I found this Council on Foreign Relations survey of Spain between Franco's death in 1975 and the last Felipe González administration in about 1994. It's a very good political, economic, and foreign policy summary of what happened during those years from a liberal American perspective. It's not too long, just over 100 pages, and it's titled The New Spain: From Isolation to Influence.

I figured out how to make the archives work. Took me a while.

Check out what the pro-Zap, "Fuck Bush" rag Publico has up today.

The headline is, "United States Threatens Earth," followed by, "An American spy satellite the size of a bus will crash into our planet on March 6. The fuel it is transporting is very toxic to humans. The US will try to destroy it before it enters into contact with any populated zones. This is not a movie."

Of the 29 comments, two are reasonable, twelve are off-topic, five are anti-Publico ("Is this a newspaper or a comic book?", "My ten-year-old daughter can write better"), and ten are obnoxiously anti-American. Check some of them out:

The USA is a danger to the planet both actively and passively. It starts illegal wars, massacres civilians, creates prisons without legal guarantees, manipulates elections in other countries, overthrows governments that it doesn't like, dedicates itself to deteriorating the ecosystem irreversibly...and now, "by accident," it threatens us with its space junk, which in addition is toxic.

Knowing what the Americans are like, I wouldn't be surprised if the next possibly black president ends up like JFK...And of course the US wants to recover it, of course, who knows what kind of shit it contains.

The US is so fucking disgusting! Too bad it won't fall on the White House! Now Dan Brown can write another book!!!! We'll see it from the positive side! God, what an awful country!

The US is a threat to the rest of the world? We've all known that for a long time.

When will we have a UNITED EUROPE? Together we can free ourselves from these people (BUSH, and a few others from the same photo). When they don't destroy us with WARS, they invent something to screw over humanity. It's their nature.

Who are they going to send to destroy their spy satellite? Bruce Willis?...Who cares if Hillary...Obama...Republicans or Democrats win? The USA's policies are worse than their movies.

Nobody relates it to China's antisatellite text last year or Putin's demand to prohibit anti-satellite systems? This is a military test, the Cold War for control of outer space has begun.

When China destroyed a satellite with a missile, it caught the Yankees with their pants down. They scare me with their invention that they have to blow up one of their satellites, why did it fail on them. And these people don't give a damn who their shit (excuse me) that they put up there falls on. What they are trying to do is catch up to the Third World technologically, which already has an advantage over them. Indian and Pakistani computer technicians, now Chinese too. Of course the fuel is nuclear. Dirty and harmful to life. They're arrogant bullies, who think they're the greatest thing in creation. Lord, forgive them, but I never will.

Want to see a few comments on waterboarding, which the United States used three times on three top terrorists, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and thousands of times on its own soldiers as part of training?

Bush should include himself on the list of most wanted terrorists.

Bush and his friend Aznar should be interrogated with this "method," I'm sure that in ten minutes they would admit all the crimes they have committed against humanity. Every day I am more sure that the majority of countries and international bodies are run by the psychopaths most dangerous to humanity.

Bush is the biggest son of a bitch that the United States has given birth to. Chavez is right to confront him and call him the devil, though the devil is much more worthy than Bush.

If we use this system on Bush maybe he'll tell us what really happened with the Twin Towers and the WTC.

I'd love to beat the shit out of Bush. Bush, you're a pig.

What can you expect from that NEOFASCIST?...You only have to inform yourself about Bush's grandfather's activities during the Second World War. Today in the USA there are 800!!! concentration camps, empty but ready to be used. It's a question of time...more and more greater restrictions on freedom and more media censorship.

There was also a long comment about Israel and the Zionists that didn't make much sense so I haven't reproduced it.

How about some comments on the Northern Illinois University shooting?

Every day we wake up with a similar story from the US, armed psychopaths who murder massively in schools, all a product of that warlike society full of weapons. This is the exemplary democracy that Aznar proposes for us.

If the rulers use torture, if they cause violence in half the world, their society will be the reflection of their insanity, ignominy, and failure as human beings.

Let's think a minute. What psychopath commits suicide? We know the MK-Ultra mental control program was used on many people. Now the Monarch program is even stronger and more diabolical. I remember that in the Virginia massacre there were many witnesses that didn't fit in with the official version. Doesn't it seem like a coincidence that, now that the army is more present in the streets of the USA, and there are people protesting, that these things happen? Reed the laws that the little king Bush has passed with the approval of the Congress and the Senate. And they want to go farther!

I don't care if they all put on jockstraps and have a civil war and all kill each other. I'd be thrilled if there were none left.

Reality is always better than fiction. The US exports the most powerful weapon it has internally: Imperial violence. So this shouldn't horrorize the world.

He who sows tempests...The USA is an insane country, there is no doubt.

You'd be surprised how many people around here obsess over the United States all the time. All these quotes are up on Publico's website today.

Latest election survey: The PP has cut back the Socialists' lead, according to the most recent poll taken by the CIS, the government polling agency, and why we need one I don't know. It's PSOE 40.2% and 155-163 seats, to PP 38.7% and 153-157 seats. Zap has lost his advantage, and the race is now too close to call. News: The Socialists in Catalonia have collapsed, from 37% of the vote to 27% in only three months. The blackout and the Great Transport Snafu have hurt them badly.

