World's Largest Spanish Language Daily

Hats off to the lovely Miss Tango in her Eyes for bringing to my attention an article from Sunday's Clarín in which I get an honorable mention (it impressed the hell out of my Porteño family!)

It's a fun article...available on the web here...that features a handsome foto of Los Mount and their newest addition, li'l Janquicito!

The piece includes a bunch of links to BsAs blogs and sites by extranjeros and I was tickled to death that it included at length a description of a post by Jeff Barry that I adored about the closing of his neighborhood shoestore.

I'm glad that my habit of being critical of intolerant expats gets through even in Castellano. It is a subject that I want to explore even more now that the wingbat-dominated forum at baexpats.com has calmed down to a tremendous extent.

Hey! Welcome back from las vacaciones, everybody! (Mine were more like VÁCAciones)

$orry that it'$ been $o long

Just busy whoring myself out...

"I wear grass skirt but that's OK...
...the yanquis like to hit the hay"

Click here for the ORIGINAL Lord Invader (wma)
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Places to Smoke in Buenos Aires

This post will probably inaugurate a new section of its own in yanquimike.com.ar

Now, you may smoke...or you may not. However, you probably have friends or visitors that DO smoke and occasionally you are faced with the prospect of entertaining them.

For exactly those occasions you will need a list of not only smoker-friendly places (e.g. sidewalk tables and the assorted gas chambers that are available) but also places where YOU, as non-smokers, would be willing to suffer the slings and arrows of second-hand carcinogens in relative comfort.

That having been said...let me recommend the best place I have found so far:

Big Mamma
Juramento 2156
Belgrano
4781-0093

There are others, of course...and I expect a tremendously grand list from all of you that meets or exceeds the comfort provided by the unfortunately renamed Big Mamma's (it's been there for years but I can't recall it's former name. )

However, I have hesitated to mention any of those places because none, in my experience, remotely resembles someplace in which smokers and non-smokers could reasonably co-exist for the time that it takes to quaff a cocktail.

Springtime weather is one thing. But what about the heat or what about the rain??? Not to mention when winter finally arrives!

The big gal's place is exactly a lado del Museo Historico Sarmiento and more or less across the street from another fine museum and private garden that simply must be visited...en pleno Belgrano.

It's not hidden at all and is very recognizable with it's glass and steel architecture nestled in a bit of a garden behind a fairly traditional gate.

The air conditioning is...and has always been...some of the best in town. Not only that but there is no gas-chamber effect. The seating for fumadores is up and at the back of the joint resembling something from before prohibition. That should comfort both your smoking guests and yourselves...no matter what your predilection is.

Plenty of light and air and greenery.

On a warm day, such as it was today, try your hand at instructing them as to your exacting method of the preparation of one of their fine melon daiquiris while you ensconce yourself in a deep leather sofa with the ones you care for.

Try it...then send me your recommendations for other places in which smokers are allowed to harmoniously exist with others as in days of old. We will post them all.

Not a bad year, eh?

Two co-directors for the Center for Economic Policy and Research in Washington are among several authors of a flurry of year end stories about Argentina's continued growth.

The AP writes, "Argentina is expected to continue its strong comeback after its economic meltdown in 2002, with experts predicting GDP growth of 7 percent next year. Construction is booming, soy exports are up, and unemployment is below 10 percent after reaching a record-high of 21.5 percent in 2003." Reuters reports that the central bank's monetary plan forecasts record exports in 2007 of about $50 billion and a trade surplus of about $10 billion.

And two polls of Argentine bank analysts indicate that next year's trade surplus could be even bigger than the big bank forecasts.

Even the Buenos Aires Herald grudgingly rates 2006 as, "a success in terms of both political stability and economic growth."

Other publications are giving Kirchner much of the credit. Writing for the International Herald Tribune, the CEPR's Mark Weisbrot compares K's leadership and willingness to ignore orthodox economic wisdom to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's success during the depression of the 1930's:

"Like Roosevelt, Kirchner had to reject the advice of the majority of the economics profession (Roosevelt did this even before Keynes had published his General Theory), stand up to powerful interests (foreign bondholders and utility companies, the IMF and World Bank), and do what was best for the country."

His colleague, Dean Baker, penning for the American Prospect makes the continued strong growth one of the 5 most important economic news stories of 2006.

The UK based IT news site, The Inquirer , posts record-breaking figures for the internet and e-commerce. Their local reporter, Fernando Cassia, says users migrating from dial-up caused broadband connection figures to soar 76.8% last year and business-grade internet connections were up by almost 10%.

Cassia has it from the Cámara Argentina de Comercio Electrónico that e-commerce from .com.ar sites grew over 10 billion pesos in 2006. He says, "the estimated number of users of e-commerce is put by CACE at five million people, who bought something over the Interweb during '06."