Not much news from around here, which is probably good. The Cataloony jerks who burned photographs of the King were sentenced to fines of nearly €3000 each. The city government retracted a report that said that the water supply 8% of Barcelona households that get their water exclusively from the Llobregat was chemically contaminated, and apologized for agitating people needlessly. The Great Transport Snafu still has everything all snarled up around here, though one of the four commuter lines that is shut down has resumed partial service. Some dopes announced that they are going to build a mini-Las Vegas in the Monegros desert along the Barcelona-Zaragoza road. I'll believe it when I see it. They arrested five members of the ETA youth brigade in Pamplona; they'd been torching ATMs and sabotaging train lines.

Quick blog roundup:

Must-watch video footage at No Pasaran! of the Barcelona squatter riot. The video begins with demonstrators taking metal fences from the Plaza Catalunya construction site. At 00:09 it cuts to Via Laietana in front of the Interior department building. At 00:16 you can clearly see rioters hurling the fences, along with other things, at the police. At 00:44 it cuts to ambulances and police vehicles on Via Laietana. At 00:54 it cuts to the police charging a crowd at what looks like the top of Laietana, at Plaza Urquinaona. At 1:09 it cuts to an ambulance crew taking an injured rioter away.

Jules Crittenden makes fun of Euro stereotypes of Americans.

Pejman says things are getting worse in Venezuela. Publius Pundit has more.

Sadly, Sal de Traglia is packing it in; he leaves us with some thoughts for prospective expatriates.

Expat Yank has a very nice fisking of some global warming insanity in the Independent.

Davids Medienkritik acidly suggests a thought experiment for readers of the German (and by extension, European) media.

Colin Davies, "Old Reliable," comments on Spanish building permits and Franco nostalgics, among other things.

Barcepundit links to an apt cartoon.

Public opinion is massively against the riot the "anti-system" squatters put on a couple of nights ago. A peaceful demonstration would have gained them a little sympathy, perhaps, but attacking the police with those metal construction-area fences and smashing shop windows was going way too far. The main target of despotrication is Joan Saura, the Communist head of the Interior department, in charge of the regional police, the ones that were attacked. Saura has in the past spoken in favor of rebellious youth. Now he looks very weak.

I cannot believe that the people of Barcelona, after the blackout and the Great Transport Snafu and this latest riot, are going to go back out and vote for the Tripartite at the next municipal election. But they will. No matter what a lousy job they do, they have a big enough machine and patronage clientele to put them over.

La Vanguardia has a rundown of all the squatter riots in the last two years: August 16 and 17, 2005; December 17, 2005; March 19, 2006; June 28, 2006; October 5, 2006; May 19, 2007. And now this one.

The campaign for the March 9, 2008 general election is already well under way. PP leader Mariano Rajoy promised to eliminate income taxes on anyone who makes under €16,000 a year, which sounds good to me; this would affect the majority of retired people and the working poor, some 7 million people. Rajoy also wants to limit the governmental powers of the autonomous regions, establish a two-thirds majority in Congress for reforms that affect the Constitution, guarantee the right to use and learn Spanish in the educational system, declare that there will be no negotiations with ETA, and establish that the most-voted party should govern, rather than allow coalitions of minorities. Not much of this is new except the tax cut.

That's a winning platform if they present it the right way. It would help if they had canned Rajoy, who is personally uninspiring; I think Madrid mayor Ruiz-Gallardon would clearly stomp Zap in the election, but Rajoy--well, who knows. If he loses this one, he'll have to resign as party leader, and I just hope neither Acebes nor Zaplana takes over.

The surveys are saying that Hugo the Chav might well lose the December 2 referendum he has called "on the constitutional reform aimed at implanting a totalitarian regime," says La Vanguardia. The latest survey says 66% will vote No and only 28% Yes. "The most reliable polls show that his support has diminished in recent weeks because of his closeness to Cuba, threats to private property, repression of the students, scarcity of basic foods, growing crime, and rejection of a presidency-for-life with full powers."

La Vangua, meanwhile, has picked up on the Barry Bonds story, and guess what? They played the race card just as I predicted they would, asking whether "there are racist ingredients in these scahdals." They mention Marion Jones and Michael Vick as well. Gee, I dunno. The Vick case has nothing to do with drugs; he was running an illegal gambling ring on dogfights that he put on. He'd be in deep shit whether he was black, white, or green. And as for doping, seems to me that Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, and Jose Canseco are all in a heap of trouble, too, and they're all white folks. Not to mention all the cyclists, including Landis, Hamilton, and Lance Armstrong.

As for real crimes, African-American Ray Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens defensive star, didn't even have to go to jail when his posse killed somebody and he tried to cover it up. And African-American Adam "Pacman" Jones just received a suspended sentence after starting a free-for-all fight in a Las Vegas strip bar, in which a security guard was shot and paralyzed. And African-American Tank Johnson spent a few days in jail after his best buddy was killed in a fight, along with multiple drug and gun charges. Lewis is still in the NFL, and Johnson may be allowed back this year. Jones might be allowed back next year.

If there were real racism against black athletic stars, I have a feeling that these guys would all be serving very long sentences.

