French cheese is actually pretty good. You should try it.

Also, remember who helped you in your war for independence? Yeah, it was the surrender monkeys. They also gave you the most recognizable symbol of the USA after the stars and stripes: The Statue of Liberty.

If that were truly to happen, the French would chop off their president's head.

Changing the user search is bad, but not nearly as bad as installing a crappy browser addon that hijacks your search.
I think the former is a bothersome, but tolerable advertising practice (all advertising is bothersome in a way). The latter should be a criminal offence.

Jeesh... so there was no way to brag about it at the time? Inconceivable!
Better late than never, hey?

Oh sorry. If that was meant ironically, I take back what I said.

My irony detectors are not the best.

I'm not sure how the OECD compiles these numbers or what the criteria are, but I've read multiple times in different reputable news sources that about 25% of the Greek labour force is directly or indirectly payrolled by the government.

I don't think these sources have been "lying" but I also don't think that the OECD has produced these numbers out of thin air, so I suspect the big discrepancy is through a statistical effect of who you decide to count.

... because 25% of the Greek population and their cousins is employed by the state, twiddling their thumbs or something, Receiving big, nice paychecks, often 13-15 paychecks a year and many being able to retire in their 50's.

Obviously, this is not a sustainable model.
But try to take some of that away, reduce the grants, incomes and pensions to levels that the Greek economy can actually sustain, and all of Greek media starts being indignant about it, blaming Germany and Europe for all this shit.

This is the most self-righteous, dumbass comment I've read on Slashdot in a while.

That might be a factor. But I think the major reason is that historically, film in Germany has enjoyed a good reputation as a cultural or entertainment asset. Videogames on the other hand are still somewhat stigmatized. If you out yourself as a gamer, there is still a sizeable portion of the German populace that will regard you as an immature time waster.
If you have South Korea on the one side, where videogames are practically universally accepted and integrated in society, Germany is close to the opposite end of that.

You can have games with Nazis in it in Germany. But it has to be censored and all Nazi symbology has to be replaced or removed.
For example, the new Wolfenstein game from Bethesda is available, but the swastikas in the German version are replaced by the stylized "W" from "Wolfenstein", and "SS" symbols like the deathshead or the "SS" itself have been removed entirely.
Also, one scene where you wake up in a gas chamber surrounded by corpses has been altered and all corpses have been removed.

The original "Wolfenstein 3D" was completely banned in Germany, because there was no censored version available.

Personally, I think that is bullshit. Nazi symbols are generally illegal in Germany, but allowed under special circumstances such as for "artistic purposes". But then for some reason, they don't have to be removed from movies, such as Indiana Jones... I really don't see the justification for allowing it in movies but forbidding it in video games.

But that's not all. Extreme kinds of violence in videgames are almost always also banned in Germany unless softened for the German market. Fallout 3 for example, where you can blow up individual body parts, is also altered to be less violent.

Let me put it this way:
Poverty is the problem. Why?
Many people do not have a job. Why?
There is an abundance of unqualified labor. Why?
Many people haven't had a good education. Why?
Many people didn't have access to good educational institutions. Why?
Many people are immigrants from Africa.

If you want to find solutions to problems, you have to know the causes and the source. Otherwise you are just fighting the symptom. By digging down you list all the points that could be changed to improve the situation.

You could go on:
Why are there so many immigrants from Africa?
There are wars, extreme poverty and human rights abuses in Africa. Why?
There is a lack of democratic institutions in Africa. Why?
etc...

You choose to simply stop at the very first point. In my opinion that severely limits discussion and the options to think and do something about the problem.

I think it almost never makes much sense, in any topic, to talk purely about the -is- state without taking the changes and developments into consideration that caused this state to be. Paris has changed considerably in the last 20 years. One of the most evident change is the increase in porverty, and this is caused in no small part by immigration.

Why should I not mention immegration as a cause of this development? And what is illogical about saying this?

In fact it is quite meaningful to make this connection, because it provides the information that the majority of French people are still quite well of and that the poverty mainly affects a fringe group of people due to their special circumstances. It tells us that the problem is not mainly the French economy, but the unusually high influx of unqualified laborers who can not find any jobs.

I see your point... I'm actually left on the political side of things. But I'm not a huge fan of political correctness. And fact is, that there is alot of African immigration in Paris, the overwhelming majority of them are very poor, and it has a noticeable impact on the city.

I was quite shocked when I returned to Paris after a long time, and saw people lying on matresses on the streets, some living in tents, people constantly trying to sell me drugs in parks, shabby characters approaching you asking for money or cigarettes... 90% of these people are immigrants, they bring alot of poverty and it doesn't make the city any nicer.

That's just the way it is. It doesn't mean I hate immigrants, or that I'm a racist. It does mean that immigration is a problem that is being neglected in Europe and needs some serious attention.

While I share your opinion that Berlin is a better place to be than London, you must be kidding about this part.

Well, it depends. Theoretically, or on the rare occations when all trams are functional and running as they should, it really -is- good and you can get around to almost everywhere pretty well.
Unfortunately the trams are a mess and practically every time I'm in Berlin trams are breaking down and sections of the line are closed due to technical failures.

I've visited London for 2 weeks, and while it was good to see it, my overall impression was that I wouldn't want to live there.
Of course I realize that 2 weeks isn't nearly enough time to really get to know a city, but normally when visiting one of Europe's mayor cities on a two week vacation, I love it. And for some reason London didn't raise that feeling in me.
Naturally London has its amazing landmarks, but overall the city just didn't make me feel comfortable. The parks are not great, the city somehow feels stark and dirty.

If I had the choice, I would choose any other major city in Europe to live, especially Madrid, Berlin or Barcelona are great. Paris is lovely still, even though some areas have become quite bedraggled due to immigration and poverty. Amsterdam is of course a fucking amazing city to be, if you can tolerate the extreme tourism and partygoers.
But London... no thanks.