The Ertzaintza, the Basque regional police, have made five arrests of people linked to ETA this morning; without further details, we have to figure these are infrastructure people rather than hitmen.

There are a couple of other big stinks; the Basque government has been subsidizing the families of ETA prisoners so that they can go visit them in jail. They have ETArras divided up among all the prisons in Spain so that they can't conspire with one another, so that they can't take over the jail like the IRA did with the Maze, and so that they'll be isolated from terrorist gang discipline. One of ETA's big demands is that the prisoners all be sent back to the Basque country for humanitarian reasons, so that "their families can visit them." Yeah, right. They want 'em all in the same prison so that the gang can stick together. This is one of ETA's demands, and they've said if they don't get what they want there will be no negotiations. Screw them. What's there to negotiate about, anyway? Crush them. They're almost done.

Far-left Hispano-French singer Manu Chao is doing a tour. Since there are few concert promoters in Spain, and since there is the tradition of the local fiesta mayor which is paid for by the city government, Manu is getting paid with our tax money to spout his opinions on public stages around the country. Not satisfied with that, though, he's got Fermin Muguruza, who is openly a member of Batasuna, ETA's political branch, opening up for him. There are some of us folks questioning whether that is appropriate. Sure, these guys have freedom of speech, but not on my dime.