We spent Easter weekend (holidays in Catalonia: Good Friday to Easter Monday) out in the pueblo. Nice weather, very tranquil, far away from computers and translations. We took the dog out every day--walked up the Segura road, up the road to L'Ametlla, down toward Guimerà, up the valley to the spa. Perla the dog loves bounding through wheatfields; that's quite practical now that the wheat is still green and about a foot and a half high.
It's rained a great deal here recently, the first real hard rain since winter 2005, more than three inches in Barcelona. When you figure Catalonia gets 20-25 inches of rain a year, three inches is a lot. So everything out in the country is green and looks like Ireland. This'll last until about the end of May or so, when the dry summer begins to kick in. Out in Vallfogona they don't irrigate anything except the vegetable gardens along the bank of the stream, but parts of central and western Catalonia do irrigate extensively.
Remei made me haul out a bunch of old junk, which weighed a ton, out of the top two floors of that enormous old house we have. Remei's mother, of course, pitched a fit that we were throwing out her beloved garbage, but she calmed down pretty soon and was actually very well-behaved in general. I mean this stuff was garbage, too, broken doors and smashed-up chairs and mattresses from the 1950s; we didn't throw out anything that was either useful or had any possible sentimental value. Remei gave Ramon from Cal Matruqueu fifty bucks to drag the crap to the dump in his tractor and wagon; it was the big news in town on Sunday afternoon. "Hey, look, they're throwing out a bunch of crap at Cal Elvira and the Anglés is getting all sweaty and Rosa is hollering at him. Let's go check it out."
Vallfogona has a couple of Rumanian families; everyone seems to get along fine, though the Catalans say the Rumanians aren't very communicative. Let me tell you, small-town Catalans can be pretty damn uncommunicative at times, too. Everybody seems to respect these Rumanian folk because they're family people with jobs; I doubt the locals would tolerate any outsiders who weren't. Pretty much the only social mixing seems to be at the Barça games on TV at the local bar, which the whole town shows up for. I noticed there was a sign up in the bar in Rumanian saying that Orthodox religious services are held in Rumanian at the church over in Arbeca on Sundays. I bet ten years from now half the people who live in Vallfogona year-round will be Eastern Europeans.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Friday, April 06, 2007
This is kind of embarrassing. I've never been interested in pornography; obviously, watching porno has the same effect on me as it does on every other male, but it's not something I seek out. Probably one reason why I have so few computer and spam problems is that I never go to Internet porn sites.
But I've become fascinated by this book that I mentioned a month or two ago called My Secret Life by an anonymous Victorian gentleman. My guess is that it's a combination of his real experiences, stories other people told him, and his fantasies. A lot of it rings very true, though, because the author doesn't conceal anything about himself. He doesn't mind telling stories that make him look like a fool, or an arrogant jerk, and he enjoys telling stories that make him look rather like a pervert--some of the stuff about thirteen-year-old virgins is pretty unpleasant, not real erotic at all.
I'm not sure I've ever read an author who was so honest, even though at least half of his book is made up. His feelings and actions ring true even in situations that are probably his fantasies.
And it's expanded my vocabulary.
pego=penis
doodle=penis, probably children's word
gun=penis
baudy, leud (adverbs)=horny, excited--"I felt baudy and leud when I saw..." Also adjectives, e.g."my baudy cock"
gamouche=perform oral sex on a female
minette=perform oral sex on a man; also a noun
bum furrow=buttcrack
mucilage=semen
to spend=to reach orgasm (both male and female)
button=clitoris
Most of the other standard words in English were used then in just the way they are now. One that people seem to think was used during Victorian times, "to roger," doesn't appear in My Secret Life, making me think it's bogus.
But I've become fascinated by this book that I mentioned a month or two ago called My Secret Life by an anonymous Victorian gentleman. My guess is that it's a combination of his real experiences, stories other people told him, and his fantasies. A lot of it rings very true, though, because the author doesn't conceal anything about himself. He doesn't mind telling stories that make him look like a fool, or an arrogant jerk, and he enjoys telling stories that make him look rather like a pervert--some of the stuff about thirteen-year-old virgins is pretty unpleasant, not real erotic at all.
I'm not sure I've ever read an author who was so honest, even though at least half of his book is made up. His feelings and actions ring true even in situations that are probably his fantasies.
And it's expanded my vocabulary.
pego=penis
doodle=penis, probably children's word
gun=penis
baudy, leud (adverbs)=horny, excited--"I felt baudy and leud when I saw..." Also adjectives, e.g."my baudy cock"
gamouche=perform oral sex on a female
minette=perform oral sex on a man; also a noun
bum furrow=buttcrack
mucilage=semen
to spend=to reach orgasm (both male and female)
button=clitoris
Most of the other standard words in English were used then in just the way they are now. One that people seem to think was used during Victorian times, "to roger," doesn't appear in My Secret Life, making me think it's bogus.
La Vanguardia was rather interesting today.
Banner headline: "Iran seeks dialogue with liberation of 15 British sailors."
Gee, I'd say Iran is playing the Godfather and letting us know he can extort us like this whenever he wants.
Rafael Ramos, Vangua correspondent in London, kicks off his Page 3 article, top of La Vangua's international section, with:
"And the Oscar for best performance in the political theater goes to.....Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!" The rest of his article is at the same level. I'm so tired of Spanish commentators explaining everything in images. It's a serious fault. I suppose we do it, too, but they really read a lot into images.
Ramos claims there was a swap of hostages, that the Americans turned over an Iranian diplomat they'd captured committing crimes inside Iraq in exchange for the smiling, handshaking Brits.
Tikrit Tommy Alcoverro, La Vangua's paid-off correspondent in Beirut, announces on page 4 that the Syrian regime is thrilled with Speaker Pelosi's visit. Official regime newspaper Al Bass, mouthpiece of the Syrian Baath Party, said that Pelosi's "valorous mission recognizes the part played by Syria and shows that there is more than one criterion in dealing with the Damascus Government." I think anything you do that the government of Syria praises is absolutely the wrong thing to have done just by definition.
Joaquim Ibarz, La Vangua's respectable and serious Latin American correspondent, says that Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are full of crap when they say things like "Ethanol means the internationalization of genocide," since Chavez set up a project to convert Venezuelan sugarcane into ethanol just weeks before Bush announced he thought it was a good idea. Cuba and Venezuela plan to jointly modernize ten sugarcane-to-ethanol plants that already exist in Cuba. Brazil is irritated at Castro's big mouth.
Scandal: Spanish taxpayers' money is to go to Cuba in the wake of foreign minister Moratinos's visit. Cuba's debt of €1.7 billion to Spain is to be "renegotiated." "Bilateral cooperation" is to be "renewed in all fields: economic, financial, cultural, and developmental." A "permanent and formal mechanism of political dialogue" is to be created between Spain and Cuba, under conditions of "mutual respect, equality, and acceptance of respective political and legal structures."
Meanwhile, Cuban foreign minister and chief gamouche Perez Roque said, "The prisoners in Cuba are not part of this agenda."
Hey, Zap, doesn't look like you got much of a quid pro quo for getting your tongue all covered with the shit dripping out Fidel's tumor-riddled asshole, does it?
Banner headline: "Iran seeks dialogue with liberation of 15 British sailors."
Gee, I'd say Iran is playing the Godfather and letting us know he can extort us like this whenever he wants.
Rafael Ramos, Vangua correspondent in London, kicks off his Page 3 article, top of La Vangua's international section, with:
"And the Oscar for best performance in the political theater goes to.....Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!" The rest of his article is at the same level. I'm so tired of Spanish commentators explaining everything in images. It's a serious fault. I suppose we do it, too, but they really read a lot into images.
Ramos claims there was a swap of hostages, that the Americans turned over an Iranian diplomat they'd captured committing crimes inside Iraq in exchange for the smiling, handshaking Brits.
Tikrit Tommy Alcoverro, La Vangua's paid-off correspondent in Beirut, announces on page 4 that the Syrian regime is thrilled with Speaker Pelosi's visit. Official regime newspaper Al Bass, mouthpiece of the Syrian Baath Party, said that Pelosi's "valorous mission recognizes the part played by Syria and shows that there is more than one criterion in dealing with the Damascus Government." I think anything you do that the government of Syria praises is absolutely the wrong thing to have done just by definition.
Joaquim Ibarz, La Vangua's respectable and serious Latin American correspondent, says that Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are full of crap when they say things like "Ethanol means the internationalization of genocide," since Chavez set up a project to convert Venezuelan sugarcane into ethanol just weeks before Bush announced he thought it was a good idea. Cuba and Venezuela plan to jointly modernize ten sugarcane-to-ethanol plants that already exist in Cuba. Brazil is irritated at Castro's big mouth.
Scandal: Spanish taxpayers' money is to go to Cuba in the wake of foreign minister Moratinos's visit. Cuba's debt of €1.7 billion to Spain is to be "renegotiated." "Bilateral cooperation" is to be "renewed in all fields: economic, financial, cultural, and developmental." A "permanent and formal mechanism of political dialogue" is to be created between Spain and Cuba, under conditions of "mutual respect, equality, and acceptance of respective political and legal structures."
Meanwhile, Cuban foreign minister and chief gamouche Perez Roque said, "The prisoners in Cuba are not part of this agenda."
Hey, Zap, doesn't look like you got much of a quid pro quo for getting your tongue all covered with the shit dripping out Fidel's tumor-riddled asshole, does it?
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Just a few quick links:
The Telegraph's US correspondent comments that he agrees with Michael Cherkoff that the US does not have the same problem with radical Islamist immigrants as Europe does. Check out a couple of the wacky responses by commenters.
Commentary, in a fairly gutsy move, runs a Charles Murray piece with the thesis that Ashenazi Jews have a higher average IQ than other groups for genetic reasons. I could buy it if the thesis is that all historically trading / commercial ethnic groups that have been ghettoized inside larger and wider societies, including the overseas Chinese, the overseas Lebanese, and the Armenian diaspora, are likely to have undergone a process of selection, in which being clever would greatly improve your survival and reproductive chances, and that all these groups are likely to have high average IQs.
Jonah Goldberg shoots fish in a barrel. Come on, Jonah, this is too easy for you.
Front Page features a defense of free trade.
Actually, Keith Richards probably really didn't snort his dad's ashes mixed with cocaine no matter what he said.
The Telegraph's US correspondent comments that he agrees with Michael Cherkoff that the US does not have the same problem with radical Islamist immigrants as Europe does. Check out a couple of the wacky responses by commenters.
