SomAlitalia

I am getting more and more convinced that I live in a third-world country.

I just got the strike calendar for the next two weeks (yes, everything is unplanned in Italy except strikes).

Take a read here for your joy and delight.

Now you don't need to know Italian to realise that the whole thing is about Alitalia, and is a hell of a mess.

Now a couple of questions to Alitalia's crew (which I'm sure will not be answered as usual).

First: your company has been on the verge of bankrupt for years and has only been saved by suspicious bank loans and public aid. Why the hell make it worse by not going to work? don't you think you are making things worse for yourself?

Second: if you don't like the way Alitalia treats, why don't you get the fuck out of there and go work for other companies? air travel is experiencing an unusual boom, and I'm sure you can get plenty of opportunities around. Or is it so that Alitalia employees enjoy many more privileges, higher salaries, lower working hours and less control than their counterparts who work for Lufthansa or BA?

I only fear that Mogadiscio will be offended about my nickname "SomAlitalia". In Angola things probably function better.

The Pope reads re-immigration!

I quote myself from my August 19th post addressing the Pope:

Aren't there better reasons to open your mouth nowadays? for instance, apologizing to Islam for the crusades or stating that contraception is allowed if used to prevent disease?

And now I read this piece of news. The following bits immediately caught my eyes:

He told the huge crowd that there was "much that could be criticised in the Church". "We know this and the Lord himself told us so: it is a net with good fish and bad fish," the pontiff said.

Well, chapeau for this one. And also:

The Pope spoke of past wars that had been waged between Christians and Muslims with both sides invoking God's name as if, the Pope said, killing the enemy could be pleasing to God.

The Pope said by working together, Muslims and Christians could "turn back the wave of cruel fanaticism that endangers the lives of so many people and hinders progress toward world peace".

What can I say, his highness? thanks for reading my blog, and mostly thanks for following my advice!

Monti speaks out

Mario Monti, one of the Italian members of the previous EU commission, and one of the world's most respected economists, has decided to speak out by means of an article on Corriere della Sera.

It's about Italy, and it's not merry. But it's all true, and I strongly believe that it's up to all us Italians to, as he says, roll up our sleeves and start building a better country.

True, the governments we have "enjoyed" in the last 15-20 years are largely to blame for this situation. But let's don't forget that it's us who elected them, and at the end of the day a political class is a more or less representative sample of a country. If there were not so many corrupt, sleazy criminals in this country they would not systematically get up to government positions.

So let's go to work! myself, I'm working on my PhD thesis. More on that later.

Before opening your mouth...

... be sure your brain is connected.

Our dear German Pope doesn't seem to follow this old suggestion. Take a look at his last speech.

His Holiness, can you please tell us who gives a flying fuck about the crucifix when the world has so many problems, many of which are due to the Catholic Church's lack of action towards other religions and key issues such as euthanasia, contraception and abortion?

Who gives a shit about a wooden cross if it cannot force us to be competitive, uncorruptible, and honest? people?

Aren't there better reasons to open your mouth nowadays? for instance, apologizing to Islam for the crusades or stating that contraception is allowed if used to prevent disease?

Medal, at last!

Three cheers for Alex Schwazer, who unexpectedly took home Italy's first medal in a so far extremely disappointing World Championships in Helsinki

It had better be gold for Stefano Baldini, otherwise even Bahrein will have done better than us. I know they purchase their players with oil money, but I wouldn't want my friend Mahmood to celebrate too long.

And hell, we buy players as well - spot the Italian name in our basketball national team!

Strike abroad!

I sort of like it when there's a major strike abroad. It makes me feel less ashamed about the way our pre-historic, delinquent and criminal trade unions have treated air, rail and bus passengers on a regular basis in Italy since I was born and before.

Now it's British Airways facing the monster, though Alitalia will follow course at the end of the month, in an evident breach of a law that forbids strikes during the busy August season. I only hope that the criminal trade union leaders and the strike participants will be prosecuted for breaking a law of the Republic of Italy.

I also silently hope they will get fired one day, but another stupid law practically forbids firing anyone in Italy. So once you got a job, it's yours for life, even if you stop working or start stealing from your company (it's happened!). And then we complain there's no jobs: of course no-one hires you if they are sure you are going to stay there forever.

Ah, I'm getting bitter. I need a beer. It's Friday, and it's been a shitty week: mobile phone stolen, loads of work, motorbike still not repaired and generally bad weather.

Fuck it, and I even already had my hols.

On and off the air

Whoa, it's air accident galore these days.

First Sicily, then Estonia.

Looking forward to riding my motorbike tomorrow evening! Of course nothing can happen to me since I'm such a good driver!

But hold on a second...

With all respect to the victims of these tragedies and to the people who are rightly working in order to find out what happened, why the hell did the Italian government publicize so much the allocation of 1.5 million euros for the ATR 72 accident investigation?

Since in Italy we have over five thousand people dead on street accidents every year, wouldn't part of that money be better spent in improving the disastrous condition of our roads, especially in the cities where most of the deadly crashes happen?

And most of all, Mr. Pisanu and Mr. Berlusconi, why do you advertise a normal fund allocation so loudly? I'm sure it's not because election time is coming... (heh!)

Italian money goes to terrorists

Now here's the midsummer surprise (it's actually midsummer today, and not in late June as Northern Europeans claim).

Italian money goes to terrorists, as this Italian article reports.

This is not the surprise. We know that some of the world's most radical Imams are hosted in great luxury in our country, which finances the building of mosques where, instead of praying, certain people that define themselves Muslims actually conjure new slaughters of innocents. For sure, some of the money those people make thanks to our stupid laws can get back to criminal groups in their countries.

The surprise, instead, is that the money sometimes is directed to terrorists through charities. Say, I give money for the kids of Afghanistan, and the money goes to the family of the next suicide bomber to compensate the loss of two precious working hands.

What about checking all those so-called charities and making an international investigation on where they put their money? Or is that too little an effort for our extremely busy UN officers?