Consequences of stupid anti-terrorism laws

PER CONSENTIRE a tutti coloro che non riescono a comunicare via cellulare di collegarsi ad internet, molti comuni invitano i cittadini dei paesi colpiti dal terremotori di oggi ad aprire la propria rete wi-fi domestica.

Though some of the idiotic Pisanu anti-terrorism law has been done away with since the first of the year,  the paucity of open WiFi connections here in Italy can be directly traced back to it. ISP's give out routers with passwords already configured and your average user leaves the settings as is.

And thus during an emergency a potential route of communication is far more limited that it should be.

Wanted: Stable Web Hosting

I finally have my appointment at the questura to get fingerprinted & whatnot for my permesso renewal tomorrow. I was neatly informed of this via SMS, which was a pleasant "Hey, nifty!" moment, seeing as the online webportal for seeing at what point your renewal request was at has gone tits up at various times.

I should note that the tits up moments were usually panic inducing errors that said "Invalid User Number" or the like. Calling the info line during those times got one a busy signal 9 times out of ten, and I usually resorted to Googling & scanning various expat forums to see if there was news of problems. So the SMS and the corresponding entry on the webportal was cheering in the thought that maybe the tech problems were getting sorted out.

Today I was putting together all the various copies of docs that I need to take with me tomorrow. Since the registered letter informing me of the appointment has yet to arrive, my plan was to print out the webportal notification to show alongside the SMS.

Good ol' Murphy's Law: the portal has been tits up all day. And this time, tits up means TITS UP. Nothing was coming up, and a traceroute showed an unreachable destination in the Poste's servers. Oh joy.

I just now managed to pull the site up, and I've gotta laugh.



The immediate, facile snark would incorporate Microsoft (the portal is ASP), the Poste and 'recipe for disaster'. But really? I get the feeling that the massive infrastructure needed for this 'new' procedure was either poorly thought out, executed poorly, not tested enough, or all of the above. And when one of those options happens, somebody's going to be frantically patching holes 'till the cows come home. You'd almost feel sorry for whomever's doing the patching, until you think about how much money the government's tossing at tech. (article is in Italian by noted comic-cum-activist Beppe Grillo)

Surely there's enough money somewhere in there to buy a few more hard disks for the webservers, n'est pas?

Bush Visits Rome, Romans Respond

I'm unable to link to the original photos as La Repubblica has recently changed their photo galleries to some non-standards compliant Flash bullshitwidget, hence the screenshots.

Typical Roman sayings? Ok...



And...



Loose Translation: "Oy Colombus. Couldn't you have just minded your own fucking business?"

The Berlusconi Drinking Game

Elections are in April. Berlusca's freshened up his Botox and thrown on a few more hair plugs. The following drinking game is brought to you by the fact that out of the seven or so channels that I get on either my or the SO's electronic nipple, Berlusconi will be on one of them every night.

And folks, if I have to hear the same damn rhetoric over and over until April, hell yes alcohol will become a necessity.

Take a drink every time you hear...
1. Mi consenta...
2. Derogatory comment about la sinistra
3. Comment about the thirty-mumble promises that his government has made good on
4. accusation crying victim that la sinistra attacks his government with insults
5. responds to accusations about changing the laws in his favour with "Well, Prodi did it too!!"
6. name drops Bush or Blair
7. parrots some Bush talking point about Iraq
8. claims that Italy is more respected & a bigger player in the International community thanks to him
9. interrupts (wimpy) questioner with cries of victimisation
10. every time he flips the 'charisma' switch to cover up the fact that he's also flipped on the 'bullshit' switch
11. blames the decline in the economy on the Euro and subsequently Prodi

I'm forgetting a lot here (probably a self-defence mechanism), but as it is I'm gonna be in an alcohol coma within the first 5 minutes of Berlusca opening his mouth...

Il Patriot Act Italiano

La legge n.155 del 31 luglio, la cosiddetta ‘Legge Anti-Terrorismo' è la più grande stronzata che ho mai letto.

E' una legge tutto fumo, passato dai vigliacchi incapace solo per avere qualcosa in mano per fluttuarle davanti il popolo quando gli chiediamo "Che state facendo per proteggerci dai terroristi?"

"Ecco! Abbiamo la legge anti-terrorismo! Guardate quanto siamo forte, quanto siamo bravi a proteggervi."

Stronzate. Fottutte stronzate.

Vi dirigo l'attenzione all'Articolo 7 di questa legge. Praticamente qualsiasi ditta che ha un computer collegato al internet deve avere una licenza diciamo 'Internet Café dalla questura. In più, il titolare

e' tenuto ad osservare per il monitoraggio delle operazioni dell'utente e per l'archiviazione dei relativi dati...nonche' le misure di preventiva acquisizione di dati anagrafici riportati su un documento di identità dei soggetti...

Guardate ragazzi: una legge che mostra esattamente quanto l'Italia ed il suo governo sono inconoscenti ed ignoranti di come funziona l'Internet e le tecnologie associate.

If there was any question as to why I hate people in general...

...this comment on MeFi illustrates it perfectly. It looks like the Kill-Them-Ragheads-They-Hate-Our-Freedom and It's-Adam-and-Eve-Not-Adam-and-Steve Retards have just royally fucked over our country. Way to simultaneously send a big ol' "Fuck You" to the rest of the world at large and ensure the economy continues it's journey to the sewers.

