John Leo speaks truth to the Thought Police at City Journal.

Dumb bit of censorship around here: Idiot alleged actor-comedian Pepe Rubianes has been charged with "insulting Spain," which is apparently against the law, and is facing a €21,000 fine. He spewed venom against Spain and Spaniards using the crudest and most ignorant language on TV3 back in January 2006, as you may remember. If he is charged with "inciting to hatred," he may be looking at three years in jail. Now, for sheer anti-American hatred, it's hard to top this 2003 Rubianes diatribe which we posted back then.

Though Iberian Notes despises Rubianes, we defend his freedom to be an asshole. Which he most certainly is.

More Spanish TV censorship, or at least what they'd call censorship if it was the Super Bowl: They aired the Goya Awards ceremony, Spain's equivalent of the Oscars, on a half-hour delay, I suppose so that no one would say anything offensive. Great. I'm in favor. The TV people have the right to do whatever they want, since it's their show. They can censor invited guests; if the guest doesn't like being censored, he doesn't have to go on the show.

But the Spanish media howled long and hard that the Yanks were committing puritanical censorship when they put the Rolling Stones on a five-second delay at the Super Bowl last year and told them not to sing the line "You'd make a dead man come" from "Start Me Up." I haven't heard any such howling now that they're doing it over here.

Oh, wow. This is so bad it's good.

My favorite comic magazine is Viz from England. They run a regular feature called the Profanisaurus, a glossary of crude and vulgar terms, which has greatly expanded my vocabulary. Here are a few words and expressions; let's see if you can provide definitions.

budgie's tongue (n.)
to crank (v.)
flavour of the month (n.)
Cleveland steamer (n.)
to draw an ace (v.)
heirbags (n. pl.)
biddy fiddler (n.)
belly warmers (n. pl.)
dirty Sanchez (n.)
ankle spanker (n.)
airplane blonde (n.)
banjo cleaner (n.)
wide-on (n.)
to tip one's concrete (v.)
crumpet trumpet (n.)
to shell (v.)
salad dodger (n.)
Catalan custard (n.)
to use live rounds in a training exercise (v.)
to Pink Floyd (v.)
to disengage the airbrakes (v.)
Heinz jacuzzi (n.)
shuttlecock (n.)
reserve chute (n.)

They had an anti-global warming protest this evening in Europe: everybody was supposed to turn out all their lights between 7:55 and 8 PM. Of course, I turned on all my lights, opened the windows, and cranked up the Hag doing "The Fightin' Side of Me." Remei said I was being childish, but I thought it was pretty funny. I didn't notice any participation on my street; everybody kept their lights on as far as I could tell.

Supposedly Woody Allen is going to film a movie in Barcelona with Penelope Cruz next summer. I haven't actually liked any Woody Allen movies since about "Annie Hall." Penelope Cruz is certainly one hot babe, though she was even hotter before the plastic surgery, of course. As an actress, I'm not much of a judge, though I have noticed that the only character she ever plays is a hot babe. If you've never seen "Jamón, Jamón," check it out, as Penelope is at her most babelicious.

Go to Hell Hugo has passed an enabling act which will allow him to make laws. I know that comparing someone today with the Nazis is a sign you have lost the argument, but I'm going to do it anyway. It was the enabling act that the Reichstag passed that allowed Hitler to seize total power in Germany. Venezuela right now still has hope: the press hasn't been completely muzzled and the opposition isn't in jail yet. This is going to be the last straw, though; Venezuela has officially become a dictatorship. I would leave now. Meanwhile, the shit is about to hit the fan in Ecuador. New President Rafael Correa has threatened "mucha violencia" if a new constitutional convention is not called.

Fausta has more at Pajamas Media.

Democratic Representative Loretta Sanchez has accused Democratic Representative Joe Baca of calling her a "whore." Where's the feminist wing demanding Baca's resignation? Oops, he's a Hispanic Democrat, not a white Anglo Republican.

Half of Spanish households now have an Internet connection. That seems kind of low.

The Audiencia Nacional, Spain's highest non-appeals court, has ordered that the CNI, the National Intelligence Service, declassify all information on alleged secret CIA flights in and out of Spain. Meanwhile, Germany has demanded the extradition of thirteen alleged CIA agents, which of course will happen when George Jones sings rap.

