Bath time!

A special shower built for French President Sarkozy ended up giving the European Union taxpayers a bath.

This shower was custom built for the 5'5" world leader and included built-in massage and surround sound radio functions. Before you go and get envious, consider the 276,000 Euros ($407,410) it cost to build it. Suddenly, you don't even want one of your own, do you?...

So, almost a half a million bucks for a bath tub... Not the worst example of tax funds wasted, but certainly up there. Until, that is, you consider the following:
This shower was BUILT FOR A 3 DAY SUMMIT!!!
But wait, there's more:
IT WAS NEVER USED!
It has since been dismantled.

Yes. This custom built shower was built for a guy who lived 10 minutes away. As most of us would, throughout the summit, he simply ran home to grab a quick shower when he needed one.

A couple other items mentioned that were purchased for this Union of the Mediterranean Summit includes a $132,799 carpet and a $442,664 podium. Apparently this podium included a live-in person to provide oral sex for the speaker. After all, you wouldn't want to speak to the Union of the Mediterranean with just any ol' podium...

THIS is whyEUROPEANSpaytaxes.

Read more: Row over Sarkozy's costly shower(bbc)

Now that the cold snap is over...

...The Europeans will be receiving their natural gas from Russia.

I haven't talked about this one much, though just about every government in Europe, including their 'federal' EU government spent a lot of diplomatic time and resources in trying to get the gas flowing again.

Here's what I didn't realize until I read today's story about how the gas will be flowing Monday or Tuesday: The source of the problem was Ukraine's unwillingness to pay for the gas at EU prices. Even though they demand their separation from Russia and want to become a part of the EU, they still expected a 'We were once Russia' discount!

'Gas to flow' after Moscow deal(bbc)
'Under the deal, Ukraine will start paying for Russian gas at the much-higher European prices from next year.'

Now I don't trust the Russians as much as the next guy, but I didn't realize this whole thing got so bad because the Ukrainians didn't want to pay list price...

THIS is whyeuropeans&russianspaytaxes.