As the great mass of Spanish blogosphere, I join to the “Fundamental Rights in the Internet Manifesto” against a new law project of our fascist govern that tries to block Internet web sites bypassing the courts.

1. Copyright should not be placed above citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression.
2. Suspension of fundamental rights is and must remain an exclusive competence of judges. This blueprint, contrary to the provisions of Article 20.5 of the Spanish Constitution, places in the hands of the executive the power to keep Spanish citizens from accessing certain websites.
3. The proposed laws would create legal uncertainty across Spanish IT companies, damaging one of the few areas of development and future of our economy, hindering the creation of startups, introducing barriers to competition and slowing down its international projection.
4. The proposed laws threaten creativity and hinder cultural development. The Internet and new technologies have democratized the creation and publication of all types of content, which no longer depends on an old small industry but on multiple and different sources.
5. Authors, like all workers, are entitled to live out of their creative ideas, business models and activities linked to their creations. Trying to hold an obsolete industry with legislative changes is neither fair nor realistic. If their business model was based on controlling copies of any creation and this is not possible any more on the Internet, they should look for a new business model.
6. We believe that cultural industries need modern, effective, credible and affordable alternatives to survive. They also need to adapt to new social practices.
7. The Internet should be free and not have any interference from groups that seek to perpetuate obsolete business models and stop the free flow of human knowledge.
8. We ask the Government to guarantee net neutrality in Spain, as it will act as a framework in which a sustainable economy may develop.
9. We propose a real reform of intellectual property rights in order to ensure a society of knowledge, promote the public domain and limit abuses from copyright organizations.
10. In a democracy, laws and their amendments should only be adopted after a timely public debate and consultation with all involved parties. Legislative changes affecting fundamental rights can only be made in a Constitutional law.

A humble tribute in my window. Never forget.

Tiananmen Square 1989-2009

Some NGO’s are organizing meetings in cities all around Spain(hazteoir.org, es) on the next Sunday, against the new law that the Spanish govern is trying to aprove about abortion.

Even when last year the number of abortions was extremely high (140,000), the current law is clear: abortion is an exception. It will change with the new law, it will convert abortion in a right.

Spanish govern justify in an experts committe. But in fact their committee was made up mainly with members of groups in favor of abortion and abortists clinics businessmen. There was not a real social discussion, and, of course, there was not a real scientific debate.

In positive, read Samuel’s history. Photo copyright by Michael Clancy (fair use, I think).

“Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood“

Yukio Mishima. Runaway horses, 1969

Imagine you live in a house where the garage is full of garbage. The living room has leaking water. The mattress is old and it is invaded by fleas. Dead rats descompose in the attic. The kitchen is black because burning and it has an old, dangerous gas stove.

And it happens since decades. But you look to your brilliant bathroom with marble bathtub and high-tech japanese WC. And you think it’s all right.

Global crisis NOW? Let’s be serious, please.

I always loved sports. I didn’t played a lot because I was too bad and I had no teacher who drived me right. Like most of Spanish boys, I loved football, and I soon began to suffer with the curse on the Spanish national team (and enjoyed with the evolution of Deportivo de La Coruña). So, when this summer Spain reached the top of Europe playing football lovely and wining, I blowed up with happiness.

Now I’m enjoying with Spanish sportmen in Beijing. But I can’t forget the Olympic Games where time for peace. And  there is not peace without justice. I hope Olympic Games help a bit to China to open to democracy, even when the goverment became more oppressorto show a nice face to the world, even when the people that decided Beijin seven years ago had another intere$$$t$$$.

Ther is no peace too when one player in the Games invades the territory of another player, causing hundreds of injured and killed. Russia justified with a possible Georgian attack against civilians, but it’s difficult to prove this when some journalist died trying to show the reality to the rest of the world.

“A very serious bug in the Linux OS exposes millions of servers all around the world to the intruders. The Linux people reacted quickly and they warned about what keys were vulnerable”
In CNN+ News (Spanish franchise of CNN), about the OpenSSL bug in Debian.

“Google was founded by two students in a garage 20 years ago”
In TVG’s Telexornal (news at the public Galician television), about the Prince of Asturias Award to Google.

Bloody games

Freedom for Tibet!

We beared a hard storm this week in the North of Spain. As result of it, a 10 m. wave sweeped away La Coruña’s promenade and destroyed part of it.

