And <em>this</em> bowl of porridge is too cold...

You'd think the bureaucrats who spent last week whining about wealthy nations not giving enough to help tsunami victims would be happy now.

After all, the U.S. has pledged $350 million, Japan $500 million, Germany $674 million, and Australia a whopping $810 million. And that's not counting private donations.

But you'd be wrong. Some of them have a new complaint: We're giving too much.

According to European Commissioner for development and humanitarian aid Louis Michel, "We have to be careful and not participate in a beauty contest where we are competing to give higher figures."

What's wrong with giving more money, you might ask? Well, it shows we're not sincere. The Associated Press writes:

"The fresh outpouring of generosity appeared at times to be almost like a bidding war and raised questions about whether rich nations were using tragedy to jockey for influence on the world stage and with hardest-hit Indonesia, which has a wealth of natural resources."

I'm guessing that this will become the next meme for Bush critics: We're not really trying to help anyone, you see. We're just trying to get Indonesia's oil.