The Vangua leads off today with the story about Iraq destroying some weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, right. Somebody remind me of when the last time Saddam Hussein told the truth, because I can't think of it.

The Turks can join in or stay out as far as I'm concerned. I imagine the government wouldn't mind allowing the deployment of American troops, but public opinion there is solidly against it and the state is weak enough in Turkey that I can see the government being concerned. On the other hand, the way to prove a state is strong is to act decisively; Turkey's staying out would show weakness. The votes in the Turkish parliament were very close--the last one was 264 in favor of US deployment in Turkey, 250 against, and 19 abstentions. They only needed a switch of three votes to approve the deployment, so I'll bet a vote is tried again and this time it'll be approved.

The Vanguardia's man in Peking, Rafael Poch, who is also their man in Moscow and parrots the Moscow government line, claims that the Japanese are going to go nuclear. There is an American proposal to bring Japan and South Korea under an American missile-defense scheme, and the Japanese are receptive because they are scared as hell of North Korea. Poch claims, of course, that the fear of North Korean nukes is being fomented by Washington and that the missile defense system would really be anti-Chinese, not anti-North Korean. Says Poch, "North Korea would not be a nuclear problem if that country, instead of being included in the 'axis of evil' and as an objective of preventative nuclear attacks by Washington, received guarantees of security and normalization of relations, as was agreed in the 1994 pact."

Jesus Christ. This guy is pro-North Korean.

Anyway, Poch does some scare propaganda, saying that Japan could have hundreds of nukes within six months and that the Americans are behind it all, in addition to the evil missile defense system. What should amaze you is that the Vanguardia is the BEST newspaper in Spain. Can you imagine how horrible the others are? This is why nearly all Catalans are political idiots of one sort or another. Now, they're wonderful people, friendly folks, generous to a fault. But, politically, these people have no common sense whatsoever, with about eight exceptions.

Rafael Ramos in London says that the Observer is reporting that the Americans are spying on the Security Council members and that this is a huge scandal. The Observer got this information from MI6. First, I certainly hope we are spying on all of them, even on our pals in London, because I guarantee you they're spying on us. Nothing wrong with a little espionage between friends. Second, getting caught doing so is very unprofessional. Third, if I were MI6, I would hunt down Mr. Loudmouth with a Pal on the Observer and terminate his employment. With extreme prejudice. Fourth, Ramos reports that Washington is "in full war fever". That's interesting, since he's based in London. This is the guy who, in a piece about how much he loved baseball, identified Don Mattingly as the Yankees' pitcher. For you Brits, this would be like calling David Beckham Man U's goalkeeper while saying you were a huge football fan. He's also the guy who said that in the US you had to go out with a girl ten times before you could get her in bed. All I want to know is how he can be so sure.

Chirac was received by a massive crowd in Algiers on a state visit. Now that's something to be proud of.

There was an enormous demonstration in Valencia yesterday in favor of the government's proposed water plan, which would send water from the Ebro River south to the dry regions of Valencia, Murcia, and part of Andalusia. I don't see what's wrong with it, since I'm satisfied that it would not do any significant environmental damage. Some 600,000 people came out into the streets from all over southern Spain. Now, there have also been big demonstrations, especially in Aragon, against the water plan, and there were, of course, recent big anti-American demos. The Vanguardia raised not a peep about the demonstrators' political motives in these cases, though all of the demonstrations were organized by the Socialists and other leftist groups.

But in this one, which was organized by José María Aznar's PP, the subheadline is "The financial support of the administrations controlled by the PP gave fruit, and the demonstration in favor of the water plan was supported by dozens of thousands of people." Naah, the Vanguardia isn't biased at all in its news reporting. See, Barcelona and Valencia have a rivalry. Valencia is the second-largest Catalan-speaking city, but instead of showing allegiance to Barcelona and Catalanism, it's thrown in its lot with Madrid and Spain--Valencia basically has the choice of which orbit they want to be in, and they've chosen Madrid's orbit. Valencia goes so far in its desire to be non-Catalan that everybody calls the local language valenciano and a good few deny that it's related to Catalan (that is, of course, linguistically nuts, but they love taking the piss out of the Catalans by saying that). The ultra-Catalan Vanguardia just can't stand any of this.

The main focus of the story was not on what the demonstrators were saying, and there are no impassioned articles in the news section saying that the voice of the people must be listened to, as there have been for the demos "against" the oil spill (I thought we were all against oil spills, but the Socialists and the Galician independentistas are accusing the PP of being responsible for this one, which is so far from being true that it is an out-and-out "Big Lie"), against the water plan, and against America. In fact, the Valencian Socialist Party described the demonstration, consisting of some 600,000 people from all over southeastern Spain in support of a government water project, as "intolerable". Nice to know they're impartial in their support of the right to freedom of expression and public assembly.

The Dissident Frogman has a brilliant diatribe completely destroying Régis Débray. If you know who Régis Débray is, then you need to read this. If you don't know who Régis Débray is, do not click here, because, trust me, you're happier not being cognizant of this asshole's existence..

As I said a couple of days ago, the Vanguardia has been frenziedly printing anti-American rants this week. Probably the worst, though, was this one from last Thursday by a guy named Azzam Tamimi, who is billed as "the Director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London and a teacher at the Markfield Institute of Superior Education in Leicestershire". Wow. Sounds impressive, all right. I've only translated a couple of the more offensive paragraphs.

It seems that the influential bureaucrats in Washington, "all the President's men", have three good reasions to start a war for. On one side, there is the oil. The United States has no option but to take over Iraq's petroleum, the second largest reserves in the world, if it wants to avert a national economic disaster. On another side is Israel. The war, according to what some of Bush's advisors believe, is necessary to guarantee that their loyal ally, Israel, continue being the only regional power in possession of "weapons of mass destruction". Whether it's because of the oil or Israel or both things, the war is also George W. Bush's only chance to get elected next year. After looking at all this, Bush seems to have defeat assured if he does not declare war; but if he declares it, according to what he is told, he will be able to count on a good result.

Note that 1) there is not a speck of evidence demonstrating that any of these three assertions are true, and if there is, you didn't learn it from the author 2) the author seems to believe he knows what Mr. Bush's advisors are telling him to do--what's he got, X-ray ears or something?--and that Mr. Bush is the puppet of these "bureaucrats" 3) the American elections aren't for 19 more months and anything can happen politically between now and then, and, by the way, remember the last Iraqi election when Saddam got 100% of the vote? We have REAL elections 4) the author assumes that the United States, being evil incarnate, naturally has not only one but three base motives to massacre poor starving Iraqi babies. Couldn't be because the Americans believe that Saddam Hussein is a threat to their national security, could it? By the way, have you noticed how quickly we've built that pipeline across Afghanistan we fought that war in order to construct?

...Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a densely populated territory. The thirty-six promised hours of saturation bombing that will precede any deployment of ground troops are a quite horrible perspective. The (Iraqi people) fear that, with the objective of minimising their own losses, the American and British forces will resort to the pulverization of all suspicious structures above ground. Millions of Iraqis might be burned alive in the process.

Yeah, just like millions of people got burned alive in Kosovo and Afghanistan and Somalia and Haiti and everywhere else the Americans have sent in ground forces. Even the most extreme America-bashers can't come up with a figure of more than 3000 Afghan civilian dead in the recent war there, 3000 people too many, of course, but probably fewer than in any other six-month period in Afghan history. By the way, according to the World Almanac, Afghanistan's population density is 107 per square mile; Iraq's is 138 per square mile. Major difference there, ain't it? Besides, what 36 hours of saturation bombing? Of course we're not going to saturation-bomb anything. We haven't since the Christmas bombings over Hanoi that drove the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table in Paris. That was thirty years ago.

There are several paragraphs of anti-Israeli slurs, which I'll summarize for y'all: extreme right...pure Jewish state in Palestine...transfer...expulsion...Israeli murder of Palestinians...demolition...destruction...injustices...Israeli occupiers. Then comes this doozy of a last paragraph.

During his recent visit to the United Kingdom, Sheik Yusuf Al Qaradawi, one of the most famous Muslim theologians in the world, declared that up until now he had resisted calls in favor of a fatwa to boycott Great Britain. He explained that his position sprang from his valoration of the British people's position, opposed to the war, and from the hope that the Government will listen to its public opinion and reconsider its decision to line up with the American administration. He emphasized that Muslims should continue differentiating between the American and British positions, unless Great Britain joins the US in the war declared on Iraq. In that case, he warned, Great Britain will also be put on the boycott list.

It seems to me that this paragraph constitutes a threat. It is a blackmailing ultimatum. If you British do not do as Sheik Yusuf and Mr. Tamimi, the author, advise, you will be put under a fatwa. My understanding of the concept of fatwa is that it does not consist of merely a boycott of British products. It seems to me that by using the word "boycott", these thugs think they can beat the law making terroristic threats illegal. I think we are not so dumb.

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Check out this article from today's Vanguardia that they picked up from Agence France Presse.

"Vive la France!"
American pacifists find their antiwar cry

"Where are you from?" asks the Washington taxi driver distractedly as he listens to the news on the radio. "I'm French". He turns around and smiles: "Then the ride is free!" Like him, many Americans have suddenly begun to cling to France, converted in their eyes into the last barrier before the warlike caprices of their government.

While the American media of communication compete in Francophobic commentaries and denounce the "treason" and the "cowardice" of the French, "Vive la France!" has become the pacifists' slogan. Frequently cited in Internet antiwar messages, the motto "Vive la France!" has also appeared on the banners of the recent large demonstrations.

