The gas explosion here in Barcelona yesterday was caused intentionally by the woman who lived in the apartment; she was to have been evicted that very day--get this, by her own sister, who was the landlord. So she poured gasoline all over the place, and then turned on the gas and struck a light, with predictable consequences. They don't know whether she is one of the three dead bodies discovered, all of which were charred to a crisp.

This woman was apparently a major pain in the ass and general weirdo; she didn't get along with anybody, wouldn't let even meter readers enter her apartment, practiced traditional magic (oil and salt smeared on the front door, etc.), held grudges, and had a persecution complex. She wrote a letter to El Periodico on Friday saying that her apartment was being stolen from her, and had appeared on--get this--"Patricia's Diary" and the Ana Rosa Quintana show, Spain's Oprah, with various complaints. Most memorably, she went on once to claim that the airlines were discriminating against her, because she was so fat she took up two seats, and so they made her pay for two.

The Free Tibet people, who mostly looked like actual Tibetans rather than transferred nationalists, had a demonstration outside the Chinese consulate here in Barcelona. They got about 300 people; compare that with the "No to the war!" demos five years ago, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. You can bring out one-third of the city against the Americans, but virtually no one to protest the Communist Chinese dictatorship.

Rafael Poch, in Peking, continues with his particular perspective in his reports on Tibet. He says the revolts amounted to anti-Chinese lynch mobs, calls them "pogroms" again, and leads off with a quote from the governor of Tibet claiming a total of 16 deaths, Chinese killed by Tibetans, and declaring that Chinese police did not open fire on Tibetan demonstrators / rioters. Poch adds that the "Tibetan lobby in exile" claims as many as one hundred dead Tibetans, and quotes Chinese TV as saying, "The Dalai Lama's gang (camarilla) has been telling the world that it no longer wants Tibetan independence, but this is an enormous lie. It wants the world to link the Tibetan question to the Olympic Games in Peking."

It seems to me that the Chinese government is extremely sensitive about its Olympic Games, and perhaps the best thing to do is not watch them on TV. Would you have watched the Berlin Olympics?

Speaking of sports and nationalism, Spain gets very excited whenever one of them actually wins something, no matter how unimportant the sport. The Americans generally don't; the only sports events I remember a big deal being made about nationalistically were the 1980 Winter Olympics hockey team, which famously upset the Russians, and Lance Armstrong's reign over the Tour de France to a lesser degree. In Spain, though, individual sports stars like Rafael Nadal and Fernando Alonso are considered representatives of the whole society, and their success is believed to reflect upon all Spaniards.

(By the way, it makes many Spaniards really mad when you criticize one of their national heroes. To start a barfight in Spain, just say: "Nadal can't play on any surface but clay, and he's not good enough even at that to beat Federer." Or "Gasol's a wimp who can't play defense, and scoring lots of points when Kobe Bryant's getting triple-teamed doesn't make you an All-Star." Or, "Alonso's a pussy, listen to him whine. Waah, waah, waah." Or, "The American golfers can't stand Sergio Garcia's cute little boy act and enjoy whipping his skinny ass." Or, "Why does your football team even bother showing up to international competitions? They always get eliminated in the quarterfinals anyway.")

So the synchronized swimming team won four gold medals at the European championships in Eindhoven. Who the hell watches synchronized swimming? It's one of those dull, regimented sports like rhythmic gymnastics and team handball that the Communists invented during the Cold War. It made the front page of La Vanguardia, and led off the TV3 news last night because one of the girls is Catalan.

Football news: The Barça doctors say Ronaldinho isn't injured, and the rumor is that he was kept off the team in the Almeria game because he's been dicking off in practice. He's not going to be here next year. The Fantastic Four have been a fiasco: Eto'o and Messi have been playing well when they're not injured, which is often, Ronaldinho has been playing below his ability when he plays, which isn't often, and Henry just has not been very good. His latest excuse is that he's all bent out of shape because of his expensive divorce which limits his custody over his daughter, so he can't score any goals, you see.

Oh, Lordy, the Spanish stock market's sliding again; it was down 2.5% at 10:30 this morning, and it's expected to fall further, as the other European markets are also down: London, Frankfurt, Paris, and Milan are all down between 2.5% and 3.5% this morning. In Spain, the biggest losses are in the banking sector, with Santander and BBVA both down more than 3.5%. La Vanguardia blames the decline on the Federal Reserve's interest-rate cut, the fall of the dollar to $1.60/€, and the collapse of Bear Stearns.

El Pais reported yesterday that Esperanza Aguirre was planning a coup the Monday after the election, but she discovered herself with no support outside of the Madrid branch of the party. Key support for Rajoy came from PP bosses Javier Arenas in Andalusia and Francisco Camps in Valencia. With typical Spanish media glee at being able to slam other media outlets, El Pais says that El Mundo, Cope Radio, and Telemadrid were all backing an Aguirre takeover of the party, and that Rajoy's media support came from ABC. Now, since El Pais is notoriously pro-Socialist, one might want to take this with a couple shakers full of salt.

This morning a gas explosion in the La Verneda district of Barcelona killed three people and injured thirteen. Firemen had to rescue 37 people from the apartment building. Another gas explosion in Alcala killed one person. This happens entirely too often in Spain.

Abba's former drummer, Brunkert Ola, was found dead in slightly suspicious circumstances at his house in Mallorca; his throat was cut and he bled to death. He apparently fell headfirst through a window and cut his throat on the broken glass. The Guardia Civil is investigating.

Last weekend eighteen people were killed on the Spanish highways, which are three-and-a-half times more dangerous than British highways. Get this: Eighteen deaths in a weekend is considered a very good sign in Spain, since the death toll last year during the weekend before Semana Santa was double that.

So Tikrit Tommy Alcoverro went to Teheran. He has a hot breaking news flash scoop: The university of Teheran is offering Catalan classes. There are 17 students. The students are reading a Josep Pla book from 1918. Exciting.

Barça choked last night in Almeria, giving up two goals on corner kicks, and they got out with a 2-2 draw. They played lousy against a team that's not very good, and they're seven points back of Real Madrid with ten games to go. Meanwhile, Villarreal has closed within two points of Barcelona. It's clear that Levante and Murcia will be two of the three clubs to be demoted to Second; the third spot is still up for grabs. Somebody will play badly enough to clinch it pretty soon.

I buy La Vanguardia mostly because I like the rest of the Spanish press even less. La Vangua's strength is its national coverage, especially news from Barcelona and Catalonia. Its weakest point is its international correspondents, most of whom are either incompetent (Rafael Ramos in London), biased (Andy Robinson, roving reporter), or on the take (Tomas Alcoverro in Beirut). Eusebio Val in Washington actually isn't particularly bad. The worst of the lot is Rafael Poch, their man in Peking. Poch seems to think his job is repackaging Chinese government propaganda in an easily digestible form.

Poch claims that the Tibetan uprising in Lhasa was an anti-Chinese "pogrom" (his word), that Tibetan rioters torched 160 buildings belonging to Chinese and burned ten ethnic Chinese to death. He says, "Tibetan exiles and their sympathizers in the West (the Buddhist lobby, Hollywood circles, and adversaries of China) have decided to make the Peking Olympics look bad." Wow, I've heard of the so-called Jewish lobby, but I never knew there was a Buddhist one.

By the way, Poch's dateline is Peking, so he's only a couple thousand kilometers away from where the action is. Sort of like reporting on Hurricane Katrina from Seattle.

Media pundits often praise papers that have many foreign correspondents for giving their readers independent reports that don't depend on the standard wire service story. But if all the foreign correspondents suck, I'm not sure what good it does.

The Spanish media just loves the Eliot Spitzer story. They're still all over it.

All the Spanish political commentators are trying to guess what Zap's next Cabinet is going to look like. Potential changes: Three vice-premiers, Maite Fernandez de la Vega, Pedro Solbes, and Jesus Caldera. De la Vega losing influence, Solbes gaining it. Spokesperson: Either Carmen Chacon or Jose Antonio Alonso, moving over from Defense. Perez Rubalcaba to leave Interior, replace Moratinos (good, anyone but Moratinos) at Foreign Affairs. New Cabinet post: Ministry of Innovation and Science, for Miguel Sebastian. Ramon Jauregui for Labor or Public Administration. Pepe Blanco to leave as party secretary, possibly for Public Administration. Elena Valenciano to replace Lopez Garrido as parliamentary spokesperson.

Holy Week vacation began for many people on Saturday. Officially, here in Catalonia, we get Good Friday and Easter Monday off, for a four-day vacation. A lot of people take the whole week off, though, for a ten-day break. Traffic hasn't been too bad.

They busted a Socialist city councilman in the Tarragona town of Vinyols with 500 kilos of hashish. He had the dope stashed in his van.

Real Madrid choked last night against Deportivo, meaning that if Barcelona wins tonight in Almeria they'll be back up at five points behind. It's a very poor League this year, with both Barça and Madrid playing crappy and the rest of the teams even worse. Valencia is having a disaster of a season, Zaragoza was supposed to be good but they suck, and the only teams playing good football at least sometimes are Sevilla and Villarreal. Every Spanish team has been eliminated in Europe except Barça in the Champions and, of all teams, Getafe in the UEFA Cup. And Getafe drew Bayern Munich in the next round, so they'll be out pretty soon too.

A Betis fan clocked the Atletico Madrid goalie right in the head with a bottle and the goalie had to be carried off the field on a stretcher, though he's not seriously injured, just needed some stitches. Disgraceful. The aggressor has been arrested. You have to try pretty hard to do that in Spain. Of course the ref called off the game, with Atletico ahead 1-2. It's not unusual for spectators to throw shit on the field in Spain; as far as I know, this never happens in the US, except when hockey fans throw a squid on the ice for good luck.

Childishness: Spanish Immigration has tightened up the requirements necessary to enter Spain from South America, and several Brazilians with the wrong papers or no means of support have been put on the next plane back home. So the prickly Brazilians have retaliated by refusing entry to Spanish tourists, just to be dickheads about it. The Spanish foreign ministry is contemplating an advisory warning Spaniards about travel to Brazil.

This is like when the US instituted a fingerprinting requirement for people entering from South America a few years ago; the Brazilians retaliated by fingerprinting American visitors. Back then the Spanish public was all in favor of Brazil, humiliating those arrogant Yankees. Now they're not so sure.