Today I read an interview to Macario Fernández-Alonso, the actual president of Port of La Coruña. And I got angry. The newspaper entitled it “experts say the next wave of the same height will take 40 years to return”. It is an usual misconception about return period that would dissapear going to the Wikipedia

But I made angry too because the journalist doesn’t know how to refer to the people that studies the waves in the sea. He referred them as “experts” or “meteorological experts”, and he/she used nowhere in the article the right name: C-I-V-I-L–E-N-G-I-N-E-E-R.

It must happen with the culture of perfection supported by the culture of death. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology took an step forward with a proposal to be free to kill disabled babies. It is consistet with the true idea there is not difference between late abortions and killing babies.

News like this proves my theory Hitler was bad but he’s dead, but the mass that supported him was worse, but it is alive.

Via Solidaridad.net

Image from Proyecto Varela

Today a new hope begins.

O vindeiro domingo día 17 de febreiro terá lugar unha manifestación a prol da construcción sostible do territorio, e en contra das actuais agresións que está a sufrir Galicia especialmente no tocante ó urbanismo e a protección do litoral. A respaldan algunhas organizacións de escala internacional como Greenpeace, e algunhas autonómicas, como a Sociedade Galega de Historia Natural. Pero o impulso principal ven de pequenas agrupacións locais, das xentes do pobo preocupadas polo que cada día ven facer ó asomarse ás súas fiestras, como Fusquenlla, de Pontedeume.

Na Alameda de Santiago de Compostela ás 12:00. Máis información e manifesto para firmar na web da plataforma.

El próximo domingo día 17 de febrero tendrá lugar una manifestación por la construcción sostible del territorio, y en contra de las actuales agresiones que está sufriendo Galicia especialmente en lo tocante al urbanismo y a la protección del litoral. La respaldan algunas organizaciones de escala internacional como Greenpeace, y algunas autonómicas, como la Sociedade Galega de Historia Natural. Pero el impulso principal viene de pequeñas agrupaciones locales, de las gentes del pueblo preocupadas por lo que cada día ven hacer al asomarse a sus ventanas, como Fusquenlla, de Pontedeume.

En la Alameda de Santiago de Compostela a las 12:00. Más información y manifesto para firmar en la web de la plataforma.

Last Friday there was in the city of La Coruña a demostration against the imposition of any language. In Galicia we speak two pretty latin languages, Spanish and Galician. Galician was taking as a minor language, but with the beginning of our current democracy in Spain, there is an effort to revitalize and to impulse its use as a mayor language. And it is good.

What is the problem then? The problem is that the nationalists in the local Parliament are using the Galician language as political weapon. So they try to force to everybody to use it as part of their “one language, one nation”. Of course, the first rejection against it comes from the common people that has been speaking Galician all their life without rules. Languages belong to the people that speak them, they do not belong the parties.

The position of the demonstrators [Mesa por la Libertad Lingüistica, es] defending the freedom to choose speaking and learning in every language -Spanish or Galician- was respectable as the opposite. But some people doesn’t think that. Some extreme nationalist groups raged against the demonstrators. They fighted with the police, then they waited to the end of the meeting. Some of those cowards surrounded two young boys, then they beat them up.

And it happened in the center of the city where nobody is a foreigner…

Updated, Feb. 14th: After a new attack in Santiago against right-wing Maria San Gil in the University of Santiago, tomorrow there will be another gathering in La Coruña for freedom of language. Those extremist are in a mistake if think they can scare to everybody that doesn’t agree with them.

It happened in the first days of December. Everybody who tried to connect to Blogger from Galician universities couldn’t do it. In the beginning we thought about some rare Google trouble. But the reality was very different: CESGA (Galician Supercomputation Center), who are in charge of opening to the Galician universities to the Internet, was blocking every web connection to Blogger. Why?

Since some years ago, in Spain we’re living with a sword over our heads because two laws about digital world rights: the LSSI aproved by right wing Partido Popular (PP), and “LSSI’s 2.0″ , LISI, aproved by left wing Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) last December, 20th. LSSI was the first step to control Internet operations in Spain. LISI reinforces this control and gives the chance to shutdown webs and another Internet services by administrative organizations even without court sentence.

Ok, what happened with Blogger? Some blogs hosted in Blogger encouraged to boycott Catalonian products because great part of Catalonians try to separate from Spain (in the same way I encourage to boycott Canadian products because they allow seal slaughters in this blog). So a court ordered a lien shutting down those blogs. As the blogs are hosted out of Spain, the next step was to block those webs. And, as CESGA could not block only that blogs, they decided to block all Blogger.

