Baltasar Porcel has been merely dull of late, not completely imbecilic, but for imbecility there's a regular Vanguardia columnist named Eulàlia Solé who outstrips even him. She's billed as a "sociologist and author", which right there ought to send chills up your spine. Back on Nov. 1 she published this screed in the Vangua, and I've been saving it for a slow day. Here goes. The title is "Badly Governed". Sole's text is in italics.

Those who govern should be more intelligent and reasonable than those they govern. Those who direct a society must not be incompetent and, in addition, greedy and insensitive to the misery of others. This shouldn't happen, but it does.

Profundity Score, on a scale of 1 to 10, with a ten score going to, say, Aristotle and a one score for, say, Jimmy Carter: 1.5.

Their spokesmen try to distract us by waving around the crimes committed by small-time crooks who steal their victims' wallets. They try to ignore the fact that real insecurity comes from other sources. From the risk of catastrophic nuclear wars or accidents; from terrorist actions that can strike anywhere; from the constant war ultimatums. These spokesmen do not mention that after 9-11 the method used to put an end to terrorist attacks has failed. They refuse to recognize that the violence of war in Afghanistan, the deaf ears turned to the violence between Palestinians and Israelis, do nothing but generate more violence.

Profundity Score: 1.2.

As if human beings did not know how to communicate and negotiate, the most important of those who govern only promote the use of force and completely ignore the possibility of reaching a negotiated settlement. Is this mere short-sightedness or a reflection of an execrable moral status?

Profundity Score: 1.1.

Bush and his sidekicks want to assure themselves of the power of petroleum and they are ready and willing to massacre human lives. If they haven't done so yet, it is because those who are governed have declared themselves against it in many demonstrations and those who govern have been obligated to ask the permission of a UN that is not behaving as docilely as on other occasions. In Russia, President Putin prefers to prolong the war against Chechenia instead of signing an agreement similar to those reached with other ex-Soviet republics, while he responded to the terrorism personified in a Moscow theater by provoking more than two hundred deaths.

Profundity Score: -8 for calling Bush and Powell and Rumsfeld and Rice and Cheney murderers, as well as for thinking that the anti-war left has accomplished anything significant and for comparing apples and oranges in the case of Bush and Putin..

No, they are not governing us well. And what does humanity do? What do the voters do in democratic systems or the oppressed under political or theological dictatorships? They distract themselves from their impotence with consumption, small thefts, religious fanaticism. But, are we really impotent? In the streets and among intellectuals and scientists there are more and more voices that question the established order and demand a different use and distribution of the wealth that comes from industry and nature.

Profundity Score: -6, since this paragraph includes a defense of Communism.

Against those who want to get drunk on petroleum without caring about the blood that must be spilled, more intelligent people of good will are promoting hydrogen as a clean source of energy, affordable by all countries and a generator of peace. Those who govern badly are those who refuse to modify their actions. What would then happen to their war-making arsenal, to the weapons factories, to the power that they accumulate by terrorizing the whole world? But hydrogen is there, unlimited, equitative. Clearer, less-selfish heads are already advancing its use.

Profundity Score: -5 for grave scientific and economic stupidity and ignorance, as well as for the repeated "blood for oil" canard.

We want to open this up for a vote. Who is a more ignorant fool, Baltasar Porcel or Eulàlia Solé? Where does Haro Tecglen rank? How do they compare with such Anglo-American jackasses as the Baghdad Three, Maureen Dowd, Eric Alterman, Norman Mailer, Susan Sarandon, Woody Harrelson, or the Noamster himself? By exposing these clowns as what they are, are we just wasting our time? I'm not trying to convince the clowns themselves they're wrong, of course; they're unconvincible. I hope, though, that more people will take these ridiculous arguments these clowns make and refute them to their faces. We just may be able to convince a few bystanders that the clowns are just that. On this blog, however, we sometimes feel like we're preaching to the choir, that we're making the band laugh but not the audience. Well, there's nothing we can do about it except keep plugging away and hope that a few undecided bystanders fall into the clutches of the Blogosphere where we can grab them and slap some sense into their heads.