You do have a choice. Strike out the sections you don't like and return it for approval. Never sign anything because it's "unenforceable". Any reasonable employer will be ok with this, and if they're unreasonable about this, do you really want to work for them?

Nuke them!

Apparently Russia nuked out of control oil and gas wells and suggested the same for the Deepwater Horizon spill (nuking the gulf of mexico couldn't possibly have gone wrong, could it?) and we have all these nuclear weapons that no-one really wants to use lying about...

As a bonus, the lava should mean that the radioactives are less of a problem. Or you'll now have radioactive eruptions of lava which is sure to lead to superheroes, right?

In Galway in Ireland a friend brought his girlfriend home. She was vegetarian, but was served ham. When he pointed out to his mother that the girlfriend didn't eat meat, his mother said "Ah yeah, but sure it's only ham". I think she just could not imagine someone not eating ham.

Incorrect, you CAN survive on meat alone - just not rabbit. I might not be pleasant, but it's possible.

It always bugs my when people refer to us (Ireland) as a tax haven.

Put simply, it's not. Corporate tax is payable here, at a rate of 12.5%. There's bugger all in the way of reductions. In the US, and France, and many other countries, there are high headline rates (around 35%) but after jumping through the loopholes the companies will pay between 6 and 10 percent. We decided to skip the loopholes step and just charge them. And it worked, companies came here because it was simpler than playing a tax-loophole obstacle course (which is an effective huge boost for the accounting profession) and we're a small country.

We're also part of the single EU market, and denominate in Euro, which is useful for trading in the EU. We also do not levy taxes on (some) receipts from EU member states so a company providing those receipts from the Netherlands doesn't have to pay tax here (and pays much lower tax there).

Instead of throwing around nonsense accusations, attention should be focused on closing a loophole in Irish law that provides that a company is tax resident where its central management and control is located, not where it is incorporated, so that it is possible for the first Irish company not to be tax resident in Ireland. [from wikipedia]. The companies are incorporated in Ireland, but tax resident in a REAL tax haven.

Good lord - this could not be more wrong. Eisenhower refused to get troops involved in SE Asia, despite intense pressure from the French who were being kicked around the place by the Viet Cong.

The frequency of weather "disasters" has not changed in any statisically meaningful way.
What has changed is that we built piles of stuff in places that are more likely to be hit by said weather disasters in a very short space of time. Such as all of Florida.

Slashdot would be a better place with that moderation. You made me laugh, thank you.

This is false. Any study done on this shows that smokers pay more than they consume, precisely because they die early. Taxes are quite high on smokers, and many pay a premium on their health insurance anyway, but they don't linger until late in old age so they cost less in pensions and healthcare over their lifetime.

that's a tippling point...

No, their names were "Herr"

I personally think that the great breakthrough that would change everything is energy storage that is significantly more energy dense (orders of magnitude) than the batteries we have today, chargeable, and stable.

Think Heinlein's Shipstones and you've got the idea. Anyone who managed this would need to spend the first half of the money to build somewhere big enough to store the second half of the money.

I think the howls of protest are because India still receives a lot of foreign aid. It is a perfectly rational question to ask - if I country can afford a space program, why do they need aid?

If you, as a merchant, are accepting Chip & PIN transactions, then you're paying significantly lower fees to reflect the significantly lower risk . If you're accepting mag-strip & signature, then you're paying more for the transaction because there's a much higher risk that it's a fraud. If you're doing a card-not-present transaction (i.e. online) then you're paying even more because the risk is even higher.

This technique, which is a result of insecure hardware on the devices, is very hard and requires a lot of infrastructure, for lack of a better word. In 2010, the US had 27% of all card transactions worldwide, but 47% of all fraudulent transactions. The facts and figures say that Chip & PIN is more secure. The problem is that the US is so used to hucksters and fraudsters that they need the safety blanket, whereas in the EU the instance of fraud is so much lower that it's not seen as a problem.

All transactions are also vetted by more than the EMV, previous transaction history and known locations are taken into account, as well as overall usage. The PIN itself is separate from EMV (they go in two separate data elements in a transaction), and EMV has more than just this number, it also has other checks like an Application Transaction Counter.

And lastly, whatever the specifics of where liability lies, the banks treat disputes fairly because it's easy for them to do, and the person getting done is generally the merchant. Bear in mind, to get money off a card you need the following:
1. A machine, registered to a bank which is regulated by that country's local regulator (so no "magic" banks).
2. A merchant account, verified by said bank,
3. for which you need to be a registered business.

It should also be noted that the number they're talking about is not random and was never intended to be random, which is why they use the term "unpredictable" rather than the technical term "random".

The flip side of this is that the processing fees for Chip & PIN cards are significantly lower. The fact is that fraud is vastly reduced by using Chip & PIN, so the fees charged can account for that.