation, it is up to the [Eurogroup] to endorse the deal. The agreement is a step forward into risk reduction in the context of completing the Banking Union.
[...]
However, the leaders left off the table the European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS), the remaining pillar of EU's banking union, a guarantee for banks' deposits under €100 billion. Due to well-known German opposition, the conclusions do not even mention the instrument.

archived Anyone Buttrump 2020
the next series of fed rate hikes

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

archived
Crystal City and Pentagon City

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

archived
Of hostages, oil, and iPhones
Apple continues to force retailers to buy demo models while preventing their resale

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

EnviroBuild announced Tuesday that it would be using Dermophis donaldtrumpi as the name for the caecilian -- an amphibian with no legs and poor eyesight.

"It is the perfect name. Caecilian is taken from the Latin caecus, meaning `blind', perfectly mirroring the strategic vision President Trump has consistently shown towards climate change."

[Source: The Guardian]

'Sapere aude'

archived chumps
"payments" DICTION CORNER


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The proposed rule already has its critics. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont,‏ tweeted earlier today voicing his opposition.

"Let's be absolutely clear about what Trump is doing with his latest food stamps work requirements rule: He is attacking starving the poor." Sanders tweeted. "We should be expanding programs like food stamps that lift people out of poverty, not making them even harder to access."

Pro Publica, #MeToo, #Time'sUp, #WhyIdidn'tReport, @Alyssa_Milano analysis developing ...

archived punked again
public comment period is ahh "advisory"
HISTORIC class STORMS Capitol

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

archived
"Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The decision was a narrow 5-4 ruling, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the court's more liberal [?] justices [not Kavanaugh] against the administration's request for a stay.

The twitter reporter's gratuitous assessment of Robert's "ideological leaning" is a hoot. Call me 20 years.

archived contrite klansmen
Free Speech
For data "visualization" of the "ideological leanings" of the US Supreme Court over time see this ...

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Local organizers blamed high costs and not enough volunteers as key reasons for abandoning the rally that would have taken place Jan. 19, when similar marches are scheduled to take place in cities around the world, including Washington, D.C. ...But infighting across the national Women's March movement arose after Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan praised Women's March Inc. co-president Tamika Mallory and declared Jews his enemy during an address in February. The movement has since splintered, with chapter members criticizing the Women's March leadership's response to Farrakhan's anti-Semitic rhetoric as being insufficient.

EUREKA, Calif. (KRCR) --"Up to this point, the participants have been overwhelmingly white, lacking representation from several perspectives in our community," the press release went on to say. "Instead of pushing forward with crucial voices absent, the organizing team will take time for more outreach.

archived
American Jews cheer Trump's antisemitism
Too many cooks in the kitchen make a mess.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga also sought to calm concerns days ahead of a presidential election in which millions of people will use touch-screen voting machines. The deadly Ebola virus is spread via infected bodily fluids, so some worry they may pick it up from the screens.

So far there have been 549 Ebola cases in the outbreak that was declared on Aug. 1 [SIC], including 501 confirmed cases. There have been 278 confirmed deaths.

near the Rwanda border, and across the heavily traveled border into Uganda, which already has begun giving frontline health workers an experimental Ebola vaccine.

archived phase efficacy, war, unsafe burial practices
living lab, May
"It was not possible to collect biological samples from people who received the vaccine in order to analyse their immune response."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

PHOTO CREDIT: AP/Moises Castillo, Build the Wall: US Citizens Raise $5 Million for Southern Border in 4 days

archived invisible borders
AP FACT CHECK: Trump sees a border wall where none exists
I'm confident we're on the same page here.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The SDF also hinted that the US pullout, which many see as a betrayal of a loyal ally, could make Syria's autonomous Kurdish administration less likely to keep its IS prisoners in custody.

"If Turkey attacks, it will affect the fate of these prisoners," SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali told the AFP news agency. "Turkey may target these prisons as it tries to release these terrorists."

archived
Syrian Civil War - Endgame In Idlib?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The new draft, with the changes made, will be taken up Friday by the National Assembly and then submitted to a popular referendum on February 24, 2019.
[...]
The commission drafting the new constitution proposed a new article replacing 68, number 82, which defines marriage "as a social and legal institution." The committee also deemed marriage "one of the forms of family organization", which "is based on free consent and equality of rights, obligations and legal capacity of the spouses."

"I thought we did that many years ago," Mr McConnell said earlier this year in an interview with Sirius XM radio. "If we need one at the federal level, I certainly will support it," he said.

Presiding over the vote was Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Mississippi Republican who stirred controversy last month after joking that she would attend a "public hanging" if invited by a supporter.

The first anti-lynching bill was introduced to Congress 100 years ago by Republican Representative Leonidas Dyer of Missouri. The bill passed the House but was opposed by Democratic senators from southern states and failed to pass the Senate.

Hold that thought.

