Thursday, May 22, 2008

PP infighting news: Maria San Gil will not stand for reelection as the Basque PP leader; that is, she's getting out of the way. Very responsible, and worthy of Ms. San Gil, famous for her courage and honesty. She's receiving support from Gustavo de Aristegui, an intelligent man who is the PP's shadow minister for foreign affairs, and former Prime Minister Aznar's wife, Ana Botella, a Madrid city councilwoman. De Aristegui said, "Rajoy is makeing a profound mistake," which is pretty strong language when you're talking about your own party's leader. Rajoy, meanwhile, got support from Andalusian PP boss Javier Arenas.

Drugs and alcohol update: Of Catalan high-school students between 14 and 18, within the last month, 25% have consumed cannabis, 3.5% have consumed unprescribed prescription drugs, 31% have consumed tobacco, 61% have consumed alcohol, and 2.6% have consumed cocaine. Where do teenagers get enough money to buy cocaine?

Well, those little bastards, the Barcelona street criminals, have killed somebody. They bag-snatched an 80-year-old woman, a Danish tourist, and threw her to the ground on Tuesday. She was taken to the hospital, where she went into a coma, and she died yesterday. The cops say it's going to be almost impossible to find the murderer--under Kansas law, anyway, this is capital murder, committed during the commission of a felony--unless somebody talks. What cowards, victimizing old women who can't defend themselves. I vote we hang them, but you already knew that.

They arrested two more people for Internet kiddie porn here in Spain, where punks mug old ladies with impunity, but at least we round up pervo pederasts by the dozen. Get this: One of these pervs is a pediatrician. Glad I didn't send my kid to him.

The Euribor, the Eurozone's base interest rate, hit 5%, and oil has hit $135 a barrel. This means higher mortgage payments and higher food and gasoline prices, so it's time to pull in the old belt a notch or two.

What America should do: Reduce energy dependence on the Middle East. Despite the drawbacks, with oil this high, using ethanol makes sense. We have enormous coal reserves; let's use them. Drill in Alaska: it's an enormous place and a few oil wells are not going to drive polar bears into extinction. And it's not like anyone lives north of the Brooks Range. Wind power makes sense with oil this high, as well, and there are lots of windy places in Kansas where nobody lives where they could put up thousands of windmills. Build state-of-the-art nuclear plants; the risk is negligible though the cost is high. Sure, all this is going to cost money, but I'll bet private corporations could more than handle it.

Today it's Corpus Christi, and in an ancient Barcelonese tradition, they place an blown-out egg on top of the stream of water shooting up from the fountain in the Cathedral cloister, along with a dozen other medieval churches. The stream of water elevates the egg and it "dances," held up by the water. It's called "l'ou com balla," and is definitely worth having a look at if you're in town.

Get this: Nearly half of all Spaniards do not shower every day, according to a Proctor and Gamble survey. And with water restrictions, it's only going to get worse this summer.

4 comments:

Jordi Trenzano said...

Don't any of you point your fingers for what i'll write, I can assure you it's more common to know this here than it might seem:

Well, Teenagers can get cocaine by 60 euros / 1 gram (0'035 ounces), or even find some dealer who might sell them 1/2 gram, by 30 or 40 euros. So, it's not that difficult for kinds around 16 or 18 to get together and put some money. It's more present than what it seems, sadly enough. Specially since most of this cocaine only has an 8-10% of pureness and the rest is mixes with gos knows what type of crap.

Jordi Trenzano said...

"for kids" and "god knows" typing mistake.

By the way, Tom Waits is playing here in july. Woooow !!!!! Tickets are really expensive, tough.

Partyboy said...

Great blog, John! About the Barcelona criminals who killed that 80-yr-old Dutch tourist: Spain can keep having the softest criminal law penalties in Western Europe, but let's see how that impacts tourism in the long run... and let's remember, tourism is all that Spain has (mostly hooligan dopehead tourism though).

Lenox said...

Well, we used to have 'residential tourism' as well - retired home-makers from northern Europe - but the authorities are doing their level best to bollix that market too.