Activists or anonymous citizens, these Americans have generally never trod European soil, but, cornered between the media and a political class now willing to go to war, they cling with hope and emotion to the symbol of France. "It's nice to know, simply, that there is someone, somewhere, who says no to the Bush administration and who makes it restrain itself," says John Catalinotto, spokesman for the antiwar group ANSWER.

This activist, a pacifist "since Vietnam", admits that a few days ago he went out on the streets with an old pack of Gauloise cigarettes as an amulet. While some have called for a boycott of French products, "you can be sure that at this moment there are people lining up to buy French cheese on the shelves of the supermarkets."

From behind the counter of the Bistrot du Coin, a French restaurant in Washington, Florence Lebourg remembers that last week "a group of clients told me that they had come on purpose to stock up on French products in order to support us." And the messages of support that arrive daily at the French embassy have totaled 600 to 1000 since the end of January.

Can any of this possibly be true? I, personally, don't mind people shouting "Stop the war!" I figure that's covered under the freedom-of-speech clause of the Constitution. But if I ever hear about anybody who's American shouting "Vive la France", I will personally severely chastise the miscreant. With one of Jane Galt's two-by-fours.

They're making a big stink right now about the high-speed train from Madrid to Lleída. It's supposed to begin circulating normally sometime this month, and they made four test runs which showed that there are definitely a few bugs in the system. It doesn't look to me like any of the problems are too serious, but they do need to be fixed. This, as far as I know, is typical with big engineering projects--you've got to test them. What we learned with those test trips is that more work is needed. Good. Nobody got killed finding that out and the problem will be solved although there'll be a month's more delay. Big deal--when they get it finished all the way to Barcelona, which may not happen now until 2005, it'll be a major piece of infrastructure that will change a lot of people's lives and people will forget about this. Right now, though, it's another weapon the opposition is using on the PP--first the water plan, then the oil spill, then the education plan, then the antiwar protests, now the high-speed train. The Socialists have got some very tasty weapons that they can use against the government. Good thing they're too dumb and too divided to actually put together a functioning campaign outside Catalonia and Andalusia.

If I were the PP I'd point out that the first high-speed train link (inished in 1991) was not from Madrid to Barcelona and from there to Paris by way of Montpellier, which any idiot would figure is the logical first step. No, it was Madrid to Seville. Now, that's a nice piece of work they did, and it's a good thing we have it, but come on, you connect your first city to your second city and then to the rest of the world. That's your priority. Instead, they connected Spain's first city with its fifth city and the line ends there. Why'd they do that? Pork Barrel City. Felipe González, the Socialist Prime Minister from 1982 until 1996, made damn sure that his hometown, Seville, was going to get a big piece of the infrastructure being put up for the 1992 Olympics and Expo. Córdoba, also in Socialist home base Andalusia, got a station, too, as did Socialist Ciudad Real.

Saddam made some bogus disarmament offer. The Americans said yeah, right. Blix and the French and the Rooskies said something about how this was showing that the inspections were working. Aznar and Blair met in Madrid, reaffirmed their positions, leaned on Mexico and Chile a little, said Saddam was a liar and couldn't be trusted, and generally stood firm. Supposedly the Russians are sending out feelers about how to back down when the crunch comes. Tony and Chema also talked about labor reform in order to combat unemployment. They also said some stuff about the future EU having only one president who would be in charge of foreign policy. I gather this is entirely contrary to what France and Germany want. Meanwhile, Lionel Jospin called on Chirac to use France's veto in the UN Security Council. Real smart, Lionel.

I found a Civil War history written in 1917 at the Internet Public Library. I like old histories because 1) they're often very well-written, in clear (if not always concise), straight-ahead, active prose 2) there is often an emphasis on actions and events that we don't pay that much attention to today; for example, most of today's histories of the Civil War focus on the combat and the sociological aspects of the war, to the exclusion of economic, diplomatic, and especially political events 3) you can learn as much or more about society at the time the book was written due to the attitudes expressed as you learn about the historical events treated.

An excellent example is the book from the 20s I found about the Spanish-American war, which makes a big deal about battallions of immune soldiers. I'd never thought about it, but, of course, you're going to want to send guys who are immune to yellow fever to the Caribbean in the pre-sulfa-and-antibiotic age. They were really afraid of disease back then. Another is in the book I found on American diplomatic history, which lays a great deal of emphasis on diplomatic insults and how grievously they were once taken, and on the fact that the United States until the aftermath of the First World War had a significant and quite rabid war'n'imperialism sector of opinion; there were a bunch of morons called the War Hawks in the 1830s and 40s who wanted to go to war with Britain and were looking for any possible excuse to do so. There was always an important party who wanted to annex Cuba, and Grant wanted to annex the Dominican Republic, of all places; Congress voted it down. Another thing that's kind of sad is the always-underlying racism; all writers on the Civil War before the 50s and several later writers simply assume "negroes" are inferior. They also all assume that separation of the races is part of the natural order of things.

Anyway, here's an excerpt about the suspension of civil liberties during the Civil War. It's from History of the Civil War, 1861-1865, by James Ford Rhodes.





In the practical application of the clause of the Constitution, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it,” the Confederate government exhibited the greater regard for the liberty of the individual, and the Southern citizen the greater jealousy of the use of arbitrary power. Lincoln from the first assumed the right to suspend the writ by Executive decree, a right never claimed by Davis. It was generally conceded at the South that Congress alone possessed this power and the privilege was available to the citizens of the Confederacy except when curtailed by express statute. And the Confederate Congress asserted its rights boldly enough, declaring in the Act of February 15, 1864, that “the power of suspending the privilege of said writ … is vested solely in the Congress which is the exclusive judge of the necessity of such suspension.” The war may be said to have lasted four years: the periods of suspension of the writ in the Confederacy amounted in the aggregate to one year, five months and two days, less than one-half of the war’s duration. In the Union the writ was suspended or disregarded at any time and in any place where the Executive, or those to whom he delegated this power, deemed such action necessary. For anyone who in any manner or degree took an unfriendly attitude toward the recruitment of the army, for political prisoners, for persons suspected of “any disloyal practice,” the privilege did not exist. It was suspended for one year, ten months and twenty-one days by Executive assumption and for the rest of the period by the authorization of Congress. 33
The provocation for the use of arbitrary power was, all things considered, about equal in the Confederacy and the Union. In the Union the “disloyal” secret societies were larger and more dangerous, and the public criticism of the administration more copious and bitter. There was, too, the organized political party which made a focus for the opposition and developed Vallandigham, who had no counterpart at the South. But these considerations are balanced by the circumstance that in the South was the seat of war which was never but for brief periods moved north of Mason and Dixon’s line and the Ohio river. “Civil administration is everywhere relaxed,” wrote Judge Campbell as early as October, 1862, “and has lost much of its energy, and our entire Confederacy is like a city in a state of siege, cut off from all intercourse with foreign nations and invaded by a superior force at every assailable point.” Where armies stand in opposition disloyalty may give the enemy aid and comfort so substantial as to decide an impending battle; far from the front it is apt to spend itself in bluster, threats and secret midnight oaths. In the Confederacy there was practically no important place east of the Mississippi river which was not at one time or another invaded or threatened by the invader. The courts, it is true, were open in the South, but, owing to the disorganized state of society, the interruption of trade and the passage of stay laws by the States, they tried few commercial cases but confined themselves to criminal jurisdiction and to decisions sustaining the acts of Congress; or on the other hand to issuing writs of habeas corpus in favor of those who desired to escape military service. 34
The press was essentially free at the North, entirely so at the South, where no journals were suppressed as some had been in the Union. As the Southern papers had little news-gathering enterprise and borrowed a large part of their news from the Northern press, they did not offend the Confederate generals as the Union generals were offended by the publication of estimates of the strength of armies or shrewd guesses of projected movements. Sometimes the Richmond journals, upon request of General Lee or of the Secretary of War, refrained from publishing intelligence that might benefit the enemy, but no compulsion was employed. The right of public meeting was fully exercised in both sections, but the gatherings for free discussion were much more common at the North. 35
Southerners believed that the Federal government had degenerated into a military despotism. At the same time the general belief at the North was that the Confederate government was a tyranny which crushed all opposition. The bases for both these beliefs are apparent. Theoretically liberty seemed surer at the South than at the North, but practically the reverse was true. Few men either in the Union or in the Confederacy had actual need of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus; but all able-bodied men at the South, who were not too old, were touched by the universal exaction of military service and all who had property were affected by the impressment of it at an arbitrary price fixed by the government. The Federal government may be called a dictatorship. Congress and the people surrendered certain of their powers and rights to a trusted man. The Confederacy was a grand socialized state in which the government did everything. It levied directly on the produce of the land and fixed prices; it managed the railroads; operated manufacturing establishments, owned merchant vessels and carried on a foreign commerce. It did all this by common consent and the public desired it to absorb even more activities. Frequent requests to extend the province of the general government, of the States and of the municipalities may be read in the newspapers and in the public and private letters of the time. The operations seemed too large for individual initiative and the sovereign power of the State came to be invoked.

Amiland links to this article on Spanish diplomacy and Spain's place in the world from the International Herald Tribune. I think it's very good and have nothing much to add, except that I'm not worried about the PP's performance in the upcoming elections. They'll suffer a few losses but nothing huge--a couple of mayoralties and a region or two. The PP will continue to control regional and local governments almost everywhere but the Basque country, Andalusia, and Catalonia.

By the way, the article is seven pages long--you need to click on the almost invisible "Next Page" in the lower right.

The Vanguardia has recently been publishing a lot of lefty America-bashing by international lefties; today they've got one by Robert Fisk, and they've printed a couple more of Fisk's screeds in the last week or so. It's the same-old same-old. Naomi Klein got a couple of chances, too. Now, I do not agree with anything these two people say. I think they're idiots. However, I do not think they are bad people, nor do I think they are dishonest.

