I thought that Angela Merkel had a lot more common sense then to help bail out European social welfare basket case Greece. That would be something that I would expect her predecessor Gerhard Schroder would do. The whole European Union experiment was a Franco-German-Belgian plot to take over Europe through political entrapment. The idea that nations of different languages, cultures, and histories would bond together into one super state is against the laws of history. I for one would not be saddened to see the EU (a bunch of trouble makers in my opinion) fall on its face. The last two Europeans (from France and Germany – what a coincidence!) who tried to unite Europe by force were Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler (and both of their dreams ended in the snows of Russia).
by Peter Millar
GISELA and Susi, thirtysomething civil service secretaries, were shivering over their sausages in what the tabloids labelled the “most miserable May of the millennium” and planning their summer holidays. “I know where I’m not going,” one of them said. “The hotels, service and food aren’t as good as Turkey but the prices are as high as Italy!”
As Berliners bravely sat on the banks of the River Spree in unseasonably cold weather for the Ascension Day holiday that traditionally marks the start of summer, they had no doubt that the cold wind was blowing from the sunny south: Greece in particular.
The multi-billion-euro payout for Greece, followed by an even more expensive rescue package for the threatened single currency, has created the greatest political climate change in a generation.
Suddenly Germans are asking questions about the European project that has been the bedrock of their politics for 60 years, leaving Angela Merkel, the chancellor, under fire from the electorate, the opposition and her own party.
[...]
The tension between Germany and France threatened to spill over at a Brussels summit last weekend when Merkel and Sarkozy had a furious row. According to observers, it ended with Sarkozy threatening to leave the euro.
“It was a stand-up argument,” an official told El Pais, the Spanish newspaper. Sarkozy, furious at Merkel’s reluctance to sign up to a safety net of €750 billion (£644 billion), was shouting and bawling at Merkel and smashed his fist on the table. “It was Sarkozy on steroids,” one witness said.
Dubbed “our Iron Lady” — or just “Mutti” (Mummy) within the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that she dominates — Merkel returned to Germany accused of having given too much, too late.
Her timing was also poor. The euro talks, combined with the Greek bailout, led to a CDU defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia’s state election last weekend and with it the loss of her majority in the upper house.
Read the rest: ‘Mummy’ Merkel battered as Germans lose face in the EU
George Will finally has an interesting column and on the same subject
by George F. Will
When Chancellor Angela Merkel decided that Germany would pay part of Greece’s bills, voters punished her party in elections in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. How appropriate.
The 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, ratified Europe’s emerging system of nation-states. Since the end of the Thirty-One Years’ War (1914-1945), European elites have worked at neutering Europe’s nationalities. Greece’s debt crisis reveals this project’s intractable contradictions, and the fragility of Western Europe’s postwar social model — omniprovident welfare states lacking limiting principles.
Greece represents a perverse aspiration — a society with (in the words of Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan) “more takers than makers,” more people taking benefits from government than there are people making goods and services that produce the social surplus that funds government. By socializing the consequences of Greece’s misgovernment, Europe has become the world’s leading producer of a toxic product — moral hazard. The dishonesty and indiscipline of a nation with 2.6% of the eurozone’s economic product have moved nations with the other 97.4% — and the United States and the International Monetary Fund — to say, essentially: The consequences of such vices cannot be quarantined, so we are all hostages to one another and hence no nation will be allowed to sink beneath the weight of its recklessness.
Recklessness will proliferate.
“The coining of money,” said William Blackstone more than two centuries ago, “is in all states the act of the sovereign power.”
Read the rest here: Folly of the ‘Euro’ state
Tags: george will, Peter Millar
Hey Speranza! Looking forward to hearing you tonight on blogtalkradio!
The European Union needs to be dissolved. Each nation should pursue their own interests.
Meanwhile in the US, never let a crisis go to waste…
Hey Rodan!
There’s an article at Drudge that Greece is considering suing the US banks for the mess they are in.
@ snork:
Pretty well sums it up…
@ savages_girl:
Hello!
@ teacake:
I linked it on our Hot Links.
The invisible fist is making itself felt.
speaking of shark hurdling
“right wing crazies” worse than extremist-muslim crazies?
hmmmmmmm.
But is that Invisible Fist Reality…or Islam rearing its ugly head? Sadly, the answer is yes.
Rodan wrote:
I agree. It was a ridiculous undertaking from the beginning.
How the hell was Greece allowed to get so out of control. Oh wait . . . it’s happening here.
The whole idea that people deserve the same amount of ‘stuff’, simply because they’ve got a pulse, is the idiocy of FDR grown for the last 60+ years.
Sure, everyone should be held to the same standard. Everyone should be treated as equal in the eye of the law. But the cancer of liberalism fails to account for differences in talent, in drive, and in interest.
