While traveling and experiencing the decline of Europe, I am noticing the Euro is deflating all the way up to $1.43 to the Euro. I don't know how much more decline I can afford here. I suppose this is normal, before this decline that Instapundit and his buddies have been predicting for 5 years now, maybe there is a huge wave of financial increases, and currency adjustments.
Anyway, besides getting shafted by having to exchange my dollars for Euros I was noticing at the large outdoor markets there is no jackbooted thug presence, no warnings about watching the skies for terrorists even though we are only a couple hundred miles from where Mohammed Atta didn't meet the Iraqis in Prague.
In fact they let their Muslims walk around free here, willy nilly. I suppose thats one of the signs of the impending decline.
I really am struck by traveling through non-U.S. airports how much more adult and much less 'whoop-whoop warning warning!' the security is, not to mention uniform from country to country. You don't have to take off your shoes in one country and not the next its all the same level and to some degree unobtrusive, actually you don't have to take off your shoes at all.
It strikes me that its like a parallel world, one in which you aren't in danger of being tasered for a minor airport infraction. One where forming the EU was a very smart move and Europe is not in decline. One where Atta never met in Prague with Iraqis. One where public security is not a political tool. You know... reality...
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