Commentary, in a fairly gutsy move, runs a Charles Murray piece with the thesis that Ashenazi Jews have a higher average IQ than other groups for genetic reasons. I could buy it if the thesis is that all historically trading / commercial ethnic groups that have been ghettoized inside larger and wider societies, including the overseas Chinese, the overseas Lebanese, and the Armenian diaspora, are likely to have undergone a process of selection, in which being clever would greatly improve your survival and reproductive chances, and that all these groups are likely to have high average IQs.
Jonah Goldberg shoots fish in a barrel. Come on, Jonah, this is too easy for you.
Front Page features a defense of free trade.
Actually, Keith Richards probably really didn't snort his dad's ashes mixed with cocaine no matter what he said.
Well, Iran has released the British hostages, which is excellent news for everyone, especially them and their families. Ahmadinejad said he was "pardoning them as a gift to the British people" in honor of Easter and Muhammed's birthday.
Britain needs to strike back as soon as its hostages are safe. The absolute minimum they can do is cut all relations of any kind with Iran, especially commercial relations, and freeze all Iranian assets in their power. Agreed, Britain probably couldn't launch a military action all by itself, and since nobody got killed, starting the shooting would look bad in the eyes of the Independent and those other surrender monkeys who blamed this whole thing on the Americans for capturing some Iranian agents inside Iraq.
Thucydides said that wars are fought out of interest, fear, or honor; interest and fear are already both factors in our dealings with the mullahs. And honor has just been lost. You can't let a tinhorn theocrat capture your sailors and then magnanimously pardon them, or no one will take you seriously again in that part of the world.
In strategy--and make no mistake, this is a game of strategy, I'm absolutely positive Iran planned this whole thing out--your opponent makes his decisions based at least partly on what he thinks you are going to do. Iran was betting that Britain and America would do nothing if it took some hostages, and Iran will have won its bet if there is no sharp and immediate response. If there is not one, Iran is going to up the stakes and see how far it can push in order to find out how strong the West's will really is. Be prepared for another stunt like this one in the near future, another test of strength.
By the way, I do not know what I would do if I were taken hostage by the Iranians. They wouldn't have to put too much pressure on me to get me to cooperate; I have no illusions about my own personal courage. I wouldn't smile for the cameras while shaking hands with my captor, though, and I wouldn't wish him success, either.
Britain needs to strike back as soon as its hostages are safe. The absolute minimum they can do is cut all relations of any kind with Iran, especially commercial relations, and freeze all Iranian assets in their power. Agreed, Britain probably couldn't launch a military action all by itself, and since nobody got killed, starting the shooting would look bad in the eyes of the Independent and those other surrender monkeys who blamed this whole thing on the Americans for capturing some Iranian agents inside Iraq.
Thucydides said that wars are fought out of interest, fear, or honor; interest and fear are already both factors in our dealings with the mullahs. And honor has just been lost. You can't let a tinhorn theocrat capture your sailors and then magnanimously pardon them, or no one will take you seriously again in that part of the world.
In strategy--and make no mistake, this is a game of strategy, I'm absolutely positive Iran planned this whole thing out--your opponent makes his decisions based at least partly on what he thinks you are going to do. Iran was betting that Britain and America would do nothing if it took some hostages, and Iran will have won its bet if there is no sharp and immediate response. If there is not one, Iran is going to up the stakes and see how far it can push in order to find out how strong the West's will really is. Be prepared for another stunt like this one in the near future, another test of strength.
By the way, I do not know what I would do if I were taken hostage by the Iranians. They wouldn't have to put too much pressure on me to get me to cooperate; I have no illusions about my own personal courage. I wouldn't smile for the cameras while shaking hands with my captor, though, and I wouldn't wish him success, either.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
I think a gentleman named Jose Ramon Ubieto, who is billed as a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, may have set the all-time record for Spanglishisms per paragraph in an article in La Vanguardia today. The subject seems to be self-esteem, body image, and what's wrong with superficial consumerist society.
Check these out:
"...una felicidad prometida pero que en realidad sólo atisbamos en su versión low-cost..."
(a promised happiness that we can only reach in its unsubstantial version)
"...una serie de placeres minúsculos y algo efímeros que constituyen los estándares de ese bienestar prêt-à-porter."
(a series of minuscule and rather temporary pleasures that are the basis of that easily-purchased well-being)
OK, I know, and so does Mr. Ubieto, since he's so careful with the accents, that pret-a-porter is originally French, not English, but he's using it as international gobbledygook.
"...Es el don't worry, be happy!"
(It's don't worry, be happy!")
I'm not exactly sure what he means here.
"...nos anestesiamos con una moral light sostenida en el fun..."
(We anesthetize ourselves with undemanding social mores based on enjoyment.)
"...Se trata de planear sobre la vida, como hacen los jóvenes practicantes del parkour..."
(We try to glide over life, like the youths who do parkour)
Whatever parkour is. Sounds pseudo-Franglais.
"...Así nació el body building como sueño de recreación de la propia anatomía..."
(Thus body-building was born as the dream of recreating one's own anatomy)
"...ciudadanos de a pie que aspiran al nothing is impossible..."
(Ordinary citizens who hope they will be able to reach their goals)
"Ahora nos llegan los exitosos (en Estados Unidos) makeover televisivos que prometen un cambio radical..."
(Now the successful (in the United States) television makeover programs that promise a radical change are arriving..."
"¿Radical? Dejémoslo en un lifting del yo que alcanza para lo que alcanza."
(Radical? Let's call it a superficial change in the ego that does whatever good it does."
"¿Se acuerdan cuando surgió el primer reality show?"
(Do you remember when the first reality show came out?"
I count ten and one-half Spanglishisms and one and one-half international Franglaisisms. In nine paragraphs. That's pretty good.
I bet if you asked Mr. Ubieto why he used so many bits of non-Spanish in only nine paragraphs, he'd probably tell you something about his text shows the superficiality of modern language use in the imprecise and pretentious incorrect use of foreign words and phrases.
I also bet that the real answer is that Mr Ubieto's own thoughts are rather superficial themselves, and he didn't feel the need to work real hard expressing them in clear language when he could just throw in a few easy international code words.
Check these out:
"...una felicidad prometida pero que en realidad sólo atisbamos en su versión low-cost..."
(a promised happiness that we can only reach in its unsubstantial version)
"...una serie de placeres minúsculos y algo efímeros que constituyen los estándares de ese bienestar prêt-à-porter."
(a series of minuscule and rather temporary pleasures that are the basis of that easily-purchased well-being)
OK, I know, and so does Mr. Ubieto, since he's so careful with the accents, that pret-a-porter is originally French, not English, but he's using it as international gobbledygook.
"...Es el don't worry, be happy!"
(It's don't worry, be happy!")
I'm not exactly sure what he means here.
"...nos anestesiamos con una moral light sostenida en el fun..."
(We anesthetize ourselves with undemanding social mores based on enjoyment.)
"...Se trata de planear sobre la vida, como hacen los jóvenes practicantes del parkour..."
(We try to glide over life, like the youths who do parkour)
Whatever parkour is. Sounds pseudo-Franglais.
"...Así nació el body building como sueño de recreación de la propia anatomía..."
(Thus body-building was born as the dream of recreating one's own anatomy)
"...ciudadanos de a pie que aspiran al nothing is impossible..."
(Ordinary citizens who hope they will be able to reach their goals)
"Ahora nos llegan los exitosos (en Estados Unidos) makeover televisivos que prometen un cambio radical..."
(Now the successful (in the United States) television makeover programs that promise a radical change are arriving..."
"¿Radical? Dejémoslo en un lifting del yo que alcanza para lo que alcanza."
(Radical? Let's call it a superficial change in the ego that does whatever good it does."
"¿Se acuerdan cuando surgió el primer reality show?"
(Do you remember when the first reality show came out?"
I count ten and one-half Spanglishisms and one and one-half international Franglaisisms. In nine paragraphs. That's pretty good.
I bet if you asked Mr. Ubieto why he used so many bits of non-Spanish in only nine paragraphs, he'd probably tell you something about his text shows the superficiality of modern language use in the imprecise and pretentious incorrect use of foreign words and phrases.
I also bet that the real answer is that Mr Ubieto's own thoughts are rather superficial themselves, and he didn't feel the need to work real hard expressing them in clear language when he could just throw in a few easy international code words.
Monday, April 02, 2007
The ETA dirtbags the cops rounded up last week were going to pull a hit on anti-ETA Basque author and philosopher Fernando Savater. Meanwhile, they found 170 kilos of explosives in the apartment that one of them was renting. 12 persons have been arrested in Spain and 12 more in France on ETA-related charges since they called off the alleged truce three months ago.
So let's see. A huge bombing of a parking garage at the Madrid airport that killed two people. Caches of hundreds of kilos of explosives. Information on police officers and political office holders, and a plan to murder one of the most notable members of your community. Not to mention another cheap attempt by your illegal political branch to start up under a new name and thereby try to dodge the law.
Yep. Zapatero's right. This must be because ETA wants to get the peace process going again.
Scandal: The Zap administration sent foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos to Cuba; he arrived today. He'll meet with Raúl and chief asslicker Pérez Roque, but not Fidel, who has time for Chavez but not Moratinos. I haven't noted any changes in the behavior of the Cuban regime--it seems just as repressive, brutal, and stupid as ever--so I'm not sure why Spain would want to cozy up to Castro in such a way. Zap already got the EU to lift its diplomatic sanctions on Cuba back in 2004. Unless Zapatero just likes Communism. Which I think he does, at least emotionally. Moratinos's line was, "Spain cannot be absent from Cuba." He didn't say anything about the democratic opposition.
Somebody anonymous told the Vanguardia that Moratinos's trip is "the logical culmination of the strategy of normalization of relations that has been followed since the change of government with regard to Cuba." The anonymous person added that there would be both political and economic "normalization," which I think means our tax money is going to be heading down Havana way. Mr. Anonymous also said that "Cuba's future must be decided by the Cubans," in reference to the Zap government's opposition to the Czech and Polish hard line on Cuba within the EU. Yep. I agree. I think we do everything possible to help the democratic opposition set up free elections, so the Cubans can decide their own future. I don't see how tongueing Fidel's kid brother's balls is going to contribute to that.
La Vangua's take on the Catalan political circus is that ERC offered to cut a deal with CiU in order to remind everybody that it holds the key to the Montilla administration, and when it withdraws its support the Tripartite comes crashing down.
