[News] About That Insurance Company Hiring Only Capricorns

(y'know, the one I mentioned here on February 5th): My "research" is much more thorough when I lay out the weekly News of the Weird column, because it has more readers and brings in more (i.e., some) income. That doesn't mean that I just slap any old thing up in this-here space, but my rep is on the line in the weekly column. Plus, I write up the weekly a couple of weeks after a news story appears, which gives a chance for other newspapers to follow up the original story and put more data out there by the time I get around to columnizing. Nonetheless, I now find that this story of a "Salzburg insurance company" that hires only Capricorns, Tauruses, Aquariuses, Arieses, and Leos has likely only ever been "reported" by London's Daily Mail, which wrote it up with journalistic malpractice by failing to name the company or anyone associated with the story. On the other hand, what it has going for it is a correct statement of the tricky law involved. "Discrimination" in employment in the EU is only illegal if it is based on specified categories (e.g., race, religion, gender, etc.). Discrimination based on the year of one's birth might be illegal, but not based on the month. That's merely absurd. (Standard Disclaimer: The story could be true. Who knows? Maybe the Daily Mail had a chance to write it up with good journalism, but just failed. Either way, it won't be in my weekly column.) (And by the way, a bow to Alex: He was skeptical of it from the git-go on MuseumofHoaxes.com) [UPDATE: Alex reports that one of his readers posted a link to an actual classified ad in the Salzburger Nachrichten that sought sales and management people of certain star signs. So, it's more likely journalistic malpractice than a hoax.]