oooooooh

Atlas pop-up book, by some imaginative scientist at CERN. Here.

coming back

Because it's great news.
If you google "241543903", you'll get images of people with their head in a freezer.
here

Poderás dizer-me para que queres o barco?

gostar é provavelmente a melhor maneira de ter, ter deve ser a pior maneira de gostar

hop schwyyyyyz

merci.

doomed (we'd better be)/40 (poooooooooooooooooooooooo)

Have the most annoying sound of the moment always with you. Vuvuzela for iPhone and iPad. Also features a battle mode to test the endurance of the fans (and of their lucky neighbors). Here.

O Rhaeto-Romans, what the hell were you thinking?

Largest ski resort in Switzerland, highest city in Europe, widely recommended for lung disease patients, host of the only European Bandy Championship ever played, in 1913, inspiration for painters and writers throughout its history. Today, May 31, 2010, I am in Davos. And it's snowing.

VIPs

Today I've met a person who comes out as the 6th suggestion on google if you type the first 4 letters of her first name. If you type in mine, you get "lorem ipsum" and "l'Oréal".

two good locks, all the time

what goes around comes around

My new year's resolution for 2010 was: relativize the concept of "ridiculous". This involves finding a dignity in any kind of harmless activity, as long as there are people who are enthusiastically willing to practice it.
Therefore, I'm proud to report that the 2010 World Boomerang Championship is starting tomorrow, the 28th of May, in Rome.
Here the website, here the rulebook, here the access plan.

lei era tutto ciò a cui il mio silenzio era dedicato

che bello il lupo che si commuove leggendo le sue cose.


Frate Zitto (Parte 1) from StefanoBenni.it on Vimeo.


Frate Zitto (Parte 2) from StefanoBenni.it on Vimeo.

esta crise

Esta crise – iniciada em 2007 – está a fazer com que se desmoronem muitos princípios liberais ou neo-liberais: parece que afinal o mercado não se regula sozinho, que pode colapsar-se, e então, oh, há que chamar o estado… Está claro: privatizam-se os lucros, as perdas assumimo-las todos. Parece que esta crise acabará com um regresso ao estado perante um liberalismo que se vendia como a salvação, o fim da história… Embora também possa acontecer que se mude alguma coisa para que tudo continue na mesma. O capitalismo tem a pele dura. Aqui.

oktapodi

oh!

google, 21th May, 2010

In case you didn't notice, today google has been acting like this.

doomed (we'd better be)/special edition

Tired of feeding, brushing, and cleaning after your horse? Try Segway Polo!
Here the website of the International Segway Polo Association.
Here a summary of the official rules.

parole senza musica

number 3
qui tutti gli interventi su "la musica"
qui il mio

(bandit)

It is quite clear that LEGOman finally managed to infiltrate the Skype emoticons.

password: character

It says I'm a Bifur. DIY, here.

priority for action 4

Counterintuitive as it may sound, I think the European Commission's decision to use 70 billion € originally budgeted for post-disaster emergency and reconstruction interventions to avoid the collapse of a few national economies might be the best option available for actually reducing disaster risk.

so many people under the sun

that if you google "name of an album" (or an artist) + mediafire, you're very likely to find a direct download link.

pédagogie des catastrophes

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill could become the worst environmental disaster on the records. 800.000 liters oil are leaking from the collapsed pipe every day, devastating the most productive marine fishery in the US and one of the most important touristic destination in the country. It is also possible that the oil will be caught in the Gulf stream and pollute a much wider area. It is a major calamity, which has completely overwhelmed the response capacity of both BP and the US administration, and might have longer-lasting consequences than any hurricane ever happened in the area, by shutting down the whole region's economy for years, and destroying the functioning of the local environment.

Fox News might have been a little bit extreme in blaming the collapse to a deliberate sabotage, Texas Governor Rick Perry instead claimed that the oil rig collapse be an "Act of God" (a man-made disaster!). Then changed his mind and called it a "technical failure". While the first two definitions are obviously an attempt to deny any responsibility by BP, calling what happened a "technical failure" is part a more subtle strategy.

