Pontevedra Pensées: 30.1.17

If you want to read about Spain's excellent macro-economic growth - and to see a gratuitous picture of a pretty girl in shorts - click here.

I am truly astonished that anyone is surprised at Trump's anti-Muslim executive order dressed up as an anti-terrorist measure. Everything we knew about the man and his pathological narcissism and political inexperience screamed that something like it would be quickly coming down the pike. As our American cousins put it. What can one say better than these comments this morning?:

• It's chaos. It's hard to know if this White House did this because they don't understand how government works, or through willful incompetence.
• It is malevolence tempered by incompetence: It’s a very dangerous thing to have a White House that can’t, with the remotest pretense of competence and governance, put together a major policy document on a crucial set of national security issues without inducing an avalanche of litigation and wide diplomatic fallout. If the incompetence mitigates the malevolence in this case, that’ll be a blessing. But given the nature of the federal immigration powers, the mitigation may be small and the blessing short-lived; the implications of having an executive this inept are not small and won’t be short-lived. 
• Ultimately, we fear this executive order will become a self inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism - a move that would only help Isil in its propaganda. - John McCain, former Republican presidential nominee, who is a leading voice in the party condemned the action, as 

And did you see his signature in the order - taking up half a page?  Click here for why he does this. And everything else the rest of us can scarcely credit.

I have shortened my odds on his being assassinated by his own Republican party, for fear that he will destroy it.

Today's fotos:- The environs of Tineo, Asturias in spring and winter. It's a place I have very fond memories of . . . .

Finally . . .  Let's hear it again for my black electricians' tape. I finally figured out that my Mac was failing to charge not because the metal connection was poor but because the cable going into the connecting plug was faulty. At this point I should confess that the cable is not from Apple. Anyway, having pushed the cable into the plug, I've now secured it with black tape. Ugly but effective. My daughters, by the way, are each on their 3rd Mac laptop but I refuse to be forced to replace one which is only 5 years old or so and which cost more than 1,000 dollars.