Among the smaller parties, CiU would get 10 seats, the PNV 7, ERC 6, IU 5 or 6, the BNG 2, CC 1 or 2, EA 1, and NB 1. 176 seats are needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies. These results would leave the Socialist-Communist-ERC Catalan Tripartite with only 173 seats at the most, not enough to put them over. A PSOE-CiU-PNV coalition would have between 172 and 180 seats, and might have to sign on IU as well in an "everybody against the PP" government. Even in the best-case scenario, a (highly unlikely) PP-CiU-PNV coalition would get only 174 seats, not enough.

Official figures: Inflation between January 2007 and 2008 increased by 4.3%, the highest rate since 1995. In 1996, by the way, Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez lost the general election. Voters don't like inflation.

Tragedy in Illinois: Five killed and sixteen wounded in a shooting at Northern Illinois University near Chicago.

Of the first 43 comments on La Vanguardia's website, 32 were more or less reasonable, including of course the posts in favor of more gun control in the US. Eleven of them were not reasonable. Here they are:

How strange that all the mass killers in the USA end up committing suicide. Here in Spain we put them in jail. The Yankees are quick on the trigger.

This is no more than the dark, sinister trend that the Americans have brought with them for many years: murdering, killing, jailing, torturing, and creating and fomenting fictitious wars over the whole planet. The US must be the place with most terrorists and psychopaths per square meter, legal and illegal, from the state or the street, but in the US terror never goes out of fashion. That's the way they are!

We'll see what happens when the thousands of alienated mercenaries sent to the confines of the USA empire come home. That will be genuinely American terrorism.

The American Constitution, such an ancient document that it still includes laws in favor of slavery, should not be a reference in any society today. The love of the American constitution is part of the lie that you have sold yourselves. God Bless America!!! (sic)

Let's remember that a firearm has only one purpose...a society protected by impunity in their use is a society of terror...and though it existed before, Bush's oppressive and paranoid policies are bad for his citizens' health.

The United States is a puerile country of degenerates. I often wonder why we try to copy them. They're pathetic.

In the United States (what a decadent country!) this kind of accidents have been trendy for too long. It has become fashionable to murder in schools or universities. What is happening is proportionately caused by the industrial quantities of violent degenerates and psychopathic ex-soldiers that exist in that country. Besides, they make it easier than any other place in the world to have firearms. No comment. (sic)

The US is Paradise for violent people, and the biggest nest of psychopaths and extreme degenerates. Not surprising, since it is currently the country that uses state terrorism with the most vehemence, and in the end everyone gets what he deserves.

The Americans have a degenerate society. It is capitalism, let's see who is most powerful, let's see who can get more profits out of everyone else no matter how. The result is a broad base of a frustrated society anxious for revenge.

I've already said it many times, they're all crazy.

Money doesn't even mean that they have fewer illiterate or malnourished people than Cuba.

Thanks for the sympathy and the high regard for the lives of others!

So today TV3 kicks off its afternoon news with a story on how concerned parents and teachers are about--get this--American pro wrestling on TV. (For some reason, they call it "pressing catch" over here. I have absolutely no idea why.) Seems that some idiot kids have been imitating the pro wrestlers, so everybody panic.

Tney don't get pro wrestling over here; as a non-fan, I have to say I really don't get it myself. You have to look at it as what it is: theater. Everything happens according to a script, and the characters (the good guy, the bad guy, the bad guy's evil minions) and their motives (revenge, loyalty, determination) are archetypal. The characters are placed in a situation in which there's a winner and a loser, while actually doing complicated acrobatics, and the whole thing is played as way-over-the-top camp. You're not supposed to take it seriously, and they announce on the program that you shouldn't try this yourself at home. Anyway, it's certainly no worse than the violent Japanese TV cartoons they show in Spain.

And let's not come down too hard on the Americans here; Mexican pro wrestling is even cheesier.

A paragraph from today's La Vanguardia, on the 50,000 attendees at the mobile phone trade fair in town right now:

Taxi drivers, who are not always good sources of information, in this case have a good X-ray of the fair visitors. Of course, they live off fairs and the business they bring, and those who come here in search of shopping and fun.

"The people who come to the Bread & Butter (fashion show) go out to discos. Dancing, drinking, and partying to the max. The Construmat (construction) people like to go whoring. They're the ones who we make the most money from thanks to the commissions we get from the brothels, above all those on the Castelldefels highway. The Alimentaria (food) people too, but not as much. They waste too much time in restaurants. And the ones at the mobile phones fair are the most bourgeois (pijo). I just took four of them over to the Sagrada Familia. It was 11 PM and I told them it was closed, but they didn't care. I showed them cards from some girlie bars on Calle Siguès, but they weren't interested."

I hate squatters.

They painted graffiti all over my street last night, including such socially advanced slogans as "One squat closed down, eight cops crippled," "Closing down squats = riots," "Cops get out," "Burn down Barcelona," "Death to capitalism," and, on the Caixa de Manlleu branch office, "Speculators! Rob this bank!"

So the City Hall streets brigade is out this morning painting over all that crap.

These squatters are middle-class punks playing revolutionary, and when they get out of control, somebody gets hurt, like the policeman they put in a coma last year when they smashed him in the head with a rock.

Terrorist update: The Basque regional police arrested three Islamists in Vitoria last night on suspicion of recruiting jihadis, raising money, and spreading propaganda among the local Muslims.

Meanwhile, the banned ETA-front party Batasuna called a general strike today in Vizcaya province, and they are holding illegal demos that have not yet turned into riots. Thirteen people have been arrested so far for blocking traffic. Good. Why don't they do that more often? Of course, the majority of Basque workers are not following the strike.

Speaking of strikes, today the public school teachers are out, and I can't figure out why. It has something to do with "defending public education," but for the life of me I don't get what they're all mad about. Probably it has something to do with making them responsible for their work.