It's Holy Week and they're having processions again. Everyone, even agnostics like me, should have a look at a Spanish Holy Week celebration once. Then, when you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all; I'm not much of a fan. Some people really get into it, though. Barcelona is not a big procession town; I'm not even sure they have one. They have a little one in my wife's village and all seventy-five people at least stick their heads out the window.
Barcelona opened up a two-point lead over Sevilla with a 2-1 victory over Deportivo, with Ronaldinho back in form and goals by Messi and Eto'o. Three-quarters of the League is over with, and Barça is stepping up and playing better precisely when they need to. If they can pull out a win next week in Zaragoza they'll have gone a long way toward a third consecutive League title.
They're going to beatify John Paul II, which is no less than he deserves as one of the most significant contributors to the fall of the Soviet empire. They have a French nun who said the Pope cured her of Parkinson's. I'm not sure why they're still insulting people's intelligence with such claims. Surely the Church must know by now that nobody swallows this miracle stuff any more. It is simply impossible. We know that the paranormal and supernatural do not exist.
Christianity seems actually more spiritual (for lack of a better word) to me without earthly saints walking around curing people. I mean, we are supposed to believe in God out of our faith in his goodness, not because we believe getting cured of illness by some saint is our earthly reward.
So let's see. A huge bombing of a parking garage at the Madrid airport that killed two people. Caches of hundreds of kilos of explosives. Information on police officers and political office holders, and a plan to murder one of the most notable members of your community. Not to mention another cheap attempt by your illegal political branch to start up under a new name and thereby try to dodge the law.
Yep. Zapatero's right. This must be because ETA wants to get the peace process going again.
Scandal: The Zap administration sent foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos to Cuba; he arrived today. He'll meet with Raúl and chief asslicker Pérez Roque, but not Fidel, who has time for Chavez but not Moratinos. I haven't noted any changes in the behavior of the Cuban regime--it seems just as repressive, brutal, and stupid as ever--so I'm not sure why Spain would want to cozy up to Castro in such a way. Zap already got the EU to lift its diplomatic sanctions on Cuba back in 2004. Unless Zapatero just likes Communism. Which I think he does, at least emotionally. Moratinos's line was, "Spain cannot be absent from Cuba." He didn't say anything about the democratic opposition.
Somebody anonymous told the Vanguardia that Moratinos's trip is "the logical culmination of the strategy of normalization of relations that has been followed since the change of government with regard to Cuba." The anonymous person added that there would be both political and economic "normalization," which I think means our tax money is going to be heading down Havana way. Mr. Anonymous also said that "Cuba's future must be decided by the Cubans," in reference to the Zap government's opposition to the Czech and Polish hard line on Cuba within the EU. Yep. I agree. I think we do everything possible to help the democratic opposition set up free elections, so the Cubans can decide their own future. I don't see how tongueing Fidel's kid brother's balls is going to contribute to that.
La Vangua's take on the Catalan political circus is that ERC offered to cut a deal with CiU in order to remind everybody that it holds the key to the Montilla administration, and when it withdraws its support the Tripartite comes crashing down.
It's Holy Week and they're having processions again. Everyone, even agnostics like me, should have a look at a Spanish Holy Week celebration once. Then, when you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all; I'm not much of a fan. Some people really get into it, though. Barcelona is not a big procession town; I'm not even sure they have one. They have a little one in my wife's village and all seventy-five people at least stick their heads out the window.
Barcelona opened up a two-point lead over Sevilla with a 2-1 victory over Deportivo, with Ronaldinho back in form and goals by Messi and Eto'o. Three-quarters of the League is over with, and Barça is stepping up and playing better precisely when they need to. If they can pull out a win next week in Zaragoza they'll have gone a long way toward a third consecutive League title.
They're going to beatify John Paul II, which is no less than he deserves as one of the most significant contributors to the fall of the Soviet empire. They have a French nun who said the Pope cured her of Parkinson's. I'm not sure why they're still insulting people's intelligence with such claims. Surely the Church must know by now that nobody swallows this miracle stuff any more. It is simply impossible. We know that the paranormal and supernatural do not exist.
Christianity seems actually more spiritual (for lack of a better word) to me without earthly saints walking around curing people. I mean, we are supposed to believe in God out of our faith in his goodness, not because we believe getting cured of illness by some saint is our earthly reward.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
I generally like Jack Shafer, Slate's media critic, but his last piece is pretty lame. The subject is April Fool's jokes, which is a dumb seasonal topic on which any buttmunch in his first year on the features desk at the Topeka Capital-Journal can churn out a quick one.
Shafer didn't do too much work digging up his funny examples to fill out his article, either, since most of them are referenced at either the Museum of Hoaxes, a very good site which Shafer credits extensively--in fact, his article would totally suck if not for info from that webpage--or Snopes, the world's best urban legends website. I've linked to them both in the past--to Snopes just a couple of days ago.
Nobody's perfect, but that one was kind of crap, Jack.
Shafer didn't do too much work digging up his funny examples to fill out his article, either, since most of them are referenced at either the Museum of Hoaxes, a very good site which Shafer credits extensively--in fact, his article would totally suck if not for info from that webpage--or Snopes, the world's best urban legends website. I've linked to them both in the past--to Snopes just a couple of days ago.
Nobody's perfect, but that one was kind of crap, Jack.
Friday, March 30, 2007
The West cannot allow Iran to take hostages.
Britain should apologize to Iran.
The hostages will be freed.
Then we take out their nuclear plants and military command and control.
If they respond by invading Iraq, then we respond by bombing everything resembling an Iranian military base.
That ought to provoke a revolution in Iran.
If it doesn't, well, we bomb everything resembling an Iranian tank and if innocent people get in the way, that's what happens in wars, and if Iran doesn't like it, maybe they shouldn't have started it.
This might also be a good object lesson for certain other countries I can think of.
Britain should apologize to Iran.
The hostages will be freed.
Then we take out their nuclear plants and military command and control.
If they respond by invading Iraq, then we respond by bombing everything resembling an Iranian military base.
That ought to provoke a revolution in Iran.
If it doesn't, well, we bomb everything resembling an Iranian tank and if innocent people get in the way, that's what happens in wars, and if Iran doesn't like it, maybe they shouldn't have started it.
This might also be a good object lesson for certain other countries I can think of.
A must-read: Der Spiegel (with its long history of America-bashing, as Davids Medienkritik has been pointing out for years) has an anti-anti-American article. Check it out.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Remember when the Catalan Generalitat designated the Latin Kings as a cultural organization and started handing them subsidies? Well, four Latin Kings went on trial today in suburban Madrid for the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl.
Everyone in Spain is talking about the silliest possible thing: Zap went on TV Tuesday night to answer questions from an audience. He didn't say anything new or different, of course; the whole thing was a waste of time. Some joker asked Zap how much a café solo costs, and he said eighty cents, which is a bit low--most places charge a little more than a euro. This somehow caught everyone's attention, and is the only thing people will remember about this little publicity stunt. It's Rajoy's turn next month, by the way.
Spain's national soccer team sucks, as usual. They beat Iceland 1-0 last night, and are in third place in their qualifying group for next year's Eurocup, behind such traditional soccer powers as Northern Ireland and Sweden. They've got good players: half of Valencia, Xavi, Iniesta, and Puyol from Barcelona, and a few other guys like Ramos, Alonso, and Cesc Fabregas. But they have never played up to their potential, possibly because none of them are top-level international stars who are capable of carrying a whole team and because they have never had a good coach. Luis Aragones should be fired now--actually, he should have been fired right after Spain crashed out of last summer's World Cup. By the way, Iniesta should definitely be a regular starter for Barcelona, and they need to sell off Deco to give him a spot--though Rijkaard says that none of the "big four" international stars, Ronaldinho, Deco, Eto'o, and Messi, are going to be sold. Ronaldinho is openly flirting with Milan in order to hold Barça up for a raise, though he's signed through 2010. I'd tell him to piss off, that if he doesn't like his contract he shouldn't have signed it in the first place.
Note: Some Spaniards and Catalans are a bit persnickety about the Spanish Ñ and the Catalan Ç, which we normally change to N and C in written English. Seeing "Barça" written as "Barca" or "La Coruña" as "La Coruna" just drives some of them up the wall. However, Barça and Iceland player Gudjohnsen's surname actually doesn't have a D in it; rather, where we and the Spaniards write a D, Icelandic has what looks like the phonetic symbol for the TH sound in English. Inconsistencies like this are a bit annoying sometimes. I think I'll start a campaign to get his name spelled right around here. Somehow, I don't think anyone will give a crap, since nationalists get their feathers ruffled only about minor symbolic things like this when they are directly affected; they don't care at all about what people from other national groups might think.
Speaking of which, I think we American conservatives need to start a campaign to take over the Guardian's Comment Is Free section. They've got a policy of running several opinion pieces a week on the United States, most of which are unfairly critical and even offensively bigoted, and the posters in the comments section are even worse than their writers. Also, they habitually drag in America even when it has little or nothing to do with the subject. Normally I'd say live and let live, we have our sites like LGF and Free Republic, and the lefties have theirs like Kos and Democratic Underground. The Guardian is different, though, because it is a newspaper that is supposed to present a variety of opinions, but generally doesn't. I vote we go over there en masse and stomp those dopes with our superior ideas and rhetoric.
Check out this moronic piece on Cuba, for example. A few quotes: "Cuba, being a secular country, avoided the anti-homosexual religious overtones of its neighbours. However, repression of homosexuals continued after the 1959 revolution under the umbrella of a dogmatic interpretation of Marxism. It is a tribute to the humanistic essence of the Cuban Revolution that its leadership was able to face up to its mistakes and change course. Cuba is now set to become the most socially liberal country in the Americas...Another set of people who can claim some credit for Cuba's enlightened approach is the international left and solidarity campaigns. While the pressure for equal rights came principally from within Cuban society, there is little doubt that the government also listened to their friends and supporters abroad, those who unconditionally stood by Cuba throughout her struggle against US-sponsored invasion and terrorism, and the 45-year-long economic blockade." (Boldface mine.)
What economic blockade? There's an embargo, not a blockade. Cuba is free to trade with any other country that wants to deal with them.
