The radical Cataloonies are at it again. This time a group of about 50 of them were blocking the access of PP leaders Josep Piqué and Angel Acebes to the site of a political rally in Martorell. Pushes and punches broke out as the radicals shouted "Fascists" and "murderers" at the PP supporters, threw plastic water bottles full of urine, and shot off fireworks in their direction. The leaders needed police protection to enter the building, and were forced to leave by the back door after a 40 minute delay for their own safety. Nonetheless, they were pursued to their cars by the radicals, who tried to physically attack them.

Disgraceful, of course. A blatant attempt to interfere with the rights of Piqué and Acebes to express their opinion, and the rights of their supporters to hear said opinion. This, Mr. Carod-Rovira, is truly anti-democratic behavior, but somehow I doubt you will condemn it.

By the way, as I write, this is the top story on El Periódico's website (photo included) and it's the third on La Vanguardia's. Fascinating, though, it doesn't even make TV3's webpage.

This episode comes in the wake of confrontations last Thursday between radical nationalist squatters and police in Barcelona, in which the rioters fired at the police with a homemade bazooka and threw dozens of bottles of paint at the facade of the MACBA, a modern art museum. These morons attacked an art museum! How much more anti-cultural and anti-intellectual can they get?

Now, get this. The housing ministers of the EU countries were to have held a meeting next week in Barcelona, but it has been canceled, apparently because the regional administration and the Barcelona city government did not feel able to guarantee security after these incidents.

Boy, that sure makes us look great in the eyes of the rest of Europe, don't it?

Meanwhile, on Sunday, the Catalan and Basque "national" soccer teams faced off before 55,000 screaming fans in the Camp Nou. Now, that of course is just fine, let them play and everyone can have a good time watching a soccer game and cheer for their homeboys. Terrific. Unfortunately, as always, it was turned into a political event by the radical Cataloonies, including the burning of a Spanish flag.

The non-Cataloony moderate nationalists are somewhat to blame here, I'm afraid, since CiU has been trying to make a political issue of Catalan "national" sports teams in this upcoming regional election. The UEFA, Europe's football federation, reminded everyone that only countries recognized as independent by the UN can compete at the national level, and Catalonia and the Basque Country therefore do not qualify. This isn't nasty Spanish centralism, as even the moderates are trying to paint it (remember the TV ad where the Spanish kid won't let the Catalan kid play?) It's official UEFA and FIFA policy for everyone. Great Britain is the one and only historical exception; England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (who recently whupped Spain's butt in an official Eurocup qualifying match) each has its own team; that's because the various British national teams existed before there was an international soccer governing body.

Oh, by the way, I found the video of asshole "comedian" Pepe Rubianes insulting Spain and the Spaniards on TV3. Note the way the host, Albert Om, encourages him, and the audience applauds.

Translation: "I don't give a shit about the unity of Spain. Let them shove Spain up their fucking asses and see if it explodes inside them and leaves their fucking balls (unintelligible). Let fucking Spain go shit at the beach. Ever since I was born, it's been fucking Spain. Fuck them."

Rubianes is clearly a very violent and hateful person. I don't know why anyone pays any attention to him at all, since he's so obviously vile.

Note: This was on an afternoon TV show, the equivalent of, say, Donahue or Oprah. Such potty mouth would, of course, be completely unacceptable in the United States.

As everyone knows by now, the North Koreans announced today that they had performed an underground test of a nuclear weapon. South Korea said that it had picked up a seismic movement of about 3.5 on the Richter scale in an isolated area of the North. Australia and the US have confirmed this. The question, of course, is whether the thing actually works; we will have to assume it does. The entire international community is frightened, of course; TV3's news this afternoon spent a lot of time on all the international denunciations coming in from Japan, South Korea, and others, and also on the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

TV3 reported on the statements by Bush and Japanese prime minister Abe that all American military commitments in the area will be honored, and that the two countries, united, will introduce a very strong condemnation of the NoKo bomb. The network said absolutely nothing critical about American and its president, for once.

The impression I get over here, just from watching the news, is that Europe isn't sure what to do, and probably believes there is nothing it can do. Europe knows it hasn't got the military power to take any action, and is dependent on the US and the four powers surrounding North Korea, Japan, Russia, China, and South Korea, to do something. Would Europeans object to a war against North Korea? I bet they wouldn't, as long as somebody else did the fighting.

According to La Vangua's website, "The Spanish government, in the words of foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, condemned the 'serious provocation' of the nuclear test, and called on Pyongyang to "immediately return to diplomatic negotiations," As if the North Koreans give a shit what Moratinos says.

Meanwhile, TV3 is reporting that South Korean foreign minister Ban Ki-Moon has been elected new UN secretary general by the Security Council. I wonder if it has anything to do with the NoKo nuke test; Fox News says the move is not a surprise, though, and that Mr. Ban has spoken many times about his wish to make North Korea the focus of international diplomacy, for whatever that's good for. It's a positive sign; this will be the first secretary general to come from a country that's part of the Western alliance. Let's see if Mr. Ban can turn the UN into a useful organization instead of a sounding board for (and a channel of cash to) corrupt brutal Third World dictatorships.

Sunday afternoon sports update while listening to Marcia Ball:

Spain's national soccer team stunk up the stadium last night against Sweden, losing 2-0 and seriously complicating their classification for the 2008 Eurocup. Remember, they already lost against Northern Ireland, which is pathetic, and did poorly at the World Cup, making it out of the first group but falling in the round of 16.

The entire country is screaming for the head of coach Luis Aragonés, best known internationally for his racist reference to Thierry Henry while trying to fire up his team. No question that Aragonés must go. As someone down at the bar said to me last night, "I'm rooting for us to lose so Aragonés will get fired. Fuck the Eurocup, we'd never qualify anyway with him as coach."

Names being thrown around as possible replacements are Miguel Angel Lotina and Vicente del Bosque. I'd give the job to either Emilio Butragueño or Txiki Beguiristain, both of whom are intelligent, respected, and well-spoken, are former star players, and have spent time as general managers of big clubs. Bernd Schuster would be another good choice, if the Spanish federation would accept a foreign coach, and I'm not sure why they shouldn't. Schuster, current coach with Getafe and former player on Barça, Real, and Atlético, knows Spanish football as well as anyone. For sure, it's time that Spain breaks with the Aragonés generation of coaches and goes with somebody younger, 40 or 45 years old, who can communicate with this generation of players and who is hungry for success.

With the exception of the football team, Spain is riding high on sports successes. The basketball team won the world championship, Rafael Nadal won the French Open, and if you call going around in circles really fast a sport, then Fernando Alonso in Formula One and Dani Pedrosa in Moto GP are both world champions. Alonso is quite a piece of work, blaming his pit crew and his teammate Fisichella whenever something goes wrong. What a capullo. The basketball guys, though, came off as all-Spanish clean-cut heroes, with Pau Gasol as the hero sitting on the bench with a broken foot in the championship game cheering his teammates on.

The Cataloonies are now hacked off at Gasol because he made a big deal of how much he loved playing for Spain and being with the other guys on the team and all. Seems that this somehow makes Gasol a renegade Catalan, in these people's eyes.

Gasol doesn't seem to have integrated into American life, and this might be one reason he enjoys playing with Spain so much. He's a middle-class white boy from Sant Boi, and has absolutely no connection, nothing in common with these NBA gangsta dudes. Every once in a while some Spanish reporter will run a story about how unhappy Gasol is in Memphis, a city he and his family (who live there, too, along with him) do not like. La Vangua interviewed his mom during the basketball thing and she said that life there was difficult for her, she didn't like the daily schedule or the food, and it wasn't an attractive place to live.

There was a funny ad on television starring two of these hot commercial properties. The scene is a TV commercial shoot, and a nervous Rafael Nadal is standing straight and still with a tennis ball balanced on his head. A confident Pau Gasol is ten meters away with a basketball in his hand, taking aim--he's going to knock the tennis ball off Nadal's head, it seems. He lets fly and nails Nadal right in the face and Nadal drops like a sack of potatoes as the tennis ball goes flying. The director says, "Pau, you're going to need to do better." Gasol says, "What do you mean? I hit him perfectly." ("Pero sí que le he dado.")

Remember, make your plans now to come down to

MICKEY'S HONKY TONK

c/Banys Vells at the corner of c/Brosoli, near Santa Maria del Mar

Sunday night between about 8 PM and 2 AM

where yours truly will be tending bar and spinning CDs.

Mention Iberian Notes and get a free beer! (this weekend only, of course)

Saturday afternoon blog roundup while listening to Willie Nelson:

Davids Medienkritik has a must-read long post on anti-Americanism in the German media. If you read only one thing this weekend, make it this one.

Expat Yank, back in New York on vacation, comments entertainingly on "entertainment issues."

Pave France has more on the Airbus debacle, with links and documentation as always.

Pejman has a good piece on Angela Merkel's future; I can't figure how to link to just one post on his blog, so this brings you to his blog's front page.

Rob and Rany on the Royals have new thoughts on where our boys in blue are headed next year. (Hint: They're improving, but improving for the Royals means losing only 90 games and coming in fourth.) Again, no permalinks. Rob Neyer is another person whom I vaguely knew in college; we lived in the same dorm back in 1984.

¡No Pasarán! comments on surveys of Iraqi citizens and how the European media is paying no attention to them.

Publius Pundit opines trenchantly on the Thai coup d'etat.

