Today is the 70th anniversary of the failed army coup that triggered the Spanish Civil War; though preliminary conflict began on the 17th, in Spain the 18th is considered the day the war began. There is currently a movement among elements of the Spanish left to "recover historical memory," a phrase that is repeated over and over. The problem is that the historical memory the left wants to recover is partial and one-sided.
Since I am American, I have no axe to grind in favor of either side in that disastrous war that killed half a million, the majority murdered behind the lines by both sides. (Spanish Civil War combat actually wasn't particularly bloody; something like 200,000 died in the fighting at the front, about 100,000 on each side, in nearly three years. Neither side was particularly well-armed, well-trained, or well-organized, though the Nationals were more so than the Republicans.)
There were no good guys in the Spanish Civil War, nothing resembling good guys on either side among the leaders. They were all a bunch of killers who wanted to exterminate the enemy. That is the historical memory that should be recovered. There were no heroes, just killers and victims, and many of the victims had been killers themselves.
La Vanguardia's lead editorial yesterday was sensible and moderate:
...The memory of the Republican and Catalanist victims is being taken advantage of in order to idealize the Republican side and lay down a moral lecture, not only on the past, but also on the present...It is not possible to establish, as it seems that the (Zapatero) administration is attempting on occasion, a canonical and institutional vision of the war without falling into false idealism and Manicheanism...The attempt to reintroduce into today's politics the supposed morel superiority of one of the two sides reopens in the present the tragic wounds of the past.
Note that La Vanguardia is by no means calling for the Civil War to be forgotten. Rather, it is criticizing those who are trying to make political capital today by manipulating the past and calling it "the recovery of historical memory."
However, look at some quotes from the English-language press on the occasion of the anniversary:
From the Guardian:
Spain will mark the 70th anniversary of its devastating civil war tomorrow without official ceremony - in keeping with the so-called "pact of silence" that underpinned the transition to democracy. But as the date approaches, the Socialist-led government is putting the finishing touches to a controversial law intended to help heal the wounds on the losing Republican side. Officials are expected to reveal the text of the Law of Historical Memory on Friday, three days after the anniversary of the July 18 military uprising against the Second Spanish Republic that brought the dictator Francisco Franco to power.
And from the Telegraph:
As Spain re-established democracy in the decades since Franco's death in 1975, there was a tacit agreement among most Spaniards not to dwell on the past or seek to punish those guilty of abuses. The process to break that "pacto de olvido" ("collective pact of forgetting") began with the arrival in 2004 of a socialist government under Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose own grandfather was shot by Nationalist troops in the war. This year his government declared "A year of Historical Memory" and has made concerted efforts to collect millions of documents from around the world to shed light on one of the darkest periods in Spanish history. On Friday the government is expected to go a step further when it reveals the text of the Law of Historical Memory, a controversial measure intended to help heal the wounds on the losing Republican side.
See, I don't buy into this "pact of silence" stuff. Spanish TV is full of documentaries, Spanish bookstores are full of books, Spanish newspapers are full of articles, and Spanish politicians are often full of hot air about the Civil War. Like slavery in the United States, the Civil War is the overriding topic in modern Spanish history. Also notice that the Guardian does not mention word one about the civilian victims killed by the Republicans; estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000.
I'll be working on a series of pieces on the Spanish Civil War: the first, which ought to be ready tomorrow, will deal with the months leading up to the attempted coup in an attempt to explain why it happened.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Monday, July 17, 2006
Just checked the referral log; here's the ranking of the five best Google search topics over the last week:
5. "spaniards are ignorant"
No, no, only the enlightened and illustrated among us are.
4. "barcelona salou naked photo"
I did once link to lots of naked photos, here, but they're not from the beach at Salou.
3. "spainiards people who wear their clothes"
Now this shows a rather unhealthy fetishistic tendency. My guess is the guy looking for naked photos is probably more emotionally stable.
2. "drunken british girls platja d'aro"
The Fat Slags!
1. "algerian pornos"
Clearly the winner. No, I have never linked to Algerian pornography, nor do I plan to.
5. "spaniards are ignorant"
No, no, only the enlightened and illustrated among us are.
4. "barcelona salou naked photo"
I did once link to lots of naked photos, here, but they're not from the beach at Salou.
3. "spainiards people who wear their clothes"
Now this shows a rather unhealthy fetishistic tendency. My guess is the guy looking for naked photos is probably more emotionally stable.
2. "drunken british girls platja d'aro"
The Fat Slags!
1. "algerian pornos"
Clearly the winner. No, I have never linked to Algerian pornography, nor do I plan to.
Pointless thoughts as people are killed around the world:
Hezbollah fired at least five missiles into Haifa, while the Israelies have cleaned up all the Hezbollah border posts along the southern Lebanese frontier. Hezbollah is going to deeply regret having started this exchange of violence. Kofi Annan has called for UN peacekeeping troops to be sent in. Yeah, right, what country in its right mind is going to send troops into Lebanon? And I assume he's asking for the Americans to pay for it again.
All the Spanish TV stations have been endlessly playing the film of Bush saying to Vladimir Putin, "We have to get Syria to put pressure on Hezbollah until they stop this shit." Well put, Mr. Bush!
Our enlightened and illustrated alleged intellectual class around here is talking about how the Israelis are using what they're calling "collective punishment" in Gaza and Lebanon, which is forbidden by something like the UN charter that isn't worth a damn when you''re dealing with Hezbollah and Hamas. I dunno. My understanding is that collective punishment is what the Nazis did at Lidice, murdering all the inhabitants of the village which the British-backed freedom fighters had used as their base when they sent Reinhard Heydrich straight to hell. Knocking out a bridge or a power station isn't the same thing.
As for the Israeli shelling, it's aimed at military and infrastructure targets, not civilians. Tragically, some two hundred Lebanese civilians have already died. That's what happens in war, sad to say, and perhaps Hezbollah should not have killed and kidnapped those soldiers. Hezbollah, of course, is deliberately targeting Israeil civilians and has done so throughout its existence.
From what I've put together, Israeli strategy is to trap Hezbollah terrorists inside the Beirut area, and so they have blockaded the coast, taken out the airport, and knocked out the roads leading to Syria. They will not go in heavily on the ground, but continue air strikes until they have wiped out Hezbollah's command and control and left individual terrorists on their own. Hezbollah is going to be wiped out, despite hints the Israelis are dropping that they will stop their attacks if their hostages are returned. Syria will do nothing, as Israel would crush it if it tried. If Iran behaves belligerantly, the Israelis might even take out their nuclear installations.
There have been claims that the "sovereign" Lebanese government needs to step in and do something. Like what? They've got no power or influence.
Meanwhile, forty people were killed today in Baghdad when terrorists mortared a marketplace. Now, I remember being here during the Bosnia war, when all the illustrated folks around here were demanding that someone do something about the shelling of Sarajevo, especially after the Serbs hit that marketplace and killed about forty civilians. I don't hear the same shouting for someone to do something about terrorism in Iraq; in fact, all I hear are calls for those who are trying to do something to pull out and go home. Consistency has never been a strong point of the Perennially Indignant, as P.J. O'Rourke called them.
No one seems to be paying any attention to the terrorist bombings in Bombay, at least not in the media around here.
Lopez Obrador, of course, is behaving extremely irresponsibly, not accepting his defeat and calling for the citizenry to resist. He will fail.
J. M. Hernandez Puertolas says in La Vangua something that I've been trying to tell the PP for years, literally.
A reasonable doubt exists whether PP president Mariano Rajoy is falling into overacting when he describes a country sunk into apocalyptic chaos. Egged on by his media supporters, the implicit message of that trio spraying gasoline on the fire, Angel Acebes, Eduardo Zaplana, and Vicente Martinez Pujalte is evident: the PSOE stole the 2004 elections from us, so let's have new elections as soon as possible. The Democratic Party adopted a similar strategy toward George W. Bush's first victory, and look what happened to Kerry.
My general opinion is that all is fair in politics, but the foaming-at-the-mouth wing of the PP is going much too far when it accuses Zap and his administration of being "traitors." I don't like Zap or his administration or the PSOE, and I would vote against them every time, but they are behaving more or less as they are supposed to as an elected left-wing government. They are acting in good faith. I didn't much like the Catalan statute, either, and I don't see what Zap has to negotiate about with ETA, but the fact remains that Spain is a democracy and trying to undercut the elected government's legitimacy is a very dangerous step. Reminds me more than a little of Lopez Obrador.
The PP needs a change in leadership. This bunch is going to lead the party to sure defeat in 2008.
Hezbollah fired at least five missiles into Haifa, while the Israelies have cleaned up all the Hezbollah border posts along the southern Lebanese frontier. Hezbollah is going to deeply regret having started this exchange of violence. Kofi Annan has called for UN peacekeeping troops to be sent in. Yeah, right, what country in its right mind is going to send troops into Lebanon? And I assume he's asking for the Americans to pay for it again.
All the Spanish TV stations have been endlessly playing the film of Bush saying to Vladimir Putin, "We have to get Syria to put pressure on Hezbollah until they stop this shit." Well put, Mr. Bush!
Our enlightened and illustrated alleged intellectual class around here is talking about how the Israelis are using what they're calling "collective punishment" in Gaza and Lebanon, which is forbidden by something like the UN charter that isn't worth a damn when you''re dealing with Hezbollah and Hamas. I dunno. My understanding is that collective punishment is what the Nazis did at Lidice, murdering all the inhabitants of the village which the British-backed freedom fighters had used as their base when they sent Reinhard Heydrich straight to hell. Knocking out a bridge or a power station isn't the same thing.
As for the Israeli shelling, it's aimed at military and infrastructure targets, not civilians. Tragically, some two hundred Lebanese civilians have already died. That's what happens in war, sad to say, and perhaps Hezbollah should not have killed and kidnapped those soldiers. Hezbollah, of course, is deliberately targeting Israeil civilians and has done so throughout its existence.
From what I've put together, Israeli strategy is to trap Hezbollah terrorists inside the Beirut area, and so they have blockaded the coast, taken out the airport, and knocked out the roads leading to Syria. They will not go in heavily on the ground, but continue air strikes until they have wiped out Hezbollah's command and control and left individual terrorists on their own. Hezbollah is going to be wiped out, despite hints the Israelis are dropping that they will stop their attacks if their hostages are returned. Syria will do nothing, as Israel would crush it if it tried. If Iran behaves belligerantly, the Israelis might even take out their nuclear installations.
There have been claims that the "sovereign" Lebanese government needs to step in and do something. Like what? They've got no power or influence.
Meanwhile, forty people were killed today in Baghdad when terrorists mortared a marketplace. Now, I remember being here during the Bosnia war, when all the illustrated folks around here were demanding that someone do something about the shelling of Sarajevo, especially after the Serbs hit that marketplace and killed about forty civilians. I don't hear the same shouting for someone to do something about terrorism in Iraq; in fact, all I hear are calls for those who are trying to do something to pull out and go home. Consistency has never been a strong point of the Perennially Indignant, as P.J. O'Rourke called them.
No one seems to be paying any attention to the terrorist bombings in Bombay, at least not in the media around here.
Lopez Obrador, of course, is behaving extremely irresponsibly, not accepting his defeat and calling for the citizenry to resist. He will fail.
J. M. Hernandez Puertolas says in La Vangua something that I've been trying to tell the PP for years, literally.
A reasonable doubt exists whether PP president Mariano Rajoy is falling into overacting when he describes a country sunk into apocalyptic chaos. Egged on by his media supporters, the implicit message of that trio spraying gasoline on the fire, Angel Acebes, Eduardo Zaplana, and Vicente Martinez Pujalte is evident: the PSOE stole the 2004 elections from us, so let's have new elections as soon as possible. The Democratic Party adopted a similar strategy toward George W. Bush's first victory, and look what happened to Kerry.
My general opinion is that all is fair in politics, but the foaming-at-the-mouth wing of the PP is going much too far when it accuses Zap and his administration of being "traitors." I don't like Zap or his administration or the PSOE, and I would vote against them every time, but they are behaving more or less as they are supposed to as an elected left-wing government. They are acting in good faith. I didn't much like the Catalan statute, either, and I don't see what Zap has to negotiate about with ETA, but the fact remains that Spain is a democracy and trying to undercut the elected government's legitimacy is a very dangerous step. Reminds me more than a little of Lopez Obrador.
The PP needs a change in leadership. This bunch is going to lead the party to sure defeat in 2008.
Monday's blog roundup while listening to Tom Russell:
La Liga Loca fills us on Spanish football gossip, including Real Madrid signing speculations, Pablo Ibañez's faux pas, Mallorca's new stadium name, and more.
The Corner links to a fascinating six-year-old article by an American officer titled "Why Arabs Lose Wars."
Davids Medienkritik takes apart Der Spiegel's anti-American Washington correspondent.
Biased BBC is outraged at coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Meryl Yourish has links to several pieces on Israeli strategy.
Right Wing News explains why the US supports Israel.
Akaky is surrealistically satirical about government intervention.
Rob and Rany are slightly optimistic about our beloved Kansas City Royals.
Trevor blasts the language police, no matter where they turn up.
La Liga Loca fills us on Spanish football gossip, including Real Madrid signing speculations, Pablo Ibañez's faux pas, Mallorca's new stadium name, and more.
The Corner links to a fascinating six-year-old article by an American officer titled "Why Arabs Lose Wars."
Davids Medienkritik takes apart Der Spiegel's anti-American Washington correspondent.
Biased BBC is outraged at coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Meryl Yourish has links to several pieces on Israeli strategy.
Right Wing News explains why the US supports Israel.
Akaky is surrealistically satirical about government intervention.
Rob and Rany are slightly optimistic about our beloved Kansas City Royals.
Trevor blasts the language police, no matter where they turn up.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Aimless thoughts while sitting in the air-conditioning and listening to KBON out of Eunice, Louisiana (click on "KBON Listen Live Here"):
Zap made a disgraceful speech this afternoon at a Socialist party rally in Ibiza:
...Those who carried out the war in Iraq told us that after the intervention, the expansion of democracy and a future of peace would come. I hope they learn from the lesson these most recent events and the disaster they have meant. Today, more than ever, a new culture of international order is necessary, that will impose a new form of dealing with conflicts, supported by citizens, countries, and governments that represents a call for understanding, not imposing order unilaterally.
Zapatero demanded that the Israeli government "cease hostilities" and "respect international law."
...Struggle against terrorist violence does not justify the loss of innocent human lives. The authority that derives from the United Nations must make all possible efforts to put an end to this insanity of hostilities that may have serious consequences.
I don't even know where to start. 1) Democracy has been expanded in Iraq; they have an elected government that is in control of most of the country, and they've had three elections. 2) Iraq has most certainly not been a disaster, since Saddam is no longer in power and the country is no longer a threat to anyone. 3) Zap, you and your Porto Alegre altermundialist dreamers have no power to "impose" anything, and thank Jesus Christ Almighty that you don't, because you'd try to appease the terrorists and next thing you know there would be stonings of adulteresses in the Plaza Real.
4) Zap wants the ISRAELIS to cease hostilities? Uh, they didn't start it. 5) Nobody, at least not Israel and the US, wants innocent civilians to be killed, but that's what happens when cowardly terrorists hide behind the people. You can't hit Hezbollah without hitting an inhabited area, because that is where the killers take refuge. Besides, Hezbollah has been attacking Israeli citizens DELIBERATELY for decades. 6) Authority? United Nations? LMFAOROTF. 7) Zap seems not to be aware that the only reason Osama hasn't already retaken Andalusia is because the US and NATO are protecting Spain, which is not militarily capable of defending itself.
Meanwhile, the world's biggest pompous self-important ass, Hugo Chavez, is threatening "another Holocaust" if the "Israeli elites" and "US empire" don't do as he says.
I botched the story on Maragall and the regional election, forgetting that November 1, Todos los Santos, is of course a day off work in Spain. It's his Socialist cohorts who want to hold the regional election on a workday, while the rest of the parties want it to be held on a Sunday, as has become traditional. Maragall, though, has irritated everybody by setting it on Todos los Santos, a midweek holiday.
You know, I'm still pissed off at Toni Soler for his crack last week that Socialist candidate Montilla doesn't speak Catalan well enough to be regional premier. Montilla was on the news this afternoon giving a press conference in Catalan, and that reminded me of Soler's bigotry. No, Montilla's first language is not Catalan, and so he has a pretty strong accent. But his grammar and vocabulary are perfect, and what more can you ask? By the way, Soler, do you know any other languages? I bet Montilla's Catalan pronunciation is better than yours in English.
Most Irritating Local Celebrities:
7. Maruja Torres. Bitter, angry bitch who writes for El Pais.
6. Lluis Llach. Very dull Communist Cataloony folksinger and gay activist.
5. Maria de la Pau Janer, celeb-authoress heavily subsidized and promoted by regional Culture department. Many have started and few have finished her books.
4. Toni Soler, unfunny radical Cataloony talk-show host and occasional newspaper columnist.
3. Pepe Rubianes, hateful stand-up comic who applauds when Americans are killed.
2. Raimon. Worst folksinger ever. Llach at least can play the guitar.
1. Joel Joan, unfunny actor and scriptwriter fond of insulting people from other parts of Spain.
Any more nominations? Josmar is hors de categorie, of course.