I do not feel the same way about Gore Vidal, though. Gore Vidal is scum. Gore Vidal is what you scrape off the bottom of your shoes after a day walking the streets of Barcelona. Gore Vidal hates Jews with a passion. He is a bitchy, catty, gossipy old queen. If you want to be sickened by amorality, read Vidal's autobiography. He got interviewed by Clarín, the Argentinian paper, and the Vangua picked it up and reprinted it on Wednesday. Here are some excerpts.

About conspiracy theories. We're a country full of accidents. We keep assassinating public men and we never find out who did it. It doesn't seem like we care too much. Then people tell me, "Oh, you're a conspiracy theorist," and start laughing hysterically. There's another extraordinary thing that I pointed out recently on television. Look: the first Bush was with the Carlyle petroleum group; the second, with Harkins Oil; Vice-President Cheney, with Halliburton Oil; Gale Norton, the interior Secretary, is also connected to petroleum. Condoleeza Rice is related with Exxon and Texaco, and the boss of the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, was Occidental Petroleum's man. While I was speaking, I saw they were already trying to minimize it. So I said, "I'm not going to say there's a conspiracy. I don't believe in conspiracies. But are you telling me that it is a coincidence that they're leading the US and that we're about to go to war for the oil in Iraq?"

First, we're not going to war for the oil in Iraq. I've already posted about why, as have a lot of other people, and I don't think I need to post it again. Second, it's not unusual that a group of several important people should all have worked in the petroleum industry. It's one of the most important industries of our time. A hundred years ago all politicians had ties with the railroads. Two centuries ago all politicians had ties either with the shipping industry or with plantation agriculture. Third, Vidal shows what a rat he is with his little sally saying that he's not calling it a conspiracy while implying it is. Vidal is accusing the leaders of the United States of conspiring for the benefit of the oil industry. He is saying that they are guilty of war crimes and corruption and abuse of power, since going to war to steal another country's resources is obviously not a just war. But they can't sue him for libel because he weaseled out of making a direct statement of what he is implying. Oh, and fourth, three important men have been assassinated in America since World War II. We know that Oswald killed John Kennedy, Ray killed Martin Luther King, and Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy. Vidal, of course, believes that all three murders were some kind of CIA-Pentagon-Mafia plot. What this means is that he believes that our elected government is a front for the mysterious men who really run things, and that those mysterious men are killers.

Remember: saying "No blood for oil" is saying that the United States, British, Spanish, Italian, Australian, and Eastern European governments are international war criminals. That's a very serious charge to make and I am disgusted that so many people are making it so lightly. But not surprised.

(On September 11) During an hour and a half they knew that the airliners that had taken off from Boston had been hijacked. The FAA followed them on the radar and saw that they were heading for Washington. The FAA has a law saying (my father was once the director and I believe he was the one who made this law) that in case of any kind of hijacking, the air force should intervene within four or five minutes. It didn't. This called my attention. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was a conspiracy. A conspiracy of whom? Why didn't they intervene?

Vidal weasels out of calling it a conspiracy again while implying that there was one--a conspiracy to destroy the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center that resulted in 3000 deaths, presumably so we'll have an excuse to grab the oil. Vidal is accusing the Bush Administration of being a gang of mass murderers. That is an extraordinary claim and it requires extraordinary evidence, which Vidal does not provide.

Vidal goes on to accuse Bush of not having properly organized investigations into September 11, the Democratic leadership of behaving like sheep, the CIA of conspiring with the Pakistani secret services to funnel money to Mohammed Atta, the whole government of "suspending our civil rights", and the British of being Bush's lapdog for political and economic reasons.

I don't think Vidal is an agent of some kind of international conspiracy to defame America. I think he's just an asshole.

Good stuff, as usual, is up at Ibidem. Chicago Boyz also has several good posts up, and these guys are no dummies. Craig Schamp has some Franco-Deutsch jokes that are pretty funny. Merde in France rocks. John Bono always has plenty of good stuff up. This guy is not a bad writer. Check out his archives. The People's Republic of Seabrook is a clever, well-written site. Eamonn from Rainy Day is an Irishman writing from Munich. Check his stuff out.

Today's Vangua is reporting that Bush said that Saddam's overthrow will lead toward the possibility of "a viable Palestinian state". Bad, bad move, George, if what you mean is that a Palestinian state will be possible with the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority, also known as "that gang of criminals and murderers". Now, if we get rid of Saddam, that'll be one fewer source of money, shelter, training, and weapons for Arafat and his thugs, but it won't change the Arab-Israeli problem one bit. Maybe getting rid of Saddam will force the Saudis to give up funding all the terrorists they have been funding over the years, and that'll force a change in the Palestinian leadership. I dunno. We could speculate all day. But I think linking Gulf War II with the Palestinian problem is not a good idea at all.

The White House is also calculating that the war will cost us $95 billion and we're not likely to get the subsidies we got form the Japanese and Arabs last time. Yeah, right, we're doing it for the oil. Aznar met Chirac in Paris yesterday and the official announcement after the meeting said that the two countries disagreed, but in a friendly way. Tony Blair got hit by a backbench revolt from his own party; a motion of no confidence gained 199 votes out of 659. Almost all the Lib Dems, all the nationalists, a good few left-wing Laborites (rumor has it Gordon Brown is sharpening his knife, but I don't buy it, not over a national-security issue), and a few dumbass Tories like Kenneth Clarke. They're saying this looks bad for Tony. Wait till the war is over before we decide what looks good or bad. And, of course, the most important question is not what fickle public opinion thinks right now but about what history will say in a hundred years. Wanna bet the leaders of the capitalist democracies are more likely to be on the right side of history, especially when the opposition is Schröder, Saddam, Putin, Chirac, and whoever's running China? What a collection of mediocrities. Saddam will be remembered for possessing the evil of Hitler combined with the competence of Mussolini. Putin is no Havel. Schröder is no Adenauer. Chirac is, unfortunately, a Blum or a Daladier. Blair will be remembered as a slick politician who came up trumps when it counted, showing more backbone than anyone figured, a lot like Franklin D. Roosevelt. That's pretty good. I think Roosevelt is overrated, but he did show real backbone against the Axis and is justifiably celebrated for that, despite his other shortcomings.

Dan Rather interviewed Saddam, who didn't say anything we didn't figure he would say. Rather, however, failed to ask Mr. Hussein what the frequency was. He also addressed the Iraqi dictator as "Mr. President", rather than "Kenneth".

Aznar said that he "wouldn't trade security for votes". Well said, Mr. Aznar! Meanwhile, Aznar's popularity has dropped but he's still holding a two-point lead over the Socialists in "voting intention", and the PP always does two or three points better in the real election than the surveys say. This is as rock-bottom as Aznar's popularity is going to fall, since it will rise again after the war is won.

Spain is sending its aircraft carrier, the Principe de Asturias, which carries some 20 Harriers and helicopters, on combined maneuvers with the Italians in the Mediterranean. That gets it several hundred miles closer to the Syrian coast. The carrier is the jewel of the crown as far as the Spanish military goes. In addition, several other Spanish ships are going on antisubmarine maneuvers with those of other NATO countries in the Ionian Sea.

Barça went into Milan last night and came out with an 0-0 tie against Inter, breaking their streak of 11 consecutive victories in the Champions' League. Both teams played highly defensively during the whole game; Vieri was Inter's only forward, and he didn't do anything much. For the Barça, Cocu tore a ligament and will be out at least two months; he'll be replaced by some combination of Gabri, Gerard, and Luis Enrique. Gabri had a good game last night at right defenseman. Puyol, in the middle, got banged in the head going up for a high ball and had to be substituted, since his eye swelled up. He might miss next weekend's Spanish league game against Osasuna. Andersson played competently during the rest of the game. Good thing he's healthy again because they're going to need him; he's a solid defender who they signed from Bayern Munich a couple of years ago right after Bayern won the Champions'. He then got hurt instantly and hasn't played until now. Luis Enrique didn't play, I don't know why, because he's supposed to be healthy again. Riquelme got in the game late and did OK. Saviola didn't do much and Kluivert wandered around aimlessly as if he were a midfielder. Rochemback did OK as a defensive midfielder on the right side. Lots of defense. It was really pretty boring. Imagine an 0-0 hockey game, but with fewer fights.

Here's a link to the CIA Factbook for Spain. I thought this was pretty interesting. It contains an extensive list of economic, political, and social data. From here, besides the Spain info, you can access, first, a listing of all countries' statistics on each particular datum--e.g. telephone lines per 1000 people or whatever--for purposes of comparison, by clicking on the second icon (not the open book, the other one) for each datum, and second, the same extensive report on any other country in particular. I suggest that people look up a couple of the Latin American countries and see how their data compare with, say, those of an Eastern European country, an Arab country, an East Asian country, and an African country. Just pick fairly standard countries--say, compare Peru and Hungary and Syria and Thailand and Ghana. See if you can make any generalizations from that. I don't know if I've succeeded. If I do, I'll let you know. I'm sure y'all are waiting with bated breath.

I thought this paragraph was interesting:

Spain and UK are discussing "total shared sovereignty" over Gibraltar, subject to a constitutional referendum by Gibraltarians, who have largely expressed opposition to any form of cession to Spain; Spain controls the coastal enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which Morocco contests, as well as the islands of Penon de Alhucemas, Penon de Velez de la Gomera, and Islas Chafarinas; Morocco rejected Spain's unilateral designation of a median line from the Canary Islands in 2002 to explore undersea resources and to interdict illegal refugees from Africa.

The emphasis is mine.

