he arc of Europe’s postwar history is turning toward tragedy. It isn’t just that much of the continent has fallen into a new Great Depression, or that in some countries things will get worse before they get better. It isn’t even that the whole mess was avoidable. It’s that the crisis is dividing Europe along the very lines the European project was intended to erase.

Decades of cliches about European solidarity and the European idea are being held up to ridicule. The argument that Britons, Germans, Greeks, Italians and Spaniards are instinctive cultural partners whose commonalities transcend their obvious differences and historical enmities — that “Europe” is a real community, not just a heavily worked-over Brussels blueprint — turns out to be, let’s say, disputable.

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This is important as it is another nail in the coffin that is the STVF fraud

Encouraged by distrust of artificial sweeteners and demand for natural products, they have turned to extract of stevia, which is up to 300 times sweeter than traditional beet or cane sugar.

The problems are the aftertaste, the cost, and possible hurdles in defining it as natural in some European Unionmarkets.

read the rest here and all you need to do to read plenty about how STVF is a fraud, just Google it and the links are endless.

“This is like hearing the cry of ‘wolf’ too many times and people will no longer, in some sense, be scared of what’s happening,” said Srinivas Thiruvadanthai, an economist with the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center.

“The risk is, there is real danger and it’s not that there no wolf, there is a real wolf here,” Thiruvadanthai said.

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The basic concept behind taxes, the real reason no one is ever told, is that governments can spend your money better than you can spend your money.  As with every lie, of course, there is a skin of truth in that malevolent concept.

The average citizen cannot, and has no desire to, collect garbage, deliver mail, incarcerate and feed criminals, or establish and maintain a military. Those and other necessary government functions require taxes and, indeed, provide citizens with safe and comfortable existences. That is how it should be — and was……

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A graphic video showing Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy groping employees, grabbing their junk and squeezing their nipples is being shopped … TMZ has learned.

We have seen the video, and it’s extremely disturbing. Roy — who was mauled by a tiger in 2003 — has been going through rehab to strengthen his left side. But the physical therapists tell us, Roy’s right side is “extremely strong,” and the video clearly shows Roy sexually assaulting the male therapists.

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1. At 75, the bridge, designed by Joseph Strauss, is certainly aging gracefully. That iconic orange color is maintained by constant repainting.

2. There are approximately 1.2 million rivets in the bridge’s two towers.

3. The bridge’s two towers support cables containing 80,000 miles of steel wire. Together, the cables weigh a whopping 49 million pounds.

4. In its first year, the bridge carried 3,892,063 motor vehicles and 8,000,000 passengers. More than 400,000 pedestrians walked the sidewalks. Today, 110,00 cars cross the bridge daily, and the bridge gets 10 million visitors a year.

5. It’s also the place where more than 1,600 people have jumped to their deaths. That grim statistic makes it the most visited site for suicide.

But for many people, those golden spires have become the symbol of California.

Then check out the video of the construction here.

So much for mending things with North Korea now that the kid is in power…

A new Amnesty International report paints a gruesome picture of summary executions, torture and ill-treatment in North Korea as Kim Jong Un succeeded his late father, Kim Jong Il, as the country’s ruler last December.

The country used firing squads or staged traffic accidents to execute 30 officials involved in talks to unite North and South Korea, according to the 2012 Amnesty International reportreleased Thursday. It also notes that the country had been questioned about another 37 reported executions between 2007 and 2010 for “financial crimes.”

As the ruling authority shifted to Kim Jong Un, the country’s State Security agency detained another 200 North Korean officials, some of whom are now feared executed or in prison camps, the report notes.

Read the rest of this absolute madness here

High-ranking members of both political parties were unaware that posting photos of completed ballots onFacebook or Twitter is illegal in Wisconsin, and they promised to quickly take down the posts Friday after election officials reminded voters of the law.

The law bars voters from showing their completed ballots to anyone. The intent is to prevent people from selling their votes and then showing their ballots as proof they voted as requested,Wisconsin Government Accountability Board spokesman Reid Magney said.

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Spain’s troubled bank, Bankia, has asked theSpanish government for €19 billion ($23.8 billion) in financial support just as a leading credit rating agency downgraded it to junk status.

Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri, the bank’s president, said late Friday that the bailout would “reinforced the solvency, liquidity and solidity of the bank.”

The request came as Standard & Poor’s downgraded Bankia and four other Spanish banks to junk status because of uncertainty over restructuring and recapitalization plans.

Trading in Bankia shares was suspended Friday while its board determined how much new aid was needed. The bank’s shares have experienced turbulent trading in recent weeks on fears it would not be able to cover the massive losses it has built up in bad loans to the country’s collapsed real estate sector.

