Dark tales reach us from within the Panama Canal Authority. First, there is this backlog in getting ships through, about a 100 ships are waiting. The pilots can't be transported fast enough, there are not enough lanchas, the road to Colon is a mess and so on.

But that's not all. We also hear that the works on the expansion of the Canal are going slower than planned. A whole bunch of heavy machinery that was brought in with a lot of fanfare is standing idle because they're broken. Financing problems, high inflation. And an economic down is looming. There's even rumor of the ACP having to postpone the whole project. Or, as the opponents of the bizarre plan would say: "We told you so!"

Where does he find the time. One moment he's boozing and schmoozing with the American ambassador, he hunts down an extremely dangerous pickpocket and then he is on some half-baked talkradio show and all that while running the Canal!

Yes, you read that right. He just published his quarterly management report and tells the ACP people to get off their asses and MOVE those ships!

Those ACP guys can be tough sometimes (as in - Tony Soprano.) They jealously guard their "we're doing a better job than the gringos" routine. Yeah sure, we know, and we're proud of you. Now, get back to work - tho$e $hip$ are waiting.

That's right, Panamanians. You thought you'd gotten rid of these loud-mouthed gringos in 2000, didn't ya? No such luck. And beware: He'll draw his stun gun if those boats ain't gone by the end of the week! (Or bring Tony Soprano).

John Keller

You'd think that an editor in chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine would have his facts straight. Not so. Today John Keller apologizes for writing on his blog that China operates the Canal, after he was corrected on that weird statement by Teresa Arosemena of the ACP. But some people never learn, and Keller has now downgraded his statement to:

I retain my concern, however, that a Chinese company effectively controls the entrances and exits of the Panama Canal at a time when U.S. and Chinese national interests could come into conflict just a couple of hundred miles away.

He's talking about the container terminals of course. Hutchison Whampoa. Strange that the editor of a military magazine doesn't explain how a container terminal could close the Canal even if they wanted to . Black helicopters, we suppose, dumping containers in the lane. Doesn't he know that we all wear tinfoil hats here in Panama to protect ourselves against secret Chinese radiation programs from outer space?