Off to a running start...

The winners of the 2012 Golden Duke awards.

States that allow cameras in dressing rooms

Parenting in timelapse

Hunting pythons... in Florida.

Italy looks fondly back on Mussolini.. things must really be getting bad over there.

Ezra Klein's take on the fiscal cliff/ curve/ curb.  And BooMan reassures us.

A 2010 photo of an Italian special forces soldier

After 72 hours of combat in Afghanistan.

This should take care of any geology majors in Italy...

Seismologists Tried for Manslaughter for Not Predicting Earthquake

Earthquake prediction can be a grave, and faulty science, and in the case of Italian seismologists who are being tried for the manslaughter of the people who died in the 2009 L'Aquila quake, it can have legal consequences.

The group of seven, including six seismologists and a government official, reportedly didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of the L'Aquila earthquake, which occurred on April 6 of that year, killing around 300 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

But most scientists would agree it's not their fault they couldn't predict the wrath of Mother Nature.

"We're not able to predict earthquakes very well at all," John Vidale, a Washington State seismologist and professor at the University of Washington, told LiveScience.

Even though advances have been made, the day scientists are able to forecast earthquakes is still "far away," Dimitar Ouzounov, a professor of earth sciences at Chapman University in California, said this month regarding the prediction of the March 11 earthquake in Japan.

Have a very merry ... minuet.

There are days in my life when everything is dreary

I grow pessimistic, sad and world weary.

But when I'm tearful and fearfully upset

I always sing this merry little minuet:

They're rioting in Africa

They're starving in Spain

There's hurricanes in Florida

And Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering

With unhappy souls

The French hate the Germans,

The Germans hate the Poles

Italians hate Yugoslavs

South Africans hate the Dutch

And I don't like anybody very much

But we can be grateful

And thankful and proud

That man's been endowed

With a mushroom shaped cloud

And we know for certain

That some happy day

Someone will set the spark off

And we will all be blown away

They're rioting in Africa

There's strife in Iran

What nature doesn't do to us

Will be done by our fellow man.

Or Tom Lehrer might do:

When you attend a funeral

It is sad to think that sooner 'r l-

ater those you love will do the same for you.

And you may have thought it tragic,

Not to mention other adjec-

Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do - but don't you worry -

No more ashes, no more sackcloth,

And an armband made of black cloth

Will someday never more adorn a sleeve.

For if the bomb that drops on you

Gets your friends and neighbours too,

There'll be nobody left behind to grieve......

And who is going up in smoke?

The US housing market.

Italy.

And Britain.

And Russia.

Besides setting off every geiger counter in the country...

This explains why the fish were glowing!

Mafia 'sank nuclear waste ship'

So does that mean we don't eat anything pulled from the Mediterranean for a while?

If we don't bomb ourselves to death

We will die buried in the garbage we create. Take a look at these 17 photos. Here is one:

An employee works inside the Caivano dump, near Naples, southern Italy, where rubbish is turned into bales. Neapolitans took the law into their own hands after the city ran out of space to dump rubbish
Photograph: Salvatore Laporta/AP

It will make you want to never have to throw anything out again...

We can't have panic in the streets!

Better to have citizens horribly squished in their homes?

An Italian scientist told to shut up by the authorities after predicting a major earthquake around L'Aquila has demanded an official apology after dozens of people were killed in a devastating temblor this morning.

The first tremors in the Abruzzo region were felt in mid-January and have continued until today's events in the medieval city, in the Appennine mountains northeast of Rome.

One month ago, vans with loudspeakers drove around L'Aquila telling residents to evacuate their houses after Giampaolo Giuliani, a researcher at a nuclear physics institute at nearby Gran Sassow, predicted a large quake was on its way.

Mr Giuliani, who based his forecast on concentrations of radon gas around seismically active areas, was reported to police for “spreading alarm” and was forced to remove his findings from the internet, although a video interview with him remains on YouTube.

I know there is yet no scientific way of predicting an earthquake and people could have fled their homes only to create a logistical nightmare for the city, and in the end have no earthquake show up. But I bet there will be jobs lost and heads rolling because of this.