Drilling 1500 m underwater a 6000 m deep hole is a challenge for our most advanced technology. It is risky, and can result in unpredictable, or unavoidable, events. BP might be found guilty of not having installed an extra security switch (compulsory in Brazil and Norway) in case the main one fails, of having downplayed the emergency in the beginning, of having reacted slowly or ineffectively. And it might be fined or have to pay the cleaning and the damages.

But what's really at stake for the company, as well as for any other major player in this field, is not to have to install an extra switch on each pipe or even to be fined for US$ 16 billion to repay the losses. These guys' annual income is higher than that. They wouldn't go out of business if the environmental or security regulations changed. What they really need is to avoid the deep cultural change that events like this could cause.

The Exxon Valdez and the Prestige disasters, the Sidoarjo mud flow, as well as swine flu, avian influenza, E. Coli or Salmonella outbreaks from contaminated food in the US, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, even natural disasters like Katrina or the earthquakes in Haiti and China are presented and elaborated in our memory as unique situations that have different technical causes, that a different technical solutions might have avoided. That will never happen again, once the technology is available and the laws are respected.

But they collectively are a demonstration of the hidden costs of our development. Environmental degradation, social inequalities, reduced health and security levels, are all consequences of the same economic processes aimed at making available on a large scale any sort of cheap consumer goods. As long as we consider this kind of consumption a fundamental right of ours, the very basis of our lifestyle, of our culture, we keep reproducing the conditions that lead to such disasters, making cheap fossil fuels and cheap labor desirable, and strong environmental and security regulations, social services and welfare deleterious. We choose to maintain a system in which somebody else is subsidizing part of our well-being with his own.

These choices might not be conscious. Externalities are mostly invisible, either hidden from our sight or so diluted we can't really realize their existence. Disasters (both man-made and natural) can be useful in revealing them, uncovering some of the indirect implications of the ways societies work. Of how we decide to produce and consume stuff, to distribute resources and profits. Of where the weaknesses of our system are. Disasters like this can be a wake-up call for the people.

But it is fundamental to let such an event speak. Calling it, telling it a certain way, means giving it a certain meaning, and it's not a neutral process. Isolating each situation, making it one more different accident in a disorganized series of technical failures, might work just fine in preventing the very same event from happening again. It surely works perfectly in hiding the need for a more substantive, radical change.

sean sean

deforestation and its side effects

via

doomed (we'd better be)/39

Voyeuristic ornithophilia is your unconfessed sin? Spy the secret life of birds directly from your TV with a bird house with camera & microphone. Choose among black/white, color, wireless, different sizes. here. (e grazie infinite)

doomed (we'd better be)/38

Portable peace of mind. USB fragrance oil burner. here.

no taxation without stimulation

here.

reproductive strategies

When spring comes, deciduous magnolias explode with a flower on each twig, while their fresh, light green leaves have to dig their way through all those overwhelming petals.

When spring comes, evergreen magnolias keep looking like the rest of the year, with their huge, glossy, thick, dark green canopies. But spring has come, and their handful of fragile flowers must be there, concealed by those overprotective leaves.

Ever since I was a child, spotting one has always been a rare and pleasing moment. It looked like we shared a secret, me and the tree.

today

such a spring would be worth any winter

'cause I, I built my life around you

First act of the new governor of Campania: stop the demolition of illegal buildings and settlements, to be enforced starting next week. here.

In Naples there's no real favela or bidonville, with the exclusion of some gypsy camps and some overcrowded informal buildings, mostly occupied by illegal immigrants. Still, there are a few areas that can be considered slums, such as decayed central historical areas and public housing residential peripheries. And there is, all around the urban centre, a whole city that has been built in the 1970s and 1980s, mostly on agricultural land, in violation of existing urban plans, composed of small constructions or single-family homes.

The majority of these buildings are not really informal. They are good-quality houses, that might even respect building standards, mostly built by firms connected to the Camorra for the local lower-middle class or for bigger entrepreneurs. They are illegal, because they have been built despite the land zonation and in the lack of sufficient infrastructures and public services. They basically are a form of investment, extremely efficient as a means of cleaning money from illegal sources, that relies on the fact that a local or national government will eventually be issuing an amnesty, and transform a construction lacking a planning permission into a perfectly legal (and way more valuable) property.

