U.S. and European relations are at what may be an all-time low...

The leaders of Germany, France, and other E.U. countries are really angry over NSA spying. Apparently, we have been monitoring their leaders phones. It's one thing to spy on your enemies. Tapping the phones of your friends is just paranoid and unethical. Paranoid and unethical pretty well describe the Obama administration.

Fallout from allegations that the United States' National Security Agency monitored the phone calls of world leaders and French citizens continued Friday, as relations between America and its European allies hit new lows.
After reports emerged that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile was monitored by the NSA, her chief of staff said Berlin presented Washington with an ultimatum: The United States would sign a "no spying" deal with Germany and France, as it has with the United Kingdom, doing away with mutual espionage.
Germany, meanwhile, is planning to send its top spy chiefs to Washington for talks with officials at the White House and the NSA about the spying allegations. A government spokesman said Friday the heads of the foreign and domestic intelligence agencies would “push forward” the investigation into claims Merkel's phone was under surveillance.

Perhaps they remember Obama lies during his June 19, 2013 speech at the Brandenburg Gate:

"Our current programs are bound by the rule of law, and they're focused on threats to our security -- not the communications of ordinary persons. They help confront real dangers, and they keep people safe here in the United States and here in Europe," he insisted. "But we must accept the challenge that all of us in democratic governments face: to listen to the voices who disagree with us; to have an open debate about how we use our powers and how we must constrain them; and to always remember that government exists to serve the power of the individual, and not the other way around."

EU moving to make big US internet servers and social media providers subject to EU law

The EU is moving to cut the NSA out of their communications.  Big US internet servers and social media providers will be hardest hit.

New European rules aimed at curbing questionable transfers of data from EU countries to the US are being finalised in Brussels in the first concrete reaction to the Edward Snowden disclosures on US and British mass surveillance of digital communications.
Regulations on European data protection standards are expected to pass the European parliament committee stage on Monday after the various political groupings agreed on a new compromise draft following two years of gridlock on the issue.
The draft would make it harder for the big US internet servers and social media providers to transfer European data to third countries, subject them to EU law rather than secret American court orders, and authorise swingeing fines possibly running into the billions for the first time for not complying with the new rules.
"As parliamentarians, as politicians, as governments we have lost control over our intelligence services. We have to get it back again," said Jan Philipp Albrecht, the German Greens MEP who is steering the data protection regulation through the parliament.

EU takes time off fighting the euro crisis and bans open containers of olive oil in restaurants...

Priorities of the nanny state...

(Reuters) – Critics ridiculed European Union bureaucrats on Saturday for taking time off fighting the euro zone’s debt crisis to impose strict new rules on how restaurants serve olive oil.

From January 1, 2014, eateries will be banned from serving oil to diners in small glass jugs or dipping bowls, and forced instead to use pre-sealed, non-refillable bottles that must be disposed of when empty.

The European Commission said the move is designed to improve hygiene and reassure consumers the olive oil in restaurants has not been diluted with an inferior product.

But critics say the rules are a sop to Europe’s olive oil producers, and will only add to the frustration felt by many towards a bloated EU bureaucracy regarded as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Europeans.

“If the European Union was logical and properly run, people wouldn’t be so anti-Europe. But when it comes up with crazy things like this, it quite rightly calls into question their legitimacy and judgment,” said Marina Yannakoudakis, a British Conservative member of the European Parliament.

Keep on reading…

Euro-zone is officially in double-dip recession..

The USA is next?

Via European Voice: 

The eurozone is officially back in recession after three years of sluggish growth as the sovereign-debt crisis continues to impede recovery.

Figures out today (15 November) show that gross domestic product in the 17-country eurozone decreased by 0.1% between July and September after contracting by 0.2% in the three months before that.

The eurozone was last in recession in 2009, when the economy contracted for five successive quarters.

Afterburner with Bill Whittle: Into the Sea (Video)

Bill Whittle uses aeronautics and history to explain the impending failure of the European Union. It's worth the six minutes.

British MEP Nigel Farage to European Parliament: "What planet are you on?" (video)

British MEP Nigel Farage asked the European Parliament, "What planet are you on?" Then, he proposed they all be fired. MEP Farage was breaking the 'not news' that the current European Union is doomed. Watch the whole video if you can. Nigel Farage rocks.

BTW: The European Carbon Market is Still Closed

The closure of the European carbon market is now extended indefinitely. The reason for the closure is fraud. I know you are thinking 'global warming fraud' and that is understandable. The 'fraud' the EU carbon market is being closed for is the old-fashioned kind. Hackers are stealing their carbon credits.

The European commission’s emergency suspension last week of trading in carbon allowances to put a halt to rampant theft of credits by hackers has been extended indefinitely until countries can prove their systems are protected from further fraud.

Cap-and-Trade Fail: European Union Suspends Carbon Trading

This time there appears to have been a theft of permits in online attacks. Previously, the European carbon market has been plagued by VAT fraud, a phishing scam and the re-sale of used carbon credits. The Chicago carbon market has already been permanently closed. The European market will soon follow. Most of the buyers have left the trading floor.

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union locked all accounts in its carbon market Wednesday, after a security breach, seeking to protect the battered reputation of the EU's main weapon against climate change.

The United States, Japan and Australia have all delayed implementing similar cap and trade schemes, and the latest glitch to the EU scheme could detract further from carbon trading as a global policy.

Christian Holiday Edited Out of Diaries EU Sent to Millions of Students

Christmas has been thrown down the politically correct rat hole, but they left in Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Chinese religious festivals.

(Daily Mail) — The European Union has sent millions of diaries to schools which list the dates of Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Chinese festivals — but omit any mention of Christian celebrations.

In an extraordinary move, three million 2011 notebooks were printed at a cost of £4.4million to the taxpayer. Around 350,000 of the diaries have already been shipped to schools in the UK alone.

There is no record for Christmas, Easter or Lent — despite bureaucrats carefully listing the EU’s self-styled ‘Europe Day’ on May 9.

The EU-manufactured school diaries record Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Chinese religious festivals as well as the EU’s self-styled “Europe Day” on May 9. But no mention of Christmas.

EU turns to the Right

President Obama is steering the US on a hard turn to the left, but the European Union is moving to the right. AP reported via Yahoo News:

BRUSSELS – Conservatives raced toward victory in some of Europe's largest economies Sunday as initial results and exit polls showed voters punishing left-leaning parties in European parliament elections in France, Germany and elsewhere.

Some right-leaning parties said the results vindicated their reluctance to spend more on company bailouts and fiscal stimulus amid the global economic crisis.

First projections by the European Union showed center-right parties would have the most seats — between 263 and 273 — in the 736-member parliament. Center-left parties were expected to get between 155 to 165 seats.

Right-leaning governments were ahead of the opposition in Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, while conservative opposition parties were leading in Britain and Spain.