Spain has some decidedly odd village names. Up in Galicia, I like the one that translates, from Galician, into Dead Cat. And the one call Mesquita, or Mosque in English. Here's a few that others have noticed, in Spanish.
If you're thinking of buying a property in Spain, here's a useful guide to its likely running costs.
Relatedly . . . Spain comes 4th in the global list of empty properties scattered around the country - after Malta, Mexico and Greece. More on this here, again in Spanish. I can't say I was astonished to read that construction in Spain continued even after the end, in 2008, of the ludicrous boom of the previous 6 or 7 years. It certainly did in respect of the still-empty houses in my barrio. But these 40 or so houses are a miniscule fraction of the 3.4m houses in Spain said to lie empty.
It's a fact that - despite the country's serious problems - there's no right-wing party in Spain to compare with those in Germany, Austria or France. Or even the pale UKIP version of the UK. If you want to know why Spain has been immune to this European virus, click here.
It's a fact that - despite the country's serious problems - there's no right-wing party in Spain to compare with those in Germany, Austria or France. Or even the pale UKIP version of the UK. If you want to know why Spain has been immune to this European virus, click here.
Finally . . . The Madness of King Donald. The man who wrote the US guidelines on the Narcissistic Personality Disorder has agreed that Trump is a classic narcissist but denied that he has mental condition. Here's what he offered initially on this subject:-
And here's what he's added since:-
Fevered media
speculation about Donald Trump’s psychological motivations and
psychiatric diagnosis has recently encouraged mental health
professionals to disregard the usual ethical constraints against
diagnosing public figures at a distance. They have sponsored several
petitions and a Feb. 14 letter to The New York Times
suggesting that Mr. Trump is incapable, on psychiatric grounds, of
serving as president.
Most amateur
diagnosticians have mislabeled President Trump with the diagnosis of
narcissistic personality disorder. I wrote the criteria that define
this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn’t meet them. He may be a
world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill,
because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required
to diagnose mental disorder.
Mr. Trump causes severe
distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded,
rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack
of empathy. It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are
mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump
(who is neither).
Bad behavior is rarely
a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only
rarely. Psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering Mr.
Trump’s attack on democracy. He can, and should, be appropriately
denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of
dictatorial powers.
His psychological
motivations are too obvious to be interesting, and analyzing them
will not halt his headlong power grab. The antidote to a dystopic
Trumpean dark age is political, not psychological.
Many people still don't
understand that Donald Trump can be a world-class narcissist and
still not qualify for a mental disorder.
My last blog explained
why he is bad, not mad—crazy only like a fox. And that lumping him
with the mentally ill is an insult to them, not him.
The urge among amateur
diagnosticians to mislabel Trump as mentally ill is perfectly
understandable. They are terrified (as am I) by his dictatorial and
impulsive behavior and feel compelled to resort to psychiatric name
calling as a way of delegitimizing him. But this is inaccurate,
unnecessary, unfair to the mentally ill, ineffective, and badly off
target.
We must challenge Trump
on his outrageous behaviors and constant lies, not on his mental
status. Speculations on Trump's psychological motivations, or
whether he believes his own lies, are both distracting and
irrelevant.
At this crucial moment,
with our fragile democracy at serious risk, I really couldn't care
less why Trump does what he does. It is his dangerous actions that
count, not the psychological reasons he does them.
Within a week of taking
office, Trump declared war on our Constitution and also on the courts
charged with defending it. He claimed that, based on his evaluation
of risks to national security, he could arbitrarily exclude
travelers from selected Muslim countries, without any judicial review
of the legality of his executive order.
His claim is
unprecedented and has been twice rejected by the court: "There
is no precedent to support this unreviewability, which runs contrary
to the fundamental structure of our democracy."
Trump ridiculed the
four judges who ruled against him and claimed that they were acting
politically—despite the fact that two had been appointed by
Republican presidents and two by Democratic presidents. No president
in our long history has ever shown such disrespect for the judiciary
or willingness to defy the necessary checks and balances restraining
presidential power.
Impending court
decisions in this case may constitute a key turning point in United
States history. Should the judges accept Trump's "national
security" excuse for unconstitutional acts, it will embolden him
to push for a much greater power grab. He can create a de facto
dictatorship, eroding our precious civil rights, based only on
his arbitrary interpretation of "national security."
The courts must
establish that Trump's "national security" excuse is not a
blank check, allowing for serial violations of the Constitution.
Court decisions have always been heavily influenced by politics.
The question now is whether judges will have the courage to support
our Constitution in the face of Trump's determined bullying.
Trump is also setting
up a straw man—he tweets that should a terrorist act ever occur, we
should "blame them," not hold him responsible. He is
preemptively abdicating responsibility for protecting the United
States as best he can, but to do this in a manner consistent with
upholding the Constitution and respecting our laws. Trump wants
to establish the dangerous dichotomy that we either grant him
dictatorial power or not hold him accountable for protecting national
security.
All previous presidents
understood that they were responsible for national security. None,
not even George Bush, ever presumed that this gave them the right to
rule autocratically and above the law.
Trump can be contained
only by the checks and balances that have always safeguarded our
democracy. His persistent power grabs must be opposed by Congress,
the courts, the media, and the public. So far Congress has
proven useless, the courts are still to be tested, the public is
mostly passive. The free media are the last and likely the best
protector of democracy—which is why Trump persists in the bold lie
that it is dishonest and that he is truthful.
Opposition to Trump's
power grab must be based on politics, not psychology. Everything
possible must be done now to strengthen the backbone of the current
very flawed Congress and to elect a wiser and more courageous one in
2018.
And vigorous efforts
must begin immediately to end the Trumpian dark age in 2020. If he
gets a second term, Trump could go far in destroying the precious,
but fragile, democratic institutions that have governed us for almost
two-and-a-half centuries.
It is no accident that
Orwell's 1984 shot to the top of Amazon's best seller list
immediately after Trump's election. Another book people should read
is Sinclair Lewis' 'It Can Happen Here'.
Finally . . . I ventured into Costa
Coffee today, but only to use their toilets. On the way out, I
noticed a sign on the door advertising a 'flat white' as the
'velvety smooth' companion to a latte. Coincidentally, my friend
Anthea has written to give me/us this vital info today. But, really,
after years of watching Fraser, I should have known this already.
Unnecessary foto:-
And here's the guff on it from Costa, which I know to be the most profitable division of Unilever:- Richer than a Latte. Creamier than a Cappuccino. The Flat White, a coffee drink concept originally from Australia and New Zealand is a rich, creamy, full flavoured coffee with a velvety texture and made from the purest extract of the coffee bean. It actually takes a great deal of skill to produce a Flat White. Only the purest essence of the coffee bean is extracted, resulting in a short Espresso called 'Cortissimo'. This is then blended with milk that has been heated using a special technique, resulting in a smooth, velvety texture, with each drink hand finished with a distinctive 'florette' pattern. Dear God! All this to justify a price of €3 for mostly water.
Which reminds me . . . Walking around a TK Maxx store with my daughter this morning, I saw a sign saying something like Quality Gifts from Around The World. Which presumably translates into Cheap Kitcsh Tat From China. Like the imitation Anglepoise lamp I bought, reduced from 180 to 33 quid.
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