The controversy about Basque premier Ibarretxe's testimony on charges of meeting with an illegal political party, ETA-front Batasuna, has turned into a much-needed debate on the independence of the judiciary. In Spain, judges do not even pretend to be apolitical; instead, there are several major political organizations of judges, one leftist, one conservative, and one sort of in the middle. There are also some non-affiliated judges. This is, of course, absolutely wrong. A judge must interpret the law as she is wrote, not through his political perspective.

A bunch of ETA-wannabe fourteen-year-old kids profaned the grave of Gregorio Ordóñez, the Basque PP leader murdered by the ETA. That's just sick. Agreed, it's merely symbolic, but it shows total lack of respect for human life. This is the sort of person that the 15% of crazy mental Basques who support ETA produce, and that is one evil subculture. I'm not sure we'll ever completely crush ETA as long as such a significant fraction of society is pro-murder.

La Vanguardia says straight out that the UN is planning a pro-Kyoto Protocol campaign in order to pressure the United States. They plan to produce a whole series of reports to be released during all of 2007. Quote: "The Inter-Governmental Group of Experts on Climate Change (that is, the usual gang of crooks) has a program for the year that seems like the perfect script to put the US up against the ropes." Naturally, the Vangua's headline is "UN increases pressure on Bush to accept Kyoto." Of course, it's not Bush who's blocking American acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol, it was the Senate, who voted 95-0 against it back in 1997. During the Clinton administration.

They thought of a brilliant idea to reduce automobile traffic in Barcelona. They're planning to reduce tolls on turnpikes entering town for cars carrying two persons or more, in order to provide an incentive for people to carpool! Gee, that's creative and original! Next thing you know they'll actually build parking lots near suburban train stations so people can "park and ride"!

I was just disgusted by this story. (Note: I've been a vegetarian for 25 years.) There is an organization in Catalonia that wants to preserve historic breeds of farm animals. Great, sounds good to me, I love animals, and it'd be a shame for the Catalan donkey, of which about 300 remain, to disappear. So up in the Pyrenees, THEY KILLED TWO OF THEM AND TURNED THEM INTO DONKEYBURGERS, which 500 people ate. This was supposedly in order to get media attention. Said Jaume Mora, "Our goal is to promote the Pallars region as a gastronomic tourist destination, and we think this could be attractive." What exactly is attractive about eating donkey meat?

Aaron Hanscomb has a piece up on Front Page on anti-Semitism in Europe, and is kind enough to link to us. This one is much better than the Front Page piece we linked to yesterday.

Seems that the city of Miami is planning a celebration, to be held in the Orange Bowl football stadium, when Fidel dies. I'd hold off on the party until democracy is reintroduced in Cuba. By the way, Fidel hasn't been out in public for more than six months.

Iker Aguirre, the ETA guy who got arrested a couple of days ago on a France-Barcelona train, had been ordered by ETA leader Garikoitz "Cherokee" Aspiazu to plan a major attack in Valencia in the next three months. The proposed targets were Valencia harbor, which is being prepared for the America's Cup, and tourist areas in Alicante province. The attacks were to go off in April and May, right before the municipal elections. Crush these bastards now. To hell with "dialogue."

Basque Country premier Juan José Ibarretxe of the PNV has been summoned to testify as a witness in the case against Otegi, Petrikorena, and Barrena, the leaders of ETA-front political party Batasuna. Seems that Batasuna, though it was banned for supporting terrorism by the Political Parties Act, held an official meeting in April 2006 with Ibarretxe. This is illegal, since Batasuna is not allowed to carry on any kind of political activity unless and until it breaks with ETA. All the Basque nationalist parties held a protest demo in Bilbao that brought out 45,000 people according to the local police. The problem with the Basque nationalists is you're never sure whose side they're on, since they condemn ETA but oppose a government crackdown.

Francesc-Marc Alvaro takes a whack at Anti-System Imma Mayol in today's Vangua, calling her words "absurd," "an invitation to satire," "ultramoralizing and decorative parlor-pink fetishism," "frivolous," "an official imposture," and "far from reality."