This, of course, is a big mess because the teachers' unions told parents to keep their kids at home today. That means everybody who has kids needs to find some way to take care of them while working today.

Major difference between the US and Spain: From what I know, in the US labor-management negotiations are tried first, and then if they can't make a deal they go on strike. In Spain, first they go on strike, and then they negotiate, and then they go on strike again, and so on.

The wave of strikes, of course, was timed to come right before the election, on the logic that you're more likely to get what you want from the government if you put pressure on it when election time comes around, expecially if your strike seriously inconveniences the citizens in general.

Zap did an interview with pro-Socialist talk-show host Iñaki Gabilondo last night on Cuatro, the TV station owned by Prisa. Zap didn't say much of anything, but right after the interview ended, Gabilondo asked Zap off the air what the Socialists' surveys predicted. This was a much more interesting question than any of those he asked during the interview. Anyway, somebody left a microphone on, and everybody heard Zap's response, "Fine, but it helps us if there is tension." That is, he's in favor of open political conflict with the PP in order to stir up the citizens and make them angry in order to bring out the Socialist vote. Major case of foot-in-mouth disease. That's our Zap.

Official figures: Spain's GDP growth in 2007 was 3.8%, which is pretty good though it does show a slowdown in the fourth quarter. The National Statistics Bureau predicts slower growth in the next couple of quarters, but nothing near a recession.

That dope Joan Saura told El Periodico that the speed limit "in the entire United States, even in the desert" was 90 kph, or 55 mph. Uh, actually, no, they changed that law back in 1987, and there are places where it is 80 mph, or 130 kph. For a while in the '90s Montana had a "reasonable and prudent" speed limit on the Interstate.

Development minister Maleni Alvarez announced that the Barcelona-Madrid AVE (high-speed train) will enter service on February 20, nineteen days before the general election. A round-trip BCN-Madrid ticket will cost €163. This had better be true, because if it's not it will make everyone in Barcelona even less trustful of the Socialists. There's still anger over last summer's Great Barcelona Blackout and this winter's Great Transport Snafu, and the lousy government response to them.

Campaign promise update: Zap promised to give monthly checks of €300-500 to 400,000 poor families with children; he also promised to bring dental care for children between 7 and 12 under National Health coverage. The PP promised to bring dental care for everybody under the National Health, starting with children and old folks, within eight years.

A bunch of student wannabe radicals screaming "Terrorist!" and "Fascist!" tried to attack the Basque PP leader, Maria San Gil, who spoke at the University of Santiago, and managed to get into it with her bodyguards and the police detail. Of course, no arrests were made. I hate these stupid punks who interfere with other people's freedom of speech.

The level of confrontation in Spanish politics is extremely high, unthinkable even in the United States. It's not at all unusual for Spanish politicians to call one another anti-democratic fascists or supporters of terrorism, and even normally responsible people like Pere Macias of CiU accuse their opponents of trying to start another civil war.

(By the way, don't ask me how I know, but I have reliable firsthand information that Pere Macias is a complete asshole in his personal life. On the other hand, Jordi Portabella of ERC is a good guy even though he is a political idiot.)

The European Union is going to require that foreigners entering be fingerprinted, exactly as in the US. I remember the hooting and hollering about the right to privacy and the repressive police state that went on over here when the Americans established the fingerprinting requirement; interesting that there isn't any of it when Europe does the same. Oh, by the way, I'm in favor of the measure, of course.

The bus drivers' strike yesterday jammed up the city even worse than expected, since they got together and blocked off the Via Laietana between 1 and 3 PM, thereby depriving the citizens of their right to use the public highway that their taxes pay for. No arrests were made, of course, though they came close to getting into it with the cops, and witnesses report skirmishes and several injuries. The drivers say they'll strike between March 3 and 7, and they'll go out every Thursday until their demands are met.

The doctors also struck yesterday because they claim to be overworked (which they are), and so 25,000 patients' appointments had to be rescheduled. That's the way to reduce overcrowding.

El Pais reports that Spanish consumers failed to pay back €11.5 billion worth of debt in 2007, a 40% increase over the previous year.

As you know, McCain and Obama went three-for-three yesterday, though the Democratic race is wide-open until Texas and Ohio vote. Mike Huckabee needs to do what Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani did: sit down, shut up, and get behind the party's candidate.

You'll want to check out this excellent special report from the Economist on the American South. Europeans especially might be interested in a friendly but critical review of what's going on down there. (Note: Click "next page" at the bottom for more stories; there are about eight.)

I'm from a Southern family but spent most of my childhood in the North and Midwest, so I've always been ambivalent about the South, and when we lived in Dallas for a couple of years I was out and out hostile. I still can't stand a lot of things about that city. I can really do without the guns and Jesus stuff that's so common down South.

One of the interesting quotes in the report, though, is from a Northerner in Atlanta who suspects that many of the things he likes about the South (I assume he means that the people tend to be friendlier and more honest, and that the lifestyle is more relaxed) are partially due to the religious conservatism of many Southerners. I also thought the joke, "You might be a redneck if you have six patents and they all feature the words "hunting dog" in the disclosure documents," was pretty good.

The nasty racism that I remember in East Texas seems to be way down twenty-five years later, since a lot of the old racist folks have died off and the younger ones are comparatively free of that particular sin.