La Liga Loca has updates on Espanyol, Real Sociedad, and Valencia, among other Spanish football news. This blog is definitely your single best Spanish soccer source.

Fausta is fascinating and prolific, as usual. Just start at the top and keep reading.

Chicago Boyz is, unfortunately, correct on the loss of momentum in the War on Terrorism.

Free Will Blog reports on our state disgrace, Fred Phelps, and his planned picketing of the Amish funerals. If my parents are reading this, one thing they might consider doing is getting the Leawood United Methodist Church, of which they are members, to do something showing that sincere religious people in Kansas repudiate this guy.

The EU and US have made a deal on international airline security. The EU agreed to provide the American government with certain personal information about passengers on flights to the US. This debate has been going on for a while; we've mentioned it before.

So what focus does El Periodico, Barcelona's working-class tabloid, give to the story?

Banner page one headline: "FBI and CIA to be able to dig around (hurgar) in our information."

Of course, that's wrong; passenger information will be provided to the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security, but US law enforcement will only have access to that particular information. They won't be able to wiretap your phone or any of the other panic-stricken European repression fantasies that are going around here.

(Many Barcelonese believe the US is a police state, with the cops watching everyone at all times and listening in on everyone's phone calls and monitoring everyone's e-mail and such. The cops are typical incompetent Americans, and all crooked anyway, and that's why there's so much more crime there than in Spain, you see. Lots of people around here watch way too much TV.)

And, of course, if you do not travel to the United States, no American governmental organization will have any more access to anyone's personal information than before. So if you're afraid that the CIA will open a file on you if you fly to New York, the answer is simple: don't fly to New York.

Best recent Google searches on my referrals log:

6. trafficking algeria balearics

Trafficking what? Where can I get some?

5. iberia air hostess worker

Somebody's got a uniform fetish.

4. CNT spanish civil war anarchism compadre

Oh, no, another idealistic youth about to learn all the wrong facts.

3. wahhabist salafist al-qaeda charities mosques nigeria

I have the unfortunate feeling that this guy wants to make a donation.

2. image analysis of velveeta by mel ramos

The image I have of Velveeta is quite negative and needs no analysis. For you non-Americans, Velveeta is a fake cheese-like substance, which I believe is manufactured by Kraft, of course.

1. spanish voters will repent

I'm afraid they will.

Random thoughts while listening to BR-549 (by the way, I vaguely knew the lead singer for this band, Charlie Mead, back in Lawrence, Kansas, in the mid-'80s. He was the frontman for a very good semi-cowpunk band called the Homestead Grays back then.)

Elements of the PP have completely gone crazy with the conspiracy theory about the March 11, 2004 bombings. This one is just as dumb as the JFK conspiracy theory, or the ones going around about September 11. (Most widely heard theory recently around Europe: the Pentagon was hit not by a passenger jet, but by a cruise missile.) According to a sector of the PP (Zaplana-Acebes) and of the media (COPE radio, El Mundo), there was somehow a conspiracy among ETA, the actual bombers, and the Socialist party to blow up the trains in order to defeat the PP in the March 14 election.

People, come on. The Islamist cell, which was part of Al Qaeda, set off the bombs with no help from ETA, and the police and the Interior Ministry did their jobs correctly. Of course there are a few minor inconsistencies in the parliamentary report; there are going to be some unexplained aspects of every real conspiracy, and there's no doubt that there was a real conspiracy to bomb the trains--it's just that only Al Qaeda guys were part of it. Let me also point out that the initial police work which very quickly led to the real bombers was done while the PP was still in charge of the Interior Ministry, before Zap's Socialist administration took office--so how could law enforcement have been in on any Socialist-ETA plot at that time? People appointed by the PP are the ones who came up with the official report.

The most recent "piece of evidence" is something about boric acid. I haven't bothered to learn the details because it is just more conspiracy theory crap and I have better things to do with my time, like say clip my toenails or clean out the cat box.

Let me repeat. I don't like Zap. I don't like the Socialists. I would not vote for them. But they're not evil conspirators, they are the legitimately elected government. And I do not like the way that the Acebes-Zaplana sector of the PP is trying to undercut democratic institutions. Zap won the election, much as I may not like it, but he won. And the way to beat Zap in the 2008 election is not by whining about the 2004 results.

Rajoy is too mixed up in this conspiracy stuff to continue as PP leader--he's let the crazies get out of control. He must go so the PP can put up Madrid mayor Ruiz-Gallardon in 2008, who is the only candidate with a chance to beat Zap. Anything else is political suicide.

Also, of course, the Zaplana-Acebes-COPE-El Mundo rhetoric is seriously torpedoing PP candidate Josep Pique's candidacy in the Catalan legislative election set for November 1. Pique is a mild-mannered classical liberal, not a fire-breathing reactionary, exactly the kind of candidate who should do well in a globalized world, but the PP is going to come in fourth as usual, ahead of only the Communists.

The illegal African immigrants are still washing up on the Canaries; about twenty are known to have drowned yesterday when their cayuco capsized. The last bunch that came in was flown to Barcelona and turned loose into the care of non-governmental organizations. The Zap government does not know what to do with them, and its only solution is just to fly them to mainland Spain and dump them in the streets. Interestingly enough, what they all want is an expulsion order, because when the next amnesty comes the order is incontrovertible proof that they have been living in Spain since the day the order is dated. Of course very few illegals actually get deported, despite the Zap government's tough talk.

La Vanguardia reports that the Spanish contingent in Afghanistan gave Real Madrid uniforms to soccer and volleyball teams in the province of Badghis, where the Spaniards are stationed. Expect Carod-Rovira to denounce this repugnant centralism by tomorrow.

Fernando Garcia reports from Luxembourg: "The George W. Bush administration's obsession with preventive security is becoming bothersome and tiring, not only for citizens of the whole world but also for some European political bodies." Gee, Fernando, so sorry you find security procedures bothersome and tiring. So far they've worked, haven't they? Al Qaeda hasn't pulled off any more strikes in the US, has it? In fact, several Al Qaeda plots have been uncovered and aborted, isn't that right?

If citizens of the whole world do not like American security procedures, they do not have to visit the United States. If I did not like Spanish legalization procedures, I was under no obligation to solicit resident status in Spain. Makes perfect sense to me.

The "Moros y Cristianos" flap has hit the international news. Seems that many Spanish towns, especially in Alicante province, hold yearly celebrations commemorating the Reconquest of Spain from the Moors, and dress up and hold parades and the like. Of course, the Christians are the good guys and they always win. One standard part of the celebration is they make a dummy of Mohammed, put firecrackers in his head, and blow it up. Cool, I say. No one would object to a similar "Muslims and Crusaders" festival in, say, Damascus, commemorating Saladin's brave and chivalrous butt-kicking of the Christian Crusaders.

Well, what they've done is, under no pressure whatsoever, change the events of the festival so as to be inoffensive to anyone. Now, I remember it took a bunch of pressure from both inside and outside Spain in order to make them abolish traditional local festivals which featured cruelty to animals--there was one town where they threw a live donkey off the church tower, and another where they hung a live goose from a bridge and people in boats below tried to pull the goose's body off its head. Those quite revolting "festivals" were only banned in the '90s, and despite all pressure from civilized persons and countries, bullfighting is still very popular in most of Spain. It's particularly big in the Basque Country, for instance, as well as Valencia, Madrid, Castile, and Andalusia.

Language note: The word "moro" has two meanings in Spain, one historical and one an ethnic slur. "Moro", historically, means "Moor", referring to Muslims during the medieval and Reconquest period, and it is perfectably acceptable. In modern speech, though, referring to someone from North Africa, it's a slur, sort of like "nigger" in the United States. Politically correct Americans would be surprised at how much language we consider racist is in common usage around here.

Eulàlia Solé, billed as a "sociologist and writer," goes off her anti-American nut as usual today in the opinion section.

The country considered the most advanced in the world, the United States, has just institutionalized torture.

No, it hasn't. The only evidence there is that anyone was tortured is the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that was so far from being institutionalized--it was a unit gone out of control--that those guilty were promptly and severely punished by the US army itself.

Terrorism has increased, as everyone recognizes, though we are not dealing only with this evidence, but of the danger that every one of us may seem guilty of terrorism, arrested, imprisoned, and tortured indefinitely. It's that simple and horrible.

Does anybody really think that an ordinary person can be arrested, imprisoned, and tortured indefinitely by the United States government? Well, Ms. Solé actually does. She really believes that she is in danger of being thrown into a CIA torture prison. I think this is called "schizophrenia."

How many innocent people are currently in that situation? It is impossible to know, and much less from now on, when the torch-bearer of the West has given itself unlimited powers.

Does anybody really think that the US government has unlimited powers? Ms. Solé actually does. If the US government had unlimited powers, of course, Iran and North Korea and Al Qaeda would be as peaceful as little lambs, or dead, one or the other. And people like Ms. Solé, who did not put their lives or even careers on the line during the Franco years, as they well remember, would obviously be too terrified to speak up now.

Anyway, she then calls for European governments and citizens to mobilize against "such practices," charges that her telephone and e-mail are being tapped, which they aren't, and then analogizes the US to early Rome; she wants the plebeians of the world to rise up and "contain the power of the patricians and their praetors." Naturally, of course, this would involve violence, which Ms. Solé appears to think is OK when carried out against the United States.

