Saturday, September 27, 2008
The Maverick and the MILF
I would like to spend some words on Sarah Palin, mother of five children, governor of the lonely and cold Alaska, and Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2008 Presidential Elections.
On August 29, 2008, Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain announced that he had chosen Sarah Palin from Alaska as his running mate. The reaction of many was: "Who's that?!?"
At that time I thought he actually made a smart choice. Not that she was minimally able to handle with any of the incoming problems of the US, that's clear, but she was the best choice in order to move away from the Republican electorate most of the concerns about McCain candidacy.
If one of the fear was that he's in fact old (both in age and mentality) she then appeared as his young and fizzy counterpart.
If there was the risk to look at the Republican as those old sexist and racist military guys against the fresh wind coming from the Democrats that nominated an Afro-American as President, they then decided to choose a woman as VP! Something that nether the Democrats managed to do!
Then of course she's not really a model of liberalism, but this kind of helps for the Republican electorate.
She's in fact belongs to the Pentecostal church and strongly believes in its precepts: teaching creationism in public schools, supporting an amendment to deny state health benefits to same-sex couples, fighting abortion in all cases (including rape and incest). She's then a member of Feminist for Life and supports sex education in public schools that encourages abstinence (as McCain) but also discusses birth control (what a liberal!).
On the "other" side, Sarah is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association (she advocated gun safety education for youngsters), promoted further oil and natural gas resource exploration in Alaska, and initiated a lawsuit over the federal listing of the polar bear and some weird specie of beluga whale as endangered species.
Anyways...
I thought that was sort of a good choice for McCain, but latterly it turns out that the risks given by her extreme incompetence on every political matters are for the Republicans larger than her appeal as a strong mother from the deep north.
Now McCain entourage decided to shut her up and doesn't let her have a public press conference. She's also the only candidate that was not allowed to comment over yesterday's debate between Obama and McCain.
Moreover, a couple of days ago she gave an interview at the CBS embarrassing the whole Republican base, so that some right-wing intellectuals are starting to call her out the race before it's too late.
Another very funny video is this from Bill Maher.
So at the end the choice done by McCain turns out to be way more risky than he thought.
Many people here are starting now to question: what if the old McCain will pass away after being elected? Is that silly woman really going to lead us?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Please flush when finished
It's Friday night.
I just finished to watch the first Presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama (yes, I'm again in New York). Topic: foreign policy and national security (or: when the Americans look really Americans).
It was my first time to watch Obama speaking in a debate and I have to admit I expected him to be worse: more an idealist daydreamer or a easy-minded yuppie.
Instead tonight he appeared as a pretty relaxed guy with some clear ideas in mind. I kind of liked him.
On the other side there was John "I'll tell ya" McCain.
He's a real old American marine-like man. He likes war, he lived for that and he still thinks that the best way the USA has to bring peace to the galaxy.
During the debate he used several times expressions like "when I was prisoner", "when I came out of that Vietnamese jail", "once the mother of an American soldier that died in Iraq asked me to keep going on this war", "when I was in Vietnam" and so on...
To me he looked kind of pathetic and a pretty old minded guy. Anyway I think being old (or having "old" ideas) is not really his weak point. In fact his choice of the young and unprejudiced, but at the same time beautiful mother and woman with deep religious values, Sarah Palin as his Vice President candidate prevents him to be considered just an old fashioned man.
The curious think was to see how Americans think about the rest of the world. For them it's just a big play yard where some of their friends (France, England, Georgia, Ukraine,...) are fighting with nasty guys (Iran, Pakistan, Russia) and somehow they (the Americans) have to get involve into the play to help their friend and to bring democracy to the underdeveloped Countries.
At the end of the debate, Obama ended with a passionate "all the kids in the world are watching at us as a model and we cannot disappoint them", while McCain started with "When I came from prison...".
Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.