The Italian football federation has made its ruling. Juventus, Fiorentina, and Lazio go down to second division and Milan is stripped of its Champions' League berth, as Juve loses its last two league titles. Rumors about which players are going where are flying, and I've heard Real Madrid is interested in Cannavaro, Thuram, Vieira, Zambrotti, Ibrahimovic, Trezeguet, and Kaka. Inter has already picked up Toni.
Zap made a disgraceful speech this afternoon at a Socialist party rally in Ibiza:
...Those who carried out the war in Iraq told us that after the intervention, the expansion of democracy and a future of peace would come. I hope they learn from the lesson these most recent events and the disaster they have meant. Today, more than ever, a new culture of international order is necessary, that will impose a new form of dealing with conflicts, supported by citizens, countries, and governments that represents a call for understanding, not imposing order unilaterally.
Zapatero demanded that the Israeli government "cease hostilities" and "respect international law."
...Struggle against terrorist violence does not justify the loss of innocent human lives. The authority that derives from the United Nations must make all possible efforts to put an end to this insanity of hostilities that may have serious consequences.
I don't even know where to start. 1) Democracy has been expanded in Iraq; they have an elected government that is in control of most of the country, and they've had three elections. 2) Iraq has most certainly not been a disaster, since Saddam is no longer in power and the country is no longer a threat to anyone. 3) Zap, you and your Porto Alegre altermundialist dreamers have no power to "impose" anything, and thank Jesus Christ Almighty that you don't, because you'd try to appease the terrorists and next thing you know there would be stonings of adulteresses in the Plaza Real.
4) Zap wants the ISRAELIS to cease hostilities? Uh, they didn't start it. 5) Nobody, at least not Israel and the US, wants innocent civilians to be killed, but that's what happens when cowardly terrorists hide behind the people. You can't hit Hezbollah without hitting an inhabited area, because that is where the killers take refuge. Besides, Hezbollah has been attacking Israeli citizens DELIBERATELY for decades. 6) Authority? United Nations? LMFAOROTF. 7) Zap seems not to be aware that the only reason Osama hasn't already retaken Andalusia is because the US and NATO are protecting Spain, which is not militarily capable of defending itself.
Meanwhile, the world's biggest pompous self-important ass, Hugo Chavez, is threatening "another Holocaust" if the "Israeli elites" and "US empire" don't do as he says.
I botched the story on Maragall and the regional election, forgetting that November 1, Todos los Santos, is of course a day off work in Spain. It's his Socialist cohorts who want to hold the regional election on a workday, while the rest of the parties want it to be held on a Sunday, as has become traditional. Maragall, though, has irritated everybody by setting it on Todos los Santos, a midweek holiday.
You know, I'm still pissed off at Toni Soler for his crack last week that Socialist candidate Montilla doesn't speak Catalan well enough to be regional premier. Montilla was on the news this afternoon giving a press conference in Catalan, and that reminded me of Soler's bigotry. No, Montilla's first language is not Catalan, and so he has a pretty strong accent. But his grammar and vocabulary are perfect, and what more can you ask? By the way, Soler, do you know any other languages? I bet Montilla's Catalan pronunciation is better than yours in English.
Most Irritating Local Celebrities:
7. Maruja Torres. Bitter, angry bitch who writes for El Pais.
6. Lluis Llach. Very dull Communist Cataloony folksinger and gay activist.
5. Maria de la Pau Janer, celeb-authoress heavily subsidized and promoted by regional Culture department. Many have started and few have finished her books.
4. Toni Soler, unfunny radical Cataloony talk-show host and occasional newspaper columnist.
3. Pepe Rubianes, hateful stand-up comic who applauds when Americans are killed.
2. Raimon. Worst folksinger ever. Llach at least can play the guitar.
1. Joel Joan, unfunny actor and scriptwriter fond of insulting people from other parts of Spain.
Any more nominations? Josmar is hors de categorie, of course.
The Italian football federation has made its ruling. Juventus, Fiorentina, and Lazio go down to second division and Milan is stripped of its Champions' League berth, as Juve loses its last two league titles. Rumors about which players are going where are flying, and I've heard Real Madrid is interested in Cannavaro, Thuram, Vieira, Zambrotti, Ibrahimovic, Trezeguet, and Kaka. Inter has already picked up Toni.
Saturday blog roundup while listening to Slow Down by Keb' Mo' (Kevin Moore):
The Rottweiler blasts the Vatican's response to the Israeli-Hezbollah war.
¡No Pasarán! attacks Chiraq. Pejman also comments.
Rainy Day takes on the Iranians and their Hezbollah clients.
Silflay Hraka debunks global-warmingism and explains why the Republicans will win the November congressional elections.
Right Wing News makes fun of the Dems' newfound desire to reach conservative Christian voters.
Expat Yank explains the American point of view on the "NatWest Three."
The Rottweiler blasts the Vatican's response to the Israeli-Hezbollah war.
¡No Pasarán! attacks Chiraq. Pejman also comments.
Rainy Day takes on the Iranians and their Hezbollah clients.
Silflay Hraka debunks global-warmingism and explains why the Republicans will win the November congressional elections.
Right Wing News makes fun of the Dems' newfound desire to reach conservative Christian voters.
Expat Yank explains the American point of view on the "NatWest Three."
Friday, July 14, 2006
Get this bit from the Guardian, that "Yankee Go Home" standard-bearer, on the Israeli-Hezbollah war:
But if the situation shows signs of escalating, the Bush administration may have to drop its hands-off attitude and get more actively involved. Unlike his predecessors, George Bush shows little inclination, to get personally involved in the thankless task of handholding Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. But that is what may be needed. If the president insists on staying away from the fray, at least the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, should get stuck in to defuse a political crisis that is having a direct economic impact well beyond the region.
If I'm reading it right, this guy wants Bush to intervene in the war in order to palliate its economic impact on the UK, an attitude which doesn't jibe at all with the Guardian's usual imperialism-capitalism "no blood for oil" rants. Note the standard European call for the Americans to step in whenever the shit hits the fan and their own interests are at stake.
But if the situation shows signs of escalating, the Bush administration may have to drop its hands-off attitude and get more actively involved. Unlike his predecessors, George Bush shows little inclination, to get personally involved in the thankless task of handholding Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. But that is what may be needed. If the president insists on staying away from the fray, at least the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, should get stuck in to defuse a political crisis that is having a direct economic impact well beyond the region.
If I'm reading it right, this guy wants Bush to intervene in the war in order to palliate its economic impact on the UK, an attitude which doesn't jibe at all with the Guardian's usual imperialism-capitalism "no blood for oil" rants. Note the standard European call for the Americans to step in whenever the shit hits the fan and their own interests are at stake.
Getting up on my high horse while listening to Townes Van Zandt again:
One thing I despise is medical quackery. These quacks are con men cheating their victims, who are sick and desperate people. They are contemptible scum.
So on Wednesday, the Vanguardia's top story in its Society section was titled: "Natural therapies pass the exam." And it only gets worse.
"Natural therapies," that is, fraudulent ones, will become "regulated" in Catalonia in September. That means legalized and, I presume, paid for through Social Security, the National Health equivalent. Non-medical personnel ("practitioners") practicing "natural therapies" will be licensed if they have been in practice for at least five years; if they have not, then they must pass an exam. The Colegio de Medicos, the equivalent of the AMA, ALREADY accredits actupuncturists and homeopaths, for Christ's sake.
According to La Vanguardia, the "therapies" regulated are:
"Chinese or Oriental medicine"
Acupuncture
Moxibustion
Tui-na
Chi Gong
Naturopathy
Homeopathy
Kinesiology
Shiatsu (acupressure)
Podal reflexology
Lymphatic drainage
Diafreotherapy
"Holistic liberation of stress"
All these unscientific frauds are going to be not only perfectly legal, but actually licensed by the state!
One thing I despise is medical quackery. These quacks are con men cheating their victims, who are sick and desperate people. They are contemptible scum.
So on Wednesday, the Vanguardia's top story in its Society section was titled: "Natural therapies pass the exam." And it only gets worse.
"Natural therapies," that is, fraudulent ones, will become "regulated" in Catalonia in September. That means legalized and, I presume, paid for through Social Security, the National Health equivalent. Non-medical personnel ("practitioners") practicing "natural therapies" will be licensed if they have been in practice for at least five years; if they have not, then they must pass an exam. The Colegio de Medicos, the equivalent of the AMA, ALREADY accredits actupuncturists and homeopaths, for Christ's sake.
According to La Vanguardia, the "therapies" regulated are:
"Chinese or Oriental medicine"
Acupuncture
Moxibustion
Tui-na
Chi Gong
Naturopathy
Homeopathy
Kinesiology
Shiatsu (acupressure)
Podal reflexology
Lymphatic drainage
Diafreotherapy
"Holistic liberation of stress"
All these unscientific frauds are going to be not only perfectly legal, but actually licensed by the state!
I spent a couple of hours today trimming back the blogroll and cutting out dead links. If I removed you and you want to get back on the list, tell me. Sasha Castel, Robert Duncan, Fausta, Dr. Weevil, and Iain Murray, please tell me where you're blogging now so I can relink.
I'll add several new links to the blogroll next week.
I'll add several new links to the blogroll next week.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Today's stage of the Tour de France just ended, with Menchov beating out Leipheimer and Landis at the finish line. This was the big day, the first mountain stage with five category 1 climbs including the Tourmalet and the Portillon. They finished in Spanish territory at Baqueira Beret, a well-known ski resort in the Pyrenees. It's in the Aran Valley, a small corner of Catalonia where the native language is Aranese, not Catalan. Aranese is a dialect of Occitan, and it's spoken by like a thousand people.
I like the Tour de France. I like endurance sports, since the only sport I was ever good at was distance running. What I actually like most about the Tour is the French countryside, though.
In case you were wondering who all those people dressed in orange waving flags that look like the Union Jack in orange, green and white, they're Basques and that's the regional flag. Fine, great, wonderful, being proud of your land and supporting your homeboy cyclists is totally cool with me. The guys with the flags showing a large black blotch with four arrows pointing to it and the slogan "Euskal Presoak Euskal Herria" are not fine, great, or wonderful, though. They're ETA supporters calling for ETA prisoners to be concentrated in prisons in the Basque Country, which the government won't agree to because if they were all together they'd take the prisons over like the IRA did the Maze.
In the recent past the Basque fans, especially, have been notorious for getting drunk and spewing insults and spit at Lance Armstrong. This year they appear to be much better behaved.
I'm rooting for Juan Antonio Flecha and Levi Leipheimer this year. Flecha is from here in Barcelona, he's a gutsy middle-of-the-pack guy who wins an occasional sprint. He went on a break today with two other guys and stayed in front for at least half the race. Everybody likes him, too, he seems like a real nice guy. Leipheimer is a guy whose career I've followed with some interest; he used to be one of Lance's team and then struck out on his own in 2003, I think, and has done well, finishing in the top ten in the Tour every year since. I particularly like him because in his spare time he works to help homeless and abandoned animals, which is one of my personal causes. Leipheimer was in the front three today, the guys who sprinted it out, along with another guy I like, Floyd Landis.
Landis takes over the yellow jersey for tomorrow. Leiphemer is farther back in the standings, since he had a disastrous time trial that cost him five minutes.
I like the Tour de France. I like endurance sports, since the only sport I was ever good at was distance running. What I actually like most about the Tour is the French countryside, though.
In case you were wondering who all those people dressed in orange waving flags that look like the Union Jack in orange, green and white, they're Basques and that's the regional flag. Fine, great, wonderful, being proud of your land and supporting your homeboy cyclists is totally cool with me. The guys with the flags showing a large black blotch with four arrows pointing to it and the slogan "Euskal Presoak Euskal Herria" are not fine, great, or wonderful, though. They're ETA supporters calling for ETA prisoners to be concentrated in prisons in the Basque Country, which the government won't agree to because if they were all together they'd take the prisons over like the IRA did the Maze.
In the recent past the Basque fans, especially, have been notorious for getting drunk and spewing insults and spit at Lance Armstrong. This year they appear to be much better behaved.
I'm rooting for Juan Antonio Flecha and Levi Leipheimer this year. Flecha is from here in Barcelona, he's a gutsy middle-of-the-pack guy who wins an occasional sprint. He went on a break today with two other guys and stayed in front for at least half the race. Everybody likes him, too, he seems like a real nice guy. Leipheimer is a guy whose career I've followed with some interest; he used to be one of Lance's team and then struck out on his own in 2003, I think, and has done well, finishing in the top ten in the Tour every year since. I particularly like him because in his spare time he works to help homeless and abandoned animals, which is one of my personal causes. Leipheimer was in the front three today, the guys who sprinted it out, along with another guy I like, Floyd Landis.
Landis takes over the yellow jersey for tomorrow. Leiphemer is farther back in the standings, since he had a disastrous time trial that cost him five minutes.
Aimless thoughts while listening to The Mountain by Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band (Yes, I despise Steve Earle's politics as much as anyone, and I don't think he's precisely a positive role for America's youth, either. Among other things, he's been married six times, done prison time, and been hooked on heroin and apparently everything else toxic. However, I love his stuff):
Israel is on the offensive against Hezbollah. Good. The Spanish press is unanimously anti-Israel, and both El Periodico and La Vanguardia have been publishing strident anti-Israeli/American articles and cartoons.
Examples: Ferreres from El Periodico, July 12. Uncle Sam: "You have the right to bomb them, as long as you do it ethically."
Ferreres, July 11. Passerby: "Your Holiness, since you support the family so much, couldn't you go to Gaza and give the ones over there a hand?" Pope: "And get called an anti-Semite? With my past record, I have to be careful."
Ferreres, July 4: Muslim father: "They always say, 'Violence gets you nothing.' They should add, 'Unless you use it against those who are defenseless.' In that case, it gets you everything." Agreed, in this case the tanks could be either American or Israeli.
Genius outgoing Catalan regional premier Pasqual Maragall has decided to call regional parliamentary elections on November 1, irritating everybody because elections are generally held in Spain on Sundays, and November 1 is a Wednesday. Get this logic: Maragall and the Socialists figure since if the election is on a workday and employers by law have to give their workers four hours off to vote, that will lead working-class voters to turn out massively.
They don't close down the bars and liquor stores on Election Day over here like they do in Kansas. The running joke is that we close down alcohol outlets in order to reduce drunk voting; in reality, it's a reform measure left over from the old corrupt days in the Thirties when they'd drag every bum in town out of the gutter to vote and pay them off with a pint of whiskey.
La Vanguardia's Joaquim Ibarz got an interview with Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon. Quotes:
(Provocation) is part of (Lopez Obrador's) habitual strategy, but we are ready...There will not be an institutional crisis despite the demonstrations. I am prepared to confront this radicalization and govern with a belligerent opposition. Lopez Obrador is losing more credibility each day. The more radical he becomes, accusing everyone of being a traitor, the more electoral support he loses. This not very democratic attitude will cost him votes and credibility among those who voted for the PRD...It is lamentable that Lopez Obrador is accusing his own representatives at the polling places of being bribed...Our surveys show that the great majority of Mexicans is convinced that the elections were clean.
The Iberia pilots' strike has ended and air traffic is expected to be back to normal tomorrow.
Spain is nowhere near meeting any of the Kyoto Protocol's limits, of course; CO2 emissions in 2012 will be 37% higher than in 1990, when the protocol limits them to 15%. Meanwhile, the World Wildlife Fund is complaining that the extension of irrigated farming is the main cause of greater water use in Spain. Well, duh, we're Europe's Florida and grow all the fresh fruit and vegetables they eat in Berlin and Oslo and Sunderland, if they ever eat any fresh fruit and vegetables in Sunderland. They also bitch about golf courses, which they of course are against since golf is stereotyped in Spain as a rich man's sp0rt.
Well, 1) the number of golf courses will keep expanding as long as the number of people earning enough money to take it up keeps expanding, and this is what we want, isn't it? 2) they provide lots of jobs, admittedly mostly low-wage, but that's what working people need more of, right? 3) they are effectively mini-wildlife refuges, and if you don't believe it, visit Kansas City and count the amount of waterfowl, songbirds, and forest creatures ranging from raccoons to deer living on the courses there, and 4) we live off tourism. If tourists want golf courses, we need to give them golf courses or they'll go somewhere else.
Israel is on the offensive against Hezbollah. Good. The Spanish press is unanimously anti-Israel, and both El Periodico and La Vanguardia have been publishing strident anti-Israeli/American articles and cartoons.
Examples: Ferreres from El Periodico, July 12. Uncle Sam: "You have the right to bomb them, as long as you do it ethically."
Ferreres, July 11. Passerby: "Your Holiness, since you support the family so much, couldn't you go to Gaza and give the ones over there a hand?" Pope: "And get called an anti-Semite? With my past record, I have to be careful."
Ferreres, July 4: Muslim father: "They always say, 'Violence gets you nothing.' They should add, 'Unless you use it against those who are defenseless.' In that case, it gets you everything." Agreed, in this case the tanks could be either American or Israeli.
Genius outgoing Catalan regional premier Pasqual Maragall has decided to call regional parliamentary elections on November 1, irritating everybody because elections are generally held in Spain on Sundays, and November 1 is a Wednesday. Get this logic: Maragall and the Socialists figure since if the election is on a workday and employers by law have to give their workers four hours off to vote, that will lead working-class voters to turn out massively.