More African boat people: A cayuco with 56 people on board, including 11 minors, washed up on Tenerife.

Both the newspapers ABC and La Razon report on a mass Civil War grave discovered in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid. Contrary to standard historical propaganda: The 150 bodies the mass grave contains were Franco supporters shot by the Republicans in 1937-38. Valentin Gonzalez, "El Campesino," the notorious Communist commander of the Republican Fifth Regiment, had them shot after Francoist bombing destroyed an airbase at Alcala; El Campesino had 400 more Francoist prisoners shot at the University City. La Razon speculates that there are many more undiscovered mass graves of victims of the Republicans in the Torrejon-Alcala area of eastern Madrid province.

Ironically, El Campesino escaped to Russia after the war, but in the 1950s (after a stint in a Soviet forced labor camp) he got fed up with the Soviet Union, became an anti-Communist, and defected to France. His memoirs are an important source for Civil War history, though of course they're nowhere near 100% reliable.

They've found another grave near the University City that may contain what's left of Andreu Nin, the leader of the anti-Stalinist POUM Communist party. After the May 1937 Stalinist repression in Barcelona, Nin was arrested, interrogated, tortured, and shot by the NKVD.

Interestingly, this story doesn't make El Pais's online edition.

So they had demonstrations around the world on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War. A thousand people turned out in Barcelona and a thousand more in Madrid. Just goes to prove that the hundreds of thousands who turned out for the 2003 demos were there to feel good and virtuous about themselves, and to demonize the Americans, of course. If they actually gave a shit about human life, they'd be out there demonstrating against Al Qaeda and the Saddamite terrorists, who have killed 90% of those who have died in Iraq.

Oh, yeah, they were also demonstrating against Israel, and in favor of "relaxing attacks against Iran," withdrawing Spanish troops from Lebanon and
Afghanistan, and putting Bush, Blair, and Aznar on trial for war crimes. Here in Barcelona they had the daughter of one of the ten alleged terrorists (arrested in January on charges of plotting to blow up subway trains in Barcelona) read a speech about "Islamophobia." In Seville the three hundred who turned out, get this, had a poetry reading in front of the American consulate.

You won't be surprised to learn that the demonstrations were sponsored by the United Left, that is, the Spanish Communist Party, the heirs of El Campesino.

Former city councilman and vice-mayor Rodrigo de Santos, the Pervert of Palma, says that the nearly €50,000 of tax money he spent in gay brothels over two years was a mere accident, an oversight, and he will of course return it. Too late, Rod. You wouldn't be giving it back if you hadn't got caught first.

By the way, Big Rod is married with three kids.

Sales of new dwellings were down 29% in Catalonia in 2007; sales of preowned dwellings were down 24%. Pop goes the bubble. The average Catalan family spent 55% of its income last year on housing, which is a tremendous amount. the average Catalan mortgage payment was €987 a month, about $1500. If I remember correctly, a few years ago in the US, the rule was don't spend more than a third of your income on housing. Things might have changed by now.

Zap is insinuating that CiU is asking too high a price for its support and he's willing to govern from the minority.

He's also basking in triumph because he finally got a phone call from the Bush Administration arranging a face-to-face meeting at the next NATO summit meeting. The American administration had ignored Zap ever since he first pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq and then advised the rest of the coalition to do the same. The Socialists are treating this as a great victory, that Bush and America have somehow been humiliated.

Zap's 2004 gender violence law is being appealed to the Constitutional Court on the ground that it violates the rule of equal treatment under the law by giving men a more severe sentence than women for the same crime. I'm not only against violence against women, I'm against violence against people in general. It seems to me like the penalties for all violent crimes need to be considerably stiffened in Spain, not just cases of men abusing women.

Jordi Pujol's wife, Marta Ferrusola, let loose with some tremendous Cataloony bigotry yesterday when she said that she didn't like the fact that the premier of the Generalitat is Andalusian and his name is José. She added that Montilla doesn't speak good enough Catalan for her exquisite taste. Pure racism.

More on the Barcelona abortion clinics scandal: "Doctor" Morin, abortionist-in-chief, charged €5000 in black-market cash for performing late-term abortions. He also had his cleaning women do double duty as "nurses." He gave kickbacks to other doctors who sent patients to his clinics. Morin's clinics used aggressive marketing to reach Latin American immigrants by passing out brochures in call centers frequented by Latins, and through Internet and the Yellow Pages. They even went to National Health clinics and passed out brochures there.

La Vanguardia gives its back-page interview to Seymour Hersh today. Get this.

The danger and the plan (to attack Iran) exist. Right now, Cheney, who makes the decisions, is being pressured by Barak, the Israeli minister of defense, a very smart guy, to bomb Iran before the elections because Israel and the American Jewish lobby are terrified of Obama, who might win, because they can't buy Obama! Because Obama gets his funds from thousands of small donations on the Internet. This is a revolution and it gives him enormous freedom, which the Clintons don't have. Hillary gets her money above all from the American Jewish lobby, which is why she is so tough and pro-Israeli in the Middle East, but they can't buy Obama because he doesn't need them. This makes Barak, his hawks, and the whole Jewish lobby very nervous...

The Republicans know how to campaign. And we'll see what happens. Soon they'll concentrate all their fire on one target: Obama is black, but that's not the problem. His problem is that he's a Muslim. (Interviewer: That isn't clear and he says it's not true.) It is his weak point that could finish him off: a Muslim means an enemy of the Christians and the Jews at the same time.

One of two things happened here. Either someone did a dreadful translation, or Mr. Seymour Hersh is completely insane.

Not all that much news around here today. The excitement over the election has died down.

Barça lucked out in the Champions' League draw; they got Schalke 04, a decent but unspectacular team from Germany. The best matchup will be the Arse versus the Pool.

There were two domestic murders yesterday in Tarragona and Almeria; these get a lot of attention because they're the most common type of murder around here. Fortunately, murders are still very unusual in Spain.

The government polling agency, and God only knows why we have one, reports that Spaniards are most worried about unemployment, "the economic situation," terrorism, housing, immigration, and crime, in that order.

Meanwhile, housing sales fell 9% in Catalonia during just the fourth quarter of 2007, and 14% in all of Spain during the whole year. The bubble deflates, not with a bang but a whimper. And the euro hit $1.56, as oil hit $111.

The damn bus drivers are going to continue their strike for at least the next two Thursdays. Look forward to more sabotage.

Barcelona remains one of the world's most polluted cities. The average concentration of particulate matter, in micrograms per cubic meter of air, in 2007 was 80 in Barcelona, compared with 100 in Shanghai, 55 in Mexico City, and 27 in London. In El Prat, particulate concentrations exceeded the EU limit 135 days last year; in the Eixample it was 81 days, and here in Gracia it was 59. Barcelona also exceeds the EU limit in concentration of nitrogen dioxide in our air. Ozone pollution is down, but it still exceeded the EU limit 15 days last year.

An Andalusian "human rights" group reported that 921 African boat people died while trying to reach Spain by sea in 2007. I don't know how they came up with this figure, but remember that there were obviously deaths at sea that went unreported. The Guardia Civil's December 2007 estimate was 360 immigrants dead at sea in 2007. The Guardia Civil also estimated in September 2007 that 1260 immigrants had died at sea during the previous 21 months. Whatever the correct figures are, it's a terrible tragedy, which is, inexplicably, completely ignored by the international media.

It's estimated that about 300 immigrants die every year trying to cross from Mexico to the United States.

A gentleman named Javier Rodrigo de Santos was the vice-mayor of Palma de Mallorca between late 2005 and May 2007. He had access to a municipal credit card. So he spent his nights at Palma's gay brothels and charged up €45,000 worth of male prostitutes. And you've got to figure those rentboys ain't working for no five grand an hour, either. He got caught because some accountant noticed that all those credit card charges had been rung up at four in the morning. Mr. de Santos has been charged with embezzlement. Top that, New York.

More election fallout: After the absentee ballots were counted, a seat from Barcelona has been reassigned from CiU to the PP, giving CiU 10 seats and the PP 154 in the Congress of Deputies.

Eduardo Zaplana, PP hard-liner and party spokesman, has resigned. About time. His negatives are extremely high, and they need to pick someone more moderate, both politically and personally.

Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, considered the most moderate and attractive among the current PP leadership, has announced that he plans to stay on as mayor and back Rajoy at the party convention.

Convergencia is already pushing Montilla to kick ERC out of the Catalan Tripartite. And that's not all they're going to want. Duran Lleida is in no hurry to make any deals.

By the way, Duran says that he's recovered from his bout with lung cancer. Good.

Chemical Inma Mayol, Communist leader in the Barcelona city council, has also stepped down.

Inflation reached 4.4% in the year ending February 29, the highest rate since 1995. There are no signs of it slowing down, what with oil pushing $110 a barrel. Economics minister Solbes says it's because of rising oil and grain prices.

So the damn bus drivers are on strike today; they're going out every Thursday until they get what they want. Six buses were sabotaged this morning, some with passengers on board; rock-throwing strikers broke the windows of one bus. The municipal bus company says it's going to take disciplinary action against some 25 strikers, but no arrests will be made, which is ridiculous, since throwing rocks at a bus with passengers in it is a violent crime. You could put someone's eye out doing that.

At the beginning I would have been willing to cut a deal with the drivers (who make upwards of €33,000 a year, by the way): You want two full days off a week, we'll make the schedule work out, but you'll have to take a small pay cut because you'll be working fewer hours. I would have been sympathetic if they'd struck peacefully, holding demonstrations with legal permits and the like. But after this wave of unacceptable behavior on their part, sabotage and violence (remember, they beat up a CCOO union rep the other day), I say screw them. Fire the lot, like Reagan did with the air traffic controllers.

The Eliot "Luv Guv" Spitzer scandal is, get this, La Vanguardia's top international story today. The press around the world is loving this: hypocritical law-and-order guy hoist by his own petard. It's not nearly as important as many other issues, though; Spitzer was merely one of dozens of state governors, and of no particular international importance. Imagine if the governor of, say, the Tokyo or Moscow or Paris or Mexico City region or province or whatever was forced to resign over a prostitution scandal. Would it make the Barcelona press? Maybe a couple of paragraphs, maybe not.

One of the greatest tabloid headlines ever: the New York Post's "Ho No!"

