Sports Update: Valencia schooled Barcelona on Sunday night, 0-1, in the Camp Nou. Oliviera, Valencia's hot young forward, scored the only goal, bloasting a shot from outside the area that left Barca goalie Victor Valdes clavado. As usual Valencia played an excellent game strategically, led by the devastating pair of midfielders Baraja and Albelda, and deserved to win against a poor Barca squad. Xavi, who was supposed to replace Guardiola, is demonstrating that he's not that good and should maybe be playing for Sevilla or Celta or Malaga. Bring on Iniesta! He's Xavi's heir apparent and probably a better player. Gerard, his extremely overpaid partner on the pivot, is demonstrating that his one good season (with Valencia, of all teams) was a flash in the pan. Kluivert couldn't score with a tanked-up fat chick wearing a tube top in Bobby Baker's Lounge on Wornall Road in Kansas City at two-thirty AM on a Saturday night, much less actually put the ball in the goal. I'm worried that Marquez isn't as good as he was cracked up to be and that this may be why he doesn't play much. They also spent some dough to bring in Turkish international goalkeeper Rustu, who isn't playing at all. Quaresma isn't getting much playing time. Overmars is. Saviola isn't. Kluivert is. Ronaldinho plays every game but sometimes Rijkaard sticks him in weird positions like left wing, when he should be playing right behind the center-forwards and occasionally switch places with them just to confuse the defense. Rule Number One: Play the guy at the position you spent millions of Euros for him to play at. Do not move him around in order to somehow shoehorn Luis Enrique into the lineup. Anyway, give Valencia credit for beating, consecutively, Real Madrid and Barcelona in successive weeks of the season. Meanwhile, Barca's next game is against those damn Slovaks as part of the UEFA Cup playoffs.

Go Chiefs, as they hold Denver to 23 points. They'd have held them to about 42 with last year's defense. Denver put up a fight against KC's offense and actually managed to hold them to 17, but Dante Hall, of course, ran back another punt with nine minutes left in the fourth and the Chiefs win 24-23. The Chiefs are five-and-oh, something they've never done, and you have to figure them for a lock on the playoffs if they manage to go, say, 5-6 the rest of the season for a 10-6 record. They don't have any particularly difficult games coming up, so I don't see why they shouldn't do very well over the rest of the season, going maybe 7-4 for a final record of 12-4, enough for a bye in the playoffs. Well, there is one reason: Trent Green is receiving a good bit of criticism for being the weak link in the offensive machine. He is playing acceptably at best. He needs to start playing better or, if I were Dick Vermeil, I would begin scouting quarterbacks for the 2004 draft. Still, you can't give the Trentino too much grief, he has won every game he's quarterbacked so far this season.

Good thing I'm not a gambler; the line was something like Chiefs plus three and a half. The game wound up Chiefs plus one, so if you bet on KC you lost. The Chiefs didn't win by enough points.

As for Dante Hall, all I can say is they're going to start kicking so far away from him that he's not going to get anywhere near the ball. This will mean a lot of balls go out of bounds, normally netting the Chiefs decent field position.

Well, the Israelis hit back hard this time, bombing a terrorist training camp in Syria. The Vangua is screaming that this is a "flagrant violation of international law". It may be, I don't know, but international law is only applicable when the state it applies to gives its consent voluntarily or is forced to consent through war or other threats. Seems to me that the original violation of the norms of decency, the original casus belli, was Syria's allowing terrorists to set up training camps in Syrian territory. You're not allowed to do that anymore.

See, in the old days, back when there was a Soviet Union, we couldn't go around attacking Syria whenever they deserve it, which is frequently. The Sovs would have rattled their nuclear football at the first sight of a F-15 and we'd have backed down. Now there are no Sovs to rattle anything. This leads to the question of how far sovereignty goes.

Well, sovereignty realistically belongs to he who can proclaim it and defend it. In effect, that means countries with nuclear weapons; those states are effectively free from attack or invasion. If your country is forced to make policy by external pressure, then you're not really sovereign, and if you can't defend yourself against anyone who threatens your sovereignty, you're not really sovereign, either.

Since all countries are equal but some countries are a hell of a lot more equal than others, the ten or fifteen states that are really sovereign effectively dominate all the others, to a greater or lesser degree. Up until now we have paid lip service to an absolute right to sovereignty while really violating many other countries' self-government. Now it's time we started to say, "Look, we'll respect your right to self-determination as long as you're not promoting violence inside or outside your country. If you're doing that, we can stop you." That's what we saw happening in the Yugoslav Wars, we saw it with Afghanistan and Iraq, and we're seeing it in West Africa (and we're going to see a lot more of it from there).

The Israeli attack on Syria is saying "You do not have the right to harbor individuals and groups who are committing or planning violence against us." All I can say is: absolutely right.

La Vanguardia continues to be meek and mild as a newborn lamb. There was nothing even slightly offensive except for the continued presence of plagiarists Serra and Ramos on their payroll. It looks to me as such non-idiotarian regular writers as Nadal, Castells, Alvaro, and Hernandez Puertolas have gotten together with the few anti-idiotarians (Monzo, Sala i Martin) and said, "Look, this America-bashing crap is not serious and unworthy of a newspaper with any sort of reputation to uphold. And let Porcel write his soul-of-the-Mediterranean literary crap without getting into any subject he doesn't know anything about, which is everything but said soul-of-the Mediterranean literary crap."

They're giving a lot of space to Convergence and Union's Artur Mas and the Socialists' Pasqual Maragall, who had a head-to-head debate in the Vangua's offices which they are publishing complete, several pages a day. Damn, is it ever boring. The deal is this. Maragall is going wild, flailing out of control, saying whatever comes into his mind. Mas is a lightweight, confining himself to saying what his advisers tell him to. Convergence and Union, however, is generally not an offensive political party, though it has an occasional Cataloony knee-jerk reaction to words like "asymmetrical federalism" and "self-autonomous self-determination" and "goddamn Andalusians". I have only three problems with them, the aforesaid occasional Cataloony brain spasms, the way they pass out as much pork as they can in the small towns and rural areas they control (of course, the Socialists portion out the pork from the many municipal governments they control, including the biggest, Barcelona, Hospitalet, Badalona, Sabadell, Santa Coloma...) and the fact that they never come anywhere near balancing the Generalitat's budget. (The Generalitat is, of course, Catalonia's autonomous regional government. The literal translation would be "autonomous community".) The Socialists talk a lot bigger than they act but they're not really all that bad if you don't mind a little corruption, not that you wouldn't get the same with any Spanish political party. The problem with them is that they'd be likely to make a post-election alliance with the Communists and the Republican Left (both of whom are undesirables), like the one that's currently governing Barcelona.

So Catalan regional elections are coming up on November 16, and as usual the only parties who will win seats are the Socialists, Initiative (Communists) and the Republican Left on the left and Convergence and Union and the People's Party on the right. The question is whether Socialist former BCN mayor Pasqual Maragall will beat Convergence's Artur Mas, the heir to the Generalitat's only prime minister ever, Jordi Pujol. Though Catalonia is a Socialist stronghold--in the general and municipal elections the Socialists get by far the most votes, and in regional elections Convergence only wins because rural areas' representation in the Catalan parliament is overly weighted--the Socialists have never held the regional government.

This is because you only get to vote for three things in Spain, if you discount the widely-held-useless European elections. Every four years municipal elections are held in every municipality in Spain. You vote for the party whose list of candidates you prefer. Around here turnout is pretty good and leftist parties tend to do well in urban areas while Convergence does best in small towns and rural areas. Those already happened back in May, we can forget about them. Then we have regional elections, and those are coming up Nov. 16 here in Catalonia. Turnout is not so high for these, especially leftist non-Catalanist turnout, and nationalist parties, Convergence and the Republican Left, tend to do comparatively better than the non-nationalist parties. Then we have general elections, for which campaigning has effectively already begun; they are to be held in March. Here the nationalist parties turn out to do worse than the nationally-based parties, the conservative People's Party and the Socialists. The turnout is the highest for any of the three types of elections.