Spanish foreign minister Moratinos is going to visit Cuba on April 2 and 3 in order to help prop up what's left of the regime there. Gee, I thought the EU was trying to pressure the Castro dictatorship into freeing its political prisoners. Guess not.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the big story is of course the kidnapping of fifteen British sailors by the Iranian regime. The Iranians now have their hostages, and they will do the same with them as they did with the Americans in Teheran and Westerners in general in Lebanon. I vote we take their nuclear sites out tomorrow; there's nothing they can do about it but kill the hostages, and that gives us an excuse to take out the whole regime once and for all.
More rioting in Paris: train company employees stopped a scumbag without a ticket at the Gare du Nord station, and it degenerated into a six-hour riot that ended in nine injuries and 13 arrests, along with the sacking of the train station shops.
Deep analysis of American politics in today's Vanguardia: a story on page 10 runs down Giuliani's and McCain's histories of marital problems, and claims that they will be the key to the Republican nomination. The story contrasts Giuliani and McCain with Mitt Romney, saying, "Although his Mormon religion permits polygamy, he has only married once and has shared his life with Ann for 37 years." Uh, no, the mainstream Mormon church does not permit polygamy. There are a few isolated splinter groups way up in the Utah hills that still practice it, but they have no power or influence and are considered a bunch of weirdos by all concerned.
I find it interesting that La Vangua never said anything about John Kerry's marital history; what's most suspicious about that is Kerry's obvious marriage for money. Why else would he have married that harpy Teresa?
The cops busted eight ETA terrorists yesterday in the Basque Country and Navarre; they found thirty kilos of explosives, timers, detonating wire, and chemicals to manufacture chloratite. Lock them up and throw away the key.
New illegal immigration technique: Sign up for a cruise, get off at Barcelona, and don't get back on the boat. Spain now requires Bolivians to have a visa to enter the country, and there's a cruise ship in Barcelona harbor with 82 Bolivians on board who they won't let into Spain.
All of the Spanish media has, of course, paid tons of attention to Halle Berry, who's in Madrid promoting her latest movie. She is certainly a fabulous babe, and looks great in the photos they took. Also, she did not pull a Sarandon and slag off the States as so many Hollywood types do when they get over to Europe. My question is, simply, why is it such a big deal when an American movie actress comes to Spain?
Everyone in Spain is talking about the silliest possible thing: Zap went on TV Tuesday night to answer questions from an audience. He didn't say anything new or different, of course; the whole thing was a waste of time. Some joker asked Zap how much a café solo costs, and he said eighty cents, which is a bit low--most places charge a little more than a euro. This somehow caught everyone's attention, and is the only thing people will remember about this little publicity stunt. It's Rajoy's turn next month, by the way.
Spain's national soccer team sucks, as usual. They beat Iceland 1-0 last night, and are in third place in their qualifying group for next year's Eurocup, behind such traditional soccer powers as Northern Ireland and Sweden. They've got good players: half of Valencia, Xavi, Iniesta, and Puyol from Barcelona, and a few other guys like Ramos, Alonso, and Cesc Fabregas. But they have never played up to their potential, possibly because none of them are top-level international stars who are capable of carrying a whole team and because they have never had a good coach. Luis Aragones should be fired now--actually, he should have been fired right after Spain crashed out of last summer's World Cup. By the way, Iniesta should definitely be a regular starter for Barcelona, and they need to sell off Deco to give him a spot--though Rijkaard says that none of the "big four" international stars, Ronaldinho, Deco, Eto'o, and Messi, are going to be sold. Ronaldinho is openly flirting with Milan in order to hold Barça up for a raise, though he's signed through 2010. I'd tell him to piss off, that if he doesn't like his contract he shouldn't have signed it in the first place.
Note: Some Spaniards and Catalans are a bit persnickety about the Spanish Ñ and the Catalan Ç, which we normally change to N and C in written English. Seeing "Barça" written as "Barca" or "La Coruña" as "La Coruna" just drives some of them up the wall. However, Barça and Iceland player Gudjohnsen's surname actually doesn't have a D in it; rather, where we and the Spaniards write a D, Icelandic has what looks like the phonetic symbol for the TH sound in English. Inconsistencies like this are a bit annoying sometimes. I think I'll start a campaign to get his name spelled right around here. Somehow, I don't think anyone will give a crap, since nationalists get their feathers ruffled only about minor symbolic things like this when they are directly affected; they don't care at all about what people from other national groups might think.
Speaking of which, I think we American conservatives need to start a campaign to take over the Guardian's Comment Is Free section. They've got a policy of running several opinion pieces a week on the United States, most of which are unfairly critical and even offensively bigoted, and the posters in the comments section are even worse than their writers. Also, they habitually drag in America even when it has little or nothing to do with the subject. Normally I'd say live and let live, we have our sites like LGF and Free Republic, and the lefties have theirs like Kos and Democratic Underground. The Guardian is different, though, because it is a newspaper that is supposed to present a variety of opinions, but generally doesn't. I vote we go over there en masse and stomp those dopes with our superior ideas and rhetoric.
Check out this moronic piece on Cuba, for example. A few quotes: "Cuba, being a secular country, avoided the anti-homosexual religious overtones of its neighbours. However, repression of homosexuals continued after the 1959 revolution under the umbrella of a dogmatic interpretation of Marxism. It is a tribute to the humanistic essence of the Cuban Revolution that its leadership was able to face up to its mistakes and change course. Cuba is now set to become the most socially liberal country in the Americas...Another set of people who can claim some credit for Cuba's enlightened approach is the international left and solidarity campaigns. While the pressure for equal rights came principally from within Cuban society, there is little doubt that the government also listened to their friends and supporters abroad, those who unconditionally stood by Cuba throughout her struggle against US-sponsored invasion and terrorism, and the 45-year-long economic blockade." (Boldface mine.)
What economic blockade? There's an embargo, not a blockade. Cuba is free to trade with any other country that wants to deal with them.
Spanish foreign minister Moratinos is going to visit Cuba on April 2 and 3 in order to help prop up what's left of the regime there. Gee, I thought the EU was trying to pressure the Castro dictatorship into freeing its political prisoners. Guess not.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the big story is of course the kidnapping of fifteen British sailors by the Iranian regime. The Iranians now have their hostages, and they will do the same with them as they did with the Americans in Teheran and Westerners in general in Lebanon. I vote we take their nuclear sites out tomorrow; there's nothing they can do about it but kill the hostages, and that gives us an excuse to take out the whole regime once and for all.
More rioting in Paris: train company employees stopped a scumbag without a ticket at the Gare du Nord station, and it degenerated into a six-hour riot that ended in nine injuries and 13 arrests, along with the sacking of the train station shops.
Deep analysis of American politics in today's Vanguardia: a story on page 10 runs down Giuliani's and McCain's histories of marital problems, and claims that they will be the key to the Republican nomination. The story contrasts Giuliani and McCain with Mitt Romney, saying, "Although his Mormon religion permits polygamy, he has only married once and has shared his life with Ann for 37 years." Uh, no, the mainstream Mormon church does not permit polygamy. There are a few isolated splinter groups way up in the Utah hills that still practice it, but they have no power or influence and are considered a bunch of weirdos by all concerned.
I find it interesting that La Vangua never said anything about John Kerry's marital history; what's most suspicious about that is Kerry's obvious marriage for money. Why else would he have married that harpy Teresa?
The cops busted eight ETA terrorists yesterday in the Basque Country and Navarre; they found thirty kilos of explosives, timers, detonating wire, and chemicals to manufacture chloratite. Lock them up and throw away the key.
New illegal immigration technique: Sign up for a cruise, get off at Barcelona, and don't get back on the boat. Spain now requires Bolivians to have a visa to enter the country, and there's a cruise ship in Barcelona harbor with 82 Bolivians on board who they won't let into Spain.
All of the Spanish media has, of course, paid tons of attention to Halle Berry, who's in Madrid promoting her latest movie. She is certainly a fabulous babe, and looks great in the photos they took. Also, she did not pull a Sarandon and slag off the States as so many Hollywood types do when they get over to Europe. My question is, simply, why is it such a big deal when an American movie actress comes to Spain?
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Just a few quick links this afternoon.
Snopes reproduces an e-mail that's going around comparing Gore's energy-guzzling house with Bush's eco-friendly ranch, and judges it to be true.
Fox News reports that a cyber-asshole took one last shot at Catherine Seipp by posting under her name while she was dying.
At National Review, John O'Sullivan comments on the EU's fiftieth anniversary and David Freddoso takes a whack at the EU's Kyoto hypocrisy.
Anne Applebaum notes that most Europeans paid no attention to the Berlin celebrations because they're pretty apathetic about the EU.
The Wall Street Journal is rather positive about the EU, and there's a good historical piece about the anti-immigrant motivation behind Prohibition (and the progressive middle-class do-gooders who put it through).
Reason has an article reminding us, in response to the doomsayers, that the world is actually going along pretty well in most ways in most places.
Robert Hughes has a groovy article in the Guardian on surrealism, one of the artistic movements I most despise.
Snopes reproduces an e-mail that's going around comparing Gore's energy-guzzling house with Bush's eco-friendly ranch, and judges it to be true.
Fox News reports that a cyber-asshole took one last shot at Catherine Seipp by posting under her name while she was dying.
At National Review, John O'Sullivan comments on the EU's fiftieth anniversary and David Freddoso takes a whack at the EU's Kyoto hypocrisy.
Anne Applebaum notes that most Europeans paid no attention to the Berlin celebrations because they're pretty apathetic about the EU.
The Wall Street Journal is rather positive about the EU, and there's a good historical piece about the anti-immigrant motivation behind Prohibition (and the progressive middle-class do-gooders who put it through).
Reason has an article reminding us, in response to the doomsayers, that the world is actually going along pretty well in most ways in most places.
Robert Hughes has a groovy article in the Guardian on surrealism, one of the artistic movements I most despise.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
No post today; I've been working like an African-American on a translation and am pooped.
In college, my friend Jed and I had great fun saying horribly racist or offensive things using politically correct euphemisms, which was in fact rather daring in those heavily PC mid-80s. Some of our favorites were:
"He wanted twenty bucks, but I Israelied him down to fifteen."
"No, you can't have it back, you Native American-giver."
"What a total mess. It was an East Asian fire drill."
"When you put your car in neutral while going downhill, that's called Latino overdrive."
"Wanna get the football and play Smear the Alternative Lifestyle Guy?"
"Something funny's going on. I think there's a person of color in the woodpile."
In college, my friend Jed and I had great fun saying horribly racist or offensive things using politically correct euphemisms, which was in fact rather daring in those heavily PC mid-80s. Some of our favorites were:
"He wanted twenty bucks, but I Israelied him down to fifteen."