Have you seen the photos of the hooker involved? She's attractive enough, but five thousand bucks an hour for that?

From La Vanguardia's comments section:

The Americans are not a model for anyone but fools. A country with such a recent history is puerile from any point it is analyzed from. What made them believe they were the center of the world for a long time was their dollar. But that is all over.

I don't know what to say, I start laughing...the Americans are always so silly, and at bottom they are not and should not be a model for anybody.

I suppose we should not be surprised, knowing about the Americans' double moral standard.

There is a system worse than any other that allows its president to use policies of asphyxiating the country in order to continue his war games (many reasons he gave for the declaration of war have been proven to be false), and he denies medical care to children, citizens of his own country. This is putting money above conscience, not even we corrupt Europeans do that.

I live in the US and this is typical Yankee hypocrisy of moralism and puritanism. For going whoring, he resigns, but others declare an illegal war and invade another country causing the deaths of thousands of persons and nothing happens and hee waits to retire next January. And let's not mention the governors who use the death penalty whenever they want. Disastrous.

All the Yankees are sick. Raising such a scandal over prostitution and saying nothing about the violations of human rights they commit daily with their wars!!

The biggest hypocrisy I know is in the United States.

The funny thing is that they cause such a scandal over a "sin of the flesh" (there are no others), and they are the ones that we forgive most easily, while they are not bothered by the hundreds of thousands of deaths, men, women, and children, that they have caused in Iraq with an unjust war. Who is more "civilized"? I prefer Mediterranean morals to sick Anglo-Saxon Puritanism.

What I don't understand is why something that in Europe would not even make the news (at most it would appear in the celebrity press), in the United States causes a resignation. They are completely crazy.

For a pecadillo this guy resigns, and for destroying countries, on the other hand, they're happy and smiling.

WHY ARE THE AMERICANS SO UGLY AND WITH SUCH BIG EARS?????

A governor resigns because of a private and intimate pleasure and Bush vetoes the prohibition of waterboarding as a method of torture and nothing happens. No one protests. Stop the world, I want to get off.

Seems like there's a lot of free-floating hostility out there among Spaniards, and America is a very convenient target. Note that these commenters never say anything new or different: the standard anti-American tropes have been the same since the 19th century.

The most recent fad here in Spain is this year's national submission to the Eurovision Song Contest. It's called "Baila el chiki-chiki." I had nothing to do with this, so don't blame me.

Rajoy announced yesterday that he is not going to step down: he called a party convention for June and announced that he would stand as a candidate for another term as party president. Esperanza Aguirre said she would not be a candidate, and Gallardon publicly backed Rajoy. So we'll see what happens.

It looks pretty clear that the PP hard-liners, secretary general Angel Acebes and party spokesman Eduardo Zaplana, are on their way out, to be replaced by moderates Pio Garcia Escudero and Esteban Gonzalez Pons. The name of Francisco Camps, premier of the Valencia region and also considered a party moderate, has appeared a lot lately; Gonzalez Pons is his man. Aguirre is backing Manuel Pizarro for one of these spots, and he'd be a good choice as well.

Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, the interior minister, has told Zap he wants a different job; he'd like to go back to being the PSOE spokesman in Congress. Zap's going to reshuffle the cabinet; I bet Maleni Alvarez gets thrown out on her bum, and that Pedro Solbes, Fernandez de la Vega, and (unfortunately) Moratinos will stay on.

So the Generalitat has a new genius plan to bring more rental flats on the market; they will pay the landlord up to six months' rent in case the renter is a deadbeat. See, the problem is that Spain has insane renters' rights laws, and it's nearly impossible to evict anyone, so nobody wants to rent out any vacant apartment he might own except at exorbitant prices. Besides, the rent-control laws force the landlord not to raise the rent by more than the official rate of inflation during the minimum five-year standard lease.

The little teenage bastards that set the homeless woman on fire back in January 2006 are finally going to be tried; they're looking at 28 years each, though they'll probably wind up serving no more than half that. This happened right here in Sant Gervasi, just ten minutes on foot away from my house, and the two dirtbag murderers are from nice middle-class Catalan families. I just don't see why anyone would be so cruel and cowardly. First they beat her up and then they poured turpentine on her and burned her alive. Just for fun. And they were so stupid they did all this in the vestibule of a bank branch where she was trying to sleep; of course, there was a surveillance camera there, and it filmed every single thing these shits did. They'd be looking at the death penalty in the US, and I certainly wouldn't sign any petitions for mercy.

Everyone's all bent out of shape about the Barça, because a couple of weeks ago they were only two points behind Real Madrid, and now they're eight points back after two straignt losses in the League. Barça is still alive in both the Champions' League (final eight) and the Spanish Cup (final four), though; they're the favorite to win the Cup, though I imagine that one of the English teams will win the Champions. I'd bet on any of the four against Barcelona right now. There is going to be a shakeup in the clubhouse at the end of the season no matter what happens. Out: Rijkaard, Ronaldinho, Deco, Henry, Zambrotta, Edmilson, Thuram, Oleguer, Ezquerro. In: Cesc and Poulsen, rumor has it. There's also a dumb rumor that they want to sign Lampard, which I would not do.

Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia is looking mighty two-faced these days; he's been accused of manipulating Wikipedia entries for both money and sex. Not that he's done anything illegal, but there sure is a contrast between Wikipedia's self-proclaimed high-mindedness (have you ever looked at their immensely long list of policies, many of which are contradictory?) and the tawdry behavior Wales is accused of.

Speaking of tawdry sex, the Republicans are thrilled with the Eliot Spitzer scandal. Schadenfreude city. They hate his guts and would love to see Spitzer not only out of office, but in prison too. And if this mess makes Hillary Clinton look bad too, that's just gravy.

David Mamet has a very interesting piece in the Village Voice on his move to the political right. Just goes to show that if you're not a liberal at age 20, you have no heart, but if you're not a conservative at age 40, you have no brain.

Anglosphere comment on the Spanish election:

The Guardian has a column that doesn't sound much different from what I've been writing. This is worrying.

The LA Times has a story focusing on Rosa Diez.

The Times's story focuses on Zap and the Carrasco murder.

The BBC focuses on Zapatero's "liberal social reforms," which I don't think were all that big a factor in the election.

The New York Times also focuses on "social changes" in Spain.

Pink News focuses on Zap's pro-gayness.

Reuters focuses on the economy.

The AP's report is surprisingly detailed.

Fallout from the election: Zap and CiU are in no hurry to cut a deal, but I don't see any other way out for Zap. He's unlikely to get support from the PNV, and anyway he needs seven seats for a majority and the PNV only has six. Zap would also need the Canary Coalition's two votes, or the Commies' two votes, for the 176 votes in Congress necessary to seat him as prime minister.

CiU is making noises that sound like they want a coalition, with a couple of ministries in Madrid. And that's not all they're going to want. My guess is that the Catalan Tripartite falls apart sometime pretty soon because of the collapse of the Commies and Esquerra, and Montilla will govern from the minority with punctual support from CiU. As CiU considers itself the opposition party in Catalonia, it won't go for a coalition government in the Generalitat.

The Catalan Socialists want a big payoff for their huge win on Sunday that put Zapatero over the top. They want two or three ministries for themselves, and they want one of their people in the inner circle of the PSOE politburo. They're going to have to swallow the appointment of hardcore Spanish nationalist Jose Bono as president of the Congress, though.

Rajoy is going to stay as PP leader, though they're going to have a national convention this fall. I bet somebody else is chosen there, since Rajoy has lost twice already. La Vanguardia says that Madrid regional premier Esperanza Aguirre is maneuvering for the top spot.

The head that rolled at Esquerra was that of head counsellor Joan Puigcercós, who announced his resignation in order to serve as full-time party secretary. There's going to be a faction fight between Puigcercós and Carod-Rovira at ERC's convention in June. I hope they both lose.

Regional results in all of Spain:

Catalonia PSOE 25, CiU 11, PP 7, ERC 3, IU 1
Andalusia PSOE 36, PP 25
Basque Country PSOE 9, PNV 6, PP 3
Navarre PP 2, PSOE 2, NaBai 1
Madrid PP 18, PSOE 15, IU 1, UPD 1
Asturias PP 4, PSOE 4
Canaries PSOE 7, PP 6, CC 2
Galicia PP 11, PSOE 10, BNG 2
Valencia PP 19, PSOE 14
Murcia PP 7, PSOE 3
Castile-La Mancha PP 12, PSOE 9
Extremadura PSOE 5, PP 5
Cantabria PP 3, PSOE 2
Aragon PSOE 8, PP 5
Balearics PP 4, PSOE 4
La Rioja PP 2, PSOE 2
Castile-Leon PP 18-PSOE 14

So, basically, the PP either wins or breaks even everywhere but Catalonia and the Basque Country, where the moderate regional nationalists win much of the conservative and / or Catholic vote; Andalusia, the Socialists' historic heartland and recipient of much government spending; and Aragon, where the PP angered the locals with the damn water plan. Note that anti-Catalan Valencia is the region where the PP has the biggest advantage.

Atypical provinces: Sun Belt Almeria, in Andalusia, backed the PP; industrial Leon, in Castile-Leon, backed the PSOE.

Other news: The Eliot Spitzer scandal has made the news over here, and there's some whingeing about Yankee Puritanism, as usual. I figure the guy crossed three lines: 1) he's a law-and-order crusader, and he is a paying client of the organized-crime prostitution racket 2) he cheated on his wife, embarrassing her and their three children 3) he must be pretty stupid to be paying hookers while he's governor. If you're a single adult and you are sexually active, society pretty much figures that's your business. But if you're married and patronizing hookers, that's not.

How much you want to bet that he's some kind of desperate sex weirdo whose wife refused to cooperate with his kinky fetishes? That's the only logical explanation I can come up with.

Of course, I think prostitution ought to be legalized in official red-light districts, which would be established far away from residential areas. Then you can require medical checks and licensing, you can tax it, you can keep the kids away, you can drive pimps and organized crime out, and you can keep an eye on the prostitutes' personal safety.

In fact, I'd do the same thing with gambling; I'd legalize casinos, but only in the red-light districts, and I'd require by law that the casinos be as unattractive as possible: no alcohol or drugs on the premises, no entertainment, no restaurants, just gambling tables and slot machines. And I'd legalize drugs as well, and require them to be sold only in the red-light districts, too.

