Italy Prepares '"One Strike" Anti-Piracy Law 219
angry tapir writes "The Italian government is preparing an anti-piracy law that could ban Internet users from access after one alleged copyright infringement, a lawyer and an analyst warned. ISPs would be required to use filters against services that infringe copyright, trademark or patents under terms of the draft law. The proposed changes to Italy's e-commerce directive were drafted in July by members of parliament belonging to the Il Popolo della Libertà (PdL) party of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi."
Filtering traffic eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
In Other Words (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In Other Words (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, more directly of Berlusconi's corporate profits. Why the Italians haven't drowned this guy in the Tiber is quite beyond me. A crook, a disgusting old letch, and on top of it a complete ass, who for all his vaunted business skills, is still overseeing the drive to keep Italy one of the "I"s in "PIIGS".
Re:In Other Words (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not so sure he can be drowned. Judging from the quality of the poontang he gets, he must be able to breathe through his ears.
Either that or the women are just hookers, which is probably more likely.
You would think that if the people of Italy didn't drown Berlusconi for the way he's run the country, at least they'd drown him for having sex with an underage girl. But after having spent years living and working in Italy, I'm comfortable saying that most Italians don't really believe women are fully human. Women in Italy are treated at least as badly as those in the most conservative muslim countries, albeit in a less obviously ugly way. And I say this as the son of Italian immigrants. As a people they've got a lot to recommend them, but respect for women is not part of it.
Hell, just last year an Italian man was given a suspended sentence after being found guilty of murdering his wife because she had been "disrespectful".
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I'm Italian and I'm comfortably saying that you know NOTHING about italian culture.
My lady who has traveled through Europe says that she was never harassed so much as in Italy, and she's been to Peru... where she got grabbed and fondled by a stranger the minute she was alone for two minutes. Luckily, he was small and therefore relatively inoffensive, and she was able to shrug him off and regain her party. But in Italy, walking down the street gets you goosed (nearly with penetration!) by cads on bicycles, and she was groped in every crowd, et cetera. I think you are full of shit, which I
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Because your wife must be an uptight anglo-saxon woman, who doesn't like being complimented by strangers a lot. In countries with "latin" culture, like all of South America and also Spain and Italy, it's socially accepted for a man to yell "que bella ragazza!!!" or similar. Sometimes (playfully) standing in their way. If you do that in any anglo-saxon country, the woman is likely to scream for help. It's a culture t
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Let me "playfully" stand in your way and let's see how you like it.
Tell me in which other European country a man kills his wife for being "disrespectful" and he gets a suspended sentence? Crimes against women, such as rape, assault, etc actually have lesser penalties officially than the same crimes against men.
There are not a lot of Americans who have spent as much time in Central and Eastern Europe as I have, and I can tell you when it comes to the mistreatment
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You are problay still living at home with your mom and dad. As that is common for italian men to do until they are 50 years old.
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Not that Italy has ever been one to embrace fascism, but between this, putting the geologists on trial for murder for failing to protect the earthquake, the likelihood of economic default, and the population dying off faster than it's being replaced ... what the heck is going on over there? Oh, and they bought Chrysler, of all things.
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It's Italy. Nothing is going on over there... it's just Italy. This is the sort of stuff you should just expect coming from the Italian government. That's just... how they are. If you check your Big Book of European Stereotypes, dysfunctional government and bureaucracy will be listed under "Italy"
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And that listing is unjust. You should look into Belgian politics if you want truly surreal things. Compare Italy to Belgium and they almost seem to have a sane government.
Well, Italy has a government (loosely speaking). Belgium still does not.
The question of sanity in government of either country is thus moot. Not that there's much evidence of sanity in Italy's government, anyway.
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Well, more directly of Berlusconi's corporate profits. Why the Italians haven't drowned this guy in the Tiber is quite beyond me. A crook, a disgusting old letch, and on top of it a complete ass, who for all his vaunted business skills, is still overseeing the drive to keep Italy one of the "I"s in "PIIGS".
He's an ass but what the hell is with this preening moralism getting modded up on /.? Who the fuck cares whether he's a prude or a pervert and, moreover, what's wrong with setting the example that the elderly can have just as active a sex life as anyone else (aside from the fact that we'd rather not visualize it)? He's a single man and I'm just as happy for him getting his jollies as anyone else on this planet.
