Posted on 04/14/2012 11:53:23 AM PDT by billorites
King Juan Carlos was admitted to the USP San José Hospital in Madrid on Friday night after returning from a private hunting trip in Botswuana where he suffered a fall.
He returned to Madrid in a private plane, in which he travelled sedated.
His right femur is reported to have been broken in three places. A statement from the palace says an emergency operation has carried out to reconstruct the fragments of the bone, and use a prosthesis. Radio Nacional reports the operation was a success. It was carried out by the same surgeon, Ángel Villamor, who operated on the King’s knee in June and Achilles tendon in September.
The King is expected to remain in hospital for four or five days. He is on painkillers. The Queen is in Greece and will not return to Spain until Monday, and the King’s official engagements will be covered by the Prince of Asturias.
Media report that King Juan Carlos was hunting elephants in Botswana and there are reports that he fell in the residence he was staying in, but this has not been confirmed or denied by the palace.
The Monarch appears on the web page of the safari company, Rann Safaris, who charge some 30,000 € for killing an elephant in Botswana.
That was actually the moment that has kept him going ever since then. This was a difficult moment in the Transition, and he reassured the entire country and got them through it.
I don’t know what’s going to happen with the next generation. Felipe seems to be ok and willing to carry out his duties, as does his wife. But who knows what will happen when Juan Carlos dies, or who knows what Spain will be like at that time.
He’s definitely been good, but that mostly means that he’s stayed out of sight and hasn’t caused any scandal. He doesn’t have any power except his presence, but that has been good when he exercises it.
When Zapatero started making the Guardia Civil and the Spanish military accept “gay marriage” and having them turn up for these “weddings,” he was known to be opposed. But he never said anything.
And they are more important than people
http://www.savetheelephants.org/news-reader/items/botswana-battles-big-elephant-herd.html.
The Botswana elephant herds are one quarter of the total African elephant population. They are not endangered.
One way to reduce the numbers would be to ban hunting. Without the hunting licence fees supporting game management, the poachers would move in an reduce the herds. That's how it worked in East Africa.
Who knows indeed. I just spent 10 days in and around Madrid. Politically, financially and socially Spain seems pretty fragile. That goes for much of Europe though.
Spain has always seemed particularly brittle. Whether they can endure the crushing debt they face without some wrenching social upheaval is a worry.
I think Madrid, Castilla and the center (with extension to Asturias, Galicia, Extremadura on the W-NW side and Valencia and other areas south of Barcelona and west of Sevilla) will be ok. Sevilla might be ok, too, because they seem to have some common sense there.
On the other hand, Barcelona is nutz. They are all raving anarchists or marxists there, and they have tolerated the Occupy crowd tearing up their public spaces for so long that they can’t control it now.
One of the problems is that the regional governments have been spending like drunken sailors, particularly the leftist Catalunya and Andalucia, and if Madrid cuts off the money, some of these regions are going to flip out.
The only good thing in terms of Spain as a country is that once Madrid cuts off the money, the regions won’t have the power to do much of anything, even cause problems.
In that case, we should start shooting people. There are too many on welfare.
Good one!!!
When did FR turn into the PETA forums? Animals are a resource. Regulated hunting preserves the “market” for that resource.
And the elephants rejoiced. Me too. Barbaric sport for such intelligent animals.
Emotional fools are everywhere.
A national pass time is the bullfight.
The Marx Brothers never missed an opportunity for a pun, did they?
Don't confuse the people who are getting their hate on with facts!
Botswana has a very healthy elephant population in fact a bit too healthy. Which is why they have these hunts. Too many elephants mean that your crops are going to get trampled, your fruit and nut trees are going to be uprooted and your cattle are going to be scattered to the four winds because elephants go right through your fences.
A culling, especially of lone bulls, helps keep the damage to humans at a minimum while doing no damage to the elephant population as a whole.
To liberals every deer is Bambi, to many of the people on this thread every elephant is Dumbo.
Such gentle creatures.
A dead rhino with elephant tusk puncture wounds. If only.......
That's probably not saying much, but I always had the impression that he was quite liberal. At least for a monarch. IIRC, he didn't follow Franco's plans and disappointed many of the conservatives after Franco died. I believe he also disapproves of any royal aspirations of the Bourbon pretender to the French throne.
Anyway, I'm surprised by all the criticism of him on this thread. Is this a PETA site?
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