Other things I thought were interesting were: In 1997 Spain had 9000 kilometers of expressways. Now, Spain is a big country, the size of Texas, but when I first came here, in 1987, there wasn't a four-lane road all the way from Barcelona to Madrid, and the road from Córdoba to Granada was just barely two-lane. This is a major change; here's an important piece of infrastructure that's jumped from high-Third World level to real European level. Since they're still building expressways all over the country, I figure Spain has well over 12,000 km of them by now.

The countries with which Spain has the most international commerce are France, Geramany, and Italy, in order. The US provides 4.5% of Spanish imports and takes 4.4% of Spanish exports; I'd figured it would be more. Latin America provides only 2% of Spanish imports and takes only 4% of Spanish exports; I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of imports from Latin America, because I don't think there are any but coffee--it's hard to find anything Latin American here. I thought Latin America was an important buyer of Spanish imports, though, but they're not.

Spanish electricity production is 57% from fossil fuels, 12% from hydro, 3% from "other sources", and 28% from nuclear plants. I thought hydro was much more important, and I'm surprised at how dependent Spain is on nuclear power. Agriculture provides only 4% of the Spanish GDP, which I find surprising, because of Spain's enormous fruit and vegetable production--it feeds half of Europe--and I'd thought that the traditional Spanish crops, wine grapes and olives, were lucrative crops per hectare. In addition, Spain has huge pork and poultry industries and a large dairy industry; it exports a lot of this stuff to the rest of Europe as well. I keep forgetting that Spain is now a major economic power, with the fifth largest economy in Europe.

By the way, today's Vanguardia is reporting that Aznar has said that he wants Spain to be a "First Division" country; there's a nice soccer metaphor. He's succeeded, as the Vangua publishes a photo of some demonstrators in Cairo holding up a sign that says: "New Axis of Evil=USA UK Italy Spain". Cool! Spain's important enough to get bashed by the Islamofascists! Seriously, I believe that Mr. Aznar is very much enjoying feeling himself a major world leader. Well, he is one now. The anti-PP Spanish press, which is most of it except ABC, has been publishing a flood of editorial cartoons trying to ridicule Aznar's world standing, showing Bush as the sheriff and Aznar as his subservient deputy. For some reason they're all using the same tired image. The truth is that Mr. Aznar has fairly won the esteem and high regard of the American and the British governments, and this cannot but be a good thing for Spain.

I have a suggestion to make to other Eurobloggers (that is, other bloggers who write about Europe, wherever they live or come from). Let's put together a joint blog that would consist of column-length and -style pieces rather than the informal entries that we usually blog. I'd be willing to contribute a column a week, and if four other people (of course, the more the merrier) want to sign on, too, that'd give us a minimum of five quality pieces a week. People would pay attention, I think; at the very least all our regular readers would be interested and I'll bet we could attract a good few more as a group. Anyone interested?

Possible boring name: Euroblog. Possible more interesting name: Euro Sex Snack Blog. There used to be a dive called the Euro Sex Snack Bar on the Ramblas across the street from the Plaza Real. It was apparently a clip joint with strippers. Once this dumb German guy who was living in the same hostal I was (this was 1988 and he was kind of a dirtbag. He was evading his military service) went in there with no money and ordered like six double whiskeys and tried to leave without paying and they stripped him to his underwear and threw him out in the street. This same guy sneaked a hooker into his room and she stole whatever stuff he had left and the owner kicked him out. Anyway, I personally never went in the Euro Sex Snack Bar. Really. I've never even been in Barcelona's notorious Bagdad Club, where audience participation is encouraged in the stage show, if you know what I mean, and I'll bet you do. The story is they used to have a donkey that, uh, performed live on stage, until the Protectora de Animales showed up and took it away.

The Vanguardia leads off today with the headline "Bush says another resolution 'unnecessary'." Bush made it clear that he wants another UN resolution to pass, but if it doesn't, he considers the US to be operating with UN permission anyway because of Resolution 1441 and the 16 previous UN resolutions censuring Saddam. Meanwhile, sources within the Spanish government said scornfully, "If France uses its veto, that'll be their last veto in history", since the UN will lose all authority if it is seen to be openly defied by the United States.

Aznar and Blair are sticking by Bush though it's going to cost them, short-term, in popularity. Big deal. After the war is won nearly bloodlessly and all of Saddam's atrocities are revealed--and they are going to shock the world--it will suddenly be a very popular war. Aznar and Blair and Berlusconi will look like strong leaders who took a stand. Chirac and Schröder will look like what they are: weasels. The Belgians will embarrasedly look to make some other international news, perhaps another bribery scandal involving the royal family or another ring of pederast murderers ignored by the police. The Spanish Left will claim that the anti-American demonstrations of the 15th were a glorious popular outcry against war in general rather than a tantrum thrown at the United States in general and the war on Saddam in particular.

The Vanguardia is making an extremely big deal out of the Vatican's--well, Angelo Sodano and Jean-Louis Tauran's--stand aginst the war on Iraq; Aznar is going to Rome tomorrow to see the Pope and the guys who do the actual work. (Note: I do not think these guys are manipulating the Pope. I see the Pope as someone like Reagan, someone who set the general tone of leadership, made the final decisions, and left the detail work to competent, well-chosen associates. Sodano and Tauran and Navarro Valls are certainly competent, and I'm sure they are following the Pope's general instructions.) I'll bet Aznar's visit does no good at all.

Jesús Gil from Ibidem had a good post a couple of days ago in which he warned about Catholic-bashing, which he is absolutely right to caution about, and pointed out that it's the Pope's responsibility to work toward peace. What's he supposed to do, cheerlead for a war?

I dunno. One thing is that the Church is not a pacifist organization and never has been. In fact, the Church has often justified war. (The Quakers, say, are really pacifists.) Therefore, it seems to me that the Pope is being unfair in his judgment. Right now there are ten or twenty wars, depending on how you count them, happening around the world. I haven't heard the Church speak out against any of them, and especially not about the French intervention in the Ivory Coast. I think, therefore, that the Vatican is being partial and the part it's taking is against the United States, since the only war that it is speaking out against is the war on Saddam--a war that is as justified as any in history, in my view. I also believe that this partiality is due to the Latin European cultural outlook of those who hold the important posts in the Church hierarchy.

Another thing I find very disturbing is the attitude among Catholic circles in Spain that there is a conspiracy against them in the United States. Their evidence is that there has been a "media campaign" about the wave of cases of child sexual abuse over the past couple of years in the United States. I personally believe that it's difficult to be much lower than a child-molester, and enough Catholic priests were child-molesters, lifelong pedophiles who behaved upon their urges, that this is a sign of a serious problem within the Church that has to be dealt with openly and honestly. The current Pope is unwilling to deal with the problem. But this is not the worst part about what happened; the worst part is that certain elements within the American Church, bishops and cardinals, knew there was a problem with child-molesting priests and covered it up. This is about as evil as it gets, protecting men who abuse their positions of trust and authority to exploit children sexually. The Church has lost a great deal of moral authority in my eyes, and I will continue to find it wanting until I see a real change. I haven't seen that change. I imagine it will take a new Pope to make a clean break with the past.

The Church needs to greatly modernize itself. Its hierarchy needs to be completely democratized and to become transparent. It needs to do a much better job vetting its priests. It also needs to get rid of the "only single men in the priesthood" rule. It's unnatural to expect people to be celibate all their lives. Most normal people, gay or straight, are thereby excluded from the Church hierarchy; many young Catholics who feel a religious call go over to the Episcopalians or Lutherans instead, where they can work as ministers and live like normal people at the same time. What this means is that there is a sizeable percentage of weirdos among priests. (Personal experience: I've known three Catholic priests. One is a great guy who I went to high school with. He's a real Christian and I admire that. He practices what he preaches. We had a running gag in senior-year American government class: I'd make a comment and end my reasoning with "Because, of course, there is no God." This guy Bill would imitate a lightning flash striking me dead and intone in a deep voice, "You could be wrong." Maybe you had to be there. Cracked up the class, though. One, here in Spain, is a weirdo but not a perv. He is a drunk. I know this because back when I was a drunk I used to drink beer with him. And a third, who lived in the same college dorm as I did, is a major weirdo. He's a perv, all right. I wouldn't turn my kids loose around him if I had kids. I really would not.)

And, by the way, it's simply ridiculous to say that women can't be priests. That attitude is simply not acceptable to the general American or European public any more. In addition, the no-birth-control rule is just plain ridiculous too and a cause of unnecessary deaths from sexually transmitted diseases. Seems to me they could at least legalize barrier methods for reasons of disease prevention. I'll bet all you Catholics have heard this many times before and don't much appreciate us outsiders giving unsolicited advice, but you know the Church is in trouble and needs a major shakeup. There have been major shakeups before; allowing condoms, women priests, and married priests wouldn't be as big a change as those made during Vatican II, and taking these steps would remove a lot of the opposition to and criticism of the Church. And they'd regain the moral authority they used to have, because right now, the fact that the Church opposes the war means about two cents to me. A democratic, modernized, transparent Church--I'd think twice about what they have to say. The Church as it is currently operating--nope.

Here's a little pearl from right-wing Catholic Enric Juliana in today's Vangua: "Catholicism will have to have a showdown with the evangelical fundamentalism of the ruling group in Washington". That is not a very responsible attitude at all, and it is not unusual among Spanish Catholics. Enric Juliana is the guy who keeps complaining about the "moral lynching" of the Church over the pederasty scandals in America. He's one of the elements that just doesn't get it yet. By the way, Bush is a Methodist. Some evangelical fundamentalism. The United Methodist Church is against the war. The only evangelical, as far as I know, who is important in the government is John Ashcroft. He's pretty far right and is too extreme for me. I would not vote for him in an election if the Democrats put up a reasonable candidate. But Ashcroft is not the neo-Nazi that he is often portrayed as. His fundamentalism is non-violent. It's misleading to call both Ashcroft and other American fundies the same thing we call Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda and the Wahabis, because they are two different kinds of fundamentalism.