The King's verbal putdown of Hugo the Chav is now part of popular culture. El Mundo is reporting that "¿Por qué no te callas?" is bringing in €1.5 million as a mobile phone ringtone, and some guy in Alicante is selling T-shirts for eighteen euros each.

There are already hundreds of YouTube parodies. Check out this one, to the tune of "Y Viva España," this max-mix disco thing, and this Latino-Caribbean rap version. The first one is most definitely racist, comparing Chavez with a monkey repeatedly.

Last night's riot was a lot worse than they reported. Some 20 police officers and 40 rioters were injured. The rioters were actually trying to kill the cops outside the Interior building, hurling metal fence barriers at them, along with rocks and bottles and everything else they could find. It was premeditated, too, since they picked up most of the crap they threw at a construction site in Plaza Catalunya and carried it all the way to Via Laietana. The cops had to fire rubber bullets, and actually did beat the shit out of a lot of them. Good. Let's go, Cops! Club 'em, thump 'em, Cops, Cops, Cops! I've read--and take this with a grain of salt--that Jarrai has sent instructors to train Barcelona radicals in correct rioting procedures.

That old Commie son-of-a-bitch, Gregorio Lopez Raimundo, died. Good. This guy was a PSUC political commissar on the Aragon front during the Civil War, which means it was his job to have anarchists and Trotskyists arrested and executed. Yes, he was opposed to Franco. Being opposed to Franco does not mean that you were necessarily one of the good guys, just like being opposed to Hitler does not put Stalin on the side of the angels. Lots of murderous radicals were opposed to Franco.

The Catalan Parliament, with the exception of the Socialists, voted for the first time ever in favor of the resignation of a cabinet minister, Maleni Alvarez, who is the scapegoat in the Great Barcelona Transport Snafu. The PP, the Commies, the Cataloonies, and CiU all agreed on something for once.

Sports update: Spain's national soccer team clinched a spot in next year's Eurocup with a 3-0 victory over Sweden at the Bernabeu. They finally played well, led by Iniesta and Xavi; Capdevila had a tremendous game. Iniesta needs to start every game for Barça, no matter who has to sit on the bench to make space for him. Italy beat Scotland 1-2, eliminating them; good show by the Scots, stuck in the same group as Italy and France and in the fight until their very last match. Israel saved England's ass by beating Russia, which means that England needs only a tie against Croatia on Wednesday to qualify. So far, along with the hosts Austria and Switzerland, the teams that have qualified are Spain, Poland, Italy, France, Croatia, Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Czech Republic, and Rumania. The other four qualifiers will probably be Sweden, Turkey, England, and Portugal.

Kansas stomped Iowa State, and is still the only major-conference team without a loss. 11-0. Yes, six of the eleven victories were over bad teams. But they face Missouri at Arrowhead next week; the winner takes the Big 12 North title, and will play either Oklahoma or Texas in San Antonio for the conference championship. Oklahoma lost at Texas Tech, and Oregon lost to Arizona, which means that KU is ranked number two for the first time ever.

Well, about a thousand squatters (who call themselves "anti-fascists") had themselves a big old riot in downtown Barcelona tonight--seven arrested, ten injured policemen. One of the cops was knocked out after being hit in the head with a flying rock or bottle, and is in the hospital.

I really do not understand why they do not arrest fifty or a hundred of these jerks every time they pull one of these stunts; it wouldn't be that hard. Then give them some massively unpleasant community service, like scouring out the sewers, since they're all breaking at least a dozen laws: holding an illegal demonstration, destruction of property, assault and battery, resisting arrest, and probably mopery as well.

Even progre-bobo TV3 called the scene outside the Interior department building on Via Laietana "especially violent," as the rioters hurled heavy objects at its façade. The cops guarding it outside had to retreat. They pretty much trashed all the shops along several streets, set up barricades, torched garbage skips, trashed parked vehicles, and generally had themselves a good old time.

I bet next time they have one of these riots the cops kick some tremendous ass. I can't believe they put up with this crap.

Today's winners of the Self-Hating American prize are Brian De Palma and George Clooney. Both of them are in Spain promoting very serious films of trenchant criticism of the hypocrisy of America's oligarchical unsustainable consumer society, or something like that.

Said De Palma in El Pais, "(Bush) goes around killing people with my tax money...The war in Iraq can be stopped if the dead are shown every day. It happened in Vietnam...In the United States violence is only seen in fiction. But on the TV news there are no dead bodies, violence is shown in small doses. They're selling us a war that has nothing to do with reality, and meanwhile people are getting blown up."

Said Clooney in La Vanguardia, "I grew up in a generation suspicious of the government and of big business. We never believed the government. Watergate was the confirmation of what we all suspected. I never believed in the CIA or in corporations. And movies like Chinatown reinforced these feelings. Unfortunately, things have not improved. In the United States, during twenty years, nobody gave a damnm about what the government did. As long as it didn't affect your personal life, you didn't pay attention to anything...I always remember Ned Beatty's words in Network, when he said there was no United States or Soviet Union, the only thing there was were IBM and ATT. In the world we live in everything is controlled by the big corporations, which is not always bad: I have worked for them and I am not sorry. It depends on who makes the decisions."

