Balearic sex tourism

The head of the Balearics tourism authority, Juan Carlos Alía, has just had to resign following the revelation – brought out by some smart work by socialist deputy, Antonio Diéguez – that he tried to include a trip to one of Moscow’s top brothels, Rasputin, on his expenses claim. Alía was in Moscow to give…

Translation of Den Haag Connection rap calling for death of Dutch MP

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a highly talented Somali immigrant who started as a cleaning lady and, although still only in her mid-30s, was elected last time round to the lower chamber of the Dutch parliament on the VVD (liberal-right) ticket. She has been threatened frequently since being elected for describing Islam as a backward religion,…

Sick presidents

If I’d been running Homeland Security yesterday I’d have arrested every grubby fruit vendor I could find. To my knowledge no US president has ever been shot or blown up on July 4th but, as Doctor Zebra notes,

Red carpets for Bush

The cultural naivety of Irish political atavism is evident in this placard. NO RED CARPET FOR KILLER BUSH, it says. Smart opponents would have tried to change the meaning of the red from whatever it originally was to reflect the blood which they would have us believe Bush is spilling needlessly.

“The USSR saved Europe from fascism”

Stalin apologist Rafael Poch has published an article in La Vanguardia which belittles, falsifies, misrepresents the Normandy landings. That’s a common line here, where quite large numbers of people still believe that Stalin (substitute Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Companys etc as you will) was a benevolent (although misunderstood) genius. All’s quiet on the domestic front…

Barcepundit

Go check out Barcepundit, the new home of ex-Hispalibertas bod, Franco Alemán, who is neither a dead dictator, nor French, nor German, but who does have some rather important things to say to you in English and Spanish. I wonder if it is not time to declare a moratorium on new blogs with the prefix…

Der Volf

Waszynski’s extraordinary 1937 Dibuk still drifts into the occasional dream. Der Volf was written by another Polish Jewish artist, H Leivick at around the same time as the play on which Waszynski’s film was based. Both introduce the supernatural in order to help us understand why it is wrong to do wrong, but where Der…

Wales signs agreement with Latvia

This has hardly attracted any attention, but it is extremely interesting since it is the first time I can recall an EU member state being persuaded (I assume we’re talking Welsh investment and the odd leek) to jump into bed with a similar-sized region of another EU member state. Nice one, Rhodri, but I’ll bet…