Another major victory for European lawmakers...

An eye-opener from the Telegraph:

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. [...]

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

Hard to believe.

Cheers...

Day two of pad operations...

I was the on-call interpreter yesterday, so when the need came to call up an interpreter late last night, well... I got called. Something about going to the control room at the полтинник (which is at one end of some lines that extend out to the satellite) and help interpret discussions related to tests of some of those lines. I'm happy to report that my interpretation helped solve the problem in fairly quick order.

Earlier in the day, I missed interpreting a rather acrimonious exchange between parties who did a little mutual finger-pointing over a problem related to powering up the satellite. Fortunately, the problem was fairly easily resolved, in the end, requiring only a modicum of effort to get everything back on track. If nothing else, it gave the Khrunichev program director the opportunity at this morning's status meeting to note (humorously) that it provided some perturbation in a campaign that has been progressing entirely - and almost suspiciously - too smoothly for everyone`s taste.

During that exchange, I was doing my on-call time at the Fili and spending some time in the minibar listening to some of the French conversing about life, the universe, and everything. Eventually, in a break in the conversation, one of the participants turned to me and asked if I understood everything they were saying.

"Not everything," I admitted, "but my comprehension is improving." I'll not bore you with an attempt to recreate what I actually said. Spoken language is much more forgiving of error than written, and vastly more forgiving of lack of literary style (which is why many people who speak well - even native speakers - can come across as illiterates when they write). By "improving," I mean that I am picking up more individual words (especially the ones not taught in high school, such as "cul," which means "rear end") and combinations of words.

The script of the launch coverage arrived today. Apparently, a version I had edited for a previous campaign has been adopted. Happy day! I'll now have to go off somewhere quiet and rehearse it.

Cheers...