Here's a letter from today's Vanguardia:

After seeing what's happening in these Swimming World Championships (currently being held in Barcelona), which should symbolize tolerance and brotherhood among peoples, I have come to the conclusion that now it is possible to insult a Moroccan for what his king does or a Cuban for what Fidel Castro does without falling into rudeness or xenophobia. I am referring to the lamentable spectacle that certain people provide us with, who, lacking the minimal level of sportsmanship and thought, boo and whistle at some athletes just because they were born in a certain country, a behavior that any normal person would condemn.

I'm referring to the boos directed at the American team. I suppose it is due to that anachronic and puerile knee-jerk anti-Yankeeism that we have been suffering from a certain political and cultural class for many years, and which impedes us from realizing the intolerant and closed image we are offering. I hope all those people so fond of stereotyping and judging based on where a person is born will reflect and understand that all foreigners deserve respect, and that we must know how to differentiate a citizen from his government. No Spaniard would have liked to be called a Fascist thirty years ago because of the anterior government.

JOSE GARCIA LACARDA
Barcelona

Bravo, Mr. Garcia! Well said.

Today's stage of the Tour just ended. Gringo Lance Armstrong held the overall lead but Kraut Jan Ullrich and that Rooskie from Towelheadistan are right behind him, less than twenty seconds back. Spicks Zubeldia and Mayo, who are not just spicks but the spickiest kind, Basque spicks, are in fourth and fifth places with a chance at catching up, since they're less than five minutes back in the general. Gringo Tyler Hamilton is putting up a hell of a fight with that busted collarbone and is in seventh overall. Among the top ten riders there are four spicks, two gringos, a kraut, a frog, a wop, and that damn Rooskie from Towelheadistan. The Rooskie is having himself a great tour. Some other wop won the stage today. Tomorrow they have to climb both the Tourmalet and Luz Ardiden and then there's another individual time trial. That's it, that's all of the competitive stages. Somebody is going to do something tomorrow.

Loudmouth ex-Barcelona mayor and current candidate for the Catalan regional presidency Pasqual Maragall shot off his mouth again, calling Artur Mas, the Convergence candidate who is currently in South America on an official visit, "an ambassador for Aznar's policies". Mas fired back, "That's just more evidence of Maragall's delirium tremens that we're already accustomed to; all he knows how to do is repeat the nonsense that his brother writes for him. He suffers from mental diarrhea." The Vanguardia reporters helpfully provide the definition of delirium tremens just in case you didn't know; according to the Real Academia, it means "delirium characterized by great agitation and hallucinations suffered by chronic alcoholics." Maragall, as we commented back when we compared him with Hermann Goering, is widely rumored to be a hopeless alcoholic. He sure looks like a heavy drinker.

My guess is that the gloves are going to come off and Convergence is openly going to question Maragall's fitness for office.

Hey, guess what? Our pal Franco Aleman got mentioned by idiotarian Vangua ombudsman Josep Maria Casasus in today's screed.

A headline over some statements by Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense, published July 10, caused the reader F. Aleman to complain. The headline attributes this sentence to Rumsfeld: "We invaded Iraq without evidence." In the text, however, it says that the US acted "without new evidence" in addition to that which already existed. We must avoid allowing typographic adjustment to reduce our rigor and precision.

You cynical shithead. Typographical problems, my ass. Some anti-American asswipe put the most anti-American headline he could think of on that story disregarding completely the truth and you damn well know it, Mr. Casasus, just as you know that Marius Serra and Rafael Ramos are plagiarists, and as you know that Andy Robinson, Ramos, Tomas Alcoverro, and Rafael Poch are so biased in their reporting as to constitute journalistic fraud.

Check out Raffy's story from London on page three.

...There are many people ready to remember that Blair got the country into an unpopular war, without the mandate of the UN and against international law, basing himself on the apparently false premise that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and exaggerating the threat of Saddam through all imaginable channels, including the use of false (official) reports.

Now, that would be fair enough in the opinion section, but it is NOT UNBIASED REPORTING.