Get this: The Vatican came up with a new list of mortal sins for the 21st century. It's incredibly dumb. They are:

1) "Bioethical violations," such as birth control. Ridiculous. We should be giving out free condoms and Norplant to anyone who wants them to keep the birth rate down and control sexually transmitted diseases. Which, if the Pope pulled his head out of his ass, he would see as the biggest threat to human health in Africa's poorest countries.
2) "Morally questionable experiments." If we're talking Dr. Mengele or Brave New World, I completely agree, but the Pope means stem cell research, which is going to save millions of lives in the medium term.
3) Drug addiction. I thought drug addiction was now considered a disease. Talk about blaming the victim. I also thought alcohol was a drug. This means everybody in Ireland is going to hell.
4. Polluting. So everybody who drives a car is going to hell, too. Besides, the most pollution per capita is caused in poor countries where poor people use biofuels (wood and dung) for cooking and heat. Just like Jesus and all our ancestors until about 1900 did. These people are sinners? I don't see that they have much choice.
5) "Contributing to widen the gap between rich and poor." Ridiculous. Who cares if the rich get richer as long as the poor get richer too? If poor people's incomes double, and rich people's income is multiplied by five, is that bad? That's precisely what is happening around the world right now.
6) "Excessive wealth." What? You're a virtuous person who makes a lot of money because of his skills and abilities, makes generous charitable donations, behaves honestly in business, loves his fellow man, brings up a good family, and you're going to hell because you have a nice house and a Mercedes? Come on.
7) "Generating poverty." How precisely does one generate poverty? By making irresponsible decisions and flunking out of school, spending all your money on beer and fags, and knocking up three girls by the time you're 19? Any poor bastard who falls into that trap is going to have enough trouble here on earth, and it seems pretty harsh to punish him in the afterlife.

I have a positive view of Christianity in general and the Church in particular. Judeo-Christian ethics are at the heart of human society today. I think the Church does much more good than harm. I also think it is sometimes absolutely full of crap, and this is one of those times.

Final election results: PSOE 169 seats, the PP 153, Convergencia 11, the PNV 6, Esquerra 3, the goddamn Commies 2, CC 2, the BNG 2, CC 2, UPD 1, and NaBai 1.

Regionally, the PSOE was the most-voted party in Asturias, the Basque Country, La Rioja, Aragon, Catalonia, Extremadura, Andalusia, and the Canaries. The PP was most-voted in Galicia, Castile-Leon, Cantabria, Navarre, Madrid, Castile-La Mancha, Valencia, Murcia, and the Balearics.

Looks like what happened is that the Socialists ate IU's and ERC's lunch, while the PP gained scattered seats at the expense of regional parties.

The Catalan press is playing up how important the sweeping Socialist victory in Catalonia was; if Catalan votes were left out, the PP would have won the election. The PSC won 18 seats more than the PP in Catalonia; they won only 16 seats more than the PP in all of Spain.

Commie leader Gaspar Llamazares has already resigned, and Carod-Rovira is expected to be next. Rajoy looks like he's going to try to hang on as leader, claiming victory because the party gained five seats. At the very least he needs to get rid of the hard-right elements in the party leadership, meaning Zaplana and Acebes.

The actual election results look a lot like the surveys El Periodico was running during the week before the elections. The exit polls, as usual, underestimated the PP vote, since being conservative is so socially unacceptable in some places that some people don't admit it.

Spain's definitely made a turn against radical regional nationalist parties. Count it up: in Catalonia, nationalist parties (CiU and ERC) won only 14 seats out of 47. In the Basque Country the nationalists (PNV) won just 6 seats out of 18, with ETA-front party Herri Batasuna banned from the ballot and its supporters boycotting the election, and peaceful separatists EA and Aralar shut out. In Galicia the BNG won only 2 seats out of 23. Only CiU increased its number of seats, by just one.

I'm thrilled that the goddamn Communists damn near got wiped out, down to 2 seats from the 23 they had as recently as 1996.

It looks like I called the effect of the murder of Isaías Carrasco wrong; I figured it would help the PP, but instead it probably had no effect, or even helped the PSOE by increasing the turnout as a whole.

I'm fairly optimistic for the next four years: Zap can't screw things up too badly, and his policies are going to have to be pretty moderate in order to keep his alliance with CiU. I don't see any other way out of it for him; he'll have to either form an official coalition, giving CiU a couple of ministries in Madrid, or govern from the minority with CiU support. And that support won't be forthcoming if he tries to do anything outrageous.

About a year ago, a gentleman living near Mataró, along the coast north of Barcelona, paid a visit to his neighbor's stable, where four horses were kept. He tied one of them up and buggered it, "causing various injuries to its rectum." The horse was discovered "in a state of shock," hyperventilating and with a greatly accelerated heart rate, bleeding from the anus. The gentleman has been charged with felony animal abuse, with the aggravating circumstance of sexual abuse. His trial starts today; he faces a ten-month sentence, which will be suspended, and he'll have to pay the €771 veterinary bill.

What a sick weirdo pervert. Anally raping a horse. This guy clearly needs to be separated from the rest of society for a long time. And he will be, since he's up on further charges, this time for raping a human.

I am truly disgusted by sadists who take pleasure from harming creatures weaker than they are, human or animal, and I would punish them harshly. Get all the pot-smokers and dopers out of jail, and replace them with horse-rapers and women-beaters.

Some guy in Madrid, for example, was convicted of driving down the highway and throwing a litter of kittens out the window, one by one, apparently for the fun of watching them splatter. He was fined €360 for misdemeanor animal abuse. Look, Judge, if he'll do it to a cat, he'll do it to a person as well. Lock his ass up right now and protect the rest of us law-abiding citizens and harmless animals.

By the way, the Chinese are currently conducting a cat holocaust in Peking in preparation for this summer's Olympics; the Daily Mail broke the story yesterday. Just another reason to boycott it; I won't be watching.

My post-election article is up at Pajamas Media, so go read it.

Well, voter participation was 75% and the PSOE won. With 92% of the vote counted, it's the PSOE with 43.8% and 168 seats, and the PP 40.1% and 154 seats. CiU has 10 seats, the PNV 6, IU 3, ERC 3, CC 2, the BNG 2, UPD 1, and NaBai 1.

In Catalonia, it's PSC 25 seats, CiU 10, the PP 7, ERC 3, and ICV 2.

I'll have an article up tomorrow morning at Pajamas Media, so check it out.

With 90% of the vote counted, it's PSOE 167-PP 155, and these results aren't going to change much. Looks like Zap will be able to either cut a deal with CiU or govern from the minority. Now the question is: what's CiU's price going to be? I imagine they'll demand a breakup of the Catalan Tripartite, and that they replace ERC and Communist officeholders at both the municipal and regional level inside Catalonia. The question is whether they'd get that.

The verdict from down at the (Catalan-speaking, pro-Barça) bar is that everyone's happy the PP lost, nobody's real excited about the Socialists, and several people are all pissed off right now, because both Esquerra Republicana and the Barça got their asses kicked.

So the PSOE gains three seats and the PP gains seven over 2004. Rajoy and the leadership are going to try to spin this as a win. It's not.

Spain is getting ever closer to having a real two-party system. The third party at the national level, the United Left, has nearly been wiped out. The moderate nationalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque Country held their ground. The rest of the regional parties did poorly. Esquerra's down from eight seats to three, which means Carod-Rovira is no longer taken seriously by anyone. And Rosa Diez won a seat--does this mean the birth of a centrist third party? Probably not.

Pepe Blanco just claimed victory again, and he signed off with "Good night and good luck," just like Zap. Jesus. This has got to stop now. In case you're wondering where it came from, that movie lionizing Edward R. Murrow was real big among the Illustrated and Enlightened around here.

I'm going to go down to the bar to watch the second half of the Barça-Villarreal game on pay-TV, and while there I will interview the local Catalan working class for their reactions.

With 54% of the vote counted, it's PSOE 171-PP 150. It looks like the count is going to stabilize somewhere around here: both main parties gaining seats, the PSOE more than the PP, and the smaller parties as the big losers. Along with the PP leadership.

With 43% of the vote counted, it's PSOE 169-PP 151. This is starting to look something like the exit polls showed, but it gives the PSOE a bigger win than the surveys were predicting a couple of days ago.

Thoughts off the top of my head:

1) Zap's not going to get an absolute majority, but he's going to be able to govern with the aid of CiU.
2) Whether the PSOE can cut a deal with the PNV is questionable, since the prosecutor's office is trying to put the PNV's leader in jail, and they might not be feeling too friendly.
3) Can Rajoy claim victory if the PP wins more seats than they got in 2004--that is, more than 148? I say no.
3a) Because I think the PP leadership has botched both the message and the way it was communicated over the last four years.
3b) And because I think Zap was a weak candidate who could have been beaten by a competent opposition.

33% of the vote counted: PSOE 170 seats, PP 150.

As usually happens, the official figures change a great deal over the normal election evening: with 30% of the vote counted, it's PSOE 172 seats, PP 144.

With 17% of the vote counted, the official figures are PSOE 173 seats, PP 136. These are, of course, by no means definite.

TV3's exit poll for Catalonia gives the PSC 45.7% of the vote and 24-27 seats; CiU 20.9% and 9-11 seats; the PP 16.3% and 7-8 seats; ERC 8.4% and 3-4 seats; and ICV 3.9% and 1 seat.

Pepe Blanco, the Socialists' organizational secretary (that is, top apparatchik) has claimed victory. The PP is not conceding anything so far; they still think the high turnout in Valencia and Madrid is going to help them out.

So what does it mean? If the surveys are right, and they all seem to agree, then just off the top of my head:

1) Zap has very close to an absolute majority, and he has more of a mandate than he did in his first term.
2) Rajoy will have to step down as PP leader, perhaps not immediately, but they need a new candidate for the next election.
3) The two leading candidates to replace Rajoy have to be Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón and Esperanza Aguirre.
4) I don't think Zap is going to do anything particularly different than he did in his first term.
5) The PP strategy of confrontation obviously did not work.
6) Neither the debates nor the murder of Isaías Carrasco had much effect on the voters.
7) The turnout was nowhere near low enough to help out the PP.
8) The Communists got completely destroyed.
8a) How much you want to bet that most of the Communist voters went over to Zap because they're so angry at the PP?
9) CiU did pretty well, and if Zap gets below about 170 seats, he'll have to cut a deal with them. The PNV did pretty well too, so a good showing by the comparatively moderate regional nationalists.
10) The more radical regional nationalist parties, ERC and the BNG, got stomped.
11) Zap's not going to negotiate with ETA any more no matter what happens.
12) I bet he doesn't keep most of his promises, though he's going to have to carry through on the €400 tax rebate.

