Castelldefels

I have neglected this weblog long enough. Now that I have an invitation to go to Spain to speak about e-government, I will be spending a little more time here. It has been years since I have lived in Spain. More recently, I have lived in Guadalajara, Mexico and in Honduras, but even that has been quite a while ago now.

The conference that I will be attending is in May in the town of Castelldefels, a town of about 50,000 on the Mediterrenean just south of Barcelona. Looks like a great place for such a conference. They are holding a conference on the European Constitution there this week.

Here are some comments about Castelldefel's long sandy beach which is given a five-star rating.

Spain expands trade with Mexico

Spain and Mexico are looking to increase their trade relationship. That is a good thing. Currently over 90% of Mexico's trade is with the U.S. According to the LA Times, Mexico is now the tenth largest economy driven by tremendous trade growth following the 1994 signing of NAFTA.

I am excited about the possiblity and expected to see more earlier. Spain is a gateway for Latin America into European markets and Mexican entrepreneurs are comfortable doing business in Spain. Mexico and Spain did over $4 billion in trade with each other last year. Meanwhile, China is threating Mexico's trade growth in a number of ways and has surpassed Mexico in trade volume with the US. That should be a concern to both Mexico and the US.

The two day summit with Latin American and European leaders is being hosted by Vicente Fox in Guadalajara. Guadalajara is a great place to hold a conference. I went to several international conventions when I was living there. It reminds me of the Spanish-American summit of 1991 that was also held in Guadalajara.

More News from Guadalajara:
El Informador
Mural
Milenio

News from Sunny Spain

The BBC reports that Spain is building the world's second fastest supercomputer (with help from IBM).

The world's largest dinosaur bone is found in the Spanish province of Teruel.

Renmin Ribao (People's Daily) reports that Spain is supporting a unified China. Today's issue also mentions an Iranian news report that Osama bin Laden has been captured in Pakistan.

Actress Gwynneth Paltrow plans to raise her child in southern Spain. I would too if I had that much money...

The Spanish hotel chain Iberostar plans to expand its chain in Bulgaria.

Spain may take over control of the multinational force in Iraq which includes representation from 18 NATO nations.

Al Qaeda suspects are arrested in Murcia and Alicante, two of my favorite cities.

E-Government finding adherents in Chile

Some new interest and excitement on e-governance coming out of the Bio Bio region of Chile. Jane Fontain, author of Building the Virtual State, visited Chile on November 14th. I'm not sure if that is what initiated this new interest, but I hope it can launch Chile into the forefront of e-government thought and innovation. I would love to see that coming from Latin America.

Boris Carikeo has started a blog on technology, public policy, and society. Boris informs us that the IACD and OAS are sponsoring a course on the formulation of e-government strategies.

Karin Quiero has started an interesting blog on psychology and social policy. I am looking forward to some interesting content and ideas coming from these two sources.

This Thursday, a flute orchestra of six hundred flutists will attempt to set a world record in Concepción, the capital city of Bio Bio. My daughter will be playing the flute in a concert that same day.

I always hate to see good bloggers like the author of Awablog checking out from the blogosphere.

The New York Times points to a study that suggests that states' finances are on the rebound.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the defense partnership between the U.S. and Spain signed in 1953. The event was celebrated in Rota which continues to be an important base for the Mediterrenean fleet. The base at Rota was completed on April 14, 1958. Apparently, it now longer supports the submarine fleet which it did when I was there in 1978.

Prime Minister Aznar was in Miami where he condemned Castro's Cuba and called for it to move towards a democratic system similar to Spain.

Google announced the opening of an office in Madrid and the availability of the Google Toolbar 2.0 in Spanish. Also www.google.es, the search engine in Spanish. Google has several partners in Spain, including ya.com and elmundo.es

Fotos of Spain

These photographs of Spain at Lycos' "Comunidad Virtual" are getting me a little homesick.

Semana is an interesting publication originating from Colombia - not to be confused with Spain's Semana mag.

More Leavitt Commentary

American Daily - "Hope for Intelligent Environmental Policy with Mike Leavitt"
Wisconsin Ag Connection - Leavitt's EPA Hearing Scheduled for Early September

Some nice comments from Representative Stuart Adams of Davis County in the Davis Clipper

It was nice to have Lt. Governor, Olene Walker, come by the office today. She is a genuine person who will work hard to fill th Governor's shoes.

International News on Governor Leavitt's Appointment as EPA Administrator

International Herald Tribune
The Globe and Mail (ap)
The Hindu
Financial Times (London)
Christian Science Monitor

Domestic
Atlanta Journal Constitution
PBS
Wheeling News Register - very positive editorial
The Tennessean
Washington Times - "Balanced Steward for the Storm"
Online NewsHour - includes streaming video, various interviews, including Dianne Nielson

Environmentalist Opinions
Earth Justice
National Environmental Trust

Industry
American Chemical Council

At first glance, Google's new version of Blogger looks scaled down with minimal functionality. Just what I feared. I hope that it ends up better than this initial appearance.

Stuart Mudie discusses multilingual blogging. In doing so, he discusses ecuaderno, one of my favorite blogs. Most of my blog posts have been in English, although I regular link to content in other languages when they are relevant. Mudie suggests warning the reader if the link refers to content that is another language. I doubt that I will do that. Content that I link to will generally be in one of the following languages: English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, Lithuanian, Thai, Valenciano, Catalan, Greek.

Joho the Blog recently carried this interesting thread on Spanish blogs. The debate is over the decidedly small number of Spanish blogs found and analyzed by researchers, Fernando Tricas Garcia and Juan Guervos. Certainly, there must be more than 2,000 Spanish blogs. On the other hand, I really haven't come across too many Polish blogs.

The British Parliament just held a seminar on blogging for its members. Here's the complete E-Government series in the London Guardian.

Dave Winer: "We will all live to see the day a weblogger becomes president."

100 blogs en español

Alicia was creating a directory of 100 blogs in Spanish. Too bad she got stuck on 80. Perhaps she was trying to maintain too many websites and blogs at the same time. I have a harder time getting back to some of my lesser known sites like this one.

Microsiervos posted a few links that caught my eye. Among them: BlogMatcher - I looked at this site a few months back, it has improved significantly since then, and NASA's Near Earth Objects site which contains research on comets, asteroids and the like that are or might be in the vicinity of the Earth.

Nazaret has a fascinating way of linking her contacts... rotating photos and links. I guess you expect that kind of creativity from a Sevillana.

David is writing about la noche de San Juan and las hogueritas from La Coruña. He shares some nice nighttime photos of the skyline. The last time I experienced the fallas, I was in Alicante.