The population in the region has gone up by roughly 120,000 units since 2001, and, in the meanwhile, 60,000 illegal buildings have been built. They are not there to satisfy a fundamental right. They are pure business. And a rentable one, since they allow the externalization of a series of environmental and social costs on the rest of the community. I get a cheap house, or a good profit, or a low rent, somebody else (or even me and my family) in a not-so-uncertain future, will have to bear the consequences, in terms of poorer access to public services, lower environmental quality, loss of amenities and property value, social instability due to criminal organizations' increasing power, economic damages, injuries, death.

Landslide and earthquake risk, in particular, are positively related to urbanization rates, especially in areas where the constructions are not properly planned. That is to say that communities with high percentages of illegal housing are likely to suffer more victims and damages from events of a given intensity. And in the case of landslides, environmental degradation associated with urbanization is also a factor in increasing the frequency of the events themselves.

Campania, as a region, occupies 4,5% of the Italian surface, and has experienced about 14,5% of the landslide disasters ever recorded in the country, which probably make it the one national hydrogeological risk hotspot, with a notable concentration of deadly landslide events in the Naples province (red dots in the map). It has been the stage of the costliest earthquake ever recorded in Europe and will sooner or later have to face the inadequacy of the Vesuvius emergency plan, largely due to the area's over-urbanization and insufficiency of infrastructures.

The announced stop to the demolition of illegal buildings, which possibly preludes to a real amnesty, is not going to make things any better. It might actually encourage people to build even more, and even worse. Sadly enough, is not always possible to directly connect the dots between such an administrative act and its single consequences, and have politicians sued for their political responsibilities when a farmer is killed by a mudflow, or a journalist by a bullet. But such a way of managing the territory, being aware of the environmental and social situation of our area, are simply premeditated crimes. And a telling start of a new mandate.

doomed (we'd better be)/37

US$ 30 for a loooong baseball hat with a curtain all around it, a hook at the end to put your phone/mp3 reader, and a magnification screen to get a movie theater experience. Perfect to watch stuff outdoors, get some privacy, be completely unaware everybody around is probably making fun of you. Here.

little april showers

here. via.

hierarchy of needs

grazie J.

parole in musica/3

ante litteram

recensitoli

Qui. via.

island-mountain glacier

Information is beautiful gets the CO2 emission figures for the volcano wrong, their graph goes viral. Apologies and new visual here - way less extreme than the first.

I have the impression people coming back from overland trips happy for the adventure, challenge, poetry of an out-of-time journey will go back on a plane as soon as the authorities allow it. Still, I'm wondering if the landslide of offers on carpooling websites will increase in the long term the number of people using this kind of transport, maybe for shorter distances.

Whoa pictures of the volcano, here.

WMO says the effect of the eruption on global warming will be "very insignificant" (too small, too low, too sparse), and could only affect the regional climate if it went on for years. here.

It's sad to notice, though, how financial crisis, depressions, natural disasters are among our biggest achievements in terms of climate change mitigation. The fact that we could consider these disruptions as success stories is the biggest evidence for the unsustainability of our economies.

ecco, appunto

green/orange

Nel frattempo, Bossi dichiara che la Lega si prenderà le banche del Nord, perché il popolo sovrano lo vuole. A me viene un po' nostalgia degli olandesi.

già

Si possono avere nemici in missione di pace?

pezze a colore

On Monday, speaking from Chile, Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State - basically, the Pope's prime minister, said that psychiatrists and sociologists have proved that pedophilia is not related to celibacy, rather to homosexuality.

After the immediate and not surprising reaction of various GLBT associations, even the French Government has officially defined his declaration unacceptable. Trying to make things look slightly better, today the Holy See spokesperson declared that Bertone was referring to the specific issue of pedophilia cases inside the Church.

Provided that I obviously don't believe gays are horny pigs more likely to be pedophiles than straights, and that I am not sure wether allowing the catholic priests to marry would actually solve the problem, what I really don't get is how the psychiatrists and sociologists the guy was mentioning have denied any relation between pedophilia and celibacy, since the specimens studied should all be consecrated "with undivided heart to the Lord".

