In Moroccan cotton caftans the whole year, adding wool socks in winter.

The same old seven still work fine, and the corresponding virtues : Against lust/lechery : chastity Against gluttony/over-consumption /over-indulgence : temperance. Against envy : charity, Against sloth : diligence, Againt wrath : patience Against greed : generosity Against pride : humility In whatever order they came, that I only remember in Spanish.

Quoting Wu : “Maria is a Christian name, isn’t it? ” Yes, it is a Christian name, so what? I am Spanish and Roman Catholic, so what? what has it got to do with your anti-Semitic writing? “Or am I talking to a coward who did not want to show its real identity!…. I am a Chinese-American——” Again, so what? I am Spanish from Spain and you are Chinese from America, so bloody what? “Here I think some one like Liz Smith can tell you some thing that can knock you off balance if she is herself by now. Because people like Hillary Clinton, in order to get elected, she would sell herself to Israel and keep the troops in Iraq indefinitely to protect Israel from the Muslims once she got elected and my three grand children will grow up to fight the wars for Israel!… She would do anything to be elected!—-” And what all that rambling nonsense has to do with your anti-Semitic writing? “By the way, a lot of people ,even you, know exactly what I have been talking about. Yes, you bet I do, you utter brainless, information-less anti-Semitic nonsense. “Name calling had discouraged a lot of people in the past, ” I am resisting the strong temptation to call you names, being disciplined not to call you anti-Semitic bigot, uninformed gross racist nincompoop. You see? I don’t call you any of that, I simply qualify your writing as anti-Semitic. That’s all. “Any way I believed you know exactly what I mean, even you do not want to admit it. ” I do admit that I know EXACTLY what you mean. You mean to write anti-Semitic stuff and you do. Your anti-Semitic writing is as old as Westeen civilisation : “blame it on the Jews” Pfiew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ikhhhsssssss! (sounds of disgust) “You reminded me of the Japs …” You DON’T want to know who you remind me of. I’ll remain disciplined and will not tell you who exactly you remind me of. Ikkhhssssssssss!

Quoting you : “Maria E.:—- Please don’t do the usual thing calling names ANTI-SEMITIC THIS AND THAT” Your affirmation is anti-Semitic. That’s not “as usual calling names”. I am NOT calling you names, I am qualifying your writing and it is anti-Semitic. Don’t write that way, those nonsensical anti-Semitic things and I will not qualify them. “, JUST TALK WHAT YOU KNOW” I happen to know. And I know what I am talking about. You seem not to, and repeat idiotic anti-Semitic platitudes. “AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW— IF YOU HAVE GOOD ARGUMENT;” Here goes my argument : Iraq’s war is not “Israel’s war”. It is YOUR OWN COUNTRY’S WAR. It is your country, your USA, with your tax money, HAVING INVADED IRAQ AND KILLING IRAQIS, and being killed by Iraqis too. That’s it. Israel has nothing to do in this story, and to bring it in as if it were the Israelis fault that your country makes war IS ANTI-SEMITIC, in a very thin disguise. “YOU DO NOT NEED TO CALL ME NAMES!” I did NOT call you names. I call your writing names because it is unacceptably anti-Semitic. In this side of the ocean (Europe) to make anti-Semitic comments can be a crime. “……….In 1949, Israel became a nation.” No, it became a state in 1948. Jews had always been a nation. “and took the land from the Palestinians.( the movie “EXEDUS” with Paul Newman)” Uy come on! as if the contents of a film where instead of History!!! “,…and had concentration camps in Lebanon years later…. ” NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO AND NO. Israel DID NOT, HAS NOT EVER MADE CONCENTRATION CAMPS… AND THAT IS TOTALLY AND WILDLY ANTI-SEMITIC. “The Muslims claimed that because the Jews mistreated the Palestinians, therefore there was 911….. ” Give me a break! do some basic reading and then discuss the subject. You are piling more nonsense on the idiocy.

Quoting you : “You cannot force democracy on an unwilling people”. How do you know that the people of Iraq are unwilling? let me remind you that Iraqis defied all the threats by insurgents, who declared that they would kill anyone involved in elections… and walked kilometers sometimes (non-military transportation had been banned for E-day) in order to vote. They proved their wanting democracy twice, January 2005 and January 2006, overcoming all physical, political and security obstacles in order to vote. Does it prove that they do NOT want democracy??? It proves to me all the contrary, that they DO WANT democracy. Besides and for the record and the memory, democracy is a UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHT, written as such in Art. 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 1948… and as all universal human right, a MUST.