Seems there was a riot last night at the Internment Center for Foreigners in the Zona Franca; a bunch of the prisoners beat up the guards and some of the other inmates. The riot was suppressed by the strong-arm squad. These guys are all of North African origin and mostly have long police records; they rioted because they heard rumors that they were going to be deported. I'm not sure why we haven't deported the lot already.

La Vangua has a full-page story on Paris Hilton today. Why? Why would anyone in Barcelona care? We have our own trashy celebrities over here and we don't need any more.

One clear sign of anti-Americanism (and anti-Semitism, and anti-everythingelseism) is out-of-context criticism. That is, if you're talking about something completely different and you throw in some America-bashing for no particular reason, you're most likely an anti-American. You are especially likely to be anti-American if your bashing is an oft-repeated stereotype.

So get this on the back page of La Vanguardia this morning. One Lluís Amiguet interviews one Clément Rosset, who is billed as a French-Spanish "philosopher." One of Rosset's pearls is: "Iberian culture knows how to find happiness in the tragedy of living." Huh? Since when? What a dumb generalization.

Anyway, Amiguet asks Rosset, "Why are we so afraid?"

First, who's "we," white man? I'm not particularly afraid of anything I can control; yes, I'm "afraid" of getting run over by a bus, as anyone sensible would be, but I don't exactly dwell on the subject, since I'm generally pretty careful to stay out of the path of oncoming buses. And as for things I can't control, I just have to accept that shit happens, and you play the hand of cards you get dealt.

But Rosset answers,

Because when you deny death, illness, and pain, you are much more afraid of everything. You fear that a sick person or even a dead one will sneak into the shopping mall and wake us up from the dream of consumption. Look at the United States: they live sunk in continual paranoia.

For some reason anti-Americans love to think that American society lives shaking in fear and panic. It's the most frequently-repeated Yank-bashing meme I see. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth; in fact, I think Spanish society is more paranoid than American. You hear many more conspiracy theories over here; there's always some hidden power group that controls everything. Rosset manages to work in another Yank-bashing meme, that American society cares about nothing except for material consumption. And, of course, who says Americans deny death, illness, and pain? Seems to me that if we're a bunch of crazy Jesus freaks, as another oft-repeated meme goes, that means we're very concerned with the subjects of death and the afterlife, right? But with an anti-American, you can't win either way.

Amiguet replies, "The Frightened States of America."

Says Rosset,

Precisely because they have decided to hide the dark side of existence. If you accept it naturally, you are much less afraid, because you accept that someday you will get sick, die, get old, be ugly, sad, maybe you'll be alone, very alone...

1) The Americans have "decided to hide the dark side of existence?" How was that decision made? Did we take a vote or was it imposed by the Bush administration? 2) It seems healthier to me not to dwell on or obsess about unpleasant facts like illness and death that we cannot control. If you go around thinking about that stuff all the time, as Rosset seems to be recommending--he says, "The central question of philosophy is that we are going to die," and "We must be conscious of the immense joke of this existence: we are all going to die," you're likely to be miserable. Yes, we all know we are going to die, but why ruin a nice sunny morning contemplating it?

Christopher Hitchens praises Nick Cohen's book and rips the Left a new asshole. Check it out.

Go read this article at Front Page; it's a rather foaming-at-the-mouth denunciation of the Zap government, and the translation from Spanish is not particularly good. The author, of course, is totally biased against Zap and the Socialists; while he makes many good points, especially regarding Zap's (and leftist Spain's) anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, he goes too far in more than one place. Even the title, "Spain: the European Iran" is a bit excessive. "The Zap Government: Wannabe France-Loving Weasels" would be more like it.

Here are a couple of paragraphs:

Zapatero introduced what the calls “the process,” Spain's very own Oslo Accords. The idea is to give the Marxist Leninist group ETA everything it asks for (including whole parts of Spain like Navarra, in a move some say reminiscent of Hitler’s claims over Czech Republic) in order to “bring peace.”

While I completely agree that Zap is a fool, he doesn't want to "give ETA everything it asks for."

Zapatero’s numbers are plunging faster than Bush’s.

Not yet they're not, unfortunately.

