Angel Acebes announced he was officially stepping down as PP secretary general. Good. Manuel Pizarro, to have been Rajoy's economics minister had the PP won, is going to resign his seat and go back to the public sector. They've also announced that the convention will be June 20-22 in--guess where--Valencia.
La Vanguardia says there's an informal alliance between Valencia and Catalonia to work together in the common interest, claiming that Valencian premier and PP heavy hitter Francisco Camps wants more Catalan-style financial autonomy for his region, that he wants better transport infrastructure between the two cities, and that he wants to form a strategic alliance to counterbalance the power of Andalusia and Madrid. Camps is willing to compromise on the water issue and on linguistic politics.
Barcelona and Valencia have historically been enemies; Barcelona sees itself as Madrid's rival for the number 1 spot in Spain, and Valencia as an ally of Madrid. Valencia has always seen itself as Barcelona's rival for the number 2 spot in Spain, and would rather play second fiddle to Madrid, which it sees as the unquestioned number 1, than to Barcelona. In addition, Valencia holds a grudge over what it sees as Barcelona's veto of the damn water plan.
All this leads to incredibly silly controversies over whether Valencian is a form of Catalan or an independent language. It's also made Valencia into the PP's strongest region. Hypothesis: Camps, a Rajoy ally, knows that the PP needs to win a lot more votes in Catalonia if Rajoy is to be elected in 2008.
The prices of food imported into the Eurozone increased by 28% in 2007. Highest increases: Oils, up 43%, and grain, up 33%.
Get this: Barcelona's homeless are moving out of the Old City to outlying areas like Montjuic because young local drunks and Romanian gypsies beat and rob them. That's disgraceful and cowardly, victimizing the weakest among us, going so low as to steal their blankets. They've got a problem with homeless people at the old hospital in the Raval, which is now a library and art school, who have moved into the courtyard en masse. Maybe for protection in numbers, I don't know.
Remember Borat's hometown in Kazakhstan? That was actually filmed in a Romanian gypsy village.
The Spanish press is making a big deal about the US State Department's report on terrorism and what it said about Spain. To wit:
1) Spain is "an important transit area at a strategic crossroads...a logistical base" for terrorists operating in Western Europe 2) Jihadi terrorists travel from Spain to Iraq 3) Most Islamist terrorists operating in Spain are North African 4) Spain's government has "acted aggressively against terrorist recruitment" and arrested 47 suspects in 2007 5) "Spain cooperated closely with the US to investigate and pursue terrorists...Spain was the first EU country to sign an agreement to exchange information on suspected terrorists" 6) The trial of the 3-11 terrorists was "exhaustive, deep, vigorous, and transparent" despite public emotion and high political tension 7) "Spain's government and citizens are aware that Spain is a major target of Islamist extremism and terrorist acts."
I'm not so sure about number 7, and it was probably Aznar's government that signed the agreement on exchanging information, but in general that sounds pretty positive, giving credit where credit is due.
Barcelona beat a Valencia team that didn't bother to show up 6-0 last night, but it didn't matter because Real Madrid clinched the League title with a 1-2 victory at Osasuna. Congratulations to Madrid, which I don't think is a very good team, but it has proven that it's by far the best of the not very good teams in the Spanish league. Milito popped an ACL and is out for six months. Rumors have Barça interested in Poulsen, Navas, Torres, and Coloccini. Some reporter followed Ronaldinho around the night before Barça played at Man U, when Ronnie was supposedly injured; he stayed out drinking and dancing "in good company," until at least 5 AM, when the reporter packed it in. Now AC Milan is backing off on its offer to buy him.
Too bad. He was such a good player for three years here, and he was really having fun out there. He seemed like a nice guy, which some jocks are not. The fame and high living got to him, though. I'll bet he has a couple more pretty decent years in him, but the rest of his career is going to be an injury-laden disappointment.