They don't close down the bars and liquor stores on Election Day over here like they do in Kansas. The running joke is that we close down alcohol outlets in order to reduce drunk voting; in reality, it's a reform measure left over from the old corrupt days in the Thirties when they'd drag every bum in town out of the gutter to vote and pay them off with a pint of whiskey.
La Vanguardia's Joaquim Ibarz got an interview with Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon. Quotes:
(Provocation) is part of (Lopez Obrador's) habitual strategy, but we are ready...There will not be an institutional crisis despite the demonstrations. I am prepared to confront this radicalization and govern with a belligerent opposition. Lopez Obrador is losing more credibility each day. The more radical he becomes, accusing everyone of being a traitor, the more electoral support he loses. This not very democratic attitude will cost him votes and credibility among those who voted for the PRD...It is lamentable that Lopez Obrador is accusing his own representatives at the polling places of being bribed...Our surveys show that the great majority of Mexicans is convinced that the elections were clean.
The Iberia pilots' strike has ended and air traffic is expected to be back to normal tomorrow.
Spain is nowhere near meeting any of the Kyoto Protocol's limits, of course; CO2 emissions in 2012 will be 37% higher than in 1990, when the protocol limits them to 15%. Meanwhile, the World Wildlife Fund is complaining that the extension of irrigated farming is the main cause of greater water use in Spain. Well, duh, we're Europe's Florida and grow all the fresh fruit and vegetables they eat in Berlin and Oslo and Sunderland, if they ever eat any fresh fruit and vegetables in Sunderland. They also bitch about golf courses, which they of course are against since golf is stereotyped in Spain as a rich man's sp0rt.
Well, 1) the number of golf courses will keep expanding as long as the number of people earning enough money to take it up keeps expanding, and this is what we want, isn't it? 2) they provide lots of jobs, admittedly mostly low-wage, but that's what working people need more of, right? 3) they are effectively mini-wildlife refuges, and if you don't believe it, visit Kansas City and count the amount of waterfowl, songbirds, and forest creatures ranging from raccoons to deer living on the courses there, and 4) we live off tourism. If tourists want golf courses, we need to give them golf courses or they'll go somewhere else.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Seems that Barcelona's Teatre Lliure, one of those committed progressive theater companies, commissioned a play about President Bush titled "Arbusht" ("bush" in Catalan translates as "arbust"--pretty funny title, huh?).
This is from El Periodico's review:
"Arbusht" possesses the ingredients of good comedy, but this is cold and terrifying comedy. Any sensible spectator's smile will freeze when he discovers that everything that happens is real, frighteningly real. Grotesque, absurd, surrealistic. "Arbusht" is based on well-drawn characters that are symbols of what Bush's policies have been; religion, economic power represented by oil, and affinity with the demands of the "silent majority" (sic), which incarnates the most conservative values, and which condemns abortion while applauding the death penalty.
(The author) has successfully avoided easy jokes by constructing a sad and tragic character: a poor imbecile who lives in the shadow of his father and who is manipulated by everyone, an unfortunate loser who has never done anything he wanted because, in reality, he has never known what he wanted to do.
Sounds even worse than the average Teatre Lliure spectacle. Note, again, the conspiracy-theory mentality, Bush manipulated by the forces that really run the world in the fervid imaginations of those who like this sort of thing.
This is from El Periodico's review:
"Arbusht" possesses the ingredients of good comedy, but this is cold and terrifying comedy. Any sensible spectator's smile will freeze when he discovers that everything that happens is real, frighteningly real. Grotesque, absurd, surrealistic. "Arbusht" is based on well-drawn characters that are symbols of what Bush's policies have been; religion, economic power represented by oil, and affinity with the demands of the "silent majority" (sic), which incarnates the most conservative values, and which condemns abortion while applauding the death penalty.
(The author) has successfully avoided easy jokes by constructing a sad and tragic character: a poor imbecile who lives in the shadow of his father and who is manipulated by everyone, an unfortunate loser who has never done anything he wanted because, in reality, he has never known what he wanted to do.
Sounds even worse than the average Teatre Lliure spectacle. Note, again, the conspiracy-theory mentality, Bush manipulated by the forces that really run the world in the fervid imaginations of those who like this sort of thing.
Wednesday blog roundup while listening to WDVX from Knoxville, Tennessee (click on "Click Here for Media Player):
Davids Medienkritik has a fisking of a silly German pundit who seems to think America's gone Nazi, and another one of an anti-Semite at the Berliner Zeitung.
Expat Yank blasts Reuters' ignorance of World War II history, and slashes away at BBC coverage of the terrorist attack in Bombay.
Samizdata has a good piece on "The NatWest Three," an issue receiving tons of publicity in the UK. The Telegraph is running a campaign demanding they not be extradited to the US.
And La Liga Loca has a post-World Cup roundup on the Spanish football transfer market.
Davids Medienkritik has a fisking of a silly German pundit who seems to think America's gone Nazi, and another one of an anti-Semite at the Berliner Zeitung.
Expat Yank blasts Reuters' ignorance of World War II history, and slashes away at BBC coverage of the terrorist attack in Bombay.
Samizdata has a good piece on "The NatWest Three," an issue receiving tons of publicity in the UK. The Telegraph is running a campaign demanding they not be extradited to the US.
And La Liga Loca has a post-World Cup roundup on the Spanish football transfer market.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Smug, arrogant Guardian columnist Stephen Humphreys has a lovely piece on the recent Supreme Court Hamdan decision. I'll reproduce a few quotes from his piece.
For anyone who thinks the Bush administration deserves a slap - and that surely includes most of us outside the US - the supreme court's recent Hamdan decision sounds like just the tonic.
Ooh, yeth, Thtevie, thlap me too. It thounds tho thexy.
The US supreme court is the only institution standing between the violence of the most powerful government in the world and the rest of us.
Thtevie, do you realize the only reason why you're not the prime receptacle in Osama's harem right now is because the US, UK, and NATO are protecting you against it? Let me repeat that. There are fanatical people out there who want to enslave you, make you live under sharia law, force you to adhere to their religion, and they will kill you if you resist. Those are the people the United States and its allies are defending you against. The alleged human rights of a few hundred persons taken prisoner while bearing arms illegally in the service of the Islamist cause mean nothing to me. Those people want to enslave us or kill us. They must be confined or killed. I personally prefer confined, as I am in favor of killing as few people as possible.
Protecting you against the violence of the US government! The US government is protecting you against Islamist, Communist, anarchist, Fascist, nationalist, and every other kind of rampaging violence in the world. If you don't believe that, visit the Congo and see what life is like without that protection.
(I)n the dance between the powers of the US government, as each strives to increase its own reach against the other two, it is the three combined, the state itself, that wins.
Yeah, right, Thtevie. That's got to be the least convincing conclusion to an article I've seen this year. What the hell does it mean, anyway? I honestly have no clue.
For anyone who thinks the Bush administration deserves a slap - and that surely includes most of us outside the US - the supreme court's recent Hamdan decision sounds like just the tonic.
Ooh, yeth, Thtevie, thlap me too. It thounds tho thexy.
The US supreme court is the only institution standing between the violence of the most powerful government in the world and the rest of us.
Thtevie, do you realize the only reason why you're not the prime receptacle in Osama's harem right now is because the US, UK, and NATO are protecting you against it? Let me repeat that. There are fanatical people out there who want to enslave you, make you live under sharia law, force you to adhere to their religion, and they will kill you if you resist. Those are the people the United States and its allies are defending you against. The alleged human rights of a few hundred persons taken prisoner while bearing arms illegally in the service of the Islamist cause mean nothing to me. Those people want to enslave us or kill us. They must be confined or killed. I personally prefer confined, as I am in favor of killing as few people as possible.
Protecting you against the violence of the US government! The US government is protecting you against Islamist, Communist, anarchist, Fascist, nationalist, and every other kind of rampaging violence in the world. If you don't believe that, visit the Congo and see what life is like without that protection.
(I)n the dance between the powers of the US government, as each strives to increase its own reach against the other two, it is the three combined, the state itself, that wins.
Yeah, right, Thtevie. That's got to be the least convincing conclusion to an article I've seen this year. What the hell does it mean, anyway? I honestly have no clue.
Fox News is reporting that seven bombs exploded on the Bombay commuter train network during evening rush hour. At least twelve people have been killed and many more injured. No announcement has been made on who did it, though Al Qaeda is an obvious suspect. Our condolences with and sympathy toward the people of India. The war on terrorism must be won.
Aimless thoughts while listening to Townes Van Zandt:
It's hot here--yesterday afternoon it hit 33º in Barcelona, which is over 90º Fahrenheit. Barcelona is usually quite mild, both in winter and summer. Add that to the humidity and you get nasty, and then add in the pollution and you get just plain gross. The south of the peninsula is under a heat advisory. It reached 44º in Sevilla, which is something like 115º F. I had to go to a meeting today and the bus coming back was packed to the point that passengers were getting much too intimate. Luckily, the AC was working or the experience would have been even more horrific.
Yesterday Spain's energy consumption set a new record, basically due to people running the air-conditioning. Most people have it now, and five years ago most people didn't. You can get a decent, efficient, effective unit installed for well less than a thousand euros now. Running it is expensive, of course, and we only turn it on while we're home and awake. Nights cool off enough that they're not too uncomfortable without it.
The Iberia pilots' strike is still on, and the company has canceled 230 flights a day. They seem to be able to get most people on another flight sooner or later, mostly later, but there are hundreds of folks stuck at Spanish airports for up to a day. So far there hasn't been any rioting.
They arrested two more suspects in the ETA extortion ring. One of them was the editor in chief of two regional newspapers in Navarra and Guipuscoa. This makes something like sixteen, and there will be a lot more to come. I will bet we will be surprised at a couple of names that are going to come out. Meanwhile, the ETA-front newspaper Gara reported that Zap had reached an agreement with ETA in February, before ETA declared its "permanent cease-fire," in which he "committed himself to respect the decisions that the Basque citizens freely adopt on their futures, and to stop the arrests of terrorists and reduce police presence." Dixit La Vanguardia. Zap and the PSOE denied it and pointed out that Gara doesn't precisely enjoy a reputation for credibility.
The administration stressed that everything would be done in accordance with the Constitution. I don't know whether to trust them or not. They certainly can't allow any sort of referendum on Basque independence; that's unconstitutional. The document states explicitly, of course, that Spain is indivisible. They can't call any sort of amnesty for terrorists or their supporters; society wouldn't stand for it. I don't see any concessions that Zap and the Socialists can make to ETA. So exactly what are they going to negotiate about?
In case you're interested, here's the Spanish constitution in English. Notice how complex and long-winded it is compared to the American. I freely admit that I have not read the whole thing, nor do I necessarily understand all the parts I've read.
The biggest change in people's everyday lives is the introduction of a points system on drivers' licenses last month. From now on, if you get caught breaking a traffic law, you lose points on your license. You have twelve points, and if you use them up you lose your license for six months and have to take one of those driver safety courses. Get this: you lose six points for drunk driving with an blood-alcohol content of more than 0.75 mg/l. It'll cost you six points for driving under the influence of drugs. You also lose six points for driving more than 180 km/h, which is about 110 mph. I think if you do any of those things in Kansas, we throw your ass in jail, and don't even think about ever getting your license back. Here in Spain, you still have six points left!
I think I'll shoot up some smack and go out for a drive at 100 mph. If I get nailed the heroin will cost me six points and the speeding below 110 mph will cost me four. I still have two points left. Cool.
There's absolutely no question that it's working, though. Last weekend traffic deaths were half what they'd been for the first weekend in July 2005. There's apparently been massive police presence on the highways, and that's noticeably cut back bad driving outside the urban areas. Remei and I have seen it the last couple of weekends driving out to the pueblo. Speeding is way down. People are actually driving the limit, which is 120 kph anyway. That's about as fast as anybody needs to go.
It's hot here--yesterday afternoon it hit 33º in Barcelona, which is over 90º Fahrenheit. Barcelona is usually quite mild, both in winter and summer. Add that to the humidity and you get nasty, and then add in the pollution and you get just plain gross. The south of the peninsula is under a heat advisory. It reached 44º in Sevilla, which is something like 115º F. I had to go to a meeting today and the bus coming back was packed to the point that passengers were getting much too intimate. Luckily, the AC was working or the experience would have been even more horrific.
Yesterday Spain's energy consumption set a new record, basically due to people running the air-conditioning. Most people have it now, and five years ago most people didn't. You can get a decent, efficient, effective unit installed for well less than a thousand euros now. Running it is expensive, of course, and we only turn it on while we're home and awake. Nights cool off enough that they're not too uncomfortable without it.
The Iberia pilots' strike is still on, and the company has canceled 230 flights a day. They seem to be able to get most people on another flight sooner or later, mostly later, but there are hundreds of folks stuck at Spanish airports for up to a day. So far there hasn't been any rioting.
They arrested two more suspects in the ETA extortion ring. One of them was the editor in chief of two regional newspapers in Navarra and Guipuscoa. This makes something like sixteen, and there will be a lot more to come. I will bet we will be surprised at a couple of names that are going to come out. Meanwhile, the ETA-front newspaper Gara reported that Zap had reached an agreement with ETA in February, before ETA declared its "permanent cease-fire," in which he "committed himself to respect the decisions that the Basque citizens freely adopt on their futures, and to stop the arrests of terrorists and reduce police presence." Dixit La Vanguardia. Zap and the PSOE denied it and pointed out that Gara doesn't precisely enjoy a reputation for credibility.
The administration stressed that everything would be done in accordance with the Constitution. I don't know whether to trust them or not. They certainly can't allow any sort of referendum on Basque independence; that's unconstitutional. The document states explicitly, of course, that Spain is indivisible. They can't call any sort of amnesty for terrorists or their supporters; society wouldn't stand for it. I don't see any concessions that Zap and the Socialists can make to ETA. So exactly what are they going to negotiate about?
In case you're interested, here's the Spanish constitution in English. Notice how complex and long-winded it is compared to the American. I freely admit that I have not read the whole thing, nor do I necessarily understand all the parts I've read.
The biggest change in people's everyday lives is the introduction of a points system on drivers' licenses last month. From now on, if you get caught breaking a traffic law, you lose points on your license. You have twelve points, and if you use them up you lose your license for six months and have to take one of those driver safety courses. Get this: you lose six points for drunk driving with an blood-alcohol content of more than 0.75 mg/l. It'll cost you six points for driving under the influence of drugs. You also lose six points for driving more than 180 km/h, which is about 110 mph. I think if you do any of those things in Kansas, we throw your ass in jail, and don't even think about ever getting your license back. Here in Spain, you still have six points left!
I think I'll shoot up some smack and go out for a drive at 100 mph. If I get nailed the heroin will cost me six points and the speeding below 110 mph will cost me four. I still have two points left. Cool.
There's absolutely no question that it's working, though. Last weekend traffic deaths were half what they'd been for the first weekend in July 2005. There's apparently been massive police presence on the highways, and that's noticeably cut back bad driving outside the urban areas. Remei and I have seen it the last couple of weekends driving out to the pueblo. Speeding is way down. People are actually driving the limit, which is 120 kph anyway. That's about as fast as anybody needs to go.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Europeans like conspiracy paranoia. Behold the following, by one Norberto Gallego, in Sunday's Vanguardia:
Washington authorities are concerned every time the possibility of cutting back the unilateral control that they exercise over the management of the Internet, which is strategic for them, is mentioned.
Last year a group of governments, led by China and Brazil, in vain brought up the need to transfer the management of the Internet, once it is mature, to a multilateral body. The American negative is based on two arguments: 1) internationalizing control over the Internet would mean accepting interference from non-democratic governments desirous of cutting back freedom of expression (an evident allusion to China) and 2) a system that connects more than 250,000 networks in the whole world and efficiently manages 30 billion daily connections cannot be left in the hands of 'incompetent bureaucrats.'
Gee, sounds to me like the Americans have a couple of good points here.
Who runs Internet? Above and beyond an undescribable fog of organisms and technical committes, it has been governed since 1998 by Icann, on whose board of directors sit 18 different nationalities, but is subject to California law.
Meanwhile, evidence of parallel diplomacy is accumulating, trying to associate the EU (up to now in an ambivalent position--with the decisions to be taken on the future of Internet. They want to form a homogenous bloc against those who are still demanding that it pass to the control of the UN.
Something that will happen when my mother-in-law grows, uh, hair on her chest.
...After a receptive initial attitude, (Icann) finally declined to approve the creation of an .xxx domain, which would be reserved for websites with pornographic content. It was a notorious backing down to the pressure of fundamentalist Christian groups with good connections in the White House.
That's right, it's those damn Christians again.
From Icann's website:
What is ICANN?
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is responsible for managing and coordinating the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that every address is unique and that all users of the Internet can find all valid addresses. It does this by overseeing the distribution of unique IP addresses and domain names. It also ensures that each domain name maps to the correct IP address.
ICANN is also responsible for accrediting the domain name registrars. "Accredit" means to identify and set minimum standards for the performance of registration functions, to recognize persons or entities meeting those standards, and to enter into an accreditation agreement that sets forth the rules and procedures applicable to the provision of Registrar Services.
ICANN's role is very limited, and it is not responsible for many issues associated with the Internet, such as financial transactions, Internet content control, spam (unsolicited commercial email), Internet gambling, or data protection and privacy.
Yep, the CIA's behind it again.