I hate Southern cooking, by the way, except for Louisiana food, which doesn't have much to do with what they eat in the rest of the South. Too greasy and too sweet. Being a vegetarian doesn't help; they can screw up vegetables quite easily. Note that in the report, Cracker Barrel, Waffle House, and KFC are named as successful Southern restaurant chains. Coincidentally, they're also the top three restaurant chains on my "Do Not Want" list.

The bus drivers are out on strike today, and there will be no service until 5 PM. Also, the doctors at the National Health general-practice clinics (CAPs) are out on strike today, 8 AM to 8 PM. They have a legitimate complaint: they're overworked and underfunded. But denying people medical help for a day isn't the way to change things. Meanwhile, 51,000 people in Spain are awaiting elective surgery. And, to top it off, the public school teachers are going out on Thursday, the 14th.

Of course, they picked the best day possible for a transport strike, since 50,000 people are in town for the mobile-phone trade fair and convention. Some hotels, meanwhile, have tripled their prices. This makes our city look real good in their eyes, and they'll want to come back!

Campaign promise update: Rajoy said he'd hire 30,000 new cops. Rubalcaba said Zap would hire 15,000 new cops to add to the 15,000 they already claim to have hired.

Zap claimed he'd never smoked a joint. I don't know whether the admission will help him or hurt him.

That loudmouthed idiot Pere Macias (of the normally responsible CiU) said that the PP's proposal that all students in Spain should study at least partly in Spanish "might cause a civil war during the next generation." Spanish rule of politics Number One: When in doubt, make catastrophic predictions to frighten the voters.

You probably remember that the PSOE did an excellent propaganda job several years ago when the oil tanker Prestige sank off the coast of Galicia and caused a medium-sized oil spill. Though the ship wasn't Spanish, and the Aznar government had no responsibility for the fact that it sank where it did, the Socialists managed to blame the PP for the accident.

Now it looks like the PP has a chance to turn the tables. A ship called the New Flame, that got stuck off Gibraltar seven months ago, has started leaking oil, which has covered the harbor of Algeciras, including the beaches. Zap's response? Complain to the British ambassador. It seems to me that the Zap administration is directly responsible, since they did nothing to get the ship safely to shore. I would absolutely hammer Zap's eco-credentials over this one.

Spanish troops killed a man in Afghanistan: a car refused to stop at a roadblock, and they fired at it and killed him. Good. They did their job. Now let's see if the Spaniah press reacts as it would if it had been an American platoon. I bet they don't.

They're having a big fashion show in Madrid. What made the international news was that they dismissed three models for being too anorexic. I don't know, they all look pretty anorexic to me.

The American primary elections are at the center of international news in Spain. The Hillary-Obama race has caught everyone's attention, to the point that the media's been paying too little attention to the Republicans, who have an excellent chance to win in November.

To recap: It seems that Hillary has support among white women, lower-income voters, and Hispanics, while Obama has support among white men, middle-income voters, younger voters, and blacks.

The Democratic race is nowhere near over; Obama should win today's primaries in Maryland, Virginia, and DC, but Hillary's not out of it even though she's fired her campaign manager and "lent" her own campaign $5 million, both of which are bad signs. The Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4 ought to be decisive, and if Obama wins both of those states it's all over. If not, Pennsylvania on April 22 may be the decider. Of course, this is great for the Republicans, with the Dems shooting themselves in the foot by attacking one another.

Andy Robinson gets a page 4 story in La Vanguardia to inform us that if Europeans are anti-American, then it's the Americans' own fault and especially George W. Bush's. Andy says that the United States's "brand equity" is declining, and adds in a snotty aside, "Although consumers from Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, and other countries might disagree, the United States had accumulated a considerable quantity of brand equity." I was actually under the impression that the United States had a comparatively good reputation in those places, since folks there have actually seen what the alternative is.

Meanhile, Pilar Rahola has a pro-Hillary screed in which she calls Obama empty and idea-less, which is true. She takes a shot at Euro Yankee-bashers, though:

We Europeans are experts at the art of getting the wrong candidate in the US elections. We massively applauded the candidacy of Senator John Kerry, despite the evidence of his probable failure. For Europeans, he represented the acceptable American, more cultured, better-mannered, better-read, more fashion (sic) than that Texan Bush, and therefore one of us. Besides, the Hollywood actors and the rock stars backed him, and that was enough to raise our silliness several levels.

...Nevertheless, fooled by Michael Moore's tendentious propaganda (the one who flies to anti-system conferences in his private plane), we decided that the electoral result had no contextual explanation, but rather that the Americans were very, very bad people and they had all become religious fanatics. And so we were happy in our contempt, since we all know that our conceited European superiority complex regarding the Yankees soothes our unconfessable inferiority complex. In reality, we are dying with envy, and that is why we need to point the finger at them in order to maintain our injured dignity.

Now it is happening again, this time in its flower (sic) version. Every self-respecting European is thrilled with Barack Obama, considers that Hillary Clinton is a genuine product of the system (as if Obama were not also part of it), and drools at the thought of his entering the White House.

A lot of people around here who I've talked to actually think that Obama is some kind of radical candidate. I had some guy tell me yesterday evening that Obama was going to reduce the power of the big corporations. I have no idea which idiot media outlet he got that from.

More good news from the anti-ETA front: Judge Garzon ordered 14 members of the new board of directors of the illegal ETA front-party Batasuna to be rounded up on charges of collaboration with a terrorist organization. Spain has the equivalent of a RICO law; that is, being part of a group that is declared illegal is, in itself, against the law. They are squashing ETA's infrastructure, and there is absolutely no way any of ETA's front parties are going to be able to run in the election.