Showing posts with label goddamn water plan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goddamn water plan. Show all posts
Monday, May 05, 2008
Friday, April 04, 2008
So La Vangua has an article marking the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. No problems here except for a very common Spanish media error: They don't suss that when an American has three names, 99% of the time the second name is what we call a middle name, and not the first surname as it would be in Spanish. So they habitually refer to Martin Luther King as Luther King rather than King, and to James Earl Ray as Earl Ray rather than Ray.
By the way, the Spanish National Health thinks my middle name, Stuart, is my first surname, and so every time I have any business with them I have to make sure they check the files under both names. Also, people from phone companies who call me up trying to sell me their cellular plan always ask for Señor Stuart; I know right off the bat if a caller is "roast leg of insurance salesman," or, like, somebody from the office or the bank.
The "Maradona of the Rambla," who's been doing stunts with a soccer ball and passing the hat among the tourists on the Rambla near Plaza Catalunya for as long as I can remember, is retiring because he's reached 65. He claims the world record for keeping a soccer ball in the air the longest, and he's a well-known local character. Another Barcelona icon saddles up and rides off into the sunset.
The Zap government is definitely not going to send any water from the Segre-Ebro to Barcelona. Now Zap claims he'd never heard about the idea before he read about it in the papers. The Catalan Socialist environment counselor, Francesc Baltasar, looks like a liar: before the election he publicly denied, not once but twice, that the Generalitat was considering an aqueduct to transfer water from the Segre to the Llobregat. Then he got into a moronic semantic argument over the meaning of "transfer water." Turns out now they were considering precisely that the whole time; on November 29 they held a meeting at the environmental ministry in Madrid to discuss what to do about the drought, and decided to hold back any public announcements until after the election. Most likely head to roll: Environment minister Cristina Narbona.
The words "transfer water" are politically loaded, since the PP's goddamn water plan to transfer Ebro water to Valencia, Murcia, and Almeria, was shot down by a Catalan-Aragonese Socialist intransigent opposition to sending any Ebro water anywhere else. Now the PP is in position to embarrass the Socialists with their plan to transfer Ebro water to Barcelona, since the Socialists had argued that any water transfer would create an ecological tragedy.
The forecasters are predicting a rainy spring, which would be a very good thing. There are some dark clouds coming out of the northwest today.
Coverage of the American elections over here centers on the Democratic race. Al Gore has managed to make himself into a figure beloved among the Catalan enviroleft and the rest of the Do-Gooders International, and Obama's proposal to make Al some kind of environmental czar has gone over big here. Chelsea and her difficulties with people asking her about her dad and Monica has also been big news. Obama and Reverend Wrong didn't get nearly as much coverage, and Hillary's Bosnia thing has pretty much blown over. Notice that Spanish coverage focuses on personalities rather than issues, but a lot of American coverage does too.
Updates: The ETA killers of Isaías Carrasco have not been caught yet, and I have heard virtually nothing about the case since the election. I also haven't heard anything recently about the Islamist terrorist cell rounded up in January--remember, the ones who were going to plant bombs in the subway. Zap never got his meeting with Bush at the Bucharest summit, the meeting that the PSOE had made such a big deal about; Spain's still in the freezer as far as the American administration is concerned. And the goddamn bus drivers aren't striking today or next Thursday, but they're going on an indefinite strike starting April 15.
The goddamn Jehovah's Witnesses, who in Barcelona are a bunch of Brits, came around today wanting to leave some literature. I was polite but told them firmly I wasn't interested. What they do is target people with English names; they rang at my doorbell and asked over the intercom if I spoke English. The Mormons, who are a bunch of Americans, don't come around to your house, but they target English-speakers on the city streets. I respect their right to their beliefs, but I also have the right to be left alone.
By the way, the Spanish National Health thinks my middle name, Stuart, is my first surname, and so every time I have any business with them I have to make sure they check the files under both names. Also, people from phone companies who call me up trying to sell me their cellular plan always ask for Señor Stuart; I know right off the bat if a caller is "roast leg of insurance salesman," or, like, somebody from the office or the bank.