How about giving a frank thought, for once, to the fact that the vocation-seminary-ministerial practice cycle, as a system, is producing a disproportionate amount of criminals? How about a mea culpa?

so far so close?

ingiustizie elevate a diritto

Emma Bonino, a member of the Radical Party and former Italian Minister, EU Commissioner, divorce and abortion activist, upon being defeated last weekend in the elections for governor of Lazio, declared she lost from a true alliance between Berlusconi and the Catholic Church.

A couple of days before the elections, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, currently president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, invited catholic electors to vote pro-life parties, with the clear aim of influencing the elections in Lazio and in Piemonte, where Berlusconi's candidates were opposing strong pro-choice figures, Emma Bonino and Mercedes Bresso. The issue is especially relevant because health is, in Italy, a sector of regional competence, and the introduction of the abortion pill is currently being discussed both at the political and administrative level. Roberto Cota, the Lega Nord candidate who defeated Bresso in Piemonte, as a discreet "thank you for your support", few hours upon his election declared the pills will "rot in warehouses".

Emma Bonino also said she considered this alliance to be legitimate, blaming her defeat rather on the disproportionate coverage given by the media to Berlusconi's position, and to the complete absence of space for its critics. Still, although absolutely unsurprising, Bagnasco's last intervention has probably been the most explicit indication the Church has ever given before an election.

I am really upset by the hypocritical way the Church continues to openly support Berlusconi and his comrades (variously involved in sexual scandals, modern kinds of family, rituals to pagan gods, violent acts against migrants, etc), but I don't feel there's much more to do about it than to remark such contradictions, or try to drive the people's attention to different subjects.

In the end, it is just another lobby, and has the right to speak. Politicians and electors have the right to follow. But I assume it speaks everywhere in the world, and not everywhere is heard, not to mention followed. Does really the scarce 30% of Italian population (including children, non-voting and progressive or even critical catholics) that actually is faithful make a difference? Or are most of us, even those who couldn't care less in the day-to-day life, still trying not to give up all hope of eternal salvation and making their best on Christmas, Easter, and political elections? Or are they really convinced abortion and gay rights are the meteorites that will destroy our civilization?

Oh, by the way, would it help if the home page of "la Repubblica" didn't look like this? Breaking news: pro-life declaration by the Pope. The big picture: 2 interventions by his PRs.

harmonic convergence

stavolta, tempestivamente.

qui il link a tutti gli interventi sul tema "cattivo umore".

qui il link al mio.

like a koi in a frozen pond

would facebook tell me if a friend was dead?
or would I have to tell facebook?
would facebook presume someone's death after a certain period of inactivity?
would I have to write on obituary on his/her wall, and his/her friends would do the rest by sharing the element?
is posthumous tagging of videos and photos ethically correct?
is there an application to help manage one's profile upon departure - or can you at least set up an auto-reply for people posting stuff or sending messages?
would it be appropriate to list it as a past event, and would somebody invite me to the funeral by creating a new one?
would there be a random number of usual suspects liking the element?

does real death exist in one's digital life?

doomed (we'd better be)/36

Never lose your way back to planet Earth. No matter if you are abducted by hostile extraterrestrials or recovered by friendly aliens, the Location Earth Dog Tag will always guarantee they know how to bring you back home. Here.

sledding for beginners

before

during

after

doomed (we'd better be)/35

Uncover the secret life of your pet. And for just 40 US$. Here.

another game?

Last friday a friend of mine told me the word "posh" derives from the sentence "Port Out, Starboard Home" that identified the best berths on the P&O vessels traveling between UK and India, those that stayed mostly in the shade during the trip, that were therefore cooler and more pricey. The word then started being used as a synonym of rich/elegant.

Sadly, there is no evidence to confirm this story - P&O tickets of this kind have never been found, maybe never issued, and have turned into a sort of etymological Holy Grail's.

Quite a few fake etymologies like this one are widespread enough to have turned into popular beliefs (among others: FUCK - Fornication Under Consent of the King, or GOLF - Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden). Wouldn't it be nice to make a game out of such words? Explain a bizarre one with an acronym, find out a reasonably realistic story, maybe win a trip to India in a POSH berth?

doomed (we'd better be)/34

Nothing like the solid, clunky things we used to make in the good old times. Most of all in such a liquid, uncertain age like this present of ours. A retro cell phone handset is really a necessity. Here.

definitely maybe carmen immortale

I hate and I love. Why do I do it, perchance you might ask?