"No, you can't have it back, you Native American-giver."
"What a total mess. It was an East Asian fire drill."
"When you put your car in neutral while going downhill, that's called Latino overdrive."
"Wanna get the football and play Smear the Alternative Lifestyle Guy?"
"Something funny's going on. I think there's a person of color in the woodpile."
Monday, March 26, 2007
The big political news around here is that the Catalan independence party, Esquerra Republicana, has offered to dump the Tripartite and back CiU for control of the Catalan regional government, the Generalitat. CiU leader Artur Mas would become premier. The catch: Mas would have to promise to call a referendum on independence for Catalonia.
How completely irresponsible. We were hopìng for a little bit of governmental stability around here. I am not Socialist premier José Montilla's biggest fan, but he's a reasonably competent political hack with plenty of experience. Montilla has shown no signs of being about to screw everything up. He's not going to improve things much, but a few years of gray boredom and dullness would be just fine around here now that the Pasqual Maragall traveling circus has folded its tents.
So here goes Esquerra, which is part of the current Catalan governing coalition along with the Socialists and the Communists, and offers to dynamite the coalition in order to turn over power to the Socialists' Number One enemy, CiU. Now, this is probably just a tantrum whose goal is to get attention, since CiU is a) nationalist but not pro-independence and b) fairly practical; it knows that any referendum on independence would be unconstitutional and non-binding and therefore meaningless.
Oh, by the way, the loudmouth who actually made the proposal in question is Francesc Vendrell, a former member of the political branch of the Cataloony terrorist gang Terra Lliure (final score: Cops 4, Terrorists 1, game over circa 1990. It would be Cops 5, Terrorists 1 if we count Juan Carlos Monteagudo, who when Terra Lliure broke up went and joined ETA and blew up a bunch of Guardia Civil families at the cuartel in Vic and got Clyde Barrowed when they tracked him down three days later.)
Here's the difference between minor sports in America and in a mid-sized country like Spain. Seems they had the world championships in synchronized swimming and Spain's team did rather well, winning several medals. Now, does anybody really give a crap about synchronized swimming? Hell, no. Like team handball and rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized swimming is one of those collectivist sports that they tried to make the opiate of the masses in places like East Germany and the former Yugoslavia. Boring.
But since the Spanish team did well, it's all over the news, leading off the sports report on the TV news for the last several days and getting an editorial of congratulations from La Vangua today. Now, I think the Americans got at least one medal, since they beat out Spain for a bronze in one of the various events, and the Spanish coach accused the judges of distributing medals according to political criteria. But have you heard about the synchronized swimming world championships over there in the US? I'll just bet you haven't.
Marius Carol gets obnoxious in La Vanguardia. Seems that Wolfgang Puck announced that he won't serve foie-gras any more, since geese are force-fed to make their livers fatty and it's sort of cruel. Carol, by the way, mistranslates "humane standards" as "standards of humanity" and makes fun of Puck for misusing language. He then says:
By the way, if Puck is so worried about the standards of humanity in his state, he might make a statement against the death penalty in California, although the meat of the condemned is not served in brochettes. The United States is a curious country, where the Chicago city council prohibited the possession, sale, and consumption of foie gras as if it were a drug.
What a smart-ass. Comparing laws requiring humane treatment of animals and the death penalty is like comparing geese and people. Geese are not responsible for committing first-degree murder, which people have to do in order to get the death penalty in California.
Nobody is going to ban eating animals, but the laws do demand that animals being slaughtered for meat be treated with minimum decency and killed with as little suffering as possible.
Forcefeeding geese so their livers get fatty and swollen violates the minimum-decency standard, which says, "Don't make animals suffer or die unnecessarily." We don't need foie-gras or fur coats. Meat, yes, people are naturally omnivores (though I'm a vegetarian), and animals must die to provide meat. And as long as the cow dies, you might as well make her skin into leather. Medical experimentation on animals is necessary, but other kinds of experimentation are not and should be banned.
In a world closer to the ideal, we wouldn't eat mammals. I don't criticize those who do, because it's natural for humans. Birds are borderline. Chickens and turkeys are pretty dumb, a less clear-cut case than mammals, which are all at least as intelligent and self-aware as very retarded people. As for your cold-blooded animals, fish aren't too bright and mollusks and arthropods are very primitive. I wouldn't have the slightest moral qualm about eating shrimp or mussels, though I don't. I don't think a shrimp is any smarter than a plant.
Andy Robinson gets a front-page teaser headline for his denunciation of homelessness in New York on page 31 of today's La Vanguardia. He tosses out all the usual claims from the usual suspects; you've heard it all before. Andy adds that "economic polarization in New York is reaching levels of inequality comparable with cities in the Third World." He claims that many families only earn $1000 or $1500 a month, and that a two-bedroom apartment is $1000 a month.
I dunno. If we calculate minimum take-home pay at $5 an hour, which is far less than anyone actually earns in New York, and multiply that by 40 hours, we get $200, or a little more than $800 a month. Multiply that by two, and you get a family income of a little more than $1600 a month, not counting aid from the government, which you will get if you earn that little. That would be the absolute rock-bottom for the working class. Unemployment is, what, 5% in New York? Probably less. Seems to me that anyone who wants a job can get one.
Here's what the Census Bureau has to say:
Real median household income in the United States rose by 1.1 percent between 2004 and 2005, reaching $46,326, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the nation’s official poverty rate remained statistically unchanged at 12.6 percent. The percentage of people without health insurance coverage rose from 15.6 percent to 15.9 percent (46.6 million people).
That's not perfect, but it's a damn sight better than a lot of other places. And, agreed, there are some other places that are more generous with government assistance than the US.
In New York state in 2005, the median family income was $59,686. Not too bad.
As for homeless statistics in the US (and these stats come from a homeless advocacy group, who in turn says it got them from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development), one study says that there were 744,000 in the US in 2005, of which about one-quarter were chronically homeless. That's fewer than 200,000 chronically homeless in the US. The US population is almost exactly 300 million, meaning that one of every 1500 Americans is chronically homeless. Yes, that's a shame, and all good-hearted people support aid to those of us who cannot take care of themselves, but one out of every 1500 isn't a lot.
Barça news: Rumors flying this week with no league matches, since the national teams are playing qualifiers. Spain plays Iceland tomorrow. Whooptedoo. Supposedly Barça wants to sign Terry and Lampard, and they've already got Cristiano Ronaldo in the bag. Also, rumors have it they want to buy Xabi Alonso from Liverpool, and got a quote of €26 million from Sevilla for Alves. They resigned all their fullbacks, so won't be needing Alves anyway. Alonso would presumably replace Motta and Edmilson. On their way out: Motta, Edmilson, Giuly, Ezquerro. Probably out: Saviola. Rumors surrounding: Deco (swap for Cristiano Ronaldo?) and Ronaldinho (skips training, flirting with Milan and Inter).
Baseball season starts in a week. Kansas City looks below-average but not horrible, like last year and, actually, most of the last decade except that one year they got so lucky.
The lineup I'd like to see, along with a conservative prediction for OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging)
DeJesus, cf, 800
German, 2b, 800
Teahen, rf, 900
Gordon, 3b, 875
Shealy, 1b, 825
Butler, lf, 850
Gload/Brown, dh, 800
Buck, c, 700
Peña, ss, 675
Not a bad-hitting lineup except for the 8 and 9 holes. Peña's defense is supposed to make up for his weak bat. Buck is just not a very good player, but he is still young and might improve. This year is probably his last chance. It's the starting rotation that is going to be trouble; the bullpen looks like it's OK, at least better than the past. We're hoping for 75 wins, development of young players Gordon and Butler, and Grudzielanek, Sanders, and Brown being shipped out for prospects at the trade deadline. Sweeney will, of course, get hurt.
How completely irresponsible. We were hopìng for a little bit of governmental stability around here. I am not Socialist premier José Montilla's biggest fan, but he's a reasonably competent political hack with plenty of experience. Montilla has shown no signs of being about to screw everything up. He's not going to improve things much, but a few years of gray boredom and dullness would be just fine around here now that the Pasqual Maragall traveling circus has folded its tents.
So here goes Esquerra, which is part of the current Catalan governing coalition along with the Socialists and the Communists, and offers to dynamite the coalition in order to turn over power to the Socialists' Number One enemy, CiU. Now, this is probably just a tantrum whose goal is to get attention, since CiU is a) nationalist but not pro-independence and b) fairly practical; it knows that any referendum on independence would be unconstitutional and non-binding and therefore meaningless.
Oh, by the way, the loudmouth who actually made the proposal in question is Francesc Vendrell, a former member of the political branch of the Cataloony terrorist gang Terra Lliure (final score: Cops 4, Terrorists 1, game over circa 1990. It would be Cops 5, Terrorists 1 if we count Juan Carlos Monteagudo, who when Terra Lliure broke up went and joined ETA and blew up a bunch of Guardia Civil families at the cuartel in Vic and got Clyde Barrowed when they tracked him down three days later.)
Here's the difference between minor sports in America and in a mid-sized country like Spain. Seems they had the world championships in synchronized swimming and Spain's team did rather well, winning several medals. Now, does anybody really give a crap about synchronized swimming? Hell, no. Like team handball and rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized swimming is one of those collectivist sports that they tried to make the opiate of the masses in places like East Germany and the former Yugoslavia. Boring.
But since the Spanish team did well, it's all over the news, leading off the sports report on the TV news for the last several days and getting an editorial of congratulations from La Vangua today. Now, I think the Americans got at least one medal, since they beat out Spain for a bronze in one of the various events, and the Spanish coach accused the judges of distributing medals according to political criteria. But have you heard about the synchronized swimming world championships over there in the US? I'll just bet you haven't.
Marius Carol gets obnoxious in La Vanguardia. Seems that Wolfgang Puck announced that he won't serve foie-gras any more, since geese are force-fed to make their livers fatty and it's sort of cruel. Carol, by the way, mistranslates "humane standards" as "standards of humanity" and makes fun of Puck for misusing language. He then says:
By the way, if Puck is so worried about the standards of humanity in his state, he might make a statement against the death penalty in California, although the meat of the condemned is not served in brochettes. The United States is a curious country, where the Chicago city council prohibited the possession, sale, and consumption of foie gras as if it were a drug.