The "Maradona of the Rambla," who's been doing stunts with a soccer ball and passing the hat among the tourists on the Rambla near Plaza Catalunya for as long as I can remember, is retiring because he's reached 65. He claims the world record for keeping a soccer ball in the air the longest, and he's a well-known local character. Another Barcelona icon saddles up and rides off into the sunset.
The Zap government is definitely not going to send any water from the Segre-Ebro to Barcelona. Now Zap claims he'd never heard about the idea before he read about it in the papers. The Catalan Socialist environment counselor, Francesc Baltasar, looks like a liar: before the election he publicly denied, not once but twice, that the Generalitat was considering an aqueduct to transfer water from the Segre to the Llobregat. Then he got into a moronic semantic argument over the meaning of "transfer water." Turns out now they were considering precisely that the whole time; on November 29 they held a meeting at the environmental ministry in Madrid to discuss what to do about the drought, and decided to hold back any public announcements until after the election. Most likely head to roll: Environment minister Cristina Narbona.
The words "transfer water" are politically loaded, since the PP's goddamn water plan to transfer Ebro water to Valencia, Murcia, and Almeria, was shot down by a Catalan-Aragonese Socialist intransigent opposition to sending any Ebro water anywhere else. Now the PP is in position to embarrass the Socialists with their plan to transfer Ebro water to Barcelona, since the Socialists had argued that any water transfer would create an ecological tragedy.
The forecasters are predicting a rainy spring, which would be a very good thing. There are some dark clouds coming out of the northwest today.
Coverage of the American elections over here centers on the Democratic race. Al Gore has managed to make himself into a figure beloved among the Catalan enviroleft and the rest of the Do-Gooders International, and Obama's proposal to make Al some kind of environmental czar has gone over big here. Chelsea and her difficulties with people asking her about her dad and Monica has also been big news. Obama and Reverend Wrong didn't get nearly as much coverage, and Hillary's Bosnia thing has pretty much blown over. Notice that Spanish coverage focuses on personalities rather than issues, but a lot of American coverage does too.
Updates: The ETA killers of Isaías Carrasco have not been caught yet, and I have heard virtually nothing about the case since the election. I also haven't heard anything recently about the Islamist terrorist cell rounded up in January--remember, the ones who were going to plant bombs in the subway. Zap never got his meeting with Bush at the Bucharest summit, the meeting that the PSOE had made such a big deal about; Spain's still in the freezer as far as the American administration is concerned. And the goddamn bus drivers aren't striking today or next Thursday, but they're going on an indefinite strike starting April 15.
The goddamn Jehovah's Witnesses, who in Barcelona are a bunch of Brits, came around today wanting to leave some literature. I was polite but told them firmly I wasn't interested. What they do is target people with English names; they rang at my doorbell and asked over the intercom if I spoke English. The Mormons, who are a bunch of Americans, don't come around to your house, but they target English-speakers on the city streets. I respect their right to their beliefs, but I also have the right to be left alone.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Besides the question of where we're going to get water from this summer, everybody's talking about the Barça again. TV3 and La Vanguardia are both reporting that Pep Guardiola will replace Frank Rijkaard next season as Barça's coach. It's about time, really; Rikjaard had a great run, including two Leagues and a Champions, and Barça is still alive in this year's Champions, though Valencia eliminated them from the Spanish Cup and they're about dead in the League. But it's obviously time for a total housecleaning, and a new coach with a new system is a necessary part of that.
It's difficult for Americans to understand how big Barça is in this city. If you put together all the love and attention that Boston gives to its Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics, it still wouldn't approach the emotional commitment that Barça fans have to their team.
One important factor: FC Barcelona is owned by its 100,000 club members, who are ordinary Catalan citizens, and not by some millionaire from somewhere else, so fans feel like the team is their own property, which it is. All club members get a vote for club president, and club elections are fought just as hard as the ones for real political office.
