Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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The Financial Times

Rich Galen

Friday September 16, 2005

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From Kabul, Afghanistan

Don't ask what I'm doing here. I'll explain over the weekend. Maybe. Connectivity being a little dicey, you might not hear from me again until Monday.

Or April.

Here's how you get to Afghanistan: You drive to Reagan National Airport and then, after stops in Paris and Dubai, you end up in Kabul. It's � just � that � easy.

On the way I happened to pick up a copy of the European edition of the Financial Times. We have talked before, I do believe, about the value of seeing what the rest of the planet thinks is important.

For example: Most of the human race is not aware that the NFL season has begun. Sad, huh? Worse yet, many also don't understand the significance of watching "Seinfeld" and "The Simpsons" reruns.

Go figure.

Anyway, the headline atop the front page of the FT read: "'Absurd' EU laws face axe," with the lead graf:

"More than 60 draft European Union laws will be scrapped this month as Jos� Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, launches Brussels' biggest deregulation campaign."

Regs like: "Rules on weekend lorry bans," "regulation of sales promotions," and "rules on coffee packaging."

Whoa! Check, please!

According to this article, el Presidente, next month will, "put the legislative machine into reverse by simplifying and scrapping laws already on the EU's 85,000 page statute book."

This, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is not good news.

We want the Europeans to be paralyzed by "absurd" rules and regulations which, among other things, have led to double-digit unemployment and less than single-digit economic growth in many member nations.

We need manufacturers and distributors in Italy, and Spain, and Germany to be strangled by a mesh of interlocking rules and regulations which will continue to thwart the growth of capitalism and free markets.

Barroso told the Financial Times that he saw it as his mission to "change the culture" of the EU.

This guy, Barroso, may be the most dangerous person on the planet, not counting Sean Penn. I'm telling you, old Jos� Manuel, must be stopped.

If the EU begins to act like a truly free market, American commercial interests are doomed, because the Liberal bureaucrats permanently entrenched in the US government will continue speeding down the ever-widening path paved with regulation upon regulation until the EU becomes the beacon of freedom and the US economy looks like Gulliver bound on the beach by the Lilliputians.

Next rant.

On page A-4, this header: "Beijing Defends Stance on Petrol Prices."

It seems that the commies in China have raised gasoline prices by only 25% while crude oil has increased 65% since the beginning of 2005.

The Minister for Gas (or whatever) in China defended artificially low prices by saying increases would do harm to the taxi industry, to farmers, and to the military "which uses oil in ships, planes, tanks and other vehicles."

I only raise this because the Chinese, who are burning fossil fuels at a furious pace and at seriously subsidized prices, were specifically exempted from any requirements regarding greenhouse gas emissions in the Kyoto treaty which, as we now know (because Jesse Jackson told us), caused the levees to fail in New Orleans.

Last one.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der is feeling the "cold shoulder of media shifting to the right."

Really. Imagine that.

If the media was significantly to the left, as we all know it was, then shifting to the right must mean that it is now in the center.

Think I'm making this up?

From the Financial Times: "Many left-leaning German newspapers and magazines have shifted to the center� Der Speigel, Germany's most influential weekly magazine, has given up its almost legendary support of the left."

Germany: Fair and Balanced. How long until Brit Hume is anchoring the Halb F�nf �hr News in Frankfort?

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: What I believe is the proper translation of Halb F�nf �hr, and TWO Mullfotos from Ahf-gahn-ee-stahn.

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