What a smart-ass. Comparing laws requiring humane treatment of animals and the death penalty is like comparing geese and people. Geese are not responsible for committing first-degree murder, which people have to do in order to get the death penalty in California.
Nobody is going to ban eating animals, but the laws do demand that animals being slaughtered for meat be treated with minimum decency and killed with as little suffering as possible.
Forcefeeding geese so their livers get fatty and swollen violates the minimum-decency standard, which says, "Don't make animals suffer or die unnecessarily." We don't need foie-gras or fur coats. Meat, yes, people are naturally omnivores (though I'm a vegetarian), and animals must die to provide meat. And as long as the cow dies, you might as well make her skin into leather. Medical experimentation on animals is necessary, but other kinds of experimentation are not and should be banned.
In a world closer to the ideal, we wouldn't eat mammals. I don't criticize those who do, because it's natural for humans. Birds are borderline. Chickens and turkeys are pretty dumb, a less clear-cut case than mammals, which are all at least as intelligent and self-aware as very retarded people. As for your cold-blooded animals, fish aren't too bright and mollusks and arthropods are very primitive. I wouldn't have the slightest moral qualm about eating shrimp or mussels, though I don't. I don't think a shrimp is any smarter than a plant.
Andy Robinson gets a front-page teaser headline for his denunciation of homelessness in New York on page 31 of today's La Vanguardia. He tosses out all the usual claims from the usual suspects; you've heard it all before. Andy adds that "economic polarization in New York is reaching levels of inequality comparable with cities in the Third World." He claims that many families only earn $1000 or $1500 a month, and that a two-bedroom apartment is $1000 a month.
I dunno. If we calculate minimum take-home pay at $5 an hour, which is far less than anyone actually earns in New York, and multiply that by 40 hours, we get $200, or a little more than $800 a month. Multiply that by two, and you get a family income of a little more than $1600 a month, not counting aid from the government, which you will get if you earn that little. That would be the absolute rock-bottom for the working class. Unemployment is, what, 5% in New York? Probably less. Seems to me that anyone who wants a job can get one.
Here's what the Census Bureau has to say:
Real median household income in the United States rose by 1.1 percent between 2004 and 2005, reaching $46,326, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the nation’s official poverty rate remained statistically unchanged at 12.6 percent. The percentage of people without health insurance coverage rose from 15.6 percent to 15.9 percent (46.6 million people).
That's not perfect, but it's a damn sight better than a lot of other places. And, agreed, there are some other places that are more generous with government assistance than the US.
In New York state in 2005, the median family income was $59,686. Not too bad.
As for homeless statistics in the US (and these stats come from a homeless advocacy group, who in turn says it got them from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development), one study says that there were 744,000 in the US in 2005, of which about one-quarter were chronically homeless. That's fewer than 200,000 chronically homeless in the US. The US population is almost exactly 300 million, meaning that one of every 1500 Americans is chronically homeless. Yes, that's a shame, and all good-hearted people support aid to those of us who cannot take care of themselves, but one out of every 1500 isn't a lot.
Barça news: Rumors flying this week with no league matches, since the national teams are playing qualifiers. Spain plays Iceland tomorrow. Whooptedoo. Supposedly Barça wants to sign Terry and Lampard, and they've already got Cristiano Ronaldo in the bag. Also, rumors have it they want to buy Xabi Alonso from Liverpool, and got a quote of €26 million from Sevilla for Alves. They resigned all their fullbacks, so won't be needing Alves anyway. Alonso would presumably replace Motta and Edmilson. On their way out: Motta, Edmilson, Giuly, Ezquerro. Probably out: Saviola. Rumors surrounding: Deco (swap for Cristiano Ronaldo?) and Ronaldinho (skips training, flirting with Milan and Inter).
Baseball season starts in a week. Kansas City looks below-average but not horrible, like last year and, actually, most of the last decade except that one year they got so lucky.
The lineup I'd like to see, along with a conservative prediction for OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging)
DeJesus, cf, 800
German, 2b, 800
Teahen, rf, 900
Gordon, 3b, 875
Shealy, 1b, 825
Butler, lf, 850
Gload/Brown, dh, 800
Buck, c, 700
Peña, ss, 675
Not a bad-hitting lineup except for the 8 and 9 holes. Peña's defense is supposed to make up for his weak bat. Buck is just not a very good player, but he is still young and might improve. This year is probably his last chance. It's the starting rotation that is going to be trouble; the bullpen looks like it's OK, at least better than the past. We're hoping for 75 wins, development of young players Gordon and Butler, and Grudzielanek, Sanders, and Brown being shipped out for prospects at the trade deadline. Sweeney will, of course, get hurt.
Friday, March 23, 2007
The Zap government just blew it big-time with Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi. Otegi was to be tried before the National Court yesterday on charges of exaltation of terrorism. If convicted, he would have had to go to prison, because he's already got a fifteen-month suspended sentence that would have been unsuspended upon conviction. So the prosecutor's office, which to my knowledge is part of the Justice ministry and responsible ultimately to the prime minister, dropped the charges and Otegi walked.
This is just ridiculous. Exaltation of terrorism is against the law. I'm not especially fond of laws that block free political expression, but I can understand them in a country that's lost 800 dead to ETA. Therefore, the law should be enforced and those who exalt terrorism should go to jail, no matter how much popular support they have in the Basque Country.
Besides, the government's strategy should be to put as much legal pressure on ETA and its political branch, Batasuna, as it can. The goal should be to lock the bastards up and keep them there until they agree to a real peace, which would start when ETA renounces violence and turns over its arms. The only concessions I would be willing to throw them would be a) release of prisoners in for political crimes (e.g. Batasuna members in for illegal demos or exaltation or holding meetings of a banned party), but emphatically not of anyone involved in a violent crime b) the legalization of Batasuna (after a public renunciation of violence, of course), but with any member convicted of an ETA-related crime to be permanently inhabilitated from holding public or party office.
The PP is right on this issue. The Zap government screwed up badly, and it is responsible.
By the way, parts of the more extreme wing of the PP have been raising the specter of a breakup of Spain as a result of the Catalan statute or Zap's climbdowns in the De Juana Chaos and Otegi cases. That's a bit of an exaggeration. It's not going to happen anytime soon, among other reasons because the current Spanish constitution makes it impossible for any part of Spain to secede. You'd have to change the constitution before any region could split off legally.
Anyone trying to split off illegally would certainly face military intervention by the central government, and nobody's that dumb except for ETA and its crowd. Also, of course, no one splitting off illegally would be invited into such organizations as the EU, UN, and NATO.
I suppose my attitude, as an outsider on the inside, is that if a region of Spain (Asturias, for example) really, really wanted to be independent, and proved it by voting massively (say, two-thirds or three-quarters of the vote) in favor of a non-violent, democratic party that wanted Asturian independence at three or four elections in a row, then you'd have to change the constitution and let Asturias have a referendum on independence. The thing is, of course, that there is no region in Spain in which such a party gets more than about 15% of the vote. Neither CiU nor the PNV favors independence; ERC does.
By the way, I'd feel the same way in the US. If Alabama voters voted overwhelmingly in several consecutive elections for an Alabama Independence Party, I'd want to change the Constitution and let them go. That, of course, is highly unlikely. Yes, I know this argument leads to the question, "What about the Civil War?" Well, first, the Southern states were not a practicing democracy by my definition, since slavery was legal. Second, the (white) people of the Southern states never voted in favor of secession in a referendum. Secession was voted by the (elected, it's true) state legislatures. Third, many white people in the South (though not a majority) did vote for the Southern Democrat candidate, Breckenridge, in the 1860 election. However, Breckenridge was not calling for secession during the campaign. We can't say a vote for Breckenridge was a vote to secede. And anyway, he got less than a majority in one election, not a huge majority in three. And fourth, I'd have been against starting a war with the South in order to preserve the Union. So was Lincoln, though he figured that the South would start the shooting sooner or later. The South did start the war by firing on Union troops, and once the war starts, you need to win it--and while you're at it, abolish slavery.
This is just ridiculous. Exaltation of terrorism is against the law. I'm not especially fond of laws that block free political expression, but I can understand them in a country that's lost 800 dead to ETA. Therefore, the law should be enforced and those who exalt terrorism should go to jail, no matter how much popular support they have in the Basque Country.
Besides, the government's strategy should be to put as much legal pressure on ETA and its political branch, Batasuna, as it can. The goal should be to lock the bastards up and keep them there until they agree to a real peace, which would start when ETA renounces violence and turns over its arms. The only concessions I would be willing to throw them would be a) release of prisoners in for political crimes (e.g. Batasuna members in for illegal demos or exaltation or holding meetings of a banned party), but emphatically not of anyone involved in a violent crime b) the legalization of Batasuna (after a public renunciation of violence, of course), but with any member convicted of an ETA-related crime to be permanently inhabilitated from holding public or party office.
The PP is right on this issue. The Zap government screwed up badly, and it is responsible.
By the way, parts of the more extreme wing of the PP have been raising the specter of a breakup of Spain as a result of the Catalan statute or Zap's climbdowns in the De Juana Chaos and Otegi cases. That's a bit of an exaggeration. It's not going to happen anytime soon, among other reasons because the current Spanish constitution makes it impossible for any part of Spain to secede. You'd have to change the constitution before any region could split off legally.
Anyone trying to split off illegally would certainly face military intervention by the central government, and nobody's that dumb except for ETA and its crowd. Also, of course, no one splitting off illegally would be invited into such organizations as the EU, UN, and NATO.
I suppose my attitude, as an outsider on the inside, is that if a region of Spain (Asturias, for example) really, really wanted to be independent, and proved it by voting massively (say, two-thirds or three-quarters of the vote) in favor of a non-violent, democratic party that wanted Asturian independence at three or four elections in a row, then you'd have to change the constitution and let Asturias have a referendum on independence. The thing is, of course, that there is no region in Spain in which such a party gets more than about 15% of the vote. Neither CiU nor the PNV favors independence; ERC does.
