Ogre-fuck: Virginia Executes Retarded Woman

Virginia joins the depths of hell usually occupied by the state of Texas today as it murders Teresa Lewis.  The civilized world takes a dim view on executions of any kind, but especially the execution of the mentally retarded or disturbed.  The EU even chimed in: 

The European Union's ambassador to the U.S. wrote that the EU "considers that the execution of people with mental disorders of all types is contrary to minimum standards of human rights.
...
Lewis met Rodney Fuller and Matthew Shallenberger in a Wal-Mart store in Pittsylvania County and traded sex and money for weapons for the hired killing of her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr. His son, Charles Lewis, entered the U.S. army reserve and had a $250,000 US life insurance policy, naming his father the beneficiary. 

Both men would have to die for Lewis to collect.

On the night before Halloween in 2002, Shallenberger and Fuller came in and shot both men several times with shotguns. As Julian lay bleeding, Lewis grabbed his pants and wallet and gave the men the $300 inside.

Lewis's attorneys note that Shallenberger later claimed he was the mastermind and duped Lewis to get some of the insurance money. Shallenberger committed suicide in prison in 2006. He and Fuller were sentenced to life for the killings.  [more]

European Debt Crisis and the Euro

Call it currency karma. The EU's obsession with Americanizing Europe has led to just that: failure. For centuries, each European nation had its own currency, and while that may have inconvenienced businesspeople crossing borders, it worked just fine. In its desire to turn sovereign nations into the equivalent of states, the euro currency, in less than a decade, has become a financial mess, fragmenting relationships among nations it took decades to forge in the post WWII era. The wealthier nations in the EU, foremost Germany, are saddled with the burden of essentially bailing out Greece, which is on the edge of bankruptcy. A "spillover effect" also looms, as the status of Greece's debt has reached "junk level" according to the NY Times (April 28, 2010). Prior to the euro, poorer European nations could devalue their currency to boost exports when faced with financial difficulty. But the massive bureaucracy that has come with the euro--fourteen nations that all have to act in concert and with approval from Brussels--makes such an option obsolete. Now Spain and Portugal are right behind Greece in line. The response of Germany's president to the idea her country will play the role of continental welfare dispensary is somewhat understandable as well as predictably harsh and ethnocentric. The jist: "Germany has huddled together with its back to the financial storm" or something like that. My point is not a criticism of Germany but the foolish notions of the euro and the EU's America-envy complex. Europe has essentially abandoned a liberal economic system based on slow but sustainable growth, strong regulation of business, relative high taxation appropriated for health care, education, and infrastructure, and replaced it with a trans-national currency designed to rival and overtake the dollar as the dominant world currency. In effect, Europe got tired of being Europe and wanted to become like America--become superrich at any cost and phase out programs and policies that improve the quality of life of the people. Well, Europe is getting its wish to become just like America. Europe is going hard-core right wing and the euro promises continued protracted financial failure that will widen the divide between rich and poor countries and individuals.