Current Barça president Joan Laporta gets as much press coverage as Catalan premier Montilla and a lot more than Barcelona mayor Hereu. Whenever Laporta says something dumb, like the time he declared the "Catalan Republic of Barça," it makes the national news.
Another factor is that Barça is identified with a particular political perspective, Catalan nationalism (sometimes verging on Catalunacy) mixed with agin-the-gummint-in Madrid sentiment.
Oh, yeah, the other rumor is that Milan has proposed an Adriano-Ronaldinho trade. The problem is that Barça does not either need or want Adriano, another head case who gets hurt a lot.
Zap slammed the door, and this time it looks to be permanent, on the Segre-Llobregat aqueduct, meaning we're going to have to look for water somewhere else. The hotels and other tourist establishments are kicking up a fuss, since if we get to the point of actually cutting off the water a day or two a week, it's going to look just awful, totally Third World. They're already mad because they can't fill up their swimming pools.
It seems to me like the best solution is an aqueduct from the Rhone in France, the closest source of lots of fresh water. Yes, it will be expensive and the French will charge us out the ass and it will take several years to build. So what? Barcelona is like LA, more people live here than there's enough water to support, and importing water is a basic necessity. Some illustrious politicians should have actually gotten around to doing it several years ago, instead of just dicking around and chatting about it: it's not like importing Rhone water is precisely a new idea.
We've got another NIMBY-ecologist problem with infrastructure: the high-tension connection over the Pyrenees to the French electrical grid. The usual gang of Luddites have managed to delay this necessary connection for years; it would likely have prevented last summer's Great Barcelona Blackout. They're having demos and the like and protesting away as usual.
Big news from Bucharest and the NATO summit: Croatia and, get this, Albania are going to be admitted, while Macedonia, Ukraine, and Georgia will receive cooperation but not become members. Who'd have predicted that Enver Hoxha's hellhole would join NATO just two decades later? The Greeks want to keep Macedonia out; I vote we admit Macedonia and kick the Greeks out. NATO also gave full approval to American anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, and France will rejoin NATO's command structure as well as send 800 troops to Afghanistan. Fulsome congratulations to Nicolas Sarkozy.
La Vanguardia's take is, get this, that this is "bad news for Bush" because Ukraine and Georgia didn't get invitations to join. Huh? It sounds like the Americans got everything else they wanted.
Remember after the election when the PSOE claimed that Bush and Zapatero would hold a meeting at Bucharest, in which Bush would presumably throw himself at Zap's feet while ululating "Mea maxima culpa"? Yeah, right. Bush bumped into Zap in the hallway and said, "Hola, hola, felicitaciones," and walked off. The PSOE is at the point of "not ruling out the possibility" of a conversation between the two.
Wacky conspiracy theory of the week: The Competition Commission is accusing several food producers' associations of colluding to raise food prices. The thing is that food prices are up about the same amount in every country in the world, because of the high prices of petroleum and grain. Besides, the food-processing business is so fragmented and semi-localized that it would be virtually impossible to get so many independent producers to conspire against the consumers.
It's difficult for Americans to understand how big Barça is in this city. If you put together all the love and attention that Boston gives to its Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics, it still wouldn't approach the emotional commitment that Barça fans have to their team.
One important factor: FC Barcelona is owned by its 100,000 club members, who are ordinary Catalan citizens, and not by some millionaire from somewhere else, so fans feel like the team is their own property, which it is. All club members get a vote for club president, and club elections are fought just as hard as the ones for real political office.
Current Barça president Joan Laporta gets as much press coverage as Catalan premier Montilla and a lot more than Barcelona mayor Hereu. Whenever Laporta says something dumb, like the time he declared the "Catalan Republic of Barça," it makes the national news.