Washington authorities are concerned every time the possibility of cutting back the unilateral control that they exercise over the management of the Internet, which is strategic for them, is mentioned.
Last year a group of governments, led by China and Brazil, in vain brought up the need to transfer the management of the Internet, once it is mature, to a multilateral body. The American negative is based on two arguments: 1) internationalizing control over the Internet would mean accepting interference from non-democratic governments desirous of cutting back freedom of expression (an evident allusion to China) and 2) a system that connects more than 250,000 networks in the whole world and efficiently manages 30 billion daily connections cannot be left in the hands of 'incompetent bureaucrats.'
Gee, sounds to me like the Americans have a couple of good points here.
Who runs Internet? Above and beyond an undescribable fog of organisms and technical committes, it has been governed since 1998 by Icann, on whose board of directors sit 18 different nationalities, but is subject to California law.
Meanwhile, evidence of parallel diplomacy is accumulating, trying to associate the EU (up to now in an ambivalent position--with the decisions to be taken on the future of Internet. They want to form a homogenous bloc against those who are still demanding that it pass to the control of the UN.
Something that will happen when my mother-in-law grows, uh, hair on her chest.
...After a receptive initial attitude, (Icann) finally declined to approve the creation of an .xxx domain, which would be reserved for websites with pornographic content. It was a notorious backing down to the pressure of fundamentalist Christian groups with good connections in the White House.
That's right, it's those damn Christians again.
From Icann's website:
What is ICANN?
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is responsible for managing and coordinating the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that every address is unique and that all users of the Internet can find all valid addresses. It does this by overseeing the distribution of unique IP addresses and domain names. It also ensures that each domain name maps to the correct IP address.
ICANN is also responsible for accrediting the domain name registrars. "Accredit" means to identify and set minimum standards for the performance of registration functions, to recognize persons or entities meeting those standards, and to enter into an accreditation agreement that sets forth the rules and procedures applicable to the provision of Registrar Services.
ICANN's role is very limited, and it is not responsible for many issues associated with the Internet, such as financial transactions, Internet content control, spam (unsolicited commercial email), Internet gambling, or data protection and privacy.
Yep, the CIA's behind it again.
Blog roundup while listening to BR-549's first album:
Eursoc links to this article from Tech Central Station on poverty on Europe.
Kalebeul posts on "Barcelona's role as a Disneyland of absurd and forgotten ideologies," and on a medieval BCN public brothel.
Patrick Crozier has an excellent historical post on the Battle of the Somme.
Samizdata opines on the Swiss and American constitutions.
Angie Schultz takes Stephen Hawking to task.
¡No Pasarán! finds non-idiotarianism at the Guardian and idiotarianism at the Telegraph. They've also got the video of Zidane's head-butt. Like everything Zidane does, perfectly executed.
Sgt. Mom at the Daily Brief comments on North Korea.
Eursoc links to this article from Tech Central Station on poverty on Europe.
Kalebeul posts on "Barcelona's role as a Disneyland of absurd and forgotten ideologies," and on a medieval BCN public brothel.
Patrick Crozier has an excellent historical post on the Battle of the Somme.
Samizdata opines on the Swiss and American constitutions.
Angie Schultz takes Stephen Hawking to task.
¡No Pasarán! finds non-idiotarianism at the Guardian and idiotarianism at the Telegraph. They've also got the video of Zidane's head-butt. Like everything Zidane does, perfectly executed.
Sgt. Mom at the Daily Brief comments on North Korea.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
World Cup final thoughts while listening to Bringing It All Back Home:
I hate penalty-kick finals. I say make them play till they drop or someone scores a goal; make that more likely by forcing each team to remove one player at the beginning of each 15-minute overtime period.
Boy howdy, Zidane sure looked classy when he head-butted Materazzi, didn't he? What a way to go out, a World Cup final and you get red-carded and can't participate in the penalty kicks. And your team loses out on just one miss.
I wonder if Cannavaro might be interested in playing for FC Barcelona. I know he's like 32, but he's pretty damn good and I bet he stays in form three more years. And, right now, Barça has only three center-backs, Puyol, Marquez, and Oleguer. I would put in a bid. I will also bet that Real Madrid signs at least five players from Juve and Milan.
The diving and flopping around was, as usual, excessive, and something needs to be done. Video replay just would not work in soccer, you can't stop play like that, but it wouldn't change the game too much to put three referees on the pitch and two linesmen on each side. That would put a lot more eyes on what's happening, and some things that aren't noticed now would be seen.
More Americans than ever have been following the World Cup in English on ABC, up 65% from under 1 million in 2002 to 2.6 million in 2006. Soccer's actually become the hip cool edgy sport for twenty- and thirty-somethings, and real sports buffs will watch anything, of course. Now, 2.6 million isn't much, but it's an improvement, and that figure is doubled when you count on those watching in Spanish on Univision. And these figures are for the opening games, not for the later, more interesting and exciting ones.
I've always thought that we already had enough sports in America and that there wasn't enough room in the national attention for another, but I might be wrong. Perhaps when the quality of the American professional league improves, more fans will come. And, maybe, US interest in top-level European club soccer will increase too. If I were ESPN 8 or whatever, one of those sports channels with time to fill, I'd buy the rights to the Champions' League and promote the hell out of it just to see what would happen.
I hate penalty-kick finals. I say make them play till they drop or someone scores a goal; make that more likely by forcing each team to remove one player at the beginning of each 15-minute overtime period.
Boy howdy, Zidane sure looked classy when he head-butted Materazzi, didn't he? What a way to go out, a World Cup final and you get red-carded and can't participate in the penalty kicks. And your team loses out on just one miss.
I wonder if Cannavaro might be interested in playing for FC Barcelona. I know he's like 32, but he's pretty damn good and I bet he stays in form three more years. And, right now, Barça has only three center-backs, Puyol, Marquez, and Oleguer. I would put in a bid. I will also bet that Real Madrid signs at least five players from Juve and Milan.
The diving and flopping around was, as usual, excessive, and something needs to be done. Video replay just would not work in soccer, you can't stop play like that, but it wouldn't change the game too much to put three referees on the pitch and two linesmen on each side. That would put a lot more eyes on what's happening, and some things that aren't noticed now would be seen.
More Americans than ever have been following the World Cup in English on ABC, up 65% from under 1 million in 2002 to 2.6 million in 2006. Soccer's actually become the hip cool edgy sport for twenty- and thirty-somethings, and real sports buffs will watch anything, of course. Now, 2.6 million isn't much, but it's an improvement, and that figure is doubled when you count on those watching in Spanish on Univision. And these figures are for the opening games, not for the later, more interesting and exciting ones.
I've always thought that we already had enough sports in America and that there wasn't enough room in the national attention for another, but I might be wrong. Perhaps when the quality of the American professional league improves, more fans will come. And, maybe, US interest in top-level European club soccer will increase too. If I were ESPN 8 or whatever, one of those sports channels with time to fill, I'd buy the rights to the Champions' League and promote the hell out of it just to see what would happen.
Just reading Sunday's La Vanguardia while listening to a Howlin' Wolf compilation. There's this French outfit called Saga Blues (best link I could find) that's put out an excellent series of original blues CDs. I have six or seven of them. They're cool. Well, maybe not this cool.
La Vanguardia, as a very Catholic newspaper, was guaranteed to go overboard on the Pope's visit, and they gave it six full pages. I gleaned that Ratzinger said nothing of any interest; what he didn't say was more interesting, since he did not give Zap hell in public. La Vangua is all POed that Zap didn't show at the massive mass the Pope put on. There are also a few stats: 80% of Spaniards self-identify as Catholic, 1.4% believers in some other religion, and the rest non-religious. Huh, the Catholic tally isn't that different from the percentage of religious believers in the US. 48% of Spaniards almost never go to religious services, while those who do at least occasionally add up to 51%; nearly 20% go to church at least once a week. 42% say they believe in God, and 31% "more or less" (más bien) do, adding up to a 73% majority. 17% are doubters, and 9% are absolute unbelievers.
La Vangua's Latin American correspondent, Joaquim Ibarz, has page three, the lead international story, for the Mexican election, and he blasts Lopez Obrador for "radicalizing his posture and threatening 'the political stability of the country' if the election results are not recounted, which is not permitted by electoral law. 'This has just begun,' he said a few hours before the protest demonstration he called in the Zocalo to denounce 'generalized fraud'." Ibarz stresses the honesty of the election: "Spanish Euro-MP Jose Ignacio Salafranca, the head of the European Union observers mission, said, 'The election was clean and transparent. No PRD poll watcher made the most minimal complaint to us.'" Nice piece, if rather opinionated, by Mr. Ibarz, who is one of the Vangua's better foreign correspondents.
In case you're planning to come to Spain sometime in the next week, be aware that the Iberia pilots' union, Sepla, is going on strike between July 10 and 16. Many flights will be canceled.
Rafael Ramos, tied with Andy Robinson and Tomas Alcoverro for the title of "planet Earth's worst foreign correspondent," has this scoop from London:
The world may go better or worse, there may be wars and earthquakes, global warming and terrorist conspiracies, a Conservative or Labor government, but none of that affects British high society's plans. When summer comes, the only thing on the agenda are the Ascot horse races, the Henley regattas, the Glyndebourne opera, and the traditional cricket match between the exclusive Eton and Harrow schools.
A Spanish soldier was killed by a bomb, probably triggered at a distance, in Afghanistan yesterday. Four others were wounded. We appreciate the sacrifice the soldiers made. 680 Spanish peacekeeping troops are stationed in Herat.
Here's rabid Cataloony TV host Toni Soler, who passes for an intellectual in some circles around here:
The debate about Catalanity, if it is based on genetics, is ridiculous. But language, ah, my friend, that is something else...A 'president' (regional premier) worthy of the new statute must speak Catalan and Spanish well. Montilla, though in Madrid he has an accent from here, speaks deficient Catalan.
OK, Toni, what do you think if we pass a law in the States saying no one whose English is "deficient" can be a state governor? You'd scream xenophobic anti-Hispanic racism, of course, and you'd be right. Fortunately, we don't do such things. And, by the way, who are you to judge Montilla's Catalan? My personal opinion is that it sounds just fine.
Finally, get this load of crap from La Vangua's ombudsman, Carles Esteban, who is at least somewhat better than the last idiot they had. The large-type filler reads, "The American press reported on 9-11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars by hiding the drama of the situation."
After the 9-11 attacks in New York and Washington, the press agencies provided photographs of the victims of the brutal attack in the first hours following, but as time passed, the photos that came in were more general, there were fewer persons recognizable, and of course no one wounded, no corpses.
Mr. Esteban, isn't this true in every disaster? That is, you get lots of photos of dead bodies in the first few hours after a disaster. Then the police carry them away and there aren't any more dead body photos. Duh.
In the Afghanistan war and the later one in Iraq, something similar happened. The officially accredited photographers embedded in military units offered images of the war in which few victims or the devastating effects of military action were seen.
Is this guy nuts? There was and is plenty of violent film coming out of those places. Also, of course, there weren't many victims of the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The great majority of people killed in both places are victims of the so-called insurgents.
Months had to pass from the beginning of the Iraq war until a soldier sneaked a photo of the coffins of the American soldiers repatriated in a military plane, photos that went around the world and caused a scandal in American and world public opinion, since until that moment it seemed like a war without victims.
He's flat-out lying. There were kilometers of film of Iraqi victims of the war, of course, and the reason photos of American soldiers' funerals have not gone around the world is because those funerals are private ceremonies and the international press is not invited, asshole. But American casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were and are heavily covered, as anyone who was actually paying attention to the news would know. And there was certainly no "scandal" in the American press when the photos of flag-draped coffins were shown, in what was arguably interference with the dead soldiers' privacy. If anything, that photograph's effect was to strengthen Americans' respect for the troops.
There's more of this crap, but I've had enough, so I'll summarize it:
mistreatment...torture...terrorize the Iraqi population...Abu Graib (sic)...attacks...devastating...obscene...censorship...passive and uncritical media...mold and control the messages transmitted to public opinion
Gee, if this is the way the ombudsman feels, don't you think news coverage in La Vanguardia might be a little one-sided?
Tomorrow we'll be back with more Sunday paper fun, and maybe some Monday paper fun as well, especially if Baltasar Porcel is up and about.
La Vanguardia, as a very Catholic newspaper, was guaranteed to go overboard on the Pope's visit, and they gave it six full pages. I gleaned that Ratzinger said nothing of any interest; what he didn't say was more interesting, since he did not give Zap hell in public. La Vangua is all POed that Zap didn't show at the massive mass the Pope put on. There are also a few stats: 80% of Spaniards self-identify as Catholic, 1.4% believers in some other religion, and the rest non-religious. Huh, the Catholic tally isn't that different from the percentage of religious believers in the US. 48% of Spaniards almost never go to religious services, while those who do at least occasionally add up to 51%; nearly 20% go to church at least once a week. 42% say they believe in God, and 31% "more or less" (más bien) do, adding up to a 73% majority. 17% are doubters, and 9% are absolute unbelievers.
La Vangua's Latin American correspondent, Joaquim Ibarz, has page three, the lead international story, for the Mexican election, and he blasts Lopez Obrador for "radicalizing his posture and threatening 'the political stability of the country' if the election results are not recounted, which is not permitted by electoral law. 'This has just begun,' he said a few hours before the protest demonstration he called in the Zocalo to denounce 'generalized fraud'." Ibarz stresses the honesty of the election: "Spanish Euro-MP Jose Ignacio Salafranca, the head of the European Union observers mission, said, 'The election was clean and transparent. No PRD poll watcher made the most minimal complaint to us.'" Nice piece, if rather opinionated, by Mr. Ibarz, who is one of the Vangua's better foreign correspondents.
In case you're planning to come to Spain sometime in the next week, be aware that the Iberia pilots' union, Sepla, is going on strike between July 10 and 16. Many flights will be canceled.
Rafael Ramos, tied with Andy Robinson and Tomas Alcoverro for the title of "planet Earth's worst foreign correspondent," has this scoop from London:
The world may go better or worse, there may be wars and earthquakes, global warming and terrorist conspiracies, a Conservative or Labor government, but none of that affects British high society's plans. When summer comes, the only thing on the agenda are the Ascot horse races, the Henley regattas, the Glyndebourne opera, and the traditional cricket match between the exclusive Eton and Harrow schools.
A Spanish soldier was killed by a bomb, probably triggered at a distance, in Afghanistan yesterday. Four others were wounded. We appreciate the sacrifice the soldiers made. 680 Spanish peacekeeping troops are stationed in Herat.
Here's rabid Cataloony TV host Toni Soler, who passes for an intellectual in some circles around here:
The debate about Catalanity, if it is based on genetics, is ridiculous. But language, ah, my friend, that is something else...A 'president' (regional premier) worthy of the new statute must speak Catalan and Spanish well. Montilla, though in Madrid he has an accent from here, speaks deficient Catalan.
OK, Toni, what do you think if we pass a law in the States saying no one whose English is "deficient" can be a state governor? You'd scream xenophobic anti-Hispanic racism, of course, and you'd be right. Fortunately, we don't do such things. And, by the way, who are you to judge Montilla's Catalan? My personal opinion is that it sounds just fine.
Finally, get this load of crap from La Vangua's ombudsman, Carles Esteban, who is at least somewhat better than the last idiot they had. The large-type filler reads, "The American press reported on 9-11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars by hiding the drama of the situation."
After the 9-11 attacks in New York and Washington, the press agencies provided photographs of the victims of the brutal attack in the first hours following, but as time passed, the photos that came in were more general, there were fewer persons recognizable, and of course no one wounded, no corpses.
Mr. Esteban, isn't this true in every disaster? That is, you get lots of photos of dead bodies in the first few hours after a disaster. Then the police carry them away and there aren't any more dead body photos. Duh.
In the Afghanistan war and the later one in Iraq, something similar happened. The officially accredited photographers embedded in military units offered images of the war in which few victims or the devastating effects of military action were seen.
Is this guy nuts? There was and is plenty of violent film coming out of those places. Also, of course, there weren't many victims of the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The great majority of people killed in both places are victims of the so-called insurgents.
Months had to pass from the beginning of the Iraq war until a soldier sneaked a photo of the coffins of the American soldiers repatriated in a military plane, photos that went around the world and caused a scandal in American and world public opinion, since until that moment it seemed like a war without victims.
He's flat-out lying. There were kilometers of film of Iraqi victims of the war, of course, and the reason photos of American soldiers' funerals have not gone around the world is because those funerals are private ceremonies and the international press is not invited, asshole. But American casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were and are heavily covered, as anyone who was actually paying attention to the news would know. And there was certainly no "scandal" in the American press when the photos of flag-draped coffins were shown, in what was arguably interference with the dead soldiers' privacy. If anything, that photograph's effect was to strengthen Americans' respect for the troops.
There's more of this crap, but I've had enough, so I'll summarize it:
mistreatment...torture...terrorize the Iraqi population...Abu Graib (sic)...attacks...devastating...obscene...censorship...passive and uncritical media...mold and control the messages transmitted to public opinion
Gee, if this is the way the ombudsman feels, don't you think news coverage in La Vanguardia might be a little one-sided?