From my experience of many years as editor of a diferent forum with a different purpose : we do not limit the length of comments, but do not allow the bringing in, by copy+paste, of outside material. If there is interest in showing readers somthing else, a link can be inserted, but only a link with no copied+pasted text. There are a couple of serious reasons, a) that forums are for personal thought and personally formed opinion to be expressed, and not for bringing in whatever has been thought and said elsewhere by someone else, or otherwise a forum becomes and exchanges of copies from here and there. And b) because of copyright reasons. People copy and paste from the Net without checking what can be copied, used and not. To keep it safe and avoid trouble for the owners of the forum, better avoid the copy+paste from outside sources.

Germany and Japan were defeated in ways that Iraq never was. The investment in troops and determination was so much higher. A comparison comes to mind. Kosovo, to keep the peace and to make the country work, had at one time some 56,000 foreign troops, from controlling the traffic to making the court houses work… and Kosovo is 50 times smaller than Iraq. For the Iraqi war, how many soldiers were sent? 130,000? Iraq would have needed, not just to win the war, but to enforce the peace and to make it function, so it would not collapse, over 1/2 million troops. The USofA could not provide those troops alone without introducing the draft, which was not even contemplated. I know nothing military, but my common sense tells me that if to make Kosovo work you need 56,000 troops, to make Iraq work many, many, many more than the 130,000 sent were needed, and that the Iraq experience was doomed from start. What I wonder is how the teachings of Kosovo, so recent, had been forfotten in some 3 to 4 years. As for humility and cooperation; we have no idea what was found in Iraq, the media reported only one side. Sigh!

Quoting you ” Israel’s ” survival” worries me. In the name of “survival” they treated the Muslims just as the way the Nazi treated them during WWII. ” Really???? Where are the concentration / death camps for Muslims that the Israelis have set up, to follow your comparison? Where are the Auschwitzes where Israel has interned and eliminated the Muslims? And since when the Iraq war is an Israeli war? your coutnry (if you are American) has invaded Iraq for its own real or perceived interests, because it is the only world superpower and superpowers do invade others… and what is Israel doing there????? Are yopu even aware that 20% of Israel’s inhabitants are Muslims, Palestinians who are Muslims? Your affirmation is a nonsensical, anti-Semitic sounding piece. Read and get informed before you make such comments. First it is untrue, and then they ring anti-Semitic

Not really ! :):):) I ALWAYS tell my age but NEVER tell my weight :)

All the above in your initial post is true, and yet… Barcelona and Catalonia in general, once the avantgarde of Spain into Europe, have been consumed by Catalonian nationalism for the last 25 years at least, and after looking into the Catalonian navel for so long, are not avantgarde of anything any longer, but have become more provincial, more parochial, more self-absorbed, far less creative and less interesting in general. I suppose all that doesn’t matter when in travel and within the tourist bubble, but for those who could really interact with the locals, Madrid is a much, much better choice. It is more open, welcoming, tolerant, non-imposing, integrates all… and as a consequence, a lot more creative than ever. Some Catalonian creators are running away from Barcelona due to the suffocating provincial-nationalistic atmosphere.

The closest-to-the-body personal space is called the “personal bubble” and it has been measured in different societies. As average, adult Americans have some 45 cm close to their bodies in which they allow “intrusions” only from very few people, parents, spouse, children, without feeling extremely uncomfortable. The bubble exists in all cultures, but few have been studied systematically that I am aware of. Americans are richer and ha have more funds available for that type of research. By the way, people give away often their hidden romantic affairs as they allow lovers intrusions into the bubble :):):)

I am still recovering from the “global cooling” that was THE thing of the 70s. It did not get as big as this one because we did not have similar communications means as we have today, but it was as intense as it could; everywhere in the media there was talk about the cooling, there were books published about it (I remember one in 1976 called just that, “Cooling”). All the data to prove the global cooling was there, the glaciers measurements, the temperatures records, just everything. The decade ended and we went into something else, we changed mantra; in Europe the 80s were about nuclear stuff (anti-nuclear), the 90s were about the ozone layer and this first decade of the 2000 is about global warming. Eagerly awaiting what will be THE issue from 2010 on :):):)

The best liquid eye liner that I have used this far is Pilot V Ball writing pen, black, 0.5. I have used it for over 20 years now… easy to find, very inexpensive, easiest to apply, lasts the whole day, goes away with just water.

I have read two contributions that refer to leg cramps in the middle of the night. They go away immediately with the ingestion of some salt and they don’t appear at all if supper has something salty in it

BTW, who is Dr. Laura? she sounds like a real troglodyte in this issue.