You gain little by injecting your sexual politics into it, as though we should be less likely to s
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You mean showing disapproval of the Italian PM hiring underage hookers is "injecting my sexual politics"?
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You mean showing disapproval of the Italian PM hiring underage hookers is "injecting my sexual politics"?
Yeah, it is. You know why? Because it has absolutely nothing to do with his ability (or lack thereof) to be a functional Prime Minister of the government of Italy. It has nothing to do with his office whatsoever. Let me answer a question with a question then, would you rather elect a competent PM that slept around with underage hookers while pursuing sensible policies or a morally upright one that was incompetent and whose policies you opposed?
Not that SB is competent or his policies sensible or that these
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I'm trying to get this straight. He's violating Italian law (maybe even European law, considering the alleged origins of some of the girls), but that's okay? What you're saying is that the Italian Prime Minister is above the law.
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No, I'm saying that whether or not he's breaking the law has fuckall to do with whether his actions as Prime Minister were any good. Banging hookers doesn't hurt Italy. It's doesn't help either -- it's entirely orthogonal to Italy in general.
Qua a Prime Minister, we should judge his actions as Prime Minister. Qua a person, we should judge his personal actions. The two have nothing to do with each other.
[ PS. He's enough of a terrible PM that this attack is not only stupid, it's gratuitous. ]
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Well, it is. There's no legitimate reason for prostitution to be illegal and "underage" is an entirely arbitrary notion and changes from country to country.
The problem is not so much the hookers but where he gets them from - the guy supplying the hookers is another crook...
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How many politicians are there that we can be proud of ? I'm French, so I'm accounted for ^^ The US have jumped from Clinton to Sonny Bush to Obama, the USSR have Putin, the Canada just recently lost half of theirs, Belgium seem to have lost all of them... I have nothing on Cameron and Merkel, but I'm not following very closely.
Berlusconi is slightly worse than those, but not at lot.
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And crucifixion is slightly worse than stoning. Your point being?
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in the last line of my post.
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I've seen a lovely piece of advice which is strikingly on point.
"Don't choose the lesser of two evils. Don't choose evil at all."
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There seem to be advantages when a government is not allowed to tackle controversial issues :)
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The whole developed world is. In the US the basic problem is that they've been listening to Randian superhero fantasies for too long, and in Europe it's that the few sinking boats are chained to all the sound ones and thus take them with them. And simulatenously energy continues getting more and more expensive, climate change and associated extreme weather are hitting the big gear, Arab world is getting even more unstable, and various fr
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Belgium never had any to be proud of.
They have a righteous Formula 1 [spa-francorchamps.be] track [wikipedia.org].
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That's a point in its favor.
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And we Hungarians know that Kafka was a realist writer.
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Probably because the Italian media keeps telling the population what a nice guy Berlusconi is and how evil all the other politicians are.
Because Berlusconi is their "role model". (Score:2)
A large percentage of Italians want to be like him. They want fast cars, plenty of hookers, a large bank account, a football team and enough connections to drown any sense of democracy in Tiber.
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Why the Italians haven't drowned this guy in the Tiber is quite beyond me. A crook, a disgusting old letch, and on top of it a complete ass, who for all his vaunted business skills, is still overseeing the drive to keep Italy one of the "I"s in "PIIGS".
Sounds like the history of Italy to me. Why the Italians haven't drowned almost every leader they've ever had is the big mystery. Why we don't do it in the USA is an even bigger one.
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Hate the game, not the frumentarii, or Berlusconi is Edward Sallow.
Double standards never benefit the unrich (Score:2)
Whenever there's a double standard, it's always the rich that are on the better end. Why is it that you never see double standards benefit the un-rich? At the very best, the less fortunate can hope for temporary equality, but never an advantage.
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You should take a look at Indian laws then,
They have reservations for EVERYONE except middle class and above men
(Assuming you mean Native-Americans or American-Indians or whatever new pet term there is now.)
Have you ever been to a reservation? Not living in one is a good thing. (Maybe there are nice ones out there, but I've been to several in different states and all I have seen is abject poverty.)
Looking at the Indian laws, you see that they're allowed to build casinos. What really happens is that a few tribes can actually build them in places where they'll make money. They get rich while the others get screwed.
