megaspora

Responsibility? Not in Spain

By: psr, 2010-02-25

We are tired (here in Spain) of seeing multiple cases of politicians in office declining any responsibility for their wrong acts, or also cases of them assuming their responsibility while staying in office to continue their wrong (unlawful even) behaviour.

But today I read in the news that here in Spain a local politician of the Popular Party, Ignacio Uriarte, has been caught drunk driving, when he crashed into a Taxi in Madrid. Uriarte has resigned from his post as PP representative in a Road Safety commission of the Spanish senate. Unfortunately all he said is that he “made a mistake“. That’s no mistake, Mr. Uriarte. Having a few drinks too many before hoping into your car is not a mistake, it is …

More »

2010-02-25 | General - Spain | Trackback | No Comments »

Subsidies produce lazy individuals

By: psr, 2009-09-27

Spanish daily newspaper ‘El País’ published an interview with surgeon Pedro Cavadas, using a sentence by him as the title: ‘Subsidies produce lazy individuals‘.

Gladly, El País is publishing something like this in big letters. Dr. Cavadas is just saying one of those paramount truths very few people date to admit. Subsidies produce lazy individuals, damaging those who receive them because subsidies are strong private initiate deterrents, while they represent severe burden on taxpayers, whose taxes pay for those subsidies. Moreover, subsidies also impose dependencies, inefficiency, and only drive people to both economic and spiritual poverty. Subsidies are simply free money in exchange for nothing, and as anything that’s free, they are not valued nor appreciated. The very
nature of subsidies makes them prey …

More »

2009-09-27 | Economy - Spain | Trackback | No Comments »

Weak democracies

By: psr, 2009-08-25

Scotland freed one of the Lockerbie bombing terrorists a couple of days ago, on ‘humanitarian’ grounds. The Scottish authorities are dumb. If the guy was jailed for killing over 200 people, he wasn’t very ‘humanitarian’ to others, was he?. Then, why free him on ‘humanitarian’ grounds? Why treat humanely someone who showed no humanity? Healthy or ill, the criminal is a criminal, and if he was senteced to life in jail, it is wrong to release him just because he is ill.

This is just another sign of the weakness of modern democracies.

More »

2009-08-25 | Braindead - Rights - World | Trackback | No Comments »

Censored Spanish anthem?

By: psr, 2009-07-26

Alberto Contador (from Pinto, in Spain) won the Tour de France today, but when he climbed up to the podium, the Danish anthem was played instead of the Spanish one. Mistake? I doubt it… it was pretty clear that Contador would win the Tour. How can the organizers make a mistake on what anthem to play? The on-line media I have read contains no explanations from the organizers about the mistake, but I think there is wrong-doing to avoid the Spanish anthem being heard. (Yes, I am proposing some small-time conspiracy theory, with the only proof of how absurd and unlikely the so-called mistake is).

More »

2009-07-26 | Europe - Spain | Trackback | No Comments »

How to pretend doing something without committing to anything

By: psr, 2009-07-05

A nuclear energy plant in Spain, in the town of Santa María de Garoña, is the focus of controversy in recent weeks, thanks to the Government’s determination to close it down in spite of favourable reports that call for its continuation beyond its design lifetime of 40 years.

Spanish government president Rodríguez Zapatero’s motivation to close it down is purely political. He wants to be seen as the promoter of “clean energy”, and also needs public discussion of a controversial topic (the debate on the use or not of nuclear energy) to divert attention from Spain’s real problems (unemployment, inefficient government, inefficient justice system, etc…)

But now (2009) it is a bad time to close this nuclear plant down, for it would leave thousands of people unemployed, and that would hurt …

More »

2009-07-05 | Spain | Trackback | No Comments »

Language choice in Galicia

By: psr, 2009-06-28

The regional government of Galicia distributed a questionnaire among parents of schooled children. The goal is to find out parents’ preferences about which language (Spanish or Galician, or a mix) to use for teaching in school, to later design the “future language policies for elementary and secondary education in Galicia.”

The questionnaire had to reach parents directly, but a group called “galician coalition of linguistic normalization and dynamization” (CGENDL in Galician) has attached a letter (in Galician) to the questionnaire to mold responses in favor of one option (Galician). While this is bad enough (the questionnaire was supposed to be neutral), the letter rests on ludicrous claims:

1) “Galician is Galicia’s own language; it belongs to us all and we cannot play with its future”

This is irrelevant: …

More »

2009-06-28 | Braindead - Rights - Spain | Trackback | 5 Comments »

Why does Rodríguez Zapatero need the special congress permission?

By: psr, 2009-06-21

This week ETA has killed police inspector Eduardo Puelles, and the Government and the main opposition party (PP) have given an image of unity in their response to this new assassination, calling for the defeat of ETA. It seems that the PP backs the Government’s current counter-terrorism policy.

However, it is hard to believe that the Government really wants to see ETA defeated while they still keep alive a permit in congress to allow the Government to negotiate with ETA killers.

Furthermore, we no longer hear the PP voice their old demand that the Government of Rodríguez Zapatero revoke the special permit to negotiate with ETA. The PP stopped asking for this since they failed to win the presidential elections of 2008.

As a reminder, the “special …

More »

2009-06-21 | Spain | Trackback | No Comments »

New financing, …new programming?

By: psr, 2009-06-12

Televisión Española (“TVE”, the Spanish public TV station) is faced with a new financing plan, put forward by the current government, the “Draft bill for financing of Spanish Radio and Television Corporation”. According to this bill, TVE would no longer display TV commercials. Advertisement income will be replaced by income from a tax on telecommunication operators and on private TV channels.

That is, TVE no longer needs to compete for the audience to ensure its income: All its financing is guaranteed by law, coming from national budget, and from mandatory taxes on private companies.

Therefore, if TVE requires not to compete with its programming against other TV channels, will TVE cease to broadcast rubbish? There is no longer any excuse to broadcast stupid contest shows, gossip TV shows, …

More »

2009-06-12 | Spain | Trackback | 1 Comment »

13-week monsters

By: psr, 2009-05-20

In the context of the abortion debate, agitated by the government of Rodríguez Zapatero with its new “Law of Reproductive and Sexual Health and of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancies”, the Minister of Equality (yes… we have such a idiotic Ministry in Spain), Bibiana Aído, has marked the age limit for the human fetus to be considered human or not.

That is, the socialist government has turned itself into official philosopher and dictates who is human and who is not. This government must really have magical properties, because despite all absurdity they utter, they manage to keep considerable popular support.

What’s that about a 13-week fetus not being human? Is a one week fetus something other than human? What else is it? Possibly up until 13 weeks …