All the other TV network surveys have similar figures to TV3's. They have the PSOE between 163 and 178 seats, and the PP between 142 and 152.

The polls in peninsular Spain close at 8 PM (in the Canary Islands at 9 our time), and TV3's exit poll for all of Spain says it looks like a big win for Zapatero. They have the PSOE with 45.0% to 38.6% for the PP. The PSOE would win 172-176 seats, and the PP 148-152. The smaller parties are getting whacked. The Communists drop to only 2-3 seats, and Esquerra wins 4. CiU holds out with 9-11 seats and the PNV gets 6-7. Other parties winning seats: The BNG, CC, Rosa Diez's UPD, and Nafarroa Bai.

We'll see if these results change over the evening; they're likely to. Right now, though, TV3's figures point at a Zapatero able to govern from the minority without needing to form a coalition.

They've announced that the first official results will be released after 9:30. Also, turnout in the Basque Country is very low, seven points below 2004.

TV3 is leading with the report that at 6 PM voter participation in Spain was 61%, two percentage points below the last election in 2004, and that in Catalonia turnout is five points below 2004. This would seem to favor the PP, since Catalonia is a Socialist stronghold.

Looks like the Socialists may have lost some votes to abstention here, probably due to the list of fiascos they've been blamed for around here. People here in Gracia are still mad about the blackout last summer, and they blame the city and regional governments, in Socialist hands.

Turnout in the other Socialist stronghold, Andalusia, is 3.6 points below 2004.

Meanwhile, the regions with turnouts above 2004 are PP territory: Madrid and Valencia.

Here in Catalonia, turnout is especially low in the three outer provinces, which are CiU's home ground, so things don't look good for them.

It's starting to look like turnout will be lower than in 2004; at 5 PM 60.9% of eligible voters had voted, compared to 63.0% in the last election. No problems, fortunately, everything is running smoothly. No incidents (knocks on head) worth mentioning; a few jerks superglued a few locks at polling places. No big deal.

They announced that voter turnout at 2 PM was 40.1% of the total eligible, just below turnout at the same time in 2004. In Catalonia it was 39.3%, and in Andalusia it was under 40% as well. Everyone says a high turnout favors the PSOE, and in 2004 it was an exceptionally high 77% at the end of the day. The regions with the highest turnout so far today are the PP strongholds of Valencia and Murcia, though, both over 45%.

When Remei went to vote she saw Barcelona's Cataloony-Green-Commie first couple, Joan Saura and Imma Mayol, who live on our street and vote at the same polling place.

La Vanguardia says there are seats completely up for grabs in sixteen provinces that may be decided by a few hundred votes or less.

It's Election Day! This is going to be a close one. I'll be following the news all day, and if anything happens I'll post it. They'll announce the results at 9 PM.

El Periódico's last survey, released at midnight, shows a small swing to the PSOE, who would beat the PP 43.4% to 38.1%, with 18.1% for other parties. In seats in Congress, the PSOE is ahead 166-170 to 151-155 for the PP; other parties would get 30-34 seats, with 176 needed for an absolute majority.

The press seems to think that the key will be voter turnout; La Vanguardia calculates that turnout above 72% favors the Socialists, and below that figure favors the PP. The reasoning is that PP voters are more loyal and more likely to come out than PSOE voters.

Regionally, the PP is likely to win Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, Navarra, Castile-Leon, Madrid, Castile-La Mancha, Madrid, Valencia, Murcia, the Balearics, the Canaries, and Ceuta and Melilla; its biggest vote sources are Madrid and Valencia. The PSOE is favored in Aragon, Catalonia, Extremadura, and Andalusia, with its heartlands in Catalonia and Andalusia. The PNV will probably win in the Basque Country.

Another key to the election: Andalusia is also holding the election for its regional parliament today, which will bring out more voters there than in other regions. This obviously favors the PSOE, since they dominate Andalusia politically.

PSOE and PP representatives got in a very inappropriate argument at the funeral for Isaías Carrasco in Mondragón; regional Socialist leader Patxi López verbally attacked both Mariano Rajoy and PP Basque leader María San Gil.

Meanwhile, the car in which the terrorists escaped the crime scene has not been found. Police suspect the killers are hiding at a safe house in or near Mondragón.

The Times has a long article on the election. Check it out. The Guardian and the AP have articles as well.

Update on the murder of Isaías Carrasco by ETA: Carrasco had just gotten into his car to go to work at 1:30 PM when the ETA gunman fired five shots at him through the windshield, hitting him in the chest with two and in the neck with one. His wife and daughter heard the gunfire and rushed outside as Carrasco got out of his car, stumbled halfway across the street, and fell, still conscious. The gunman, who was tall, wearing a fake beard, and dressed in black, ran to a silver Seat Cordoba in which a getaway driver was waiting, and they escaped. Carrasco died in the hospital less than an hour later.

Carrasco had lost his city council seat in the last municipal election, and had decided to give up his police bodyguard at the end of last year. Most politically active anti-ETA Basques, especially those who hold public office, need official bodyguards.

The mayor of Mondragón, known in Basque as Arrasate, belongs to the ETA-front party ANV; when she arrived at the hospital, Carrasco's wife told her to get lost.

The political parties stopped their campaigning, calling off their final campaign rallies, which were to have been held last night (in Spain all campaigning is prohibited the day before an election, i.e. today). Rajoy managed to sneak in a dig at Zapatero, saying that no matter who won the election, the government would never negotiate with ETA again.

All parties represented in the Congress of Deputies agreed on a joint declaration condemning the murder and promising to maintain a united front against ETA. The PP tried to get the declaration to include a commitment not to negotiate with ETA and a revocation of the 2005 parliamentary resolution in favor of negotiations, but the other parties refused.

I still think the murder of Carrasco politically favors the PP; though of course I wish that terrorist murders had no effect on voter intention, we know they do. Specfically, the murder is going to bring out citizens who were going to abstain, and who will now vote for the PP. I don't think it's going to change the mind of more than a few voters who were already committed to a party, and I don't think it's going to have the effect of the March 11 bombings, but it will have some effect.

El Periódico of Andorra's latest survey (taking advantage of a legal loophole, as surveys are banned in Spain the five days before an election) was released early this afternoon; it has the PSOE ahead of the PP, 43.0%-39.0%, with other parties getting 18.0%. The PSOE would get 162-166 seats in Congress, the PP would get 154-158, and other parties would get 30-34. 176 seats are needed for a majority.

Other news: Looks like there won't be a war in South America, as Chavez and Correa have made nice with Uribe. Despite Chavez's arms purchases from Russia and Spain, the Colombians have a much bigger US-armed and -trained army, with experience fighting the FARC, and would stomp Venezuela's ass if it came to it. Remember when Chavez ordered ten batallions to the frontier last week? None of them ever moved.

The European Union sent its commissioner for the Third World to Cuba yesterday; he got to talk to human slime foreign minister Pérez Roque, Castro's Ribbentrop, and tomorrow he may even get an audience with President Raúl. The EU wants to "break the ice and open the path to relaunch Cuba-EU dialogue...seeking the full normalization of relations." I say the hell with that. Fortunately the British and the Czechs are going to say the hell with it, too.

The Barcelona court investigating the illegal abortions scandal has subpoenaed nearly 3000 medical histories. Women who underwent abortions at the accused clinics testified that they had not been subjected to any medical tests, not even psychological ones; abortion is legal in Spain for medical reasons, but abortion on mere demand is prohibited, unlike in the US. Six people have been charged with illegal abortion, conspiracy, forgery, and practicing medicine without a license.

Of course the ETA murder has forced the rest of the news into the background today.

Zap and Rajoy held their final campaign rallies last night; Spanish law prohibits campaigning on the day before the election, for some reason. It also prohibits the Spanish press from publishing electoral surveys for five days before the election, which is of course absurd.

El Periódico has figured out a way to get around the law; they have an edition published in Andorra, an independent country, and that edition is not subject to Spanish law, so they've put a link to it on their webpage.

Their survey, taken yesterday, has Zap leading with 42.6% of the vote to Rajoy's 38.6%. 18.8% will vote for other parties. This is basically the same result as almost all the other surveys have shown. They have the PSOE with 161-165 seats, about the same as the 164 it won in 2004, and the PP with 153-157 seats, better than the 148 it won in 2004. For the smaller parties, they predict: CiU 8-9 seats, the PNV 6, ERC 5, the Communists 4, and other parties 7-10. 176 seats are needed for a majority in Congress; the PSOE will probably have to govern from the minority, making temporary alliances with smaller parties.

The Barcelona bus strike continues; 17 buses were sabotaged this morning, and militant strikers have been harassing drivers who are not going along with the strike. It's not like these guys are scabs, either, since the two major labor unions, the UGT and CCOO, are opposed to the strike as well. The strikers had a demo yesterday with the university students, who are also "on strike," and took advantage of it to occupy CCOO and UGT headquarters, paint graffiti all over the offices, and attack one of the CCOO officials. We can has jail?

Yeah, the university students are "striking" as well. Who the hell cares whether these wankers go to class or not? They can strike for the rest of their lives as far as I'm concerned. They brought out 5000 demonstrators and snarled up the center of the city, with some help from the bus drivers. They're whining about the European Union's Bologna plan for university education: they say it will lead to "privatization." They're probably afraid someone will make them study, which is just a total bummer.

Update on the ETA murder in Mondragón: The killer was a large man wearing a fake beard and a black leather jacket. Both Zapatero and Rajoy have suspended campaigning, and they will meet this afternoon.

Breaking news: ETA has committed murder again. A gunman shot Miguel Isaias Carrasco, 42, three times in the back of the head at 1:30 this afternoon outside his house in Mondragón, Guipúzcoa province. When he was shot he was accompanied by his wife and daughter. Carrasco had been a Socialist city council member in the town of Arrasate.

Our sympathies and condolences to his family and friends.

ETA must be destroyed. No negotiations with terrorists.