Directionless thoughts while listening to Dr. John:

The campaign for the November 1 regional legislative election is in full swing, with both major candidates promising lots more government handouts in an attempt to gain votes. Convergence and Union's Artur Mas kicked it off by announcing three different new subsidies for parents, to cover things like nursery school and the like. Socialist candidate Jose Montilla upped the ante by promising subsidized optical, auditory, and dental care for old folks and children. So Mas came back yesterday and promised to subsidize half of the rent for "youths" (under thirty years of age, part of a legally recognized "couple"). Swell. At this rate somebody will promise to subsidize half the rent that 40-year-olds pay, and I will fervently recommend that everyone vote for him.

Minor scandal: Montilla challenged Mas to two different debates, one in Catalan and, horrors, the other in Spanish, to be broadcast to all of Spain. Mas doesn't like this idea at all, but there will be negotiations, and, apparently, debates. Carod-Rovira, our ERC national socialist, called the proposal "undemocratic" since he will be left out. Dude, the only thing that has to be democratic is the election. Everyone gets to vote, democratically. But there's nothing in the definition of democracy that says Carod-Rovira must be included in all debates held.

An ETA terrorist is near death from a hunger strike he went on when he was told he would not get out after serving only eighteen years, that he had twelve more to go. This guy killed more than twenty people in his bloody career. All I can say is good riddance and what took you so long, but plans are actually being made to take this killer to a hospital and make sure he doesn't die. Sounds like a waste of taxpayers' money to me.

In 1999 3.66% of Catalan citizens reported a crime "against personal safety," that is, involving violence. In 2005 8.21% did. This sounds like a major problem. Property crime is actually slightly down over those six years, but 2.89% of Catalans had their bags robbed last year, 1.83% suffered violent threats, 1.29% had their mobile phones stolen, 0.65% suffered armed robbery, 0.65% were physically assaulted, and 0.48% were mugged. That seems like a lot of crime. 90,000 mobile phones were stolen last year, and 45,000 persons were assaulted. A total of 18.6% of Catalans have suffered a violent crime at some time in their lives. The Boqueria market on the Ramblas has requested more police presence, as in a typical morning there are at least 15 robberies or thefts there. "They're basically Moroccans and Kosovars," said Manuel Ripoll, president of the market's business association. He added that the vendors recognize the thieves, and can easily identify them to the police. In the parking lot behind the market, fences have established a market in stolen goods that attracts as many as 100 people at any one time.

Here's the ineffable Rafael Ramos in Monday's Vanguardia. He's got a story titled "The US doesn't win anymore" in the sports section, which is sort of interesting because Ramos is the London correspondent. That is, he came up with the idea for the story on his own, because I somehow doubt the editor assigned the London correspondent a US sports article.

Get this quote: "With the least popular president of all time, George W. Bush, in the White House, a foreign policy that has lost all prestige, and the memory of Hurricane Katrina still opening wounds in the skin of a country that took five days to begin to help their compatriots in New Orleans, the Americans need, like spring rain, sports successes that will make them forget the arrival of coffins from Iraq, the crash of the real estate market, the fear of an "economic crash," and various other miseries. But they will have to find consolation in other things."

Ramos is clearly gloating, he's thrilled that the Americans have failed to win several recent sports competitions. What makes his gloating ridiculous, of course, is that the Americans don't really care, and it's sort of dumb to gloat when the other guy's reaction is, "So what?". They don't pay much attention to world sports, and don't particularly care how the US does in foreign competition. They're interested in the NFL, the NBA, and major league baseball. I think what he's doing is projecting: that is, Spain is feeling very athletically successful of late, and it has done something to the national mood, at least if my bar-ometer is accurate. Suddenly everyone in Spain has been a basketball fan all his life.

Just a few comments on Rafa's soliloquy, though:

1) Bush isn't the most unpopular president in US history; both Truman and Nixon left office with popularity ratings below 30%.

2) US foreign policy has lost all prestige? So that's why everyone is constantly trying to influence, above all other countries, the United States, of course.

3) Of course it did not take five days for aid to reach New Orleans and the rest of the central Gulf Coast after Katrina, and we now know the performance of emergency services was much better than the media was reporting.

4) No matter how infantile Ramos thinks the American people are, the government does not use sports to distract them from the country's real problems. The regimes that tried to do that were the South American military dictatorships in the '70s and '80s with soccer. Anybody remember the 1978 World Cup?

5) I didn't know there had been a real estate crash, and, in case Ramos hasn't been paying attention, the stock market is hitting record highs.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Beginning Sunday October 8 (that is, this weekend) I, personally, will be tending bar and spinning CDs, on Sunday and Monday nights, between about 8 PM and 2 AM, at:

MICKEY'S HONKY TONK

C/Banys Vells, at the corner of C/Brosoli

between C/Argentaria and C/Montcada

near Santa Maria del Mar and the Picasso Museum

Metro: Jaume I

There will be country, blues, and rock and roll music, along with cheap beer and a pool table.

Hope to see you there. Mention Iberian Notes and get a free beer. (Note: This offer expires Monday the 9th, or else Mickey will not be pleased with me.)

Wednesday afternoon blog roundup while listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival:

Biased BBC disposes of some commentator's bloviation about "What's Wrong with America."

Fausta has tons of interesting stuff every day.

The Fourth Rail is a tremendous resource on the war against terrorism and the Middle East, and USS Neverdock focuses on Islamism around the world. Both are daily reads for me.

I don't know if it's just me, but I've noticed several bloggers commenting on Islamism's inability to coexist with the liberal state. Here's Perry from Samizdata, and here's Pave France on the Robert Redeker tempest.

Akaky is articulately ironic.

Frank McGahon is Hayekistically against central planning.

Publius Pundit has two different pieces on Hugo Chavez, one on how he's pissed off Chile and the second on the decline and fall of Citgo.

La Liga Loca has fresh Spanish football news, including speculation about Real Madrid's finances and Ronaldinho's mediocre form. There is an amazing amount of pressure put on star players over here, and Ronaldinho has merely been above average, not brilliant, over the last two or three games. Maybe he's tired, maybe his knee is tweaked, maybe his girlfriend dumped him, maybe he's been filming too many commercials. Big deal. He'll become brilliant again pretty soon; he's got a track record for doing so.

La Vanguardia is fascinating today.

The banner headline on page one reads, "Third-generation mobile phones unleash millions in investments."

The subheads read, "Telecoms to spend €14.5 billion over next three years; Renovating infrastructure and increasing competence, the companies' goals; France Telecom's purchase of Amena revolutionizes sector. Page 66."

This is getting interesting. Let's note that the only companies mentioned by name are France Telecom and Amena, and go to page 66.

Page 66, the first page of the business section on the first business news day of the week (not a lot of new stuff on Monday, since the markets are closed Sunday), is entirely devoted to this exclusive. Headline: "Telecoms to invest €14.5 billion over next three years." Subhead: "France Telecom's purchase of Amena revolutionizes sector." Hmm. France Telecom gets another mention, and so does Amena.

Then there is a large photograph of a gentleman in a suit and tie next to a large sign showing Orange's logo; the photo is purposely cropped to include both the gentleman and the logo. The caption reads, "The president of France Telecom, Didier Lombard, yesterday in Madrid announced the union of Amena and Wanadoo."

Here's the lead paragraph. "A silent revolution is occurring in the telecommunications sector. Technological changes have begun a new investment cycle that will bring telecommunications to take over protagonism after the stock market debacle of 2000. In the next three years, Telefonica, Vodafone, Ono, and Xfera plan to invest more than €13 billion. France Telecom joined in this wave of investment, announcing investments of €1.5 billion over the next three years in the Spanish market."

So France Telecom gets another mention, though its investment is only one-tenth of the total amount that all the telecoms companies are supposedly going to put up, which I will believe when I actually see it. There's also a mention of the stock market and new "protagonism" by the telecoms sector.

Now, here's the real, buried lead paragraph, the second one: "The CEO of France Telecom España, Belarmino Garcia, said that "We will be the principal foreign investor in the telecommunications sector." He said that after the disappearance of the mobile phone operator Amena and of Wanadoo, France Telecom's new brand Orange will comprise the company's mobile-phone, fixed-line phone, internet, and television services in order to become an authentic alternative to Telefonica. Forecast net income is €4 billion annually, with 3300 employees."

Reads like a France Telecom press release.

Paragraph three: "The purchase by France Telecom of Amena and the acquisition by Ono of Auna Cable have revolutionized the sector. "Both operations attracted the attention of private equity funds because they represent the beginning of real competition in the sector," said Didier Lombard."

Note that so far the tone of the article is very bullish on telecoms sector stocks and especially France Telecom, of course.

Paragraph four: "The first response was Telefonica's announcement that it would invest €9 billion over the next four years." Excuse me! Isn't this the big news? Telefonica's investment will be six times France Telecom's.

We skip a couple of paragraphs, down to the next-to-last:

"Telecommunications is probably the sector that devotes the largest part of its income to investment, among companies listed on the stock market, In the last ten years, it has reinvested almost 18% of its income, far above cement producers (16%) or automobiles (13%)."

Hmm. More bullishness on the sector.

Here's the last para:

"Regarding France Telecom's investments in Spain, the CEO stressed that much of the €1.5 billion will be destined to the construction of its third-generation network. "Currently only 200,000 of the 11 million clients that we have use UMTS technology, and our goal is to accelerate its implantation in order to gain 25% of the market." By the end of the year, 75% of the population will have coverage. France Telecom considers Spain as a key country in its strategy, as it demonstrated when it acquired Amena for €10.6 billion one year ago."

