100 days of shame

Let us imagine for a moment that the National Movement Simeon II had the task not to govern a state but to do something simpler, for example, to build a house. By now they would not only not have laid a single brick, but also would not have understood just what they are doing - how many floors their building has, or even how deep the foundations are supposed to be.

Instead, all the participants would have been strolling around the construction site. Pointlessly, but with a lot of enthusiasm. The manager of the site would have been standing and sighing heavily in one of the corners. The economists would have been explaining to him what they want to do, but cannot, and what they can, but do not want to do. And the workers would have stipulated that they go to the construction site for an hour or an hour and a half three days a week.

In such a state, the first 100 days of Parliament have gone by. In these days, Parliament has passed one law, which it amended twice because it turned out that it is inapplicable in reality. In spite of this, an impressive number of protocol ratifications and not so important laws passed through the Parliament's discussion hall.

An example of the impotence of the MPs was seen last week when they had to deal with the law on apiculture. But they did not succeed because, for the umpteenth time, it turned out that MPs are voting with the cards of their colleagues. Pressed by the media, the parliamentary chairman Ognian Gerdjikov decided that he will solve the problem of the parliamentary quorum by hiring a private firm. The firm will find a magical solution, whatever it is. Maybe the Bulgarian Parliament will be the first in the world in which the MPs will vote with fingerprints or a blood sample. This naturally will not happen. Just as nothing that was promised by Gerdjikov has happened so far.

Filled with enthusiasm, the parliamentary chairman used to explain in the first days of the parliamentary sessions that he does not want security guards and a Mercedes. And he was almost about to put all the MPs on public transportation.

After all, Gerdjikov felt he had enough expertise to speak about zero tax on reinvested profit and to announce that he is currently holding negotiations with the Zeevi Group for Balkan Airlines.

The parliamentary chairman turned out to be absolutely correct about one thing, though. He said that the laws in this Parliament will not be written "on our knees." And he fulfilled his promise to the letter. They have not been written with anyone on their knees, since they have not been written at all.

Kapital

What does a stupid operator do with a clever rocket?

What can a stupid operator do with one 1,000kg clever rocket? He can accelerate it in the wrong direction and thus ruin foreign policy with one fell swoop. At the start of the attacks against Afghanistan, President Bush and the senior politicians around him promised officially that they will avoid, as much as possible, accidents in which civilians are killed. A simple question was raised back then - how the U.S. and its allies will force Osama bin Laden to leave the caves where he is hiding and come out into the open where he can be hit.

Bin Laden is safe and sound despite the constant attacks. It even became clear that a wonderful opportunity was missed to kill the Taliban leader in the very beginning of the attacks against Kabul and other cities and innocent people were killed. The apologies of the Pentagon would hardly bring the Afghans in question back to life. They were killed while at their Friday prayers in a residential district of Kabul. In the subsequent apology by the Pentagon, it was admitted that the guilty person was a rocket operator who by mistake pointed the rockets in the wrong direction. As if this matters.

Another colleague of his put the administration in Washington on the alert, and occasioned sharp reactions after a similar attack in the former Yugoslavia. After one peacekeeping initiative, the roof of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was damaged, even though Peking officially did not support the Serbian cause. And not only that, the roof tiles of a few Bulgarian houses in Gorna Banya were damaged. The government in Bulgaria, though, did not get angry because it understood that this was caused by a silly mistake and the case has nothing to do with U.S. policy in Bulgaria.

Back then apologies were sent as well and the U.S. ambassador went to see the damage with his own eyes. Things ended at that.

The case in Afghanistan has now showed that during a war victims cannot be predicted. The U.S. government continues to enjoy universal support, but when the first coffin of a U.S. soldier, even if killed by accident, appears, the reaction will hardly be so mild and all forgiving.

Monitor

No day without a new tax

Minister of Finance Milen Velchev is creatively learning from Haskovo bus transport carriers. They determine the ticket price from a passenger's weight. If the passenger weighs 100kg - the price is 10 leva, if they weigh 50 kg - the price is five leva.

Anyway, the New Time is seriously taking the approach "No day without a tax." On odd days Cabinet is announcing the setting up of a new tax, and on even days - the start of a new excise duty.

There is the danger that they will run out of ideas, after all we are talking about 800 days. Obviously the rest of the car's dimensions will be taxed as well - its length, breadth and height.

The New Time threw out a lot of its pre-election promises for cutting taxes. We did not expect anything else, but what did we do to deserve new taxes?

24 Chassa