fantapolitica
humorous look at Italian politics (bilingual)Thursday, September 11, 2008
Oh My
John McCain celebrated his 70th birthday in Montenegro with Anne Hathaway (star of the princess diaries) and Raffale Follieri a man who is going to jail for claiming that he was, get this, the Chief Financial Officer of the Vatican.
McCain boarded Follieri's pamfilo with the top lobbyist who is now his campaign manager.
This is on US TV on prime time
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Ho cercato Italian football training su youtube.
Primo video.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Atrios.blogspot.com is one of the most visited blogs in the USA. That's why it is such a serious problem that his Italian is a bit shaky. A post quoted in full
Duro Not Culo
Apparently lyrics site had wrong lyrics for "gasolina," and the word is "duro" (hard) not "culo" (ass) as listed below.
-Atrios 14:47
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Italia non è più un stato di diritto.
Ormai Italia è un stato di rovescio.
(idea due to Elisabetta Addis. All remaining grammatical errors are mine).
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Andrew Northrup catches Fred Hiatt making an inaccurate quotation in the Washington Post
I clicked the links. He's right. My *s.
Hiatt:
On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.*”
The actual report (pg. 15):
(U) Conclusion 1: Statements by the President, Vice-President, Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor regarding a possible nuclear weapons program were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates,* but did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community.
Deleting the clause noting that, uhm Bush lied, without ellipses is sleazy but not clearly falsification of a matter of indisputable fact. Changing a comma to a period is a misquotation. Hiatt chose to feebly attempt to hide the fact that his quotation from the report was deceptive by falsifying the text of the report.
I think that replacing a comma with a period, when one is deleting part of a sentence is an effort to use plain fraud to hide the fact that the sentence was mangled.
Ellipses then period is sleazy but not a firing offence, a comma then end quote is sleazy but not a firing offence. Replacing a comma with a period is, in this context, like replacing a word with another word.
I think that, if the Washington Post wants people to assume that factual claims in the post are accurate, then they have to fire Hiatt.
I admire Northrup's work effort and, still more, his ability to maintain his sense of humor while reading Hiatt. Hell I admire his ability to actually read Hiatt. I haven't managed to do that in years.
update: Good commenters too.
Grace Nearing Says:
June 9, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I think Hans Blix (nonnative speaker of English, of course) had the most concise description of what was going on. In essence, where inspectors and intelligence analysts originally put questions marks, Bush and Cheney inserted exclamation points instead.
To this day, I haven’t heard a better or more succinct explanation.
See so it all makes sense and is all about punctuation. To defend people who removed question marks and inserted explamation points, Hiatt removed commas and inserted periods.
And I never ever imagined I could care so much about punctuation.
They have eaten and shot, now I hope they leave.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Fantapolitica Indeed
If the US election were decided by Italians, Barack Obama would win. He leads John McCain 70 % to 15 % in the latest Daily Telegraph poll of people who can't vote in the USA.
Also in very notable contrast to people in France, Germany, Russia and even the UK, many more Italians consider the USA a force for good (49%) than a force for evil (27%).
I live in Italy and, believe me, I have noticed.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
OK Now* the US Class War has Begun
or rather the non rich are fighting back. The spot heard round the world. The Bosses tea party. The storming of the pastille
* I have been known to jump the gun on this one, but this time it's for real.
Via Kevin Drum
update: I posted here by mistake. Now I have to try to explain the ad to Italians.
First, most Italians know that the US doesn't have a national health care system. Rather those who have health insurance are old or poor (and get public health insurance) or get it from their employers. This means that people can't quit (dimetersi) without losing their health insurance.
Note that the boss is younger than his subordinates. Very few Italians suffer this indignity as Italy is almost a pure gerontocracy.
Note the guy who hates the copier almost as much as I do is reading the classified ads while photocopying his culo. In the US there are pages and pages of want-ads where employers advertise seeking employees -- trying to get people to accept jobs and work for them. This really happens. On the other hand, you can get fired for photocopying your butt in the USA.
Note the comment on foam (schiuma). This scene is set in a Starbucks. The blond woman is, by US standards, grossly over-groomed indicating that she is rich and compulsiva (yet the barista is much better looking and, in particular, if she were to photocopy . The foam is foam in a giant cappucino which is not called a cappucione but a "latte".
US snobs like to pretend that they are European by calling coffee milk. Think of how Italian snobs miss use English words when trying to show off (I especially like "management" with the accent on the first e which is silent in English and "feeling" whose meaning in Italian is closer to simpatia than to any actual English word*). To me calling caffé "latte" indicates a limited command of language. In the USA it is they key signal of not being populare.
*I said closer not close.
What the f* did they put in Jonathan FBD Weisman's coffee ?
Read what he and Michael D Sheer wrote
"In my administration, there will be no more subsidies for special pleaders, no more corporate welfare," McCain said.
But much of what he detailed was a corporate special pleader's dream:
I'm not surprised that no one told me that today is blind Squirrel day, but why didn't anyone tell Atrios ?
Monday, April 14, 2008
Oh Well
As happened in 2006, the exit polls appear to have under-predicted the vote for Berlusconi et al.
Exit Polls !!!!
Blacked out in Italy. Easily available on the web. Lo stato Italiano protegge il pubblico dal informazione but who will watch the watchers and guard The Guardian
In the vote for the senate, for which only voters over the age of 25 are eligible, Berlusconi's Freedom Folk party had a lead of around 4%, according to revised figures.
In the ballot for the lower house of the Italian parliament, the chamber of deputies, where the voting age threshold is 18, the gap between the two main parties narrowed to two percentage points.
In both cases, the range of possible error – around 4% - was wide enough to allow for a reverse when the actual results come in.
Wow 4% in the Senate is not likely to give him a majority !
The Telegraph agrees with The Guardian ! Has this ever happened before ?
Silvio Berlusconi ahead in Italian exit polls
By Tom Chivers and agencies
Last Updated: 2:27pm BST 14/04/2008
The billionaire Mr Berlusconi, a conservative, has a two-point lead over centre-Left opponent Walter Veltroni in the lower house of the Italian parliament and a three-point lead in the upper house, according to a poll carried out by Sky TV.
One poll was by RAI and one by SKY
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Italian Election Half Time Report
The first day of voting in the Italian general election has finished. It has been illegal to public polls for 14 days now (ouch). Noo exit polls (I think).
Betfair has implied probabilities of leading politicians becoming the next prime minister. They give the inverse of the probability of winning.
Currently betfair has Berlusconi at 1.21 or 83% change of being the next prime minister. This would be the third sack of Rome (Ricimer he's already served as Alaric (95-96) and Genseric (2001-06)