I wonder if I can declare refugee status....

100% Pure Beef Patties...

...using only the finest Sacred Cows

Drop the fucking martyr act, America.

The helicopters are starting to piss me off and it's only 4pm

It's slightly nuts here. The helicopters and sirens have been going off since yesterday night, only to get worse as the protesters make their way through the city. Bush go home indeed. Unfortunately the little fucker is here until noonish tomorrow.

The Current US Government makes me want to punch walls

So when do the interrment(sp) camps start in the interest of NATIONAL SAFETY?

Since Bush was *ahem* elected, I have joked many times with my friends here that any day now I will claim politcal assylum. I'm starting to see on some of the travelling boards I frequent Americans who are asking the same thing:

"Where can I go live, because the actions of my country ashame me."

I already live abroad. I have found a city I love and call home, looooooong before any political considerations came into play. I'm lucky. But I will admit, lately I have considered the extra step of renouncing my US citizenship.

(and the crowd goes wild, hissing & booing, with cries of "Well who needs ya anyway" etc etc etc.)

Calm down. I said "Considering." Why? Because I truely feel this adminstration is harming America and her people. For a myraid of reasons that would take longer than I care to enumerate here or now (hey a girl's got to get *some* work done, no?). And since I know in my heart of hearts that I have found where I want to live and it's not the USA, well what's the point of being a citizen of that country?

The USA was founded on basic human rights, ones that we in the Western world might take for granted. And I see these Constitutional rights being rapidly eroded in the name of "National Safety" and the "War on Terrorism" and defeat of the "Axis of Evil."

Fuck that.

I am a citizen of the United States of America. And as such I consider it my duty to decry the actions and misdeeds of the current regime in power there. Because to stay silent and accept the situation as is, is to fly in the face of all that we hold dear as Americans and as human beings.

I denounce the current administration in the US as impinging on human and Consititutional rights, both those of its citizens and those abroad. And I hope that the rest of the world holds those currently in the seat of power accountable for their actions. I hope with all of my heart that both our military men and Iraqi civilians escape harm.

I remain, forever, an American in Roma.

Peaceblogs.org

May you choke on a pretzel very soon, Bush.

GOOOOOD MORNING AMERICA!

I have changed my mind about the Pretzels for Peace idea. It's now Pretzels for Impeachment.

This, found via a very interesting Metafilter thread, turns my stomach. Literally.

How many more rights (human and Constitutional) will be trampled on in the name of "defeating terrorism and the Axis of Evil" until the people of the nation wake up and realise that the current administration is fucking us up the ass without lube (Insert your own "John Ashcroft is a huge fucking cock" allusion here)?

When are we as a populace going to realise that the use of secret courts, detention based on suspicion not proof, new FBI survailance powers, and that fucking US Patriot Act to "kick some towelhead ass" CAN BE USED AGAINST YOU AND I ALSO?!?!?!?

Where are all the little scandal-creators and cigar-loving interns when you *Really* need them? I mean, Enron slid off this administration like a stripper down a greased pole. Won't *somebody* find some scandal that sticks, like the Shrub sticking it to Millie the Dog while he wears his mom's pearls?

In the meantime, I beg all ten of you who read this blog to grab a Sharpie marker, write "PRETZELS FOR IMPEACHMENT" on a super-sized bag of beer-snacky goodness, and postmark it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Do it now, before sending Pretzels to Bush becomes an assassination attempt under the law.

Shoe Travails, with a side helping of Fucktards in Office

Or: why I generally hate shopping reason #114 and general venom spitting at the Daddy's Boy in Office

Shoes and the procurement thereof are one of the (admittedly smaller in the general overview) bains of my life. I have a size 35 foot (5.5 fer you fellow Americans). Trying to find a pair of heels that A) suit my picky tastes B) fit my budget and mainly C) fit me is an undertaking of mythical proportions, even with the largest stock available. They just don't make a lot of 4 inch heels that fit your average pre-teen's foot. Shop assistants look at me like I'm some sort of freak when I ask for a size 35.

If, by some miracle, a size 35 is to be found on the premises, the next trick is seeing if I can squeeze my foot into it. 17 years of classical ballet has left me with disgustingly high arches, so those cute strappy sandals in the window 9 times out of 10 make me feel like one of Cinderella's step-sisters.

Pre-Emptive Strike

This was written a year ago tomorrow. The first rush of thoughts. Tomorrow will be a nice little rant about my thoughts now a year later.

The boss is out of town. I've just cleared up a problem with clients and am trying to settle down to coding the new website update. New arrivals have just walked in the door. They are babbling about a plane that has just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. I hear it peripherally, dismiss it as an accident, recommence trying to concentrate in my makeshift office. A second plane crashes into the World Trade Center, this time into the other tower. It doesn't register at first but even so I am jumping down the stairs from the loft. CNN is blaring on the satellite TV. I grow quickly impatient. Then the reply of the video footage.

oh my god.

Words to a being I haven't believed in since I was 14. oh my god oh my god oh my god running through my head a litany still ingrained despite all proof to the contrary.

A fire has broken out at the Pentagon.

oh my god oh my god oh my god