Sono così spiacente, Italia.

Now we are insulting the Italians

The Bush Administration has really quit trying, haven't they? They can't wait to scrape their shoes, slam the door and throw the keys to Obama. Let the next guy clean up the mess...

The White House has apologised to Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi for a briefing describing him as a political "amateur" who is "hated by many".

The "insulting" biography was included in a press kit distributed to reporters travelling with President George W Bush to a meeting of world leaders in Japan.

He was "one of the most controversial leaders" of a country "known for governmental corruption and vice".

Only last month, Mr Bush visited his old ally, calling him a "good friend".

The four-page description of Mr Berlusconi had been taken from the Encyclopedia of World Biography.

Damn those uppity women!

Get back there and clean his socks!:

Rome, Italy (AHN) - An Italian man was arrested after police said he kidnapped his ex-girlfriend from a pub and took her home, forcing her to wash the dishes and iron clothes.

Police said the man dragged the woman out of a pub in Genoa, shoved her into a car and took her home where he threatened her if she didn't do his dishes and ironing.

How dare she leave and make him do women's work!

Practicing his love on the world...

Or maybe it's to honor the spreading of his democracy. So, is Bush's farewell tour to Yurp working?:

Germany:

German newspaper commentators have launched a scathing attack on US President George W. Bush's record, saying he embodies "the arrogance of power" and has shattered the world's faith in America.

Italy:

Security for President Bush's visit has been very tight.

Commercial flights over the city have been diverted, 10,000 policemen have been mobilised, there are frogmen under bridges and snipers on roofs, and mobile phone signals are being disrupted whenever his motorcade moves, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome.

As Air Force One touched down, hundreds were gathering in the city centre in protest at the Bush administration and Italy's involvement in Afghanistan.

Another group of demonstrators chanted "Bush, go home" outside the American Academy in Rome's Villa Aurelia while the president met young entrepreneurs inside.

Slovenia?:

Ljubljana, 10 June (STA) - Multiple groups will stage protests against US President George W. Bush on Tuesday as the EU-US Summit gets under way at the Brdo pri Kranju estate.

In Ljubljana the Youth Party (SMS) will stage a peace rally in front of the US Embassy at 10 AM.

The protesters intend to give the embassy a medal for Bush to honour him for energising movements and individuals who fight for a cleaner environment, human rights, minority rights and democracy.

"With everything he has done he has clearly shown us what not to do," the party said in a press release.

World leaders?

Like many Americans, Europeans have Bush fatigue. Many believe Barack Obama and John McCain will have different positions - perhaps more favorable - than Bush on issues important to Europe. The president continues promoting his agenda on climate change, Mideast peace and world trade issues, yet his influence has ebbed.

"I'm sure there will be some protests, but I think people are just looking past this guy at this point and they're interested in what comes next," said James M. Goldgeier, an expert on Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"There's no reason for any leader to give him anything because he's on the way out. You have a presidency that's losing energy, is consumed by Iraq and a president who is unpopular, in general, in Europe and people are looking beyond him," Goldgeier said.

Ah, gee whiz, guys. He's the preznit of the YooNited States. After all he's done, a little more attention from the ferrin leaders would be appreciated....



Ah, um .. right .. ... so what will Bush do for his final few months to show he's a real world leader?

WASHINGTON - Once again, notably in the wake of last week's annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and the visit to the capital of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there's a lot of chatter about a possible attack by Israel and/or the United States on Iran.

Olmert appears to have left the White House after meeting with President George W Bush and an earlier dinner with Vice President Dick Cheney quite satisfied on this score, while rumors - most recently voiced by neo-conservative Daniel Pipes - that the administration plans to carry out a "massive" attack in the window between the November elections and Bush's departure from office, particularly if Democratic Senator Barack Obama is his successor, continue to swirl around the capital.

