Held Prisoner in Hampton Roads

Osservazioni . . .
. . . casuali

OK, no griping about the italiano. I have to practice somewhere, and if you think about it, the meaning is obvious.

Italian stuff:
The highways around Napoli have many places to pull over in case of car trouble. In English, we call them trash dumps.

When an ambulance needs to fight its way through the traffic on the autostrade, the Italiani immediatly jump directly behind and let it run interference.

As much as the Italians dote on their children, they are abysmally careless with them in their automobiles. Today, I saw a family of five, no seatbelts, and an infant on the driver's lap. It is an everyday occurrence to see a child standing on a seat or just wandering around inside the car. It gives me cold chills.

I still have yet to see anyone stop at a stop sign in Italy. They should be renamed. Perhaps nevermind sign would be appropriate

Talking on the phone while driving is illegal in Italy. Apparently, that law is cancelled if you talk on the phone while gesturing wildly with both hands off the wheel. Then, technically, you are not driving.

Non-Italian stuff:
Clueless statement of the week: Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, said Wednesday that "Somebody has it in for Julian Assange and we only can conjecture why." (It appears that "having it in" is the reason for the warrant in the first place.)

Clueless act of the week: The 2011 Tax Bill has almost 7,000 earmarks with a total cost of $9,130,800,000. (Did the "earmarkers" see the results of the recent election?)

Lie of the week: The White House said money from other sources would be shifted so the Social Security trust fund loses no revenue. (There is no cash in the Social Security trust fund, and there never has been. The "trust fund" is full of paper IOUs from the U.S. government, and benefits are paid from current revenues - or borrowings. Bernie Madoff ran the same scam, and ended up in the graybar hotel.)

Obama's bipartisanship: Based on his recent speeches, Barry O's idea of bipartisanship seems to be "we lost the election, so I guess I'll have to work with the bastards."