The Generalitat took a survey about the values of Catalans and especially Catalan young people (ages 18-29) in 2000 and have just gotten around to publicizing it. Only 5.7% of Catalan young people consider themselves to be practicing Catholics. 58.2% consider themselves "nonpracticing" Catholics. The rest, I suppose, are agnostics, atheists, or don't know, don't cares. If this isn't an alarm bell for the Church, I don't know what would be. And check out this table of "basic values"; the percentages are, first, young people who say these things are basic values, and second, all adults.

Value Young people Adults
Family 99% 99%
Friends 97% 88%
Free time 92% 79%
Work 85% 88%
Politics 15% 20%
Religion 10% 33%

This should be another alarm bell. And here comes wake-up call number three: the degree of confidence in the social system. These percentages are of the number of people who trust different influential institutions.

Institution Young people Adults
Educational system 58% 63%
Health care 58% 62%
Catalan parliament 55% 62%
Catalan police 54% 61%
European Union 46% 45%
Spanish police 46% 58%
Spanish parliament 46% 53%
Public administration 41% 41%
UN 41% 36%
Press 40% 40%
NATO 38% 31%
Judicial system 36% 42%
Armed forces 21% 37%
Church 18% 31%

My responses would have been that I trust all of these Spanish institutions to be acting basically honestly and with the public good in mind except for the press and the judicial system, but I only trust the health system, the Spanish Parliament, both police forces, and NATO to act generally competently.

An excellent source of news from Spain, in Spanish, is the online daily newspaper Libertad Digital. It's out of Madrid and has a moderate-conservative leaning. Among its well-known writers are Federico Jiménez Losantos, Amando de Miguel, Carlos Rodríguez Braun, Carlos Alberto Montaner (one of the authors of the Complete Latin American Idiot), Jorge Alcalde, and Andrés Freire. This is a legit, very professionally done site and I should start paying a lot more attention to it. Another source of information that I am going to pay a lot more attention to is the World Press Review Online, which is a wonderful selection of news stories from all around the world, not only America, Spain, and Germany, but also Botswana, Bangladesh, and Bolivia. Fascinating stuff. If you, for some reason, have never been there, you ought to check it out.

Just a trip through a few blogs this afternoon...Amiland has all kinds of good stuff up from Germany. Belligerent Bunny Blog has an updated list of national GDPs per capita, which is very interesting, among bunny photos and weapons info. Cinderella Bloggerfeller has a lot of very erudite stuff--this guy is the best-read blogger there is out there and has a sharp wit as well. Just one thing--change your name, please! The Dissident Frogman has an excellent banner up, as well as commentary from behind the Escargot Curtain. Sasha Castel and Andrew Ian Dodge have gotten married. Opposites must have attracted in this whirlwind courtship, the first blog-marriage I have ever heard of, since operatic Sasha and heavy-metal Andrew seem to have hit it off quite well. Sasha, Sasha, if you had wanted the brilliant and sculpted Jedman, I could have got him for you! Oh, well, your loss. Poor old Jedman does need a girlfriend, though. Hope you females out there think bald guys are cute. Leave flirtatious comments for him here and I'll make sure he gets them. He's actually not a bad-looking guy, in sort of a goofy kind of way.

This crap does actually happen. I've been treated to it more than once in Spain, though never in France or Britain. Most Europeans are basically decent people, and most people in Spain are very nice though they may have political ideas that you would find inane. But it does happen occasionally. Last time it happened to me was about a year ago when a waitress at a neighborhood restaurant started giving me shit after I sent back a salad because it had salsa rosa on it, and I hate salsa rosa. Salsa rosa sucks. It's just mustard and ketchup mixed with a little brandy dumped in. I can't believe people think it's good here. Why would you put that shit on a salad in Spain, the home of extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar? Catalonia's arbequino olives, which come from Remei's area, make terrific olive oil that you can get here for three bucks a liter or so. You can even get varietal vinegars for only a couple of bucks for a liter bottle. They're good. Anyway, the report below is via The Radical.

Monday, February 24, 2003
No Americans Served Here: Rob Nichols, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the US Treasury, was on the Eurostar train from London to Paris when he changed his mind about his breakfast order. Nichol's server first mocked the American's indecision and then refused to provide him with cutlery, stating "Give peace a chance." Nichols was obliged to borrow the Secretary of the Treasury's cutlery. When asked whether Eurostar had extended an apology for its employee's behavior, Nichols replied that no apology had been sought.

There's a fascinating book that's only available in Spanish, as far as I know. It's called the Manual of the Complete Latin American...and Spanish...Idiot and it's by three Latin American liberal journalists and writers named Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, who is Colombian, Carlos Alberto Montaner, who's Cuban, and Álvaro Vargas Llosa, who is Peruvian. One of their chapters is titled "Ten Books that Latin American Idiots Love". (They are by no means calling all Latin Americans and Spaniards idiots, just those that still believe in, like, Socialism and stuff.) This comes up because one Régis Débray wrote a nasty op-ed in the New York Times a couple of days ago in which he said all kinds of nasty stuff about the United States. None of it looked too shocking to me, since I'm used to these Porcel-Solé-Haro Tecglen-Vázquez Montalbán Yankee-bashing frenzies that I have so faithfully informed y'all of. Andrew Sullivan and James Taranto sure thought that Débray's rant was out of line, though, and they took him to task for his revolutionary past; James Lileks took the fiskbroom to him.

Well, Régis Débray wrote a book called Revolution within the Revolution? in 1967, and it is one of the ten best-loved books of the Idiot Left according to Mendoza, Montaner, and Vargas Llosa. Here's their take on it, and him.

In the decade of the sixties, Régis Débray--born in Paris in 1941--was a young French journalist, with a degree in sociology, incredibly mature for his age, seduced by Marxist ideas, and--even more--by the Cuban revolution and the photogenic spectacle of a paradisiac Caribbean island governed by audacious bearded men who were preparing the final assault on the imperialist American fortress.

With good prose and a crazy young head predisposed toward sharp analysis, he was received in Havana with open arms. Cuba was a petri dish of men of action, but there was not an abundance of theoreticians capable of giving meaning to the facts or, simply, thinkers competent enough to justify them reasonably well. Che, for example, had published his famous manual "Guerrilla Warfare" and was preparing to put it in practice on the South American stage, but the battle he was on the point of launching left a dangerous flank open: what was the place of the Communist parties and the traditional Marxist-Leninist organizations? Besides, from a theoretical perspective it was necessary to explain the rupture with the old script written by Marx in the 19th century and finished by Lenin in the 20th. Hadn't we agreed that Communism would come as a consequence of the class struggle, egged on by the revolutionary vanguard of the working class organized by the Communist Party?

This is what Revolution within the Revolution? deals with, not as an abstract intellectual exercise, but as an extremely important revolutionary task, absolutely deliberated, which reveals itself with total candidness in a paragraph which says the following: "When Che Guevara reappears (he had "gotten lost" to prepare the uprising in Bolivia), it would not be too adventurous to affirm that he will be at the front of a guerilla movement as the unchallenged political and military leader". Débray, simply, was one more guerrilla soldier, although his mission was not to ambush enemies but to justify actions, rationalize heresies, write in the newspapers, spread revolutionary theses, and open up a space for the comrades in the First World. He was, in the old language of the Cold War, a fellow traveler, totally consciously, and proud of his work.

He'd had some practice. In 1964, under the pseudonym Francisco Vargas, he published in Paris, in the magazine Révolution, a long article ("A Guerrilla Experience") in which he described his visit to the Venezuelan subversives who were then trying to destroy the incipient democracy resurging in the country since the overthrow of Pérez Jiménez (1958). It was this long text which won him the confidence of Castro, the intellectual author and material accomplice of the Venezuelan guerrillas, to whom he sent not only weapons and money, but even his best-loved disciple: Captain Arnaldo Ochoa, shot by a firing squad many years later in 1989, with the rank of general, after ceasing to be sufficiently loyal to him.

In any case, if Che was about to begin his great (and last) adventure, and if this action would provoke the wrath, the rejection, or the indifference of the local Communist parties, dependent upon Moscow, they had to get ahead of the action with a sort of grammar-book of the Cuban revolution: Revolution within the Revolution? The little Frenchie said three fundamental things for the happiness and benefit of Havana as well as for the greater glory of Che: in the first he advised that revolutions in Latin America must emerge from a rural military base which, in its moment, will give birth to a political vanguard. This thesis is referred to as "focusism". In the second he affirms that, when the order of factors is inverted--creating the political vanguard first and then trying to create the "focus" of insurrection--the political organization becomes an end in itself and never manages to forge an armed struggle. With the third, he signals the enemy to be defeated: Yankee imperialism and its local henchmen.

This gibberish--a true conceptual amplification of Guevara's manual--didn't do him much good. A patrol of badly armed Indians shot down the pompous theory of "focusism". Débray was captured by the Bolivian Army after a visit to the guerrillas organized by Guevara and was tried for armed rebellion, despite his protests of innocence based on his journalistic alibi. He admitted, nonetheless, having kept watch a few nights, denied ever having fired at anyone, and asked for the procedural guarantees which he certainly never defended for his hated bourgeois enemies. Fortunately, his captors didn't mistreat him beyond slapping him around a few times, and due to international pressure, after a few months he was released despite the long sentence that he had been given. After his return to Paris he underwent a slow, gradual evolution and, much to his regret, became profoundly hated and held in contempt by his Cuban friends. Débray had learned that within the revolution there was not another revolution, but an immense and bloody lie that led to the deaths of thousands of dreamy adolescents in love with political violence.