I still think that if I were the PP I'd call surprise snap general elections to coincide with the Catalan regional elections on Nov. 16. All the polls--the Periodico had one yesterday--give Rajoy a seven- or eight-point lead over Zap in the generals. Rajoy's press honeymoon is still going full swing. Zap is an extremely weak Socialist standard-bearer. Cash in those votes while you've got 'em. A coincidence with the Catalan regionals would benefit the PP (because the voters who came out for Rajoy would also vote PP in the regionals), benefit CiU (because the voters who came out for Mas would also vote CiU in the generals, both benefit and hurt the Socialists (benefit= voter turnout for Maragall would also vote for Zap in the generals, damage=voter turnout against Zap likely to vote against Maragall too), and hurt the smaller parties badly (people don't vote for Initiative or the Republican Left in the generals, and that'll lead them to vote for one of the bigger parties as well as in the regionals). Does that make any sense?

Since I support the PP, my favorite opposition party is Convergence because they're also conservative on most issues and nobody really takes that Cataloony stuff that seriously when it's time to deal the cards in the high-stakes poker game of real, non-symbolic politics. I don't mind seeing Convergence do well, since they're effectively in alliance with the PP on everything that doesn't relate to Cataloonieness, which includes most issues of any real importance. I would also prefer to see the Socialists get lefty votes than to see them go to one of the smaller leftist parties.

Put all of this together, and add in the facts that Rajoy is riding high in the polls, that the Socialists are way too disorganized to put a campaign together on such short notice while the PP's strength is its organization and party discipline, and that Rajoy is a sure winner in the generals as long as no disaster happens (e.g. major terrorist attack in Spain, serious attack on Spanish troops in Iraq) and so you want to vote as soon as you can to get the election in before the disaster can happen, and you've got a whole bunch of good reasons to call early general elections to coincide with the Catalan regionals.

There's not really anything in particular to blog about. I found this cool site called The Victorian Dictionary, which is full of information (often primary-source, as in Thackeray's description of a hanging or "Walter's" encounter with a prostitute. Check it out.

The Vanguardia is starting to piss me off. There used to be six or eight idiotic homegrown anti-American articles a week, and now there's just Robert Fisk, and they can argue that it's fair do's to print Fisk because he's an internationally recognized journalist who's there on the scene. But with their "new reasonableness" policy, there goes my dependable, automatic source for red-meat Old-Europe-bashing material. Now I'm going to have to dosome work, damnit.

Yeah, you start thinking "there's nothing to blog about" and then you remember, oh, yeah, some psycho bomber blew herself up in a Haifa restaurant; twenty dead, fifty injured. But we're used to that, so it doesn't count.

It's certainly lovely in Barcelona right now, warm but breexy, temps in the low 70s by day, low 60s by night. Since weather here is nothing but predictable, we're due for another month of this and then some heavy rain with temps in the forties. So we might as well enjoy this San Diego weather while we've got it.

Oh, yeah, I got some new glasses. I sid to hell with fashion this time, I'm tired of breaking glasses, give me those Buddy Holly or John Lennon army glasses that are unbreakable. Wound up with Buddy Holly.

I'd like to lay the Pope controversy to rest by saying that I do not doubt that John Paul II is a good man- I am not an expert on either the Pope or the Church, so maybe I should be more careful and better-informed before I opine. I do know what I'm talking about as regards the Vatican's attitude toward the Iraq War, though, and it was Old European all the way. I wrote about it several times in January-March of this year.

More sticking my nose into other people's business: the archbishop of Vienna just came out saying that the Pope was near death. A replacement will be needed. Perhaps a non-European Pope, maybe even an African Pope, might be a good idea, if the voters think there are any suitable candidates.

James Taranto links to this story, which I remember coming out back in the day, on consumption of squirrel brains in backwoods Kentucky. Well, when I was a child of some four or five years, I was taken to visit some very rednecky relatives in deep East Texas. A dish was proffered to me and I was told it was chicken and dumplings. I ate it. I was then informed that it was actually squirrel and dumplings. Several of my great-uncles were hunters and they'd bagged a whole treeful. I relate this trauma to my conversion to vegetarianism.

Check out this piece from the Weekly Standard on why Bush is the big favorite going into the November 2004 election. And have a look at this article from Slate on prison rape. I've made a couple bad jokes on this subject but it's not really that funny, especially when you consider the likelihood of catching a venereal disease, particularly AIDS. Seems to me that prison should not be a picnic, it should be distinctly non-fun, but anal rape is not supposed to be part of the punishment that you deserve for having stolen a car or having driven drunk or having failed to pay your child support. Five years in jail, that's harsh enough without getting raped and maybe syphilis or AIDS as part of the deal.

There ought to be different prisons for violent and non-violent criminals; it just doesn't make sense to lock up the insurance cheat with the street mugger, gang-banger, murderer, carjacker, drive-by shooter, or armed robber. I had thought that that was the difference between minimum-, medium-, and maximum-security prisons. You've got to put the really violent guys and escape threats in maximum security, semi-violent guys who behave themselves in medium, and non.violent guys in minimum. It also seems to me that prison guards ought to be drawn from a considerably higher caliber of person than they currently appear to be. If we paid them twenty grand more a year we might get people of pretty decent material to do what must be a nasty and extremely unpleasant job.

Here's how hard up for cash FC Barcelona is. They took a payment of some €1.5 million to fly to Mexico City Tuesday, play a friendly against Azteca Wednesday, and then fly back here today. I bet Barca is just gonna do great this weekend against Valencia. Their players will be all nice and rested up. By the way, in the exhibition game they lost 2-0. Kluivert muffed three or four goal opportunities, showing that he can screw up just as badly when the game doesn't count for anything.

Here's Sports Illustrated's Paul Zimmermann on dirty play in the NFL and the officials' failure to put a stop to it. My suggestion has been for several years: Do like they do in pro soccer. You get a yellow card for a personal foul or an unsportsmanlike conduct. If you earn yourself another yellow card in that game, you're out of the game and suspended for the next one. 1 / 16 of your salary would, of course, be deducted and given to an NFL charity. Also, if you manage to put together five yellow cards along the length of the season, you'd be suspended for a game. This would count for the playoffs, too; yellow cards from the regular season would carry over. So would suspensions. You get kicked out of your team's last playoff game, you're suspended for the first game next year. Accumulate your fifth yellow card in the last week of the regular season and you're suspended the first week of the playoffs.

I think that would put an end to a lot of dirty play by deterring it from the point of view of both the players' pockets and their team's possibilities. Coaches would certainly no longer encourage dirty play if they knew it was going to be called and that it would lead to suspensions.

I put up another post on EuroPundits. It's really pretty snotty and pedantic. My point is, though, that there is just too damn much substandard writing in the news media, especially so in the press, and really especially so in the Spanish press.

You really ought to check Gregg Easterbrook's blog on the New Republic. I like Easterbrook a lot, not only his political commentary and his scientific and technical articles--especially the ones on weapons and environmental issues--but his weekly pro football commentary on ESPN Page 2. See, I'm not a ridiculous reactionary! I like Gregg Easterbrook and Mark Steyn and Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan and James Taranto and Glenn Reynolds, none of whom are paleoconservatives and three of whom are Democrats.

My only problem is that the name he's chosen is really dorky, spastic, nerdy, geeky, and retarded. "Every Morning Quarterback", a play on the name of his "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" football column, would have been much better. Oh, yeah, Easterbrook writes about sci-fi and comics a lot more than I would if I were he. That's really my only complaint.

FrontPage has compiled a list of quotations from before the Iraq War from well-known Democrat Party leaders. The quotes demonstrate that the Dems were (quite decently and ethically) anti-Saddam until a Republican President overthrew him. Then they went bonkers. FrontPage does well in letting the Democrats make the case for the War on Saddam in their own words. Check it out.