One reason this is important is because Spain's genius campaign finance laws (which every party breaks and which causes lots of corruption) offer government campaign subsidies to political parties--so if an ETA-front party manages to get itself on the ballot, then it gets our tax money! And you know whose hands that campaign finance money ends up in.

This is a stunt that is often resorted to by a notorious South American cult, the Siloists, also known as the Humanist Movement. These guys set up something called the Humanist Party, whose goal is to get the free TV advertising and campaign finance subsidies to spread its guru's message. Once they actually set up something called the Green Ecologist Party and got like 20,000 votes, due to the confusion between their front group and the other (slightly less offensive) Green parties.

I personally would remove all limits on political campaign spending and donations, as it seems to me that you ought to be able to give as much money as you want to your candidate of choice, and that candidate ought to be able to spend as much money as he can get on his campaign. To keep things honest, simply require all donations over, say, $1000, to be announced at a weekly public press conference.

And I would bloody well get rid of anything even resembling a government subsidy for anything even resembling a political party, and that includes activist groups, so-called NGOs, and alleged think tanks and "educational" foundations.

Terrorist news: US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in Munich, "The Barcelona cell (broken up last month) seems to be part of the terrorist network run by Baitullah Mehsud, an extremist leader based in Pakistan and linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, whom we suspect of being implicated in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto." Good thing they got these guys before they blew anything up.

The pro-ETA crowd came out in Bilbao this afternoon and held an illegal demo that turned into a riot, cars overturned and garbage skips burned. They even torched a bus. The cops thumped 'em good. Go Cops! Three arrests were made, which doesn't seem like nearly enough to me. The rioters are angry because Judge Garzon has prohibited their front-parties from running in the March 9 election.

Three douchebags had themselves a neo-Nazi demonstration in front of the synagogue in the Call, Barcelona's old Jewish quarter just off the Plaza Sant Jaume, back in July 2006. Among other things, they made threats and incited to violence, which isn't free speech, it's a crime. So they finally got around to arresting them, only a year and a half late.

The bus drivers say they're going back on strike, and the metro workers are going to do the same. That ought to screw up the city real good and stress out all the rest of us.

Not much campaign news. Zap's trying to identify Rajoy with the Iraq war and the Church, and run against that. Rajoy is trying to hit on a hot-button issue, and he thinks he's found one with immigration, while he identifies Zap with the economic slump. It's not really an edifying spectacle. At least they've both quit making wild promises, for now anyway.

There's a tremendous amount of interest over here in the American primary elections, and for once some of the commentary heard in the streets and cafés is positive. The Spaniards like the idea of voting in primaries for the candidates of each party, since right now the candidates are chosen by small groups of party insiders. They're confused by a lot of things about the American system; what they find especially strange is that the presidential election isn't related to whoever wins the most seats in Congress.

Other strange stuff for them: You vote for more than one office in the US elections, and so you can split your ticket, vote for candidates of more than one party on the same ballot. There's no proportional representation in the US, which means there aren't any small fringe parties in Congress. The two main parties are wide-ranging coalitions of several groups, and so it's not unusual for a congressman to vote against the leadership of his own party. They also think it's funny that we have sheriffs, which they identify with Western movies, and that it's an elective post.

Barcelona played badly last night in Sevilla, but got out with a 1-1 draw on a goal by Xavi. They looked slow and out of shape. The defense was atrocious, with both Oleguer and Thuram starting. Ronaldinho came out in the second half but didn't do much, though the quality of play did improve a bit. Sevilla's got a kid named Diego Capel at left wing who is going to be very good. He ate Oleguer's lunch. Oleguer, by the way, might be sold to Lazio, which would be hilarious, the Cataloony Commie pro-squatter idiotarian playing for the most openly Fascist fan base in the world.

Spanish champagne Communist actor Javier Bardem, of the notorious Bardem family, won some award from something called the New York Critics' Circle. He plays "a monstrous, unscrupulous being who freezes the blood of the spectators"--seems the movie he's in is a bit violent. So get this: he claimed that he got the inspiration to act the part of a psychopathic killer "from President Bush."

La Vanguardia wonders whether Academy Awards voters will hold Bardem's valiant statement against him when that vote comes out. Hell, no, this is Hollywood we're talking about. He's just won himself some bonus points.

By the way, I'm boycotting the movie because I'm not going to give Bardem any of my money. Instead, for the first time ever, I'm going to pirate it.

More Spanish leftist media silliness: Check out this Socialist campaign video, featuring the usual suspects, all of whose careers saw better days about thirty years ago: Sabina, Bosé, Serrat, Victor Manuel and Ana Belen, and the rest of that lot. They've come up with the dorkiest, most retarded hand gesture ever to show their undying support for Zap. I think they're trying to imitate Zap's pointy, Dracula-like eyebrows, but they look like a bunch of dopes. Get this: El Mundo says the alleged artists involved are "doing things the American way." I don't think any bunch of American singers, even if it included Jackson Browne, would ever do anything so uncool in public.

Campaign rhetoric: Looks like Rajoy has hit a popular nerve with his declaration that immigrants should have to sign some kind of contract in order to stay in Spain. As an immigrant, I'm in favor; Rajoy's proposal wouldn't force people to do anything outlandish, but it would require them to learn Spanish and not cut off their daughters' clitorises. Zap's comeback was weak; he claimed that Rajoy's statement was an insult to immigrants, which this idea is not. Anyway, it looks like the PP has found an issue.

There's been some talk that Zap should have called elections for last fall, before the economic slump began. Now, the slump hasn't been too bad thus far, and it's mostly due to the standard business cycle, not Zap's policies. Still, he should have known a slowdown was coming, planned accordingly, and dissolved parliament back in about September.