I don't know, but I feel it happening to me and I'm burning up.

logorama

One of the best things I've seen in a while. Full stop.

nausea

In Val di Susa, close by Torino, a social movement has been protesting for the last years against the construction of a high-speed train corridor, which should dig its way under the Alps to connect Italy and France. The protestors are mainly concerned by the presence in the rocks of the valley of asbestos and uranium, the cost/benefit ratio of the works, and the possible presence of criminal interests in such a big undertaking.

Here is their latest press release, concerning what happened yesterday (in Italian).

devils in red

I really couldn't care less about AC Milan going out of the Champions' League. I can rationally try and be sorry for the implications it can have on italian football on the international scene, I realize it is a symbol of how weak our teams (and our system) are if compared to other ones.

But Milan is probably THE équipe to hate if you are from Naples, and the fact that it is Berlusconi's team adds some not-too-subtle pleasure when it loses anything - even if one of Berlusconi's best tricks is to turn into the one who shall be praised, when he wins, and the one who's blaming someone else, when he loses. Plus, Manchester United has some kind of undeniable, totally contradictory working-class charme.

Still, ManU also has a 800.000.000 € debt. With that amount of money you could buy a whole team of Cristiano Ronaldo's. Still, football players in Spain only pay 25% of their revenue in taxes, which means that their teams have to pay them salaries about 25% lower than in the rest of Europe - a top team in Italy would save around 30.000.000 € every year. While this summer AC Milan had to sell Kaka to keep its financial situation acceptable.

I'm glad the italian system seems more strict than the others. I don't get why football should be treated differently from any other economic activity, where you pay salaries and taxes, and go into bankruptcy when you run out of money. It just doesn't seem fair to me to have a match where competitors are in so different legal and financial conditions. How is that different from buying the referee, playing with a 12th man on the pitch, or having your players doped?

doomed (we'd better be)/33

A laser umbrella! You definitely want one of those if your neighborhoods are packed with Replicants or Siths (even if I'm sure it also works with wild animals, common criminals, and to attract fishes for rainy-night fishermen). Both in blueish and red. Here.

(Grazie MiKo)

cantava un usignol

È morto Peter van Wood. Tra le altre cose, ha scritto Clocks.

“palloni aerostatici” + “cloruro di calcio”

In ritardo su quelli degli altri, un post per quella che era una cosa nuova, e invece adesso è una cosa che sta già là (in italiano).
Qui la pagina con tutti gli interventi sul tema (internet).
Qui il mio.

dicks in a box always strike back

women of the world, take over

en touto nika

magari ci hanno preso

doomed (we'd better be)/32

Pet rocks spread all over the US during the 70's. The idea was to give everybody a cheap, loyal, undemanding, ever-lasting companion. A rock perfectly served the purpose. This is version 2.0, upgraded with a real USB-port. Here.

doomed (honoris causa)

C'è una che visto che il ragazzo abita a due ore di macchina cucina assai. E ha una passione smisurata per la riproduzione domestica di prodotti di marca. Chi non avrebbe sempre voluto pezzottare i Ringo™, i Togo™, gli Yo-yo™, 'a fettallatt'™, i Sofficini™? Sara de "il dolce mondo di Sara" sa come si fa.

and I eat lots of fruit, too

Last November, Piero Marrazzo, former president of Lazio, admitted he took cocaine during his meetings with Natalie, his trans friend.
Some 20 days ago, Marco Castoldi (aka Morgan), the frontman of Bluvertigo, declared he used to smoke cocaine as an antidepressant - following Freud's suggestion of therapy. Not especially surprising, considering that the title of their first album was "acidi e basi", and it had only partly to do with the little chemist.
Few days ago, the results of a drug test involving 232 voluntary Italian parliamentarians have been published (here). One of the volunteers (obviously the brightest of the crowd) tested positive for cocaine.

