Politics

Italy bits: Berlusconi has released a CD of himself singing traditional Italian songs just in time for Christmas.
The Education Minister has introduced a set of new regulations to "improve" the schools and the students (high school level and college) have gone on strike and occupied the schools. They are milling about in front all of them and there are bedsheet sized signs hanging like wash from all the windows. This week and last there were huge demonstrations in all the major cities which included a sit down on the rail lines in Milan and a punch up between them and some hard line conservatives (read Neo Facisti) and the cops in Rome which drew the unions into the fray and last Thursday they called a general strike. I couldn't tell.
To endear himself with the aforementioned students, Il Cavaliere (Mr. B) went to a private school where there was no strike since they aren't affected, and told them "I only sleep three hours a night and I can still make love for three hours! You should be like me when you are 70 years old!" I'm sure they were impressed. (If it takes three hours, you're doing it wrong.) He won the election last April with enough members that they have passed the law excluding him and the top five members of the government from prosecution, saving him from any continuation of his trial for corruption. Interesting that he seems to have run for office to keep himself OUT of jail. Here you get three shots at a “get out of jail free card” and never see jail before the appeals are completed and never at all if the sentence is less than three years since the jails are completely full. Not because they catch and imprison a lot of criminals but because they don’t build any new ones. Life usually means 10 or so depending on your pull.
Lastly, November is white truffle month and there are festivals celebrating them all over. They are the food of the gods.