EUROPE: Greek Unions Occupy Finance Ministry.

Portugal Public-Sector Workers Strike to Protest Wage Freeze.

UPDATE: Denis Boyles:

The Lisbon treaty and Obama’s “up or down” vote on health-care are of a piece. Take away a government hand-out and you take a brick to the head. Every time a civil servant is asked the skip a pay rise or work an extra hour in the interests of civic solvency, the result is violence. Ask a Greek or a Parisian. . . . The leftist-European social net Obama and the Democrats favor is a cloak of intractability. It covers Europe from Amsterdam to Athens, but it’s more than wide enough to span the Atlantic.

Indeed.