I don't think anybody would say these people are drug addicts. They lead their lives in a "normal" and "productive" way, they can probably do perfectly fine without drugs, they are not socially dangerous. Just like at least half of our former schoolmates, and quite a few teachers, parents, janitors, etc. Do you remember Titta di Girolamo in "le conseguenze dell'amore"? What's the ratio between the total of people you know have taken drugs and the number of those who have suffered any kind of negative consequences? I'm not saying drugs aren't bad for you. And I won't go into discussing why alcohol and tobacco are perfectly legal, or the differences between hard and soft drugs. I'm just noticing that the common reaction when this kind of news comes up is a "public health" one. Drugs provoke addiction. Drugs are dangerous. Drugs are bad. Make sure you say it loud and clear in TV, when apologizing.

My main concern is that drugs are one of the pillars (if not the main one) of the economy of criminal organizations. They are one of their main sources of revenue, they give those organizations the means to rule over their territory as well as a decisive competitive advantage when entering the formal economy. They are the fundamental means of financial control of many societies worldwide, what allows such organizations to direct, slow down, or paralyze their development. Drugs basically allow them to be the kind of powerful entities they are, both on the Italian scene and in the international one, with all the consequences this power implies.

In some kind of more or less tortuous way, the cocaine Marrazzo, Morgan, and Mr Smart bought must have been produced and provided by a multinational criminal supply-chain, and their purchases have fueled a continuum of violations of human rights, concentration of wealth, economic inequality, underdevelopment, all the way from the farmer to the pusher. This is the something I don't really understand in the kind of engagé, socially active person who just seems not to be able to give up smoking pot. And it's something I don't really understand in our legislation, which, as far as I know, does not differentiate between the marijuana you grow in your garden and the cocaine you buy directly from some camorra employee.

Are we really sure the direct negative effects of drugs on consumers are worse than the systemic consequences of drug trafficking on our society as a whole? Isn't there a risk that these slightly bigot, prude reactions don't end up hiding a bigger, more urgent problem?

Sì, sì, sì, sìììììììììììììììììììììì

Il principe, il biscazziere e quell'altro sono stati ripescati. Non so chi abbia detto a quello basso di smettere di nascondersi dietro al pianoforte, a quello alto di smettere di fare gesti inconsulti, e a 4 X-squinzie coi capelli degli omarini della LEGO di mettersi a fare gargarismi sullo sfondo. Ma ha funzionato.
Il titolo della serata era "quando la musica diventa leggenda".
Secondo me siamo già ben oltre.

noblesse oblige, neh?

Nino D’Angelo: "La canzone del Principe è proprio `na chiavica". Qui.

UPDATE - e tiene sempre più raggione

doomed (we'd better be)/31

Make your glass easy to recognize with the leopard print platform coasters. And with style! Here.

obligé, neh?

Dal mio dorato ritiro elvetico avrei potuto sicuramente evitarla, e invece, proprio per non essere troppo supponente, mi sono pure fidato di sentirla. Non fosse altro che per la chitarrina a presagire l'abisso, Pupo che finge di essere un Tom Waits, la nazionalpopolare presenza del tenore, il lalalalala che plagia (stabbene, cita) "over the rainbow", la rima "Dio/Italia amore mio", e per gli immortali versi "tu non potevi ritornare/pur non avendo fatto niente/ma mai ti sei paragonato/a chi ha sofferto veramente" che il medesimo Pupo (uno che meriterebbe l'esilio per meriti artistici) rivolge a sua squallida altezza, essa fa (non so bene come dire) veramente cacare il cesso. Punto. E' bello avere delle certezze nella vita. Solo, mi fa strano metterci la tag "music", ma le categorie sono comunque dei compromessi. Evvabbé.

one more thing

Since there has been some discussion about cooking cats, let's see what happens with this one. What's exactly the problem with live feeding predators in zoos and parks?

doomed (we'd better be)/30

Ave Maria's and Gloria Patri's absorb you so much that you can't focus on how many you still have to go through to earn eternal salvation? Today it's finally easy to pray all by yourself with the electronic rosary. Both versions, PREX (with loudspeaker) and LUX (with headphones), support memory cards for multilingual praying. For the trendy faithful, there's even an Italian Air Force limited edition, with a holy-ghost track: "the Aviator's prayer". 2 AA batteries not included. Here.

nel frattempo, in Italia

- dal 24 febbraio i giocatori di calcio sorpresi a bestemmiare saranno squalificati per X giornate. posto che (giustamente) non è accettabile l'offesa ad arbitri/avversari/tifosi und loro familiari, morti, stramuorti ed altri antenati, cosa c'è di così deprecabile nel labiale di tale Buffon Gianluigi che se la prende (per il tramite divino) contro sé stesso per una cazzata invero indegna del portiere della nazionale?

