Merkel and Sarkozy’s “Dinner” becomes cult net hit

Euro News

A German reworking of a 1960s British comedy sketch has become an internet hit.

The original Dinner for One is already cult viewing on New Year’s Eve in Germany and many Scandinavian countries.

In the new version, renamed “the 90th Euro Rescue Summit or Euros for No-one,” the heads of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel have been superimposed on the 18-minute film’s two characters.

Merkel plays the original 90-year-old Miss Sophie in assuming her friends are there but talks of the former Greek and Spanish prime ministers. She also reprimands an absent British prime minister saying that German would be spoken at the table.

And true to the original, Sarkozy the butler ends up worse for wear having drunk for all his mistress’ guests, and then he is warned by Merkel to think about his credit rating!

As world burns, G8 leaders fiddle ... with the Internet. Seriously?

Christian Science Monitor

Sarkozy, Obama, and the other leaders at the G8 should be evaluating the policies that have brought them to the brink of financial ruin. Unfortunately, their attention will be elsewhere: on Internet regulation, for one thing.

President Obama will join other G8 leaders today at the posh, French seaside resort of Deauville. On the agenda: proposed global regulations for the Internet, post-tsunami Japan, and military escapades in North Africa. Bizarrely absent from the top priorities listed by hosting head of state Nicolas Sarkozy is the most urgent issue of all: the need to rein in massive government over-spending and debt.

One needn't travel to France to get a clear view of this problem. Here in the US, for example, federal revenues will top $2 trillion this year, but federal spending will approach double that amount. Such reckless spending has set the stage for a battle royal between Democrats and Republicans over raising the national-debt ceiling.

House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio has correctly warned that increasing the debt ceiling without a firm commitment to slash spending would signal to investors that America still is not serious about kicking its spending addiction. ....