Also, there's a sidebar, which begins, "The next battle in the telecommunications sector will be the implantation of telephones which offer both fixed-line and mobile services. This telephone was launched a few days ago in France by France Telecom and will soon be introduced in Spain."

Gee, I dunno, but it seems to me that La Vangua has done an awful lot to promote the telecoms sector and especially France Telecom with this whole shebang, especially the front-page banner head and the first business page.

By the way, if we flip five pages back to the stock market quotes, we see that France Telecom is down 13.96% on the year.

Now, here's something really interesting. On page 5, the first full-page ad in today's edition of La Vangua is for...Orange! It's just a black page with the slogan, in orange, "Life is better when everything really important to you is within your reach. Mobile. Internet. Fixed-line. TV. Orange."

How do I get in on this deal?

Last night TV3, on its 8:30 PM nightly news, led off with the shooting at the Pennsylvania schoolhouse and followed up with the Congress of Deputies stunt. At 9 PM, Antena 3 led off with the video stunt and followed up with the Pennsylvania shooting. I understand why the schoolhouse shooting would lead off the news in the US, but in Spain? Didn't anything more important happen in the rest of the world?

Spain is fascinated by the Amish, whom they first found out about in the Harrison Ford movie Witness, which was a huge hit over here and is repeated ad nauseum, along with Mississippi Burning and The Shawshank Redemption, on weekend afternoon TV. They can't get over these folks' living without modern technology and with old-time family and community ways in the heart of the United States, which they identify with the latest in heartless modernity.

The Antena 3 reporter finished off his story last night with some remarks about the bucolic idyll of the Amish country and how this shocking episode of violence seemed impossible there, "but, when we're talking about violence, nothing is impossible in the United States." That's a direct quote, I wrote it down at the very moment it came out the guy's mouth.

The shootings are one of the top stories on TV3's afternoon news today at 2:30 PM, too, with extensive follow-up coverage; they just can't get enough of it.

Lula and social democrat Gerardo Alckmin are going to a second round in the Brazilian election; Lula got 48.6% and Alckmin 41.6%, with minor candidates getting 9.8%. I'm guessing Alckmin dethrones Lula, as even more corruption stories come out and the anti-populist opposition unites.

The Mark Foley scandal is serious bad news for the Republican party. I had thought until now that the Reps would have no problem winning both the Senate and the House in the November elections, but this is going to hit the Republican base right in the guts. A Republican congressman was soliciting minors for sexual purposes, and we don't know whether he actually had sex with any of them or not--and other Republican congressmen knew about it, at least enough to warn pages away from Foley. House speaker Dennis Hastert claims that Republican leadership did not know anything about Foley's pedophilia, and I hope he's telling the truth, because if he's not the Republicans are guilty of the same thing the Catholic Church was, not immediately getting rid of anyone whose sexual behavior toward children is questionable.

Question: What percentage of gay men are pedophiles, and what percentage of heterosexual men are, and is there a difference? I honestly don't know. And what percentage of gay pedophiles act on their urges, and what percentage of straight pedophiles do, and is there a difference? I have a guess.

Obviously, youth is a component of heterosexual attractiveness; you don't see too many women over the age of 22 in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, and high school cheerleaders are most certainly both minors and officially sanctioned sex objects. I might add that there are a whole lot of "Barely Legal" porno sites out there, featuring explicit sex involving very-young-looking 18-year-old girls; I know this for a fact because I once translated the captions to the photos for one of them. (Yes, I was paid quite well, ten euro-cents a word. I learned lots of new vocabulary in Spanish, too.) No question that lots of straight men are attracted to teenage girls; that's why the term "jailbait" exists. No question that lots of hetero perv pedophiles spend their Augusts in Cuba with the teenage hookers. But what percentage acts on it?

I have the impression, though, that the gay men who are attracted to what I will euphemistically call "youths" tend to act on it more frequently than the heteros. Go back to the ancient Greeks and the kouros statues, or to any modern city and its rentboys. My guess is that most gay men discovered their orientation as teenagers and began to act on it as soon as possible with everyone possible. Therefore, they see nothing wrong with sex with teenagers, because they did it themselves as teenagers with older men. The hetero "community," on the other hand, does have a norm prohibiting sex between adults and teenagers, and though a hetero might be tempted to violate it, and some do so, he knows that it is wrong.

Please don't get too angry--this is just a hypothesis. Feel free to prove it wrong in the comments section.

Oh, yeah, Foley has checked into rehab. See, his problem was caused by the demon alcohol that was making him do what he did, not the fact that he is a pervert. Oops, excuse me, "boy-lover," as NAMBLA would have it.

John Derbyshire from National Review, whom I generally like except when he's calling for a race war, approvingly reproduced a letter to the Economist perpetuating two urban legends.

LETTER OF THE MONTH ...This particular one was to the editor of The Economist, and appeared in the “Letters” columns of the September 23rd issue.

An earlier issue of The Economist (Sept. 9th) had run a spoof piece titled “Welcome Aboard,” pretending to be the in-flight announcement of something called Veritas Airways, “the airline that tells it like it is.” Sample: “Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero…”

Well, the letter-writer in the Sept. 23rd issue had the following to say:

"Sir — The bright yellow life-jackets are not intended to act as flotation devices. They are there to make it easier for the recovery services to spot the bodies strewn across rough terrain. (I was once asked to put on a life-jacket over central Germany, some 300 miles from the sea.) And the advice to adopt a head-down fetal position in the event of a crash landing does nothing to preserve life, given that the stall speed of a modern airliner means it will connect with the ground at terminal velocity. However, the position does tend to preserve dental data, useful for identifying dilapidated corpses."

News you can use.

The life-jackets legend is debunked at Yahoo Answers, and Snopes debunks the brace-position legend.

The embarrassing part for Derbyshire is that, in the very same column, in the middle of a discussion on IQ in which he advances the theory that people do not communicate well when there is more than a 15-point IQ difference between them, he says,

Highly intelligent people are good at weighing evidence and making inferences, yet are still, as that Poul Anderson character implied, capable of believing nutty things, those nutty things being walled off in “zones of commitment” where evidence counts for nothing and logic is suspended. Contrariwise, even very dim people, who live mostly in a fog of superstition and false inference, manage to cross the street safely, do basic arithmetic, and anticipate the sunrise.

And, despite living in a fog of superstition and false inference, so foggy that they fall for decade-old urban legends that could be checked out by any moron with an Internet connection, they manage to write the occasional column for NR as well. Either that or their own personal zone of commitment has something to do with race and intelligence.

Monday afternoon blog roundup while listening to Alison Krauss and Union Station:

Davids Medienkritik reports on a German news program's slander of the United States armed forces. A must-read, including the video and a translated transcript.

Trevor at Kalebeul neatly disposes of a prominent and rather bigoted Francophone.

La Liga Loca's "Heroes and Zeroes" neatly sums up the Spanish football news of the weekend.

Pave France has a terrific piece on Airbus's troubles, with lots of documentation and everything.

¡No Pasarán! tells the story of Robert Redeker, a French philosophy professor under a death threat for his views on Islam. There are several further updates, including a mention of the fact that Communist newspaper L'Humanité has not mentioned Redeker at all.

Eamonn at Rainy Day is in fine eclectically cultural form; he's had several fascinating posts over the last week.

Fausta and Publius Pundit have lots of stuff on the Brazilian election.

Watch this video before it gets taken down. Some jokers in Madrid, helped out by a worker at the Congress of Deputies building, sneaked into the legislative chamber and "stole" Prime Minister Zapatero's chair. They filmed the whole thing and posted it on YouTube yesterday, and it's made the news. The worker at the Parliament who let them in will be "disciplined," and prosecutors are talking about filing charges.

This shows exactly how lousy security around here is. What if that had been Al Qaeda or ETA instead of some dopey kids, and what if they'd had a bomb instead of a video camera? Heads need to roll.

Here is the link to these idiots' website.

UPDATE: Turns out to have been, get this, a stunt pulled off by an advertising agency as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for a UN world hunger day. They set up a blog and posted the video on YouTube yesterday. The cops finally got to the bottom of it today and identified those responsible. Here's Libertad Digital's story, and here is El Periodico's.

The point about security holds, since the filmmakers really did connive with a worker to let them sneak into the legislative chamber without informing higher authority.

Pointless thoughts while listening to Junior Brown:

(Hey, do you guys ever listen to any of the music videos I link to?)

Local music news is that a well-known non-commercial flamenco performer, "El Capullo de Jerez," has been charged with setting a six-year-old girl on fire. Yep, you read that right. He was apparently completely drunk in a bar and got in an argument, left, and decided the way to get revenge was by torching his antagonist's child. Wonderful what alcohol does to promote clear thinking. I never heard of this guy before, but they showed him on TV, and he is obviously suffering the effects of long-term alcoholism, schizophrenia, or both. The guy's artistic name is great, too, "The Blossom of Jerez." However, "capullo," that is, "blossom," has a much more common slang meaning, which is "dickhead." I assume the double entendre was intentional.

In other crime news, today Spain's 55th domestic murder of the year took place. Also, a Barcelona court decided that selling pirate CDs and videos in the streets (which is referred to as "top manta" around here, I suppose because the pirate discs are displayed on top of a manta, that is, a blanket) is not a crime, but rather an administrative violation. Those caught can be ticketed and fined, as if they had parked illegally, but not arrested, tried, or jailed. 100% of top manta vendors are illegal aliens, usually Africans or Moroccans.

