The next time you're feeling discouraged, or infuriated, by the fecklessness of our country's bureaucrats, keep in mind that things are even worse in Europe.

For instance, as France's President Sarkozy struggles to pull his country out of its nosedive -- an outdated economic model, rising energy costs, and an increasing level of violence from unassimilated Moslem immigrants -- the Brussels bureaucrats who run the European Union have just threatened to hit France with a 17-Million-Euro fine if France fails to respond with "rapid and substantial action" to protect -- the Great Hamster of Alsace.

This pest -- it's about eight inches long, and different from the hamsters kids keep as pets -- has driven French farmers nuts for centuries.  A cull in the 1990s was so successful that, according to the EU, by 2007 the Great Hamster of Alsace population had plummeted to just 161.  (It's unfathomable how the EU bureacrats, whose inability to locate terrorists is legendary, can provide such a precise count of hamsters.)

The Brussels bureaucrats make ours look like geniuses.