Italy presented yesterday its long-awaited plan to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2008-2012 to the European Commission (Yawn. I know. The not so boring part comes in the next paragraph). Together with other countries of the EU Italy is putting itself in line with the new rules to fight pollution and "global warming". This is applauded everywhere, just like the other law that recently passed at the EU to norm the use of toxic chemicals in industry.
As Europeans we are proud of our battle against pollutions of all sorts.

There's a but, of course, and it's pretty gigantic.
Nothing is more hypocrite of these laws, even if they are themselves very rightful. The reason I say this is that while they cause more costs for the European industries, they don't really imply a sacrifice, because the same industries are outsourcing the polluting productions and refinery of raw materials to countries like China. So Europe can preach to the world the faults of industrialism from its wealthy garden, while its big brands, whether they are French, German, Dutch, British, Italian or Spanish can afford even more polluting lines of production in far away countries without regulations. So in the end the only ones who pay for these laws are those smaller local industries who cannot or do not want to outsource. Not a great result.

My opinion is that sacrifices should be done for reals, not for show. We should really produce less and consume less, changing our lifestyle beyond the naive 'doing good to ourselves and our garden'. Until then, to see rich and "progressive" German or Italian yuppies enjoying the newly found pleasures of compatible products and cleaner air and rivers, while blindly buying other products "made in China" without considering if they are compatible or not (and I mean not only superfluous products, but also necessary products like a fridge, or toys for the kids), will only be one more reason to be depressed, and disillusioned about the whole European thing, let alone "progress" in itself.

So TIME magazine came out with its moronic "you" cover. Everyone's running around saying how phenomenal and democratic it is. To me it's just incomprehensible. It's like a joke. Well, it's TIME magazine. The digest of all the propaganda, right? Ginsberg teaches.

First of all, what's with youTube? Because this cover is obviously an homage to youTube, right? The word "you" with that graphics, the player tool, even the font.
Are they taking youTube as a symbol of net democracy? A service already bought by CIA-Google and which is buried under an avalanche of lawsuits and which will probably soon die of natural death inside Google-Video's womb? And isn't it funny they decided to promote this brand as soon as Google bought it? I bet youTube could use some clamor before, when they were forced to sell because of all the lawsuits incoming.

The blurb says: "You control the information age".
"The age of information is the end of the age of knowledge." said someone else.
This supposedly free "information age" seems to me more like a playground where all the tools are bought and owned by the same two or three players, which are using them to control all the activity going on.

Meanwhile U.S. politicians such as McCain or Al Gore are actively working to dismantle Internet freedoms with the excuse of pedophiles and terrorists.
And TIME magazine, as usual, averting its eyes. Cooking propaganda.

I am a blogger and this cover is dedicated to me too, right? Well let me tell you, I'd rather have faced another pukesome Bono-Gates cover than having this chilling slap on the back.

"Information age", my ass.

¹ you can't be away from home without having your falling country still falling in the background. Either this tragic truth comes with you wherever you go or its consequences expect you when you come back.

² whoever you talk to will try to discourage you. Whether they are slow-food-organic farmers, hotel-agriturismo-pensione managers, restaurant-bar tenders or plants nursery technicians they'll tell you how escaping to the countryside won't save you from getting strangled by bureaucracy and the stupidity of the apparatus. All the contrary. And everybody will sing the same song, which goes:
we fight everyday against one hundred seventy thousand laws and rules
we succumb to china because our sclerotic state is a sinking ship of fools

me: "It's amazing how, with the corrupted apparatus of the communist system on its shoulders, the Chinese manages to engage in new industrial or commercial activities better than we do. I guess their average bureaucrat is easier to bribe"
the hotel manager: "On the contrary, I bet they are less corrupted. I believe it's all in the seven thousand people a year they send to death. We should learn from them."
me: "..."
the hotel manager: "don't get me wrong, I believe in democracy. But we just shouldn't misuse it."
me: "right. We really must be going now. Nice hotel and everything."

³ sex in foreign beds can be better, if it keeps the imagination going. Especially when you are charged with the unsound Italian prices (cf. "unsound methods", Heart of darkness). This fuels the customer/whore fantasy when you're still climbing the stairs to your room.

Funny coincidence today on the first page of corriere.it.
Main news, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declares that Chinese communists used to boil little children at the time of revolution. Which may even be true as far as I'm concerned, although it's hardly an issue for a Prime Minister of the third millennium.
Just below it, questioned about import-export duties, the Minister of finance indicates: "Beijing is eating us alive."

Funny. Is this a subtle way to tell us they want at least to be boiled? That China should at least boil Italy before eating it? Or that we should accommodate ourselves to the fact that it is good and right if we let our politicians to boil us?

... and the window is busted and the landlord ain't home
Tom Waits, In The Neighborhood

So everything is closed down around in the neighborhood. In front of a closed shop of some-article-I-never-bothered-to-take-note-of plants are left at the mercy of the street. Note the peace flag hanging from the house upon.

On one hand I like it this way. There's always a supermarket where to crash to. And the city it's so much different without the usual crowd running for business, which I find depressing because I hate business. And anything related to being useful to society. Of course I also envy people on business. They seem so forgiven by alacrity (wait... what the hell I meant by that?)

MacDo is open though. Should we be grateful for this? Someone is, since the place is crowded. And comes with strong air conditioning so you don't feel the usual dirty smell of rotten oil...

Then, I see it, under a wonderful old building in a widening of "March the 22nd" Street, The "Sharm-el-sheik" restaurant and Pizzeria it's open... Never been there. Egyptians and north-africans are among the best pizza-makers in the world. So the place could worth a visit --

Then, on the way home, another opened place I never visited. The "Zhong Xin Chinese Take-Away Deli". And they say immigrants steal our jobs. While we are on vacation probably --

Finally, on the sidewalk where he would have never dared to adventure, the stray cat now feels abandoned and hunts for food, even though the old ladies he usually parasitizes are probably not on vacation --

I guess you don't go on vacation if you ain't got nobody and stray cats parasitize you. Note for the reader: the pigeon went unharmed because the stray cat noticed me and hid under a parked car. From where he very pissed off looked at me. Pigeons flew.