Note that Clooney thinks that images from fictional movies are logical support for statements about the nature of society and government.

There's a good bit of indignation in Spain about Hugo the Chav's anti-Spanish rhetoric, calling Spain imperialist and arrogant and bashing the country's leaders. All I can say is that Latin American populist rhetoric bullshit stinks whether it is applied to the United States or to Spain, and this week a lot of it has been sprayed Spain's way. Spain doesn't like it. Welcome to the club, guys.

Chav update: He told French television that he's going to start a Venezuelan niclear program "for peaceful purposes," and added that he supports the Iranian nuke program.

News: 16 Madrid civil servants have been arrested for taking bribes in exchange for granting business licenses. If you remember our post from a few days ago on Spain's competitiveness problems, you won't be surprised to learn that if you don't bribe somebody, it'll take you three years to get a business license in downtown Madrid. No wonder these guys were raking it in. This is a story of medium importance in most of the Spanish media, but last night it was the top domestic politics story on TV3. Because playing this up makes Madrid look bad, of course.

Supposedly, tomorrow one of the three Renfe commuter lines that are down because of the Great Barcelona Transport Snafu is going to come back on line, though with fewer trains than normal. The line affected runs to Bellvitge, Castelldefels, Sitges, and Vilanova. I hope there isn't some kind of disaster. The line to the airport is still down.

Silly demonstration of the week: They got 3500 university students out yesterday in order to protest against the Bologna Process, a multinational European plan to standardize the post-high school university system. According to the EU (note the mediocre English: "why European higher education systems must be modernized ?"), this is why:

1) European higher education is fragmented into (what are often) small national systems and sub-systems, without effective links and bridges between them;
2) National regulations are too often over-detailed, and this diminishes universities’ responsiveness to changing learning and research needs emerging from markets and society;
3) Europe’s universities have a tendency to uniformity within each system/subsystem which has led to a good average level, but has limited access and failed to enable enough world-class research;
4) Universities under-use the knowledge they produce because they and business still inhabit largely separate worlds;
5) Many universities are insufficiently prepared for the coming competition for students, researchers and resources in an increasingly globalising world.
6) Most importantly, funding for universities is far too low compared to our major competitors, both in education and in research, due mainly to much smaller contributions from private sources.
7) Furthermore, access rates to higher education are still lower in Europe than in many other leading world regions.

So, of course, the students are protesting because they claim a college degree will cost more, and because, get this, they'll have to work harder, with 40 hours a week between classes and individual study. Oh, no, how tragic, 40 hours of education time a week. When I was in college I put in 60 hours many weeks, and that wasn't unusual. There were a lot of people who worked harder than I did. The government says that they'll give out student loans to those who need them; the protesting students say such loans would "mortgage their futures."

What this was really all about was simply an excuse for the Perennially Indignant, made up largely of what are euphemistically called around here "older students" (that is, those who never go to class, fail repeatedly, and hang around campus occupying places that could be used by real students who have plans to graduate one day), to hold a big old demo and bitch about the system in general. There were quite a few red flags and even more independentista ones.

Ridiculous demonstration number two: In order to protest against global warming (which may not exist, and if it exists it may not be caused by humans, and if it is caused by humans it is also not nearly as big a problem as the lack of democracy and the rule of law), the Generalitat, the Barcelona city government, and the Catalan parliament turned off all their electricity last night between 8 and 8:05 PM, and encouraged citizens to do the same. In Madrid, the Congress, several ministries, and the PSOE headquarters joined in. Nobody paid any attention except for a few hippies and a Commie or two, of course. Red Electrica said that electrical consumption did not decline noticeably during the attempted protest.

A Spanish consortium has made an offer to buy Iberia, Spain's largest airline, for about €3.5 billion. The consortium's leader is Gala Capital, which belongs to the wealthy Koplowitz, Jove, and del Pino families, and which would own 51% of the shares. Other members are the owner of Air Europa and a group of savings banks led by the Basque BBK. Other offers are in the works. Iberia stock climbed 4.6% yesterday.

The price of milk has gone up 24% in the last three months. Dairy farmers get 46 eurocents a liter in Spain, compared to 36 in Germany and 30 in France. There's a worldwide shortage due to below-normal production in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina, causing higher prices. The 30% increase in the price of grain doesn't help, either. In addition, Spain has cut back production by a million tons a year in order to meet EU norms.

Sports update: Barry Bonds, the world's best baseball player during the last 20 years, has been indicted by the federal government for perjury in the Balco doping scandal. He's going to jail. This is a big deal; imagine if, say, Ronaldo or Zidane was going to the slam for doing illegal performance-enhancing drugs and for lying about it to a grand jury. It's the second federal indictment of a major athlete this year, since Atlanta's star quarterback, Michael Vick, pleaded guilty to federal charges of running a dog-fighting gambling operation. He's going to jail, too.

In case anyone's interested, the last 100 visitors to Iberian Notes were from: United States 40, Spain 37, "Unknown Country" 8, UK 3, Canada 2, Germany 2, Mexico 1, France 1, Nigeria 1, India 1, Philippines 1, Australia 1, Sudan 1, Norway 1.