Also check out this post from Samizdata, which includes a graph showing the decline of US / UK dead in Iraq as time goes along. Its title? "We Are Winning". Andrew Sullivan has a terrific column on the just-released Reagan letters. We all underestimated the guy, especially me. During the Eighties I thought Reagan was a dope running the country straight to hell. Was I ever wrong.

Rush Limbaugh has gotten himself into hot water again, this time not for his political opinions but because of his football commentary. Now they're calling him a racist. Limbaugh said that he thought Donovan McNabb, the Eagles' quarterback, was overrated, and that one of the reasons for his overratedness is that he is black. He attributed the Eagles' success last year to their defense, and Duce Staley is a hell of a good running back, too. Limbaugh thinks that the sports media bend over backwards not to criticize black quarterbacks. (What's next, a football player named Fuehrer Jones? There used to be a guy named Stalin Collins, another named Cortez Kennedy, and another named Napoleon McCallum. Dictators and killers all. I'd prefer to name my kids after, like, American World War II generals. I'll name them Marshall, Ike, MacArthur, Patton, Bradley, Stilwell, and stuff like that.)

I generally agree with Rush that McNabb is overrated--he's stunk so far this season and he was not that great last year. I also believe, with Rush, that there is a tendency among the American sports media to support blacks who are moving into positions reserved for whites in the past. The NFL never excluded blacks officially, as far as I know, and the football color line was broken by the Fifties. But there weren't any black quarterbacks until the Seventies and there still aren't many black coaches, especailly head coaches.

I do not think this tendency is a conspiracy, and I don't think Limbaugh does either. What Limbaugh said was "I don't think Donovan McNabb is all that good and I think the media are giving him a break, rather than coming down on him, because he's a black quarterback and they're overcompensating for past racism." That sounds pretty reasonable to me. You might disagree, but you can't call Limbaugh racist over this one.

A lot of people have sure jumped at the chance, though. In Rush's semi-defense, here's Sports Illustrated's Peter King, a writer I generally do not like because he thinks he's God's gift to football commentary and because he wastes his readers' time talking about his damn kids' field-hockey teams for paragraphs on end, calling Limbaugh an idiot but not a racist. Fair enough. I think Limbaugh is probably right, myself, but if King thinks he's a moron he can certainly say so. And King is honest enough to admit he doesn't like Rush but says that it's a smear to call him a racist.

Sports Update: Last weekend Barcelona sneaked out of Madrid with an 0-0 tie against Atletico, making their record 2-3-0 with nine points out of fifteen possible. Not two awful, but I still don't think the team looks very good. Well, we've got to give them a chance--they haven't lost any games yet and there are 38 games in the season, not just five.

Real Madrid got its clock cleaned in Valencia, 2-0; Valencia completely outclassed them with teamwork, hard-nosed play, determination, and fine individual play. Keep an eye out for badass midfielders Albelda and Baraja. Those guys can flat-out play soccer, and they just plain shut Madrid down by not allowing many balls to get to Madrid's superstar forwards. English readers might consider trying to get their team to sign these guys, both of whom are internationals.

The Chiefs are 4-0. Their defense is greatly improved over last year's shitty D, their offense is a steamroller, and kick returner Dante Hall has had three returns for TDs already this year. Somebody's going to break his neck in one of these games, though. Still, can you say Super Bowl? I guess we'll really find out what they're made of next weekend when they play Denver.

Well, it looks to me like they're getting us ready for the Pope to die. Cardinal Ratzinger came out and told the world that the Pope was "in a bad way". While I am not a Christian and while I consider Catholicism to be even more laughable than the majority of religions (sorry if I offend anybody, but I'm an agnostic), for a long time I had a good deal of respect for the Pope. Of course I disagree with Catholic teachings on divorce, birth control, and abortion, but that's not the Pope's fault. He's got to be consistent with 2000 years of history, not with the current zeitgeist. If he changed all that wacky Catholic stuff it wouldn't be the Catholic church any more, it'd be the New! Improved! Church!--and one big reason that people have faith in religion is that it is a traditional and comforting set of answers to questions that are a lot bigger than we are. Folks don't want their churches to be New! and Improved! since the whole point of a religion is that its god(s) are already perfect and can't be improved.

I have always backed the Pope in his gutsy anti-Communism, but his anti-capitalism has always irritated me, as did his opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Yeah, I know, the Pope is supposed to be in favor of peace and love, but it seems to me that there are a hell of a lot of wars going on (Congo, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and that area, Israel, Colombia, Sierra Leone / Liberia) that are causing a great deal more misery than the Iraq War did, and one of the stated goals of the Iraq War is to turn over a democratic stable country to the Iraqis. That means that tens of millions of people are going to benefit, not only the Iraqis but everyone in the Middle East who will have a new democratic reference to look to. Haven't heard of too many people in the Church getting all excited over what happened in Rwanda. Of course, a good few Hutu priests and nuns were mixed up in the killing there, but that's not anything that ought to trouble the Church, no more than the exposure of the boy-buggering priests and the hierarchy that covered up for them in the States.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is what I said before, several months ago, that pissed a lot of people off. The Pope's attitude toward the Iraq War, to me, is selective. I haven't heard him condemning too many other wars, at least not making a big deal out of it the way he did with Iraq. That's wrong. If you're a coherent pacifist, you're against all war, and the Church is manifestly not against all war--look at the great job they did with World War II, for example. Or the record of the Papal States until 1870. To me the Pope and the Church have blown all the credibility they built up over twenty years.

Guess what? The European Commission is going to kick in 200 million euros to help reconstruct Iraq! Of course, the Americans are putting in twenty BILLION dollars...

ETA, as usual, is demonstrating that there is no difference between a guerrilla or terrorist organization and organized crime. Organized crime works like this. A bunch of tough people organize themselves and then take over an area, often an area full of immigrants or marginal people from the same ethnic group as the criminals. They then make their big money off two rackets: "protection", that is, extortion, and theft, normally of delivery trucks and warehouses, and the fencing of the goods. Drugs, prostitution, gambling--that's all big money, too, but nowhere as big as the two basics.

ETA's standard racket is extortion. No one knows how many people in the Basque Country pay off ETA. What they do is send people a letter demanding a payoff--liberal professionals are hit up for €60,000, corporate executives for €120,000, and independent business owners for more. They've actually got their own watermarked paper, so you know if the extortion letter you get is really from them or from some imitator criminals. The letter is always addressed to the person extorted, with the return address belonging to a member of the extortee's family.

ETA is also thought to deal in drugs. They openly campaign against drug abuse and intimidate and sometimes kill independent drug dealsers. A lot of people think this is because the ETA controls the drug market in the Basque Country and doesn't like competition.

Anyway, the news is from now on you have to pay them off in dollars. Seems that international arms traffickers and shady Caribbean offshore banks prefer dollars to euros, and it'd just be too much trouble to go down to a bureau de change on the Ramblas with sixty grand in euros and ask for dollars.

Much noise is being made about something called the "Plan Ibarretxe". Mr. Juan Jose Ibarretxe, lehendakari (prime minister) of the Basque Country, has this plan to reform the Spanish Constitution and the Basque Statute of Autonomy. The plan was first announced back in July, when we wrote about it in some detail. Basically what it would do is make the Basque country independent except for the military and foreign policy. Most Basques are against this, not to mention everybody else in Spain. Aznar has announced that the plan has exactly zero percent chance of becoming reality. So much for that.

For about a month here in the European Union, by law, cigarette packs have to cary large legends, about a third of the pack, that "Smoking kills" or one of about ten variations on that. Sales have not dropped one iota. Some people are beginning to carry their smokes in cigarette cases.