[snip]

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've generally been skeptical of the many reports over the past two years that an attack - either by Israeli or the US - was imminent, as those reports had often warned at the time of their publication. After the release of the December National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), I, like just about everyone else, became even more doubtful that Bush would order an attack before leaving office (and I didn't think the Israelis would mount an attack without a green light from Washington). This is in part because neo-conservatives, who had been and remain the most eager champions of military action, seemed to simply give up on Bush and, in any event, were not showing any signs of orchestrating a major new media campaign to mobilize public opinion in that direction, as they did in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.

Since the abrupt resignation of Admiral William Fallon as CENTCOM commander, which I saw as a major blow to the realist faction in the administration, and Cheney's subsequent visit to the region, however, I've been increasingly concerned about the possibility of an attack, and the past week's events have done nothing to allay that concern.

Going out with a bang are we, Georgie?

crossposted at American Street

Or as the Bush administration calls it...

The good old days:

ROME - First-century burial grounds near Rome's main airport are yielding a rare look into how ancient longshoremen and other manual workers did backbreaking jobs, archaeologists said Monday.

[snip]

Most of the 300 skeletons unearthed were male, and many of them showed signs of years of heavy work: joint and tendon inflammation, compressed vertebrae, hernias and spinal problems, archaeologists said. Sandy sediment helped preserve the remains well.

Judging by the condition of the skeletons, archaeologists concluded that the men likely carried loads on their backs at a nearby port during the early years of Imperial Rome, said Gabriella Gatto, a spokeswoman for the archaeology office.

Welcome to America

This here is yur jail cell until we figger out if'n yur a terrist.

Blue Girl from Blue Girl, Red State:

Two years ago, a Virginia girl met an Italian gentleman in a supermarket in Rome and a romance blossomed. He was prosperous and in a position to make frequent visits to see her, and so he did. His visits were always without incidence until he landed at Dulles last month, and was denied entry.

Normally, persons denied entry are put on the next plane home, but this gentleman was not so fortunate. He was held in a county jail for ten days, and even intervention by Senator John Warner could not gain him his freedom.

Read her post for the full horror of letting these little Hitlers with their cool shiny badges loose in airport security.

Remember the woman from Iceland?

And the idiots at Transportation Security?

How many terrorists ask for permission for entry to ports or want to just go shopping in our country? How about a little common sense you guys!

Because you are making terrorists one by one by treating innocent people like shit.

Update: OH MY GOD. Via Chet Scoville of Vanity Press, we are fucking doping deportees:

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

[...]

Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes. The practice is banned by several countries where, confidential documents make clear, U.S. escorts have been unable to inject deportees with extra doses of drugs during layovers en route to faraway places.

Jesus.

crossposted at American Street

How to avoid the finger of blame... point at somebody else.

Italians discover huge arms deal headed for Iraq:

Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq.

As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.

For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command -- a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.

Why these officials resorted to "black" channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear.

The purchase would merely have been the most spectacular example of how Iraq has become a magnet for arms traffickers and a place of vanishing weapons stockpiles and uncontrolled gun markets since the 2003 U.S. invasion and the onset of civil war.

The private contractors are out of control:

There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers — and a large percentage of them are private security guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks.

They operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys.

Not one has faced charges or prosecution.

There is great confusion among legal experts and military officials about what laws — if any — apply to Americans in this force of at least 48,000.

And the Pentagon can't keep track of our own weapons:

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of the weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting US forces in Iraq.

The report from the Government Accountability Office indicates that US military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

And weaponry from the Iraq/Iran war is still available... weaponry that we probably sold Saddam:

Old Iran-Iraq war era land mines were used in about 15 percent of the roadside bombs that exploded or were detected in northern Iraq during January, according to Navy Lt. Sarah Wilson, an explosives officer based in Tikrit.

Many of them were believed to have come from this border area.

"All of that unexploded ordnance, minefields and shrapnel _ it's still out there," said Lt. Col. Ron Ward, 49, who helps train Iraqi guards.

So how can Bush say this with a straight face?

U.S. President George W. Bush said Thursday he believes Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will explain during his visit to Iran that delivering weapons to the hands of Iraqi militants is a destabilizing measure, with consequences.

Bush held a news conference at the White House before taking a long weekend at his parents' home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

"His message, I'm confident, will be to stabilize, don't destabilize," said Bush.