...but after putting his men in charge of many important business and banks, Zapatero promised Endesa to a government-friendly Gas Natural.

I've heard speculations of this sort, but haven't seen any proof.

(People are asking) if Moroccan dealings in Córdoba and Seville expelling non-Muslims from whole neighborhoods are not “occupation.”

I haven't heard about anything of this sort.

Saudi petrodollars are bribing increasing amounts of Spanish journalists through Muslim organizations in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Murcia to talk about Iraq, but also about the Wahhabi version of the Middle East. Journalists earning less than 1000 EUR a month are driving BMW cars, and there seems to be a pact of silence inside many Spanish newspapers not to ask a single word.

If you're going to make charges like this, you've got to have proof. Some specific examples would be nice. I think Spanish journalists tend to be more incompetent and biased than corrupt. Possible exception: Tomás Alcoverro. I am convinced this guy, who owns a house in Beirut, is in somebody's pocket. But I can't prove it.

No wonder why Spanish Jews are considering aliyah.

I hadn't heard they were.

A country ready and willing to receive tourists? No, tourists should avoid it right away.

The Zap government infuriates me too, but you can't blame the whole country. Be anti-Zap, but not anti-Spain.

From the "We're Not Anti-Semitic, We Just Oppose the Israeli Government" department:

The Madrid suburb of Ciempozuelos, governed by the PSOE, of course, has announced that it will celebrate "Palestinian Genocide Day" on Saturday. In case you didn't know, Saturday is the international Holocaust day of memorial. Israeli ambassador Victor Harel said, "This is an act of pure anti-Semitism, in which the memory of the Jews and Israel are offended with monumental falsehoods." Harel called the Ciempozuelos mayor and city council "insensitive, ignorant, and acting in bad faith."

Meanwhile, the Asturias regional government, run by the PSOE, of course, financed and published a book called "Internationals in Israel" that calls Israel "a terrorist state" and calls for its "total defeat."

Zap met with the European Jewish Congress on Friday and said he was against anti-Semitism. However, he doesn't seem to have done anything about the behavior of his own party.

I was wrong to give credit yesterday to the Zap government; they actually did want the Audiencia Nacional to grant house arrest to ETA terrorist De Juana Chaos. They blamed the 12-4 vote by the judges on "pressure from the PP." The Basque regional government, headed by the PNV, called the decision "a mistake." Meanwhile, the cops busted an ETA terrorist on the train between the French border and Barcelona. The guy was carrying instructions for manufacturing bombs and stealing cars and six fake IDs, among other things. He's got a record for terrorist attacks, rioting, and concealing weapons.

The two major public opinion stinks going around are 1) the way dishonest renters are taking advantage of the Spanish law requiring a judicial order for an eviction, causing landlords not to want to rent out their apartments and 2) the panic in the middle-class Barcelona suburbs (urbanizaciones) over the perceived rising crime rate. Yesterday a homeowner in Sudanell, Lleida province, faced with a home invasion, shot one man dead and wounded another inside his house. The cops busted a third robber, and a fourth got away. La Vangua reports on its front page that suburban residents are starting up their own neighborhood patrols.

Weirdness: A Colombian woman named Darling Vélez applied for Spanish citizenship. They told her that the first name "Darling" was unacceptable; seems that Spanish law prohibits "ridiculous" first names, and first names that do not clearly indicate the sex of their bearer. Ms. Vélez will have to change her first name or be denied citizenship. That's absurd. Who the hell is some bureaucrat to judge that the name "Darling" is ridiculous? And I know an American woman named Joan. What, will she be forbidden Spanish citizenship because "Joan" is a male name in Catalonia? Or an American woman named "Harriet," which is a male name in Basque? And what about a Chinese person named, say, Ziaoshang? How are we going to detect the sex of that one? How about if the government stays out of what people decide to name their kids?

It's cold. There's snow all over Spain. Spanish drivers do not know how to drive in snow, which is understandable since it does not snow much here. Therefore, the highways are snarled up all over the country.

Manuel Trallero, who has pissed me off in the past, comments in La Vangua that Communist-Green pro-squatter anti-system third assistant mayor Imma Mayol goes to the same private eye doctor that he does, rather than using the public health system like my mother-in-law.