Tomorrow we'll be back with more Sunday paper fun, and maybe some Monday paper fun as well, especially if Baltasar Porcel is up and about.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Aimless thoughts while listening to KHYI out of Dallas (click on "Click Here to Listen," and make sure your speakers are turned on):
They busted a serial killer right here in Barcelona a couple of days ago, a fiftyish woman named Remedios Sanchez. Seems Ms. Sanchez was addicted to slot machines and bingo halls, and therefore won the confidence of old women in public places. She would return to their homes with them and there attack and rob them. Out of the eight attacks she is known to have committed, three of the victims died, strangled. Ms. Sanchez was none too bright, as the cops arrested her while she was using one of the victims' bank cards at a bingo hall. I vote we fry her, but that's just a little too barbarous for the locals.
The crime wave that La Vanguardia and the rest of the media pushed so hard during May has fizzled out, if there ever was a crime wave at all.
And speaking of crime in Barcelona, you have to check out this incredibly kick-ass blog called Guirilandia. Hilariously funny and extremely well-done, a wonderful picture of Barcelona's slightly seamy side.
Three key aspects of the Mexican election: 1) the PRI is dead. The only people who voted for it were those who somehow owe it for jobs in the bureaucracy or the unions or state companies. 2) Subcomandante Marcos and his clowns got exactly nowhere. 3) The election was honest and international observers confirm it. Lopez Obrador is actively and intentionally trying to undermine Mexican democracy, weak and fragile as it is, by trying to overturn the voters' verdict.
Jose Montilla has been making some rather loud non-nationalist statements; I guess he's hoping we'll all forget about the disaster of the Tripartite.
The Pope is in Valencia; he made a speech and a big old crowd of the faithful showed up. The Pope and the Zap administration don't get along very well, as they have rather obvious differences on such issues as abortion, gay marriage, easy divorce, and the Pope took advantage of the occasion to make this clear. Of course, Europe can't carry out a major operation like this without American help, as there is a NATO AWACS plane controlling the airspace around the city.
Rafael Ramos, on page 4 of the Vanguardia in the middle of an article about the commemorations in London on the anniversary of the June 7, 2005 bombings, wrote:
"The reaction of the Londoners after June 7 has nothing to do with that of the Americans after September 11," said Jenny Kowalsky, a young American from Chicago who works in a City bank. "It's obvious that the magnitude of the tragedy was not nearly the same, but in the United States the government asked for a blank check to declare in practice a state of emergency, wiretap telephones, and create an illegal detention camp at Guantanamo. In Great Britain the citizens put things in a more balanced perspective and react against excesses." Jenny loves London and is only sorry that her compatriots are identified with George Bush's policies when many of them are opposed.
That doesn't sound to me like anything an American would say, especially the bit about a "state of emergency" (estado de excepcion). Also, of course, both Ramos and "Jenny" should know that the US government hasn't been wiretapping anybody without getting a court order first.
Come on, Ramos, let's hear the tape of your interview with "Jenny."
By the way, it's also interesting that the story right below Ramos's article is headlined "FBI dismantles terrorist plan to attack New York tunnels."
They busted a serial killer right here in Barcelona a couple of days ago, a fiftyish woman named Remedios Sanchez. Seems Ms. Sanchez was addicted to slot machines and bingo halls, and therefore won the confidence of old women in public places. She would return to their homes with them and there attack and rob them. Out of the eight attacks she is known to have committed, three of the victims died, strangled. Ms. Sanchez was none too bright, as the cops arrested her while she was using one of the victims' bank cards at a bingo hall. I vote we fry her, but that's just a little too barbarous for the locals.
The crime wave that La Vanguardia and the rest of the media pushed so hard during May has fizzled out, if there ever was a crime wave at all.
And speaking of crime in Barcelona, you have to check out this incredibly kick-ass blog called Guirilandia. Hilariously funny and extremely well-done, a wonderful picture of Barcelona's slightly seamy side.
Three key aspects of the Mexican election: 1) the PRI is dead. The only people who voted for it were those who somehow owe it for jobs in the bureaucracy or the unions or state companies. 2) Subcomandante Marcos and his clowns got exactly nowhere. 3) The election was honest and international observers confirm it. Lopez Obrador is actively and intentionally trying to undermine Mexican democracy, weak and fragile as it is, by trying to overturn the voters' verdict.
Jose Montilla has been making some rather loud non-nationalist statements; I guess he's hoping we'll all forget about the disaster of the Tripartite.
The Pope is in Valencia; he made a speech and a big old crowd of the faithful showed up. The Pope and the Zap administration don't get along very well, as they have rather obvious differences on such issues as abortion, gay marriage, easy divorce, and the Pope took advantage of the occasion to make this clear. Of course, Europe can't carry out a major operation like this without American help, as there is a NATO AWACS plane controlling the airspace around the city.
Rafael Ramos, on page 4 of the Vanguardia in the middle of an article about the commemorations in London on the anniversary of the June 7, 2005 bombings, wrote:
"The reaction of the Londoners after June 7 has nothing to do with that of the Americans after September 11," said Jenny Kowalsky, a young American from Chicago who works in a City bank. "It's obvious that the magnitude of the tragedy was not nearly the same, but in the United States the government asked for a blank check to declare in practice a state of emergency, wiretap telephones, and create an illegal detention camp at Guantanamo. In Great Britain the citizens put things in a more balanced perspective and react against excesses." Jenny loves London and is only sorry that her compatriots are identified with George Bush's policies when many of them are opposed.
That doesn't sound to me like anything an American would say, especially the bit about a "state of emergency" (estado de excepcion). Also, of course, both Ramos and "Jenny" should know that the US government hasn't been wiretapping anybody without getting a court order first.
Come on, Ramos, let's hear the tape of your interview with "Jenny."
By the way, it's also interesting that the story right below Ramos's article is headlined "FBI dismantles terrorist plan to attack New York tunnels."
Here's Sports Illustrated on the Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Spaniard Rafael Nadal:
The facts are simple: Federer has lost six of his seven matches with Nadal, including that four-set demolition in last month's French Open final. It's indeed a curious state of things when the player who thoroughly dominates the field is yet dominated by one man, and theories abound. But the most heavily trafficked these days -- because of both source and outrageousness -- is the one voiced by Swedish tennis legend Mats Wilander. "Rafael has the one thing that Roger doesn't: balls," Wilander told Sports Illustrated in Paris. "I don't even think Rafael has two; I think he has three." Wilander backed off a bit for L'Equipe: "[Federer] might have them, but against Nadal they shrink to a very small size and it's not once. It's every time," he said.
I don't know why the European press never quotes Sports Illustrated; SI often has great international sports stuff that never comes out over here. Just a few months ago Iberian Notes linked to an SI interview with Ronaldo, in which he said that he would probably still be playing with FC Barcelona if team management hadn't lied to him. That would have been front-page news in the Barcelona sports press. Barcelona is so soccer-crazy that it supports two daily sports papers with circulations over 100,000; they're mostly devoted to the Barça, but cover all sports popular in Spain. There's an NBA story every day; the NBA is the only American sports league popular over here. The two Madrid sports papers are also sold in Barcelona.
Spain is wild about Rafael Nadal, who is young, handsome, well-behaved, and a winner; he is also the nephew of star soccer player Miquel Angel Nadal of Barça and the Spanish national team. Uncle Nadal was Spain's best center-back during most of the '90s; he was nicknamed "The Animal" by the British tabloids for his fierce play. The other big current hero is Formula One driver Fernando Alonso, who has dominated the circuit for the last two years. Alonso is a major asshole, however, so he isn't nearly as well-liked as Nadal.
While we're on sports, I'm rooting for France to crush Italy in the World Cup final. I despise the Italian team, and I'm a big fan of Zidane, who is Mr. Class. Too bad he played for Real Madrid, because I'd have liked to be able to root for him during the regular club season. Zidane is quite likely the greatest soccer player ever. The game has changed a great deal since about the mid-80s, and I wouldn't rank a pre-'85 player anywhere near the top. Zidane would have eaten Pele's lunch if the two could have confronted one another at their respective peaks. As for Maradona, forget it. Would you trade Zidane for Maradona, at their peaks, even up? I thought not. Would you even want Maradona on your team? Hell, no. The guy is clubhouse poison, and he'll sell you out to the mob for half a kilo of cocaine.
Speaking of which, several Italian clubs, including Juventus and Milan, are in deep trouble for match-fixing. Seems that Juve set up a scheme in which it bribed league officials to assign paid-for referees to Juve matches, and Milan caught on and set up its own competing scheme. Whatever, all teams involved, including Fiorentina and Lazio, will be demoted to second division, and that means there will be an exodus of star players from those clubs. And guess who's ready to buy? Real Madrid. They plan to get rid of several players, including Helguera, Diogo, Pablo Garcia, Woodgate, Pavon, Gravesen, and Baptista, and they have €100 million to spend on signings. And they just signed former Juventus coach Fabio Capello, who will undoubtedly influence several of his former players to come with him.
Tim Stannard runs an excellent blog on Spanish soccer called La Liga Loca, and he contributes a column to the British website Football365. Highly recommended.
The facts are simple: Federer has lost six of his seven matches with Nadal, including that four-set demolition in last month's French Open final. It's indeed a curious state of things when the player who thoroughly dominates the field is yet dominated by one man, and theories abound. But the most heavily trafficked these days -- because of both source and outrageousness -- is the one voiced by Swedish tennis legend Mats Wilander. "Rafael has the one thing that Roger doesn't: balls," Wilander told Sports Illustrated in Paris. "I don't even think Rafael has two; I think he has three." Wilander backed off a bit for L'Equipe: "[Federer] might have them, but against Nadal they shrink to a very small size and it's not once. It's every time," he said.
I don't know why the European press never quotes Sports Illustrated; SI often has great international sports stuff that never comes out over here. Just a few months ago Iberian Notes linked to an SI interview with Ronaldo, in which he said that he would probably still be playing with FC Barcelona if team management hadn't lied to him. That would have been front-page news in the Barcelona sports press. Barcelona is so soccer-crazy that it supports two daily sports papers with circulations over 100,000; they're mostly devoted to the Barça, but cover all sports popular in Spain. There's an NBA story every day; the NBA is the only American sports league popular over here. The two Madrid sports papers are also sold in Barcelona.
Spain is wild about Rafael Nadal, who is young, handsome, well-behaved, and a winner; he is also the nephew of star soccer player Miquel Angel Nadal of Barça and the Spanish national team. Uncle Nadal was Spain's best center-back during most of the '90s; he was nicknamed "The Animal" by the British tabloids for his fierce play. The other big current hero is Formula One driver Fernando Alonso, who has dominated the circuit for the last two years. Alonso is a major asshole, however, so he isn't nearly as well-liked as Nadal.
While we're on sports, I'm rooting for France to crush Italy in the World Cup final. I despise the Italian team, and I'm a big fan of Zidane, who is Mr. Class. Too bad he played for Real Madrid, because I'd have liked to be able to root for him during the regular club season. Zidane is quite likely the greatest soccer player ever. The game has changed a great deal since about the mid-80s, and I wouldn't rank a pre-'85 player anywhere near the top. Zidane would have eaten Pele's lunch if the two could have confronted one another at their respective peaks. As for Maradona, forget it. Would you trade Zidane for Maradona, at their peaks, even up? I thought not. Would you even want Maradona on your team? Hell, no. The guy is clubhouse poison, and he'll sell you out to the mob for half a kilo of cocaine.
Speaking of which, several Italian clubs, including Juventus and Milan, are in deep trouble for match-fixing. Seems that Juve set up a scheme in which it bribed league officials to assign paid-for referees to Juve matches, and Milan caught on and set up its own competing scheme. Whatever, all teams involved, including Fiorentina and Lazio, will be demoted to second division, and that means there will be an exodus of star players from those clubs. And guess who's ready to buy? Real Madrid. They plan to get rid of several players, including Helguera, Diogo, Pablo Garcia, Woodgate, Pavon, Gravesen, and Baptista, and they have €100 million to spend on signings. And they just signed former Juventus coach Fabio Capello, who will undoubtedly influence several of his former players to come with him.
Tim Stannard runs an excellent blog on Spanish soccer called La Liga Loca, and he contributes a column to the British website Football365. Highly recommended.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Denis Boyles from National Review has a piece on the recent British polls that demonstrate the Limeys think we Yanks are all a bunch of ignorant vulgar wankers. Boyles fires back with a link to a City Journal piece by Theodore Dalrymple:
No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems—economic, social, and cultural. Its public services—which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth—are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money. Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite.
If you don't believe Mr. Dalrymple, click here.
Meanwhile, that pompous tosser Gerard Baker at the Times took the same subject and came out with a standard "not all Americans are bad, some of them hate Bush too" piece. Here's the key line:
Nor is it news that many (Britons) have long regarded Americans as, shall we say, not quite our class.
He's right, and that really pisses me off. I cannot stand being patronized by Brits who assume I am vulgar and uneducated, especially when so many of them are precisely that. My normal responses are to either put the Brit on by playing the grinning hayseed, or to put him in his place by asking him which part of Essex he is from and which Viz character he most identifies with. It's also fun to take the first letter of his name, add "-az" to it, and call him that. For example, Dave becomes Daz, Gary becomes Gaz, and Bob becomes Baz. This is really fun with posh names, so Trevor becomes Traz and Simon becomes Saz and Nigel becomes Naz. Try it yourself.
No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems—economic, social, and cultural. Its public services—which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth—are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money. Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite.
If you don't believe Mr. Dalrymple, click here.
Meanwhile, that pompous tosser Gerard Baker at the Times took the same subject and came out with a standard "not all Americans are bad, some of them hate Bush too" piece. Here's the key line:
Nor is it news that many (Britons) have long regarded Americans as, shall we say, not quite our class.
He's right, and that really pisses me off. I cannot stand being patronized by Brits who assume I am vulgar and uneducated, especially when so many of them are precisely that. My normal responses are to either put the Brit on by playing the grinning hayseed, or to put him in his place by asking him which part of Essex he is from and which Viz character he most identifies with. It's also fun to take the first letter of his name, add "-az" to it, and call him that. For example, Dave becomes Daz, Gary becomes Gaz, and Bob becomes Baz. This is really fun with posh names, so Trevor becomes Traz and Simon becomes Saz and Nigel becomes Naz. Try it yourself.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Here's the Wall Street Journal on the Mexican election:
For the past four months this nation has been bracing for a nail-biter of a race. The chief concern was that Mr. López Obrador, a renowned sore loser, would respond in a manner detrimental to Mexican democracy if he were edged out by the competition.
The race was every bit as tight as pollsters had predicted. And by Monday morning when it began to appear that Mr. López Obrador had secured only second place, Mexicans were treated, on national television, to a flash of anger that revealed the trademark intolerance that has made him such a polarizing figure: The red- faced candidate gripped the podium in frustration, pledging to exhaust every available legal channel. His head shook uncontrollably as he demanded that the country "respect" his "triumph." Yesterday, his senior aides told Reuters that his supporters would take to the streets if the election authorities don't go his way.
La Vanguardia's Joaquim Ibarz buried the lead about as deep as possible--the next-to-last paragraph:
Although Lopez Obrador denounced the disappearance of three million votes, he knew they had been counted separately. With the accusation of manipulation, he sowed doubt, exalted feelings against the IFE (election board), and marked the road map toward talk of fraud. The daily La Jornada, Lopez Obrador's unofficial organ, yesterday published a full-page photograph of (IFE president) Luis Carlos Ugalde with this caption: "Wanted: election thief." Lopez Obrador called on his followers to defend their votes "peacefully" in front of the 300 election district headquarters.
The AP is reporting that Calderon won the election and that Lopez Obrador is charging fraud and calling a mass demo in the Zocalo, Mexico City's (and Tenochtitlan's) enormous central square. Several sources point out that Calderon won the north of the country, including every state along the US border, and Lopez Obrador won the relatively poorer south, with few exceptions.
For the past four months this nation has been bracing for a nail-biter of a race. The chief concern was that Mr. López Obrador, a renowned sore loser, would respond in a manner detrimental to Mexican democracy if he were edged out by the competition.
The race was every bit as tight as pollsters had predicted. And by Monday morning when it began to appear that Mr. López Obrador had secured only second place, Mexicans were treated, on national television, to a flash of anger that revealed the trademark intolerance that has made him such a polarizing figure: The red- faced candidate gripped the podium in frustration, pledging to exhaust every available legal channel. His head shook uncontrollably as he demanded that the country "respect" his "triumph." Yesterday, his senior aides told Reuters that his supporters would take to the streets if the election authorities don't go his way.
La Vanguardia's Joaquim Ibarz buried the lead about as deep as possible--the next-to-last paragraph:
Although Lopez Obrador denounced the disappearance of three million votes, he knew they had been counted separately. With the accusation of manipulation, he sowed doubt, exalted feelings against the IFE (election board), and marked the road map toward talk of fraud. The daily La Jornada, Lopez Obrador's unofficial organ, yesterday published a full-page photograph of (IFE president) Luis Carlos Ugalde with this caption: "Wanted: election thief." Lopez Obrador called on his followers to defend their votes "peacefully" in front of the 300 election district headquarters.
The AP is reporting that Calderon won the election and that Lopez Obrador is charging fraud and calling a mass demo in the Zocalo, Mexico City's (and Tenochtitlan's) enormous central square. Several sources point out that Calderon won the north of the country, including every state along the US border, and Lopez Obrador won the relatively poorer south, with few exceptions.