(Walter Sobchak)
Monday, September 22, 2008
Het Land Van (Salah Edin)
Few months ago I posted the translation of a dutch rap song, Het Land Van, by Lange Frans and Baas B, two native dutch white HH-ers, grew up around Amsterdam.
Soon after another rapper, Salah Edin, mimed this song by writing a new one, with the same title, which shows another view on the dutch society, this time by a Moroccan-Dutch, son of immigrants but born in Holland.
This shows a quite more negative point of view. The lyrics in Dutch are here. This is the translation.
The Country of
The country of 1 million people with no job
The country where they do not adopt you because of your name
The country of preconceptions
The country where they force you to making problems
The country of so many laws
The country where they film you constantly for safety
The country that you'll save your ass just for convenience
The country of illegal immigrants, television scoops, politicians trying to get money out of your pockets
The country that's exposing you
The country with open borders
Full is full [C.D. anti-immigration slogan] for sure for poor people
The country of commerce
The country where people live in another dimension
The country where "tomorrow" is a trouble
The country where beautiful dreams have been spoiled
Look carefully around you because there are consequences
The country of the highest percentage of Muslim-haters
The country that has been built by our fathers
The country which considers us as danger and terror
Country of beautiful dreams, disappoints me
The country of capitalism, subcutaneous racism, materialism the country that runs on prostitution
The country of terrorism
The country of extremists
The country where you cannot spit your opinion for any reason
The country of prosperity
The country of Bakellende [literally "container of misery", it's a joke with Dutch Prime Minister's name Balkenende], the country of democracy which does not apply everywhere
The country of tolerance, meaninglessly violence, importance comes only when it's about rough money
The country of food banks, refugee camps
The country which has nothing to look for in our own Countries
The country where freedom is a mask on the face
The country of rights but what they decide is compulsory
The country of drug addicted nowadays nomads
The country that arose on the back of the slaves
The country divided in crazy districts, as they do in France to solve the problems
we call that fight, just like you do all the time
The country of colonization and now of liberalization
well, can you that compare?
The country that look for problems but then wants to avoid them
The country of schijnheilen [appearance features]
The country where everything turns around fucking oil price
The country of receivers
The country where the news has nothing to offer but lies
The country of hypocrites
Country of parasites
The country that loves to wins but gives up at losses
The country where the lion [Dutch symbol] never leave alone their shirts
The country where the woman is sold behind the window
The country where I am born and where I come from
The country that labelled me as kutmarokkaan [very bad pejorative for Moroccans]
Friday, September 19, 2008
Serious social alarm
There are two things in the speech of our Minister for Equal Opportunity (about the new law against prostitution) that made me laugh.
Prostitution is disgusting, I don't understand who sell his body for moneyshe said. Then, asked by a reporter if this new law would be really worth, she replied that
what is important to this government is the street prostitution [and not to forbid prostitution in general, n.d.E.] because it causes social alarm.So if I understand correctly the main point, the declared goal, is not to fight prostitution, but just to hide it so that the good citizens can keep walking around the Country without being emotionally shocked by seeing a prostitute.
Better: the point of this government is not solving the many problems of Italy, but hide them and make people think they don't exist anymore.
What the eye sees not, the heart rues not
The war against situations of serious social alarm ("grave allarme sociale") is one of the most stressed point by this government. Right after Berlusconi became prime minister, an urgent emergency decree “Declaration of the state of emergency in relation to settlements of the nomad communities in Campania, Lazio and Lombardia” was released on 21 May 2008. The decree declared a state of emergency in the three regions until 31 May 2009, against Roma people ("Rom" in Italian) whose presence is defined as resulting in situations of an “extreme critical nature” and of “serious social alarm”.
A couple of days after, commenting on an amendment of this decree, Berlusconi declared (via a letter to the Senate):
Dear President,Of course.
as you may know this morning senators Berselli and Vizzini presented an amendment to the so called "security decree" in order to establish priority criteria for treatment of the most urgent trials and of those that create special social alarm.
I want to underline that the trials I'm involved in are not urgent, nor they create any social alarm.