Another factor is that Barça is identified with a particular political perspective, Catalan nationalism (sometimes verging on Catalunacy) mixed with agin-the-gummint-in Madrid sentiment.
Oh, yeah, the other rumor is that Milan has proposed an Adriano-Ronaldinho trade. The problem is that Barça does not either need or want Adriano, another head case who gets hurt a lot.
Zap slammed the door, and this time it looks to be permanent, on the Segre-Llobregat aqueduct, meaning we're going to have to look for water somewhere else. The hotels and other tourist establishments are kicking up a fuss, since if we get to the point of actually cutting off the water a day or two a week, it's going to look just awful, totally Third World. They're already mad because they can't fill up their swimming pools.
It seems to me like the best solution is an aqueduct from the Rhone in France, the closest source of lots of fresh water. Yes, it will be expensive and the French will charge us out the ass and it will take several years to build. So what? Barcelona is like LA, more people live here than there's enough water to support, and importing water is a basic necessity. Some illustrious politicians should have actually gotten around to doing it several years ago, instead of just dicking around and chatting about it: it's not like importing Rhone water is precisely a new idea.
We've got another NIMBY-ecologist problem with infrastructure: the high-tension connection over the Pyrenees to the French electrical grid. The usual gang of Luddites have managed to delay this necessary connection for years; it would likely have prevented last summer's Great Barcelona Blackout. They're having demos and the like and protesting away as usual.
Big news from Bucharest and the NATO summit: Croatia and, get this, Albania are going to be admitted, while Macedonia, Ukraine, and Georgia will receive cooperation but not become members. Who'd have predicted that Enver Hoxha's hellhole would join NATO just two decades later? The Greeks want to keep Macedonia out; I vote we admit Macedonia and kick the Greeks out. NATO also gave full approval to American anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, and France will rejoin NATO's command structure as well as send 800 troops to Afghanistan. Fulsome congratulations to Nicolas Sarkozy.
La Vanguardia's take is, get this, that this is "bad news for Bush" because Ukraine and Georgia didn't get invitations to join. Huh? It sounds like the Americans got everything else they wanted.
Remember after the election when the PSOE claimed that Bush and Zapatero would hold a meeting at Bucharest, in which Bush would presumably throw himself at Zap's feet while ululating "Mea maxima culpa"? Yeah, right. Bush bumped into Zap in the hallway and said, "Hola, hola, felicitaciones," and walked off. The PSOE is at the point of "not ruling out the possibility" of a conversation between the two.
Wacky conspiracy theory of the week: The Competition Commission is accusing several food producers' associations of colluding to raise food prices. The thing is that food prices are up about the same amount in every country in the world, because of the high prices of petroleum and grain. Besides, the food-processing business is so fragmented and semi-localized that it would be virtually impossible to get so many independent producers to conspire against the consumers.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
The big news in Spain is the Mari Luz case. Down in Huelva some sex pervert kidnapped and murdered a little girl named Mari Luz back in January, and they just found her body a few days ago. The perv has been arrested, and here's the fun part: he had two prior convictions for child sexual abuse, once on his own daughter, and they never bothered actually putting him in jail.
The judiciary is being seriously questioned over this one, since the pervert never should have been anywhere near this child. Jail is made for sick bastards who go around sexually abusing kids, not for people who smoke pot or write bad checks. Spain, by the way, does not have a register of sex offenders, though it does have one of woman-beaters, and there is no law requiring that people be informed if a sex offender is living in their neighborhood, either.
Mari Luz was from a gypsy family that is integrated into society, while the perv seems to be a lower-class payo. The Huelva gypsies are understandably very angry, and they've tried to lynch both the perv and one of his brothers (who is almost certainly innocent, though the perv's wife might have helped him cover up the crime).
This guy would be a clear death penalty candidate in the US, and I'd have no problem voting for it if I were on the jury.
So the Zap government has blocked the proposed transfer of water from the Segre to the Llobregat, thereby showing who is really running things in Catalonia, and it ain't Montilla. Lleida province is happy, while the city of Barcelona is not.