Prediction from La Vanguardia: the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Antoni Gaudi's major work, will finally be finished in approximately twenty years. It gets about two million visitors a year, which is where 95% of its construction money comes from. I do not like the new work going on--they say it's 55% done. I personally would have left it the way it was when Gaudi died. It's going to be a huge monstrosity when they actually get finished with it.

El Mundo is reporting that Rajoy leads Zap 43%-35% in a survey they published today on voters' intentions in the next general elections. Zap is politically dead. Next time you hear from him he'll be leading the opposition on the Leon City Council.

Following the theme of going over La Vanguardia with a fine-toothed comb, in the whole Sunday paper there are only two really questionable pieces regarding the United States. They haven't ganged up on Robert Kagan as I expected they would, though that maybe has to wait a few days.

One of the questionable pieces is a review by local frootloop Justo Barranco of a Bush-bashing book by one of those horrible Americans-loved-by-the-British-left named Greg Palast. (Other examples: Michael Moore, Bill Hicks, sometimes Bill Bryson. If you don't know who some of these people are, ask any Brit.) If you're interested in knowing what Greg Palast has to say, just google "Greg Palast" and you'll find plenty of links to him, which he himself largely provides. See, Palast, like Michael Moore, "reviews the absurd bloodshed that the culture of weapons--combined with social inequality, old racial hatreds, and an atmosphere of generalized panic--causes every year in the United States." Uh-huh. Boy, have you noticed how insistent a lot of European commentators are with their idea that Americans live in a state of pants-pissing fear?

The other one is a rant by one Piergiorgio Sandri. This is, unfortunately, what often happens when Spaniards start writing analyses of the United States. He's going off on American legal restrictions on smoking, concerns about teenage drinking, and Microsoft's closing of its chatrooms, as if the three had anything to do with one another. See, "the current climate reminds one of the darkest periods of Prohibitionism in the U.S.," says Mr. Sandri.

(Especially the Microsoft thing. Microsoft realized that they weren't making any money off the damn chatrooms and they were exposing themselves to a huge lawsuit the first time some perv used a MSN chatroom to get his hands on somebody's twelve-year-old. So they said, "Why provide this for free?" I understand they will continue providing chat for those who pay for it. I bet in a few months most chatrooms around the Web will be either closed down or pay services.)

Anyway, Mr. Sandri's preferred explanation for this is "the Protestant and Puritan culture, which looks badly on distractions and prefers to center itself on work. 'We shouldn't forget that in the American constitution God is expressly mentioned, and the American economy and its values are in control,' says Gerard-Francois Dumont, rector of Sorbonne University in Paris...one must avoid everything that isn't productive...neoconservative values have found fertile ground with the arrival in power of the Bush administration...efficiency, in the American mentality, is considered the antidote to bad habits...it's an 'instant society', whose liberality is very comfortable for the individual, but not necessarily so for society."

Couldn't resist checking the US Constitution, and I was right. The only explicit reference to God is in the part at the end where it says"...the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven."

Here in Barcelona they had a big "Stop the Occupation of Iraq and Palestine" demo--well, it wasn't that big, they only got 6000 people out and they all got soaked in the fairly heavy rains we had yesterday afternoon. Ha ha. This was an internationally coordinated protest--they got only 7000 out in Madrid and as few as 10,000 in London--ha ha again--organized by the various Communist Parties, though interestingly enough neither La Vanguardia's story nor Catalunya TV's mentioned this explicitly. The Vangua's story did point out that Joan Saura, Catalonia's communist leader, led the demonstration in Barcelona, and that Gaspar Llamazares, the Spanish Communist Party's boss, led the Madrid demo. The protestors spent most of their time insulting Aznar and Bush. The demo's manifesto denounced "the criminal colonial aggression" of "the invasion of Iraq" and called for the withdrawal of all Spanish cooperation in the Iraqi postwar phase, since the war was fought because of "other interests" than those previously announced by Messrs. Bush, Blair, and Aznar.

The weakness of the turnout for this demonstration demonstrates that for most people here in Spain the war in Iraq is now a dead issue. Those few who are still worked up about the war would never vote for Rajoy anyway. The masses have forgotten the frenzies of February and March, and they now see the situation in Iraq--allied, including Spanish, occupation--as the status quo. I honestly do not believe that the war in Iraq or the mass demonstrations changed anyone's beliefs. Those Spaniards who are basically moderate or conservative may have been turned off temporarily by America's undeniable and occasionally insufferable arrogance, but they've come back into the fold of those who realize that Spain and the EU and the US all have to play ball together in the long run even if occasionally we have to hold our noses (or threaten to "take my ball and go home"). And those who are on the left hate America no matter what it does anyway.

It's been fifty years since the defense agreement between the United States and Spain was concluded, on Sepember 26, 1953. General Franco had won the Civil War in April 1939 and somehow managed to avoid being drawn into World War II. After that war, Spain was excluded from the United Nations and was basically an international pariah during the entire Truman administration--Truman could not stomach Franco.

When Eisenhower became US President in 1953, he had a rather different idea than Truman about what compromises with decency needed to be made in order to win the Cold War. One of those he deemed important was getting Spain into the lineup on our side; with the signing of the defense agreement, Franco's Spain gained an international legitimacy that it had not had before, and it was admitted to the United Nations. This was an "agreement" rather than a "treaty", since there was no way Congress would have approved any kind of agreement with Franco.

Spanish nationalists disliked several aspects of the treaty, which they considered made Spain a nation "subject to" the United States; the US could do anything it wanted with the four bases on Spanish territory, Torrejon, Rota, Zaragoza, and Moron--yeah, I know, great name. It should have an accent on the second O. We needed Spanish permission for nothing. Several subsequent negotiations did not affect this state of affairs and many Spaniards felt frustrated and insulted.

In 1970 there was a renegotiation of the agreement; by this time it had become clear that the Franco dictatorship was in decline and that Spain was a country on its way up. Spain's new status was recognized: the bases became Spanish territory, consultations became necessary before using the bases, and storage of chemical and bacteriological weapons was banned. In 1976 nuclear arms were banned and a Spanish-American joint general staff was created. Then, under pressure from Felipe's new Socialist government, which in turn was under pressure from a good bit of the electorate, much Redder twenty years ago than today--Felipe had promised to pull Spain out of NATO if elected in 1982. Then he called a referendum on Spain's remaining in NATO and publicly favored a "Yes" vote. (Now he was under pressure from the army, more powerful then than today, suffering from constant ETA assaults, and elements of which had pulled a coup attempt just two years before.) The Yes vote won in a squeaker and Spain stayed in NATO.

In 1986, when we bombed Libya, both France and Spain refused to let American planes overfly their territory, and Spain refused to allow the use of the bases. In 1988 there was another agreement, in which Spain stopped receiving a monetary rent for the bases (this made them, you see, an "ally" rather than a "subject"). The Americans pulled out of Zaragoza and Torrejon in 1991; the Navy base at Rota and the Air Force base at Moron are still used by American armed forces. Spain, of course, permitted its bases to be used in Gulf War I.

Whenever you argue with a Spaniard about whether America sucks or not, something I stopped doing long ago, and you get him all tied up because his feelings about the US are emotionally, rather than logically, based, and this leads him to fall into contradictions, he'll invariably come back with what he thinks is the basic proof of the iniquity of the United States: the photograph of Eisenhower hugging Franco in 1959. This photo is reprinted about a hundred times a year or so in the Spanish press. It's in La Vanguardia today; by the way, I must commend the two authors of today's Vangua pieces on this issue, Carmen del Riego and Javier Tusell, for their evenhanded tone.

The Spaniard is normally nonplussed when the American responds, "What?" See, Fifties geostrategical diplomacy is not something most Americans (or anyone else) have any idea about, and especially not if it involves Spain. No American has even heard of this photo. Well, now you guys have. See, this photo is the basis for the Spanish lefty argument, "America sucks because they supported Franco."