Mamma Mia! (Score:3)
Now I know many countries have proposed or implemented a 3 strike law (much like my own - NZ) mostly to cosy up to the US.
How cosy does Italy want to be?
This will never fly (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's not the point of this bill.
It's the industry proposing something just short of decapitation, versus the current situation that non-profit file sharing is explicitly legal.
Somewhere in the middle is "compromise" where everyone loses except the rent-seeking gatekeepers of culture.
"See, it wasn't as bad as what we wanted"
--
BMO
Re:This will never fly (Score:5, Informative)
This technique is so common that there's a name for it: The Door-in-the-face technique [wikipedia.org].
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"If you want a puppy, ask for a horse."
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I'm sure this would work well against people who think that something being slightly better than something else means that it is good.
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I'm sure this would work well against people who think that something being slightly better than something else means that it is good.
Unfortunately, that describes the vast majority of people. See: Lesser of Two Evils.
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It's relatively challenging to find it on the internet; can you elaborate for those of us who are not going to buy the book just to understand the counter? :)
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What compromise ?
"I want to be able to down load music legally".... that happened .... that happened .... if that were true then 8bit, mono, 22KHz sampled music would suffice, however it all seems to be the highest quality
"I only want 1 track not the whole album"
"Its too expensive".... and yet in real terms music has never been cheaper
"We only want to audit the music"
The truth is there is only 1 compromise that would be acceptable, all music must be free, and the musicians should get a "real job" if they
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And while it might not be a popular opinion, I take no issue with people selling music. I do think the trillion dollar suits, and various other obscene reactions against anyone that shares songs, are totally absurd.
Re:This will never fly (Score:5, Insightful)
I want to use the music I buy on the medium I choose.
I want to archive and store it where and how I please.
I want to watch a movie without hours of ads for movies I don't give half a shit about.
I want to store those movies on my (media) server hard drive instead of discs, which are prone to break and which I'd have to find first of all in the mess of my apartment.
I want to play the games I buy without having to have a connection to the internet if it is not required for the game to work.
I want to use software without handing in everything but my shoe size about me before it allows me to use it.
I want to record and time shift shows off TV the way I see fit and I expect the ads to be skipable. That technology was already very available on Betamax.
need I go on?
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And if they don't want to sell on those conditions, have you justified downloading it off TPB or using AnyDVD or a nocd crack? Don't get me wrong, I see plenty wrong with what the MAFIAA is doing. But capitalism is supposed to be about voluntary transactions, where the seller has just as much right to not sell as the buyer has to not buy. And that the terms of the sale are binding, neither party can just unilaterally decide that I don't like them so I'll just break or ignore those conditions. Don't get me w
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They want to sell me the same movie multiple times, one for my tv, one for my computer, one for my phone.
I do not wish to buy it multiple times. The MPAA should consider themselves lucky when someone buys one copy and puts it on other devices, instead of just getting it from the pirate bay.
The cost is almost negligible to distribute the movie/music online. The price of the product should reflect that. It does not.
I refuse to consume their wares because of this greedy attitude of theirs.
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And if they don't want to sell on those conditions, have you justified downloading it off TPB or using AnyDVD or a nocd crack?
That would likely depend on who you ask.
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But capitalism is supposed to be about voluntary transactions, where the seller has just as much right to not sell as the buyer has to not buy.
True, but you're ignoring the other side of capitalism: that everyone has the right to act and to use their own property in any manner which does not harm others, i.e. which does not prevent them from continuing to use their own property as is has been used in the past, subject to the same condition. Copyright enforcement is decidedly in violation of this rule, and thus anti-capitalistic.
Copying information in your possession is something you already had the right to do. Copyright takes this right away invo
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A hypothetical related problem is, if I could had a futuristic Any Material Copier and just pointed at something you had and pushed the button, cloning it for myself with my resources.
Would I be stealing?
I'm not saying I'd go out and distribute the object and sell it, I'm saying I'd just use the own EXACT copy I created with my device.
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Re:This will never fly (Score:5, Insightful)
"I want to not get punished for things I haven't even done just because someone claims I did it."
How's that for a start?