By the way, the authors' list of the Ten Books Loved by Idiots consists of:

10. History Will Absolve Me, Fidel Castro, 1953.
9. The Damned of the Earth, Frantz Fanon, 1961.
8. Guerrilla Warfare, Che Guevara, 1960.
7. Revolution..., Débray, 1967.
6. The Elemental Concepts of Historical Materialism, Marta Harnecker, 1969.
5. The One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse, 1964.
4. How To Read Donald Duck, Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, 1972.
3. Dependence and Development in Latin America, F.H. Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, 1969.
2. Toward a Liberation Theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez, 1971.
1. The Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano, 1971. The authors call this "The Idiot's Bible" and devote a whole chapter to fisking some of its most ridiculous assertions.

I was looking around in the Internet Public Library when I found this little 1830s manual titled The Young Man's Guide by Wm. A. Alcott. Mr. Alcott warns young men luridly about the dangers of going to the theater and playing cards and the like, and he points out that spitting on the street is "common", but he reserves his heavy artillery for, you guessed it...

Neither resort to solitary vice. If this practice should not injure your system immediately, it will in the end. I am sorry to be obliged to advert to this subject; but I know there is occasion. Youth, especially those who lead a confined life, seek occasional excitement. Such sometimes resort to this lowest, -- I may say most destructive of practices. Such is the constitution of things, as the Author of Nature has established it, that if every other vicious act were to escape its merited punishment in this world, the one in question could not. Whatever its votaries may think, it never fails, in a single instance, to inure them, personally; and consequently their posterity, should any succeed them.
It is not indeed true that the foregoing vices do of themselvees, produce all this mischief directly; but as Dr. Paley has well said, criminal intercourse 'corrupts and depraves the mind more than any single vice whatsoever.' It gradually benumbs the conscience, and leads on, step by step, to those blacker vices at which the youth once would have shuddered.
But debasing as this vice is, it is scarcely more so than solitary gratification. The former is not always at hand; is attended, it may be, with expense; and with more or less danger of exposure. But the latter is practicable whenever temptation or rather imagination solicits, and appears to the morbid eye of sense, to be attended with not hazard. Alas! what a sad mistake is made here! It is a fact well established by medical men, that every error on this point is injurious; and that the constitution is often more surely or more effectively impaired by causes which do not appear to injure it in the least, than by occasional and heavier shocks, which rouse it to a reaction. The one case may be compared to daily tippling, the other to those periodical drunken follies, which, having an interval of weeks or months between them, give the system time to recover, in part, (but in part only) from the violence it had sustained.
I wish to put the younger portion of my readers upon their guard against a set of wretches who take pains to initiate youth, while yet almost children, into the practice of the vice to which I have here adverted. Domestics -- where the young are too familiar with them -- have been known to be thus ungrateful to their employers. There are, however, people of several classes, who do not hesitate to mislead, in this manner.
But the misfortune is, that this book will not be apt to fall into the hands of those to whom these remarks apply, till the ruinous habit is already formed. And then it is that counsel sometimes comes too late. Should these pages meet the eye of any who have been misled, let them remember that they have begun a career which multitudes repent bitterly; and from which few are apt to return. But there have been instances of reform; therefore none ought to despair. 'What man has done, man may do.'
They should first set before their minds the nature of the practice, and the evils to which it exposes. But here comes the difficulty. What are its legitimate evils? They know indeed that the written laws of God condemn it; but the punishment which those laws threaten, appears to be remote and uncertain. Or if not, they are apt to regard it as the punishment of excess, merely. They, prudent souls, would not, for the world, plunge into excess. Besides, 'they injure none but themselves.' they tell us.
Would it were true that they injured none but themselves! Would there wer not generations yet unborn to suffer by inheriting feeble constitutions, or actual disease, from their progenitors!
Suppose, however, they really injured nobody by themselves. Have they a right to do even this? They will not maintain, for one moment, that they have a right to take away their own life. But what right, then, to they allow themselves to shorten it, or diminish its happiness while it lasts?
Here the questions recurs again: Does solitary gratification actually shorten life, or diminish its happiness?
The very fact that the laws of God forbid it, is an affirmative answer to this question. For nothing is more obvious than that all other vices which that law condemns, stand in the way of our present happiness, as well as the happines of futurity. Is this alone an exception to the general rule?
But I need not make my appeal to this kind of authority. You rely on human testimony. You believe a thousand things which yourselves never saw or heard. Why do you believe them, except upon testimony -- I mean given either verbally, or, what is the same thing, in books?
Now if the accumulated testimony of medical writers from the days of Galen, and Celsus, and Hippocrates, to the present hour, could have any weight with you, it would settle the point at once. I have collected, briefly, the results of medical testimony on this subject, in the next chapter; but if you will take my statements for the present, I will assure you that I have before me documents enough to fill half a volume like this, form those who have studied deeply these subjects, whose united language is, that the practice in question, indulged in any degree, is destructive to body and mind; and that although in vigorous young men, no striking evil may for some time appear, yet the punishment can no more be evaded, except by early death, than the motion of the arth can be hindered. And all this, too, without taking into consideration the terrors of judgments to come.
But why, then, some may ask, are animal propensities given us, if they are not to be indulged? The appropriate reply is, they are to be indulged; but it is only in accordance with the laws of God; never otherwise. And the wisdom of these laws, did they not rest on other and better proof, is amply confirmed by that great body of medical experience already mentioned. God has delegated to man, a sort of subcreative power to perpetuate his own race. Such a wonderful work required a wonderful apparatus. And such is furnished. The texture of organs for this purpose is of the most tender and delicate kind, scarcely equalled by that of the eye, and quite as readily injured; and this fact ought to be known, and considered. But instead of leaving to human choice or caprice the execution of the power thus delegated, the great Creator has made it a matter of duty; and has connected with the lawful discharge of that duty, as with all others, enjoyment. But when this enjoyment is sought in any way, not in accordance with the laws prescribed by reason and revelation, we diminish (whatever giddy youth may suppose, ) the sum total of our own happiness. Now this is not the cold speculation of age, or monkish austerity. It is a sober matter of fact.

Really, there's very little far-right opinion in Spain. There are no far-right political parties, unless you consider the national socialists in ETA to be far-right; I'd just call them far-out. The only far-right talk you'll hear, unless it's immigrant-bashing, which you can find anywhere, is in crummy bars whose aging patrons start knocking off chatos of wine long before lunchtime. These guys never had too many neurons anyway and the ones they've got left are pretty much frazzled.

This puts the lie to what I call the P.J. O'Rourke Fallacy. According to the O'Rourke Fallacy, in order to find out what is really happening in a country, you have to take a tour of the local bars. In my experience, though, the people you meet hanging out in bars--and I've hung out in bars, fairly assiduously, in five countries--tend to be drunks. Drunks may be many things, including, famously, honest, but they do not tend to be well-informed, nor are they highly efficient at processing the little information they have. In fact, they are almost certainly the last people you'd ask about anything if you wanted an intelligent answer to a serious question. You'd do much better inviting yourself to a Rotary Club lunch meeting if you want to meet locals. Or chat up a librarian. They tend to be well-read and know some English, and they're easily found at public libraries. There is, by the way John's Corollary to the O'Rourke Fallacy: The more time you spend hanging out in bars, the more likely you are to get fuddled and woozy and take poor notes.

I just heard a country song with the line, "I was drunk the day my ma got out of prison". And now they're playing a live version of "Okie from Muskogee". Cool.

Manuel Trallero is a rather ironic fellow whom I often disagree with--he does a good bit of America-bashing--but who can't stand the current Catalan government, either. Here's his bit in today's Vanguardia about Convergence and Union "conseller en cap" Artur Mas and the reprehensible proposal on immigration that he made in Quebec the other day. I'll let Trallero explain it.

Artur Mas, on his recent trip to Canada, requested the power to stamp the seal of approval on immigrants' papers, and that they then go to the window that says "Spain" to take care of the rest. The conseller en cap wants them with their Spanish and Catalan well-learned. I really don't think that's too much to ask. I think they should arrive already knowing "El virolai" by heart, eating "mongetes amb botifarra", playing dominoes, knowing what a caganer is, and being able to identify the Barça forward line that one season won the Five Cups. Dancing sardanas, giving a rose and a book on St. Jordi's Day, and watching Buenafuente's TV program get a better score.

We want hand-picked immigrants, nice and showered, and if possible baptized and converted to the true faith that created Europe. It doesn't matter if their names are Mohammed and Fatima as long as their children are named Jordi and Montse. From what we've seen, this and only this is what so-called integration consists of. This is a policy that has had wonderful results in the Francophone province of Canada. Thanks to the vote of the immigrants--to their vote against, of course--Quebec has lost one after another the successive referendums for independence. So, it seems, we Catalans, as usual, do it our way and fail again.

It is, without a doubt, a great achievement that, to carry out such a selection, Catalonia will have its own foreign representatives. And it's an even greater achievement, if that's possible, to have named the same gentleman who left the Republican Left with the contents of the strongbox to found another party, the PI, which he abandoned after an unprecented electoral disaster, to reappear now in a third, Convergence and Union, to become nothing more and nothing less than our man in Morocco. It is at the very least curious that those who wish to enjoy the alleged benefits of the Catalan dream may come to think that all of us Catalans are like Mr. Ángel Colom, a real example for children.