The Audiencia Nacional voted this morning to keep hunger-striking terrorist De Juana Chaos in prison; he's currently in the hospital, but he will not be sent home under house arrest, as he is demanding. Good. One thing about this guy is that he is not a repentant former terrorist, he's one of the most violent ETA loyalists. He's tried to escape from prison several times, has sent threatening letters to judges, and has celebrated ETA murders while behind bars. By the way, to the Zap government's credit, they're against turning him loose too.

There's a flu outbreak here in Catalonia. Hasn't hit me yet. The hospitals are full. Almost 200,000 people a day are seeking flu treatment in Spain. Meanwhile, more than 50,000 Catalans are on waiting lists for non-urgent operations. More than 14,000, including my mother-in-law, are awaiting a cataracts operation, about 6000 for bunions, 6000 more for knee replacements, and 5000 for hernias. I'm not complaining about the Spanish public health system, they've treated me very well, but it does have its disadvantages.

Somebody wrote a letter to La Vanguardia today pointing out that Ms. Anti-System, Imma Mayol, makes about €100,000 a year as third assistant mayor.

Tourists spent €8.6 billion in Catalonia in the first eleven months of 2006.

Some guy got stopped Monday night in Cunit at an alcohol checkpoint and he blew 0.68 mg/l on the breath test, so they immobilized his car, charged him, and turned him loose. About an hour later, the same cops were still manning the same checkpoint. The same driver came along in a different car. This time he blew 0.71.

Reminds me of a small-time drug dealer who lived next door to me in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1991-92. This guy's name was Tim, and he wasn't very smart. So one night he's driving home from the Jet Lag Lounge--Tim used to try to get me to go down to the Lag with him, saying, "There's some fine lookin' ladies at the Lag," which was true if your idea of a fine lookin' lady included missing teeth--and the cops nail him for drunk driving. So Tim goes back to the Lag the next night, and what do you know, the cops nail him for drunk driving again. He told me, "I think I can get out of this one. The cop accused me of drinking beer, and everybody knows I only drink Crown." This legal strategy did not work, and Tim got weekends in jail for three months. He instructed me to watch his stash, which he kept under the doghouse in the back yard.

People in the US might want to know that Catalan company Borges has reached an agreement to sell its olive oil and vinegar through Wal-Mart. Borges is headquartered in Tàrrega, about 15 kilometers up the road from my wife's hometown, Vallfogona de Riucorb. It's a pretty good-sized privately-owned company, doing more than €500 million a year in business, and it's a respected brand name in Spain.

In Spain Borges has a line of varietal olive oils that are especially good, and I particularly recommend the arbequena variety, produced mostly in southern Lleída province.

Vallfogona de Riucorb is also in the Costers del Segre wine denomination of origin area. and if you ever see any wines from there, try them. I imagine Raimat, which belongs to the major cava producer Cordoniu, is sold in the US; they make a very good and inexpensive cabernet sauvignon.

Go to Hell Hugo hasn't been receiving much criticism from our friends in the intellectual Left, even though he's shutting down the independent media in Venezuela. Funny, they all seem to think Bush is exercising some kind of iron censorship of the American media.

Canal Plus, which is owned by Prisa, the same pro-PSOE media company that owns El País, showed a documentary called "Jesus Camp" a few days ago, and the America-bashing hysterics are out in full force. The makers of "Jesus Camp" claim that their documentary is a neutral look at a summer camp for charismatic Christian kids; here's the trailer so that you can judge for yourself.

But here's how Canal Plus advertised the documentary: "While other children go on vacation, Levi, Tory, and Rachel train to be soldiers of God. Every summer they attend Kids on Fire, one of the thousands of camps in which they are instructed in the most radical evangelical Christianity, preparing them for the conquest of America in the name of Christ. Brainwashing that millions of American youth are submitted to." Neutral, huh?