There's a reason why due process exists. This type of law is a punishment without a court being involved. It is not necessary to be proven guilty. It suffices that someone claims you are. That's what's bad about it. That's several orders of magnitude more important than any question of copyright. It's about the foundation of the rule of law. Due process. No punishment without conviction. That's what this is about. Therefore it's also completely irrelevant here what you think about downloading of music. I'd be against this type of law even if it were about murder, despite the fact that I definitely do not think murder should be legalized.
Again, this is not about the legality of music download. This is about the foundation of the rule of law.
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I don't give a crap about music or movies and I don't want the copyright industry to bypass the judiciary system, to violate my privacy, to impose expensive and problematic filtering systems that *I* am going to pay whether I pirate music or not, to extort a fraction of my money every time I buy a blank medium because I *might* copy some music, or every time I pay my university fees because I *might* copy some book.
In particular, I don't wa
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The truth is there is only 1 compromise that would be acceptable, all music must be free, and the musicians should get a "real job" if they want to earn money because as soon as the music becomes free then live concerts will be considered a "rip off" as "the quality is not as good", "they did not play the songs I like","its too expensive".... etc.
I don't think people will ever start to diss live music. It's more a practical matter of whether the music you want to hear is played at a concert or music festival near you and if you happen to be available that weekend. With the Internet you can have a "long tail" of followers all over the world, but not many enough in one place to make a concert worthwhile. And assuming your kind of music is the kind you'd want to go to a concert for, maybe it's more for the romantic dinner or having the blues. And that
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and the musicians should get a "real job" if they want to earn money
For most musicians, that's the way things are right now. Just like it was back in the ancient days before the internet. Have you ever tried playing music? You'll be lucky if you can recoup the cost of your instrument. (If your instrument is the penny whistle or the spoons, then you might have a shot.)
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"Its too expensive".... and yet in real terms music has never been cheaper
I'd love to know where you buy your music from. I haven't seen a price change in albums since CDs first came out.
Democracy? (Score:2)
I wonder what kind of offense it takes for the Italian govt to take down your water or electric service. Pasta is taking over their brains it seems.
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not so much the pasta, but the hookers and blow.
trademarks or patent can = a strike? (Score:2)
seeing how board trademarks and patent are just cut off all of Italy to save time.
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Re:Welcome to even worse class disparity (Score:5, Insightful)
or, much more likely they inherited opportunities that aren't afforded to others. Once you have an advantage (ie money for the rich), then its prudent to keep on using your advantage to leverage yourself some more advantage... (ie, it's a lot easier to make money when you already have some).
if they use that money to affect politics in ways that the majority are against, then the working class are already at a disadvantage as they can't afford to compete in the same domain.
It has nothing to do with intelligence.
filter patent infringement? (Score:2)
Berlusconis Media Empire (Score:2)
Doesn't Berlusconi own an italian media empire? Could this be a way to further solidify that power?
Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:4)
If this passes, every single MP that votes for this will suddenly find hundreds of copyright complaints against them...
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Just keep watching the webpage of Don Berlusconi's media empire and party. Some stock picture, some soundbite, some bullet for a list WILL be copied without consent of the rights holder.
And then you got the bull by his cojones.
Ironic... (Score:2)
Fun! (Score:2)
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Sure, I get to do all the work and you just watch them roast. C'mon, at least help a little!
So Youtube will be blocked in Italy? (Score:3)
So Youtube will be blocked in Italy?
Frankly this is just dumb. The internet is full of all kinds of copyright infringement. Even the giant corporations like AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc are all benefiting from the free exchange, linking, and displaying of other people's media/content without any contract.
Just go to huffingtonpost and see how many articles they link to, that they didnt write. Go to Youtube, and view all of the videos that violate copyright,
The entire internet is based on sharing content.
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Hmmmmmm.......
File a complaint about copyright violations against every single US company that has some kind of (internet) presence in Italy. There are copyrighted pictures, text passages, layouts and whatnot without the proper paperwork been done on pretty much every page, all you have to do is find it.
And then, let the US do the dirty work with da Don. Why get your hands dirty?
The 1980s called. (Score:3)
They have this technology called a dial-up BBS the Italians might be interested in. I see a market for the development of high-speed dial-up modems and a resurrection for land-line telephones.
it wont work (Score:2)
I'm predicting a massive surge in encrypted traffic to/from italy.