Kenya, Rwanda ready for EU deal
"From left: Rwandan President Paul Kagame, President Uhuru Kenyatta and the Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz in Vienna during the opening roundtable meeting of the High-Level Africa-Europe Forum Vienna 2018. Kenya says it will begin, together with Rwanda, implementing the economic partnership agreements with the EU despite other East African Community countries dragging their feet. PHOTO | PSCU"

archived
EU attempts to revive ACP and Cotonou Agreements ...
More about Kagame and Wiesel ...
press conference
"French President Emmanuel Macron, center, poses for a family[!] picture with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame , Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and IMB's President and CEO Virginia Rometty as he hosts the "Tech for Good" summit over lunch with tech companies CEOs at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on May 23, 2018. (Charles Platiau/Pool photo via AP)"

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

On December 21, 2018 on the sacred day of Winter Solstice, the Wet'sumwet'en Hereditary Chiefs of our five clans contemplated the events that have occurred over the past weeks in the colonial courts. In an act reminiscent of the early days of colonization, the chiefs were forbidden to wear their regalia in the halls of the Supreme Court and had their rights and title to our lands challenged and disregarded by renaming our high chiefs as John Doe and Jane Doe. The Wet'suwet'en reject the renaming of our sacred chiefs as Jane or John Doe and the outright denial of our traditional clan boundaries. We are Gitdumden and we are Wet'suwet'en and we are bound by our laws.
[...]
For more information visit this Unist'ot'en Camp website.

"China's goal, simply put, is to replace the U.S. as the world's leading superpower and they're using illegal methods to get there," FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a Thursday morning press conference.

Reader, dear reader, I have some great news for you. Tesla's Elon Musk, definitely a visionary brain genius and not at all a manic idiot spaz and brazen fraud, has invented the future of mass transit for which we so desperately clamored: A narrow, jagged death-tunnel through which, uh, one Tesla-brand car at a time can, ah, drive ... the person who owns it, plus maybe two or three other people ... from one place to another ... at 49 miles per hour.

I suspect it is an object invented for juxtaposition to "clean coal" arguments to retrofit P&E investment, forthcoming.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Indonesia: death toll from Anak Krakatoa 'volcano tsunami' nears 300, hundreds injured

Duka cita yang mendalam atas jatuhnya korban bencana tsunami di Pandeglang, Serang dan Lampung Selatan, semalam.

Saya telah memerintahkan segenap jajaran pemerintah terkait untuk segera melakukan langkah tanggap darurat, mencari dan menemukan korban, merawat yang luka-luka. pic.twitter.com/rD5bDr16gF

— Joko Widodo (@jokowi) December 23, 2018

From my writings as creve coeur @dKos

○ Tsunami of Xmas 2004

Related reading ...

○ Krakatau of 1883

When Krakatoa exploded on 27 August 1883, it cloaked the surrounding area in darkness, inundated nearby shores, and killed tens of thousands. Over 7,000 miles away in England, sensitive instruments recorded air and sea waves, and observers admired and feared the lurid atmospheric effects. But Krakatoa's eruption also instigated scientists from varied specialties to cooperate with each other and to seek the public's help in producing the massive Royal Society Report. The eruption and its aftereffects inspired Tennyson to depict a turning point in Western history and Shiel to imagine a harrowing future of human history's end. Shiel's protagonist laments, "nothing could be more appallingly insecure than living on a planet". Krakatoa's catastrophic eruption and its worldwide effects demonstrated the precariousness, and the interconnectedness, of life on earth.

○ Krakatoa, the boom heard around the world - the telegraph
○ Vivid Sunsets In the Aftermath of Volcanic Eruptions Inspired Great Works of Art

○ Eyewitness accounts - 1883

'Sapere aude'

Two proposals were supported by Parliament that will see the threshold of minimum taxable revenues within the EU lowered to €40 million from the commission original proposal of €50 million, a 5% tax rate imposed rather than the Commission's 3%, and the inclusion of online streaming services under the scope of the plans.

As part of the measures supported by Parliament, firms with total annual revenues of €750 million or above will be hit by the levy and companies would pay tax in the country where the revenue is sourced, rather than where they are domiciled for tax purposes.

archived
the Irish Data Protection Commission investigating

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

archived
Graeber's Meaningful Work Bulletin w/e 1 Dec 2018

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The first American Jewish Congress meets in Philadelphia and calls for the Peace Conference to recognize Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth under British trusteeship.  It will send delegates to the conference to request that recognition of new or enlarged states be conditioned on their adoption of a Jewish Bill of Rights including equal rights, no restrictions on language, no blue laws, etc.

New York Times, 1918: "Kaiser's German agents inciting American Negroes!"
New York Times, 2018: "Putin's Russian agents inciting African-Americans!"
100 years of America blaming structural racism on evil foreigners.
This culture is too exhausted to invent new lies pic.twitter.com/3HL7f8mfzh

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) 18. Dezember 2018

Thank you all for the well wishes, I'll be attending Harvard in the fall with a planned major in Political Science.

— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) December 22, 2018

Best wishes to him.

'Sapere aude'

Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, falsified his articles on a grand scale and even invented characters, deceiving both readers and his colleagues. This has been uncovered as a result of tips, internal research and, ultimately, a comprehensive confession by the editor himself.