Note: Spanish TV loves showing documentaries about the United States that focus on religion, racism, and ultra-right-wingers. TV3 repeats over and over a documentary on those weirdos out in Idaho who are racist survivalist pro-Nazi extremists. The problem with these documentaries is that if they're all you see, you get a very warped and twisted picture of reality. Yes, everything in the documentary about these guys is true. No, they have absolutely nothing to do with ordinary American life, since about 0.01% of the population falls into this category. They are also not a serious threat to anybody but themselves, and are about #1394 on America's list of "Important Things We Need to Do Something About." It took me half of Christmas dinner to explain to Remei's cousin Jordi that these wackos are an infinitesimal minority who everyone else thinks is crazy, rather than in the mainstream of society.

"Jesus Camp" looks like it falls into that same category of documentaries: yes, it's true, but no, it has nothing to do with the mainstream. Check out this paragraph from Wikipedia:

Some evangelicals have taken issue with the filmmakers spotlighting such an extreme group and then associating it with the 90 million-strong National Association of Evangelicals. (Camp leader) Ms Fisher's organization Kids in Ministry International was founded by herself and has absolutely no ties with any other major American evangelical denominations or the National Association of Evangelicals. The film might cause viewers to conclude that Ms. Fisher's camp represents even a fraction of evangelical practice when this is not the case.

Also, check out this piece by Ray Scarborough of liberal cable news network MSNBC.

Even one of the filmmakers told Christianity Today:

At the same time, I did notice some very admirable qualities to the children in our film. They're extremely articulate, they're smart, and they do good things for other people. They think about others, and they lack vanity I've seen in other kids. So on one hand, they're being raised very well. And it's complicated, because one might not agree with the adult that this person might become, or the direction this child is going. However, as children, they're extremely pleasant, and have a lot of things going for them. So I think, again, this whole film falls into a really big grey area. Which is what I think makes it a good movie.

CT also links to this movie review:

Denny Wayman and Hal Conklin (Cinema in Focus) write, "When a documentary explores a subgroup of a large contingent and implies that this defines the whole, then it is appropriate to call 'foul.' This is the case in Jesus Camp. … The implication is made that Pastor Fischer is a prime example of Evangelical Christians' beliefs and practices. This is not only untrue but it also leads to a pervasive misunderstanding."

Now get this, by Ferran Monegal in yesterday's El Periódico, boldface mine:

Infantile brainwashing

My hair stood on end last night while watching the shocking documentary "Jesus Camp" on Canal Plus. It showed us a summer camp for children between 5 and 15 years old in Kansas, Missouri (sic). A woman leader, like a Dr. Menguele (sic), but chubbier, brainwashes them every day with a cardboard statue of Bush presiding the sessions.

First they are submitted to rigorous collective hypnotism in which they are made to repeat, while looking at heaven as if possessed, slogans like "You are the special generation! You will change the world! Raise your hands! Bless George Bush! Let him feel your ardor! Pray for his soul! Tell him, Mr. President, one nation under God!" And after this witches' coven of kidnapping and brainwashing, most of the children enter a sort of general epilepsy, fall on the floor, cry, shout, chant hallelujah, try to touch the Holy Spirit with their hands, and more than one, at the end, openly says that God has entered him and that he guides his hand when he writes in his diary, and in his steps when he walks.

There's more. The parents of these children say, proudly, that their children have never entered a school. This community of brainless fanatic pseudo-evangelists normally educates their children by themselves "to prevent their being contaminated with scientific explanations: the only valid explanation of the world is divine."

I was scared stiff after seeing this documentary. Those spiritual exercises they made us do here, years ago, frightening priests who terrified us with the anger of God and hellfire are nothing in comparison with what we have seen. And the most terrible thing is that we do not know how many American children enter these terrifying camps of mental extermination every summer.

See what I mean? This guy is terrified. He's so biased about America that he really thinks brainwashed evangelical Protestants are coming to get him. They've never showed him a documentary of normal people going to a normal church, or not going to church, so he thinks that the behavior of a tiny handful extreme fundamentalists is somehow dangerous.

Mr. Monegal, there have been a total of zero fundamentalist Christian American suicide bombers, and a total of about three murders of doctors who performed abortions. These people are not dangerous. Weird, yes. But dangerous, no.

For a much more reasonable look at the documentary in Spanish, check out the Catalan Catholic webpage E-Cristians.

The prosecutor's office has announced that it will ask the court to put imprisoned ETA terrorist Ignacio de Juana Chaos under house arrest, as he is "at risk of death" due to the hunger strike he has been on since November.

