Looks like the tiger mosquito may soon be making life even more miserable for people in Spain (from El Pais):
A 44-year-old woman from Cartuja de Monegros (population 350) in Huesca province has become the first case of indigenous malaria in Spain since the disease was eradicated a half century ago.
As the patient does not fall under the usual causes of contagion — foreign travel to an area where malaria is endemic, blood transfusion, organ transplant or a visit to an airport — epidemiologists have concluded that the culprit was an indigenous mosquito.
Aragon’s regional public health director, Francisco Javier Falo, played down the case’s importance, saying that the possibility of another infection is extremely low.
Culinary genius Ferran Adrià is at it again with yet another weird sell-out. No, he’s not pitching Pikolin mattresses again. Refresh your memory:
"When I was offered the opportunity to participate in this project, I could not help looking back and realizing that my rest has always been linked to Pikolin. This more emotional reason, coupled with a brilliant project equipped with a key component for me as is the desire to create, improve and innovate using technology and creativity, I did not think twice and buy into the project Eurotop" said Ferran Adrià.
This time he sold out to the ultimate in selling-out-ed-ness, Telefonica:
The four-year deal also involves organising training courses and conferences in several major cities, including Miami, New York, London, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Mexico, Madrid and Barcelona, it said in a statement released late on Tuesday.
Why Telefonica? Well, it looks like he needs the money:
The deal with Telefonica represents "the first funds for the foundation, for which we are still looking for money," Adria told the Spanish business newspaper Expansion published Wednesday.
I don’t really understands why Ferran choses these bizarre ways to attempt to cash in on his fame, rather than just charging a higher price to eat at his restaurant.
Found via fistfullofeuros, I was pretty shocked to read this about Switzerland, supposed paradise of freedom.
In the 1960s, there was a relatively widespread program of putting people deemed to have “loose morals” (mostly young unmarried women who got pregnant) or “work shy” into prison without a trial or even a hearing. The parents were then sent a rather large bill for “re-education”.
At one point, more than half of the inmates at Switzerland’s largest women’s prison were young women in “administrative care”.
The government has apologized for the actions, but hasn’t made any efforts to compensate the victims. A book has recently been published trying to draw attention to this matter.
Super Size Me While examining the influence of the fast food industry, Morgan Spurlock personally explores the consequences on his health of a diet of solely McDonald's food for one month.
Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders When Hurricane Katrina ravaged America's Gulf Coast, it laid bare an uncomfortable reality-America is not only far from the world's wealthiest nation; it is crumbling beneath a staggering burden of individual and government debt. Maxed Out takes us on a journey deep inside the American debt-style, where everything seems okay as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time
The Corporation Documentary that looks at the concept of the corporation throughout recent history up to its present-day dominance.
The logic behind the decision was that it treated men and women unfairly, since men can only take the leave if the wife is working, but women can take the leave regardless.
Lactation leave is one hour a day for the first nine months, which adds up to 25 days of paid leave, assuming that you don’t take any other leave. Given that paternity leave is only two weeks in Spain, this could actually be a pretty big deal.
In theory, men can also take the 16 weeks maternity leave, but only if the mother is working. Applying the same logic as the ECJ applied to the lactation leave, there’s a good chance that men will also be able to take this leave in the future.
I’ll try taking that lactation leave (mostly just to see if it works), since, which given how dysfunctional and cheapo the Corporation’s HR department is, will undoubtedly be amusing.
Article 2(1), (3) and (4) and Article 5 of Council Directive 76/207/EEC of 9 February 1976 on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions, must be interpreted as precluding a national measure such as the one at issue in the main proceedings, which provides that female workers who are mothers and whose status is that of an employed person are entitled, in various ways, to take leave during the first nine months following the child’s birth, whereas male workers who are fathers with that same status are not entitled to the same leave unless the child’s mother is also an employed person.
CEOE, the leading association of business owners in Spain, got to be in the new twice today.
First, José de La Cavada, director of the labor relations department was fined 25,000 euros for humiliating and abusing his workers. CEOE still denies the claim and stated that it had a “magnífico clima laboral” at the association, and proudly stated that the average age there is twenty years. How many of these have permanent work contracts and aren’t the director’s children or nephews wasn’t stated.
Last month, the head of CEOE, Gerardo Díaz Ferran was sentenced by a court in Madrid to personally pay two months of back wages of Air Comet. He had a actually signed a document last December, where he personally guaranteed to pay the salaries of the company. He argued that this was merely a “moral commitment”, which obvious doesn’t mean much to Ferran.
First, José de La Cavada, director of the labor relations department 
Last month, the head of CEOE, Gerardo Díaz Ferran 