The murder will affect the electoral campaign: Zapatero will be hurt, as his government held secret negotiations with ETA during their so-called truce. The PP will benefit, as it has a much stronger tough-on-ETA record and discourse.

It's a terrible shame that terrorism will affect the result of the election, as it did in 2004.

I have an article up at Pajamas Media on the Spanish general election, so go check it out.

Reports from the Anglosphere press on the Spanish election:

The Independent says Zap is slightly ahead but the electorate is unexcited, in an article datelined today.

Reuters says that the slowing economy hurts Zap's chances. It also has a longer piece by the same reporter from a few days before.

The Times has a leader saying that the economy's bad, but Zap will probably win because the PP's done a poor job.

Newsweek has a long piece saying the economy's going downhill and both candidates are weak.

The Guardian has a piece on the first Zap-Rajoy debate, saying the main issues were the economy and immigration. Here's a profile of Zap, here's one of Rajoy, and here's a question-and-answer on the main issues, all by the same reporter.

Credit Suisse has a business news website; they interview their Spain analyst on the election and the economy.

Dow Jones has a piece on the economy and the election, as well.

The Economist says the candidates are making too many promises.

Here's the Financial Times column that Rajoy cited in the last debate.

The AP accuses the two candidates of bickering.

And, in case anyone's interested, here's the World Socialist Web Site's take.

News from these here parts: Madrid archbishop Rouco Varela defeated incumbent Bilbao archbishop Blazquez in the election for the president of the bishops' conference. Blazquez was elected vice-president. Both are conservative, but Blazquez is considered more friendly toward regional nationalisms. Elections are every three years; Blazquez served only one term, while Rouco has previously served two.

This really shouldn't be particularly big news, but the Church is considered by many people to be very powerful in Spain. I think most people overrate the Church's importance and influence; it's a hangover from the 1940s and 50s, when the Church was part of the coalition that supported the Franco regime. This is one reason why the Spanish Left is so anticlerical, though anticlericalism has been strong in Spain ever since the 19th century.

The Church's greatest source of influence now is their school system, which is partially funded by the state. That, of course, is bullcrap. I'm not anti-religion or anti-Church--I think they do a lot more good than harm--but there ought to be a strict separation between God and Caesar.

Only four more days until the general election. I still think it's going to be very close. The Spanish people seem to be rather disillusioned about the campaign; the general reaction is that Zap and Rajoy are just slagging one another off and making promises that won't be kept. Nobody seems to be very enthusiastic. By the way, Toni Soler in La Vanguardia agreed with me that Rajoy won the debate. So that makes three of us: me and two borderline Cataloonies, Soler and Rahola.

The Great Transport Snafu continues: an electric power line came down across the train tracks in Sant Andreu this morning and three commuter lines are shut down. Power is out in the area, and we don't know when it'll be back up.

The bus drivers' strike continues into its third day. Early this morning strikers sabotaged 17 buses, including stoning one containing passengers in my neighborhood; they broke windows and rear view mirrors, and punctured tires. Fortunately nobody got hurt. I have no idea at all why this shit is tolerated. They're going to snarl up Plaza Catalunya this afternoon with an illegal demo, just to piss off the citizens even more. One arrest has been made: a striker punched a cop in the nose on Monday, and they actually came and took him away. Where I come from, if you attack a cop, the consequences are rather more unpleasant than just getting booked downtown.

And the saga of the African boat people continues, as well. A cayuco washed up on Tenerife after three days at sea, carrying two dead people and 53 who were still alive. The international media is not covering this story at all.

El Pais reports that Pedro Varela, the Nazi owner of a Barcelona bookstore specializing in trash, garbage, and lies, has been sentenced to seven months in prison for Holocaust denial. Since it's a sentence of less than one year, it will be suspended. They acquitted him of "incitement to racial hatred," for some unknown reason. I'm against jailing him, of course, since political speech should not be censored no matter how disgusting it is. You don't win a battle of ideas by silencing the opponent, you win it by letting him make his case and then crushing it with facts and reason.

El Periodico has a story titled, "South America rejects 'preventive war' against FARC." It says that Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and (of course) France are strongly opposed to such a thing. Jesus. How exactly is it a 'preventive war' when the elected government tries to wipe out a gang of murdering terrorist kidnappers and dope dealers? They add that 1) Venezuela and Ecuador have rearmed 2) they're both trying to destabilize the Uribe government 3) Chavez has been subsidizing the FARC 4) If there's a war, it'll be America's fault.

Good news for the Republicans: McCain has locked up the nomination and Huckabee has withdrawn from the race. Better news: Hillary beat Obama in Texas and Ohio, and there's going to be six more weeks of internecine Democratic war until the Pennsylvania primary. I think the Democrats are going to blow this election. I also think Obama has peaked way too early, and that his schtick will get old long before November. This is getting plenty of coverage in Spain.

Quick debate post-mortem: The Spanish press generally didn't agree with my verdict that Rajoy was the clear winner. Their surveys pretty much came out the same as they did after the first debate, which means that not many minds were changed. The only one of La Vanguardia's commentators who gave Rajoy a win was, of all people, Pilar Rahola.

Round Five: The future.

Zap brings up education again, which I would not do. Wants to spend more money on it. Promises everyone will learn English and that he'll send kids to England with scholarships. Rajoy says the educational system sucks and it's Zap's fault because he overturned the PP's educational policy. Accuses Zap of being full of hot air about English. Says kids move up without passing their courses and that teachers get no respect. Says Zap talks about ethics classes while forgetting about technology. Blasts Zap on housing real quick. Zap says it's not fair to compare Spain with other countries because we started out less developed. Now he says let's spend more money. Accuses Rajoy of allowing land prices to go up 500%. Talks about building more public housing. Zap really is talking tax and spend, tax and spend.

Rajoy on the attack again, on housing prices once more. He is staying on message very well. Zap looks negative and angry; he's looking down and frowning. Rajoy's graphs are a lot better. He sure calls Zap a liar an awful lot. Back to education. Says Zap's done nothing. Zap on public housing again, now back to education, saying we're behind because we were poor and now we're catching up. If we spend more money. Takes credit for increase of Internet use. Renewable energy. Stem cell research. Rajoy smacks him one, saying we're behind Estonia in education too. Says Zap talks big and does nothing. Repeats that Zap has taken credit for PP projects. Rajoy wants more demanding school system, says he's willing to spend more but wants results.

Zap goes to climate change, wants to use alternative energy. Promises lots more water for everyone. Rajoy slams Zap for spending less on infrastructure. Now he's back to the damn water plan. Says Zap's done nothing.

Round five to Rajoy. He's organized, Zap is not, and Zap's on the defense.

Closing speech: Zap thanks Spanish people. He's committed to putting an end to all discrimination, especially against women, and he wants sustainable development. He's committed to defending peace and respecting diversity. He will govern with sensitivity. Oh, God, he said "Good night and good luck" again. Rajoy: Realism and unity and consensus. Says he wants everyone to be equal, all citizens must be equal. ETA must be defeated. Wants to spend more on health care. Overusing word "capital," meaning very important. Social programs important, but economy is more so because no economy, no social spending. Spain must be unified. Goes back to his dumb example from last debate about the little girl who he wants to govern for. Minus one point for that.

Verdict: Zap goes the distance but it's a unanimous decision to Rajoy. Zap took several hard punches, but no single knockout blow. This debate will convince some of the undecided, but probably won't bring over anybody committed.

Round Four: "Institutional policy."

Zap starts off, saying that regional inequalities have declined. His graphs are hard to see. He's going to build lots of freeways. Cooperation and dialogue. Gender violence, health care, education. Rajoy goes back to the first question in Congress. He should drop that. Rajoy says Zap is taking credit for things the PP did, and he's on the damn water plan again. The Catalan statute and negotiating with ETA were Zap's two big mistakes. Says Zap radicalized regional nationalist parties.

Zap's trying to go back to building train lines and freeways. Talks about consensus and cooperation. Says the PSOE is always willing to negotiate. He's against attacking any Spanish region. Rajoy: Your clownishness is a greater aggression to Catalonia than my words. You didn't start any projects, you're taking credit for ours. You have a problem in Catalonia with Esquerra. Reads a letter on discrimination against Spanish speakers. Zap's talking about his subsidies to Andalusia, now says Rajoy pits citizens against one another. Zap is appealing to his two big vote bases, Andalusia and Catalonia. Zap is trying to nail down the rest of the country. Zap calls Rajoy two-faced and opportunistic.

Rajoy: Zap supports fines for people who get caught putting up signs in Spanish. Wants kids to study Spanish in schools. Now he's calling Zap wishy-washy on the Catalan statute, said Zap lied to Mas. Zap accuses Rajoy of pitting Catalans against other Spaniards again. Rajoy now in favor of dialogue that includes everybody. Says the regions are important but so is the central government.

Round four to Rajoy. It's not a knockout yet but he's winning clearly.

Round three: Security and foreign policy.

Zap starts off, says PSOE will support any party in antiterrorist struggle. Zap's looking around for his stats, he's not prepared. Says Spain's crime rate is low, which is true, and that he'll hire more cops and fight domestic violence and drugs in schools. Zap is lousy at being specific. Rajoy says he'll support any government that doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Blasts Zap's ETA policy, claims he lied to Rajoy himself, the congress and the people. Says Zap didn't consult with anybody.

Zap's mad. Of course he's on the Iraq war, says pulling out troops was his first decision. He promises no soldiers will leave Spain for an illegal war. Rajoy's got Zap in a contradiction, quoting him saying that an Iraq pullout would cause a disaster in 2003. Rajoy on attack, saying Zap forgot Lebanon and Afghanistan, Zap's interrupting him. Zap is really mad. Rajoy's interrupting him now. Zap mentioned March 11, now he's getting personal. Rajoy: What we did after March 11 was arrest the perpetrators. He's back on it: You lied to the Spanish people about the PCTV, De Juana Chaos, Otegi, the T-4 bombing. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Zap: I never lied. You are guilty of misleading the people about who did the March 11 bombing. Rajoy: You kept negotiating with ETA after promising you wouldn't.

Round Three is a draw. Both sides landed blows. So far Rajoy is winning pretty solidly.

Second round: Social policy.

