Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Scripta Manent
Talking of this, just in conclusion, I just throw a stone about a similar subject.... wouldn't it be better to add a similar test, maybe on general culture, before allowing people to vote? Make a test and then weight the votes depending on the results?
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.
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.)
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Philosophical and moral consideration over the freedom of internet
It is some time that I have been thinking about it (indeed, you can see some hints in a old post), and now a new event made me think about it again. Italy has patetically tried to censor the website "pirate bay", a searching engine of torrent files. The government has obliged the ISPs to forbit the access to this server by address and IP number. Of course, there are just hundreds of ways to reach the website anyway. Several of them are explained directly in the blog of the Pirate Bay. In this blog, exactly as in most of the newspapers that show this news, this fact has been described as an expression of a fascist regime. The freedom of speech and the freedom of internet in in great risk, they say. Well, to me it is a very delicate matter. I mean, I believe that it is absolutely against the human rights and the rights of speech to censor a website where people express their opinion. Like, for example, this. Every newspaper, as well as every blog or website should be able to publish thir ideas in the same way. What leave a bit in doubt is the fact that people download software and movies and so on from internet. It is a difficult matter. I cannot deny that it is very tempting to do that. Nevertheless, I think that we should find a way to make it legal, and to pay a bit for it. Because, people are working for that software. Why we are willing to pay 200€ for a cool graphic card, but we want to download a software for free? The work behind, the value of the good, is the same. Maybe even more for some piece of software. Why we think that paying 200€ for a copy of Windows Vista is not worthy? I think that software should be paid, the problem is that companies agrees in some share of piracy, as long as other big companies buy the original version.
Also for music and movies, there is quite some work behind, that somehow should be repaid. The problem is that in Italy most of the money goes to the SIAE, a system that exist ONLY in Italy and it is completely beyond any reason. This should be completely closed. And, there should be the choice of buying the products both of physical support and on internet. Of course, the price should be very different.
Here in Holland a brand new Blue Ray movie, the newest movie, il maximum 29€. It's easy to find BR discs for 20€. DVDs are maximum 20€ and often you can buy 5 movies for 5€. Then, the price of downloading should be in proportion. I cannot pay more then 10€ for a high definition movie for which I don't get a physical support. I'm a great fan of the idea of paying, say, 50 euros per month, and being able to download everything you want. This money should be then distributed to the producers. This is my solution to piracy.
Regarding the event happened in Italy, to me looks more patethic then fascist. There is a bit of abuse of the words fascist and comunist and so on... we should pay maybe more respect to people who really fighted against these dictatures, and realise we are mainly trying to fight againt stupidity. This is anyway a very difficult fight, as, like Einstein said, the most commond elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity, but there are still doubts about the first one. People wants security, wants to get the fingerprints of the romenian kids, but wants to be free to surf on internet, maybe also on porn websites or pedophiles websites. People wants the law to be strict, but wants to be "more equal then the others". Internet is a great mean of comunication, is a great invention and has a great potential. I'm totally against censorship but like everything, must be used with intelligence. Also nuclear power is a great invention, also dynamite, but can have terrible aspects. For sure, downloading music is not as terrible as that, but pedophily it may definitively be, and must be controlled. Also internet, as everything else, should be free when used with coscience. It is very hard to judge, or expecially to find a judge, for what is allowd and what is not, that is why it is so important that in every government there is an equilibrium of different forces, and that the power is not concentrated in only few hands. Here the problem of Italy must be solved.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Holy smoke!
Here we are after our Japanese honeymoon.
I'll leave to Ele to explain all the nice things we saw in Japan (it was really awesome!) because we need to set finally up the winner of the Euro 2008 ugly bets, which is....
.... Giovanni (van Bronkhorst)!!!
Unperishing glory for him and may he live in eternity lying in the gardens where there are rivers of milk of which the taste never changes, rivers of wine, a joy to those who drink, and rivers of honey pure and clear.
(Still I'm not sure I'd like to swim in rivers of honey...)
In the meantime, while we where honeymooning in Japan and Giovanni was mooning over honey rivers, the Dutch founded a new Church, the One and Universal Smokers Church of God, after the new law banned smoking in the Dutch bars since July 1st (Good morning Holland!).