My dad had an album of a comedian once who said something like ‘Without a government, people who are smart & who work hard get rich. And the people who are dumb & lazy get poor. Things would be in a hell of a mess.’
If they change the name of the E.U. to “Oceania” it should all work out, right?
It take a “village idiot”!
@ IslandLibertarian:
Hey when is that election in Hawaii 1?
@ Rorschach:
That post shows where CJ’s sympathies truly lie.
Rorschach wrote:
******
Look how sneaky cluckie is. He throws out a muzz rant that doesn’t explicitly threaten to chop off his head and now we are more dangerous than these savages. LOL.
btw, How does he feel abt. the Swedish artist’s rights to free speech and expression, now that he is a muzz suck up?
@ chickadee:
He’s a lying Propagandist.
@ Rorschach:
The Wally does not know how to Compare and Contrast.
Absurd should be compared with absurd. It is absurd to compare absurdity resulting from difficulties with English with insults in fluent English intentionally expressing contempt, derision, and loathing.
He should compare death threats with death threats and invite all political bloggers to share the really scary ones. Then he could organize a poll for which is the scariest and then we shall see from which quarter in comes. And would that prove anything?
Some dogs have a bark worse than their bite. The jihadists do well in biting. Not too shabby in barking. But their best barks are in Arabic.
The Wally’s passive aggression is icky-pooh.
@ chickadee:
You should notice as well that once again there is absolutely ZERO actual proof of what he claims (on either count). The site has been proven to exaggerate and just make things up so often, that his word just isn’t enough anymore…well not for any thinking man or women, but the Loozards are ok with it.
Just to prove my point, here is an email I just got from someone over at LGF. (*wink, wink, nudge, nudge)
WRATHOF-G, WE LIZARDS HATE YOU AND KNOW THAT ONE DAY YOUR SO CALLED G-D IF IT EXISTED WOULD KILL YOU AS THERE IS NO G-D, AND EVERYONE THAT BELIEVES IN G-D SHOULD BE RAPED!!!
Now that isn’t as bad as the other stuff I get from there and KOS, stating that…
(not not really, but you get the point)
I hope the European Unions falls apart.
savages_girl wrote:
thanks. i’ll be there
@ WrathofG-d:
A good point, a sharp point, and one that should be driven into the plank of wood pretending to be a crocodile.
Rodan wrote:
oh they will fall apart.
WrathofG-d wrote:
Ah feel the love!
@ chickadee:
. . . when Libs show thier true colors all bets are off. You know that you’re no longer dealing with a sane person.
I have a cuz that, for the longest time, I thought was firmly planted to the right of center. Then (at a holiday get together) he went on a rant about ‘who are we’ to decide whether or not the Iranians get to have nukes (or not) – My jaw must have hit the floor and I had absolutely nothing to say. I never try to convince nuts why they are nuts. there may be some hope 4 those whishy washy folks in the middle – they have to wake up on thier own.
@ Rodan:
So do a lot of Europeans.Maybe it isn’t too late to shake off the stagnation of failed socialism and take control of creeping muzz. A lesson to the USA,don’t let it happen here.
Just as we should start an NGO to supply Obama with all his favorite cigs we should start one to supply Schwarzenegger with more steroids. Having his partially addled brain running California is destroying it.
@ spinmore:
Yes, there is no rational way of dealing with that kind of viewpoint.
It is almost like saying, ‘Who are we to say someone can’t kill us?’
Too weird.
waldensianspirit wrote:
Every time I hear him say “Kally-for-nya” I cringe.
@ Rodan:
It is a mail in election. Over 40% of the ballots have been mailed in.
The results will be announced May 22, 2010. Next week.
Republican Djou has been leading by double digits in the polls, but it’s not a sure thing. Hawaii has a habit of following Democrat marching orders. And the big argument is “We don’t want to embarrass “local boy” Obama.
vagabond trader wrote:
Maybe individual countries will handle their muzz creep, their way. This might not play out good for the muzz.
The dictatorial European Union deserves to fall apart.
@ snork:
I say we cut California off and let her sink. There is no reason for the other 49 States to bail out a State whose people have voted, time and time again, to put themselves in this awful position? Fuck ‘em. Before I’d be for any bailout, they’d have to outlaw the Democrat Party in the State and take Constitutional actions to prevent them from enacting moonbat policies. Even then, they made the mess, let them clean it up. If that means illegal aliens no longer get their heroin subsidy from the State, oh well.
Question, how will Soros profit?
@ waldensianspirit:
Wherever there is misery Soros finds a profit margin.
Rodan wrote:
Believe it or not but we are speaking now about more integration in the EU not less.
chickadee wrote:
I think the Hen is lying about that email. I really have never seen a real genuine email from a Muslim where they did not threaten death.The only reason for that post was so that he could talk about the right wing. AND Chuckie the right wing wants nothing to do with you. You are a joke. And the only reason there was not a threat in that fake mail is because that would possibly bring about an investigation.