I am not sure whether this is a good idea or not. Spanish teenagers, especially in the south, like to all get together in the street and drink till they puke; this is called "el botellón." So in Granada last night the city government cordoned off an area and told the kids to go to it. 12,000 teenagers showed up, and they're still there as I write. Four of them have been hospitalized for alcoholic poisoning so far. (By the way, the legal drinking age in Spain is 18, but nobody pays any attention.)
On the one hand, some consequences of drinking are kept under control, since there were 200 municipal cops there, and so there was no fighting, vandalism, or drunk driving, and anybody who got sick could receive medical attention. On the other hand, officially permitting botellones is effectively giving them society's approval, and it must cost the city an enormous amount of money both to pay the cops and clean up the mess.
By the way, these gatherings are almost always organized by Internet: some guy says, "Hey, let's have a big old botellón," and he e-mails and SMSs all his friends, and they do the same, and it snowballs, and next thing you know there are 12,000 drunken teenagers sprawled out all over the streets.
I do think Spain's attitude toward adolescent drinking is preferable to America's, since it's not treated as if it were a deadly sin here. There are a couple of complications in the US that don't exist here, though: 1) teenagers in the US usually have to drive home after drinking parties, while in Spain they don't; 2) many families in the US consider drinking to be sinful for religious reasons, meaning that kids have to hide their drinking, while this is not true in Spain; 3) there's a binge drinking tradition in the US that hasn't existed here until recently with these botellones.
However, the Spaniards can please stop bitching about tourists drinking in the streets, since their own kids are pretty good at it themselves.
So they got three hundred people out in Madrid to protest against Chinese repression in Tibet, just 0.005% of what they could have gotten if they were protesting Uncle Sam again.
The judiciary is being seriously questioned over this one, since the pervert never should have been anywhere near this child. Jail is made for sick bastards who go around sexually abusing kids, not for people who smoke pot or write bad checks. Spain, by the way, does not have a register of sex offenders, though it does have one of woman-beaters, and there is no law requiring that people be informed if a sex offender is living in their neighborhood, either.
Mari Luz was from a gypsy family that is integrated into society, while the perv seems to be a lower-class payo. The Huelva gypsies are understandably very angry, and they've tried to lynch both the perv and one of his brothers (who is almost certainly innocent, though the perv's wife might have helped him cover up the crime).
This guy would be a clear death penalty candidate in the US, and I'd have no problem voting for it if I were on the jury.
So the Zap government has blocked the proposed transfer of water from the Segre to the Llobregat, thereby showing who is really running things in Catalonia, and it ain't Montilla. Lleida province is happy, while the city of Barcelona is not.
I am not sure whether this is a good idea or not. Spanish teenagers, especially in the south, like to all get together in the street and drink till they puke; this is called "el botellón." So in Granada last night the city government cordoned off an area and told the kids to go to it. 12,000 teenagers showed up, and they're still there as I write. Four of them have been hospitalized for alcoholic poisoning so far. (By the way, the legal drinking age in Spain is 18, but nobody pays any attention.)
On the one hand, some consequences of drinking are kept under control, since there were 200 municipal cops there, and so there was no fighting, vandalism, or drunk driving, and anybody who got sick could receive medical attention. On the other hand, officially permitting botellones is effectively giving them society's approval, and it must cost the city an enormous amount of money both to pay the cops and clean up the mess.
By the way, these gatherings are almost always organized by Internet: some guy says, "Hey, let's have a big old botellón," and he e-mails and SMSs all his friends, and they do the same, and it snowballs, and next thing you know there are 12,000 drunken teenagers sprawled out all over the streets.