Zap talks about law financing care of dependents, something his government did pass that I support. More promises about day care and the like. Rajoy's ironic, says there was no dependent care or education before Zap, says his daycare stuff is bogus. Rajoy says good economy is necessary for social programs. Now he's pounding on immigration and Zap's amnesty. Rajoy is going for the knockout, he's attacking, and he's repeating his points well. Here goes Zap again about Rajoy's first question in Congress. This time Rajoy's interrupting Zap, rather than vice versa like last time. Zap's talking about arriving at agreements among employers and unions and social dialogue. He wants to reduce labor accidents and create lots of new jobs.

Here goes Rajoy on immigration--says Zap consulted with nobody. He's on message. Repeating words "order and control." Rajoy's in favor of the dependents law too and wants women working outside the home too. Accuses Zap of not knowing his facts. Now education, kids have no respect and learn nothing. Keeps repeating Zap is causing problems for the citizens. Zap says he will fight illegal immigration. Doesn't seem like he's done much about it. Claims illegals are being repatriated. Says he's spending billions of euros integrating them, which is a hanging curveball. Rajoy: Kick out criminals and no more amnesties. Suggests a guest-worker program.

Rajoy's lowered the boom: he's got a quote from Zap four years ago saying the immigration situation was intolerable then. Zap says PP legalized one million immigrants in eight years. Rajoy comes back saying that immigrants got amnistied with a deportation order as proof of residence. Zap is looking angry and nervous. Rajoy quotes the EU saying Zap's immigration program sucks.

Second round to Rajoy.

Time for the big debate. We're all sitting on the edges of our seats. Remei is pissed off because she wants to watch "CSI." I took a pee and got a beer. This one will follow the same format as the last one, except this time Zap gets first crack.

Zap starts. He's going to continue having the economy grow, though he doesn't explain how. Sustainable development, against world poverty and climate change. Lots of big words and little content. Everyone will have more rights and Spain will be united. He wants a debate of ideas and proposals--his research shows that the sniping in the last debate didn't go over well, I guess.

Rajoy's going to talk about the future too. He's on the attack now. He's against unemployment and inflation. He looks tougher and more confident than last time. "You're not better off than four years ago." Now on to immigration. Order and control. Mildly xenophobic. Blasts separatists, Catalan statute. Educational system sucks, crime rising, housing prices up. Zap negotiated with ETA.

Intro statement to Rajoy.

Round one: The economy.

Zap blames the world economy, says he's going to raise spending, public housing, jobs for unemployed construction workers. He's going through all his promises. This isn't going that well, we've heard it before. Attacks Rajoy for alarmism. Rajoy comes back: Real per capita income down. Inflation is bad. Rajoy quotes the increases in price of milk, etc. This must have gone over well last time. Rajoy quotes the Financial Times saying the economy is crashing. Zap claims that Spain's passed Italy again. Accuses Rajoy of demagoguery with inflation. Now he's quoting some stats of his own.

Rajoy says Zap has no plans to fight inflation. This time he's got some good graphs and is showing them to the camera correctly: prices up, unemployment up. Accuses Zap of doing nothing, entertaining himself with Alliance of Civs, historical memory law. Zap promises more jobs, especially for women, and higher pensions. Will raise minimum wage 30 percent. Doesn't explain where money is coming from. Zap talked about the distribution of wealth again, and Rajoy's saying under Zap difference between rich and poor increased. He promises to cut taxes, income and corporate income tax, reduce bureaucracy. Now Zap's arguing about the first question Rajoy asked him again, this won't go over. Rajoy says Zap ignored the economy and lived off the PP govt's good results. Now he's whacked Zap on Endesa.

First round to Rajoy.

Quick update: Tonight's the second round of the Great Zap-Rajoy Debates, and we'll be liveblogging it again. I promise not to get bored and blow it off like I did with the Catalan debate. Rajoy has to go for the knockout tonight, so it should be interesting.

La Vanguardia has a survey out today taken in the days after the first debate, and they've got the PSOE leading the PP 43.5%-39.5%. The PSOE would get 162-167 seats, and the PP would get 152-156, with 176 needed for an absolute majority. They have CiU with 8-9 seats, the PNV with 6-7, ERC with 6, and the Communists with 4-5. This election could go either way.

The bus drivers' strike is on again as of today. The "pickets" tried to block the buses providing the obligatory minimum service from leaving the Sant Andreu bus garage, and the cops charged them and one cop was injured. Last night six city buses were vandalized by strikers who smashed windows and punctured tires; no passengers were hurt, fortunately. The strikers also super-glued the locks at fourteen Metro stations last night, but employees were able to open up the stations without much delay. No arrests were made.

It really pisses me off when strikers behave like they're above the law. You can strike, you can carry signs, you can get a permit and have a demo, that's all within your rights. But you can't vandalize city property or block traffic or put citizens in danger or fight with the cops, and if you do the law ought to come down on your ass.

That idiot Chavez and his buttboy Correa are going to start a war and it's going to get ugly and the Illustrated and Enlightened around here are going to blame the Americans.

Here in Gracia it's Sant Medir's day, whoever he was. There are clubs that get all dressed up and have parades on horseback, throwing candy to the kids. It's a nice tradition, going back to the 19th century. I especially like the horses. The only problem is that the streets end up covered in horse poop and squished candy, which is not too horrible since it's only once a year.

The Ertzaintza, the Basque regional police, arrested two of the etarras on the most wanted list; they were apparently part of ETA's shelter apparatus, hiding out other etarras on the run. Good. Keep the pressure on these bastards.

Duran Lleida isn't campaigning today either. Hope he's OK.

El Pais has an election survey out today, giving the PSOE 42.9% of the vote and 165-169 seats, and the PP 38.8% and 148-154 seats. Neither party would have an absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies, where 176 seats are needed. The Communists would get only four seats. CiU would get 9 seats, ERC 5-6, the PNV 7, and Coalition Canaria 2-3. According to these figures, the PSOE will probably be able to form a government with CiU.

One caveat: The survey was taken between Feb. 8 and 27, so some of the results are a month old, and almost all of them are pre-debate.

Prediction: It'll be closer than this, because of the hidden PP vote: it's so socially unacceptable in some places to admit, even to a pollster, that you are a conservative, that people lie about it. Besides, Zap is not very popular, and though he has the incumbent's advantage, Rajoy has another week to campaign and another chance at a knockout blow in the second debate.

Backing up my presentiment is an ABC survey, which gives the PSOE a 42%-40% lead over the PP, though it does not go into the distribution of seats in Congress. Their survey was taken over the past week. ABC, a generally pro-PP newspaper, says 1) inflation and unemployment have angered many voters 2) 80% of those who voted PP in 2004 will do the same, while the figure is only 68% for the PSOE 3) it appears that late deciders are trending PP 4) turnout is expected to be 70%, six points lower than in 2004, which favors the PP since its voters are more loyal 5) the most important issues to the voters are: the economic crisis, unemployment, terrorism, immigration, and housing. The PSOE is vulnerable on all these issues.

Campaign promises: Rajoy said he'd exempt people earning less than €16,000 a year from all income taxes. Zap said the damn water plan was dead and buried.

I suppose you saw that the crazy French actress who won the Academy Award gave an interview saying that 9-11 was a government plot and that the moon landing was faked. I don't think she's all that beautiful, either. In contrast, Angelina Jolie went to Iraq and said some very sensible things, and Bob Geldof again praised the Bush administration's commitment to Africa. By the way, they interviewed Tom Hanks over here a couple of weeks ago, and the interviewer tried to get him to spout off about politics; Hanks didn't take the bait, and said he was concerned about education and health care.

The media agreed with me about the dull Catalan debate last night; El Periodico headlined "Debate nulo," more or less "Useless debate." Nobody said anything interesting. The only occurrence of note is that Duran Lleida started out looking very strange, and at halftime he put on a sweater because he was getting chills. They've cancelled his campaigning for today "for medical reasons." He had surgery on February 12 to remove a tumor from one of his lungs, and I'm afraid there's something really wrong with him. It's a shame, because he's a decent guy and a real professional.

Campaign promise update: The PP will raise monthly state retirement pensions by €150 a month. The PSOE will raise them by €200 a month. The Communists will increase the minimum to €900 a month.

Meanwhile, Zap accused Rajoy of stirring up anti-immigrant xenophobia, and Rajoy promised to revive the damn water plan again.

In February 161 people died in traffic accidents in Spain.

Idiots department: The pro-ETA teenage punks in Bilbao torched two ticket-canceling machines in a commuter train station last night, and set up barricades and stoned a city bus this morning. No arrests were made. Meanwhile, last night in Madrid a handful of Fascists had a legal demo, so the squatters and their ilk came out to break it up and got into it with the cops, setting up flaming barricades and tossing bricks at them. No arrests were made. And this afternoon the Fascists had another legal demo in San Sebastian and the ETA punks tried to break it up, stoning a bus, setting up barricades, and fighting with the cops, who charged them and arrested two.

The US State Department has come out with a report identifying Spain as the biggest drug emporium in the world. It's the highway for cocaine entering the EU from Latin America and hashish coming in from Morocco. 3% of Spaniards use cocaine regularly; one in five European coke users is Spanish. Spain has a higher percentage of users of not only cocaine, but also hash and designer drugs, than any other European country. Surprisingly, only three or four of the comments at La Vanguardia are along the lines of "I don't believe anything those lying gringos say, and besides the CIA controls all drug trafficking anyway."

The answer to the problem, of course, is to legalize recreational drugs. Then you could a) tax them b) make sure the product is not adulterated c) allow sales only to adults and d) drive the drug gangs out of business. The United States's War on Drugs is the most wrong-headed policy that our government has.

Great news: Barcelona is going to license 130 small bars to put on live musical shows. About the only thing I don't like about Barcelona's nightlife offerings is the lack of live music, and now there's going to be a lot more. Ridiculous news: The city government is going to subsidize said bars with €600,000 of the taxpayers' money so that they can meet the soundproofing requirements. Just what we need. Government-subsidized bars. Only in Spain.

Sorry about not posting on the Catalan debate. I watched like ten minutes of it and said, hell, this is really boring, screw it.

Strange Maps is a really cool website. They have one up today on the relative prominence of the names of states that appear in country music songs. As you might have guessed, the big two are Tennessee and Texas.

The Iraqis are going to hang Chemical Ali. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. If I were the hangman I'd set the drop for about fifteen feet.