The bully is blustering. Hugo the Chav claims that he is going to "profoundly review" Venezuela's relations with Spain, and added that King Juan Carlos is going to have to "apologize to Venezuela and Latin America in order to prevent relations with some countries from deteriorating further." He also threatened reprisals against those countries, like Chile and El Salvador, that supported Juan Carlos after the Showdown in Santiago. "It will be all the King's fault," he said.

The Chav warned that he is going to crack down on Spanish companies that do business in Venezuela, including the two big banks, BSCH and BBVA, oil company Repsol, telecoms operator Telefonica, insurance company Mapfre, and--get this--Prisa, the pro-Socialist media company that owns El Pais. Which I guess is no longer a mouthpiece for the Chav. Spanish companies have invested more than €1.7 billion in Venezuela since Chavez reached power.

Chavez finished off by comparing former prime minister Aznar to Adolf Hitler, which is what started the whole mess off on Saturday. Neither Zap or the King was willing to listen to the man whom the Spanish people elected twice as prime minister be called a Fascist. Legitimate criticism is one thing and anti-Spanish bigotry is another thing, and the King and Zap were absolutely right to stand up to the Chav's loud-mouthed vulgar demagogic boastful bullying.

Big royal family news: Princess Elena, King Juan Carlos's and Queen Sofia's oldest daughter, has separated from her husband, Jaime de Marichalar. (Marichalar and Elena are known as the Duke and Duchess of Lugo.) It's not a legal separation, but it is an officially announced "end to living together."

This is by far the biggest story today in the Spanish media.

The two married in 1995 and have two children, Felipe, aged 9, and Victoria, aged 7. Marichalar suffered a stroke in December 2001, "from which he has only partially recovered."

In case anyone is interested, here's La Vanguardia's photo gallery.

There has been gossip about both of them for a long time. It is said that both of them are borderline retarded; Elena is, at best, shy and not very bright, while Marichalar has a bad reputation as a playboy and cocaine user.

La Vanguardia is reporting that: 1) the decision to separate was made more than a year ago 2) "Marichalar's character changed" after he had his stroke 3) When their first child was born, Marichalar told the media, "Poor kid, he looks like her" 4) Rumors of a separation began in 2004; "Don Jaime, a great follower of fashion, has attended the principal fashion salons alone on many occasions" 5) "He sought refuge among ill-considered friends, and did not follow his designated course of recovery."

El Periodico says, "Recently, the monarch has not been a big fan of Jaime de Marichalar. Among other reasons, because of his lifestyle and his disproportionate passion for luxury. The duke is especially attracted to fashion and cars. After the stroke he suffered in 2001, the princess and her husband distanced themselves from one another. The duke, in very serious condition, showed an incredible will to recover. Thanks to his efforts, he is able to walk and talk with some normality. Once physically recovered, Marichalar decided to live it up. He even gained a malicious nickname from the media: "The Duke of Lujo." It is common to see the King's son-in-law browsing in the most exclusive shops in Madrid."

Looks like the guilty party in media eyes is going to be Marichalar.

It's been a rough year for the King. The El Jueves magazine cover, the attacks from the far right, the Cataloonies burning photos, the controversy over the Ceuta-Melilla visit, and the Hugo Chavez scene. Now this.

Now, I'm a republican with a big R and a small one, too. I prefer a system in which no one has special privileges because of their birth. However, a parliamentary monarchy like Spain or the Netherlands or the UK is a perfectly reasonable form of government, and if it's solving more problems than it's causing, it would be stupid to change it. The question, of course, is when that line is crossed.

I don't think the Spanish monarchy is anywhere near crossing that line. The Spanish royals are generally discreet and well-behaved, they don't cost the State a whole lot of money, and they do their public-relations jobs, opening health clinics and meeting with charity organizers and shaking hands with foreign dignitaries, very well.

I do think Juan Carlos provides a great deal of stability in this country. The only thing we can get the two main parties to agree on is that they both say they support the Constitution, of which Juan Carlos is the living symbol. The old wounds of the Civil War have still not healed, and significant numbers of left voters think the PP are a bunch of Francoists, while significant numbers of right voters think the PSOE are a bunch of Bolsheviks. Lots of them still hate each other.

Juan Carlos is trusted by both sides, though, since if he'd wanted to rule as a military dictator after Franco's death, he could have. Instead, with the cooperation of the responsible elements in Spanish society, Juan Carlos led Spain toward a parliamentary democracy just three years after the dictator's death. People have actually seen him deliver the goods, while staying above partisan politics.

It's commonly said around here that many Spaniards are not monarchists, but they're "Juan Carlosists."

Little news is good news, I guess.

They convicted the two cartoonists from El Jueves who drew Prince Felipe doing Princess Letizia doggy-style on the magazine cover and fined them €3000 apiece for lese-majesté.

It turned out that the skinhead who killed the squatter in the knife fight in the Madrid subway is in the army. Great, just what we need, neo-Nazis in the armed forces.

Supposedly one of the commuter train lines that is still on the fritz will be repaired over the weekend. Don't hold your breath.

Hugo Chavez claims that he didn't hear the King tell him to shut up, but if he had, he would have told him "to go wipe his ass." Fidel Castro called the incident "an ideological Waterloo." Yep, with Juan Carlos playing the part of Wellington.