Wonder if the name of the fish, the manta ray, comes from the fact that it looks rather like a blanket?

Further Catalunacy: For some reason your ultranationalists around here have made a big deal about Catalan national sports teams. International sporting federations do not recognize Catalonia as an independent country, and its "national teams" cannot participate in international competitions such as the Olympics or World Cup, because Catalan players play for Spain in those things.

They can, of course, organize exhibition games against any other team they can convince to show up, and every Christmas somebody pays a foreign team--one year they got Brazil, I remember--to come play an exhibition against the Catalan side, normally featuring three guys from the Barça, two from Espanyol, and some second division players. Everyone gets in free and a good time is had by all, unless they get the Electrica Dharma to play a concert before the match.

So, anyway, the regional government, the Generalitat, ran an ad showing children from around the world wearing different uniform shirts playing soccer. A child wearing a Catalan uniform shirt tries to join the game, but another child wearing a red shirt (coincidentally the Spanish national team's color) refuses to let him play. Infuriating. What is public tax money being used for here? Why is the Generalitat buying TV time to run any ads at all, especially this tendentious whining tantrum?

Over here governmental bodies, especially the regional and municipal ones, run what they call "institutional advertising." These paid ads, which run on TV and radio and in newspapers, serve two purposes: A) patting the leaders of the governmental body which pays for the ad on the back, thereby serving as a permanent political campaign in favor of those currently holding power, and B) providing not-so-invisible government subsidies to local media outlets. Another way subsidies are handed out by newspapers is through "institutional subscriptions"; the Generalitat pays for more than 10,000 daily subscriptions to La Vanguardia, for example.

The votes are being counted in Brazil as I type and it looks like Lula de Silva is going down against the Social Democratic candidate, the first LatAm left-populist to get booted by his country's people. Corruption, and the failure of Lula's paternalistic welfare scheme, have disillusioned many Brazilians, and fortunately the reaction is taking place at the polls. And one thing must be said for Lula, he's not a Chavez or Lopez Obrador; if he loses, he'll turn over power democratically.

Some doofus posted this in the comments section:

John: Why aren't you pushing the 11-M Conspiracy Theory? You and your blogging friends have a duty to tell the world that Zap and his muslim allies planned 11-M! OK, well maybe that particular conspiracy theory is falling apart day by day, but you should keep pushing it to sow confusion. Or better yet, come up with another conspiracy. You're good at it.-- Otro Gráciano

Buddy, all I can say is you haven't been reading Iberian Notes very carefully. Here's the first paragraph of June 3's post:

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.

Aimless thoughts while listening to Big Bill Broonzy:

FC Barcelona just defeated Athletic Bilbao 1-3 at San Mamés on an own-goal by the Athletic defense and scores by Gudjohnsen and Saviola for Barça. Athletic's Yeste scored first, but then at about the 20th minute an Athletic player was sent off in a very harsh decision by the ref; even the TV3 announcers thought he'd gone too far. Foul, yes, yellow card, probably, but red card, excessive. That pretty much sealed the game, because there's no way to beat Barcelona with only ten men. Barça didn't play particularly well, but came away with the points. Athletic is in very serious trouble. Their club president--Athletic, Osasuna, Real Madrid, and Barcelona are the only four teams left in the Spanish league that are still owned by their membership--had to resign last week, and has been replaced by a woman, the first ever in Athletic's 104-year history.

I've been trying to avoid gloom-and-doom forecasts of future confrontations between European "Christians" and Muslims, but people here in Barcelona seem considerably more worried about immigration than in the past. The mass car-burnings in France last year got a lot of people around here talking about how France had failed its Muslim immigrants, some of whom are now third-generation French citizens but are also still foreigners. The wave of black Africans washing up on the shores of the Canaries, which the world media is still ignoring, has stirred up more concern, especially since the Zap government has literally been evacuating these immigrants to the mainland and just turning them loose with a sandwich and a bottle of water in downtown Madrid. And the alleged crime wave of armed home invasions and burglaries in the Catalan countryside has some rural folks literally up in arms, patrolling their vicinities in vigilante groups just like in Arizona.

Actually, the black Africans coming to the Canaries (maybe 30,000 total so far, I'm guessing) are a small minority of the number of illegal immigrants, most of whom simply get off the plane at Barajas or cross the frontier from France. The Zap administration legalized a whole bunch of them last year, more than 600,000, and there's not any question that this has attracted even more to arrive in hope of a new mass legalization.

Even Vallfogona de Riucorb, my wife's village, has seen immigration, with several Romanians and a South American family renting apartments there. They either work at the spa hotel, if women, or as casual laborers, if men. So far they're a novelty and very well treated by the townspeople, who appreciate the fact that these folks are law-abiding and here to work. I just hope things stay this way, because when a house in the village is broken into, which will happen sometime just because of the laws of probability, I'm afraid immigrants will be blamed.

The town's social center is the bar, and the weekly major social event is the Barça game on TV there. The immigrants all show up, among with the locals; sports bring them together. (None of the Romanians seem to be Real Madrid fans, or things might be different.) So that's one positive sign for the future.

My Barcelona neighborhood, Gracia, is quite multiculti, with a good few Latin Americans, Chinese, Pakistanis, Lebanese, and Moroccans. Most Graciencs are pretty liberal, it's a boho-lefty neighborhood, and I haven't heard much complaining about the changes we've seen over the last ten years. But I might be hanging out at the wrong bars.

Random thoughts while listening to Van Morrison:

The latest frenzy of Catalunacy broke out last week over the official address kicking off Barcelona's fiesta mayor, the Mercé; for some reason, they invite somebody famous to read a speech every year. This year those responsible chose Elvira Lindo, a Madrid writer best known for the Manolito Gafotas series of children's books, and it was announced that she would make her speech in Spanish, which makes perfect sense since that is the language she speaks and everybody in Barcelona understands it. However, Esquerra Republicana, a National Socialist party, pitched a fit at the idea that Ms. Lindo would not speak in Catalan, and many stupid things were said in the nationalist me(r)dia. Fortunately, the great majority of Barcelonese understood that Ms. Lindo was an invited guest and received her hospitably, but the ERC jerks showed up at the Plaza Sant Jaume holding up opened black umbrellas in order to demonstrate their opposition to her presence.

These people are an embarrassment to Catalonia, and unfortunately they are the ones who form opinions about our region (don't forget, él que viu i treballa en Catalunya és català, so that includes me) in the rest of Spain. I have a friend in Madrid named Carlos, who is a very well-educated, creative, and intelligent guy. He once asked me, "How can you stand to live in Barcelona? I suppose there's the climate, but..." See, Carlos's image of Barcelona has been formed by these ERC clowns, and he thinks they actually represent most people here, which they don't, since they only get about 10% of the vote.

(I will add that many Barcelonese have an equally false stereotype of Madrileños, reactionary Franquista Spanish ultranationalists, which of course the great majority are not.)

The regional elections for the Generalitat, the Catalan government, are coming up on November 1, and campaigning is in full swing. No predictions here on who's going to win; I think the PSC's Jose Montilla is the favorite, but anything could happen. I suppose, out of the realistic possibilities, that I would prefer a coalition between the two most moderate and mainstream parties, Convergence and Union and the Catalan Socialists. Sure, that's voting for more of the same, but things actually function more or less pretty well around here. We're prosperous and comfortable.

Montilla is a Socialist party hack, just another politician with nothing special about him. He was the president of the PSC and Zapatero's industry minister, and he took a lot of heat from the PP when he was in the cabinet, especially over the various proposed utilities mergers. What makes him interesting is that he is not Catalan by birth. He's from Córdoba, and your more racist ERC goons call him a charnego, that is, not a real Catalan. He is the first charnego to have a serious shot at becoming premier of Catalonia since the regional government was established in 1980.

He represents the Spanish-speaking descendents of immigrants from other parts of Spain who settled in Barcelona's industrial suburbs in the '50s and '60s, and now form the majority in places like Cornellà, where Montilla was mayor for a decade, Santa Coloma, Manuela de Madre's home base, Celestino Corbacho's L'Hospitalet, Catalonia's second-largest city with nearly half a million people, and other such cities from Sant Boi to Badalona.

It looks to me like it's these people's turn to run things for a while.

They're making an enormous deal in the media over here about the school shooting yesterday in Colorado. According to the Spanish media, all American high schools are powder kegs of violence just waiting to be touched off. Doesn't sound much like Shawnee Mission South in 1983. Have things changed that muchg or is the media full of crap?

Unfortunately, Samuel Etoo got broken last night and is out for three months. Gudjohnsen and Saviola are going to have to step up. You still have to figure Barcelona as favorite for the Champions League, though, and there's no way anybody else is going to win the Spanish league.

Hello, everyone. I've been rather depressed during the last month, actually, and I haven't done very much but some proofreading for a textbook company. I haven't even been on the internet, and I haven't checked my e-mail, either--just had no interest in doing so.

One of my cats, Niau, died on August 23; he apparently died peacefully out in our house in Vallfogona. I went downstairs at about 8:30 PM, leaving him on our bed along with the other four; when I went back up to where the cats were, at about 9:30, I found him stretched out dead in his cat bed. Probably a heart attack, or he just died of being old; we don't know how old he was, but we believe at least 15, since he and his twin brother moved in with us at the end of 1995, and they were full-grown adults.

