I presume those interested in Spanish politics have heard Mariano Rajoy's speech on a new foundation for the PP and all that load of guff. One thing I greatly dislike about Spanish politics is its fondness for large, impressive-sounding, but empty statements. As far as I can tell Rajoy said absolutely nothing specific about anything the PP plans to do. In Anglo-American politics no one takes you seriously unless you give specifics behind your plan. In Spain I don't think I've ever heard a politician fully explain a campaign promise. The only thing I liked that Rajoy said was this: "The PP must recover leadership with new programs, new projects, and even, if they're justified, new ideas." Nice summary of the conservative thought process. Be very careful with "new" ideas. They're quite likely to have been tried before and found wanting.

Would it be fair to call Marxists reactionaries since they want to put into practice a bunch of failed ideas thought up by a few visionaries in the mid-19th century?

Get this. The EU is shipping €120 million to Hamas. Great. Just the thing for a bunch of killers and bandits. That'll teach them we're serious. Just because Hamas was democratically elected, more or less, doesn't mean we have to send them any money at all. Moratinos, who is really a naive dope rather than a cynical fellow-traveler, is in favor, of course.

The other thing Moratinos is in favor of is Zapatero's alleged Alliance of Civilizations. This is one of the dumbest things to come down the pike since the Forum of Cultures. Back in 2004 Zap had the genius idea to solve the world's problems by starting a new organization, as if we didn't have enough already. Since then, Kofi Annan, who loves the idea, has appointed a High Level Group to, get this, think of something for the Alliance of Civilizations to do. People wondering exactly how corrupt Kofi Annan is might read this Claudia Rosett piece from the Weekly Standard.

From yesterday's Spain Herald,

Moratinos stressed the "crucial importance" of education in the future and proposed the development of a code of conduct for textbooks, as well as "an educational model inspired by the principles of the 'Alliance'." In addition to his proposal for a massive student exchange, he suggested that an "Organization of Youth Solidarity" be created.

Lemme see. The purpose of the Alliance of Civilizations is to censor our school textbooks?

Check out this bit published by La Vanguardia in its daily selection of opinion from world newspapers. It's reprinted from La Jornada, a Mexican left-wing sheet.

...Confrontation among Iraqis of different ethnicities and Islamic currents, and the mass lynching of Sunnis, evidently favor the interests of the Anglo-American invadors...such provocative actions as (the blowing up of the Golden Dome mosque) give the governments of Bush and Blair justification to keep their troops in Iraq...Washington lacks the capacity and, perhaps, the desire to pacify Iraq, but it has more than the necessary means to dress some of its commandos in local police uniforms to blow up a mosque.

Well, you heard it here first! The Yankees blew up the mosque for their own evil divide and conquer ends! Why does La Vanguardia reprint this paranoid crap?

Also, in case you're interested, La Vanguardia columnist Miguel Angel Aguilar today cites Norman G. Finklestein's The Holocaust Industry as an example of "the exploitation of Jewish suffering," and compares the "exploiters" of the Holocaust with the (Aguilar labels it the "so-called") Association of Victims of Terrorism. So let me get this straight, Mr. Aguilar, the people whose relatives were killed by ETA or who were wounded themselves are "exploiting" their suffering just like those damn Jews? And, by the way, Finkelstein is not precisely a reliable source, as anyone who looks at his website will discover.