Iron Fist wrote:
I’d pay money for Ca. if they would deport Nancy and Nancy.
@ Iron Fist:
Lots of the libs who had a hand in destroying California have moved on to the next place to kill with their fcked up politics. Libs are the dumbest bastards in the world. They should have to stay in the nests they foul until they see the errors of their ways. Why should solvent states have to be infected with these scrunts?
Grimcargo wrote:
I think you’re right.
He was trying to civilize and main stream them in that e-mail. That works for him to contrast them, as so much more respectful than us. LOL. It is stunning how the libs work to rehabilitate the muzz, and the whole time the muzz are right there snarling and spitting like animals. What a joke.
Hen should go to Pock-ee-ston or Af-gon-ee-ston for vacation. Rent a car, drive around and see the sights,mingle with the locals. Then he can tells how much safer he was there than for example driving cross country in America, encountering Bible thumping, gun toting rednecks.
He’s hopeless.
Rorschach wrote:
Hmmmmmm is right. Wow he is now siding with anti-americans. Then in the same blow says Americans are worse. hmmmmmm. Exactly who is trying to get him to join to the Tea Party movement etc. At this point I don’t think they would want him anyway. What a major brain change he has had. Wait until the next terrorist act. He will probably defend it this time in a pretzel shape logic way.
So, we’ve got EUtopian on the grill, with a side order of strawberries?
and speaking of global warming
stumbled across this story
to be filed under things that make you go hmmmm…..
Food and Ethanol Shortages Imminent as Earth Enters New Cold Climate Era
The Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), the leading independent research organization in the United States on the subject of the next climate change, issues today the following warning of imminent crop damage expected to produce food and ethanol shortages for the US and Canada.
“Over the next 30 months, global temperatures are expected to make another dramatic drop even greater than that seen during the 2007-2008 period. As the Earth’s current El Nino dissipates, the planet will return to the long term temperature decline brought on by the Sun’s historic reduction in output, the on-going “solar hibernation.”
The SSRC places only one caveat on this forecast. Casey elaborates, “Only a stronger solar cycle with a period longer than the 206 year cycle can cause us to alter our projections. Although more research is needed in this area, none have yet shown themselves. The present hibernation is proceeding in almost lock step as the last one which occurred from 1793 to 1830. If it continues on present course, while the cold weather impacts on food and fuel announced today are certainly important, they do not compare with what is to follow later. At the bottom of the cold cycle of this hibernation in the late 2020’s and 2030’s there will likely be years with devastating to total crop losses in the Canadian and northern US grain regions.”
I posted this because it runs SO counter to everything in the msm
(wish I had a sock to post this over there and make lvq’s head melt)
Heh™.
oh, this vid from a pepboys security camera during the flood
the water is a good 4-5 feet up on the glass storefront before the doors explode
http://www.tennessean.com/section/VideoNetwork?bctid=85477539001#/News/Pep+Boys+flooding+caught+on+security+camera/47366661001/47454972001/85477539001
@ Guggi:
Unreal!
@ rain of lead:
But I thought the Earth is warming!
/
Grimcargo wrote:
Most foreigner’s don’t spell THEIR correctly. To me that’s the give away.
@ rain of lead:
Global warming, Global cooling (rehash from the mid-70′s), it’s all the fault of mankind, capitalism, tea partiers, Bush, creationists, Christians and anyone who doesn’t think Obama is the 2nd coming of Jesus.
Guggi wrote:
One thing the left learned from Patton is never, ever, ever retreat. Look at how the climatati are shifting into high gear with the bridge collapsing.
snork wrote:
Government is always slow and ponderous; it is always behind the curve.
One of the most hilarious things to contemplate is artists who whine about how, without government money, “cutting-edge” or “avant-garde” art will not be funded—when the very fact that the work receives government funding renders it, by definition, neither cutting-edge nor avante-garde.
By the same token, the government will wake up to the fraud of “global warming” only after everyone else has tumbled to it, and will have to stumble and spend to undo the damage that was done to meet that nonexistent challenge.
The global-warm swarm is rushing to get the money before the government gets the word.
snork wrote:
The open discussion of the possible collapse of the Euro is a pretty good signal that they’re too late to stop it this time. It will collapse. It’s inevitable now. Reality can only be held at bay for so long.
archonix wrote:
I tend to agree, but I wonder when this epiphany will finally descend on California.
snork wrote:
I did not realize that California recognized the Euro as currency.
http://faustiesblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/german-marks-printed-again.html
Look at the date on those packets. The only reason Germany would be printing marks now is if they were going to leave the Euro.
Holy Shit!