Year 2002: The Spanish Government, with support from the opposition, introduces new legislation to ban political parties which support, in one form or another, terrorism. The new laws were drafted quite clearly with political party Batasuna in mind. This party, linked to criminal band ETA, had representation in the Basque parliament, receiving public funds which ended up supporting ETA’s terrorist activities.

Year 2004: National elections to the Spanish Government: The PSOE (socialist party), until then the opposition party, became the party in power.

Year 2005: Local Basque elections took place. Batasuna, already declared illegal for supporting terrorist activity, could not run in this election. However, a new party, PCTV (EHAK by its Basque name), ran for office, despite it being heir to the …

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The bandwagon of man-made climate change has all sorts of passengers, and seems to be the ideal pretext for just about anything nowadays.

The UK Government announced this week that the UK will begin building nuclear power plants again.

Nuclear energy has bad press for several reasons, including health concerns for nearby residents, difficult disposal of nuclear waste, and the danger of malfunction in the plant. There’s widespread opposition throughout Europe to building new nuclear power stations. Even UK’s announcement this week has been criticized by some groups.

However, what is unusual in the arguments to defend the construction of new nuclear power plants? The fight against climate change is publicized as the first reason that citizens should take into account to back nuclear energy. (references: …

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With the start of 2008, France has joined Italy and Ireland in a complete ban to smoking in restaurants and bars. Thankfully they have not followed the smoking regulation model started in Spain, which gives small bar/restaurant owners the choice of becoming a smoking or a non-smoking space.

Smoking bans are always perceived differently from two different points of view: the health point of view and the ‘comfort’ (or annoyance) point of view.

Taking health into account, and according to the law itself, the goal of smoking bans is to reduce tobacco consumption to reduce health risks, and to reduce exposure of workers to tobacco smoke. (It can be argued whether smoking is really a health risk or not, although I believe it is). …

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What’s hip and cool on the outside, but a blushing lie on the inside? Man-made climate change. It’s the talk of the world. It’s the politically correct thing to say, and it’s also the politically incorrect thing to deny.

Lots of people have jumped on the bandwagon to declare that we are experiencing unusual global warming, and it’s caused by human activity on Earth.

It is worth putting things into perspective. The Earth is a some 4.5 billion year old system, and is far bigger and more complex than any man-made system or artifact. Humans have inhabited this planet for the past 130,000 years only. Human machinery and industrialization began some 200 years ago, at most. Human-produced CO2 emissions (widely regarded as a …

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In Spain, the ruling party (socialist PSOE), presented yesterday a new publicity campaign with its leader (José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero) as the centre of attention: “Con Z de Zapatero”, (“With a Z as in Zapatero”). It has a strong resemblance to “Z comme Zorglub”, the title of one of the great Spirou comics, from 1960. For those who do not know Spirou, Zorglub was one of the bad guys in the stories.

Therefore, is “With a Z as in Zapatero” a forecast that Zapatero will be the Zorglub (the villain) of our time?

Maybe not, and maybe it is just plagiarism of a comic on the part of the PSOE.

Whether forecast or plagiarism, the new publicity campaign by the PSOE is also a message of praise of a person, …

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The European satellite navigation system, Galileo, is suffering serious delays, and continued cost over-runs. It should be operational by 2008, but has managed to place only one satellite (of 30) in orbit, and it’s a test satellite. This week, the European Commission and European States have discussed ways to jump-start the Galileo project, with a new target date for operation in 2014 (estimated). However, some reports indicate that funding for Galileo is not really secured.

I am a European, and I almost wish the Galileo project would collapse and fail. It would be a great lesson for European companies, States and leaders. The great weakness of Europe is in its diversity: diversity of governing bodies, diversity of cultures, languages and diversity of …

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Eco-friendly cars have arrived in the market with much fanfare. The global warming fashion is used as the selling point for these new cars which consume bio fuel, and produce fewer CO2 emissions than diesel or gasoline engines.

Yet, these cars are falsely eco-friendly. While their emissions may be lower, their fuel is more energy-consuming to produce than traditional diesel or gasoline.

The amount of energy required to produce 1 horsepower out of a bio-diesel car engine is greater, and more pollutant, than the energy required to produce 1 horsepower out of a regular diesel or gasoline car engine.

Bio-fuels (whether ethanol or bio-diesel) themselves require more energy to produce than the energy obtained out of them. These types of fuel are obtained from vegetable oils, …

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Several recent announcements in Spain provide for some amusing and saddening analysis:

1. The Government of Spanish PM Rodríguez Zapatero announced state aid for young people (under certain income level) to pay the rent on their house or apartment.
2. Some time ago, they announced that landlords would be protected against defaulting tenants, by a state agency that would pay the landlord the amount owed by the tenant.
3. The Andalusian regional government (ruled by the same party as Rodríguez Zapatero’s) has also recently announced they would “give away” flats for free to people earning less than €3,000 per month.

Aside from the fact that these are purely populist announcements, just in time for upcoming elections, they are yet another proof of the downright ineptitude of Rodríguez Zapatero:

1) and 2): The …

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During the present Government (of the Socialist Party, PSOE), the opposition (the Popular Party, PP) has said repeatedly that the Government is “dismantling” the Spanish Nation while empowering multiple nations within the State. The Government denies such accusations, and in turn blames the opposition for “borrowing” the idea of Spain for themselves.

It is true that the PSOE has helped several small nationalisms rise within the State. Such practice, which the PSOE has encouraged and started in Catalonia, Galicia and Andalusia, is a sure source of confrontation and division among people.

When politicians encourage differentiating sentiments in a people with
respect to others, they are motivated by any of these reasons:

• Divert people’s attention from their real needs and problems
• Avoid the hard work of governing
• Assert control over the people (obtain votes) arguing …
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The poet recently awarded with the 2006 Premio Cervantes (considered as the Spanish language Nobel prize for literature), Antonio Gamoneda, has said that controls should be put in place on the Internet to verify and check what gets published. (news article in El Mundo)

He claims not to have used the Internet ever, but he deems it appropriate to install such controls to avoid things like a false interview with him which, he says, is published on the net.

Basically he is proposing censorship on the Internet. This is almost technically impossible, but the serious part in his proposal is even the thought of curbing freedom of speech on the Internet.

On the Internet there are false interviews, along with other false information, and side by side with lots …

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