De Juana Chaos was the head of ETA's Madrid cell, which was responsible for 25 murders. That's more than Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and Jack the Ripper put together. Let him rot in jail and if he dies, that's his problem.

The big stink around here is poor performance by Renfe, Spain's train system, especially on the commuter lines in the Barcelona area. Yesterday a tree branch came down across the main Barcelona-Valencia line down in Tarragona province and caused all services to be shut down. In addition, the line from downtown Barcelona to the airport was out of service from 6:30 AM to 2 PM, which also snarled up the rest of the commuter network. 80,000 people were delayed for up to several hours.

My main complaint here is that Renfe is not a private company, it's state-owned, and you know what I think about state-owned companies. I can understand the argument that we should subsidize public transportation in order to discourage the use of cars and to make travel easier for everybody. People are demanding, though, that we get decent service in exchange for the tax money we spend, and they have every right to do so.

Our genius third assistant mayor, Communist-Green Imma Mayol, announced yesterday that she supported the squatters that currently plague Barcelona and that she considered herself "anti-system," which is Spanish code for idiotarian naive-Left frootloop. She boasted, "I rebel against injustice," and I guess that if she's anti-system that means she thinks the city she helps govern is an unjust place. Imma added, "I feel closer to a squatter than to a speculator." CiU responded that Mayol had invented a new category, "anti-system activists with an official chauffeur," and the Socialists, leaders of the Tripartite coalition that governs Barcelona and Catalonia, said, "You can't live inside the system by day and be anti-system by night."

By the way, a letter to today's La Vanguardia takes Mayol to task for shouting from the rooftops that Barcelona's air pollution is double the EU maximum, and demanding that sweeping changes be made, when she herself has been in charge of the city government's environmental department for the last seven years.

La Vangua also reports that a line of cocaine costs three euros in Barcelona. That's less than half the price of a mixed drink, and booze is cheap here too.

The cops busted an Al Qaeda guy in Badalona; he's a Moroccan accused of being part of the gang's finance and forgery infrastructure.

Most brilliant recent idea to alleviate the housing problem: ERC wants to slap a nine-euro-a-day charge on vacant apartments. Better ways to alleviate the housing problem: 1) abolish rent control 2) liberalize antiquated zoning laws 3) make it possible for landlords to evict renters who don't pay or trash the place, which they need a court order to do now.

You will want to read this book extract published in the Observer, of all places, by Nick Cohen. It's on the contradictions of the Left regarding Iraq, and one of Cohen's theses is that Leftists around the world are supporting real, genuine Fascists like Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party simply because they are anti-American. If you didn't think anti-Americanism was dangerous, here's some evidence.

Key paragraphs:

The apparently sincere commitment to help Iraqis vanished the moment Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and became America's enemy. At the time, I didn't think about where the left was going. I could denounce the hypocrisy of a West which made excuses for Saddam one minute and called him a 'new Hitler' the next, but I didn't dwell on the equal and opposite hypocrisy of a left which called Saddam a 'new Hitler' one minute and excused him the next. All liberals and leftists remained good people in my mind. Asking hard questions about any of them risked giving aid and comfort to the Conservative enemy and disturbing my own certainties...

Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam which stands for everything the liberal left is against come from the liberal left? Why will students hear a leftish postmodern theorist defend the exploitation of women in traditional cultures but not a crusty conservative don? After the American and British wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansers, why were men and women of the left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? As important, why did a European Union that daily announces its commitment to the liberal principles of human rights and international law do nothing as crimes against humanity took place just over its borders?

Why is Palestine a cause for the liberal left, but not China, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo or North Korea? Why, even in the case of Palestine, can't those who say they support the Palestinian cause tell you what type of Palestine they would like to see? After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington why were you as likely to read that a sinister conspiracy of Jews controlled American or British foreign policy in a superior literary journal as in a neo-Nazi hate sheet? And why after the 7/7 attacks on London did leftish rather than right-wing newspapers run pieces excusing suicide bombers who were inspired by a psychopathic theology from the ultra-right?