The brother, Tail, is still disoriented, since he and Niau are quite obviously identical twins and had been together all their lives. They're very distinctive-looking; they're clearly a mix between Siamese and red tabby, since they have red points instead of black ones, and red tabby stripes up the tail. The two were inseparable, always together, and usually sitting on top of somebody, especially house guests, whom they liked to make welcome. They are by far the friendliest and best-natured cats I have ever seen, much less lived with. Now, of course, Tail doesn't know where his companion is.

We buried Niau in a small plot of land that belongs to Remei in the valley down by the stream the next morning. I'd hoped it was just a bad dream, but there he was, and it was quite clear he was dead, so the only thing to do was bury him. We bought some ceramic-tile letters spelling out his name and cemented them to a stone we put on his grave.

I saw my friend Franco Aleman yesterday, though, and a couple hours of talking with him inspired me to start writing again, so regular blogging will resume tomorrow. Tonight is the Barça game, and I'm of course going down to the bar to watch it, so that's one thing I'll report on. There is a regional election coming up, an immigration crisis, a new Barcelona mayor, more merger fun in the utilities sector, police corruption, Catalooniness right and left, the inmates taking over the PP asylum, and all kinds of other fun stuff to write about.

Blogging will be light to nonexistent until August 11, since my parents are in town for a visit. There's plenty of news to comment on, from Hezbollah's assault on Israeli cities while Israel sits and waits, reports that the Qana "massacre" is reminiscent of the one in Jenin with the death toll dropping by the day, the not-yet-announced death of Fidel Castro, ETA's threats to return to violence if they don't get what they want from the Zap administration, Iberia's cave-in allowing the wildcat strikers to keep their jobs, and much more. But you'll have to read about it on some other blog; I suggest the ones in the blogroll to the left.

Monday blog roundup while listening to Dwight Yoakam:

Davids Medienkritik gives sleazy tabloid mag Stern a good fisking.

Damian Penny has links and comment on Qana; Expat Yank blasts anti-Israeli bias at British AOL; Harry's Place has more; so does Right Wing News.

Trevor has a history piece on medieval Barcelona and the decline of the city-state.

Pave France comments acidly on the French blogosphere.

Samizdata agrees with us on the Spanish Civil War.

The top story on everyone's evening news tonight was the Israeli attack on Qana, which killed at least 50 people in an apartment building, at least some of whom were civilians. Half of them were children.

TV1 used the word "massacre" at least 15 times during its news broadcast, which seemed rather partisan to me.

Israel's answer is that these deaths are Hezbollah's fault because Hezbollah started the war, and because Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields. That is, if Hezbollah hadn't wanted those civilians there, they wouldn't have been there.

And, of course, the Israelis do not blow buildings up at random. They hit that particular one because they knew that weapons were being stored there.

And, of course, the Israelis had warned the people of Qana that their town would be bombed, as it was a Hezbollah base, and that they should leave. The argument that all the roads were destroyed doesn't fly. Israel hasn't blown up every road in Lebanon. The civilians could have left the city on foot with no problems for the great majority--all they'd have to do is get a couple of kilometers out of town at most. If I were credibly informed that Barcelona would be bombed within the next few days, I would leave as soon as possible and on foot if necessary. Why didn't they?

Israel says that it fired two missiles into the building a couple of hours after midnight, and that the building did not collapse, killing many of the occupants, until nearly noon, eight or ten hours later. Assuming the Israelis are telling the truth, why didn't the inhabitants get out when they had the chance?

This tragedy happened because irregular forces, such as Hezbollah--guerrillas, terrorists, whatever you want to call them--hide behind non-combatants. Regular forces, such as the Israeli army, must answer to military law and to the chain of command. They are specifically prohibited from hiding behind civilians, and if they do so, they will be punished by their own superiors. Hezbollah terrorists are responsible to nobody, and they believe that the martyrdom of innocents helps their cause. So they do everything they can to promote it, in their own country and in other people's.

Today Hezbollah fired more than 150 rockets into Israel, the express purpose of each one to kill civilians.

El Periodico's bag of shit editorial cartoonist Ferreres today accused Israel of intentionally targeting the UN observation post where four "peacekeepers" were killed last week.

Dialogue:

Kofi Annan: "A UN post bombed? Weren't there signals indicating it?"

"Peacekeeper": "Very well. That's why they hit it so accurately."

"Tikrit Tommy" Alcoverro, La Vanguardia's Beirut correspondent, has this to say in Sunday's Vangua:

Three weeks into the war, around 2000 Hezbollah guerrillas courageously resist deadly and devastating Israeli aerial bombings and land incursions, and their strategists continue launching rockets at objectives of the Jewish state, farther and farther away. Hezbollah leadership, despite the devastation and the exodus of the Shiite population, is still decided on continuing the war, and boasts of having stopped the plans of the Israeli general staff. In the south, as occurred before, one of the most powerful armies in the world is facing a guerrilla organization, which, like a fish in water, is fighting on its own terrain. If Sheik Nasrallah committed an undeniable error in challenging Israel by capturing two of its soldiers, not foreseeing these disproportionate reprisals, the Jewish military leaders have had to reduce their offensive projects before (Hezbollah's) surprising armed resistance and the hecatomb and destruction caused to this innocent and unprotected populace. Lebanon is a small country of only 10,000 square kilometers with some 4 million inhabitants. We must also recognize that this war is almost exclusively carried out against Hezbollah, established among the Shiite population of the south, of the Bekaa, and of the Beirut suburbs. It is, therefore, the Shiite community that suffers in its flesh the incessant reprisals of the Tsahal.

Not hard to see whose side Tikrit Tommy is on, is it?

My question about Alcoverro is the same as my question about Beirut Bob Fisk. Both these guys live in Beirut and have done so for many years. Who, exactly, are they paying their insurance costs to? And in what form? I don't for a moment believe that any Westerner could live for so many years in Beirut without the risk of being kidnapped or having his house blown up, unless he had an insurance policy, and I don't mean the kind you get from State Farm or Prudential.

Further aimless thoughts while listening to KHYI out of Dallas (click on "Click Here to Listen"):

The wildcat strike at El Prat lasted all day yesterday, though the airport is functioning more or less normally now. The strike caused more than 500 flights to be canceled yesterday and a great number to be diverted to other airports, thus thoroughly messing up the rest of Spain's air travel sector as well. Today more than 100 flights had to be canceled as well, about 20% of the scheduled number.

What happened is that the mainstream labor unions, the UGT and CCOO, called an informative meeting of the Iberia handling workers yesterday at 9 AM, and the meeting got out of hand. Radical elements led by the anarchist labor union CGT took over and passed a wildcat strike motion; the runways were immediately blocked. Finally, at about 7 PM, an agreement was reached in which the workers went back to work and management promised to do something so no one would ever ever get fired again no matter how much crack he smoked on the job.

The question now is who is going to reimburse all the passengers who missed flights because of the strike. If you figure there were, I don't know, 10,000, and if they paid an average of, say, €250 for their tickets, that's a pretty good chunk of change.

Note: The anarchist union that panicked the workers' meeting, the CGT, is also the bunch whose logo appears on the "Israel Estat Genocida" banner (scroll down to the fifth photo for a good view) at last week's anti-Semitic demo. These guys are left over from the old CNT-FAI, the most powerful anarchist organization ever at its peak in late 1936.

The boats are still washing up on the Canaries; there have been several more deaths among the West African illegal immigrants who make up the boat people. Over 600 of them arrived just this week.

The world's number one blowhard, Hugo Chavez, told Al Jazira: "The Jews are doing the same thing to the Lebanese that Hitler did to them." Chavez's next stop on his world tour is Iran.

Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock got married. The sheer redneckiness (redneckosity? redneckization?) is overwhelming. Let's hope the kids have her looks and neither's brain.

I didn't make this up, but it's always seemed accurate to me: The difference between white trash, rednecks, and hillbillies is that, if they get invited to a wedding, white trash throw on a stinky old Iron Maiden '82 tour T-shirt and a torn-up pair of tennis shoes and show up. Rednecks, on the other hand, put on a brand-new freshly-ironed Dale Earnhardt Jr. T-shirt along with their biggest, roundest belt buckle and a pair of alligator-skin cowboy boots and show up. Hillbillies, on the third hand, put on the suit their great-grandpappy Jethro was buried in and show up with a chicken under their arms.

Letters to the editor from Friday's El Periodico:

Anti-Semitism might be an even bigger problem than terrorism. Terrorism
might come to an end someday with more justice for everyone, while destroying a country with illegal cluster bombs, with the result of many dead civilians every day, in exchange for two kidnapped soldiers, might make anyone an anti-Semite...
Signed: Francisco Masdeu, Barcelona

I ask Solana: Why don't they send NATO to bomb the terrorist state of
Israel? This action would be much more justified than that of Serbia in 1999 (to my understanding, there was no reason for it.)
Signed: José Luis Calzada Puig, Barcelona

In the Warsaw ghetto, for every German killed 100 Jews were executed. The
Israeli chief of staff, Dan Halutz, threatened to destroy ten buildings in
Beirut for every missile Hezbollah launched. He kept his promise.
Signed: Josep Robert Reig Miró, Barcelona

Note that these were not only letters sent to El Periodico; they are letters El Periodico chose to print.

