Here's the hot news from Barcelona. Catalunya TV is announcing that American troops are in a Vietnam-type quagmire and that they're too young and inexperienced. At least that's what the guy on the ground in Kuwait City says, and I bet he's a real expert. All the school kids cut class today for peace. They did neato stuff like toss red paint on government buildings. Four of the punks who looted the Corte Ingles have been arrested because they were identified by video cameras. A whole bunch of middle-class squatter street thugs have been sentenced to between one and four years in jail for the riot they participated in several years ago on the occasion of the Oct. 12 celebration. Let's see if they actually serve any of it.

Catalnya TV is also reporting that there are more than 60 Iraqis living illegally in an improvised campsite in Ceuta who have applied for asylum in Spain. They have to prove they're in danger for political reasons back in Iraq in order to get asylum here. Some have been turned away already. One of them, who identified himself as Mohammed and would not show his face to the camera, said he was a lawyer in Iraq, that he had had problems with the government and the police, and that Saddam Hussein was bad for him and bad for his family. Gee, folks, I thought we were all demonstrating in favor of the Iraqi people. Well, here are some real Iraqis you can help. Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and sponsor one of these guys? Put him up at your house while he's waiting to get his papers. Oh, wait, we only like Iraqis when they're a long way away, not when they're anywhere near here. Doctors without Borders are trying to do something for these people, reinforcing my conviction that they're the only one of the big leftist "NGOs" (= a euphemism for lobbying group) that is worth a damn.

Get this one. FC Barcelona, the club that covered itself in idiotarian glory when it appeared on the pitch the other day in "Barcelona for peace" T-shirts, is playing a friendly match tomorrow. In the Camp Nou. Against a Libyan team. Against the champion of the Libyan league. In fact, against the very Libyan team that Colonel Qaddaffi's son, Al Saadi Qaddaffi, both owns and allegedly plays for. In exchange for a fee of 300,000 euros.

Al Saadi is also the President of the Libyan Football Federation, a colonel in the Libyan Army, and the owner of 7.5 percent of Juventus. He has a seat on Juventus's board of directors. (There's another club I can't root for anymore.)

"At El Prat airport the Libyan expedition was received with bouquets and flowers and with the presence of two children, one wearing a Barcelona jersey and the other with the Arab team's shirt."--La Vanguardia. Even the Vangua is disgusted; the headline on the sports section is "Qaddaffi rents the Camp Nou: Libyan leader's son's team pays 300,000 euros to play Barcelona."

I can never support FC Barcelona ever again, no matter whether they invent a cure for cancer. Are they so desperate for money that they soil their jersey and defile their stadium by renting them out to any dictator with a few hundred thousand bucks? And they have the nerve to come out in favor of "peace". Hala Madrid. Fuerza Espanyol. Hell, even Viva el Atleti. And Mucho Betis.

Admission to tomorrow night's game is free, by the way. I just might show up and boo Barcelona.