To sum up, we want immigrants who are perfect to preserve our national identity, when, precisely, Catalonia's national identity has consisted of "I tripped and fell here, I guess I'll stay here", as far as the 21st century, which is not just turkey snot. But what does not seem fine to me is that only immigrants have to be perfect, and the rest of the citizens, what about them? So, therefore, I'm anxiously awaiting the day that our authorities pass out certificates of perfect Catalanity, just like you used to have to get a certificate of good conduct in order to get a passport or a drivers' license. They'll probably make me repeat the course in September.

Someone mentioned my Catalan wife. See, my wife is a Catalan girl from the country. She laughs at the idea of anyone handing out certificates of Catalanity because no one could possibly deny her one. She doesn't think Barcelona is a really Catalan city; Catalan people, to her, are from the country and the small towns. She is always polite, but she snickers behind their backs at people who always go around trying to prove they're more Catalan than you. Those people, you see, all have a Castilian surname sometime in their recent genealogy. She doesn't. She's got nothing to prove to anybody. Also, here in Barcelona, a lot of people don't understand country Catalan. What they speak here is an either an educated, artificial "RP Catalan" dialect, like the one they use on TV Catalunya--Remei's friend Gemma, for example, uses that dialect--or a popular dialect heavily influenced in vocabulary and pronunciation by Spanish.

Watching Remei interact with other people in Barcelona is interesting. (In the country, she just uses Catalan.) When we go into a shop, there's always a little bit of feeling the other person out. If the other person seems to be a natural Catalan speaker, Remei instantly goes into country Catalan and you can see the other person's eyes light up a little--"One of us!" If the other person uses Spanish or not-very-good Catalan, she seamlessly flows into Spanish. I am convinced she doesn't do this consciously. I know she doesn't discriminate either, but I note we return to places where they speak Catalan--the basket shop down by the market, the bathroom fittings shop on Providencia, the lighting shop up on the Travessera de Dalt.

One important thing is that country people in Catalonia are pretty much the same as country people anywhere else in northeastern and north central Spain, as in Aragon or Old Castile or Navarra. They just speak a different language, but they think in similar ways--except politically--and they do similar things and live in a similar way. The food is a little different, OK, but that's about it. They're more like one another than either is like the country people of Andalusia to the south or the country people of France to the north. It's the city people, the "we've gotta-prove-we're more-Catalan-than-you" folks, who seize on minor or even invented regional customs (dancing sardanas, building human towers, holding correfocs) and regional foods (escudella i carn d'olla, tomato bread, all i oli, calçots) and declare them the heart and soul of Catalanity. Country people blow all that stuff off (except for the food) and watch the Barça and Spanish TV variety shows while listening to Spanish and international pop music.

Country people even have insulting names for Barcelona people; they are "quemacus", because they always say "Que maco!" (Wow, that's beautiful") when shown something countryish like, say, a field, or they are "pixapins" (pine-pissers), because they stop their cars by the side of the road to take a leak. Barcelona is "Can Fanga", "Mudville". I occasionally refer to Barcelona as Mudville on this blog; that's why. Girona, by the way, is "Can Fums", "Smoketown". Hey, Jesús Gil, next time Barça comes to play in Atlético's stadium, you guys ought to make a big banner telling the Barça players to go back to Can Fanga. Rhyme it with "pachanga". That would "meter un gol a" the Barça fans, since that's a name used only in rural Catalonia. The players wouldn't get it because they're all from Holland and Argentina.

The Vanguardia is reporting that Colin Powell says the war is going to begin "shortly after" the next UN inspectors' report on March 7. They also say the Pentagon wants to attack during the new moon, which will be March 3-11; that fits with shortly after March 7, and that the Americans want to attack before the Iraqi desert starts heating up in April. That all makes sense, at least to me. Anyway, Powell is in Peking trying to bring the Chinese around. Aznar has apparently been given the mission of trying to bring around some of the Arab countries; he called up Qaddafi, of all people, and he's going to talk to the kings of Morocco and Jordan in an effort to gain their support. The king of Spain might get to do something useful here; the Spanish and Jordanian royal families are known to get on well. Our king has no power but theirs does, and if Juanca can actually influence Abdullah, he'll have earned his salary this year.

The EU foreign ministers are meeting today in Brussels. Aznar is going to talk to Chirac on Wednesday; Chirac will be back from his visit to Schröder by then. The Americans will be leaning on Security Council members Angola, Cameroon, and Guinea, whose votes are more or less openly for sale; Pakistan, who will find it very difficult to do more than abstain in the face of a pro-Iraqi public opinion; and Chile and Mexico, both of whom would probably like to vote with the Americans but are afraid their voters will interpret it as selling out to the gringos. There is considerably more anti-American feeling in Mexico than in Chile; on his way to see Bush in Texas over the weekend, Aznar stopped off to see Vicente Fox in Mexico. I have no idea how much good that did. Syria is out of the question; they're not even bothering to try.

The rumor is out that the US, the UK, Spain, and Italy will co-sponsor a second UN resolution this week on the use of force against Iraq. I'm not sure why the Vanguardia says Italy, since they're not on the Security Council. Bulgaria is on the Security Council and is the fourth sure vote the Alliance has. Chile is a likely five. The three African votes make eight. Mexico and Pakistan both look like pretty tough nuts to crack for a yes vote. French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin is now saying that he sees no reason for a second resolution and that UN inspections should continue. Hans Blix, meanwhile, said that "Iraq has no credibility, and if they ever had any they lost it in 1991". Blix, working for the supposedly neutral UN and a native of historically neutral country Sweden, seems more put out by Saddam than do Chirac and Schröder, leaders of former US allies.

The Vangua is trying to float the rumor that Bush is mongering war so he can get reelected. Let's see, first it was the oil, then it was the water, then it was the media, then it was testing out the weapons for the arms manufacturers, and now it's getting reelected. Any other ulterior motives out there for grabbing Saddam and hanging him off a lamppost? Oh, yeah, could be because Bush knows Saddam is a threat to peace and stability and has to go somewhere, either into exile on the French Riviera next door to Baby Doc Duvalier or, preferably, straight to hell. Naah, that's too obvious. Can't possibly be true. There's gotta be a conspiracy somewhere, and if we can't find one we'll just make it up.

How many conspiracy theorists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Fnord.

They gave Pedro Almodóvar another award, this time in England. Mr. Mushroom Hair took advantage of the occasion to say something monumentally goofy that nobody understood and which he failed to explain. It was something about America being a dark force. I think somebody ought to take a two-by-four to Mr. Almodóvar. Oh, I don't mean beat him half to death, just smack him across the butt a couple of times. Even better, we could hold him down and shave his head. Serious violence is reserved for Chevy Chase. God, I hate Chevy Chase. Even more than I hate Joe Piscopo.

Anecdote: the Vanguardia reporter on the way to Bush's ranch saw what she thought was the "first and only antiwar demonstrator in Texas" holding up a hand-lettered sign. Nope. It was a high school kid advertising a bake sale. Anyway, Aznar and Bush were all, like, friendly and stuff. Bush treated José María to a few hugs and pats on the back and the editorial page says, you know, maybe it's not a bad idea for Spain to be friendly to America.

Tony Blair went to Rome, where he had a very nice audience with the Pope and then met with the people running the Vatican, Secretary of State Angelo Sodano and "Foreign Affairs minister" Jean-Louis Taurin. They told him that going to war with Saddam would be inhumanitarian because it would just make the situation "caused by the embargo" worse. I figure that if we can take out Saddam and his regime fairly cleanly and bloodlessly, which I think we can do, Iraq will instantly be flooded with humanitarian aid from all sides and the embargo will instantly stopped. Then the Iraqis can sell their oil and, like, invest the profits in fixing the country instead of building massive palaces and nasty weapons for a murderous thug. The Vangua is floating the rumor that Blair plans to convert to Catholicism after his mandate as P.M. is over

Comparing Saddam to Hitler is not fair. Hitler was much weirder. Saddam is a good old Timur or Genghis Khan-style Central Asian tribal gangster, and he's got a certain amount of Stalin in him as well. Do not expect this guy to go gently into that good night.

The Vangua's weekly alleged humor section today features a cartoon genealogy of President Bush; he's descended from one "Monkey Fitzgerald Bush", whose daughter "Lucy" mated with a donkey and gave rise to the Bush family we know. It's interesting how we tend to portray those we despise as subhuman. Der Stürmer used to do that a lot.

Things are getting unpleasant in the Basque Country. The closed-down newspaper accused of being an ETA front, "Egunkaria", is pulling the same stunt these people always pull when declared illegal; they've changed the name to "Egunero" and it's business as usual. They got about 50,000 ETA sympathizers out on the streets of San Sebastián to demonstrate against government repression; these people are from the ETA front party Herri Batasuna, the Basque nationalist party PNV, and the Communists. Cataloonies Esquerra Republicana are backing Egunwhatever, as is the Cataloony wing of Convergence and Union. International imbecile José Bové showed up at the demo in Bilbao. The Socialists are supporting the PP government for now. The PP have offered to combine with the Socialists and run a joint anti-ETA candidacy in the next Basque elections. The Socialists are saying no so far. Wait till ETA knocks a few more of them off--or don't they remember ex-Socialist minister, Ernest Lluch, a naive pro-dialogue appeaser peacenik, a "useful idiot" if there ever was one (don't get us wrong, he was a good and decent man, but not the brightest), whom ETA shot in the head right here in Barcelona? Or any more of ETA's more than 800 victims?