So they (Berlusconi government) are telling us (stupid Italians) that they are going to make us happy and peaceful, removing all the sources of social alarm so that we don't have to worry anymore. They will not solve the problems, but they will work hard so that we will not see them. If we want then to have a walk with our children we will not be disturbed by the presence of the prostitutes (they'll be somewhere else hidden doing their job) or by some Roma people (no one cares if their situation is better or not, but as long they stay hidden...).
And if we want to visit Naples we will enjoy the clean streets and the fresh air of the city center (the garbage is still being produced, but it has been moved from the center to the suburbs, to Lombardy and to Germany, where it doesn't cause serious social alarm).
The problems are not solved, but everybody is living happy and gaily as long as they don't have to think at the problems.
The funny thing is that they are explaining us what are they going to do (hide problems), but we don't understand!
Or we like it...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Nosonly a flag of a country
(bas an universal message of freedom ev democracy)
Wait, wait, wait!
It looks that when I was in Japan I missed something else about our mutual friend, Silvio B.
Apparently, in preparation for the last G8 meeting in Japan, the American reporters that were traveling with the US president George Bush, had been provided with a thick "press kit" with some basic information about the world leaders attending the meeting.
This is what the pamphlet said about our prime minister.
Silvio Berlusconi
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (born 1936) is one of the most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for governmental corruption and vice. Primarily a businessman with massive holdings and influence in international media, he is regarded by many as a political dilettante who gained his high office only through use of his considerable influence on the national media.
Hated by many but respected by all at least for his bella figura (personal style) and the sheer force of his will, Berlusconi has parlayed his business acumen and influence into a personal empire that has resulted in Italy’s longest–running government ever and in his becoming the country’s wealthiest man. Bursting onto the scene with no political experience in 1993, he campaigned—using his vast network of media holdings—on a promise to purge the notoriously lackadaisical Italian government of corruption. He won appointment to the office of prime minister in 1994. However, he and his fellow Forza Italia Party leaders soon found themselves accused of the very corruption he had vowed to eradicate. Charges of bribery, extortion, and other abuses of power trailed the leader until he was forced to resign later in 1994. Despite convictions on a number of corruption charges that were later overturned, the suave Berlusconi was again elected prime minister in 2001, and remained in that post as of late 2004. He is owner of one of the world’s most valuable soccer franchises, the country’s biggest private television network, a publishing conglomerate, assorted department stores and insurance companies, a newspaper, a magazine, and a bank. His personal monetary worth is estimated at U.S. $10 billion.
Entrepreneurial Streak Apparent Early On Berlusconi was born on September 29, 1936, in Milan, Italy, the first of two sons of a middle–class bank clerk and a housewife. His precocious interest in business matters was matched by his passion for making money, and even as a boy he was already earning an income by organizing puppet shows for which he would then charge admission. While studying law at the University of Milan, Berlusconi sold vacuum cleaners, worked as a singer on a cruise ship, took portrait photographs, and did other students’ homework for a fee. He also formed an important friendship with Bettino Craxi, who would later become Italian prime minister. His graduation thesis from law school was titled, “The Newspaper Advertising Contract.”
As soon as he left school, Berlusconi began working in real estate because he sensed the development boom that was coming in response to the post–war prosperity of the 1960s. Declining his father’s offer of a job at his bank, the young man managed to put together enough loans to found two real estate and development companies: Cantieri Reuniti Milanesi in 1962 and Edilnord in 1963. Edilnord won the contract for the development of Milano Two, an attractive suburb north of Milan for the upper class, in 1969, and in 1974 Berlusconi entered the world of media when he decided to install a cable television network (through his new Telemilano company) to service the fashionable bedroom community. Edilnord developed the chic Milano 3 suburb in 1976, having become the top developer of residential and commercial properties by that point.