What the American should respond is, "Look, this was the Fifties and it was Ike against Stalin. Ike was willing to swallow a deal with Franco if he thought it would help against Stalin, who was unquestionably the greater evil. We then provided the economic help that stabilized Spain so that it was able to enjoy the economic growth of the mid-to-late Franco era, saving Spain from Francoist autarky and isolation and providing the economic basis necessary to support a middle-class democratic government. We got you into the UN. We made Franco calm down and somewhat liberalize conditions within Spain.

"Besides, it's not like you guys ever did anything to get rid of him yourselves. There were a total of zero serious attempts to overthrow the Franco government between 1939 and 1953, the year Ike signed the deal with him that started Franco on the road to the international acceptance of his legitimacy. (There weren't any such attempts between '53 and '75, the year the old bastard finally kicked off, either.) That's fourteen years you guys had before we gave Franco any support at all, longer than the whole Third Reich lasted, so don't blame us for what you should have done for yourselves. And the Ike loves Franco photo wasn't taken until '59, after six years of generally good behavior by Franco under the terms of the bilateral agreement."

The sad thing is that this ultra-famous photo over here is unknown to 99.999% of Americans. I have a fairly decent biography of Eisenhower by a guy named Geoffrey Perret; not only is that photo not in the book, though there is an extensive section of photographs, but there is no mention of either Franco or Spain in it. This is simply not a subject that any Americans ever think about, or have ever even heard of.

By the way, Javier Tusell makes an annoying, unnecessary little comment, when he refers to Truman as an "Anabaptist". Spanish authors have an irritating habit of throwing little facts in which are not germane to the point in order to show off their erudity, and it's especially irritating when those little facts are wrong. Virtually no Spaniard, for instance, knows a damn thing about Protestantism, and Mr. Tusell, though he is a historian, is no exception. This lack of knowledge leads Spanish writers to have ridiculous misconceptions.

(Note: All Spaniards, especially those over about 40 years old, were heavily bathed in Francoist National-Catholic propaganda, which was both anti-Protestant and anti-American, and which has strongly influenced them, no matter how hard they try to deny it.)

Mr. Tusell, Truman was a Baptist. The Baptists, who are a split off the Anglicans, have nothing to do with the German Anabaptists, who were running around the Rhineland in the 1500s and who were really crazy. Now, it's true that the Baptists are conservative socially. They're also very open theologically. As far as I gather, the only thing you have to do to be a Baptist is go to a Baptist church. Of course, it helps if you believe in Jesus and stuff, too, but they don't worry about complicated stuff like transsubstantiation or the Immaculate Conception.

It's sort of a rule that the more conservative an American Protestant group is theologically, the more liberal it is politically. For example, the Anglicans, a very liberal church, have a whole lot of Jesus stuff they have to believe in. Same thing with the Presbyterians and the Lutherans, most of whom are pretty moderate. Most Southern-based Protestant groups, though, the Methodists, the Baptists, and most of your Pentecostal and fundamentalist churches, don't have much of a theology at all ("Believe literally in what it says in the Bible" is pretty simple-minded, now, isn't it?), and they're the bunch that tends to be most socially and politically conservative.

Check out the Congregationalists. They're what's left of the Puritans, another offshoot of the Anglicans. They're now known as super-liberals politically. (The Calvinists up there were Presbyterians.) The Puritans were not Puritans as regards pleasure. They drank and smoked and wenched with the best of them. Their rate of girls who got married pregnant was very high, due in part to their custom of "bundling", which meant that young men would be invited to sleep in their daughters' beds. Chastely, of course. Yeah, right, if you believe that I have some clay dolls with pins in them left over from the Salem trial to sell you. One of the reasons that a bunch of Massachussetts troops got wiped out by King Philip's Wampanoag tribe one time is that he ambushed them while they were all marching along a road, all drunk to the gills off the casks of rum that made up most of their baggage (the fortress they were off to relieve, under siege by the Indians, was out of rum so they brought plenty as part of the resupply effort).

The thing about the Puritans was that they were very strict about religious observance and what you had to believe; if you disagreed, you were a heretic, and a few heretics got hanged. But if you were religiously orthodox, you could party your ass off, and they did. Their alcohol consumption was likely as much as four gallons of pure alcohol per man, woman, and child per year, and America was known as the "Alcoholic Republic" until the Temperance movement and Victorian morals began to take effect in the 1830s and 40s.

I've heard it suggested that Temperance and anti-sensual puritanism is still so strong in the American South, at least according to the lip service that it gets, because American white Southerners are largely Scotch-Irish in their origin, and the more redneck you are the more Scotch-Irish blood you're likely to have. The Scotch-Irish were a mean bunch of bastards with a real taste for drink. If you don't believe that, take a look at what the Scotch-Irish still running around Belfast are capable of. The religious prohibition of alcohol was necessary to keep the rednecks off the sauce and keep fetal alcohol syndrome, pointless massacres of natives, and shiftless yokelhood down.

I put up a post over on EuroPundits. It's a translation of the back-page interview on Saturday, Sept. 26, with Robert Kagan. As you probably know, Kagan is one of the better-known think-tank pundits, and in the US he's generally considered a hawk on defense and foreign policy issues.

Here's the thing, though: the Vanguardia gave him their back page to say his piece, and gave him the page 4 second-in-importance international story. The interview I translated on EuroPundits is presented in a manner that's fair enough, and here is the news story about Kagan's public pronouncements at this wingding they had at the Barcelona World Trade Center; I've translated about two-thirds of it, and you'll see that the presentation the reporter (I assume it's Victor M. Amela, the same guy who did the back-page interview--the article is by-lined "Staff") gives is remarkably unbiased.

...Kagan states that the real problem separating Europe and the United States is not Iraq. Though he used to think that despite the disagreement over the war against Saddam Hussein the common values of Europeans and Americans would be preserved, Kagan says he has realized that the differences between the two are deeper than before, that they are "structural and ideological". The ocean dividing the West's two components is very wide. To Kagan, we have to accept that "those who have more power tend to use it and to believe in the legitimacy that that power gives."

The Europeans, who created the idea of "raison d'etat", Kagan says, are giving that up and find themselves in a position that could be defined like this: "Weak countries have always wanted to have mechanisms to limit the power of those who have it." The problem, according to this axiom, is not the United States but Europe: Europeans do not want to recognize military power and "don't want to use it", and this is due to the bitter experience of the wars of the twentieth century.

To sum up: "You the Europeans are the ones who are isolated." Why? "Because the methods Europe uses to understand and relate with the world cannot be applied outside of Europe." The United States, on the other hand, adds Kagan, knows how to deal with the world, and it has a double standard for doing so: one for the European countries, who are the incarnation of post-modernity, and another for the pre-moderns.

With the Cold War over and the two blocs broken up, the world is unipolar because "Europe does not want to take thenecessary steps to become the other pole," it wants Russia and China in the middle, and "most Europeans think that the Security Council is the only guarantee of multipolarity." How, then, can we repair transatlantic connections? "I think there are many advantages to a unipolar world, but I can understand the anxiety that this may create in Europe."

Kagan's thoughts are different facets of the same piece. The Bush Administration's recent moves to legitimize its policies in Iraq in the UN will be nothing more than a mess of red tape. "Let's not be simplistic, let's remember that American presidents have never believed in the UN." The pillars that supported American legitimacy fell with the end of the Cold War. It was Europe who pulled them away, and now Europe should reflect because "world order is based on the power, relatively benevolent, of the United States over the last century." "If the only country which can face new threats does not have this legitimacy, the Western world will not be able to face these threats." According to Kagan, one should not fool oneself regarding the future of the world: "Order and justice will always be more of a hope than a reality."

We've got to give credit where credit is due. Ever since Josep Maria Casasus's outbreak of mental diarrhea last Sunday, in which he accused those who have protested La Vanguardia's anti-American biases of being agents for the American government, the Vangua has been remarkably well-behaved. Their reporting this week has been a model of even-handedness; the only thing that I found irritating were Robert Fisk's daily dispatches to the Independent, which the Vangua is picking up, and that's fair enough. Fisk gives only one side to the story, of course, but the Vangua can argue that a lot of people in England and other places regularly read Mr. Fisk and that his side of the story is worth reproducing.