Some dipshit dad left his vial of liquid Ecstasy lying around where his two-year-old could find it. The kid drank it, went into a two-day coma, and Dad's in jail. Can you say "custody hearing"?

Another dipshit, this time a rock-and-roller named Melendi (who I've never heard of) and his band boarded an Iberia flight for Mexico City drunk, and then pitched a fit when the stewardess cut them off. The pilot turned the plane around, back to Madrid, and Melendi's in the slam. Meanwhile, the 180 other people on the plane had their flight delayed by twelve hours.

Spanish families have adopted 23,000 foreign children in the last five years, the most in the world per capita. It must have something to do with Spain's very low birth rate, and possibly with the advanced age of first marriage.

Five executives, including the big boss of Mutua Universal, Spain's third-largest workman´s-compensation insurer, are going on trial in Barcelona for embezzling €12 million from the National Health. Ah, the sweet smell of corruption that impregnates this city.

Barça lost a match against a mediocre team, so everybody wants to fire the coach. Typical immature reaction by the local media, who have nothing else to write about.

King Juan Carlos made the news all over the world after his public humiliation of Hugo Chavez. Aznar called up Zap to thank him for defending him against Chavez's attacks. Rajoy blamed Zap's "dangerous liasons" with Latin American populists for the whole scene. As one might expect, the Communists and the Cataloonies have criticized Juan Carlos; Pepelu Carod-Rovira accused him of having bad manners, and the Chavez-loving Commies called the King's attitude "unacceptable." Convergence and Union, the moderate Catalanists, congratulated the King for defending Spain's "democratic integrity."

Looks like all the reports are in regarding the Madrid stabbing: The skinheads were on their way to their demonstration "against immigration and anti-Spanish racism," and a bunch of squatters were on their way to break it up. The two groups found themselves in the same subway car and the gang fight broke out; each side accuses the other of starting it. The skinhead demo wound up being broken up by the cops, who charged them with nightsticks several times, and the squatters put on a riot last night in downtown Madrid, burning garbage skips and looking for trouble.

Spain's largest corporation, Telefonica, earned a profit of €7.85 billion (with a B) over the first nine months of the year.

According to El Mundo's latest electoral survey, the PSOE leads the PP by three points, 42.2%-39.1%. That is 1) within the poll's margin of error but 2) pretty much what all the polls have been saying. The Commies got the support of 4.8%.

Here's the video of King Juan Carlos telling Chavez to shut up. And here's commentary from Barcepundit.

This was the main discussion topic at the cafe this morning; general feeling is very pro-King, seen as standing up against bigoted anti-Spanish rhetoric. Even the moderate Catalanists approved.

ETA planted two small bombs, one with five kilos of cloratite and the other with three, outside the courthouse in the Vizcayan town of Guecho this morning; the cops dismantled them.

One person was killed in a knife fight this afternoon between squatters (called "anti-fascists" in Spain) and skinheads on the Madrid subway. Eight more were injured, one very seriously, and a cop got hit in the head with a flying bottle. The skinheads involved were this bunch of dirtbags, who had put on an anti-immigrant demonstration. Now they're saying that the killer is one of the eight injured, that the squatters picked the fight by trying to break up the fascist demo, and that several people were tear-gassed. The paramedics had to set up a field hospital.

Meanwhile, here in Barcelona, they arrested six Latin immigrants for starting a knife fight last week outside a disco at the corner of Balmes and Diputacion, only two blocks from Murph's house. Three people, also Latins, were seriously wounded; they had to remove a kidney from one of them. The cops say the rumble wasn't gang-related.

As everyone knows, the percentage of immigrants in Barcelona is more than 15%, and we are beginning to see the backlash. Dark-skinned Latin immigrants, especially Dominicans and Ecuadorians, are not popular among a lot of people (light-skinned Argentinians, and all Brazilians, are OK). The Latins, fairly or not, are associated with gang violence; the Moroccans are even less popular, associated with street crime and drug dealing. There isn't much prejudice against black Africans, east Asians, or Pakistanis, who are seen as being here to work; in fact, the only complaint I've heard about the Chinese is that they've taken over the area near Arco de Triunfo with their textile import-export houses.

Sports update: Kansas beat Oklahoma State in Stillwater and is now 10-0, for the first time since 1899. KU is now the only unbeaten major-conference team left. Yeah, the truth is that they've slaughtered five really bad teams at home, and they laid a historic whupping on a not-very-good Nebraska. But they have beaten four pretty good teams on the road, Colorado, Kansas State, Texas A&M, and now Okie State. Next they play Iowa State, another bad team whom they should beat, and then comes the showdown with their first real challenge of the year against Missouri at Arrowhead in Kansas City. If they beat Missouri they win the Big 12 North for the first time ever, and they play Oklahoma for the Big 12 championship.

Barça lost in Getafe, 2-0. They were solidly outplayed. If they're going to compete for the title, which they should be able to do, they're going to have to start winning some games away.

This is great. King Juan Carlos told Hugo Chavez to shut up at the Ibero-American summit in Chile. Made him look like the crude, vulgar demagogue he is.