As everyone knows, North Korea's long-range Taepo Dong II missile test has failed. The effect, of course, will be to strengthen links between Japan, South Korea, and the US, and to make possible North Korean allies China and Russia nervous. According to Slate:
Kim Jong-il, these past few years, has adroitly played his otherwise miserable hand because of two cards that everyone believes he holds—nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Yesterday's dud raises the possibility that the missile card's a bluff, that there may be (as Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland) "no there there." The next tempting step is to wonder about the nukes. We know that he has enough plutonium to build some bombs, but has he built them? Can he build them?
From a strictly objective viewpoint, the test would have meant little, even had it succeeded. In Cold War days, the United States and the Soviet Union would each test-launch a new intercontinental ballistic missile 20 times before deeming it "operational." The North Koreans, until yesterday, hadn't fired a long-range missile since 1998, and no serious analyst thinks they can make a nuclear weapon small enough to fit inside a missile's nose cone.
Looks to me like Kim has been left with No Dong in his hands.
Rafael Poch, La Vanguardia's completely insane correspondent in Peking, says:
The question why North Korea is so stubborn about launching missiles is almost banal, because of the fact that it is not prohibited and everybody launches them, the Russians and the Americans, even France.
What?!? North Korea doesn't give a rat's ass what international law permits and prohibits, and the fact that Country X test-launches missiles itself does not mean that Country X will not consider itself threatened if Country Y test-launches a missile, especially if Country Y is run by a bunch of crazies led by a certifiable lunatic. North Korea launched those missiles in order to threaten its neighbors, Mr. Poch, you dope, and it's the United States's business because two of those neighbors are close allies of ours.
Mr. Poch adds:
In the Middle East there is a crisis, they say because Iran wants to develop nuclear arms, but in Israel those very arms, some 200 bombs, have existed since the 1970s, though they are not talked about. In the middle of this general irresponsibility, it can be affirmed with some security that the North Koreans are not the only inhabitants in the global insane asylum.
Note the moral equivalence here that Mr. Poch is making between Israel and the US on the one hand and Iran and North Korea on the other. The difference between the two is clear: North Korea and Iran are aggressive totalitarian dictatorships. The US and Israel are not. The US and Israel would be happy to leave North Korea and Iran alone if those countries stopped behaving aggressively. North Korea and Iran have no intention of stopping their aggressive behavior. To quote the Slate article:
"The missile launch is an issue that is entirely within our sovereignty," a (North Korean) foreign ministry official said. "No one has the right to dispute it. … We are not bound by any agreement." The statement is true but beside the point. The worrisome thing about the prospect of North Korean nukes isn't so much the nukes as the North Korean. The missile launch confirms the worst fears about Kim Jong-il—not merely that he's a guerrilla diplomat who takes wild gambles but that sometimes the gambles go awry.
But Mr. Poch continues:
North Korea is not a threat except to its own population, which suffers from one of the toughest regimes in the world. But while the only choice offered to them is regime change, its only play will be missiles and ambitions for a nuclear bomb, for which the real evidence is zero, according to the most trustworthy observers.
Who are those trustworthy observers, Mr. Poch? A few drunks at the hotel bar in Peking? As for being a threat to no one, Mr. Poch, then what are the missiles and warheads and enormous army on the South Korean frontier for?
This was La Vanguardia's page three international lead news story today, not an opinion peace. People, this is not news, it is analysis, and pretty stupid analysis at that.
Kim Jong-il, these past few years, has adroitly played his otherwise miserable hand because of two cards that everyone believes he holds—nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Yesterday's dud raises the possibility that the missile card's a bluff, that there may be (as Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland) "no there there." The next tempting step is to wonder about the nukes. We know that he has enough plutonium to build some bombs, but has he built them? Can he build them?
From a strictly objective viewpoint, the test would have meant little, even had it succeeded. In Cold War days, the United States and the Soviet Union would each test-launch a new intercontinental ballistic missile 20 times before deeming it "operational." The North Koreans, until yesterday, hadn't fired a long-range missile since 1998, and no serious analyst thinks they can make a nuclear weapon small enough to fit inside a missile's nose cone.
Looks to me like Kim has been left with No Dong in his hands.
Rafael Poch, La Vanguardia's completely insane correspondent in Peking, says:
The question why North Korea is so stubborn about launching missiles is almost banal, because of the fact that it is not prohibited and everybody launches them, the Russians and the Americans, even France.
What?!? North Korea doesn't give a rat's ass what international law permits and prohibits, and the fact that Country X test-launches missiles itself does not mean that Country X will not consider itself threatened if Country Y test-launches a missile, especially if Country Y is run by a bunch of crazies led by a certifiable lunatic. North Korea launched those missiles in order to threaten its neighbors, Mr. Poch, you dope, and it's the United States's business because two of those neighbors are close allies of ours.
Mr. Poch adds:
In the Middle East there is a crisis, they say because Iran wants to develop nuclear arms, but in Israel those very arms, some 200 bombs, have existed since the 1970s, though they are not talked about. In the middle of this general irresponsibility, it can be affirmed with some security that the North Koreans are not the only inhabitants in the global insane asylum.
Note the moral equivalence here that Mr. Poch is making between Israel and the US on the one hand and Iran and North Korea on the other. The difference between the two is clear: North Korea and Iran are aggressive totalitarian dictatorships. The US and Israel are not. The US and Israel would be happy to leave North Korea and Iran alone if those countries stopped behaving aggressively. North Korea and Iran have no intention of stopping their aggressive behavior. To quote the Slate article:
"The missile launch is an issue that is entirely within our sovereignty," a (North Korean) foreign ministry official said. "No one has the right to dispute it. … We are not bound by any agreement." The statement is true but beside the point. The worrisome thing about the prospect of North Korean nukes isn't so much the nukes as the North Korean. The missile launch confirms the worst fears about Kim Jong-il—not merely that he's a guerrilla diplomat who takes wild gambles but that sometimes the gambles go awry.
But Mr. Poch continues:
North Korea is not a threat except to its own population, which suffers from one of the toughest regimes in the world. But while the only choice offered to them is regime change, its only play will be missiles and ambitions for a nuclear bomb, for which the real evidence is zero, according to the most trustworthy observers.
Who are those trustworthy observers, Mr. Poch? A few drunks at the hotel bar in Peking? As for being a threat to no one, Mr. Poch, then what are the missiles and warheads and enormous army on the South Korean frontier for?
This was La Vanguardia's page three international lead news story today, not an opinion peace. People, this is not news, it is analysis, and pretty stupid analysis at that.
Read all about it: New Zealand peace activist puts British rock singer in coma!
Here's Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian, of course. "Most of us" is a reference to the British.
Unlike many continental Europeans, most of us do not rule out war as a means of last resort. We think you sometimes have to fight to defend your way of life, but that you should fight clever, keeping a cool head, a strong grasp on reality and a sense of proportion. We've lived with terrorism for years, and we know you can lick it, especially if we don't overreact and make unnecessary sacrifices of liberty in the name of security - for freedom is its own best defence. Between cheese-eating surrender monkeys and fire-eating war junkies, we look for a middle way. Americans have every cause to be proud on July 4. And on July 7, I'm rather proud to be British.
Ash is making several question-begging assumptions here: The US-led coalition is not fighting cleverly or proportionately or in a well-considered manner; IRA terrorism is comparable to Islamist terrorism; Great Britain "licked" the IRA (in reality, of course, they cut a deal); the US has sacrificed liberty for security; and, most blatant, there is some "middle way" between war and peace in Iraq. Note the turn of phrase: "fire-eating war junkies." Does Ash really believe that the Bush administration is addicted to war?
One point, just to avoid misunderstandings: I agree with Ash that British citizens have a great deal to be proud of, and if I were British I would certainly be proud of it. In fact, I'd make a better Brit than a lot of Brits I know.
For lots of anti-Americanism, read the comments below the article.
Here's Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian, of course. "Most of us" is a reference to the British.
Unlike many continental Europeans, most of us do not rule out war as a means of last resort. We think you sometimes have to fight to defend your way of life, but that you should fight clever, keeping a cool head, a strong grasp on reality and a sense of proportion. We've lived with terrorism for years, and we know you can lick it, especially if we don't overreact and make unnecessary sacrifices of liberty in the name of security - for freedom is its own best defence. Between cheese-eating surrender monkeys and fire-eating war junkies, we look for a middle way. Americans have every cause to be proud on July 4. And on July 7, I'm rather proud to be British.
Ash is making several question-begging assumptions here: The US-led coalition is not fighting cleverly or proportionately or in a well-considered manner; IRA terrorism is comparable to Islamist terrorism; Great Britain "licked" the IRA (in reality, of course, they cut a deal); the US has sacrificed liberty for security; and, most blatant, there is some "middle way" between war and peace in Iraq. Note the turn of phrase: "fire-eating war junkies." Does Ash really believe that the Bush administration is addicted to war?
One point, just to avoid misunderstandings: I agree with Ash that British citizens have a great deal to be proud of, and if I were British I would certainly be proud of it. In fact, I'd make a better Brit than a lot of Brits I know.
For lots of anti-Americanism, read the comments below the article.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Barcelona Reporter links to this horror story on US Immigration's treatment of a tourist from Barcelona at the Seattle airport. Immigration is notorious for being unpleasant to foreign visitors, but all bureaucrats, who universally consider themselves overworked and underpaid, are capable of being major jerks. This seems like a typical bureaucratic screwup to me. Another factor, of course, is that the US receives something like 50 million tourists a year, and some small percentage of people is bound to be mistreated. None of this makes it OK, of course.
For some perspective on the issue, watch this video.
For some perspective on the issue, watch this video.
National Review is very good today. Check out this review of a new biography of William Jennings Bryan; I plan to read the book when I get hold of it. Furriners might be interested in Bryan, as he's virtually unknown outside the United States. They've also got a piece comparing Teddy Roosevelt to George W. Bush. Both articles stress that both Bryan and TR would have been sympathetic to today's Republicans, despite Roosevelt's Progressivism and Bryan's populism. And urbane paleocon John Derbyshire explains why he has some doubts about Bush on a personal level.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
The mistake these geniuses are making is assuming that just because some action is permitted, it is therefore a good idea to do it.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Iberian Notes is back after a month of vacation. The Spain Herald is defunct. They told me they couldn't find advertisers and it was costing too much money. No hard feelings; they always treated me decently. My only complaint, which I've already written about several times, is that I strongly disagree with the conspiracy theory on the March 11 bombings that they're pushing.
Major news from Spain today, unfortunately. A subway train went off the tracks on Line 1 in Valencia at 1 PM today, between the Plaza España and Jesus stations, and at least thirty-five people were killed. Thirty more were injured and taken to the hospital; among them is a woman in the last stages of pregnancy. The first thing authorities did was rule out a terrorist attack as the cause; apparently the train was A) going too fast (how can a subway train go too fast?) and B) one of the wheels broke, derailing two cars. According to TVE, there may still be some bodies that haven't been recovered.
More bad news. Two "sub-Saharan" (Spanish politically correct for black) illegal immigrants were killed trying to cross the boundary fence between the Spanish city of Melilla and Morocco in a group of about fifty who tried to use the "human avalanche" technique, tried several times earlier this year. And about twenty more drowned at sea when their open boat capsized on the way from the West African coast to the Canaries. At least one thousand, and probably many more, sub-Saharans have died at sea so far in 2006 trying to reach the Canary Islands.
This is a massive humanitarian tragedy happening here. It is getting no publicity around the world. The Spanish navy and coast guard seem to be doing what they can, and they've been rescuing most of the open boats, called cayucos, before they sink. Some of the West African countries, like Mauritania and Senegal, are officially trying to patrol their coastlines, but I'm not sure how effective that is. Spain, at least, has gone on a diplomatic offensive in the area, sending special envoys to half-forgotten places like Mali and Guinea-Bissau, for whatever good that'll do.
The most significant news of the month was, of course, Zap's announcement that he's going to negotiate with ETA. My position is that there's nothing to negotiate about except when and where ETA is going to turn over its weapons. I have no problem with dragging out the process a few years, IRA style, as long as ETA doesn't go back to murder and extortion. I'll accept letting them save a little face.
The concession I am willing to make is the relegalization of Batasuna, just as soon as it officially announces that it condemns violence. That does not mean pardoning crimes, such as exaltation of terrorism or conspiracy to extort, that may have been committed by Batasuna leaders in the past. Prosecutions should continue, and, of course, all ETA criminals should serve out their full prison sentences.
Relegalizing Batasuna wouldn't even really be a concession, since as far as I know, the Constitution requires us to do it anyway if they renounce violence.
The extortion, though, hasn't stopped. The basis of ETA's finances has always been the "revolutionary tax" it blackmailed Basque businesses and individuals into paying. Among companies rumored to pay off ETA are Eroski, Azkoyen, and Fagor; there are dozens of others. French Basque soccer player Bixente Lizarazu was the most famous individual victim; he most honorably went straight to the police when he was threatened, rather than pay a dime. I certainly hope that I would have the courage to face down a blackmailer like that.
Big News Number Two was the Catalan statute of autonomy, which was comfortably approved in a referendum. Abstention was heavy. I frankly didn't care much one way of the other, since it isn't going to change things very much. I imagine the statute--the equivalent of a state constitution in the US--will not affect anybody's everyday life. I also think that it will be overturned by Spain's supreme court when the various challenges filed by the PP and several other autonomous regions finally get there, so the whole shebang doesn't much matter anyway.
Big News Number Three is that the Catalan Tripartite has crashed and burned, bringing down Pasqual Maragall with it. This fall there will be early elections for the Generalitat, the Catalan regional government, and PSC secretary-general and industry minister Jose "Josep" Montilla will run as the Socialist candidate. This is the first time a charnego, the pejorative term used by some racist rednecks around here to refer to Catalans of Castilian-speaking ancestry, will have a real chance at becoming regional premier--Montilla was born in Cordoba. Seriously. This is a big deal. It's like Kennedy becoming the first Catholic president, or Reagan becoming the first divorced president, or Condi becoming the first woman and black president all at once. It's symbolic proof that anyone, despite his or her previously despised condition, can rise as high as possible in a society.
Other news: It's hot and it hasn't rained much for a while. We are running the air-conditioner almost constantly, except on the weekends when we go out to the pueblo (Vallfogona de Riucorb, a very pleasant place; there's a "casa rural" there, and the Hotel Regina down at the spa. Yes, Vallfogona was an early 20th-century resort town; the medieval stone town, where the 100 citizens live and which was once a Templar fief, and the spa, which includes two hotels, an old folks home, and some "chalets" for rent, are about a kilometer apart on the road through the Riucorb valley.)
The cats hate the air-conditioner. They insist on going into the back room to sleep. One advantage of running the AC is that you close the windows, which keeps out a good bit of the noise. Just for example, there was this drunk kid stumbling down the street this afternoon, while I had the windows open, singing the Barça song (you know, "Tot el camp es un clam") at the top of his lungs. This sort of disagreeable noise significantly diminishes with the window closed.
Speaking of soccer, of course the World Cup is on. We're down to Germany, France, Portugal, and Italy, and I'm forced to root for France, perish the thought. I hate Italy's football team and could never support it. They cheat, they're dirty, and they're corrupt. Worst of all, they're boring. Portugal has had two dirty games so far, with the Netherlands and with England, and they put on such a pathetic show that I can't support them either. That leaves me with Germany and France, and, well, France was on our side in 1778 back when it counted.
The US was not very good at all; I wasn't surprised. We just don't have any very good players. None of the US team could even hope to play for Barça. Over here we're spoiled; we're used to seeing the best possible football. Of course, any top club team could beat any national team, since A) top clubs can choose from all players in the world, not just the subset from their country, and B) club teams are much more used to playing together and to their positions than national teams are.
Major news from Spain today, unfortunately. A subway train went off the tracks on Line 1 in Valencia at 1 PM today, between the Plaza España and Jesus stations, and at least thirty-five people were killed. Thirty more were injured and taken to the hospital; among them is a woman in the last stages of pregnancy. The first thing authorities did was rule out a terrorist attack as the cause; apparently the train was A) going too fast (how can a subway train go too fast?) and B) one of the wheels broke, derailing two cars. According to TVE, there may still be some bodies that haven't been recovered.
More bad news. Two "sub-Saharan" (Spanish politically correct for black) illegal immigrants were killed trying to cross the boundary fence between the Spanish city of Melilla and Morocco in a group of about fifty who tried to use the "human avalanche" technique, tried several times earlier this year. And about twenty more drowned at sea when their open boat capsized on the way from the West African coast to the Canaries. At least one thousand, and probably many more, sub-Saharans have died at sea so far in 2006 trying to reach the Canary Islands.
This is a massive humanitarian tragedy happening here. It is getting no publicity around the world. The Spanish navy and coast guard seem to be doing what they can, and they've been rescuing most of the open boats, called cayucos, before they sink. Some of the West African countries, like Mauritania and Senegal, are officially trying to patrol their coastlines, but I'm not sure how effective that is. Spain, at least, has gone on a diplomatic offensive in the area, sending special envoys to half-forgotten places like Mali and Guinea-Bissau, for whatever good that'll do.
The most significant news of the month was, of course, Zap's announcement that he's going to negotiate with ETA. My position is that there's nothing to negotiate about except when and where ETA is going to turn over its weapons. I have no problem with dragging out the process a few years, IRA style, as long as ETA doesn't go back to murder and extortion. I'll accept letting them save a little face.