People who join the church get a membership card entitling them to smoke inside the building. Worshippers believe in the trinity of smoke, fire and ash and honour their god by smoking.
Dozens of bars have joined the movement which claims the Dutch constitution and European rules give it legitimacy under the right to freedom of religion.
Good mooning, Holland.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Life is.. a cosmic symphony
Hello,
from now on the ranking over the (ugly) bets for Euro 2008 will stay on the right side of the blog (can you see it?) so that we will be able to post some other bullshit here.
So, to inaugurate the bull's year, here there is a new advertisement for the dutch beer Bavaria.
Life is...
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The future of the language
This whole subject has been treated and re-treated in a lot of places (lately in the Science journal) and by a lot of people (not last my uncle), but is worth giving an extra analysis (and who's better than me, anyway?).
The main point is that internet gives the right to anyone to publish his thoughts and to let them read by a lot of other people. This implies that people who doesn't have a culture, doesn't have any writing skills, and probaly doesn't have much to say either are just filling the minds of other people with crap. Is it right? Is it a global achievement, or it's a bad result of a waste society?
There are people that are making a job out of this. For example, skellie is a journalist that has published a blog on "how to write a blog", and can even write it for you. In the article I liked, it says that writing skill actually don't matter for having a good blog result. The reason is that in internet, the form doesn't count, but only the facts are important, only the substance. And words are only a mere "medium" to transmit the concepts.
But then, why humans invented and developed a language in first place? Dogs and animals can communicate their basic need quite properly, and they don't have a language (to be honest, they don't have a blog either). I think that we need the language to express "better" what we want to say. Very often, in my experience of learning new languages, I run into the situation of wanting to express a particular feeling, that could be said like "I'm angry" but was not quite that. I knew how to express it in Italian, but I couldn't think of any word that could mean the same in another language. Of course, there are. I just didn't know them. So, if I want to write in my blog that I'm angry because Berlusconi won the elections and that I feel that Italians are a bunch of jerks, I could say it like this, or trying to express it with a more explicative language. I think that the reader should be able to see the difference and appreciate when an article, although written in a blog, and published on internet, is well written or very poor.
So, in conclusion, I think that is a good thing that internet allows everybody to write and to express their opinion, but I think that the development of our society and of the human being in itself is such that we should follow the way of the development of the language, that has to be good enough to express any little detail of our mind. Of course, I also think that not all human being has the same amount of details in their brain, which explains a lack of need of evoluted language. Nevertheless, I am hoping in a "natural selection" of blogging and bloggers, such as good journalism and, why not, even literature, could come out of it. So, the problem, as always, is not the medium (internet) but is people that make use of it, that, alas, is not easy to stop...
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Politically scorrect....
Sunday, May 13, 2007
TRIVIA of the week
Ehy people!! TWO free beers for who guess who is the guy in the picture!! Vote in the poll and write your name and choice in the post!! Beers are waiting you....!!!P.S. The most voted superheros are spare Superman and Spiderman.... how ordinary....
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Friday, April 06, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
New post
I don't know what to write, but I feel the moment has come to write a new post: all the quiz has been answered, I have won a beer, and we decided what to do for Small Easter.... don't we? Finally where do we go? the poll suggest Sistiana....
Anyway, I think that Moris has proposed a new nice trick... the quiz! So.. from which movie this dialogue has been taken?
"
- I like to dress in women's clothing.
- You're a fruit?
- No, not at all. I love women. Wearing their clothes makes me feel closer to them.
- You're not a fruit?
- No, I'm all man. I even fought in WWII. Of course, I was wearing women's undergarments under my uniform.
"
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Poll results and conclusions
And, it seems is time to change the poll and to decide what to do to Pasquetta (Little Easter or Pasentje)!
Friday, March 09, 2007
The Future of the Blog
(It would be nice that when you vote you also put a comment - You can do it in Italian for this time)
Saturday, January 27, 2007
New features
I followed the suggestion of a new advertisement for my blog, so here there is the "Tell a friend" button, so you can suggest your friends to visit my blog.
And, (thanks to Giovanni) for who has stress problem, here you can also help yourself punching as much as you want mr. Berlusconi! So, have fun!
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