From The Phenomenal Waste Of Money Department

Well, there's a lot of money being wasted this week on bad loans and dodgy hedge fund conspirators, but I was referring to the Large Hadron  Collider that just fired up to the accompaniment of much Eurotrumpeting as the largest machine ever built. 

It seems that the Collider, being operated by the European Center for Nuclear Research, is, well, broken and not expected to recover for a while. 

It's also noted that the CERN lab shuts down to save power during the winter, but it sprung a helium leak and after everyone stopped talking in funny voices they realized that it really was broken. That followed on the heels of the failure of a 30 ton transformer and a superconducting magnet failed.

The CERNmobile cost $8 billion US and it took fourteen years to build. It's broken but it follows in a grand tradition of European schlong envy.

Despite the setbacks the inauguration party is set for October 21.