Silvio Berlusconi (Score:3)
Il Duce [wikipedia.org] reborn.
They've gone stark raving mad ... (Score:2)
This is the same government that is trying to send Italian geologists to prison because they can't predict earthquakes when, in fact, NO geologist on the planet can reliably predict when an earthquake will occur, even if they were given a latitude of several years, much less a particular day.
Now, they want to transform their government into a cabal, in which corporations make the rules to minimize their own liability and maximize the liability of their customers and of their profits.
These actions can only b
Not quite the truth (Score:3)
They are on trial for stating that it was SAFE despite numerious warnings. The claim is that because people where told it was safe, they returned to their houses to sleep inside and died. Those that didn't listen to the scientists saying it was safe stayed outside for the night and were safe.
The scientist in question could have said, "We don't know, there are a lot of shocks, they might be the lead in fora big one, they might not". Then people would have chosen the safe options and slept outside and not hav
Ban Cisco from the Internet ? (Score:4, Informative)
Cisco violated the GPL with Linksys.
Lets see Italy ban Cisco from using the internet.
What, the law only applies to individuals violating for personal use, its ok for companies to violating copyright for financial reasons. I get it now,
MAFIAA is strong in Italy
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BRILLIANT! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wholeheartedly support this "One Strike" law. As the first barrage in the torrent (heh!) of complaints, let me fire this one off:
http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-steals-code-violates-linkware-license/ [torrentfreak.com]
I demand 100% complete disconnection of the MPAA, including subsidaries, partent companies, any company where any member of the MPAA (or subsidaries, parent companies, etc) is a shareholder in whole or in part, from ALL Italian users. They cannot connect to ANY Italian IP address, on pain of defying a court order (or whatever the punishment is for evading the 'one strike' law).
Any "evidence" gathered against Italian internet users is null and void because in order to gather that evidence they had broken the "one strike" rule in Italy. And, of course, the MPAA would never download something they didn't actually own the rights to, therefore committing copyright infringement themselves, right? Never? ...
Oh wait, the laws don't apply to those who make them? The MPAA is allowed to commit the worst kind of copyright infringement -- claiming you created something you didn't, and then using it for commercial purposes and making a bunch of money with it -- and that doesn't count as a strike? Because they are immune to their own law?
Oh damn.
Well, it was a nice thought anyway.
Bye bye Italy, been nice knowing you (Score:2)
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Because... (Score:2)
That's the most important economic problem the country has right now.
People illegally downloading Berlusconi's songs.
Italy on a one strike law? (Score:2)
Won't fly. Considering how often they go on a strike, what will you do with them next week?
Copyright infringement != Internet (Score:2)
If I start copying CD's or DVD's, I can loose my email access?
I know most of their searches happen online and on p2p networks, but the laws don't differentiate and the reactions are simply illogical.
Sure! Why not? (Score:2)
What difference does it make, anyway, whether it's three strikes or one strike, if a "strike" is just an unproven allegation?
Forget Public WiFi (Score:2)
I'm sure that these will be the first to be quickly brought down on one strike. Libraries, universities, book stores... basically every public place that provides "free WiFi" will be cut off.
I just don't see that working well at all.
Lulz (Score:2)
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Italy uses a 24 hour clock so I'd say AM
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Unlikely. Nobody works at 11am in Italy. Either they're not in yet or at lunch break.
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I'd have an idea, but my lawyer said it's still illegal to shoot the dog.
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And both have a leader you can't spell right as a foreigner and who is batshit insane. Essentially, Italy is Iran without oil but more corruption.
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You overestimate the smarts of the Italians and underestimate the amount of power Don Silvio wields over the media. Imagine Fox News (and affiliates) with a market share of about 95%. And now try to wrest the power from the Reps.
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Agreed, the quicker they get rid of Berlusconi, the better it will be for everyone (except for big media and of course the tabloids).
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Oh, you beat me to it. When I read the title that was the first thing that came to my mind.
"So you follow politics?"
"Yes! Puppet shows have become elaborate these days, huh?"
Re:Not surprising from that party (Score:5, Insightful)
The profound incompetence is a given in politics.
There, fixed it for you.
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It becomes eztv.eu?