The concession I am willing to make is the relegalization of Batasuna, just as soon as it officially announces that it condemns violence. That does not mean pardoning crimes, such as exaltation of terrorism or conspiracy to extort, that may have been committed by Batasuna leaders in the past. Prosecutions should continue, and, of course, all ETA criminals should serve out their full prison sentences.
Relegalizing Batasuna wouldn't even really be a concession, since as far as I know, the Constitution requires us to do it anyway if they renounce violence.
The extortion, though, hasn't stopped. The basis of ETA's finances has always been the "revolutionary tax" it blackmailed Basque businesses and individuals into paying. Among companies rumored to pay off ETA are Eroski, Azkoyen, and Fagor; there are dozens of others. French Basque soccer player Bixente Lizarazu was the most famous individual victim; he most honorably went straight to the police when he was threatened, rather than pay a dime. I certainly hope that I would have the courage to face down a blackmailer like that.
Big News Number Two was the Catalan statute of autonomy, which was comfortably approved in a referendum. Abstention was heavy. I frankly didn't care much one way of the other, since it isn't going to change things very much. I imagine the statute--the equivalent of a state constitution in the US--will not affect anybody's everyday life. I also think that it will be overturned by Spain's supreme court when the various challenges filed by the PP and several other autonomous regions finally get there, so the whole shebang doesn't much matter anyway.
Big News Number Three is that the Catalan Tripartite has crashed and burned, bringing down Pasqual Maragall with it. This fall there will be early elections for the Generalitat, the Catalan regional government, and PSC secretary-general and industry minister Jose "Josep" Montilla will run as the Socialist candidate. This is the first time a charnego, the pejorative term used by some racist rednecks around here to refer to Catalans of Castilian-speaking ancestry, will have a real chance at becoming regional premier--Montilla was born in Cordoba. Seriously. This is a big deal. It's like Kennedy becoming the first Catholic president, or Reagan becoming the first divorced president, or Condi becoming the first woman and black president all at once. It's symbolic proof that anyone, despite his or her previously despised condition, can rise as high as possible in a society.
Other news: It's hot and it hasn't rained much for a while. We are running the air-conditioner almost constantly, except on the weekends when we go out to the pueblo (Vallfogona de Riucorb, a very pleasant place; there's a "casa rural" there, and the Hotel Regina down at the spa. Yes, Vallfogona was an early 20th-century resort town; the medieval stone town, where the 100 citizens live and which was once a Templar fief, and the spa, which includes two hotels, an old folks home, and some "chalets" for rent, are about a kilometer apart on the road through the Riucorb valley.)
The cats hate the air-conditioner. They insist on going into the back room to sleep. One advantage of running the AC is that you close the windows, which keeps out a good bit of the noise. Just for example, there was this drunk kid stumbling down the street this afternoon, while I had the windows open, singing the Barça song (you know, "Tot el camp es un clam") at the top of his lungs. This sort of disagreeable noise significantly diminishes with the window closed.
Speaking of soccer, of course the World Cup is on. We're down to Germany, France, Portugal, and Italy, and I'm forced to root for France, perish the thought. I hate Italy's football team and could never support it. They cheat, they're dirty, and they're corrupt. Worst of all, they're boring. Portugal has had two dirty games so far, with the Netherlands and with England, and they put on such a pathetic show that I can't support them either. That leaves me with Germany and France, and, well, France was on our side in 1778 back when it counted.
The US was not very good at all; I wasn't surprised. We just don't have any very good players. None of the US team could even hope to play for Barça. Over here we're spoiled; we're used to seeing the best possible football. Of course, any top club team could beat any national team, since A) top clubs can choose from all players in the world, not just the subset from their country, and B) club teams are much more used to playing together and to their positions than national teams are.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Iberian Notes has moved
Iberian Notes is back in business! We are now affiliated with the Spain Herald. Daily commentary and links on Spain, Europe, politics, culture, history, and lots of other stuff is now available at http://www.spainherald.com/iberiannotes. So don't forget to change your bookmarks, and happy reading.
Friday, December 16, 2005
I am personally damned glad that some sort of position has been taken on torturing prisoners.
My attitude is this:
You treat prisoners, no matter who they are, as you would treat your own soldiers in your own military prison. Don't baby them, but don't torture them either.
My logic is this:
We deserve to win because we are better than they are.
One of the reasons we are better than they are is that we don't torture people.
So us going out and torturing people kind of fucks up that logic, doesn't it?
I don't mind harassment-type interrogations with all the psychological stuff they can think up. We do that to our own people when the cops are grilling them. But inflicting pain is not what we do. Which is why I'm glad we're not going to be doing it anymore.
I'm still for the war, more so than a few months ago. The success of the election in Iraq makes me even more positive. We're going to win and fewer people are going to die and everybody, especially the Iraqis, is going to be better off than with that mass murderer, on whom I would cheerfully pull the trigger, and no joke, I could do it, running the country. They should have just shot him as soon as they determined his identity, Ceaucescu-style.
And one of the reasons we're going to win is that Bush has promised that the Americans d0n't torture people. He's put his neck on the line, and if there's any evidence that any torture goes on in the future, his credibility becomes zero. This gives us a major piece of the moral high ground. See, everybody knows that the terrorists torture people. And we have a lot of winning of the moral high ground to do, so let's get right to it.
My attitude is this:
You treat prisoners, no matter who they are, as you would treat your own soldiers in your own military prison. Don't baby them, but don't torture them either.
My logic is this:
We deserve to win because we are better than they are.
One of the reasons we are better than they are is that we don't torture people.
So us going out and torturing people kind of fucks up that logic, doesn't it?
I don't mind harassment-type interrogations with all the psychological stuff they can think up. We do that to our own people when the cops are grilling them. But inflicting pain is not what we do. Which is why I'm glad we're not going to be doing it anymore.
I'm still for the war, more so than a few months ago. The success of the election in Iraq makes me even more positive. We're going to win and fewer people are going to die and everybody, especially the Iraqis, is going to be better off than with that mass murderer, on whom I would cheerfully pull the trigger, and no joke, I could do it, running the country. They should have just shot him as soon as they determined his identity, Ceaucescu-style.
And one of the reasons we're going to win is that Bush has promised that the Americans d0n't torture people. He's put his neck on the line, and if there's any evidence that any torture goes on in the future, his credibility becomes zero. This gives us a major piece of the moral high ground. See, everybody knows that the terrorists torture people. And we have a lot of winning of the moral high ground to do, so let's get right to it.
Friday, November 25, 2005
10 People I'm Happiest We Fried
10. Marion Pruitt, sicko spree killer of five.
9. Aileen Wournos, murdered seven johns.
8. Alton Coleman, spree baby-rapist, eight victims.
7. Kenneth McDuff, sicko spree murderer of 14.
6. William Bonin, homosexual "Freeway Killer," 14 victims.
5. Douglas Gretzler, spree torture-killer of 16.
4. Ted Bundy, 22 victims.
3. John Wayne Gacy, child-rapist, 33 victims.
2. Gerald Stano, Florida torture-killer of 41.
1. Pee Wee Gaskins, psycho Southerner who may have killed more than 100.
And, of course, Tim McVeigh is hors de categorie.
These people are so morally foul that I just can't see leaving them alive, whatever the other arguments on capital punishment are.
10. Marion Pruitt, sicko spree killer of five.
9. Aileen Wournos, murdered seven johns.
8. Alton Coleman, spree baby-rapist, eight victims.
7. Kenneth McDuff, sicko spree murderer of 14.
6. William Bonin, homosexual "Freeway Killer," 14 victims.
5. Douglas Gretzler, spree torture-killer of 16.
4. Ted Bundy, 22 victims.
3. John Wayne Gacy, child-rapist, 33 victims.
2. Gerald Stano, Florida torture-killer of 41.
1. Pee Wee Gaskins, psycho Southerner who may have killed more than 100.
And, of course, Tim McVeigh is hors de categorie.
These people are so morally foul that I just can't see leaving them alive, whatever the other arguments on capital punishment are.
A big stink is being made over here about a Spanish citizen under a death sentence in the Philippines. The alleged criminal, Francisco Larrañaga, is the son of a Spanish jai alai player and an upper-class Philippine woman, whose family has political connections. The victims are two young women, about 20 years old, whose surname is Chiong. Their father works for a guy who is a big shot in the local mafia. Supposedly, on the island of Cebu, Larrañaga and seven others, who were spoiled rich brats on drugs, picked up the two Chiong girls one day in 1997, raped them, and killed them. One's body has never been found; the other's was found at the bottom of a ravine. Supposedly. Larrañaga's lawyers claim that it has not even been proven that the body is that of Marijoy Chiong. Larrañaga claims to have an alibi, but the only witnesses--agreed, there are more than 20 of them--are friends or classmates of his. Several other witnesses identified Larrañaga and the other seven in a car with the two Chiong girls. I am not sure if any of these people are telling the truth. Especially not the main prosecution witness, a guy named Rusia, who was one of the eight. Rusia, who turned state's evidence and got off, says he and the other seven did the crime, raped and killed the girls. However, he's been in prison twice in the US and his whereabouts are unknown. There seem to have been irregularities at the trial as well; Larrañaga's lawyers claim he was not allowed to testify on his own behalf. He and the others were convicted and got life in prison. Then, something very strange happened: the case was reviewed, and the punishment changed to death. I wasn't aware that such a thing could happen in any legal system. Oh, yeah, in here somewhere the judge, who had convicted these guys in the first place, there was no jury, committed suicide. Maybe.
Larrañaga's family is mounting a media campaign to save him. Philippine president Gloria Macagapal Arroyo says she will not sign any death warrants, which means that Larrañaga is at least temporarily safe from lethal injection. However, temporarily is not permanently.
My attitude is that I am not in favor of coddling criminals, and I think those convicted of heinous crimes deserve the death penalty. Kidnapping, raping, and murdering two young women is about as heinous as it gets, and if these guys did it, fire up the syringe. The problem is I am not convinced these guys are guilty. Exhume the body of the girl said to be Marijoy Chiong and DNA-test it to see if it's her, and to see if any of these guys' DNA are on it. Then proceed from there. But don't execute people if there's a reasonable doubt to their guilt. Hell, you're not supposed to convict people if there's a reasonable doubt to their guilt.
One thing to remember is that Larrañaga is getting all the attention because he's an EU citizen and his family has money. You have to wonder how many people get railroaded by the system, especially in the Third World; I'll bet surprisingly few, but I'll also bet it happens sometimes, and disputes between local elites and mafias are just the sort of context that someone getting railroaded might happen in. Interest in these cases is only taken in places like Europe when there's a Westerner involved.
My understanding, by the way, is that since the US brought back the death penalty in 1977 nobody innocent has been executed.
Larrañaga's family is mounting a media campaign to save him. Philippine president Gloria Macagapal Arroyo says she will not sign any death warrants, which means that Larrañaga is at least temporarily safe from lethal injection. However, temporarily is not permanently.
My attitude is that I am not in favor of coddling criminals, and I think those convicted of heinous crimes deserve the death penalty. Kidnapping, raping, and murdering two young women is about as heinous as it gets, and if these guys did it, fire up the syringe. The problem is I am not convinced these guys are guilty. Exhume the body of the girl said to be Marijoy Chiong and DNA-test it to see if it's her, and to see if any of these guys' DNA are on it. Then proceed from there. But don't execute people if there's a reasonable doubt to their guilt. Hell, you're not supposed to convict people if there's a reasonable doubt to their guilt.
One thing to remember is that Larrañaga is getting all the attention because he's an EU citizen and his family has money. You have to wonder how many people get railroaded by the system, especially in the Third World; I'll bet surprisingly few, but I'll also bet it happens sometimes, and disputes between local elites and mafias are just the sort of context that someone getting railroaded might happen in. Interest in these cases is only taken in places like Europe when there's a Westerner involved.
My understanding, by the way, is that since the US brought back the death penalty in 1977 nobody innocent has been executed.
Friday, November 18, 2005
One reason I haven't posted recently, besides being busy with the Spain Herald and all--I think we've improved it, I really do--is that I've been having a debate with myself over the Iraq war. I don't like blood and killing and death and terror and I think it's a terrible thing for both the civilians and the Allied troops, not to mention the now-legitimate Iraqi government and military.
I suppose what we did was trigger a civil war, mostly pitting two ethnic groups (Shiite Arabs and Sunni Kurds) against one (Sunni Arabs). The Sunni Arabs had run the place since it stopped being an Ottoman colony in 1917, which it had been for the last about four hundred years, and became a British colony. I'm really not sure exactly when it stopped being a British colony, though the year 1932 comes to mind; I remember that the British invaded Iraq in World War II and overthrew a pro-Nazi regime. And grabbed the oil. I do know Iraq had governments somewhere between lousy and horrific between the end of World War II and the overthrow of Saddam by the Allies in April 2003. And those governments were all run by Sunni Arabs for Sunni Arabs. Obviously, in a democratic Iraq, the Sunni Arabs would no longer run everything. Therefore, many Sunni Arabs oppose the democratic government, and a fraction of them are willing to kill.
So we have an ethnic civil war on our hands--again, most Sunni Arabs don't want to fight against the democratic government, only a few do, but that few is enough to cause lots of trouble, which we see every day on the news.
Meanwhile, there is a separate but linked war going on between the Allies and Al Qaeda and its terrorist allies. That war is being fought all over the world, as the explosions in Jordan and Pakistan and Spain and Britain and Morocco and Indonesia show. It is also being fought in parts of Afghanistan, on the ground, against Taliban loyalists. And Al Qaeda has joined in the Iraqi civil war on the side of the violent minority of Sunni Arabs.
So how do the Americans fit in here? Well, one of the mistakes we made in Vietnam was to bail out and ditch the South Vietnamese and Cambodian governments. Just look at the horrors that led to. We can't ditch the democratic Iraqis, no matter what. Doing so would undoubtedly lead to much greater horrors than those we see on television news now. So we're effectively in a civil war on one side. I think if we admit that this is the situation, it might clear up a lot of our thinking. We've got to fight Al Qaeda around the world, because not doing so is suicide. And we have to fight antidemocratic forces in Iraq. Let's make sure we can keep the two separate.
Al Qaeda is basically an ideological movement. The Sunni Arabs are basically a nationalist movement. They're fighting on the same side in Iraq. Al Qaeda is also linked to nationalist groups in many Muslim countries, including Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and the Philippines. They're fighting on the same side in those countries, too.
I suppose this means that no matter how much we dislike seeing the results of the latest bombing in Baghdad, and knowing how much people are suffering, bailing out of Iraq would mean giving a victory to Al Qaeda, which would then have a home base even more convenient than Afghanistan to plot terror, and giving a victory to the insurgent Sunni Arabs, who would then certainly genocide the Kurds and Shiite Arabs. I think, practically and ethically, looking back to examples such as Munich and the Vietnam pullout, the West has to beat them here and now in Iraq. This means no American pullout. Even though two thousand of our guys have been killed, and I would guess at least 15,000 Iraqi civilians. Not to mention large quantities of terrorists, both nationalist Sunnis and Al Qaeda, who will bother us no more.
What's our exit strategy? Well, let's admit we don't really have one, just like Roosevelt really didn't have one in 1942. Whatever we have to do to win the war, because we don't want to fight it in New York and Washington. And Madrid.
Does the end justify the means? I don't think so in the case of torture. I think it's pretty clear that nobody's being tortured in Guantanamo. As for those bleeding hearts who seem to care more for terrorists' rights than for Westerners' simple right to live, what do you want us to do with them? Turn them loose? That's not going to happen. If people are being tortured in secret CIA prisons, well, that would be very wrong if it were happening. Although I haven't seen the slightest real evidence that it is. I also think it's clear that the Abu Ghraib tortures, from which apparently no one died, were an aberration and an isolated incident.
Also, let me make this clear, if it turns out there are secret CIA torture prisons, we can't do that. That wouldn't make me want to stop the war or bail out of Iraq, but it would make me want to fire lots of our intelligence, military, and political leaders and get us some new ones who can win the war without torturing people.
And the Iraqi people are going to suffer less if we stay than if we go. So we have to stay now that we touched off the fuse. The fuse was going to blow sometime, Iraq couldn't go on as it was under Saddam, but we lit it and we need to be honest with ourselves about that. I, personally, was in favor of lighting it back in 2003.
I suppose what we did was trigger a civil war, mostly pitting two ethnic groups (Shiite Arabs and Sunni Kurds) against one (Sunni Arabs). The Sunni Arabs had run the place since it stopped being an Ottoman colony in 1917, which it had been for the last about four hundred years, and became a British colony. I'm really not sure exactly when it stopped being a British colony, though the year 1932 comes to mind; I remember that the British invaded Iraq in World War II and overthrew a pro-Nazi regime. And grabbed the oil. I do know Iraq had governments somewhere between lousy and horrific between the end of World War II and the overthrow of Saddam by the Allies in April 2003. And those governments were all run by Sunni Arabs for Sunni Arabs. Obviously, in a democratic Iraq, the Sunni Arabs would no longer run everything. Therefore, many Sunni Arabs oppose the democratic government, and a fraction of them are willing to kill.
So we have an ethnic civil war on our hands--again, most Sunni Arabs don't want to fight against the democratic government, only a few do, but that few is enough to cause lots of trouble, which we see every day on the news.