The big news today in Barcelona is that strikers have closed down the airport. Iberia's handling personnel have not only walked off the job, but they've blocked all three runways, forcing all air traffic to halt.

Why are they striking? Because Aena, the company that administers El Prat airport, awarded the new handling contract to Air Europa, Spanair, and FCC, presumably because their bid was better than Iberia's. The Iberia workers fear that they will lose their jobs, even though the new bosses are required by byzantine Spanish labor laws to take all of them on.

What I can never figure out is why such things are tolerated on the Continent.

Yes, workers have the right to organize and strike, and they have the right to assemble and protest. But let them do so without interfering with other people's own rights. Everyone knows the old analogy, "Your rights end where my nose begins." If the strikers had stood out in front of the terminal holding signs, no problem. But blocking the runways so no one else can use the airport is something quite different.

And this stuff happens all the time in Spain. Truckers and farmers block highways with barricades of burning tires. Not that long ago Barcelona taxi drivers blocked off airport access.

I am not sure whether these actions are protected by law, but if they are, they shouldn't be, and if they're not, somebody should have arrested the strikers and hauled them away. There has to be some kind of law forbidding interference with public services.

But this is the Continent, and so the authorities let them get away with it.

About 100,000 passengers were supposed to have used El Prat today. Somehow I don't think any of them are very happy right now.

Friday blog roundup while listening to John Lee Hooker:

Aaron Hanscom, guestblogger at Barcepundit, was kind enough to link to us in a piece on anti-Israeli propaganda he wrote for FrontPage.

And Bob Skinner, guestblogging at Davids Medienkritik, points out what's wrong with the German media. (Point one: "they make stuff up.")

Guirilandia is maybe just a little bit harsh on the tourists; I'll agree many are regrettable, and parts of downtown do cater almost exclusively to tourism, but it lays golden eggs. And don't miss hard-boiled private dick Larry Kovacs's latest adventure on the seamy side of Barcelona.

La Liga Loca sniffs out dodginess at both Sevilla and Real Madrid, along with more Spanish football news.

Expat Yank finds a real Associated Press scoop on Al Qaeda, Israel, Spain, and Zap.

Fausta has two posts on Hugo Chavez, one on anti-Semitism in Venezuela and the other on Chavez's weapons shopping. With videos and everything!

Akaky is a gas.

Angie Schultz rounds up the current blogosphere controversies, you know, all these people sending out anonymous threats and the like. The Internet is just a tool, of course, and so it will be misused by some people for illegal, immoral, or just crazy purposes. This Deb Frisch sounds like a real barrel of laughs.

Roncesvalles reviews the Bush-Merkel "sexual harassment" incident at length.

Top five recent Google search hits from my referrals log:

5. is alfonso guerra gay

Far as I know, he's not; he's widely rumored to have a mistress.

4. sexy asses of Utah

Try the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Or Marie Osmond. Or Donny, if you're an alternative-lifestyle guy.

3. nude cyclists

Sounds good to me, but wouldn't you get tremendous road rash if you took a spill? And wouldn't your, uh, apparatus flap around in the breeze?

2. sex shops pozuelo

Can't help you there; never been in Pozuelo. I do know there's one on Aragon near Balmes here in Barcelona.

1. where to buy heroin Barcelona

Try Can Tunis, but if you get stabbed it's not my fault.

Aimless thoughts while listening to Robert Earl Keen:

Zap and the PSOE have finally shut up about Israel; I'm not sure they got the message that most of the rest of the world thinks they're anti-Semites, but they learned that their rhetoric aimed at domestic consumption can backfire when the international media gets hold of it.

According to various estimates, there are at least 800,000 illegal aliens in Spain today. This is just one year after Zap decreed a massive asylum program and legalized a few hundred thousand of those who were already here.

I'm in favor of immigration. I'm an immigrant. And I'm not particularly concerned about the number of illegals right now, since Spain can hold the ones it has without much problem (Spain's immigrants are about 8.5% of the total population). Pretty soon sometime, however, they're going to have to set up a guest-worker program, in the same way that Germany accepted Spanish guest workers in the 60s and early 70s.

Of course, if you really want to limit immigration, you have to let the free market work and give those people the chance to earn a living in their home countries. And the best way to do that, of course, is for the US and EU to eliminate import restrictions and tariffs on goods from Third World countries. Let them compete with us on a level playing field. Simplistic, I know, but it would do a hell of a lot of good.

According to La Vanguardia, the average immigrant in Barcelona earns about €800 a month and spends some €550 for a room in a four-bedroom apartment. There's the native Catalan real-estate owners gouging the Third Worlders, since that's twice the price you'd pay if you were a leaseholder, and I'll bet the places the immigrants live are not nearly as nice as what a leaseholder gets for his €1000 a month.

Hugo Chavez is buying armaments from Russia: 24 Sujoi-30 fighters and 30 military helicopters. He is going to have to junk his F-16s because the Americans won't sell him spare parts. In addition, he wants to manufacture AK-47 rifles in Venezuela.

There's a major stink going on in Marbella, the trashy Costa del Sol magnet for Russian mafiosi and Arab sheiks and assorted international con men. The city's mayor, Julian Muñoz, gossip-magazine and reality-TV mainstay because of his romance with aging torch singer Isabel Pantoja, is in jail along with about half of the city council, and Jose Maria del Nido, Muñoz's lawyer and the president of the Sevilla FC soccer club, has just been charged with embezzling €6.7 million. Wonders will never cease.

It's still hot, 45º C in the sun in Barcelona and about 34º in the shade. Unpleasant. Sweaty. Smelly. La Vangua ran a letter to the editor encouraging citizens to shower and use deodorant regularly. Most do but too many don't. Many of those who don't can be found hanging out at the Casa Julio bar on Calle Providencia.

By the way, a gang of aggressive homeless drunks and drug addicts has taken over the beach at Barceloneta and the cops are having no luck moving them along. Sounds like the place to party on Saturday night.

The AP is reporting that Floyd Landis tested positive for excessive testosterone on the day of his huge breakaway in the Alps. A retest is pending, but it looks like Floyd cheated. Too bad, he seemed like a genuinely stand-up guy. I'm disappointed, of course. If Landis is stripped of the title, Spaniard Oscar Pereiro, who had a fine race and finished second, will inherit it.

Bad news for the Tour de France. First a dozen riders, including Ullrich and Basso, are disqualified mere days before the race because of the Spanish doping scandal that brought down famous cycling coach Manolo Saez, and now the winner has tested positive for doping. The Tour had better be even stricter in its testing or it's going to go the way of pro wrestling, a popular sport in the early 20th century that died when the fans decided it wasn't on the level. Or boxing; as recently as the 1940s boxing was America's second most important sport after baseball.

I think looking at Sports Illustrated's homepage is instructive about the current ranking of sports in importance in the US. The tabs directly under the headline which readers click on for all the news about a particular sport read, from left to right:

NFL; College football; MLB (major league baseball); NBA; College basketball; Golf; NHL (National Hockey League); Nascar; Soccer; High school; Other sports.

Boxing is down there in "Other Sports" along with team handball and roller hockey, below even high school sports.

Note that soccer gets its own tab now. This is new and shows that Americans are becoming more and more familiar with the game. Another major clue pointing in this direction is that Bill Simmons, America's most popular sports columnist, recently asked his readers to write in recommending which English Premier League he should support. Note that Simmons doesn't give a crap about the American soccer league, which everybody knows is second-rate; he wants to pick a real top-level team playing good football, and those can be found in the EPL. You might be a little surprised at the team he picks; remember, he's from Boston and is a Red Sox fanatic. Brits might be interested in this article, if only to see how a top American sportswriter views their league.

Francesc-Marc Alvaro describes a conversation with one of our local enlightened and illustrated intellectuals in today's La Vanguardia:

My friend is thrilled with Zapatero's latest diplomatic adventures and with
the PSOE's official position on the crisis between Israel and Hezbollah. My
friend attended last Thursday's demonstration in Barcelona's Plaza Sant Jaume in
order to protest against "Israeli genocide in Lebanon," to put it in his own
words. My friend thinks that Jose Blanco did not go far enough, and recites an
article written by a University of Barcelona professor and retired military
officer which declares that Israel "has responded to every terrorist action with
military reprisals against the Arab civilian population." My friend assures me
that the war is the fault of the Israelis and "their expansionist and
colonialist desires," to put it in his own words.

I try to tell my friend that Hezbollah is a political party and an armed
organization which, moved by Teheran's interests and encrusted inside the
Lebanese state, dedicates itself to imposing through terrorism the same
totalitarian and fundamentalist ideology that the Iranians are suffering from
today. I also remind him that it was no accident that the first attack by
these guerrillas on Israeli soil was on July 12, when the deadline set for the
Iranian government to respond officially about its nuclear program ran out.

My friend, who exclusively watches the TV3 news, insists that Israel
"is killing children, women, and old people," and that "it's all a plan drawn up
by the neocons to expand the empire." A little tired by now, I remind him that
the fanatical cleric that runs Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrala, has stated publicly,
"We love martyrdom," which fits in perfectly with these guerrillas' practice of
camouflaging arms and military bases in the middle of houses and civilian
buildings, using the defenseless population as human shields. Nasrala, who is
totalitarian but not an imbecile, generously promotes the martyrdom of Lebanese
civilians while he and his lieutenants hide away. I cite a recent article by the
Israeli author Amos Oz, a well-known pacifist, denouncing the false symmetry in
placing a democratic state like Israel at the same level as a totalitarian
terrorist organization like Hezbollah.

