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For a harbinger of what's to come, look into what's happening in Romania with their Rosia Montana gold mine.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-11/paulson-ba... http://www.miningfacts.org/Blog/Mining-News/Canadian-Miner-P...

Basically a Canadian company will most likely sue the Romanian government for refusing to allow an open pit gold mine. They won't do this in a Romanian court.

Just like we saw with Greece, sovereign nations are no longer all that sovereign. Treaties like TPP, and TTIP will further remove decision making capabilities from sovereign states. It's kinda crazy.


My understanding of this case is that the mining company signed a contract with the government for development of this mining project, and there is now the possibility that the parliament will at the eleventh hour break the terms of the agreement. I don't see why the government should be exempt from making restitution in cases where it breaks contracts.


Welcome to the new corporate imperialism I guess. Was a matter of time. But really what is this about? It's about economic growth at all costs, while tooting the horn of environmentalism.


It's not out yet, but you might want to check out "Privacy on the Ground: Driving Corporate Behavior in the United States and Europe", by Bamberger and Mulligan.


Seriously, as a Dutch/American dual citize I'm debating moving back to the NL simply for this reason. From what I can tell I would pay close to a quarter in NL for better insurance than in the USA. The US is a complete ripoff.


> the more extreme the weather anomaly, the less likely it is to be caused by human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming.

I'm not an expert in this field by any measure. However, this assumption goes against everything I've read from people who are experts.


There's still a very active community of Supcom Forged Alliance Forever players. If you want to watch some great gameplay check out Gyle's channel on Youtube.


Why does every article about Portland make it into some magical incredibly different place. Does water not run downhill in Portland, OR?

I spend a fair amount of time in Portland and it's incredibly similar to most American cities. All this exceptionalist serves only to stroke egos and generate clicks.


As an American who immigrated to The Netherlands I would like to know of this mythical country in the world with a working immigration system. AFAICT they're all rather broken.

US immigration might be broken in different ways than some other countries, but from the many stories I've heard of friends moving all over the world, they all pretty much suck.


Australia. I got my PR (green card equivalent) after working 3 years and applying for citizenship now (5 years since I arrived here). Spent less than AUD 10k total for immigration, including my partner visas. Processing times are reasonable and very transparent.

It's not a perfect system but way better than most countries.


I'll admit it's less broken than most places, but it's still pretty nuts at times: http://gyrovague.com/2012/08/10/notarizing-your-fingerprints...

Singapore used to be ridiculously awesome (work visa approvals usually processed in under 24 hours), but they've really tightened the screws in the last few years, particularly on granting permanent residence, due to political reasons.


As an immigrant to both France and Germany I agree with you. Every immigration system seems completely broken and disconnected from reality.


Canada is pretty good. The points system sets a reasonably high bar but at least it's fairly objective. Once you're in the path from temporary foreign worker to permanent resident to citizen is well defined and works fairly well despite the slow processing times.


Australian immigration is fairly simple if you have tech background and all your papers are in order.

I moved from India to Aus on PR visa.


We should recognize that the constitution still allows slavery as a punishment for crime. This is as much about slave labor, as it is about the prison industry receiving money from the public purse.

13th amendment "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Good general overview of prison labor: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor...

More detailed account of prison labor in Nevada regarding casinos and construction. http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/

The slave market: http://www.unicor.gov/

You can even get slave labor to operate your call center: http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/


It's more like slave siphoning. Once someone is tagged as a criminal, there are seemingly endless ways to suck money from them, their families, the state, and the federal government. Each American indoctrinated into the criminal justice system in essence becomes that famous Duracell from the Matrix movie.


I don't know why the EFF is praising ICANN for not becoming the Internet's trademark enforcer. Every new gTLD must deal with the Trademark Clearinghouse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_Clearinghouse


You might just try contacting the biggest union near you and asking. They typically know plenty of labor lawyers. It can't hurt.


If the OP is in the US: in the US, 'labor law' and 'employment law' are two different specialties. Labor law focuses on the laws concerning unions, organized labor, and collective bargaining, while employment law is concerned with laws affecting all aspects of the employer-employee relationship. You'd want an employment law specialist for this sort of issue, or a generalist lawyer with experience in helping software engineers deal with employment law issues.


Asking for a labor Lawyer won't get you anywhere, but smutticus is right that reaching out to Unions or Labor Lawyers and asking for an employment lawyer is a smart move.

Big Unions often employ or know top notch employment lawyers (it's not a focus for unions, but they still might work together on select cases), employment lawyers that can scare the acquiring company before negotiations begin :p


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