Chavez was slagging off Spain in general and former prime minister Aznar in particular, calling him a "fascist." Zap showed some class (for once) and reminded Chavez that Aznar was a democratically elected leader and deserved respect. Chavez interrupted Zap, and kept on with his anti-Spanish rant, and the King told him, "Why don't you shut up?" Then Daniel Ortega got into it, attacking the Spanish company Union Fenosa, and Juan Carlos walked out.

Three cheers for the King, and one cheer for Zap, too.

Here's a very interesting report by the World Bank called Doing Business 2008 Spain; there's one of these profiles for pretty much every country in the world. What it makes clear is that Spain has a long way to go on the road to international competitiveness.

Personal note: I myself had the idea a couple of years ago to open a nonfiction bookstore in Barcelona, and I still think there's a niche for one. So I went down to the city hall, and learned that it was so slow and difficult and expensive that there was no way I was ever going to make any money. So BCN is short one bookstore.

Spain ranked 118th worldwide in ease of Starting a Business; 46th in Dealing with Licenses; 154th in Labor Regulations; 42nd in Registering Property; 13th in Getting Credit; 93rd in Paying Taxes; 47th in Importing and Exporting; 55th in Enforcing Contracts; and 17th in Closing a Business. Figures that the stuff Spain does well at is getting easy cash and going bankrupt.

A few comparisons between Spain and the US (the UK figures are generally pretty similar to the US):

It takes you 47 days to open a business in Spain; 6 in the US. It costs you 15% of per capita yesrly income in Spain to open up; in the US it's 0%.

In order to build a warehouse, it takes 233 days to get the permits in Spain; 40 in the US. The license costs 65% of per capita income in Spain; 13% in the US.

It costs an average of 56 weeks' pay to fire a worker in Spain; it's 0 weeks' pay in the US. Nonwage labor costs are 33% of wages in Spain; 8% in the US.

Registering property takes 18 days in Spain and 12 in the US; it costs 7% of the property value in Spain and 0.5% in the US.

Average taxes are 62% of profits in Spain and 46% in the US.

It takes 515 days to enforce a contract in Spain and costs 17.2% of the claim; the figures in the US are 300 days and 9.4% of the claim.

Maybe some smart political party can campaign on these issues, putting forth a real program for making it easier to do business in Spain. Of course the logical consequences would be more businesses, higher employment, and a greater tax base, and everybody's in favor of that, right?

Naah. It'd never work. Better to slag off the opposition about not being Catalanist enough. Or just question their commitment to democracy and accuse them of plotting a coup.

The top story around here is that the three remaining Spanish aircrew held in Chad have been released, which makes sense because they're innocent of everything but being hired by the wrong outfit.

Jordi Pujol cited an urban legend the other day, claiming as fact that a Madrid taxi driver had kicked a Catalan friend-of-a-friend out of his cab for speaking Catalan on his cell phone. Yeah, right. All Pujol's loud-mouthing has only contributed to fanning the flames of discontent caused by the Great Barcelona Transport Snafu. And Montilla is going around saying that if the central government doesn't do anything to solve the problems partially caused by his and his party's bungling, then Catalonia is going to get very mad at Spain. He's so uncharismatic that he's a terrible demagogue, though. And he's got Zap pissed off at him now.

Development minister Maleni Alvarez now says that the commuter trains will be back on line before November 30. Yeah, right.

All the Glasgow Rangers fans went home; they supposedly drank 140,000 liters of beer among them, which is pretty good. If there were 20,000 of them, that's seven liters (an American six-pack is a little more than two liters) a man during the day-and-a-half they were here. That doesn't count all the other alcoholic beverages they consumed while here, either. They didn't cause a whole lot of trouble; they made a big mess in the Plaza Catalunya, and urinated profusely in public. However, the mess they caused was a lot less than what happens when the Barça wins the league or New Year's Eve. The cops were mellow and just kept an eye on them to stop matters from getting out of control, and nobody got arrested, which was probably pretty smart. Putting a lot of porta-johns around the Old City might have been a good idea, though, which they didn't do.

However, one Ramon Masagué Arribas sent a letter of complaint to La Vanguardia that was published this morning: "Every year the same thing happens with the English fans. They keep drinking and drinking..." Now wait a minute. People from Glasgow are Scots, not English, and they kind of make a big deal out of that. Mr. Mesegué has no idea, however, which is interesting because many Catalans become very indignant that the rest of the world does not pay much attention to their attempt at differentiating themselves from the rest of the Spaniards.

I cannot count the number of times that people around here have told me accusingly, "Americans don't even know that Catalonia exists." As if not having heard of a European region with seven million people made one ignorant. I bet no Catalan could tell you the difference between North Carolina and Missouri, much less that between a Bengali and a Gujerati, or a Mandarin-speaker and a Cantonese-speaker. Hell, TV3 doesn't know the difference between an Arab, a Persian, and a Turk; they have no idea that Kurds are Persians, Azeris are Turks, and Armenians are none of the above.