"He knows that weapons being smuggled into Iraq from Iran and placed into the hands of extremists, over which his government has no control, all aimed at killing innocent life, is a destabilizing factor."

Have you checked out the foreign fighters in Iraq, Georgie? Most of them are from your pal's country, Saudi Arabia. Your pals are killing our soldiers, George. What are you going to do about it?

Right. Blame Iran.

Present day Noah's Ark

The Italians have the right idea:

ROME, April 6 (UPI) -- Italian environmentalists are drafting a plan to protect the country's biodiversity.

The World Wide Fund for Nature and the Environmental Protection Agency are working together on the plan, which will be used to protect Italian plants, animals and ecosystems.

The two groups will focus on key "eco-regions" -- the Alps and the Mediterranean -- ANSA reported. The Alps, one of the last surviving natural areas in central Europe, are home to 13,000 plants and 30,000 animals.

The WWF says the Mediterranean has 25,000 plants, 62 species of amphibians and 179 kinds of reptiles.

The WWF is coordinating Italy's efforts with groups from Germany, Austria and Switzerland to protect areas that cross international borders. ANSA said 20 different groups are targeting the Mediterranean region.

A recent report said over 45 percent of Italy's vertebrates, 40 percent of its plants and 30 percent of its natural environments are threatened.

As do the Norwegians:

Norway is building a Doomsday bunker that has every known crop seed in the world.

So... will we stop denying the coming catastrophe or continue trying to ignore it?

The {UN} report claims that global warming will lead to desertification, droughts and rising seas and that those living in the tropics will be the worst hit -- from sub-Saharan Africa to the Pacific islands. Billions could face water shortages, and ocean levels might rise for centuries to come. It could lead to a sharp drop in crop yields in Africa and bring heatwaves to Europe and North America. Europe's Alpine glaciers will disappear and much of the coral that comprises Australia's Great Barrier Reef will die from bleaching.
The scientific conclusions -- based on 29,000 sets of data -- also said that up to 30 percent of the Earth's species faced a higher risk of vanishing if global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average in the 1980s and '90s. "The urgency of this report prepared by the world's top scientists should be matched by an equally urgent response from governments," said Hans Verolme, director of the global climate change program at the conservation organization WWF. "Doing nothing is not an option."

Just 26?

Can't he take Bush and Cheney and the whole PNAC crowd while he's at it?

An Italian judge has ordered 26 Americans - most of them CIA agents - to stand trial over the kidnap of an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003.

Osama Mustafa Hassan was allegedly seized by the CIA and flown to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. Five Italians were also indicted by the judge.

Most of the indicted US citizens are believed to have returned home from Italy.

The case would be the first criminal trial over the secret US practice known as 'extraordinary rendition'.

Washington acknowledges secret transfers of terrorism suspects to third countries but denies using or sanctioning torture, and is not expected to hand over its agents for trial.

The case is the subject of a lot of interest across Europe.

The European Parliament approved a report on Wednesday saying governments of 14 member states, including Ireland, helped conceal secret US transfers of terrorism suspects.

A court in Munich in Germany issued arrest warrants last month for 13 suspected CIA agents accused of kidnapping a German of Lebanese descent and flying him to a jail in Afghanistan, where he too says he was tortured.

Two hearts beat as one

Even in the Neolithic era:

Archaeologists in Italy believe they have discovered an example of eternal love after the discovery of two skeletons buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, hugging each other.

Elena Menotti, who led the team on its dig near the northern city of Mantova, described the find as "an extraordinary case".

"There has not been a double burial found in the Neolithic period, much less two people hugging, and they really are hugging," she said.

Menotti said she believed the two, almost certainly a man and a woman although that needs to be confirmed, died young because their teeth were mostly intact and not worn down.

"I must say that when we discovered it, we all became very excited. I've been doing this job for 25 years. I've done digs at Pompeii, all the famous sites," she said.

"But I've never been so moved because this is the discovery of something special."

A laboratory will now try to determine the couple's age at the time of death and how long they had been buried.

Happy Valentine's Day.... I think.