Now let's see what the reaction to Kagan's words will be. If he gets ambushed en masse over the weekend by the Vangua's usual scribes, I'll be annoyed. If he gets bashed by Porcel and Sole but the news pages stay as neutral as they have been over this week, I'll be pleased.

Patrick Crozier has nailed his Three Theses to the door as he announces the beginning of his campaign for Mayor of London. Check it out over at Samizdata.

Faithful Iberian Notes blogreader John Lilly sent along this New York Times article on the tailgate barbecuing that goes on before every Kansas City Chiefs home game. The pre-game feed is generally considered to be more important than the football, and if you like meat, which I don't (vegetarian since age 13), this is probably the best food in the world. You can't get in, though, since all the tickets are sold out before the season starts. If you do something like buy them from a scalper, get there early and bring a cooler full of expensive beer. Go around to people who have big stands set up and ask if you can swap a couple of brews for some of their BBQ. (This'd look cheap if you were offering them a couple of Black Labels or something.) Tell 'em theirs smelled awful good. They'll drop to their knees and smother you in brisket. Comment: Real African-American KC barbecue sauce is vinegary and spicy, a little hot. Example: Arthur Bryants. That sweet stuff is more white-bread suburban and is scorned by KC barbecue fans. Example: KC Masterpiece.

Here's a piece from Front Page called "Eugenics and the Left". Margaret Sanger doesn't come off in it too well. And here's a Jack Shafer piece from Slate on the megaquestionable ethics some reporters used in Baghdad earlier this year. Certainly, some of the Spanish reporters there did not disclose the facts that they had to be accompanied by a minder, that they had to pay large sums for any sort of access, and that the Saddamites were censoring their reports.

Iberian Notes Admits Occasional Quality Vanguardia Articles Exist (in other news, Lawyer Performs Humanitarian, Unselfish Act; Gay Rights Parade "Quiet, Dignified"; Car Mechanic Finds Problem within Minutes, Fixes It for Under $500; Greenpeace Releases Report Audited by Peer-Reviewers; Sun Rises in West; Tigers Win Game)

The Vangua's headline today is "Schroder Repairs Rupture with US; Chancellor Proposes to Bush German Training of Iraqi Police, No Troops". Sounds good to me. I vote almost any sort of agreement or deal we can make is fine with me, as long as the United States retains military occupation over the Tikrit triangle and the British retain military authority over Basora, where there has been a little too much trouble lately, and as long as those military authorities are subject to no one but their respective commanders-in-chief. The rest of the country is getting pretty close to being able to partially take care of itself. And if we have to kiss France's and Germany's asses over this, I don't mind.

Here the Vanguardia provides some excellent hard information. There is a "road map" detailing the plans for turning over some parts of governance and administration to the new civilian regime. In October a job retraining program will begin and certain new taxes will be imposed; in January the tax system will be completely overhauled, and in February the training for new tax officials will begin. In October training of the new Iraqi Army will begin. In October the prewar electricity supply of 4000 megawatts a day will be restored, and by January 5000 more megawatts / day will be available. The whole system is expected to be up by March. In January control over the police, the ports, and the railroads will be turned over to the Iraqis.

Now, if I may say so myself, that seems like a schedule everybody ought to be able to deal with. You're not going to get it totally perfect from Day 1. Things take time and mistakes are made. But this looks like a set of concrete plans to me, and if we can get these things done anywhere near when the road map says they're going to be none, in six months we'll be well under way toward a transference of power to the Iraqi government. That seems to be what the Germans and the French want, and I submit that this road map--released by Paul Bremer on Monday before a Senate committee--is evidence that America is operating in good faith.

As for the cash, where's it coming from? Well, Bush has asked the Congress for $87 billion for Iraq-related expenses. $66 billion is for military expenses, and, hey, if that's what it's gonna cost, that's what it's gonna cost. But there are some pretty large sums destined for the necessities of the Iraqi people, more than $20 billion. that's a hell of a lot of money. Nearly $3bn is going to rebuilding the power grid, more than $2 bn is to rebuild the oil industry (which is where the Iraqis are going to get the real money they're going to use to rebuild the country further) and more then $100 million each is going to a new hospital in Basra, ten different irrigation projects, reconstruction of the railroads, investigation of war crimes, housing, and prison modernization and construction. This, to my eyes, is concrete proof that Bush has some kind of definite plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. He's got a timetable, he's got specific projects, he knows what it's going to cost and where the money's going to come from. So enough quagmire talk. This sounds to me like organization being imposed slowly but surely upon chaos.

In case you haven't read it yet, check out this article from the Atlantic by David Brooks, which is ostensibly about what the seven Democrat candidates running for the presidency must do in order to have a hope at winning the nomination and / or election. It's really a more general look at the electorate.

They've been reporting that a poll says Wesley Clark would be the favorite to beat Bush as of right now. Just wait a week or two. The boomlet will pop as soon as Clark gets the massive raking that the press is going to do on him. As American economic growth increases and the terrorists in Iraq get weaker and the media begins to report on the fact that in 95% of Iraq things aren't going too badly, Bush will hang on in the polls at least a few points above 50%. If I'm wrong and in a couple of weeks or a month Bush's approval rating is down around 40%, I'll be ready to admit there's a problem.

Seems that Tony King, the "Costa Killer", used to be named Tony Bromwich and did a five-year stretch in chokey for a series of rapes in which he strangled but did not kill the women victims. The English sensationalistic press is all over this one. We're going to declare an Anglosphere scoop on this story, since we were blogging about it before Bromwich / King was even caught. It looks like Dolores Vazquez is going to walk.

The bit of fun is that some British paper, the Sun, I think, paid this guy who is both a lawyer and a "journalist" named David Rojo. Rojo talked his way into a meeting with Bromwich / King in jail and got him to write two letters of apology to the families of the victims he killed, which included a full confession. He then passed on the letters to the Sun, who went full-page cover with them. Now, this is rather unusual in Spain--we're not used to Brit sensationalistic-paper shenanigans around here. It's also rather irregular behavior, to say the least. Maybe "scandalous" would do the trick. They're talking about disbarring Mr. Rojo, Esq., which is no less than he deserves.

The last time Rojo's name came up was when he ghostwrote a novel for TV Oprah-style afternoon host Ana Rosa Quintana a couple of years ago. His ghostwritten book, promoted and sold as being "by Ms. Quintana", turned out to have been plagiarized off Danielle Steel. The book was recalled and pulped. Ms. Quintana's feathers weren't even ruffled.

I just watched Barca play some team from Slovakia in the UEFA cup; Barca brought out its first-string lineup, with the variation of substituting Quaresma for Saviola. The Slovaks were all big, strong, fit guys whose technique was minimal but who kept approaching the Barca goal too frequently. They got like seven corners in the fiirst ten minutes, but couldn't capitalize. They had Barca against the ropes, though. After the half the Slovaks slowed down and Kluivert finally scored a goal--he'd muffed several tries at it. Ronaldinho made a couple of good plays. The Slovaks retreated to their own penalty area, waiting for a kick-and-rush counterattack. Barca couldn't score as Kluivert muffed a couple more chances, and in minute 93 when the Barca guys figured the game was over a Slovak wingman took a long ball and crossed it where one of his men was just arriving and he put it in. Slovaks from Slovakiaville 1; FC Barcelona 1. Ouch.

They showed the Pope on TV. He was drooling. Literally. Can't he resign in a dignified manner?