- l'ottimo Bigazzi Beppe è stato cacciato con infamia da "La prova del cuoco" per aver aver spiegato come si cucina(va) il gatto. vibranti proteste del mondo animalista. tacendo il fatto che gatti e conigli sono stati (e magari sono tuttora) considerati fungibili in numerose macellerie, c'è qualche fondata ragione per cui indignarsi per il domestico felino e non per il nobile cavallo, l'elegante tonno, l'utile asino, l'esotico canguro, la mastodontica balena, la mimetica beccaccia o il tenero capretto?

Tonari no Woody

This is a frame from the "Toy Story 3" trailer. Look who's back there!

parole in musica/2

doomed (we'd better be)/29

I don't know if any mentally healthy person can ever decide to wake up every morning to an explosion sound (clue - it's a Japanese invention). If you do, I'm sure the DangerBomb alarm clock will make you lose in a couple of days whatever sanity you were still maintaining. The explosion will only stop if you disconnect the right wire. Or, more probably, if you physically destroy the clock. Here.

today

DIY, here.

doomed (we'd better be)/28

Finally! Not only will your pet have its delicate feet stylishly protected in 7 different colors - you will even be able to throw away its boots away after use. Here.

papà

Exactly one year ago, after a legal struggle lasted more than a decade, Beppino Englaro interrupted the artificial feeding that was keeping his daughter alive. Eluana had been in vegetative state for 17 years following a car accident; his right to have the artificial feeding suspended had never been recognized before and he had waited for a definitive decision from the competent court, which was finally pronounced on July 9, 2008.

To prevent the father from actually interrupting the feeding, Berlusconi issued an executive order to overturn the Court of Cassation sentence. The President of the Republic refused to sign the order (that would have caused a clear institutional conflic), and Eluana was stopped from being fed.

Today, Italian newspapers open with Berlusconi's letter to the nuns who were taking care of Eluana, in which he writes to be extremely sorry for not having been able to avoid her death. 


Not a single line to the father. 

I don't know how dark a father's pain has to be to lead him to such a decision. I don't know how deep it has to be to crush any hope, any doubt that the man could have had in a decade. I don't think there's any ideology, any principle, any rational superstructure that can stand the possible joy of seeing your daughter alive and happy again. I think Beppino is the only person who can actually measure his own despair. The only person that could possibly have something to state, the only person worth listening to. 

The rest is just realpolitik small-talk. So depressing.

darfurisdying

A game to have an idea what the life of a refugee in Darfur looks like. Here.

doomed (we'd better be)/27

Time for your computer to get laid? Buy either of these USB humping dogs and have a free USB port to turn it on. Like any average male, it will be way too focused on its task to be able to do anything else. Here.

le sorprendenti implicazioni del codice penale

doomed (we'd better be)/26

(Fake) money is filthy. Why not become an archetypic capitalist with the simple touch of a button - and a couple AAA batteries? Monopoly e-banking edition. Here.

parole in musica

doomed (we'd better be)/25

Bacon bandages. All the healing power of meat. Here.

ooops, they did it again

quando o carnaval chegar

O Sambódromo, where the big Rio carnival parade takes place, is definitely one of my favourite places in town. Niemeyer just took a 700m road, in peace times called Marquês de Sapucaí, and added the arquibancadas that hold up to 100,000 people, and the double arc of Praça da Apoteose. For about 300 days a year, you can still pretend it was just a normal street. But even if you just rush through it to catch a bus, or drive by it on your way home, or stumble upon it while exploring that part of the town, you can't avoid to raise an eyebrow and think all that concrete is only waiting for this:

The page with all the Escolas de Samba do Grupo Especial (the Premier League of the Rio Carnival), with their 2010 sambas de enredo. Here.