Posts made by raphjd

The retirement age in the UK is currently 67 for me, but it's expected to rise to 71 when I retire in 20ish years.

@myrea:

I'll had that the overlook on the paralel economics and the corruption is startling, the people should not been paying or called lazy for the bad management… this countries are under a strict policial circle, the political class knows that the people hates them.

As I previously said, I don't really know much about Spain's situation.  HOWEVER, Greece's situation has been well documented in UK news documentary shows (Panorama, Dispatches, etc).

The southern European countries that are having a hard time now had extremely early retirement ages.  Even after severe reforms, they still retire 4 years earlier than the rest of Europe.

They also had grey economies through tax avoidance on goods and services.

Job related benefits were outrageous, compared to the rest of Europe.

Despite pretty decent economic growth (prior to the global economic meltdown),  the national debt was skyrocketing.  The year before the global economic meltdown, the Greek national debt was 105% of their GDP.  Their GDP rose 4.3% but their national debt rose 7% up until the global economic meltdown.

Bailing out other countries has meant higher taxes and service cuts for the countries that had to do the bailing out, yet the countries that got bailed out are angry with those that saved them.

All of these things are direct benefits of the people of these countries.  This is why you won't see much pity from the people in the rest of Europe.

@scramer:

Florida is due to change soon due to a 2014 ruling iirc.

The stay ends on 5 Jan 2015, so gay marriage will be legal starting on the 6th.

Technically, the bible does not condemn gays as beings.  It only condemns gay sex, if interpret it that way.

Most modern day believers accept the being vs actions argument.

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/germany-rules-gay-dads-surrogate-children-will-be-recognized-co-parents301214

Germany rules that gay dads of surrogate children will be recognized as co-parents

The ruling came about after a Berlin couple had a son born via the use of a Californian surrogate mom and wanted to both be recognised as the child's parents

30 DECEMBER 2014 | BY DAVID HUDSON

In a judgment that will provide legal recognition to some of Germany's gay parents, a ruling by the Bundesgerichtshof (the German Federal Court of Justice) has decreed that the male partner of any man with a surrogate child may also be regarded as the child’s parent.

Surrogacy is currently illegal in Germany. However, an increasing number of gay couples are exploring surrogacy as a route to parenthood, typically using surrogate moms abroad.

However, until now, only the biological father of any children born was recognized as the parent.

The current ruling came about when a case was raised by a gay couple from Berlin. They had a son born through the use of a surrogate mom in California in 2010.

In the US, the California Superior Court formally declared both men as the child’s legal parents. However, they were not afforded the same recognition when they returned home to Germany.

The German high court issued its ruling on the Friday before Christmas (19 December). It effectively ruled that, in the interest of the ‘child’s welfare’ and consistency of care, the foreign authority’s decision in the matter must be respected.

The decision will have an impact on both same-sex and opposite-sex couples in Germany, but particularly for gay couples, who continue to lobby for joint adoption rights in the country.

The full German-language ruling can be read here.

See the article for the link to the ruling.

Staff don't get reports of comments left on torrents, unless we left a comment ourselves.

So use the report button to let us know about PROBLEMS (real, actual) with the torrents.

Please, for the love of god, don't use the report button to leave a comment.  "WOW, this is hot!!!" does not belong as a report.

The UK has the Pound which it maintains on it's own, but it also has to pay into the various funds to keep the Euro afloat.

The EU is a bloated, overly powerful, self interested body that does more harm than good in most cases.  The administrative costs of the EU is a prime example of how screwed up it is and how it's not value for money.  The only thing the EU does is make laws that reinforce their own power and redistribute the wealth.  They don't provide any services; ie military, post office, welfare, etc, etc.

I don't think it's possible.

You can suppress your gayness, but you can't change it.  This is proven by all the "ex gays" that are still gay.

I don't know much about Spain's productivity but I do know that they love to sell land/houses to foreigners then take them back in a land grab.  This is a routine topic of UK news documentaries (Panorama, Dispatches, etc) .

@danijelr15:

Had a 4K gaming PC couple with an Asus 4K monitor and gave it all up due to the amount of cheaters online and bugs that frequently make games crash. Now gayming on Xbox One and feel liberated. All that beautiful graphics mean absolutely nothing to me if I can't enjoy the game. No more headaches about which next component am I going to spend my money for.

Cheaters are on all platforms.

I'm not against using cheat codes in offline games.  I feel that's everyone's right if they so choose since it doesn't affect other players.

Buggy games are a mainstay of all platforms.  Ubisoft has put out several in the last few months that are bugged all to hell on every platform.

After refusing to change the lifetime ban in November 2014, they changed their minds on 23 Dec 2014.

Starting in 2015 (exact date unsure), gays can give blood if they have not had sex with another man for 1 year.

After I posted my previous post, I did a bit of digging in our filing cabinet and here's what I found;

Basic (I really mean basic) wills granting the same rights as marriage £75 + £30 filing fee, for each will.  That's £210 for the pair.  (2003)

Civil Partnership which is marriage lite,  £128.  (2005)

We haven't even gotten to the contracts.

Scotland is extremely protective of it's legal profession, so pretty much everything needs a lawyer.

I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't like it.  It was a massive leap forward and at the same price the original 360 came out for.

In "real terms" that means it was about £35 less than the original 360.  Add the £80 for the add on wireless module and you saved about £115 over the old gen 360.

As I explained in another thread, in order to give you and your partner the same rights as marriage through contracts will cost a fortune in legal fees, compared to a civil marriage.

In the UK, basic wills (granting the same rights covered under marraige) cost pretty much the same as getting married in the Registrar's office (think; Justice of the Peace).  Then you have to draw up the various contracts and anytime there's a change, you have to change the contracts.

The argument over civil contracts and civil marriage has been done before and it's not cost effective, nor is it really viable in many situations.    There are many rights that would be lost if we did away with marriage, such as the right not to testify against your spouse.  You can not make a contract that grants you that right, only civil marriage grants that.  Many other rights are in a similar situation.

Based on your definition of "gold collar" I'm not sure that real estate agents should fall into that group.  I have several relatives who are REAs and they are nothing like that.

Young REAs who don't plan on staying in the job for long but just want to "get rich quick" are gold collar, but those who want to make it a proper career fall into white collar.

The most stable jobs are in the blue and white collar areas.

Jobs based on luxury (maids, car valets, etc, etc)  have the highest job instability.

I hate when people silently markdown a post/thread.

If I disagree with someone I at least tell them why I marked them down.

Even though the UK isn't part of the Euro, they still have to help bailout the Euro.

:police: Dispute the facts, but no personal fighting.   :police:

2. It gives you the blues. A 2010 study of 58,000 people found that obesity increases your risk of depression by 55 percent. Blame both physiology and psychology: Obesity causes inflammation, which research has shown can cause depression by damaging the brain’s circuitry. And the not-so-secret culprit? Fast food. According to a 2012 report in Public Health Nutrition, the top 25 percent of fast food eaters are more than 50 percent likely to suffer from depression.

This is a circular thing.

Depression often causes obesity, which leads to more depression.

It's not just white Americans that can't tell the difference in others.  Other races and nationalities are in the same boat.

I don't see his puking emoticon as being racist.  I see it as him saying he shouldn't have to be attracted to people he is not.  Why should everyone be artificially attracted to people they aren't, so that others don't get upset?!

As I said in another thread about "no fats or fems", if I had to deal with Nathan Lane's character in THE BIRDCAGE full time, one of us would be dead in less than a week.

What you and others suggest is that since I'm not a phone person, I have to become a cold call phone salesperson and love my job to show I'm not a phone-ist.