Became Media Mogul in 1970s and 1980s
Following the Constitutional Court’s 1976 ruling that the Radio Televisone Italiana (RAI) conglomerate could no longer extend to the local level its legal monopoly over national broadcasting, Berlusconi launched a massive effort to capitalize on the legitimization of “pirate” television station operators. He founded a holding company, Fininvest, to manage his expanding portfolio of interests as 700 commercial stations mushroomed virtually overnight. Berlusconi worked quickly to create a major library of films, and then rented them out to the new stations in exchange for their advertising on his new Pubitalia publishing subsidiary. By 1980, he was the dominant force in a skyrocketing television market that over the next five years increased its share of national advertising from 15 to 50 percent.
In the meantime, Berlusconi began stringing together a nationwide communications network, Canale Five, in 1977 and completed it in 1980. He created the illusion of a single channel that people could tune into by sending the same film by courier to many of the independent television stations. The pirate stations would then transmit the show simultaneously to their viewers. Unabashedly appealing to the mass market, he stockpiled foreign game shows, soap operas, and popular movies to lure viewers away from the stodgy government–run channels. Berlusconi’s position as a media baron was strengthened when the courts reversed their earlier decision and legalized private national networks as long as anti–trust provisions were observed. He bought out two of his closest competitors in 1982 and 1984, cementing his domination of the country’s commercial television market.
Meanwhile, the reach of Berlusconi’s media empire had extended to commercial television in France, where he created La Cinq in 1986; in Germany, where he founded Telefunf in 1987; and in Spain, where he established Telecinco in 1989.
When the courts ruled later in 1984 that Canele Five had usurped RAI’s state–sanctioned right to broadcast a national service simultaneously, Berlusconi summoned his old friend Craxi, who had since become prime minister, to reverse the order. Thus benefiting from a general move toward deregulation, Berlusconi was permitted to maintain a virtual duopoly with RAI over the nation’s television market. For the remainder of the 1980s, he continued to acquire more and more media holdings.
One of Berlusconi’s key purchases during this period was of the Milan AC Soccer Club in 1986. A passionate soccer fan, he poured money into the club until it soon became the most successful Italian soccer team ever. (With him as chairperson, the team has since won the Champion’s League title four times, the National League title seven times, and the World Cup Championship twice). He also bought the popular Standa department store chain in 1988 and, after a gigantic legal tussle, the Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.P.A. magazine, book, and newspaper publishing group in 1990. The latter purchase gave Berlusconi instant control over 20 percent of the Italian publishing market. His relentless acquisitions also exponentially increased Fininvest’s debt load to dangerous levels, but Berlusconi had already become a billionaire.
Launched Political Career
At this point, Berlusconi found himself increasingly hounded by demands from all quarters that he break up his media empire for violating virtually every anti–trust law in the books. As these pressures increased through the first part of the 1990s, he made a decision that some saw as foolish but that others perceived as an effort to grab the power of the very forces opposed to him: he announced that he would run for prime minister. In typical aggressive fashion, Berlusconi handed over to close friends all his positions at Fininvest and other companies to avoid political conflicts of interest and immediately organized a political coalition named Forza Italia (after the ubiquitous soccer chant meaning “Go Italy”). He appointed himself as its leader.
Allying the new grouping with a federalist party and the remains of a disbanded neo–fascist group, he geared up his media companies to begin a television and print blitz to advertise his candidacy. Several editors of his press concerns resigned in protest at being told whom to endorse in the typically free–for–all run–up to elections. Berlusconi pressed on, portraying himself as honest and in touch with the concerns of young Italians while pledging to eradicate corruption, lower taxes, increase personal choice, and promote free–market economics. In 1992, a national poll revealed that Italian teenagers ranked Berlusconi ahead of Jesus Christ and the Italian president when asked about the ten people they admired most. However, disaster struck when the leader of the fascist group praised deceased Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as the century’s finest statesman. It was a testament to the power of Berlusconi’s personality that he was quickly able to smooth over the outrage that instantly arose over the comment about the hated leader.