Judge Garzon "suspended the activities" of the ETA front parties ANV and PCTV, making sure that they won't be able to run in the March 9 general election.

ETA set off a fifteen-kilo bomb in front of the courthouse in Vergara, in the Basque country. No one was injured, fortunately. Serious material damage was done.

The first high-speed train did its test run into Sants station in Barcelona yesterday, so they may actually have it up and running by election time. The question is whether that will help or hurt--it may remind people of the whole Great Transport Snafu.

Bad simile department: The guy in La Vanguardia reporting on the space shuttle launch said that the flames of the rocket lifting off were the color of gazpacho.

Drudge is reporting that Mitt Romney is going to pull out of the race for the Republican nomination, though Mike Huckabee says that he's still in. Whatever. McCain is clearly the nominee now, no question. Now let's see the conservative wing of the Republicans prove they're adults who can handle losing. With all due respect, the moderate wing got one of our guys in this time, and it's time for you to suck it up, do your duty, and back the party's candidate.

Another case of minority political groups in Catalonia blocking progress: CiU and ERC have decided they're against the high-speed train's passing through a tunnel under Barcelona. Jeez, people, minority groups have been blocking the route of the AVE through Catalonia for years. Not to mention the expansion of the airport, an exurban highway loop around the outer edge of the metro area, the electrical hookup with the French power grid, the water plan to send Ebro water south and bring Rhone water here, and about eighteen other useful projects that make a lot more sense than subsidizing movies no one will ever see.

Campaign promise update: Rajoy says he's going to deport foreign citizens who commit crimes in Spain. Sounds good to me, but I think he's going to have to change the penal code to do that, and another penal code change seems unlikely so soon after the last one. Zap said such a change was unnecessary, leading to the question of: so why aren't foreign criminals being deported, since the streets of Barcelona are full of them? Also, Rajoy promised to plant five million trees, for whatever that's worth.

The Ibex 35 was down 0.9% at midday, below 13,000 points. The European Central Bank is holding the line on interest rates at 4%. Banco Santander earned €9 billion in profits in 2007, up 19% over 2006, which is good news for the shareholders.

Contradiction: La Vanguardia headlines, "Lack of connections at El Prat airport puts brakes on growth of tourism," and "Barcelona to increase hotel capacity by 10% in 2008." Right next to one another. Well, which one is it? And, of course, if there is a market for more flignts to Barcelona, some smart airline is going to start providing them, no? If Clickair has cut its number of Barcelona flights, it just might be because the market's saturated, and they were losing money on them.

Meanwhile, the Barcelona hotel owners' association criticized the high rate of crimes against tourists, and the lack of lighting in the streets. Seems to me this ought to be a top priority for the city government, right? I mean, you improve Barcelona's reputation for safety from crime (which is lousy), more tourists are going to come, and there'll be more demand for flights and hotel rooms and all of that, no? Arresting and deporting the dirtbags who prey on both tourists and locals would improve everyone's quality of life immeasurably.

La Vanguardia online's readers' poll: "Should the Circuit de Catalunya (the Montmeló racetrack) be sanctioned because of the racist insults against Hamilton?" 1329 persons voted. 34% said Yes, 65% said No.

El Pais has a depressing summary of the Hamilton flap, titled, "I'm not racist, but you're a fucking nigger (negro de mierda)":

...There is an essential explanation, deeper and more profound, that changes the crudity of insults into other things. "They are trying to offend and hurt the rival. There is no deep-seated racism," said the veteran researcher and sociologist Juan Díez Nicolás. These subtleties are not appreciated in other European countries, especially in the United Kingdom, where the affair is still one of the top stories of the week, and has produced shock and indignation. "Racism is under debate in Spanish sports, and this reflects on the whole society," rotundly declared the BBC.

In Spain, certainly, it is seen in a different way. "This is not discriminating against anyone because of his race," says one of the psychologists consulted, and it is the diagnosis of most of the implicated parts of society. In this case, she says, the outburst meant. "He is the rival of Fernando Alonso, and treated him badly and disloyally last year when they were on the same team."

"So why didn't they just directly call him a bastard?" wondered the Guardian correspondent Paul Hamelos, both offended and surprised, who reached the zenith of his confusion and perplexity when an Administration official argued the excuse that it was Carnival. "Carnival!" he repeated, between anger and incredulity. Some of those who insulted the Englishman had their faces painted black, wigs with curly hair, and T-shirts with the sentence "Hamilton's family" on the front. It was a day for dressing up, "and the English don't understand that."

"Spain is not racist, all the studies show that," said the sociologist Diaz Nicolas. It's something else. "It's a lack of imagination, and troublemaking. It's not right. That's clear, but let's not confuse matters. It's as if they called someone Fatty or Shorty," says this professor.

That's a bunch of crap, because no one has ever been enslaved and brutalized because of his height or weight. Millions of people were bought and sold and put to forced labor during hundreds of years because they were black, and all of Western Europe is guilty, including Spain. Black people are justifiably particularly angered by racist insults, since those insults imply that blacks are less than human and deserve to be treated as inferiors.

At a deeper level, the analysis of several British professors cited by the Times calls Spanish society "not racist, but inexperienced in living together with immigrants." And this, they say, makes people "see insults regarding skin color lightly and indulgently." According to this thesis, Spaniards aren't more racist than anyone around them, but they have less experience in dealing with different people and the subtleties that entails. To the point that the Spaniards do not know how to calibrate the importance of these insults.