I'm always amazed at how seriously the Academy Awards, which are just a Hollywood publicity stunt, are taken by the news media over here. One would think that such outfits as El País and TV3 would scorn this capitalist showbiz opiate-of-the-people bread-and-circuses pseudo-event, but they don't. Antena 3 led off the news this afternoon with the story that Penélope Cruz had been nominated for best actress, rather than the news from Lebanon or Iraq or Alcorcón.

Looks like Penélope did good business by agreeing to serve as Tom Cruise's beard for two years. Rumor has it that Pe and Salma Hayek are, uh, planning to star in the film version of "Heather Has Two Mommies."

The cops have taken over Alcorcón, and the local scumbags are currently lying low. The story is they're planning a mass "demonstration" for next Saturday night, armed with baseball bats, in which presumably they will go hunting for sudacas, the local ethnic slur for Latin Americans. They're using text-messaging and internet to organize their activities. Great, just what we need, technologically aware and up-to-date racist mobs. Seems that the Latin Americans in question are by no means innocent, either; it's scumbags vs. scumbags. There are different reports on the Latins: some say they're Latin Kings, and others say they're not.

La Vangua mentioned that some of the local girls have taken up with Latin American boyfriends, which I will bet is one of the major causes of the conflict. You'd be surprised how important sex is as a motivation for racism. The Nazis made a big deal out of Jews corrupting innocent German girls, for example, and Southern white racists were more frightened of black men having sex with white women than anything else.

Real Madrid is apparently ready to get rid of Ronaldo; he's supposedly heading for AC Milan and they are now just haggling about the price. Ronaldo is fat and lazy and a bad influence on the younger players--he's been taking Robinho out drinking, and they showed up at practice hung over a couple of weeks ago. What a disappointing end to a very promising career. If Ronaldo had stayed with Barcelona...but he didn't. I'll bet Ronaldo is playing in MLS before the end of 2008. Figo, by the way, has signed with a team in like Dubai or somewhere like that. That's another guy who will be playing in MLS before too long.

Pau Gasol is supposedly moving to Chicago or Boston before the end of February, says La Vanguardia.

On the Latin Kings:

According to El Mundo, "The Catalan Generalitat has legalized the Latin Kings, the urban gang whose actions have been investigated on numerous occasions by the police, and from now on it will be called "The Cultural Association of Latin Kings and Queens of Catalonia"...The Barcelona city government, which aided in the process of legalization, has also made a commitment to aid in the legalization of the Ñetas, the other gang of similar characteristics, which is openly in confrontation with the Latin Kings...From now on, the recently legalized association will be able to enjoy all the benefits of a legal body, such as receiving economic aid and official subsidies."

According to El País, "The Latin Kings, one of the youth organizations with the largest social base in the United States and Ecuador, created as a brotherhood of support for Latin youths, appeared in Barcelona and its industrial suburbs in December 2002..."The Latin Kings are not a criminal group. It is an organization of aid and solidarity among young Latin American immigrants, although some sectors of the police, especially in Madrid, insist the contrary. It's true that their name has been implicated in some tragic events, but those are isolated incidents, which should not mean the criminalization of the group," said Carlos Feixa of the Barcelona city government."

Quick blog roundup:

A reader of Chicago Boyz has an excellent comment on anti-Americanism in Mexico.

Colin Davies posts on nationalism from Galicia.

Guirilandia takes a swing at just about everybody in Spanish politics, and kindly links to us.

Planet Churro is back and he's not happy with Carod-Rovira.

Publius Pundit fills us in on "Go to Hell, Gringos" Hugo Chavez. Our new nickname for Chavez, a play on "Give 'Em Hell Harry" Truman, is "Go to Hell Hugo."

Pave France has damning evidence on France and Rwanda.

¡No Pasarán! has more on language, Africa, and France.

Notes from Spain is bemused by obligatory nudity in Spanish movies.

Akaky is awesome. I can't believe everybody isn't reading his blog.

The Bad Rash actually has a reasonable and moderate post (on the future of the Left). In other news, Ronaldinho turned down a TV commercial offer, Imma Mayol admitted that she gets "a little hot" when Joan Saura slaps her around, and Bill Clinton reportedly failed to proposition even one woman on November 7, 2006.