The school shooting tragedy in Finland, in which eight people were murdered, got interesting coverage in La Vanguardia. Here's the lead paragraph:

Finland doesn't believe it, not even the government. A multiple murder in their country was, until yesterday, unthinkable, something that only happened in the United States. Pekka Eric Auvinen, an 18-year-old student, armed with a pistol, opened the eyes of the Finns to the fact that globalization includes everything and that massacres like those at Columbine and Virginia Tech are also exportable to the countries of peaceful, developed Scandinavia.

What utter bosh.

First, the shooter used a German name, Sturmgeist89, on the Internet, and he claimed to be an admirer of Hitler and Stalin--and to be violently anti-American. If anything, he was a Nietzche-Nazi, and he called himself "a social Darwinist." Second, such things are not unthinkable in Finland, since in 2002 a nutcase with a bomb blew himself up at a Helsinki mall, killing six other people. And third, we've posted before on mass murders in Europe, of which there have been plenty:

Top European spree killer: Thomas Hamilton, who killed 17 people at a preschool in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996. Next is Robert Steinhauser, who killed 16 people at an Erfurt, Germany school in 2002. He's tied with Michael Ryan, who killed 16 people in Hungerford, England, in 1987...More European spree shooters: Eric Borel killed 13 people in Cuers, France, in 1995. Richard Durn killed 8 people in Nanterre, France, in 2002. Mauro Antonello killed 7 people in Chieri, Italy, in 2002. Mattias Flink killed 7 people in Falun, Sweden, in 1994. Josef Gautch killed 6 people in Austria in 1997. Jean-Pierre Aillan killed 5 people near Rennes, France, in 1996. Tommy Zethraeus killed 4 people in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1994.

Germany had three single murders in its schools, one in November 1999, one in March 2000, and one in February 2002. In January 2004 another single murder occurred in the Hague, Netherlands.

So I'd say that it's most definitely anti-Americanism to blame a school shooting in Finland on the Americans.

The big news here in town is that Barcelona has been invaded by about 20,000 Glasgow Rangers fans, who are currently attempting to drain the city of beer in preparation for tonight's Champions League game against Barça. Only about 6000 of them have tickets. There was some hell-raising last night in Plaza Catalunya, with bottles being thrown around and three people injured, but nothing too serious.

The Barcelona press is playing up the hooligan stereotype, but most of these guys seem to me like fairly good-natured drunks. I doubt anything bad is going to happen; it seems to me like the British football scene has been cleaned up a good deal, with much less thuggery than there was fifteen or twenty years ago. This lot is here for a laugh, not a fight. Also, in order to afford to travel to Barcelona, you need to have a job, and people with jobs don't do too much serious rioting or vandalism.

TV3 is reporting that scalpers are selling tickets at €400 each.

Breaking story: Somebody in Finland got a gun and shot up a school, with at least two dead. The Spanish media is not churning out pieces questioning the violent basis of Finnish society.

They busted four junior terrorists this morning in San Sebastian, and the cops say that Segi, the current name of ETA's youth brigade, has been broken up in that city, at least for now. These guys are accused of torching city buses, sabotaging train lines, tossing Molotov cocktails at public buildings and bank branches, and starting riots after illegal pro-ETA demos, besides recruiting and indoctrinating new members. Lock them up and throw away the key.

I have been keeping track of real estate prices around here, and a three-bedroom place in Gracia has declined by about €25,000 in the last couple of months. They interviewed Leslie Crawford, a Financial Times reporter here in Barcelona, in La Vanguardia. She says Spain is going to have its own subprime mortgage crisis, since Spanish banks have been giving out shaky mortgages too, and the difference is that in America the banks sold off their debt in the secondary market, while in Spain they didn't. Also, in America only 13% of mortgages are considered to be subprime, but I have no idea what the percentage might be in Spain.

Crawford spoke at the big Barcelona Meeting Point real estate trade fair, and was roundly criticized by a couple of local developer big wheels for tossing freezing water on their already cooling market.

It doesn't help matters that the trade fair complex is right in the middle, both physically and chronologically, of the AVE-commuter trains construction mess. Which has a lot of people really angry. I think I already said that a few times. The level of pissed-offitude is tremendous, bigger than I've ever seen it, and this latest bungle comes on top of the blackout.

Montilla shot off his mouth again, demanding that the central government respond to the "anger, skepticism, and pessimism" of the Catalans. That's what we call passing the buck where I come from; Mr. Montilla, you are the regional premier, are you not? You are in charge here, are you not? Sure, the Zap government deserves some of the blame, and so do the various local administrations, but so do you.

This guy is a terrible spinner, a lousy vote-getter, Mr. Negative Charisma. He needs to stick to the backroom wrangling and stay out of the public eye, because he is so incredibly unconvincing as a leader. I prefer competence to charisma, and Mr. Montilla has shown little of either so far.

Get this. After years of bitching about the US being a police state spying on its own people and everybody else, the European Union has just decided that it is going to do exactly what Europeans have criticized so often. They are going to require airlines to turn over passenger data on flights entering or leaving the EU, just like the US (and Britain and France) already require. La Vanguardia says directly, "The system is based on the American PNR (Passenger Name Record) established after the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington."