I do think Spain's attitude toward adolescent drinking is preferable to America's, since it's not treated as if it were a deadly sin here. There are a couple of complications in the US that don't exist here, though: 1) teenagers in the US usually have to drive home after drinking parties, while in Spain they don't; 2) many families in the US consider drinking to be sinful for religious reasons, meaning that kids have to hide their drinking, while this is not true in Spain; 3) there's a binge drinking tradition in the US that hasn't existed here until recently with these botellones.
However, the Spaniards can please stop bitching about tourists drinking in the streets, since their own kids are pretty good at it themselves.
So they got three hundred people out in Madrid to protest against Chinese repression in Tibet, just 0.005% of what they could have gotten if they were protesting Uncle Sam again.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Slow news day. This is good news since it means no domestic violence, Latino gang fights, terrorist bombs, or attempts by Zap to renationalize the phone company.
Economics stuff: The Ibex 35 market index rose 3.6% yesterday, led by the blue chips Telefonica and Banco Santander. It reached 13,430 points, which is still 11.5% off since January 1, when the index was over 15,000. La Vanguardia credits the recovery on Wall Street, the bailout of Bear Stearns, and the increase in second-hand housing sales in the US. The general feeling of impotence and dependence among Spanish investors on the American market must have a lot to do with free-floating anti-Americanism, even among people who should know better.
Second-hand housing sales in January were down 42% in Catalonia and 27% in Spain as a whole compared with one year ago. Pop goes the bubble.
So after literally years of whining about the PP's water plan to transfer Ebro River water to Valencia and Murcia, the Catalan government has come up with its very own redistribution of water resources, supposedly to be ready for late summer or early fall. They're going to build an emergency aqueduct between the headwaters of the Segre River, which flows into the Ebro, and the headwaters of the Llobregat, which supplies Barcelona with much of its water supply. Naturally, Lleida province is furious: "Those goddamn city slickers are stealing our water!" So Catalonia as a whole gets angry if water is to be sent to another Spanish region, but Barcelona doesn't think twice if water is to be taken from another Catalan province.
Talk about crazy contradictions: There is an association up in the Pyrenees that is trying to conserve the traditional Catalan breed of donkey. Great, I'm all for it. So last weekend they got 400 people together for a big old donkey fiesta. Great, sounds like fun. Except those dumbasses KILLED some donkeys and then ATE them, as the main event of the fiesta. Naturally, the animal-rights groups are angry enough to kick the barn door down. Bonus: They did the same thing last year and received so many protests that they naturally had to do it again.
Rafael Poch, La Vanguardia's man in Peking covering the Tibet crisis from half a continent away, reiterates that "The international media ignored the Tibetan pogrom against the Chinese in Lhasa," and "Official sources attacked foreign media manipulation of information."
Nancy Pelosi was in town yesterday for a stopover on the way home from visiting the Dalai Lama in India. She met with regional premier Montilla and Barcelona mayor Jordi Hereu, supposedly about ecology. God only knows why. Aren't there about two hundred more important people in Europe to meet with? Oh, well, it can't hurt anything.
The Spanish press didn't pay too much attention to the Obama and Reverend Wright fooferaw, nor have they even mentioned McCain's gaffe when he confused the Sunnis and the Shiites, but they're all over the Hillary-lied-about-Bosnia story. Reason? There's a good image, the film of Hillary and Chelsea at the airport receiving a state welcome and receiving a gift from a little girl with no sniper fire anywhere.
You know, I can actually see giving Hillary a break over this one. We all have the tendency to remember things in a way that puts us in the best possible light. She probably really did believe that she was facing danger there in Sarajevo, and has built it up in her mind to the point that she falsely remembers snipers being there. I doubt she was deliberately, premeditatedly lying.
As for Obama and Reverend Wright, this is only going to get worse as more of Wright's crack-brained crap comes out on video. Obama has not successfully distanced himself from this guy, and I'm not sure if he can. He's way in too tight with Wright, taking the title of his book from one of Wright's sermons and everything, Now, I doubt Obama really believes Wright's "The government invented crack and AIDS in order to genocide the blacks" stuff, but what I think it shows is that Obama really doesn't believe anything in particular. He's willing to go along with anyone and any idea that he thinks will help his career, and if that means sucking up to radical black racists in South Chicago, he's happy to do so if it will get him elected to the state senate.
