Looks like the strategy is all set. Powell goes to the Security Council tomorrow. He shows something resembling evidence that Saddam is a bad person. Berlusconi has put the pressure on Vladimir Putin and Vlad is in line, saying that "Everything should be decided in the Security Council. For now, a second resolution is not indispensable, but we're not ruling it out." Vlad has been convinced. Blair gets to twist Chirac's arm today in their meeting. The French will fall into line although Blair and Chirac each think the other is an arrogant prick. The Germans? They're left with two bad choices. Rotten diplomatic job by Schröder.

Socialist candidate for prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is refusing to back PP prime minister José María Aznar on his pro-alliance stance. In a meeting yesterday, Aznar asked for Zapatero's support in the name of national unity three times and Zapatero said, "No." Zapatero says, "The government has been nothing more than a follower of Bush" and "International pressure can achieve the disarmament of Iraq." Aznar called Zapatero's attitude "rancid isolationism." Motormouth Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, Socialist party boss of Extremadura and one of the three big regional Socialist bosses, known as "party barons", said that Spain should not support an attack on Iraq even with the United Nations' agreement. Either 1) he was just shooting off his mouth again or 2) the Socialists are floating a balloon and seeing who takes a shot at it.

Last Saturday night they had the Goya Awards, Spain's Oscars. It turned into a glorious big stink. First, "Los lunes al sol" won all the big awards to the detriment of Pedro Almodóvar's "Hable con ella". "Los lunes al sol" had been previously chosen as Spain's representative to the Oscars, though the Almodóvar movie got such good press that it's being considered not just for best foreign movie but for the regular Academy Awards. Gossip is flying around wildly, mostly to the effect that the Spanish Academy has it in for Almodóvar and wouldn't award him anything without a gun at their heads. Second, virtually all the movie people involved, actors, directors, and the like, wore "No to War" badges, and several of them, especially those related with "Los lunes al sol", made fiery impassioned speeches about, like, imperialism and all. Among those who made fools out of themselves in public were Javier Bardem, Fernando León, Luis Tosar, and Alejandro Amenábar. If y'all out there want to boycott someone for openly supporting idiotarianism, look no farther than Tom Cruise's (relatively) new beard, Penélope Cruz. By the way, "Dígame", a horrendously bad Spanish scandal magazine, claims that Penélope Cruz's cousin, Mari Flor, who is a dead ringer for Penélope, is a high-euro prostitute in Madrid. Just in case you were wondering. Iberian Notes, the "Hush-Hush" of the blogs! Maybe I'll change the name to "BCN Confidential". Third, this pissed off the government and the minister of Culture. The antiwar protesters are screaming "censorship" because the film clips of the ceremony released by government TV (which was broadcasting the ceremony) didn't include any of their antiwar speeches, which were apparently the same old blather.

Powerful Barcelona lawyer Miquel Roca, ex-number two of Jordi Pujol's Catalan nationalist party, writes in today's Vanguardia,

Old Europe must learn that in the new Europe, the anti-Americanism that, more or less covered up, has characterized its policy for decades, can no longer inspire the Union's common policy.

It isn't Bush's fault, it's all of our fault, the Europeans' fault. We have been more capable of criticizing the United States than of formulating alternative, functional, and efficient policies. We don't trust American military power, but we disarmed because we trust the US to protect us or substitute for us internationally. We debated about Kosovo but we sent the Americans to pacify it; we lament what is happening in Palestine and we accuse the United States of not guaranteeing peace with its own military intervention.

New Europe has suffered the oppression of both totalitarianisms, the Nazi and the Soviet. It would be difficult for it to be anti-American, too. We're not talking about right and left; Havel's signature is right there to ally with Bush. We can't extend Europe and think that nothing is going to change. On the contrary, New Europe gives Old Europe hope for a better understanding of the world.

Europe cannot be, simply, a suburb of Paris or Berlin.

Very generous of Mr. Roca, who is a man of some mettle. He's out of politics now, has been for years, and apparently has no plans to get back in. Too bad. He's a genuine moderate. If he ran for something I'd vote for him.

Looks like the Prestige oil spill is under control. They went back to collecting shellfish along a good part of the Galician coast yesterday. In some places they still have some spilled fuel to clean up, and tiny amounts of fuel are still leaking out of the sunken ship, but the worst is over. The Left is still trying to smack the Government around the head with the Prestige incident, as if it were, like, their fault or something. One of the jokers at the Goya Awards said something like, "Tell Shorty (Aznar) that if he wants oil he doesn't need to go to Iraq, we have plenty in Galicia." Baltasar Porcel made the same alleged witticism, which confirms its lameness.

Here's the difference between the Right and the Left. The process of policy-making consists of collecting information, determining that some action should be taken based on it, framing choices, making a decision among them, implementing the policy, and explaining it to the constituents. The Right says, when it criticizes a policy, "You're operating on insufficient information" or "You failed to frame the most logical choice correctly and didn't even consider it" or "The decision was fine but the implementation was lousy" (which is more or less the case with the Prestige oil spill). The Left says, when it criticizes a policy, "The whole system is corrupt and evil so naturally the wrong thing was done."