The EU Commissioner for Justice, Security, and Freedom, Franco Frattini of Italy, also wants to restrict Internet use by terrorists. This would be a good idea if they wanted to MONITOR internet use and see who keeps googling "bin laden jihad kill kill kill" and creative stuff like that. However, Mr. Frattini wants to block Internet searches for such words as "bomb, murder, genocide, or terrorist." That might be going just a little too far.

The prosecutor's office wants to retry "the Egyptian," Rabei Osman el Sayed, who was acquitted at the 3-11 bombings trial of being one of the masterminds, on the ground that he is already serving a sentence in Italy for membership in a terrorist organization and so convicting him in Spain would be a double conviction for the same crime. The prosecutors do not buy this and are appealing to the Supreme Court. I say good for the prosecutors.

The Generalitat's health department is introducing how-to sex education for children as young as 10. They've published two comic-book guides "directed at an audience between 10 and 16 years old," and the Generalitat's Salut and Escola (Health and Schools) program is sending 400 nurses to tour Catalan schools and hold workshops and discussions with students aged 12 and 13. Now, I'm in favor of sex education for teenagers; hell, it should form part of every biology class. But I'm not sure ten-year-olds need brochures telling them, "Condoms allow us to enjoy and share our sexuality with security and tranquility," along with cartoon figures of a nude young girl with her arms around a boy in his boxer shorts asking themselves, "Will I know how to put it on right? Will I lose sensitivity? Will it break?"

Meanwhile, the Spanish government wants to ban spanking kids. Glad we've got our priorities straight.

Another boat people tragedy: Mauritanian authorities discovered a cayuco adrift between Africa and the Canaries with 55 survivors aboard. 45 others had died from hunger and thirst while the boat drifted for two weeks.

The Great Barcelona Public Transport Snafu will be celebrated until at least November 30, when they finally hope to have commuter train service back on line. That is, they didn't manage to fix it over the long weekend, and I'll bet they don't get it done by the end of November, either. Meanwhile, nobody knows when the AVE will actually go into service. I'm betting they try really hard to get it done before the March 9 election, and fail.

The employers' association estimates that the transport chaos is going to cost the local economy at least €208 million in lost business--and that's if they get the trains fixed by the end of November. €6.7 million a day.

In case you are coming to Barcelona, you need to know that most train lines, even long-distance, that run from Sants central station to the south and west have been cut off, and have been replaced by bus service. This includes the line to the airport, regional trains for Tarragona and Lleida, and several longer journeys as well. Call Renfe before you travel to find out what the deal on your train is. If arriving at the airport, I would just take the regular blue bus from in front of the terminals to Plaza Catalunya, and if there are two or more of you, catch a cab into town (it's about €25-30).

By the way, both Rajoy and Artur Mas of CiU are promising to privatize the airport. About time. Let's see what happens.

This whole mess is going to hurt the Socialists and the Tripartite come the election. The only question is how much.

So the King went to Ceuta yesterday, and he's going to Melilla today. In Ceuta they had a huge welcome--at least 30,000 of the city's 70,000 people turned out waving flags. There's no question that these folks are thrilled to be part of Spain rather than Morocco; Spain's per capita income is ten times higher, and the government is one hundred times better. Even with Zap as prime minister. The Spanish press says that the Moroccan government has behaved as expected, with the officially required protests but no long-term consequences.

The dust-up in Chad is still being played out. Sarkozy made a surprise flight to Chad and secured the release of the four Spanish flight attendants, along with three French journalists. I wonder how much the bribe was. The other three Spaniards in the airplane crew are still being held, along with representatives from the dodgy charity, Zoe's Ark, that tried to carry out this mission. The children being transported to France were not orphans, and were bandaged as if they had been wounded, which they hadn't been; the head of the charity admits this. Sarko made Zap look kind of like a dope, since Zap's diplomatic efforts to get the Spaniards freed have done no good at all.

Note: The other sleazy charity / NGO / whatever that's in trouble around here is Intervida, which also does business in the United States. They embezzled most of the contributions they received and spent the money investing in real estate, and some of those responsible are going on trial in Spain. However, they are continuing their operations in other countries, especially Central America. Here's their Spanish website; here's their American website; here's a story from El Pais with some of the details; and more; more; more; and more.

And the saga of the African boat people continues. Two cayucos with a total of 161 people on board were found off Tenerife yesterday. Fortunately no one in either group had died on the voyage, and all appeared to be in good health.

Sports update: Real Madrid coach Bernd Schuster (who is constantly whining about the referees, just like everyone else in Spanish football) put his foot in it Saturday night. After Madrid lost to Sevilla, he asked at a press conference, "Where is the referee from?" He got the answer, "He's Catalan," and Schuster responded, "Well, that explains it." Tasteless and stupid, as if Catalan refs were any different than any other refs.

One thing Americans don't get is the constant conspiracy-mindedness of Spanish soccer, in which every team is convinced the other 19 are in cahoots with the league office, the referees, the Bavarian Illuminati, and the Jesuits to steal the title away from them. Openly calling the referees cheaters and liars is not tolerated in the NFL, where everyone recognizes that it's in everyone's interest for the refs to be honest.

Barcelona beat Betis 3-0 on Sunday night, in a good game that saw Ronaldinho and Henry get back on track. Barça is only one point behind Real Madrid in the league standings.