McCain is already ahead of both Hillary and Obama in the surveys. The Democrats are going to blow this election.
Economics stuff: The Ibex 35 market index rose 3.6% yesterday, led by the blue chips Telefonica and Banco Santander. It reached 13,430 points, which is still 11.5% off since January 1, when the index was over 15,000. La Vanguardia credits the recovery on Wall Street, the bailout of Bear Stearns, and the increase in second-hand housing sales in the US. The general feeling of impotence and dependence among Spanish investors on the American market must have a lot to do with free-floating anti-Americanism, even among people who should know better.
Second-hand housing sales in January were down 42% in Catalonia and 27% in Spain as a whole compared with one year ago. Pop goes the bubble.
So after literally years of whining about the PP's water plan to transfer Ebro River water to Valencia and Murcia, the Catalan government has come up with its very own redistribution of water resources, supposedly to be ready for late summer or early fall. They're going to build an emergency aqueduct between the headwaters of the Segre River, which flows into the Ebro, and the headwaters of the Llobregat, which supplies Barcelona with much of its water supply. Naturally, Lleida province is furious: "Those goddamn city slickers are stealing our water!" So Catalonia as a whole gets angry if water is to be sent to another Spanish region, but Barcelona doesn't think twice if water is to be taken from another Catalan province.
Talk about crazy contradictions: There is an association up in the Pyrenees that is trying to conserve the traditional Catalan breed of donkey. Great, I'm all for it. So last weekend they got 400 people together for a big old donkey fiesta. Great, sounds like fun. Except those dumbasses KILLED some donkeys and then ATE them, as the main event of the fiesta. Naturally, the animal-rights groups are angry enough to kick the barn door down. Bonus: They did the same thing last year and received so many protests that they naturally had to do it again.
Rafael Poch, La Vanguardia's man in Peking covering the Tibet crisis from half a continent away, reiterates that "The international media ignored the Tibetan pogrom against the Chinese in Lhasa," and "Official sources attacked foreign media manipulation of information."
Nancy Pelosi was in town yesterday for a stopover on the way home from visiting the Dalai Lama in India. She met with regional premier Montilla and Barcelona mayor Jordi Hereu, supposedly about ecology. God only knows why. Aren't there about two hundred more important people in Europe to meet with? Oh, well, it can't hurt anything.
The Spanish press didn't pay too much attention to the Obama and Reverend Wright fooferaw, nor have they even mentioned McCain's gaffe when he confused the Sunnis and the Shiites, but they're all over the Hillary-lied-about-Bosnia story. Reason? There's a good image, the film of Hillary and Chelsea at the airport receiving a state welcome and receiving a gift from a little girl with no sniper fire anywhere.
You know, I can actually see giving Hillary a break over this one. We all have the tendency to remember things in a way that puts us in the best possible light. She probably really did believe that she was facing danger there in Sarajevo, and has built it up in her mind to the point that she falsely remembers snipers being there. I doubt she was deliberately, premeditatedly lying.
As for Obama and Reverend Wright, this is only going to get worse as more of Wright's crack-brained crap comes out on video. Obama has not successfully distanced himself from this guy, and I'm not sure if he can. He's way in too tight with Wright, taking the title of his book from one of Wright's sermons and everything, Now, I doubt Obama really believes Wright's "The government invented crack and AIDS in order to genocide the blacks" stuff, but what I think it shows is that Obama really doesn't believe anything in particular. He's willing to go along with anyone and any idea that he thinks will help his career, and if that means sucking up to radical black racists in South Chicago, he's happy to do so if it will get him elected to the state senate.
McCain is already ahead of both Hillary and Obama in the surveys. The Democrats are going to blow this election.
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