My friend isn't listening to me any more. It does me no good to remind him
that Hezbollah's attacks occurred exactly when Israel has pulled out of Gaza and
was planning a pullout from the West Bank. Isn't it suspicious that
fundamentalists sponsored by Iran and supported by Syria provoke Israel as soon
as some hope appears? My friend enthusiastically praises Zapatero and talks
about his Alliance of Civilizations. He feels superior and his conscience is
very calm.

Tuesday blog roundup while listening to Taj Mahal:

Roncesvalles shreds a fatuous blonde German TV hostess.

Right Wing News makes John Kerry eat his flip-flops and provides this quick Middle East quiz.

Rainy Day outs Angelo Sodano as the head anti-Israeli in the Vatican.

Fausta notes the BBC's significant omissions.

Eursoc unearths a sinister secret EU plan.

Expat Yank fisks another clueless Guardian columnist.

The Rottweiler eviscerates a British foreign office hack.

Daniel W. Drezner debunks an uninformed "another world is possible" foo-foo.

Barcepundit features guest blogger Aaron Hanscom on the PSOE's anti-Israeli disaster.

La Liga Loca has a fresh roundup of Spanish football news.

And Arts and Letters Daily links to this extremely overdone slice-of-life-in-Spain piece, in which the author calls a bunch of folks hanging out in a suburban Spanish plaza "a sacred gathering." No, no, they're just bored and have nothing else to do.

Further aimless thoughts while listening to Ray Wylie Hubbard:

Israeli ambassador Victor Harel snapped back at Pepe Blanco, saying that Blanco's remarks "were the most disgraceful (infame) statements I have heard in recent days...He is accusing us of killing civilians indiscriminately, that is killing civilians intentionally. This is something that Arab propaganda does, but we did not expect it from someone at the head of a party with many links with Israel and years and years of relations...That the organizational secretary of a party, the same that organized (Thursday's) demonstration, should make an accusation of this character against us, has left us completely speechless."

So what did Blanco do, apologize? Nope.

"As I have done since the beginning of the crisis, my first words were of rotund condemnation of Hezbollah's terrorist actions; actions, which I have also been saying for days, do not justify a disproportionate military response which is causing innocent victims," he responded.

These guys are just digging the hole even deeper.

It's hot, with temperatures above 90º F across most of Europe. In southern Spain it can easily reach 110º. 30 people have already been reported dead in France, reminiscent of the tragic summer several years ago when literally thousands of people, mostly elderly, died of the heat. I am on a granola-yogurt-fruit diet to beat the heat. Get this, the Generalitat is warning people about "abusing air-conditioning." I'm not sure what they mean, since anybody who tries to take a whack at my air-conditioner is going to have to get past me first.

The ignored international humanitarian crisis continued this week, as some 600 illegal immigrant boat people were picked up at sea aboard several different open boats in the Atlantic by the Spanish coast guard. At least six died of exposure and starvation, as one of the cayucos was adrift at sea for five days without food before they found it. Canary Islands authorities say they are "desperate." Over a thousand people have died at sea so far in 2006 on the West Africa-Canary Islands route. The international media isn't getting all excited, though.

In good news, traffic deaths are down by half over last summer. This is excellent news, as Spanish highways have always been among the deadliest in Europe. Looks like the changeover to the points system has had a psychological effect on driving habits.

Get this. There are currently nine enormous luxury cruisers docked in Barcelona harbor, and 1.5 million cruise passengers will come through the city this year. And some people doubt that we live off tourism.

Sports: Everyone knows that Floyd Landis won the Tour de France, a well-deserved victory for a guy who toughed it out, who pulled off one of the finest breaks from the pack ever on the day it looked like it was all over for him. Landis is much more popular in Europe than Armstrong, probably because he seems like a much nicer guy, you know, not as arrogant. Lance is, of course, the greatest cyclist ever, but he's apparently also capable of behaving like a major dickhead.

Barcelona signed Thuram and Zambrotta, giving them a squad of:

Goalies: Valdes, Jorquera
Right fullback: Zambrotta, Belletti, Oleguer
Right center-back: Marquez, Oleguer
Left center-back: Puyol, Thuram
Left fullback: Van Bronckhorst, Sylvinho
Defensive midfielder: Edmilson, Marquez, Motta
Playmaking midfielder: Xavi, Iniesta, Van Bommel
Attacking midfielder: Deco, Iniesta, Van Bommel
Right wing: Messi, Giuly, Ezquerro
Center forward: Eto'o, Gudjohnsen
Left wing: Ronaldinho, Deco

That's a pretty good lineup, and they've got three years playing together under their belts. They're the unanimous favorite to win the Spanish league--the online betting sites have Barcelona at something like 1.6-1 to threepeat, with Real Madrid at around 3-1 and longshot Valencia at 8-1. No one else has a realistic chance. As for the Champions' League, Barcelona and Chelsea are the preseason favorites. Since both Juventus and Milan have been disqualified, this means that the CL will be somewhat easier to win than last year.

Aimless thoughts while not listening to Kenny Rogers:

José Blanco, the PSOE's organizational secretary (internal party boss), put his foot in it again; this has been a very bad week for the PSOE and the Zap administration in international affairs. Blanco said that civilian victims in Lebanon "cannot be considered collateral damage, but rather an objective sought by Israel." He added, "No objective justifies the destruction of a country." So the PSOE claims that Israel is intentionally murdering civilians. That'll look great when Moratinos shows up in Rome at this big meeting they've called in order to do nothing about the Israeli-Hezbollah war.

Moratinos, the foreign minister, is the same guy who accused Israel of "perpetrating a bloodbath" on Saturday. The Israeli ambassador, Victor Harel, called Moratinos's statement "unbalanced and biased," and added, "We don't need anyone to remind us that peace is unreachable with planes and tanks."

Deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega chimed in on Sunday, calling on Spanish youths "not to feel ashamed to participate in demonstrations for peace like the one last Thursday in Madrid." Remember, they chanted "Israel genocide" over and over and carried banners with the Star of David, an equal sign, and a swastika.

The Zap government has no idea how deep a hole it is digging itself with this rhetoric.

In Spain it's big news whenever some Zap government official has any sort of contact with the Bush administration, since it's well-known that Zap is on the Bush administration's shit list. Therefore, Moratinos announced to all concerned that he had talked to Condi Rice on the phone. Woo-hoo.

Blanco also said that the PSOE condemned Hezbollah's terrorist actions as well as "Israel's disproportionate response and its indiscriminate attacks on the population of Lebanon." See, Blanco, this is why people around the world think that you are anti-Semitic. You spend much more energy condemning Israel than you do Hezbollah, and you criticize Israel for everything it does, while almost never saying anything negative about Al Fatah and Hamas and Hezbollah and Syria. Just like the entire Socialist government and most of the Spanish media and cultural crowd.

Don't believe me? Listen to Giaco Ventura, the president of the Spanish-Israeli Chamber of Commerce. Ventura is "concerned" that relations between Spain and Israel are "less fluid" than under the Aznar administration. He added that "foreign ministers in half the world have recognized the crisis in relations between the two countries," and that "the European Parliament points out Spain as the principal source of incitation against Jews in Europe." Ventura accused the Zap government of "not measuring Israel and Hezbollah by the same standard, which leads to anti-Semitism and Judeophobia."

Blanco didn't miss a chance to attack former PM Aznar, either, saying that he "works for an international arms corporation" and, literally, "He gets off on war." ("Le pone la guerra.") Blanco added, "Spain had a warlike government, that of Aznar and Rajoy, and now it has one committed to peace." That is, to the Triple A, appeasement, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism.

TV3, meanwhile, is reporting that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians with white phosphorus rounds; Catalonia is even more anti-Semitic than the rest of Spain, I think, and anti-Semitism is unfortunately common everywhere here for long-standing historical and cultural reasons. Most importantly, there are very few Jews in Spain, so few people personally know anyone Jewish; Spaniards love conspiracy theories even more than most Europeans, so they jump at the idea that Jews are disproportionately powerful; also, there are few pro-Jewish voices out there in the media and the cultural world, so nobody's opinion is ever challenged. Finally, the Franco regime's propaganda was surprisingly effective among Spaniards, and Franco liked talking about the Jewish-Bolshevist anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish conspiracy.

(Note: Jews were not persecuted under Franco, nor were Jews who escaped to Spain during WWII sent back to the Nazis. One of the few semi-decent things that hard, cold old man did.)

The other piece of big news around here is the Supreme Court has thrown out the conviction of Spaniard Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed on the ground that his right to be presumed innocent had been violated. Ahmed was convicted by the National Court of membership in Al Qaeda and sentenced to six years in prison. The National Court ruled that Ahmad "with full knowledge of the terrorist nature of the group, joined Al Qaeda and traveled to Afghanistan with the proposition of becoming a mujihadin and practicing jihad." Here's the fun part: Ahmed spent more than two years at Guantanamo after being captured in Pakistan. We then shipped him to Spain. Now they're letting him walk; the Supreme Court ordered that he be immediately released from prison. I hope he and his buddies all move in next to you guys.

Of course, Spain depends on the United States for self-defense; right under the Vangua's story on Moratinos's verbal diarrhea, there's an article reporting that the US has authorized Spain to purchase Tomahawk missiles.