The squatters are calling a big demo for October fourth; you read it here first. Looks like there are about four squats that are all going to be closed more or less at once, and they're calling for mass popular resistance like in the Paris Commune. Go Cops! Bang 'Em on the Head, Cops! Meanwhile, it looks like that gang of wannabe architects of anarchist propaganda by the deed who got busted by the cops had serious plans. They were going to hit Luis del Olmo, the radio guy, and several other folks they figured had done them wrong.

Aznar went to go see Colonel Gaddafi of Libya on a state visit. I understand Libya is a major supplier of both oil and natural gas to Spain, and that one must at the very least be civil. But we don't have to be any friendlier about it than we need to be. Gaddafi gave Aznar a horse. Aznar had to accept it because you don't turn down a gift you get on a state visit. Well, don't put yourself into the position of having to accept gifts from noxious foul dictator gasbags.

Those who like inoffensive mid-tempo pop-rock might look into a band called Jarabe del Palo, who put on a pretty good show here at the Merce. They're really not bad at all. Santana played last night and he said something about how there were two Americas and he was from the one Bush isn't in charge of, or something like that.

Thanks very much to InstaPundit for instapunditing us again. This time he's linked to the post from a couple of days ago on Mr. J.M. Casasus, so the Great CIA-Backed Conspiracy to Reform the Vangua has just gained a lot more publicity, and more publicity can't hurt in the least. As for you new readers out there, thanks for dropping in. Please stay and set a spell.

Check out this one, which I picked up from Libertad Digital. The Katalanisch newspaper Avui has thoughtfully provided an online video game called "Attack of the Spainators". Seems that the evil cyborg Spainators from Planet Genova (a reference to PP headquarters on Calle Genova in Madrid) are trying to attack the peaceful planet Catalonian and your job is to destroy them. To play the game click on one of the links in the Libertad Digital story I linked to above.

Feel free to read into this whatever you wish.

Well, the Brit who was arrested in the Malaga murder cases has confessed. His name is Tony Alexander King and he is a 38-year-old bartender who lived exclusively within the English community that is so large a part of the Costa del Sol. He admitted killing both Sonia Carabantes and Rocio Wanninkhoff; he claims to be innocent of the third disappearance linked to him by the press. King also says he committed three rapes, and he claims to have murdered the man who raped his sister in England, which sounds like a pretty specious way of bucking for an insanity plea to me. His motive was sexual; he got pleasure out of touching dead bodies, it seems. He claims to be impotent, depressed, and alcoholic, all of which is probably true, but it's not an excuse for going around raping and killing people. Hang the bastard. We can't, of course. He claims to have acted alone, which would rule out Dolores Vazquez as some sort of accomplice. (One of King's compatriots was arrested and accused of helping to cover up for him.) If King is telling the truth, she's completely innocent, not that there was ever any real evidence against her anyway. Ms. Vazquez has suffered from a serious miscarriage of justice, and Rocio's mother is guilty of the false accusation of her lesbian ex-lover out of pure spite.

The Spanish media, for the first couple of days after his arrest, referred to him as "Alexander King", Spanish-style, as if those were his two surnames. Alexander, of course, is the guy's middle name; his surname is just King. Now they've gotten it straight; he's King, at least as of yesterday. I wish they'd get this name thing right, though I must admit that the English-language press is thoroughly capable of screwing up Spaniards' names by assuming that the first surname is the middle name and the second surname is the real surname, if you see what I mean. Maybe we can manage to beat this getting-people's-names-right thing into the heads of journalists in both languages.

Something that always bugs me, by the way, is whenever there's a sports event in Spain, the headline the next day in the English-language press is always "Serena (or whoever) Reigns in Spain". It's been done, guys! Get a new one! We're already sick of this! And everybody does it, from Sports Illustrated to the Sun.

That and can you touring bands please refrain from doing covers of "Kansas City" when you play KC? Everybody does it. It's not original or creative or clever. We're tired of it. And you all do the Beatles' version, anyway, not the original. And don't play "La Bamba" in Spain. That's a Mexican song. It's about as appropriate as playing "London Bridge Is Falling Down" when you're doing a gig in, say, Albuquerque. And you look really stupid when you don't know any other words of the song than "la bamba", anyway. "Bla-bla-bla-bla la bamba". Ouch.

Here's an interview from Sunday's Vanguardia with Artur Mas, the designated successor to Jordi Pujol as Prime Ministerial candidate for Convergence and Union (CiU), the Catalan Nationalist party.

Q. Do you still think the PP (conservative People's Party) and the PSOE (Socialist Party) have exactly the same vision of "Catalanness"?
A. The PP and the PSOE coincide on the same model of the State. It is the Spain that is based on the principle that the equality of Spanish citizens is more important than the differences between regions (comunidades autonomas), whether they are historic or not. The PP and the PSOE are trying to guarantee this equality with a strong State and weak regions, equally low.

Q. And where does CiU want to go?
A. Toward a plurinational Spain, giving freedom and autonomy to everyone (every region / ethnicity) as a function of his abilities, goals, and wishes, so that everyone can go where he can and where he wants.

Q. But to make that forward leap in substance that you propose, there's no other way except dealing with the others or "running off to the hills".
A. So far we've demonstrated that we can advance. It always depends on the correlation of forces. When CiU has been strongest, the Spanish model has opened more.

Q. You're forgetting that the difference between the PP and the PSOE is that the Socialists accept the reformation of Statutes (of regional autonomy) and the PP doesn't.
A. The Socialists talk a lot and don't do much, except for the reform of the Senate, which the PP had already proposed while they were in the opposition.

Q. Is CiU in favor of reforming the Senate?
A. Yes, but that is a marginal issue. It does not give any more freedom of decision to Catalonia.

Q. And regarding the conference of regional prime ministers?
A. We are not interested in just being "one more in the crowd". The dream of the PP and the PSOE is that we should be all just the same, the same at the level of the most conformist. Snow White and the seven dwarves.
Q.Will you attend if you become Prime Minister?
A. As a rule, no.

Q. You'll admit the PSC (Catalan Socialist Party) is different from the PSOE.
A. I have no doubt that Maragall (Socialist Candidate for Catalan Prime Minister) favors more autonomy than Ibarra (Prime Minister of Extremadura) or Bono (Prime Minister of Castile-La Mancha). the problem is that the PSC does not have the influence to orient the regional policies of the PSOE regarding Catalonia's interest. If they can't influence their own party to increase self-government, how is it going to convince everyone else?
Q. What are you referring to?
A. The examples are repeated every week. Without going any farther, this week it's happened with the Catalan national sports teams. The PSC votes in favor in the Catalan parliament, but in Madrid its deputies abstain. The PSC is more pro-autonomy than the PSOE, but when the moment of truth comes it cannot tip the balance against the PSOE's centralism.

Q. What is your central argument for a victory?
A. Catalonia must be governed from Catalonia and not from Madrid, and CiU is the only force that can guarantee that Catalonia is governed from the Plaza Sant Jaume and not from an office in Madrid.

That's his whole argument. More self-government for Catalonia. Fair enough. I am actually in favor of making government as decentralized as possible, and I would normally support Mas in his demand for more locally-based decisions. The thing, though, is that Mas wants the power to belong to the Catalan regional government. He's not going to decentralize any power at all any further down to the comarcal or municipal level. He wants the power to make the real decisions in Catalonia in his party's hands, because the regional elections are the only ones that Mas's party, CiU, do well in. So he wants for power to be maximized at the regional level. His motive is not "keep government small, local, and unobtrusive." It's "Maximize the amount of government authority in my hands".

Mas and CiU are against what they disparagingly refer to as "coffee for everyone", that is, giving all 17 Spanish autonomous regions the same status and the same amount of power. Right now some autonomous regions are more autonomous than others: Navarra has the most local power, then the Basque country, then Catalonia, then Galicia and Andalusia, and after them all the rest have the same level of authority. What Mr. Mas wants is for Catalonia's regional government to get more power than anybody else's.

