Well, President Bush says we're "in the last stages of diplomacy". The war's on. The only question is when it starts. Blix and ElBaredei are going to give another report in which they detail Iraq's further non-compliance. Powell is leaning on the undecided Third Worlders on the Security Council. Tony Blair made some noises about a second resolution that would give the Iraqis an ultimatum, with a specific deadline, for total disarmament. I suppose he's playing to the gallery because that ain't gonna happen. Meanwhile, the Vanguardia says that Bush wants the war so that he can get reelected. Wait, I thought it was the water...oh, no, that was Porcel's theory. The Vangua is also saying that Bush has painted himself into a corner diplomatically. Well, that's what we get for trying to negotiate with the intransigent Europeans. Before we went along with the beginning of this inspection crap, we should have realized that it was inevitably going to end up like this. By the way, the Vangua is printing a Robert Fisk article every day now, and today they've gone for the twofer with a Naomi Klein op-ed. And this is the best newspaper in Spain.

Idiot Catalan Socialist Pasqual Maragall put his foot in it the other day. Seems that a few days ago the Government arrested a bunch of "journalists" and closed down a Basque-language newspaper on the ground that the paper was an ETA front. The leading arrestee, when he got out, claimed to have been tortured by the police, and Maragall came out and said he believed what this guy was saying. That is, he called the Spanish police a gang of torturers. This did not go over too well with anyone except the far-left frootloops Maragall's been hanging out with lately.

Spain got seven billion dollars in 2001 from what they call in EU gobbeldygook "structural funds". Translation: free money from Brussels. No wonder Spaniards like the European Union. It's given us large quantities of money, and these EU funds have done a lot to improve Spain's infrastructure and public services. Spain gets almost one-third of EU structural funds as of now. But, of course, when the Eastern Europeans join the EU, Spain won't be poorer than average and so a beneficiary of structural funds anymore. The Slovaks and Hungarians are going to get it all.