Fun European Countries Going Bankrupt; Are The Boring Ones Next?
Remember when the Europeans all gave up their funny money for the sober euro, and they were One Continent, United, Forever, no more wars, hooray? Well, uh, it turns out that maybe that isn't working out so well? Nobody wants to lend Greece any money, which in turn makes it hard for it to borrow money, and they can't just print money anymore because they don't have their own money, so: problems! Soon it will go bankrupt and be sold to the Italians. It is just like Bear Stearns, but with better seafood.But of course Greece is just the "tip of the iceberg," money-wise, and soon other relaxed booze-happy euro-fringe countries will follow (Portugal, Spain, Ireland, what have you). In the old days, the countries that were owed money would stone cold invade a place that defaulted on its debt, but since the main creditor here is Germany and everyone's uncomfortable with them invading things, that probably won't happen. Stock markets are totally tanking, though! [ NYT ]Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans to run things by double-digit margins, according to a new WaPo-ABC survey, so naturally they also want to toss out every single member of Congress, which has a Democratic majority. They also think Obama is "just about right" ideologically, because your average American is also a baby bear. [ Washington Post ]
After trying and failing at various techniques to contain that giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard is seriously considering just straight up setting the thing on fire, because what have they got to lose? In related news, Ken Salazar is probably going to approve that enormous scenery-blocking wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, the fucking hippie. [ USA Today / NYT ]
