Breaking News: Eurocrats are low watt bulbs

In other news, sun rises in east and Pope is Catholic.

Seems Euro-folks aren't flocking to electronic cash:

The Eurocrats have admitted that earlier utopian predictions that we’d all be loading cash on our mobile phones, travel cards or internet accounts have proved to be somewhat overblown. In part, it is blaming itself, saying current rules “have hindered the takeup of the electronic money market, hampering technological innovation”.

Translated, this means the foolish peasants (the rest of us) have refused to stop keeping anachronistic wads of notes and piles of coins in stupid places like pockets, in wallets, under mattresses, that sort of thing, when what they really should be doing is paying smart young things to take their money and convert it into cyber cash, loaded on trustworthy items like phones, Oyster cards, servers and deelie boppers.

OK, let's count the unique stupidities in play here:

• EU bureaucrats set unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky target because it's "wicked cool"? Check.
• Bureaucrats base "wicked cool" pie-in-the-sky target on something with non-existent electronic security? Check.
• Bureaucrat's own regulations make it hard for companies to roll out "wicked cool" pie-in-the-sky target? Check.
  
• Normal folks take one look at this slow motion security car wreck and say "No thanks, Scooter"? Check.
• Eurocrats are surprised that their pie-in-the-sky target is rejected? Check.
• Eurocrats still think that they're smarter than us? Check.
  

Next thing you know, European industry won't meet the Kyoto greenhouse gas levels that the EU signed up for. Oh, wait.