Twisted evil PNV president Xabier Arzalluz accused the PP of having, you guessed it, a conspiracy in mind. Seems that what they want to do is not close down a newspaper spewing ETA propaganda and operating as an ETA front, which is illegal in Spain. Spewing ETA propaganda, that is. (Note: the same thing would be illegal in the US. If somebody was putting out the Osama Daily News in the US, I guarantee they'd use something, probably the RICO law, to nail the bastards.) No, their sinister plot is to cause so much social disturbance that the next regional elections will have to be suspended. Yeah, right. Dirtbag ETA cop-killer Mikel Otegi and another ETA member have been busted by the French police. Otegi had been acquitted back in 1995 of the double murder of two Ertzaintzas (regional cops) whom he shot with his shotgun. No question about that. A jury let him off, though, because he was drunk and therefore not in control of his actions. Yep. They really did. He took off before they could find something else to arrest him for; now they want to retry him for that double murder on the grounds that a jury was improcedural for a case of terrorism, which should be heard before the Audiencia Nacional.

There's a Naomi Klein full-page op-ed in today's Vangua. Seems we're trying to overthrow democratically-elected Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and we're manipulating the Venezuelan media so we can get the oil. Very unimaginative, Naomi. There are much, much more creative conspiracy theories out there.

At the Césars, the French Oscars, Pedro Almodóvar won best European film. In his speech, he said, "I'm proud to be European in a European country where I don't have to speak out against the war, because its president already has." Gee, Pedro, since you're so happy to be in such a country, why don't you stay home from the Academy Awards in protest? Since the Oscar is manifestly not an award given out by unbiased judges, I don't see why they shouldn't bias their votes against Mr. Poofy Hair. I would if I had a vote. The guy looks like a goddamn mushroom with that pile of brush sticking up off the top of his fat face. Michael Moore also missed a good chance to shut up. In fact, he gets a coveted Iberian Notes Oscar, named after Oscar, my cat, who bites my hands--the hands that feed him--for saying, "I'm part of a majority of Americans who didn't vote for Bush, are therefore the victims of a coup d'etat, and want peace." Coup d'etat, huh, Mickey? So you're calling your country undemocratic and its government illegitimate? Them's pretty strong words, there.

People Who Infuriate Me So Much I'd Like to Stomp Their Faces In:

Michael Moore. Al Franken. Chevy Chase. That's about it. See, I'm calming down. The pills are kicking in. Oh, yeah, Martin Short, just because I hate his guts. And Pee-Wee Herman, on general principles. Give me a shot at only one and I'll pick Chevy Chase. Remember when Bruce Willis goes back and saves his hated and feared enemy, Marcellus Wallace, from the murderous redneck rapists? I'd like to think that I'd be brave enough to similarly step in for someone in that position, anyone at all. Except for Chevy Chase. Hell, I'd demand a chance to take my turn if I had that kind of shot at Chevy Chase.

The International Brigadists in Baghdad are coming home, split. They were given the Saddam tour of Baghdad, which some called "deplorable and pathetic" and seem to have figured out that, as one asks himself, "Is being against the intervention in Iraq being in favor of the regime?" Others responded that Iraq was under "foreign military oppression" and that those with questioning minds "didn't understand anything". Says one pacifist, "There's an abyss between us" and "(Future human shields) should decide now what their line will be in this city of palaces and poverty." Sounds like at least some of the Brigadists have a brain in there somewhere.

Good Lord, the Barça's on a tear. I was waiting until I felt I had grounds for either optimism or pessimism before commenting in detail about the "new" FC Barcelona squad under coach Radomir Antic. Well, last weekend Barça beat Español in Español's home ground, the Estadio Olímpico, then on Tuesday they shellacked Inter Milan 3-0, and last night they whupped Betis in the Camp Nou, 4-0.

Is this just a flash in the pan or does it mean something? I think it means something. I think for the rest of the season we are going to see a Barça that will play up to its ability, which might even get them fourth place and will almost certainly get them sixth. Antic is running a tough-defense, physically-fit squad whose morale is up with three straight wins and the defenestration of Van Gaal. He's using a conservative, standard 4-4-2 alignment which, horrors, uses the stale old kick-and-rush! Passes the ball down the side and centers to somebody's head! Looks to catch the defense out of position on the counterattack! Practices strategy plays off corners and free kicks, since that's how most goals are scored! Shocking!

There are certain nutcases prominent in the Barcelona sports press who think that the Barça is above this kind of proletarian play, this grind-it-out Steel Curtain four-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust take-it-to-'em stuff. They want pretty-boy Dan Marino crap, clever passes and flashy plays, like they had back when Johan Cruyff was coaching Romario and Laudrup and Pep Guardiola. They're going to have to settle for some Jack Lambert and Mean Joe Greene kick-'em-when they're-up kick-'em-when-they're-down English-midtable-style football, with Saviola as the fast little goalscorer and Kluivert as the big oaf.

Here's what we've seen so far. Bonano, in goal, hasn't given up a goal in his last three games. The defense of Reiziger, in his natural position on the right, Puyol and Frank de Boer playing zone in the center, and Sorín on the left, is much solider than the risky three-man defense that Van Gaal was running. Reiziger and De Boer both look a hell of a lot better as part of a line of four rather than a line of three. They're not good enough to stop the opponent with only three of them back, but they do just fine with four. This guy Sorín is a pretty good player. Antic has been using the two outside defenders to mark the two guys he thinks are most dangerous, so against Betis they slapped Sorín on Joaquín and Reiziger on Denilson. It worked. Those guys were completely anulled. Cocu is not the factor he used to be but he's steady enough as a defense-oriented midfielder, and if he's turned loose he can score. Xavi has been allowed to move up as far as he wants, which puts him right behind the two forwards, big oaf Kluivert and Saviola. Saviola is on a roll, with a hat trick against Betis and two more against Inter; he's a pesky, fast little guy, the sort of guy who'd be a leadoff hitter in baseball. The wing positions are still up for grabs; Overmars was injured against Betis, so he'll be out for a while. Mendieta is looking a lot better than he was looking a couple of weeks ago. Luis Enrique is back, though I wouldn't use him to play a full game yet; I'd start him and then sub him with Motta when he gets tired. Rochemback, Gerard, and Gabri are the guys on the bench. I'd like to see them try replacing Frank de Boer with Gerard; the few times Gerard has played defense he's done well.

Barça is not going to win the League. It'll be very lucky if it finishes fourth, but I now firmly believe that sixth place in the League and the corresponding UEFA Cup slot are a legitimate possibility. They're not going to win every game, but they just might win two-thirds of them, in what's left of the League. There is still some time yet in which to make up ground, especially on Betis, Celta, and Real Sociedad, which is beginning to feel the heat and will be caught soon by either Madrid or Valencia or both. As for the Spanish Cup, they're eliminated, which is too bad, because Barca managed to redeem its two previous worst League seasons ever by winning the Cup in both years. (I distinctly remember watching the Cup Final in April 1988 on TV in a bar in Soria. Barcelona beat Real Sociedad, the Bakero and Beguiristain Real Sociedad, and salvaged a horrible season in which, of all people, Luis Aragonés took over as coach partway through.) And as for the Champions' League, it's not unthinkable. Barça will certainly make it through the second group and then will be in the quarterfinals with seven other teams. In a head-to-head competition like that, whoever's on a hot streak has an excellent chance of winning the whole thing, though the other teams are going to be tough; they're likely to be Man U, Milan, Inter, Juventus, Valencia, and two of this group: Roma, Arsenal, Ajax. No soft touches here.

Just in case you're interested, here's the CNN transcript of the press conference George W. Bush and José María Aznar gave yesterday at Crawford, Texas, after their discussions. Bush mentions that they set up a four-way conference call with Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi. Despite contrary reports and mild waffling after last weekend's demos, these four leaders are all on board together.

I'm still looking for a transcript of what Pedro Almodóvar and Carme Sansa said at last weekend's anti-American demonstrations in Madrid and Barcelona, respectively. I simply cannot find it through searching Google or the Spanish newspapers. If you can find it, please let me know.

Hero Bird Who Fought to Save Kindly Owner Convicts His Killer

Quite a story here. I wonder if my cats would do that for me if somebody broke in. Probably not. Oscar, Bart, and Lisa have always been apartment cats and are afraid of anything that's not one of their people. They would cower Frenchly under the bed.

In case y'all were wondering what Nostradamus had to say about Saddam or Sudan or whatever his name is, click here for the full story. Here's a piece from the National Review that explains in simple language even I can understand why the United States isn't going into Iraq for the oil. Let me clear up something. Currently several companies, including French and Russians, have contracts with Iraq to exploit their deposits. My understanding is that they provide the technology for getting the oil and the personnel to run that technology, but that the oil itself belongs to Iraq until it is sold on the world market.

I assume you've heard that there was a fire at a Rhode Island heavy metal bar where Great White was playing. (The band's own website is down. Their Capitol Records website is up. Turn on your audio and you can hear "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", which is their only song I remember, though I know they were around before that.) They were an up-and-coming L.A. band when I was in high school--one of those Quiet Riot-type hair-and-spandex bands that died out in the late '80s and were permanently killed by grunge and rap. Check out the Capitol website--they look like a real-life Spinal Tap, and check out their lyrics, which are incredibly dumb. Anyway, they were playing a gig at a 300-capacity venue in a redneck Rhode Island town. They kicked off their first song, and either those idiots or the moron club owner set off a bunch of pyrotechnics and the place just went up. At least 54 people are known dead and that's not all it's going to be. They all headed for the front door and ignored the other three exits, which were open. Damned shame. This is probably one of those things that happens once and then, because everyone sees that it was stupid to allow this to go on in the first place, never happens again. (Examples: "festival seating" after the Who concert where those people got crushed; excessive drinking in sports stadiums.) I guarantee you that, instantly, pyrotechnics will be prohibited indoors, and every building inspector in the goddamned country is going to inspect every nightclub in the country tomorrow.