The wall was closed around a week. Those days were the wildest censorship case in the the history of the current democracy in Spain. And sadly, it is only the beginning.

Few webs and press published about the incident:

• Hazteoir.org(Spanish):“El centro de Supercomputación de la Junta de Galicia cierra el acceso a los blogs de Blogger”
• Libertad Digital (Spanish):“El centro de Supercomputación de la Xunta cierra el acceso a los blogs de Blogger”
• Vieiros (Galician): “Os universitarios galegos quedan sen acceso a Blogger”

In the last months I read a pair of stories that made me think about how we play with words to refer the same action.

In one side, the use of the term ‘feticidio’ (killing a fetus, in Spanish) in news[elmundo.es] about the important number of abortions in India, when they are in order to sex selection. It seems like if they don’t want to associate the sexist meaning to abortion, that it’s defended as progress, in our society.

Time after I read a post in Lugo Liberal’s blog [es] about the called partial-birth abortion [Corazones.org,es]. What’s this? It’s a technique in advanced pregnancy. A birth is induced, leaving only the head inside, then the (supposed) doctor make a hole in the skull, and finally they suck the brain. This method has been discussed legally in United States[NRLC,en], and, after some attempts for forbid it, abortists inject high amount of medicines in the fetus for… stop kicking out…

It proves the stupid frontier drawn about this subject. If the ‘procedure’ happens into the uterus, it is abort, legal and arguable; but if it happens outside, then it is called a killing. If it happens with half body inside and half body outside… the most confortable solution[abort73, en, VERY explicit video].

Estos últimos meses he leído un par de historias que me han hecho pensar en como se juega con las palabras para llamar a una misma acción.

Por una parte, me llamó la atención el uso del término «feticidio» en las noticias[elmundo.es] referentes al importante número de abortos que se producen en la India, cuando éstos son por selección de sexo. Parece como si no se le quisiera asociar el matiz sexista al aborto, que es algo que se defiende como progreso, en nuestra sociedad.

Un tiempo más tarde leí un post en el blog de Lugo Liberal [es] sobe el llamado aborto por nacimiento parcial[Corazones.org,es]. ¿Qué es esto? Una técnica, para estados de gestación avanzados, se provoca un parto de tal manera que sólo queda la cabeza dentro, entonces el (presunto) médico le agujerea el cráneo, para después succionarle el cerebro. Este procedimiento ha sido discutido legalmente en Estados Unidos[NRLC,en], y, desde varios intentos de prohibición, los abortistas inyectan grandes dosis de medicamentos en el feto para que… deje de patalear fuera…

Esto demuestra la estúpida frontera que se ha trazado en este tema. Si el «procedimiento» se realiza dentro del útero, es un aborto, legal y defendible; pero si se produce fuera, entonces es un asesinato. Si se produce con medio cuerpo dentro y medio cuerpo fuera… la solución más cómoda[abort73, en,video MUY explícito].

Ten years ago, the assassins of terrorist group ETA kidnapped a natural councillor of the little town of Ermua. They threatened to kill him if Spanish government didn’t give in their demands. Finally, that group of f*ck*ng cowards shot through his head.

In that moment, it seemed times-were-changing in the Basque society. A great movement of citizens going on the street without fear raging against ETA. And politicians of every colour were joined against terrorists.

Maybe today is a great moment to remember Miguel Ángel Blanco. Let’s look ourselves and let’s think about if his murder was a useless death.

“No estamos todos, nos falta Miguel Ángel”

Yesterday I had a very interesting discussion having dinner about the future of energies. I was in a minority against nuclear energy as solution to the future. One of my reasons was (is) the human factor in the security of
nuclear power plants. Today a new in Securityfocus supports my drawbacks: a ‘data storm’ in the LAN of Browns Ferry power plant (Alabama, USA) caused failure in any PLC (Programmable Logic Control) that stopped re-circulation water pumps, so operators were forced to stop the reactor.

The first, private investigation concluded it was a bad response of cheap hardware failure, the NRC accepted this theory and decided not to investigate. But the Homeland Security Committee forced a more deep investigation to determinate if the data flood came from an external DoS attack.

