The front-page headline on today's El País is "France and Germany declare at UN that nothing now justifies attack on Iraq." Well, as for the Germans, this is just them missing their chance to take part in the first morally justified German military action ever, and as for the French, I think we ought to stop calling them "Frogs". Frogs are green. I think we ought to choose a more appropriately colored animal. How about if we call them "Sapsuckers"? Or maybe we can call them "Tweety Birds", since Tweety is an obnoxious little yellow bastard who gets himself into trouble and then has to scream to Granny and her umbrella ("Big Stick") to come save his worthless ass. See any coincidences here? I vote we let Sylvester eat Tweety next time.

By the way, Spain's government is backing the United States and Great Britain. "We cannot categorically exclude the use of force as a last resort. The 27th is an important day. We'll have to listen to Blix's report and make our decisions from there. I don't think it would be good to prejudge the discussions. The center of the problem is the noncompliance of Saddam Hussein. Now we have to analyze its extent (that is, of Saddam's noncompliance)," said Spain's Foreign Minister, Ana de Palacio. Spain, by the way, has just begun its two-year term on the UN Security Council. That means we can count on three votes, Britain's, Spain's, and our own. I vote when this is all over we remember who our friends were when it counted. The Aznar government has solidly backed the United States since Aznar became prime minister in 1996. Every single time. Even when Spanish public opinion has been anti-American, as it is now; the basic rule of thumb is that PP supporters are mostly pro-American and pretty much everybody else is anti.