Berlusconi held up his lack of political experience as a virtue to voters, telling them that his success as a businessman was excellent preparation for him to transform the bloated, inefficient Italian government into a lean, streamlined machine that would work for the people and provide a fresh start for all, with sweeping tax cuts and millions of new jobs. The media (much of which he ran, of course) quickly dubbed Berlusconi “the Knight.” Support for him built rapidly despite virulent attacks by his detractors. The media and Berlusconi’s own personal flair prevailed, and the Freedom Pole won 43 percent of the popular vote in March 1994 elections—enough to enable him to form a government of which he was appointed prime minister.
However, despite his precautions, allegations of conflicts of interest arose quickly, fueled by the fact that Berlusconi and his family had retained 51 percent of Fininvest’s interests. Coupled with these suspicions, when one of the coalition’s parties bailed out of the union, Berlusconi’s government collapsed after only nine months in power. In the meantime, his carefully cultivated image as a politician who was above the nation’s traditional corruption began to crumble when it was revealed that Berlusconi had in 1978 joined the sinister Propaganda Two group. This was a secret Masonic lodge that had created a powerful state within a state with strong influence on the secret police, banks, the government, and the military.
Undaunted by these obstacles, Berlusconi began selling off more and more of his shares in his wide array of holdings, and in 1996—just two days before the April general election—he officially declared that he no longer had a majority control in any business. His past continued to haunt him, however, with further allegations of corruption and misdeeds, and although he succeeded in being elected as a member of Parliament representing his right–wing coalition, he was forced to abandon his bid for the premiership.
Appointed Premier Again Despite Lingering Charges
As charges of misdeeds continued to pile up, Berlusconi alleged that left–wing politicians had mounted a plot against him. He was convicted of several financial crimes related to accounting and illegal political funding in 1997 and 1998. He managed to have these overturned on appeal, but those charges were followed by allegations of bribery and other misdeeds in 1999. Nevertheless, he was reelected as a member of the European Union Parliament in 1999 and remained opposition leader in his own country’s Parliament until 2001, when he was once again appointed prime minister on May 13. Berlusconi and his House of Freedoms coalition had won the popular vote by 18.5 million votes, propelled once again by his image as a forceful, self–made man who would at last straighten out the Italian government. Nevertheless, plenty of people were outraged by Berlusconi’s second rise to power, and in 2002 hundreds of thousands of them staged a massive protest to drive home their point—that his heavy involvement in the world of business made him incapable of being an impartial and fair national leader.
The government was shaken to its core later in 2002 when a mammoth corruption scandal came to light that involved some 6,000 politicians and business leaders, including Berlusconi’s brother Paolo and his friend Craxi, and billions of dollars in graft. Meanwhile, Berlusconi himself served as foreign minister in addition to his role as prime minister for ten months in 2002.
Berlusconi got a reprieve from the courts in 2003 when Parliament passed a controversial law making the government’s top officials, including the prime minister, immune from prosecution. It looked for a while like the legal challenges to his leadership were behind him, but the Constitutional Court soon overturned the law. Meanwhile, Berlusconi’s firm decision to stand as an ally with the United States in the war in Iraq had become extremely unpopular, and by 2003, a full 75 percent of Italians were opposed to his decision. In July 2003, Berlusconi assumed the rotating six–month presidency of the European Union, using that position to urge other European countries to support the United States in the war.
By 2004, Berlusconi and his government had enacted numerous bills and laws aimed at reforming the nation’s school and labor systems, reduced taxes and other financial burdens on citizens, increased government support of the unemployed, elderly, and disabled, and, not surprisingly, loosened regulations on limits of private ownership of media. However, critics from both Italy and elsewhere warned that Berlusconi’s liberal spending could soon have major negative impacts on the country’s long–term economic outlook. Nevertheless, the prime minister now had the honor of heading Italy’s longest–running government ever.