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Interesting points, but in the end FUCK FACEBOOK!

The botched offering of Facebook stock has raised several troubling questions, but at least we don’t have to worry about the one that plagues many IPOs: How are a few select investors able to buy in early at lower prices and then pocket huge profits when the trading frenzy begins?

Among the many apparent missteps in its public debut, Facebook is accused of setting an opening price that was too high. Instead of spiking on the first day, shares inched up just 23 cents, to $38.23. The stock has mostly fallen since.

But some IPO experts don’t think this was problem at all.

“The debacle was not the IPO but all the whining by speculators who didn’t make money,” says Lise Buyer, who helps companies plan initial offerings. Says Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida, “Selling something for what it’s worth is the way most people think a market should work.”

For all its flaws, the Facebook debut did fulfill the chief purpose of a stock offering— to raise money for a company to pay bills, buy rivals, invest and expand. That aim is often lost amid the inflated expectations accompanying high-profile debuts.

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I’d love to just let them fail and get this over with…

As contingency plans are made for Greece’s possible departure from the euro zone, investors may not get a clear picture until Greece holds elections on June 17. As a result, U.S. economic statistics may grab the spotlight during the holiday-shortened week.

Major releases include consumer confidence, gross domestic product and on Friday the May non-farm payrolls report, which could provide clues on whether the economy is running out of steam or has simply hit a soft patch.

U.S. financial markets will be closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday.

Corporate news next week is expected to be light, with the first-quarter earnings season largely in the rear view mirror. Among S&P 500 .SPXcompanies, only government contractor SAIC Inc (SAI.N) is scheduled to report next week

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They should have done the same with their banks….

France’s new President Francois Hollande is in Afghanistan to meet with troops and the country’s president and discuss plans for an early pullout.

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I feel bad for laughing but…

The man, police said later, was looking for someone he believed owed him money when he went into the Prudential Executive Group Real Estate office in Valparaiso on Friday morning. Valparaiso Police Chief Michael Brickner said officers believe the gunman shot himself twice in the head before SWAT members rushed in almost seven hours later, after the last two hostages were released unharmed.

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The Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate and a veteran of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime will face each other in a runoff election for Egypt’s president, according to first-round results.

The divisive showdown dismayed many Egyptians who fear either one means an end to any democratic gains produced by last year’s uprising.

Read the article here

FIND THE CLAM IN THE SKY!

South Africa and Australia will share the Square Kilometer Array, a project that that will see the construction of the world’s biggest radio telescope complex and may reveal whether there is life beyond earth.

The member countries of the group organizing the project unanimously decided that both of the shortlisted candidate nations should host the project. The majority of the first phase dishes will be built in South Africa, which is considered a “preferred site,” the group said in an e-mailed statement today.

“It’s an international, global project and one of the important things we seek to achieve is the broadest possible support for it,” Michiel Van Haarlem, the director-general of the Manchester, England-based organizing body, said in an interview at The Netherlands’ Schipol airport, where the decision was taken. “That’s needed, it is an expensive project and we need as many countries as possible to carry the costs.”

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President Obama will host former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, at the White House next week for the unveiling of their official portraits, bringing the two presidents together at a time when Mr. Obama has been castigating Mr. Bush’s record on the campaign trail.

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In two campaign speeches over the last two days, President Barack Obama has twice mistakenly mentioned “my sons” when defending his administration’s regulation requiring virtually all health-care plans in the United States to provide women, without any fees or co-pay, with sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.

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(Reuters) – A Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons is en route to Syria and due to arrive at a Syrian port this weekend, Al Arabiya television said in a report that Western diplomats in New York described on Friday as credible.

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A woman who texted her boyfriend as he drove isn’t liable for his car crash that injured a couple riding on a motorcycle, a state judge in New Jersey ruled.

State Superior Court Judge David Rand yesterday dismissed claims against Shannon Colonna, who had argued that her texting played no role in the crash that injured David and Linda Kubert. The Kuberts sued Colonna and her boyfriend, Kyle Best, blaming her texting in part for his crash on Sept. 21, 2009.

Rand, who sits in Morristown, rejected arguments by the Kuberts that Colonna knew Best was driving and her texting aided and abetted his violation of motor vehicle laws, according an attorney for the Kuberts, Stephen “Skippy” Weinstein. The case appeared to be the first of its kind in the nation, he said.

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China’s allegation that renewable- energy subsidies in five U.S. states violate free-trade rules ratchets up a potentially costly trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

“It’s a long, slow escalation of trade and currency wars as we race to the bottom,” saidTheodore O’Neill, an analyst with Wunderlich Securities Inc. of New York.

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