Q. Regarding management, what does a CiU administration offer that would be better than a PSC administration?
A. CiU administrations work cohesively, get to the point, and maintain stability. The alternative to CiU, a PSC-Initiative for Catalonia (Communist)-Republican Left coalition, would paralyze government wand would be a reversal for the country.
Q. Why?
A. Because of a problem of internal coherence. There will be no stability.
Q. That's like saying "Me or chaos".
A. I don't want to sound apocalyptic, but I think that is a worse alternative...
Q. If you win, where will you begin?
A. The first thing I will do will be to convene all the presidents of all Catalan parliamentary groups and establish a calendar for the negotiation of the new statute (of Autonomy). The drawing up of the new Statute should be finished between March and April. then I will call on the Minister for Economics to have the budget ready for 2004, and this will be the guarantee that we are working and that there will not be paralysis in the administration.

Oh, jeez, the goddamn Statute, as if anybody cares. What we're concerned about is police protection and taxes and traffic and education and health care. We don't give a rat's ass whether the government branch in charge of that is municipal or regional or Madrid-based as long as what's supposed to get done gets done, and in many cases--street crime, air pollution, illiterate kids, and my pet hate, those goddamn squatters, or spending all our money.

(Murph says, Look at real people complaining in today's Letters to the Editor column in the Vangua--my little girl can't go to the public day-care center because there aren't any open spots, when I ask people politely not to smoke on the Metro they get rude and nasty to me, I can't sleep because the city government allows building construction in dwellings to go between 8 AM and 8 PM Saturdays and Sundays, my son had his rollerblades stolen off him in a park, the city government promised to put a park in my neighborhood and now they're going to let apartments be built there, in my neighborhood plaza it smells like a sewer and there are bums sleeping out there, there's a public statue near my house that's falling down--all of these real, legitimate problems have nothing to do with the Constitution but have everything to do with competence in government (including the police) and good management. All these issues are examples of problems that somebody should be dealing with and is not, while our regional government is debating about meaningless questions of symbol and status. They go all-out for projects like renumbering all the inter-city highways while doing nothing about any of these much more basic issues. Murph says they're trying to distract us from the real issues by nationalist bloviating.

I wouldn't go that far, but I will agree that on one very basic measure of governmental competence, keeping a balanced budget, Jose Maria Aznar's central administration has had a brilliant record at doing exactly this. Now Spain's the country keeping the deficit and inflation rates down within the EU, while the French and Germans want to be allowed to run a deficit of more than 3% of GDP. By contrast, the CiU Pujol government never gets anywhere near staying on-budget; there's always a new propaganda campaign to remind us how wonderful we all are for living here and how grateful we should be to the Convergence and Union administration that they can spend a bunch of linguistic normalization money on.)

Also notice that Mr. Mas makes a total of zero specific statements about the budget, just that we're going to have one. Hey, Art, how about some concrete proposals?

Q. What is, in your opinion, the new immigration?
A. A social challenge, but also a strong challenge to our identity.
Q. What conditions should a recently-arrived immigrant to Catalonia fulfill, in your opinion?
A. He should know what Catalonia is, the different characteristics of our country, our culture, our language, and the social framework they will have to live in along with us. I want them to commit themselves to Catalonia. We have to show them the way.
Q. And how do you plan to achieve this?
A: I will promote a project, which we will call the Contract with Catalonia, whose objective will to be to preserve Catalonia's own identity at a moment in which people from all over the world with very different customs, and with an absolute lack of knowledge of who we are, are coming to our country.
Q. What will it consist of?
A. The recent arrivals will be offered the opportunity to voluntarily participate in a linguistic and social immersion seminar. From the first moment they will be taught Catalan at its most basic level (that of conversation) and they will be given entry-level job qualifications. They will also come into contact with the society's own values of Catalan society and culture. Once this seminar is finished, they will be given a certificated during a formal ceremony at the comarcal council in the presence of the mayor.
Q. A certificate of "a good immigrant"?
A. A mutual commitment between Catalonia and the immigrant in the form of a symbolic "contract"
Q. How will you convince them to go to this seminar?
A. With this argument: a person coming in from abroad will have more possibilities of individual promotion if we stimulate his feeling of belonging to the society which has received him.

Rejoice, honey, the Normalization Squad is dragging me off to the re-education quarry. I'm being given the voluntary opportunity to participate in the old Catalan community tradition of breaking rocks. There'll be classes in Catalan too, they've promised! We all have to shout "Gracies, Senyor, vull trencar mes pedres!" When we get it right we'll be allowed to come home after maybe a couple of months.

Damn, I'm glad I've already got my papers. Watch them somehow get elected and make it retroactive.

I'm an idiot. (Yeah, I know, you've said that before.) I didn't figure out until last night that I could listen to Kansas City Chiefs games on Internet radio. Yep, it can be done; just google "KCFX radio", go to the site, and click on "Listen now". While there's a game going on, of course. The rest of the time they play crap seventies rock. Anyway, the Chiefs crushed the Houston Texans 42-14, bringing them to three-and-oh. This week they limited the use of Priest Holmes, which is an excellent move; you're going to have to count on Priest for twenty-five or thirty touches a game throughout the season, and we know he got hurt bad last year and missed the last two games and was questionable during the off-season, so questionable that the Chiefs drafted a running back in the first round. So don't use him when you don't need him. Don't make him into another Earl Campbell, who the Oilers used to give the ball to forty times a game and who just got pounded to death, shortening his career by many years. By the way, the Chiefs' defense is much better than it was last year and Trent Green is a competent quarterback. Not great, no superstar, but he can do his job. He has one Super Bowl ring, which means something. OK, it was with the Ravens, but he still won a Super Bowl. The Chiefs haven't made it to one of those since about 1971.

As for the Royals, it looks like they're finally out of the race in the AL Central, though time hasn't run out on them yet. Still, though, they're going to finish over .500, which is a miracle coming from a team that had lost 100 games the year before, that used something like thirty different pitchers during the season, and that was widely predicted to be the worst team in the league.

Barcelona tied Osasuna on Saturday night at home; I saw some of the game on pay-per-view at Miguel's bar. Barca is 2-2-0 and in fifth place with eight points, which is not bad after four games. Ronaldinho is all he was cracked up to be, a genuinely fine signing. The problem is that Kluivert and Saviola aren't doing their jobs, that the Xavi-Gerard double pivot at midfield is uninspired, that for some reason they're using Cocu and Reizinger, both out of position, as central defenders--Cocu I can see, he was always a tough midfielder and now that he's over thirty drop him back to defense just like Real Madrid did with midfielders-turned-defensemen Fernando Hierro and Ivan Helguera. Where's Marquez, the young Mexican star defenseman who we just signed? And what, for God's sake, is Mark Overmars doing getting playing time? How about a 4-2-3-1 lineup like this: Valdes; Puyol, Marquez, Cocu, Van Bronckhorst; Xavi, Gerard; Quaresma, Ronaldinho, Luis Enrique; Kluivert.

I have confidence in new coach Frank Rijkaard, who is widely thought to be Johan Cruyff's man. I just don't think that most of the players are all that great; Ronaldinho and Puyol are the only two who are outstanding. Philip Cocu might turn out to be an excellent defenseman; if any player's going to blossom in a new position, it's hard-working, always fit, intelligent Cocu. Same goes for Luis Enrique, though he's clearly over the hill as far as playing full 90-minute games goes. He can play in almost any position, though; I remember way back when Ferrer was hurt and they'd just signed Luis Enrique; they put Lucho in at right back and he did just fine. That was '96, I think. As for the rest of the team, they're not that special. Kluivert has the talent, and he does a lot of things well (he's a big guy so they bring him back on corner kicks to play defense, for example; he's the guy who stands in front of the near post and tries to get his head on the ball before it passes in front of the goal), but he does not do what he is paid to do, which is score goals. He's a muff diver, which means that whenever he gets a chance he muffs an easy goal and then takes a dive looking for a penalty call. The rest of the players are replacement level, more or less.