Both possible causes are extremely serious and amazing. And it happened in the USA…

Today the Spanish President José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero talked in a meeting at the Canarias Islands. In the tv news I could hear the President saying to the audience, about the problem with the inmigration: “Don’t allow xenophobic comments”

Nevertheless these days Amnesty International, Medicins du Monde and another NGOs reported 23 inmigrants of the ship Marine I were shut in a fish hut around 25 m2 without natural light, badly feeded[elmundo.es] since they arrived to Nuadibu in February. They are under surveillance of Spanish policemen that were ordered not allow them to go out until they accept to be repatriated to their countries.

The Spanish autorities in Mauritania are acting over the Spanish law even the International law. It seems the beginning of our own Guantánamo.

After the report was published, we can read in the news the 23 inmigrants were moved to a welcome center. As I explained down, we are in election time.

Este segundo comentario sobre las Elecciones Municipales se va a referir a la capital. Desde luego, no puedo hablar a fondo de la totalidad de Coruña como ciudad, porque no vivo en ella, aunque sí paso mucho tiempo.
De esas muchas horas que paso cada semana, de las más interesantes son en las que participo en el proyecto de apoyo escolar que la Oficina de Cooperación y Voluntariado de la UDC tiene en el Portiño. Llevo ya cinco años en ese proyecto, y le tengo mucho cariño a las gentes de ese barrio humilde, pero ejemplar.

Las clases y los juegos que compartimos con los niños los realizamos en lo que era el antiguo colegio del Portiño. Este colegio es propiedad municipal. Por lo tanto, el Ayuntamiento es responsable de su mantenimiento. Pues bien, hace ya demasiado tiempo que el ayuntamiento dejó sus responsabilidades. Y así, desde hace tres años venimos reclamando que se haga una reparación de las tuberías de desagüe, ya que son tan antiguas que acusan algo más que pérdidas. No podemos usar el agua corriente, por lo tanto. De los aseos, ¿para que hablar? desde que llegué nunca funcionaron. Las condiciones higiénicas son lamentables, y ello nos impide, entre otras cosas, ayudar en la eduación de hábitos de higiene de los niños.

La excusa que tienen para mantener el colegio en tales condiciones es que en no demasiado tiempo será derribado como todo el barrio, para dar paso a la Tercera Ronda de la ciudad. La misma excusa, supongo, en la que se escudan para que, a pesar de que el año pasado los puse verdes en público (en las Jornadas sobre Chabolismo e Infravivienda que se celebraron en la Facultad de Sociología) y de frente (estaba presente la técnico social del Ayuntamiento Regla Dávila), los niños sigan sin una zona de juegos. Unos columpios no deben costar más de 300 euros. Muchísimo menos de lo que ha costado la arielita (ascensor-trampa del Monte San Pedro). Uno, dos, tres años pueden significar bien poco en la vida de un adulto, pero son una eternidad en la vida de un niño. No pueden seguir esperando, por tanto, a que se acabe la próxima obra faraónica de los socialistas+nacionalistas en la ciudad donde nadie es forastero pero en la que unos son más ciudadanos que otros.

Abstract: Next May, 27 Spaniards will elect our council representatives. Next two post are fast thinkings about Pontedeume, the town were I live, and Coruña, the city where I am volunteer. Both cities are governed in coalition between socialists of PSOE and Galician nationalists of BNG, and, in both cases, there are reasons enough to throw out them: in Pontedeume, the unlucky town planning policy; in Coruña, the difficulties to our project of children-in-risk education in the Portiño that they didn’t solved in four years.
Updated, May 22th: As Emilio comments, in Coruña PSOE governs alone, as they have the majority (I thought they had lost it in the former election). Anyway, nationalism sucks: no frontiers, no flags, one world, no nations!!

Se acercan las elecciones municipales. Al contrario que en las elecciones generales o autonómicas, en las que mires a donde mires sólo encuentras basura, las elecciones municipales suelen llamar más mi atención porque, evidentemente, el resultado me afecta directamente, y porque además, siempre encuentras personas y grupos, pequeños, interesantes y con ganas. En concreto, en Galicia este año parecen despuntar con fuerza nuevos partidos a escala autonómica (aunque a veces con viejos conocidos de la política). Este hecho, junto con el de la cantidad de pequeñas agrupaciones de carácter local, parecen dar el mensaje a los partidos políticos de toda la vida, de que estamos hasta las narices de ellos. (more…)