Meanwhile, there is a separate but linked war going on between the Allies and Al Qaeda and its terrorist allies. That war is being fought all over the world, as the explosions in Jordan and Pakistan and Spain and Britain and Morocco and Indonesia show. It is also being fought in parts of Afghanistan, on the ground, against Taliban loyalists. And Al Qaeda has joined in the Iraqi civil war on the side of the violent minority of Sunni Arabs.
So how do the Americans fit in here? Well, one of the mistakes we made in Vietnam was to bail out and ditch the South Vietnamese and Cambodian governments. Just look at the horrors that led to. We can't ditch the democratic Iraqis, no matter what. Doing so would undoubtedly lead to much greater horrors than those we see on television news now. So we're effectively in a civil war on one side. I think if we admit that this is the situation, it might clear up a lot of our thinking. We've got to fight Al Qaeda around the world, because not doing so is suicide. And we have to fight antidemocratic forces in Iraq. Let's make sure we can keep the two separate.
Al Qaeda is basically an ideological movement. The Sunni Arabs are basically a nationalist movement. They're fighting on the same side in Iraq. Al Qaeda is also linked to nationalist groups in many Muslim countries, including Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and the Philippines. They're fighting on the same side in those countries, too.
I suppose this means that no matter how much we dislike seeing the results of the latest bombing in Baghdad, and knowing how much people are suffering, bailing out of Iraq would mean giving a victory to Al Qaeda, which would then have a home base even more convenient than Afghanistan to plot terror, and giving a victory to the insurgent Sunni Arabs, who would then certainly genocide the Kurds and Shiite Arabs. I think, practically and ethically, looking back to examples such as Munich and the Vietnam pullout, the West has to beat them here and now in Iraq. This means no American pullout. Even though two thousand of our guys have been killed, and I would guess at least 15,000 Iraqi civilians. Not to mention large quantities of terrorists, both nationalist Sunnis and Al Qaeda, who will bother us no more.
What's our exit strategy? Well, let's admit we don't really have one, just like Roosevelt really didn't have one in 1942. Whatever we have to do to win the war, because we don't want to fight it in New York and Washington. And Madrid.
Does the end justify the means? I don't think so in the case of torture. I think it's pretty clear that nobody's being tortured in Guantanamo. As for those bleeding hearts who seem to care more for terrorists' rights than for Westerners' simple right to live, what do you want us to do with them? Turn them loose? That's not going to happen. If people are being tortured in secret CIA prisons, well, that would be very wrong if it were happening. Although I haven't seen the slightest real evidence that it is. I also think it's clear that the Abu Ghraib tortures, from which apparently no one died, were an aberration and an isolated incident.
Also, let me make this clear, if it turns out there are secret CIA torture prisons, we can't do that. That wouldn't make me want to stop the war or bail out of Iraq, but it would make me want to fire lots of our intelligence, military, and political leaders and get us some new ones who can win the war without torturing people.
And the Iraqi people are going to suffer less if we stay than if we go. So we have to stay now that we touched off the fuse. The fuse was going to blow sometime, Iraq couldn't go on as it was under Saddam, but we lit it and we need to be honest with ourselves about that. I, personally, was in favor of lighting it back in 2003.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Thoughts on the disaster:
1. What the natural world is capable of is astounding. Good thing it isn't like this all the time.
2. The European press and assorted American idiots are blaming the disaster on global warming. Wrong. Global warming, according to the theory, will change the climate in the long term rather than the weather in the short term. Also, first, lots of responsible scientists don't believe that global warming even exists, and second, a lot more say that even if it does exist, it's a natural phenomenon that isn't caused by human behavior and that humans can't do very much about.
3. The same people are also saying that there would have been a better response to the disaster if not for the Iraq war. Wrong. Only about 12 percent of the American military is stationed in Iraq.
4. There has been a terrible failure of the American civil defense system, and the guilty parties are the local governments in and around New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. They had NO PLAN, and they are the government bodies in charge.
5. The FEMA is also responsible, as they should have made sure that those jokers down there had a plan.
6. The disaster isn't the fault of the levee system, as the river levees held and the lake levees, which were the ones that failed, were only built to handle a Category Three hurricane. This was a cost-benefit decision. We have to make those sometime, somewhere, and I'm not going to blame the people who made that one. The lake levees, which had recently been inspected, were in good condition before the hurricane hit.
7. The federal government screwed up as soon as they didn't take control within six or so hours of the levee break. Agreed, I'm blasting them for a sin of omission. Well? Look at the consequences. I knew hell had broken loose as soon as the announcer on KBON radio (Paul Marx) said the levee had broken, and he sure as shit did, too, because you should have heard his voice. Somebody among the top guys in the Administration should have figured this out, too.
8. I bet next time an evacuation is ordered people will actually obey it. I've seen too many photos of smashed-up cars that people could have used to get out. Blaming the victim? No, not those who were too poor or too weak or too sick to get out. But the rest of the victims made a terribly bad decision. This doesn't mean we should not rescue them or that their deaths are not tragic. But not evacuating when you can is like parking your car downtown with the door unlocked. If it gets stolen, well, some of it is your fault for not taking basic minimum precautions.
9. The reason most of the victims are black is that most residents of New Orleans, something like 60%, are black. Most black residents are poorer than most white residents, and are more likely to live in mostly-black neighborhoods, which tend to be lower-lying than wealthier mostly-white neighborhoods. You also have to figure that there were at least 10,000 people who really were so poor they didn't have a way to get out of town and that 99% of them were black. This does not say good things about American society. You judge a country by how it treats its weakest and we failed this time. We don't always fail. Most of the time we succeed. But this time we failed.
10. Fortunately, we don't always fail at everything. This is never going to happen in the United States again, because we have more than learned our lesson.
11. I demand that EVERY state and EVERY county write up an emergency evacuation plan within thirty days, because I'm a lot more worried about enemy-made disasters than I am about natural disasters, at least outside fault zones and hurricane country. If this had been a nuclear, chemical, or biological bomb, which just might go off in Leawood, Kansas--why not? It's just as likely as anywhere else--would Kansas City have been prepared? At the very least, would there have been a plan? This needs to be a top priority. Those places that already have evacuation plans, congratulations on your sense of responsibility, and publicize them right now.
12. Things would probably have gone a lot better without so many damn guns all over the place.
13. I've thought about it and I don't believe we ought to rebuild New Orleans where it is, just as I wouldn't rebuild San Francisco where it is after the earthquake hits it, and as I wouldn't rebuild a city that got nuked no matter where it was. The site is just too dangerous. Move any buildings worth saving and dynamite the rest of it. And while we're at it, let's allow the Mississippi to assume its natural course, which is down the Atchafalaya. Since we're going to need some big-scale social engineering in Louisiana anyway, let's do it all now.
14. President Bush has not been impressive. Not that I think President Kerry would have been.
1. What the natural world is capable of is astounding. Good thing it isn't like this all the time.
2. The European press and assorted American idiots are blaming the disaster on global warming. Wrong. Global warming, according to the theory, will change the climate in the long term rather than the weather in the short term. Also, first, lots of responsible scientists don't believe that global warming even exists, and second, a lot more say that even if it does exist, it's a natural phenomenon that isn't caused by human behavior and that humans can't do very much about.
3. The same people are also saying that there would have been a better response to the disaster if not for the Iraq war. Wrong. Only about 12 percent of the American military is stationed in Iraq.
4. There has been a terrible failure of the American civil defense system, and the guilty parties are the local governments in and around New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. They had NO PLAN, and they are the government bodies in charge.
5. The FEMA is also responsible, as they should have made sure that those jokers down there had a plan.
6. The disaster isn't the fault of the levee system, as the river levees held and the lake levees, which were the ones that failed, were only built to handle a Category Three hurricane. This was a cost-benefit decision. We have to make those sometime, somewhere, and I'm not going to blame the people who made that one. The lake levees, which had recently been inspected, were in good condition before the hurricane hit.
7. The federal government screwed up as soon as they didn't take control within six or so hours of the levee break. Agreed, I'm blasting them for a sin of omission. Well? Look at the consequences. I knew hell had broken loose as soon as the announcer on KBON radio (Paul Marx) said the levee had broken, and he sure as shit did, too, because you should have heard his voice. Somebody among the top guys in the Administration should have figured this out, too.
8. I bet next time an evacuation is ordered people will actually obey it. I've seen too many photos of smashed-up cars that people could have used to get out. Blaming the victim? No, not those who were too poor or too weak or too sick to get out. But the rest of the victims made a terribly bad decision. This doesn't mean we should not rescue them or that their deaths are not tragic. But not evacuating when you can is like parking your car downtown with the door unlocked. If it gets stolen, well, some of it is your fault for not taking basic minimum precautions.
9. The reason most of the victims are black is that most residents of New Orleans, something like 60%, are black. Most black residents are poorer than most white residents, and are more likely to live in mostly-black neighborhoods, which tend to be lower-lying than wealthier mostly-white neighborhoods. You also have to figure that there were at least 10,000 people who really were so poor they didn't have a way to get out of town and that 99% of them were black. This does not say good things about American society. You judge a country by how it treats its weakest and we failed this time. We don't always fail. Most of the time we succeed. But this time we failed.
10. Fortunately, we don't always fail at everything. This is never going to happen in the United States again, because we have more than learned our lesson.
11. I demand that EVERY state and EVERY county write up an emergency evacuation plan within thirty days, because I'm a lot more worried about enemy-made disasters than I am about natural disasters, at least outside fault zones and hurricane country. If this had been a nuclear, chemical, or biological bomb, which just might go off in Leawood, Kansas--why not? It's just as likely as anywhere else--would Kansas City have been prepared? At the very least, would there have been a plan? This needs to be a top priority. Those places that already have evacuation plans, congratulations on your sense of responsibility, and publicize them right now.
12. Things would probably have gone a lot better without so many damn guns all over the place.
13. I've thought about it and I don't believe we ought to rebuild New Orleans where it is, just as I wouldn't rebuild San Francisco where it is after the earthquake hits it, and as I wouldn't rebuild a city that got nuked no matter where it was. The site is just too dangerous. Move any buildings worth saving and dynamite the rest of it. And while we're at it, let's allow the Mississippi to assume its natural course, which is down the Atchafalaya. Since we're going to need some big-scale social engineering in Louisiana anyway, let's do it all now.
14. President Bush has not been impressive. Not that I think President Kerry would have been.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
New Orleans is a dead city; it will never be rebuilt as it was. Almost 100% of the city's housing has been destroyed, along with everything else, the shops and offices and hospitals and schools. If I were President Bush I would deliver a biting-the-bullet speech declaring that more than a million Americans' lives have been completely uprooted and will never be the same, since they will not return to where they came from. Then I would proceed to start resettling people permanently. Where to get the money? Slap a special one percent income tax on the American people. Our social contract says that we bail one another out when disaster strikes, and I help you today because tomorrow I might need your help.
It makes no sense to rebuild New Orleans, since we've known for hundreds of years that the site of the city is impractical. Blow it all up and let it return to swamp. Move any historic buildings deemed to be salvageable to Memphis or Shreveport. The only reason the city was there was to serve as America's largest port. The port isn't there any more, and Baton Rouge will work just as well as the large seaport needed as the entrepot to collect mid-America's riches carried down the Mississippi and transfer them to ocean-going ships.
What do we do with the people? Well, America, here's your chance to be generous. Let's figure there are a million people who are going to need new homes. We have fifty states, some larger and richer than others. I figure Kansas ought to be ready to take in twenty or thirty thousand people at least; I call on the Shawnee Mission school district to open its ample, safe, dry school gyms up to everybody they send us. If we can do that, what can California do?
Most of those who evacuated in time ought to be able to pretty much take care of themselves until their insurance payments come in. Of course, they'll need all sorts of help, but we can provide that. Problem Number One are all the people, maybe 100,000, who did not evacuate in time and are now either dead or barely surviving among the wreckage. First we need to get the survivors out of there, and I am disappointed that it took us so long to get the armed forces helicoptering and boating people out of there. The moment the hurricane had passed by was the moment to evacuate everyone possible. Now we're running out of time, and the death toll is going to climb among those still stranded.
(Note: The Vanguardia is blaming the slow federal reaction on the Iraq war, of course. Seems that all our military strength is over there in Iraq. Yeah, right.)
Problem Number Two is that probably 95% of the people who didn't evacuate on time are poor and black, according to the photos I've seen. That's who the looters are, and I'd be looting abandoned grocery stores too if I were stuck in what's left of New Orleans because I didn't have a car to get out. (Though, of course, I wouldn't be stealing stuff I didn't need, but I don't think I can expect everyone to live up to my ethical standards, especially when surrounded by floating dead bodies.)
Who cares about looting now. Taking material things doesn't bother me. Problem Number Three isn't stealing from stores, it's the armed gangs going around taking advantage of the complete collapse of law and order. This is what anarchy means, all you blackshirts out there on your Pacific Northwest college campuses. Those who are strong, that is, young men with guns, are victimizing those who are weak, who are pretty much everybody else. I don't see any other solution for this but getting the weak out of there. There's no point in spending resources on stopping the aggressors when the victims are going to die anyway if they're not moved.
Nice, white-bread Johnson County, Kansas, is going to have to learn its lesson. We're all Americans and that means we have to move these now-homeless people, whom many of us scorn, in with us. This is going to create more than one headache as we learn to deal with the New Orleans poor among us.
That's what we get for not having learned that the New Orleans poor count as "us" before. There is still far too much racial and class segregation in the United States, inherited from what Paul Johnson called one of America's two original sins, slavery. Agreed, it's gotten much better over the last forty years, but forty years isn't that long compared with 250 years of slavery and 100 more of apartheid.
Now it's time for well-meaning folks around the country to put their money where their ideals are, and take poor black people from New Orleans into their homes, neighborhoods, and schools. If your community isn't willing to take in as many refugees as it can hold, and pay for their upkeep until they can be resettled there permanently, then there's something wrong with it.
It's a damned shame that such a historic, beautiful city (in parts; 80% of town was an absolute hellhole) is materially dead, but its people will carry its best traits--along with its worst, I fear, but what do you do now--to the rest of the fifty states.
It makes no sense to rebuild New Orleans, since we've known for hundreds of years that the site of the city is impractical. Blow it all up and let it return to swamp. Move any historic buildings deemed to be salvageable to Memphis or Shreveport. The only reason the city was there was to serve as America's largest port. The port isn't there any more, and Baton Rouge will work just as well as the large seaport needed as the entrepot to collect mid-America's riches carried down the Mississippi and transfer them to ocean-going ships.
What do we do with the people? Well, America, here's your chance to be generous. Let's figure there are a million people who are going to need new homes. We have fifty states, some larger and richer than others. I figure Kansas ought to be ready to take in twenty or thirty thousand people at least; I call on the Shawnee Mission school district to open its ample, safe, dry school gyms up to everybody they send us. If we can do that, what can California do?
Most of those who evacuated in time ought to be able to pretty much take care of themselves until their insurance payments come in. Of course, they'll need all sorts of help, but we can provide that. Problem Number One are all the people, maybe 100,000, who did not evacuate in time and are now either dead or barely surviving among the wreckage. First we need to get the survivors out of there, and I am disappointed that it took us so long to get the armed forces helicoptering and boating people out of there. The moment the hurricane had passed by was the moment to evacuate everyone possible. Now we're running out of time, and the death toll is going to climb among those still stranded.
(Note: The Vanguardia is blaming the slow federal reaction on the Iraq war, of course. Seems that all our military strength is over there in Iraq. Yeah, right.)
Problem Number Two is that probably 95% of the people who didn't evacuate on time are poor and black, according to the photos I've seen. That's who the looters are, and I'd be looting abandoned grocery stores too if I were stuck in what's left of New Orleans because I didn't have a car to get out. (Though, of course, I wouldn't be stealing stuff I didn't need, but I don't think I can expect everyone to live up to my ethical standards, especially when surrounded by floating dead bodies.)
Who cares about looting now. Taking material things doesn't bother me. Problem Number Three isn't stealing from stores, it's the armed gangs going around taking advantage of the complete collapse of law and order. This is what anarchy means, all you blackshirts out there on your Pacific Northwest college campuses. Those who are strong, that is, young men with guns, are victimizing those who are weak, who are pretty much everybody else. I don't see any other solution for this but getting the weak out of there. There's no point in spending resources on stopping the aggressors when the victims are going to die anyway if they're not moved.
Nice, white-bread Johnson County, Kansas, is going to have to learn its lesson. We're all Americans and that means we have to move these now-homeless people, whom many of us scorn, in with us. This is going to create more than one headache as we learn to deal with the New Orleans poor among us.
That's what we get for not having learned that the New Orleans poor count as "us" before. There is still far too much racial and class segregation in the United States, inherited from what Paul Johnson called one of America's two original sins, slavery. Agreed, it's gotten much better over the last forty years, but forty years isn't that long compared with 250 years of slavery and 100 more of apartheid.
Now it's time for well-meaning folks around the country to put their money where their ideals are, and take poor black people from New Orleans into their homes, neighborhoods, and schools. If your community isn't willing to take in as many refugees as it can hold, and pay for their upkeep until they can be resettled there permanently, then there's something wrong with it.
It's a damned shame that such a historic, beautiful city (in parts; 80% of town was an absolute hellhole) is materially dead, but its people will carry its best traits--along with its worst, I fear, but what do you do now--to the rest of the fifty states.
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