By the way, I'd feel the same way in the US. If Alabama voters voted overwhelmingly in several consecutive elections for an Alabama Independence Party, I'd want to change the Constitution and let them go. That, of course, is highly unlikely. Yes, I know this argument leads to the question, "What about the Civil War?" Well, first, the Southern states were not a practicing democracy by my definition, since slavery was legal. Second, the (white) people of the Southern states never voted in favor of secession in a referendum. Secession was voted by the (elected, it's true) state legislatures. Third, many white people in the South (though not a majority) did vote for the Southern Democrat candidate, Breckenridge, in the 1860 election. However, Breckenridge was not calling for secession during the campaign. We can't say a vote for Breckenridge was a vote to secede. And anyway, he got less than a majority in one election, not a huge majority in three. And fourth, I'd have been against starting a war with the South in order to preserve the Union. So was Lincoln, though he figured that the South would start the shooting sooner or later. The South did start the war by firing on Union troops, and once the war starts, you need to win it--and while you're at it, abolish slavery.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
I just reread that long post I wrote this afternoon on the campaign organized by the Catalan establishment in favor of its taking over control of the Barcelona airport. I didn't make my specific accusation clear enough.
It is: La Vanguardia intentionally tried to torpedo Iberia's stock price.
They ran a banner front-page headline saying, "Iberia stockholders look for buyer." No other newspaper ran anything similar anywhere near its front page. I therefore conclude that La Vangua gave excessive importance to its report, and that it must have had some reason to do so. And, as Marxist conspiracy nuts say, it's no accident that the big Catalan establishment whooptedoo about the airport happened on the same day La Vanguardia ran that headline.
It is: La Vanguardia intentionally tried to torpedo Iberia's stock price.
They ran a banner front-page headline saying, "Iberia stockholders look for buyer." No other newspaper ran anything similar anywhere near its front page. I therefore conclude that La Vangua gave excessive importance to its report, and that it must have had some reason to do so. And, as Marxist conspiracy nuts say, it's no accident that the big Catalan establishment whooptedoo about the airport happened on the same day La Vanguardia ran that headline.
Here's my bit of conspiracy-theory paranoia here in Catalonia. TV3 and La Vanguardia, the two organs of the local establishment, are running a campaign in favor of "making Barcelona airport more important." So today the Chamber of Commerce, the employers' association (Fomento), and the Royal Automobile Club held what La Vangua called "an academic act" at IESE "in defense of the future of the Barcelona airport." The various universities, including UB and the Pompeu Fabra, backed the meeting, as did several professional organizations, including the engineers. So, of course, did the regional government, the Generalitat.
(Translation: Barcelona airport is building a new terminal, so it will have more flight slots. Right now the airport is run by a Spanish state-owned company called AENA. AENA's management has generally been somewhere between rather and extremely crappy. AENA will also have the right to decide which airlines get which slots for which flights in the new terminal. The Barcelona establishment wants more long-distance flights to prestige destinations like Tokyo and New York, and fewer cheap-ass EasyJet low-cost companies flying in drunken teenagers from non-prestige destinations like Manchester and Dusseldorf. Therefore, the Barcelona establishment wants the right to decide which airlines get which slots for which flights all for itself.)
Now come on. This is not news, and it is not from the grassroots, either. This is what was vulgarly referred to in those old Sinclair Lewis novels, like Babbitt, as "boosting." The local powers that be, from the government down to the media, have decided that what Barcelona needs are more long-distance flights, and they are trying to polarize public opinion behind them. That is a textbook example of what is called "manipulation" of the media and the public by your average everyday Chomsky worshippers around here. So manipulating the media is so bad we have to falsely accuse the Bush administration of doing it, but it's OK if it's done in our economic interest?
This is pure business. There's nothing but money involved here. There's nothing high-minded or idealistic about this campaign at all. The Catalan establishment is trying to get something it wants, and it has no qualms about mobilizing the local government, media, universities, and professional organizations.
Comment: I don't think the establishment is ever this unified in Kansas City. There are always dissenting voices, from the universities, which often take pride in their anti-business attitude, to the no-growth people, of whom there are a surprising amount, from the civil-rights organizations demanding their piece of the pie, from the unions demanding theirs, from the media, which are pretty much pussycats in KC compared to the rest of the US but are dangerously radical investigative Woodwards and Bernsteins compared to La Vangua's reporters.
Here's what TV3, which belongs to the Socialist-controlled Generalitat, had to say to kick off today's afternoon news:
Representatives from more than one hundred organizations from the business and academic world had a united public meeting in order to demand pressure that would permit El Prat airport to continue as a world reference as a node of communication, with international connections, and that the regional and municipal governments, along with society, should have the capacity to decide on the strategic actions that affect it...
This is not news. This is publicity. And you note they are not demanding that the airport be privatized. They are demanding that the Barcelona airport be turned over to them--specifically, the regional and municipal governments. And "society," whatever that is. I bet it's the Chamber of Commerce itself.
TV3 ran a visual, "OBSOLETE AIRPORT MODEL." Below it was this statistic: Intercontinental Flights Daily; London, 868; Madrid, 168; Barcelona 19.
That is not news, it is advocacy, and of the cheapest kind: blaming everything on Madrid. Look, I personally do not think that the airlines are dumb. I think the model of competition provides us consumers with the best of all possible worlds. If there was a demand for direct flights from Barcelona to, say, Tokyo or New York, someone would be filling that demand, and those flights would be available. Sounds to me like the Catalan establishment doesn't like what the market has to say--that is, the people who want to come here are mostly drunken teenagers from Newcastle and Rotterdam--and they want the government to do something about it.
La Vanguardia, meanwhile, headlines on the front page: "Iberia stockholders look for buyer," and below it, "El Prat fifth fastest-growing airport in world." The Catalan establishment is royally pissed off at Iberia, the former state-owned airline based in Madrid, because it decided to pull most of its flights out of Barcelona and hub out of Madrid. La Vangua is therefore thrilled to slam Iberia. It's talking up the report that Iberia is up for sale, that several major stockholders including Caja Madrid, BBVA, and El Corte Ingles are looking to cash in now and get rid of their shares, since Iberia stock is up 31% since January 1.
The Catalan establishment is quite open about talking up what they want AENA to do: grant as many slots as possible to Spanair / Star Alliance. So they are throwing all their support, mobilized by the local media, to back the interests of a particular corporation. This is what's wrong with the way things are sometimes done around here.
Inside, in the business section, there's a list of the airports with most passenger traffic. Unsurprisingly, the top five are Atlanta, Chicago, Heathrow, Narita, and LAX. There's a rather lame joke about not even being able to get to Heaven without changing planes in Atlanta on the way. 15 of the top 30 are in the US, including such metropoli as Denver and Minneapolis. Madrid is #13, with 45 million passengers a year, and Barcelona is #34, with 30 million. Barcelona's 10.5% yearly growth is trumpeted. But you have to look at the figures pretty closely, though, to see that Madrid's growth is 8.1%! Seems to me that both airports are going to gain more passengers, as economic growth in Spain continues at more than 3% yearly, and tourism is growing enormously.
Meanwhile, Zap said that the central government, through AENA, would keep its power to decide which airlines get which slots at the new terminal. He had a whack at the Catalan establishment, too, saying that the reason they were concerned about the airport was that the central government had spent €3 billion on it. La Vanguardia called Zap's attitude "state unilateralism."
Please tell me that I'm wrong, I'm paranoid, and that I'm a conspiracy nut. There are no economic interests behind political forces here in Spain, are there? If there really are economic interests behind political forces in Spain, might that not influence Spanish opinion about what is behind political forces in other countries, particularly the "Anglo-Saxon" ones? Is it possible that Spaniards might overestimate the influence of, say, the oil industry in the US, since economic interests are so powerful over here?
(Translation: Barcelona airport is building a new terminal, so it will have more flight slots. Right now the airport is run by a Spanish state-owned company called AENA. AENA's management has generally been somewhere between rather and extremely crappy. AENA will also have the right to decide which airlines get which slots for which flights in the new terminal. The Barcelona establishment wants more long-distance flights to prestige destinations like Tokyo and New York, and fewer cheap-ass EasyJet low-cost companies flying in drunken teenagers from non-prestige destinations like Manchester and Dusseldorf. Therefore, the Barcelona establishment wants the right to decide which airlines get which slots for which flights all for itself.)
Now come on. This is not news, and it is not from the grassroots, either. This is what was vulgarly referred to in those old Sinclair Lewis novels, like Babbitt, as "boosting." The local powers that be, from the government down to the media, have decided that what Barcelona needs are more long-distance flights, and they are trying to polarize public opinion behind them. That is a textbook example of what is called "manipulation" of the media and the public by your average everyday Chomsky worshippers around here. So manipulating the media is so bad we have to falsely accuse the Bush administration of doing it, but it's OK if it's done in our economic interest?
This is pure business. There's nothing but money involved here. There's nothing high-minded or idealistic about this campaign at all. The Catalan establishment is trying to get something it wants, and it has no qualms about mobilizing the local government, media, universities, and professional organizations.
Comment: I don't think the establishment is ever this unified in Kansas City. There are always dissenting voices, from the universities, which often take pride in their anti-business attitude, to the no-growth people, of whom there are a surprising amount, from the civil-rights organizations demanding their piece of the pie, from the unions demanding theirs, from the media, which are pretty much pussycats in KC compared to the rest of the US but are dangerously radical investigative Woodwards and Bernsteins compared to La Vangua's reporters.
Here's what TV3, which belongs to the Socialist-controlled Generalitat, had to say to kick off today's afternoon news:
Representatives from more than one hundred organizations from the business and academic world had a united public meeting in order to demand pressure that would permit El Prat airport to continue as a world reference as a node of communication, with international connections, and that the regional and municipal governments, along with society, should have the capacity to decide on the strategic actions that affect it...
This is not news. This is publicity. And you note they are not demanding that the airport be privatized. They are demanding that the Barcelona airport be turned over to them--specifically, the regional and municipal governments. And "society," whatever that is. I bet it's the Chamber of Commerce itself.
TV3 ran a visual, "OBSOLETE AIRPORT MODEL." Below it was this statistic: Intercontinental Flights Daily; London, 868; Madrid, 168; Barcelona 19.
That is not news, it is advocacy, and of the cheapest kind: blaming everything on Madrid. Look, I personally do not think that the airlines are dumb. I think the model of competition provides us consumers with the best of all possible worlds. If there was a demand for direct flights from Barcelona to, say, Tokyo or New York, someone would be filling that demand, and those flights would be available. Sounds to me like the Catalan establishment doesn't like what the market has to say--that is, the people who want to come here are mostly drunken teenagers from Newcastle and Rotterdam--and they want the government to do something about it.