The Prince Harry in Afghanistan story is being played up big here. As a good American, I'm a republican with a small r, though there are many systems of government much more obnoxious than democratic constitutional monarchies. Still, I have to give the guy some credit, since he didn't have to go out there if he didn't want to; he's shown an admirable sense of duty. Now that his presence is known, of course, they're going to have to pull him out, since he's now the Taliban and Al Qaeda's number one target, a magnet for terrorist attacks.

ETA set off a small bomb--three kilos of amonal--last night at Socialist headquarters in the Bilbao suburb of Derio; material damage was done, but fortunately no one got hurt.

The five leading candidates on each party's list for Barcelona (Carmen Chacon of the PSC, Josep Antoni Duran Lleida for CiU, Joan Ridao of ERC, Dolors Nadal of the PP, and Joan Herrera of ICV) are going to debate tonight on TV3 at 10 PM; I'll try to blog at least some of it.

Socialist former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez called Rajoy "a lazy imbecile." I never cease to be amazed by the things Spanish politicians call one another. During the first Zap-Rajoy debate they called one another liars about twenty times, and on the stump they accuse one another of being unpatriotic patsies of terrorists or reactionary anti-democratic Fascists. American politics can get pretty nasty, but Bush and Obama and McCain and Kerry don't talk like that. One reason they don't talk like that is that they accept that their opponent is basically honest and operating in good faith.

Inflation for the year ending in February was 4.4%. La Vanguardia ran a list of economic statistics: Unemployment is 8.6%. The trade deficit is €22.2 billion. 2007 GDP was €1.05 trillion, or about $1.6 trillion; the national debt is €379 billion, or 32.6% of GDP. The 2007 budget surplus was 2.2%.

Meanwhile, Spanish stock market heavyweight Telefonica was the most profitable telecoms operator in the world last year, with total profits above €9 billion.

Spain's highways are the most dangerous in Western Europe, with 7 deaths per billion vehicle-kilometers traveled. That's worse than everybody but Hungary and Slovenia, at over 8 deaths / bn. vehicle-km. The rest of the list: Portugal 7; Italy and Czech Republic 6; Belgium and Norway 5; Austria 4; Israel, Finland, Germany, and Ireland 3; France, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Sweden 2. That's right, our roads are three-and-a-half times as dangerous as England's.

Water is becoming an issue, with the long drought and the ban on lawn-watering, car-washing, and pool-refilling. Now they're reporting that the equivalent of 8% of Barcelona's daily water use is wasted through leaks in the system. La Vanguardia is mad at the Montilla administration for not having bothered to do anything about this until they had to contract out for water to be brought in by tanker. Meanwhile, Rajoy has brought up the damn water plan again as a campaign issue. He says if he gets elected there will be enough water for everybody. Yeah, well, if I get elected there will be free beer for everybody.

The damn bus drivers are going out on strike all next week, thereby snarling up the city the week before the general election. The municipal bus company says that meeting the strikers' demands would cost €35 million a year, and the only way they can get those funds is by tapping into tax money or raising ticket prices.

La Vanguardia has given pages three and four of their international section to Alarmist Andy Robinson again. Andy's all worked up over the Arctic ice melting, and charges that the evil oil companies are behind it because it'll be easier to drill for petroleum if there's not any ice. He says, "This new struggle for energy resources is reminiscent of the infamous struggle for Africa in the 19th century." Uh, Andy, the problem with Africa is that there were already people living there who were brought under European control against their will. How many people live on the Arctic pack ice?

Weird verdict from the National Court. 30 Islamists were charged in 2004 with planning to truck-bomb, guess what, the National Court building. They were acquitted on insufficient evidence of conspiring to blow up the Court, but 20 of them were convicted on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization.

There's really very little lethal violence in Spain, despite the high property crime rate. Murders are unusual, and in a country of 45 million people, any murder story is news in every Spanish media outlet. Compare that with the US, where if you live in Kansas City you only hear about your local murder cases. A large percentage of murders in Spain are domestic violence, and that means men killing women most of the time. The media has dubbed it "sexist violence," which I'm not sure I agree with. From what I've read and seen, violent people, the great majority of whom are men, will attack anybody around them who's weaker than they are, whether a man, a woman, or a child.

So we had four domestic murders on the same day yesterday, in Madrid, Valencia, Cadiz, and Valladolid. That's very unusual. In every case, the man involved had a long record of violence.

The type of murder that is increasing in Spain is gang killings, normally in fighting between Latin American gangs. This didn't exist in Spain until about five years ago. Over the weekend a young Venezuelan was stabbed to death in Rubí in a gang fight; every weekend a couple of gang-bangers wind up in the hospital, lucky to still be alive. There are also occasional organized-crime killings, not as many as you would think, what with the Eastern European crime syndicates moving in.

The African boat people continue to arrive: 130 reached Tenerife today. We have no idea of how many boat people die en route, but some estimates say that for every one who arrives, one dies at sea of hunger, thirst, exposure, or drowning.

The European Commission hit Microsoft with an €899 million fine ($1.35 billion: the euro hit $1.50 today), for antitrust violations. Seems they ruled back in 2004 that Microsoft had to share information about how to make other operating systems work together with Microsoft systems, and Microsoft failed to comply. Good. Fine 'em till it hurts enough to make them change their practices. Monopolies interfere with market freedom just as much as excessive regulation does.

The Bank of Spain, meanwhile, issued another warning about an economic slowdown, with household spending, consumer confidence, new car registrations, new employee contracts, and housing starts all way down. It blames "tension in the international financial markets."

Barcelona is the fifth most visited city in Europe, after London, Paris, Rome, and Madrid. The three top tourist nationalities are the British, the Italians, and the Americans; Americans are about tenth in the rankings of tourists in all of Spain. When they come over here, though, it's mostly for cultural tourism, rather than hitting the beaches and the discos, since we have those at home. So the Yanks go to the big cities and not the beach towns, as all the Germans and Dutch do. This is mostly because the Americans who come to Europe are middle-class, well-paid college graduates--traveling to Europe is expensive, and you don't do it unless you know enough to want to see something different from America.

Tourism is what Barcelona lives on, folks. Get used to it, because there's going to be more. I find it interesting that some of the people who bitch about all the tourists, and some of the people who want more airline flights and trade fairs and hotel rooms, are one and the same.

Campaign update: Both sides are still trying to spin the debate, as expected. No new promises so far today.

The Spanish media is still having a national orgasm over Javier Bardem's and Pau Gasol's successes in the United States. Geez, guys, Bardem won best supporting actor and Gasol is the third best player on his team. National pride is nice, but let's not overdo it, OK?

Sports update: Barcelona, on a hot streak, plays slumpìng Valencia tonignt at home in the first leg of the Cup semifinals. Ronaldinho will be on the bench; they're saving him for the League and the Champions.

The Drudge Report story on the Clinton campaign's spreading a photo of Obama in native African dress in Kenya, supposedly to make voters think he's a Muslim, has hit the news big in Spain. Since there's an image involved, a photograph, Spaniards can relate to it much better than they can to just plain old words. Remember, Europeans judge us on images for many reasons; one is that their journalists aren't familiar with American history and culture, and another is that said journalists don't really know English that well.

Zap has a new promise: the state will fund a day-care center for children under three at any workplace where six or more people request it.

There's a new study saying that anti-depressants don't work any better than placebos; I'm pretty sure that they do in my case.

Spain's high-school dropout rate is 30%, second worst in the European Union after Portugal. The Socialist education program places all the kids (some of whom would formerly either have left school at 14 or gone on to vocational schools) in academic high schools. So they're mixing the ones who want to be there with the ones who don't, and that's a recipe for disaster. No wonder nearly a third of them drop out.

Go back to the old elitist way. Let them drop out at 14 if they want to, and reduce the working age to 14 for at least some jobs. Of course, provide vocational-technical schools for the non-academic people who actually want to get some useful skills. And leave the academic high schools to potential university students. Everyone will be much happier.

Average Spanish household expenses rose by 6.3% in 2007 to nearly €4000. Inflation is hitting the voters in the pocketbook, and Rajoy is right to stress it in his campaign.

Second house prices look to be well on their way to crashing and burning in Spain; there are reports that real estate prices are down 30% in Spain's Mediterranean beach towns, and it's still hard to find buyers.

Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the murders of eight Spanish tourists last year in Yemen. Nobody is surprised.

Debate post-mortem: The Spanish press is emphasizing that nobody said anything new and that both sides were on the attack. La Vanguardia's reporter agrees with me: he thinks Rajoy won on points but didn't deliver the necessary knockout. Everybody pretty much agrees on the hot buttons that both tried to push repeatedly: Zap the March 11 bombing, the Iraq war, social spending, and the PP's aggressive anti-Zap campaigning, and Rajoy inflation, housing, immigration, the Catalan statute, and Zap's negotiations with ETA.

More than 13 million people watched the debate; it drew a 59% audience share.

The scientifically-done surveys all gave Zap a solid but not overwhelming victory: Antena 3 had Zap 45%-Rajoy 39%, Tele 5 had Zap 50%-Rajoy 34%, Cuatro had Zap 45%-Rajoy 33%, and La Sexta had Zap 46%-Rajoy 31%. El Pais's survey was the closest, Zap 46%-Rajoy 42%.

El Pais also gave what was for me a surprising gender breakdown: Men said Zap won, 64%-36%, while women gave Zap a much closer 52%-48% victory. That's the opposite of the American pattern, where men are considerably more conservative than women.

One thing to keep in mind is that everybody who said Rajoy won will vote for the PP, while some of the people who said Zap won will vote for the Communists or a regional nationalist party.

The self-selected, non-scientific polls done by the newspaper websites pretty much reflect the political makeup of each paper's readers.

El Mundo has Rajoy 61%-Zap 39%; ABC has Rajoy 52%-Zap 48%; and La Razon has Rajoy 61%-Zap 39%. Meanwhile, El Pais has Zap 57%-Rajoy 36%; La Vanguardia has Zap 62%-Rajoy 35%; and El Periodico has Zap 74%-Rajoy 26%. The figures from the two Catalan papers show how unpopular Rajoy and the PP are in Catalonia.

Prediction: This debate won't affect voter intention too much, since neither candidate scored a knockout blow. I don't think either of them convinced anyone who wasn't already backing him. I'm still guessing that the PP is going to do better than expected in the ballot boxes, but Rajoy is going to need a clear win in the next debate, along with some solid campaigning.