In 2004, Forbes magazine ranked Berlusconi as the 30th wealthiest man in the world, up from 45th in 2002, and estimated his personal fortune at $10 billion. He has been married twice, first to Carla Dall’Ogglio, with whom he had two children, and then to actress Veronica Lario, with whom he has three children. He released a CD in 2003 of Neopolitan love songs. The prime minister prefers to spend his spare time at his 70–room villa in Sardinia named “Arcore,” whose amenities include a private park, a movie theater, and walls of large–screen televisions.
OK, there are a couple of errors, but it's cool, isn't it?
They should have distribute this also to all the Italians, just to show how our American friends look at us.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Lassù nel Montana tra mandrie e cowboy...
Since tomorrow Eleonora will be back from her "conference" in Conca Specchiulla (LE), this is my last chance to be independently veeeeery heavy on this blog, so I'll do my best.
Let's see, this week I told about boring and useless Dutch and Italian laws, bible related stuff and some tiresome experiences of mine riding around in Amsterdam... so what am I missing? Well... geography!
So here we go with an awesome post about one of the most stupid geographical question: why the (bloody) hell some American States are rectangular?
In fact as you all noticed (don't you?) there are two States in the USA that are rectangular (actually they are rectangles on a curved surface, so they are trapezoidal): Colorado and Wyoming (Colorado stretches from 37°N to 41°N latitude and from 102° 3'W to 109° 3'W longitude; Wyoming stretches from 41°N to 45°N latitude and from 104° 3'W to 111° 3'W longitude).
The motivation of this is clear: the borders were decided and drawn table top and at that time no one really cared of drawing more geographical borders between grasslands.
But the "funny thing" is that they are actually not perfectly rectangular (or trapezoids)!
In fact when the surveyors mapped the boundaries of these two States (using transit, compass, chronometer, astronomical readings, data from previous surveys and interviews with residents of the affected areas) they made some mistakes in marking them from milepost to milepost over distances stretching hundreds of miles.
So for example in mapping Colorado they ended up being 1 mile further they expected to be because of some irregularities. So the borders of Colorado (as well as for Wyoming) are not strictly rectangular but they present some kinks.
So even if the written description of the borders says they are rectangular, the official definition is on the ground since at that time both the Countries involved accepted it.
So for example Colorado's legal border "is a polygon formed by a series of line segments that run between physical monuments that were put in place by . . . survey parties".
Monday, September 08, 2008
The workers' city, far below the surface of the earth.
It is a dark time for the Rebellion.
Signs of an upcoming fascism are said to be seen all about Europe (not only in Italy) and this morning I had to face it. And just for a great luck I avoided my fate.
As every morning, I was gaily biking to the Centraal Station and, as every morning, I was going to park my bike on the racks behind the station that, as every morning, are already full of bikes in every position at 8:00AM.
After a couple of hopeless checks I decided to wedge my bike between two "official" spots already occupied and to lock it there (as half of the bikes in the rack).
It was then that I heard the grim noise of a circular saw on my back.
Suddenly three imperial clones from the municipal police came out and started to cut off all the padlocks from the bikes parked out of the racks and to throw them (the bikes) on a truck.
I then thought it was better to find a real parking spot, and so I did, leaving the clones collecting all the outlaw bikes (some 50 of them) and chopping the padlocks with that bloody saw of their.
When I came back from work tonight just a few bikes were still there (the ones in the right parking spots) and all around there were groups of astonished dutch; desperate people trying to figure out what happened to their bikes and throwing themselves like mad in the water. (OK, this can be a bit romanticized.)
I then took my bike and went back home, gaily, even if I almost got caught by some policemen because my front light was not working (since 2 days).
Fortunately they were busy screaming to a guy to drive his scooter (with the yellow plate!! Not with the blue one! But this is another story) on the bicycle lane.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
De Bijbelgordel
Since I've been pointed out by a (the) reader that here in The Netherlands there is a so called Bible Belt, I made my homework and I tried to inquire about this.
So there is indeed a bible belt also here in The Netherparts (in dutch it's de bijbelgordel) and it's basically a strip of villages inhabited mainly by conservative Protestants.