Yeah, that was one of my theses the other day: Spaniards don't have much of an idea of what offends people of other nationalities, and they often act like they don't particularly care.

Sectors linked to the Zapatero administration wonder why the Spanish government does not either complain about or demand apologies for the behavior of the notorious British hooligans when a team from the Isles plays in Spain. "We don't say that the English are drunken vandals because some of their football fans are," they insist, in a rather nationalist manner. Definitely, they state that the English "are exaggerating" about this question, a maximalism whipped up by the sensationalist tradition of part of their media.

"Are we minimizing it or are they maximizing it?" wonder high officials in the Spanish administration. Ibarra said, without a doubt, the former. "The official message for years and years has been that this is not increasing, and that they are just a few isolated cases. and this is false." According to Ibarra, the number of racist incidents in Spain has grown to the point of affecting 200 towns througout the country.

Let's see. The British are hypocrites? Check. The British are drunken hooligans? Check. Hamilton deserved it? Check. Controversy stirred up by British press? Check. We're not racists no matter what you say? Check. The insults are no big deal? Check.

Looks like McCain is going to be the Republican candidate; I just hope he doesn't pick Huckabee as his veep. Romney would be fine, so would Giuliani. The conservative wing of the Reps is grumbling, but they'll get in line, they have nowhere else to go. Unless Ron Paul splits the party and runs as an independent, which has to be the Republican nightmare. As for the Dems, it's still up in the air. Let's hope Hillary and Obama go down to the wire, sniping at one another all the way, and that the convention ends up being brokered. That'll piss off either Hillary's base, middle-class white women, or Obama's base, blacks, and hopefully reduce Democratic turnout big-time.

La Vanguardia's coverage is again complete: a front-page headline and photo, and the first four pages of the international section. Not even Andy Robinson is especially offensive; of course, he called the California primary wrong, predicting that Obama would win because of the youth vote. The fact that his story is bylined "Berkeley" might have something to do with his misjudgment.

Judge Andreu of the National Court has charged 40 members of the current Rwandan Tutsi government with genocide and crimes against humanity during the Congo War, along with the murder of nine Spanish citizens between 1994 and 2000. He has issued international arrest warrants for them. My reaction: 1) Isn't this extraterritoriality, which the Spaniards always criticize when we lock up bad guys at Guantanamo? 2) Did Spain ever charge any of the Hutus, the group that started the mass violence, with genocide? 3) I am all in favor of punishing butchers and murderers, no matter who they are, but it seems to me that military force will be needed to get these guys out of Rwanda. Who is going to provide that military force?

The Ibex 35 was up 1.4% at midday, led by the utilities, so the market hasn't crashed on us yet. The other European markets are showing very slight gains.

That old fraud the Maharishi finally croaked, outliving two of the Beatles.

Survey: 86% of Spanish men say that if they had an affair they wouldn't tell their wives. News: 14% of Spanish men are so dumb that they would tell their wives if they'd cheated on them.

Pronunciation guide for Europeans: Arkansas is "Ar-kun-SAW." Kansas is "KAN-zus." Houston is "YOO-stun." New Orleans is "New ORE-lins." Chicago is "Shih-CAH-go." Cleveland is two syllables: "CLEEV-lund." Miami is "My-AH-mee." Ohio is "Oh-HY-oh." Iowa is "AY-oh-wuh." Detroit is two syllables: "Duh-TROYT." Idaho is "AY-duh-ho." Seattle is "See-AT-tul." Memphis is "MEM-fis." (Not "Mehn-fees.") Delaware is "DELL-uh-wear."

Oh, Lordy, the stock market's taken another dive, this time down 5.2% to 12,800 points late this afternoon. The construction firms did worse than average, and the blue chips fell less than average. La Vanguardia blames it on Wall Street's 2% decline. The other big European markets were down about 3%.

32,000 real-estate agencies closed down in Spain during 2007, which is 40% of the total. Most of these were shoestring speculative one-person shops that thought the boom would go on forever.

Food prices in 2007: through the roof. Sunflower oil went up 34%, milk 25%, flour 22%, chicken 16%, pasta 16%, onions 15%, bananas 13%, eggs 11%, and sardines 10%.

We're definitely having a major drought, despite Sunday's rain, and the water restrictions the Generalitat told us wouldn't be needed are going into effect: no more watering gardens or filling swimming pools with drinkable water. They're already working on getting tankers to deliver water from the Rhone and from desalinizing plants, and they're also going to reopen a bunch of old wells closed down years ago.

Judge Garzon charged the president of the ETA-front party ANV, along with two other party leaders, with collaboration with a terrorist gang and conspiracy. This is apparently a necessary legal step previous to banning the party and prohibiting it from running in the March 9 election.

Here's a good one. Something called the Barcelona Observatorio came out with a quality of life ranking for world cities and guess what? Barcelona came out on top! Number One! King of the hill, cream of the crop, top of the heap! For the tenth year in a row!

Here's TV3's story on the Lewis Hamilton incident:

In England they did not like it at all when a handful of fans shouted at Lewis Hamilton during last weekend's training sessions at Montmeló, and the wave of denuncistions of racism that has appeared in the British press is threatening a diplomatic conflict. The English government does not seem happy with the apologies given by the racetrack's management nor with the censure of the FIA, and has called for the suspension of the Grand Prix of Catalonia.

Lewis Hamilton is a hero in England because he was supposed to take over from Damon Hill, the most recent English Formula 1 champion in 1996. His not winning the world championship was an authentic national tragedy, and they have not liked at all the fact that a handful of fans received him at Montmeló with signs, chants, insults, and racist attacks.