La Vanguardia, meanwhile, headlines on the front page: "Iberia stockholders look for buyer," and below it, "El Prat fifth fastest-growing airport in world." The Catalan establishment is royally pissed off at Iberia, the former state-owned airline based in Madrid, because it decided to pull most of its flights out of Barcelona and hub out of Madrid. La Vangua is therefore thrilled to slam Iberia. It's talking up the report that Iberia is up for sale, that several major stockholders including Caja Madrid, BBVA, and El Corte Ingles are looking to cash in now and get rid of their shares, since Iberia stock is up 31% since January 1.
The Catalan establishment is quite open about talking up what they want AENA to do: grant as many slots as possible to Spanair / Star Alliance. So they are throwing all their support, mobilized by the local media, to back the interests of a particular corporation. This is what's wrong with the way things are sometimes done around here.
Inside, in the business section, there's a list of the airports with most passenger traffic. Unsurprisingly, the top five are Atlanta, Chicago, Heathrow, Narita, and LAX. There's a rather lame joke about not even being able to get to Heaven without changing planes in Atlanta on the way. 15 of the top 30 are in the US, including such metropoli as Denver and Minneapolis. Madrid is #13, with 45 million passengers a year, and Barcelona is #34, with 30 million. Barcelona's 10.5% yearly growth is trumpeted. But you have to look at the figures pretty closely, though, to see that Madrid's growth is 8.1%! Seems to me that both airports are going to gain more passengers, as economic growth in Spain continues at more than 3% yearly, and tourism is growing enormously.
Meanwhile, Zap said that the central government, through AENA, would keep its power to decide which airlines get which slots at the new terminal. He had a whack at the Catalan establishment, too, saying that the reason they were concerned about the airport was that the central government had spent €3 billion on it. La Vanguardia called Zap's attitude "state unilateralism."
Please tell me that I'm wrong, I'm paranoid, and that I'm a conspiracy nut. There are no economic interests behind political forces here in Spain, are there? If there really are economic interests behind political forces in Spain, might that not influence Spanish opinion about what is behind political forces in other countries, particularly the "Anglo-Saxon" ones? Is it possible that Spaniards might overestimate the influence of, say, the oil industry in the US, since economic interests are so powerful over here?
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Not much news from around here. The PSOE has been blasting away at ex-Prime Minister Aznar's refusal to apologize for joining the Coalition in the Iraq War. Way to go, José María! Stand up to those appeasers of terrorists!
PSOE head apparatchik José Blanco wants the International Criminal Court to put Aznar on trial for war crimes. The PP's irresponsibility counts for little compared to this, wanting to bind over your country's former elected leader to a bunch of foreigners for trial and punishment--for having made the correct and morally difficult decision. I suppose the US will have to grant him political asylum.
One of the more childish examples of sniping against Aznar are the repeated mentions in the press to what is called "la foto de las Azores." Seems that Bush, Blair, Aznar, and Durao Barroso had a meeting in the Azores Islands right before the war began, and a photograph was taken. Ever since then, Spanish commentators (as always obsessed with images) have attacked Aznar for, alleging he entered the Iraq War in order to get his photo taken with Bush and Blair. Naturally, this ridiculous accusation is made by those whose lives would have been complete if they had posed in a photo with Arafat, Mao, or Che, and project their infantility onto others.
Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi is in big trouble; the National Court ordered him to be arrested this afternoon. He is to be tried, starting tomorrow, on yet another count of exaltation of terrorism. He's currently out of prison, but has a 15-month suspended sentence to serve. The National Court is going to throw out his appeal on yet another conviction, though, (but not until after the May municipal and regional elections) and he'll have to serve both sentences in a real prison. It's about time.
In related news, Otegi announced that it is an "error" to use terrorism in order to gain independence for the Basque Country. This will be news to all the victims of ETA. Of course, he's lying, and he left himself an out by claiming that ETA is only using violence "to achieve democratic conditions."
The Dutch health department has announced that, get this, they want to ban smoking tobacco in "coffee shops." Coffee shops in the Netherlands are places where they sell cannabis for consumption on the premises; they are technically illegal, but openly tolerated. You will still be able to smoke all the weed you want there, but you can't light up a Marlboro.
Contradictions in Catalonia: There's been a lot of talk around here about how we want to attract a higher class of tourism, not your low-rent European drunken youths that flock to the Catalan coasts every summer. So guess what--the Generalitat is extending legal drinking time for an hour starting this summer! Discos will be allowed to stay open till 6 AM, and "music-bars" (basically what we'd call a bar in the States, that is a place where you go to drink) until 3:30 AM. Cool, I suppose--I haven't been to a disco for years, or closed down a "music-bar," either.
Some Scandinavian magazine rated the beach at Barceloneta one of the top fifteen in the world. Huh? It's not one of the top fifteen in Barcelona province, much less the world, and the water is filthy. I remember going in once, many years ago, and getting all itchy. My favorite beach towns are Cadaqués and Collioure. each of which is worth at least a weekend.
Only German animal-rights activists would want to kill this little fellow. Fortunately, their calls will not be heeded.
PSOE head apparatchik José Blanco wants the International Criminal Court to put Aznar on trial for war crimes. The PP's irresponsibility counts for little compared to this, wanting to bind over your country's former elected leader to a bunch of foreigners for trial and punishment--for having made the correct and morally difficult decision. I suppose the US will have to grant him political asylum.
One of the more childish examples of sniping against Aznar are the repeated mentions in the press to what is called "la foto de las Azores." Seems that Bush, Blair, Aznar, and Durao Barroso had a meeting in the Azores Islands right before the war began, and a photograph was taken. Ever since then, Spanish commentators (as always obsessed with images) have attacked Aznar for, alleging he entered the Iraq War in order to get his photo taken with Bush and Blair. Naturally, this ridiculous accusation is made by those whose lives would have been complete if they had posed in a photo with Arafat, Mao, or Che, and project their infantility onto others.
Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi is in big trouble; the National Court ordered him to be arrested this afternoon. He is to be tried, starting tomorrow, on yet another count of exaltation of terrorism. He's currently out of prison, but has a 15-month suspended sentence to serve. The National Court is going to throw out his appeal on yet another conviction, though, (but not until after the May municipal and regional elections) and he'll have to serve both sentences in a real prison. It's about time.
In related news, Otegi announced that it is an "error" to use terrorism in order to gain independence for the Basque Country. This will be news to all the victims of ETA. Of course, he's lying, and he left himself an out by claiming that ETA is only using violence "to achieve democratic conditions."
The Dutch health department has announced that, get this, they want to ban smoking tobacco in "coffee shops." Coffee shops in the Netherlands are places where they sell cannabis for consumption on the premises; they are technically illegal, but openly tolerated. You will still be able to smoke all the weed you want there, but you can't light up a Marlboro.
Contradictions in Catalonia: There's been a lot of talk around here about how we want to attract a higher class of tourism, not your low-rent European drunken youths that flock to the Catalan coasts every summer. So guess what--the Generalitat is extending legal drinking time for an hour starting this summer! Discos will be allowed to stay open till 6 AM, and "music-bars" (basically what we'd call a bar in the States, that is a place where you go to drink) until 3:30 AM. Cool, I suppose--I haven't been to a disco for years, or closed down a "music-bar," either.
Some Scandinavian magazine rated the beach at Barceloneta one of the top fifteen in the world. Huh? It's not one of the top fifteen in Barcelona province, much less the world, and the water is filthy. I remember going in once, many years ago, and getting all itchy. My favorite beach towns are Cadaqués and Collioure. each of which is worth at least a weekend.
Only German animal-rights activists would want to kill this little fellow. Fortunately, their calls will not be heeded.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Time for a quick blog roundup, since we haven't had one for about a week.
The Brussels Journal links to some rather sobering statistics on immigration into Europe from the Third World in the Telegraph. Check out the map. The former Soviet Union is being depopulated. Everyone who can get out of there is going. No ideology has ever been wronger, in both senses of the word, than Marxism-Leninism. Look what a mess the former Russian Empire made itself into during seventy years; it'll take another seventy to fix it.
Catherine Seipp died. That's a shame. Our greatest sympathy to her daughter, "Cecile Dubois."
Chicago Boyz has a rather sad bit of historical explanation.
Colin Davies isn't surprised that Spaniards like the EU, and he also has an extensive and very funny list of contemporary Spanglish terms.
Confederate Yankee doesn't feel too sorry for the illegal immigrants getting deported.
Davids Medienkritik is feeling satirical.
Eursoc is a bit dry about the EU's birthday celebrations.
Expat Yank shoots down a rather dumb moral comparison in the Independent.
Fausta has commentary, including video, on a ridiculous Barbara Walters interview with Go to Hell Hugo.
Guirilandia has some entertaining Barcelona photos with amusing captions. Check it out.
Ibex Salad runs his stock market recap every weekend. Very useful for a quick snapshot of the Spanish economy.
La Liga Loca has a roundup of last weekend's football action.
Pave France heaps deserved scorn on Dominique de Villepin.
Playing Chess with the Dead has another update on the March 11 trial.
Rainy Day reflects on the Iraq war.
¡No Pasarán! points out that Zapatero's appeasement of Al Qaeda has simply led to more blackmail of the West.
The Brussels Journal links to some rather sobering statistics on immigration into Europe from the Third World in the Telegraph. Check out the map. The former Soviet Union is being depopulated. Everyone who can get out of there is going. No ideology has ever been wronger, in both senses of the word, than Marxism-Leninism. Look what a mess the former Russian Empire made itself into during seventy years; it'll take another seventy to fix it.
Catherine Seipp died. That's a shame. Our greatest sympathy to her daughter, "Cecile Dubois."
Chicago Boyz has a rather sad bit of historical explanation.
Colin Davies isn't surprised that Spaniards like the EU, and he also has an extensive and very funny list of contemporary Spanglish terms.
Confederate Yankee doesn't feel too sorry for the illegal immigrants getting deported.
Davids Medienkritik is feeling satirical.
Eursoc is a bit dry about the EU's birthday celebrations.
Expat Yank shoots down a rather dumb moral comparison in the Independent.
Fausta has commentary, including video, on a ridiculous Barbara Walters interview with Go to Hell Hugo.
Guirilandia has some entertaining Barcelona photos with amusing captions. Check it out.
Ibex Salad runs his stock market recap every weekend. Very useful for a quick snapshot of the Spanish economy.
La Liga Loca has a roundup of last weekend's football action.
Pave France heaps deserved scorn on Dominique de Villepin.
Playing Chess with the Dead has another update on the March 11 trial.
Rainy Day reflects on the Iraq war.
¡No Pasarán! points out that Zapatero's appeasement of Al Qaeda has simply led to more blackmail of the West.
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