The Belt can be identify by looking at those towns where the SGP (Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, Political Reformed Party) is getting most of its votes.
The SGP is an orthodox Protestant party whose ideology is pretty much based on the principles of the Christian Reformed Churches and the Reformed Congregations (known colloquially as zwarte-kousenkerken, “black stockings churches"): government based on the bible, against feminism and female suffrage, in favour of the re-introduction of the death penalty, and other nice ideas like these.
The origin of this Belt is not clear, but I think it's a mix of geographic isolation (those villages are located in reclaimed lands, polders, along the depressions at the outlets of the big rivers) and proximity to the border with the Catholic part of the Country.
After Flanders and Brabant were conquered by the Spaniards (Eighty Years' war) the Protestants inhabitants of those areas were forced to emigrate north of the border (the rivers) and there they reclaimed stronger and more orthodox positions from the Dutch Reformed Church in order to protect their beliefs.
This led to a schism in 1832 (nadere reformatie: further reformation) that created more conservative congregations along the border with the Catholic communities, such as those that now are followed in the Bible Belt.
Moreover I think they are still there nowadays because they feel themselves as a sort of contrast with the very liberal general politics of the Country (they are of course against gay rights, abortion, euthanasia, cannabis, &c).
What do they do?
They wear traditional clothes, they have large families and they emphasise traditional values (such as not working during holy-days). Most of them are also against "interfering with the design of God about health" so they don't vaccinate their children (this caused a few epidemics of polio and parotitis in the last decades, very localized in those areas) and they tend not to have any health insurances.
What do the city dwellers think about them?
Some of the people I asked just say "I don't really care, they're not annoying anybody" (meaning that there are other religious group that actually annoy?).
Some other instead look at them as some weird remainders from the past that are leaving out of the big cities, in the countryside (is this why Holland an The Netherlands are almost synonyms?).
What about me?
Well... I'm trying hard to convince Ele to have a instructive tour of De Bijbelgordel of course!!
I have already a couple of pa(l)pable destinations.
The only thing I have to keep in mind is not to go there on Sunday because I've been told the inhabitants don't like to see people driving in their villages during Sundays.
Monday, September 01, 2008
He deered to kill a king's dare!
In the previous post I was showing a nice tricky way to avoid the tobacco-ban law in dutch coffee-shops.
But who knows how to avoid taxes and laws better than us, as Italians?
This is of course helped by the fact that most of the Italian laws are particularly baroque; for example I will explain here what I discovered, living in Holland, about the passport stamp (tassa di concessione governativa) we - as Italians - have to attach to our passport to make it valid.
In principle, to be allowed to expatriate, we have to attach to our Italian passport a stamp of 40.29€, valid one year (actually up to one year, since the "fiscal year" is based on the release date of the passport: if your passport has been released on 13/04/2005 and you buy a stamp on 10/04/2007, your passport is valid for just two days, until 12/04/2007).
Fortunately since November 2000 (law) we don't need to pay this stamp if we travel through European Union Countries and the funny thing is that we don't need our passport to have the stamp if we travel between any two Countries which are not Italy! (the only authorities allowed to check and validate/invalidate this tax are the Italian policemen.)
So if you want to travel from Amsterdam (EU) to New York (extra EU) and you own an Italian passport you don't need the stamp.
Also for traveling from Italy to any other European Union Country you don't need the stamp as well (moreover: you can anyway use your ID card).
This means that if you travel from Rome to New York directly you need the stamp, but if you travel first to Paris (or London, or whatever) and then to NY you don't need it anymore! Cool, isn't it?
Traveling by car is even easier because you can cross the borders with your ID card and then use you passport without the stamp.
In conclusion you need the stamp only if you travel by plane from Italy to outside EU without touching any other EU Country in between, or if you sail to Tunisia...
(Actually most of the times to go to Tunisia or Croatia the local authorities do accept just the Italian ID card.)
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