The English press, the first in feeding the flames of the Hamilton-Alonso rivalry, has accused Spain of racism, recalling episodes like Luis Aragones insulting Henry or the chants against Eto'o in Zaragoza, and has mounted a campaign to censure the intolerable conduct of a few fanatics.

The racetrack had already done everything possible to put an end to such conduct--they confiscated banners, prevented hostilities against Hamilton from the stands, and expelled fans--and official bodies have criticized it rotundly, but in England they are still denouncing the attack suffered by Hamilton above and beyond the sporting rivalry with the Spanish champion.

Because of this, the British sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, announced yesterday that he would send a letter to the FIA and the Spanish government prpopsing the cancellation of the Grand Prix of Catalonia, while demanding that steps be taken to combat the xenophobic campaign that Lewis Hamilton is the victim of.

Even TV3 is blaming this mess on the sensationalistic English press who are out to get Alonso; it claims that the British minister's anger is due to the media coverage and not to the racist insults, it whitewashes the performance of the track management, it chalks British irritation up to rivalry between fans rather than disgust at racism, it downplays the character of the insults (they were dressed up like monkeys yelling "fucking nigger" at him), it shifts the focus from Catalonia to Spain as a whole, and it falsely claims that only a few people were guilty of the insults when large parts of the crowd were.

There are four comments. One blames the English press and its hidden interests; one says the incident was no big deal; one calls the English hypocritical drunken hooligans; and the last blames the English press and says any anger is due to Hamilton's losing out last year.

I've examined the first 206 comments in La Vanguardia's online story on the Lewis Hamilton flap, and they're generally pretty depressing. I didn't classify all of them, but I did divide them into nine categories. Some of them fit into more than one category, so I chose the one that seemed most definite. Here are the results:

Reasonable responses: 16

Now into the cesspool.

The British are hypocrites: 29
The British are all drunken hooligans: 14
Catalans are not racist / The racists must be Castilians: 26
Hamilton is a jerk and deserved it: 11
General anti-British: 9
The controversy has been stirred up to benefit hidden interests: 7
Everybody's racist, not just us: 5
It's no big deal: 9

Here are a few individual examples:

Cat: If the Spanish supporters of Alonso cannot behave themselves, they should stay at home. In Catalonia we respect people and hate all kinds of racism. England should not confuse Spain and Catalonia. Catalonia is different in all ways.

Bob: Hamilton = Hypocrite Perfidious (British) Press = Superhypocrites Am I racist? So what.

Jordi: Who are the English to give us lessons about manners and behavior? They're a public danger every time they leave their country, a gang of drunks who do nuthing but drink and start fights: the great majority of them are trash; this is the pot calling the kettle black.

SentidoComun: Enough of this racism nonsense, they insult his color because it is a distinguishing characteristic, they could also call him Shorty because he's short or Baldy because he doesn't have much hair, racism is something different. Besides, these English are still killing Iraqis to steal their oil, and they get excited because a few morons dialectically attack a young millionaire. Crazy.

Pable: In Panama it is the same. Blacks with British surnames who were brought to dig the canal are angry and violent, not so the ones with Spanish surnames. Everywhere the british have gone, the blacks are angry, look and see if it's like that in Brazil. Don't cry about how people are treated in Spain, I was treated worse in Nigeria.

Carlos: These English are too fucking much, they have their minister intervene over a few insults, and when their holligan (sic) go around European cities cracking skulls and destroying the city, they don't give a shit. They should worry about their own dear compatriots. A public person like Halmiton (sic) shouldn't give a crap what they call him. Let it be clear that I'm against insults, as I am against the federation's favoritism toward that gentleman.

Antonio: Since last year they didn't get the f1 world championship even by discriminating against Alonso for not being British, and fearing that this year Hamilton won't win either, now they're trying to close down Spanish racetracks? Is there a people more racist than the English?

Eoneguin: Racism is a natural condition among human beings. Blacks are, even more among themselves. Arabs are, a lot. Asians are, in the most cruel way. And we whites have to feel guilty. Besides, what happened to "Chocolate Milk" was just kidding, at worst a joke in bad taste.

Ironico: The English are going to give us classes in morality, living together, racism, manners, and respect to countries like Spain? If England has been characterized by anything in its history, it is not the things listed above. They only care about being the center of the world. Maybe they should begin to set an example that they have changed and give back Gibraltar. Anyway, in my opinion, fuck them!

Axel_T: The English newspapers who are causing this kerfuffle are the sensationalist press, they are not serious, let us do the same thing, if it bothers them that a few guys paint their faces black for Carnival, fuck them!

Destroyer: If the English have become so polite let them teach their children not to come to Ibiza, Lloret, Salou, and the whole Mediterranean coast to set up ghettoes to get drunk and behave like vandals. Not to mention the Glasgow Rangers holligans (sic), although they're Scottish they're the same thing, when they came to BCN they destroyed everything in their path. By the way, who killed Lady Di and the "morito" who was with her? They should look at themselves first and then talk about others.

Basket Case: It's strange that the British accuse Spanish society of being racist. You only have to remember their history to see how hypocritical they are. Not to mention the character of many of them: arrogant, bossy, and against anything that is not Anglophone. Excuse me, but they disgust me as a collective.

Pere: It would be a good thing if the English were also scandalized by the invasion of Iraq or their hooligans, they are a gang of undesirables, as they have always been.

Correcaminos: Frankly I don't give a shit what the English think.