UFO Bubble Over Cinisello Balsamo, Italy (Video)
A television report about a translucent UFO in the sky above Cinisello Balsamo, Italy. This was recorded on November 13, 2011 by Antonio Urzi:
Young, Smart and No Future
College graduates in the United States might think it’s tough to land a decent job — and they’re right — but it’s a whole lot harder in Italy and other southern European countries, as Rachel Donadio reports for the New York Times:
LECCE, Italy — Francesca Esposito, 29 and exquisitely educated, helped win millions of euros in false disability and other lawsuits for her employer, a major Italian state agency. But one day last fall she quit, fed up with how surreal and ultimately sad it is to be young in Italy today.
It galled her that even with her competence and fluency in five languages, it was nearly impossible to land a paying job. Working as an unpaid trainee lawyer was bad enough, she thought, but doing it at Italy’s social security administration seemed too much. She not only worked for free on behalf of the nation’s elderly, who have generally crowded…
Italian Anarchists Hark Back to Forgotten 1970s Terrorists
Recently VICE magazine published a story that was nostalgic for forgotten terrorist groups from the 1970s, to the point of eulogizing them in an age of far more deadly and insidious Islamist attacks around the world. Could it be that the cowards behind the Rome embassy attacks this week sensed the moment was ripe for a return to letter bombs and misguided anarchist idealism? TIME takes a look at the perps:
The Italian anarchists who have claimed responsibility for the letter bombs that exploded in the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome Thursday want to make it clear that they consider themselves part of something bigger. “We’ve decided to make our voice heard once again, with words and with deeds,” read a note written in Italian found in the remains of a crude bomb that exploded in the Chilean embassy. “We will destroy the system of domination.”
The note was signed by the Informal…
Damanhur: My Sci-Fi Theophany Under the Mountain
Joseph Allen writes about his visit to Damanhur, a sizeable New Age commune nestled in the Italian Alps. The community is best known for the stunning Temples of Humankind. From Confessions of a CyberCasualty:
December, 2007. The distant Alps are covered in snow. Small flakes swirl in the wind, dancing around red clay statues of muscular giants and voluptuous goddesses, reminiscent of Egypt. Most prominent is the falcon-headed god, Horus, facing the Fire Altar where the looming statues converge.
I start to walk into the grove of the Earth Altar, but my guide Shama tells me I should go no further.
“It is dangerous for anyone who is not spiritually prepared,” she warns me. “Very dangerous.”
I would be willing to chance it, but I suppose rules are rules.
In the distance is Monti Pelati, the sacred mountain of the Damanhurians. It is said that more Synchronic Lines converge there than any place in the world. These lines are like the Earth’s…
Italian Court Ups Sentences for 23 CIA Agents
The AFP reports, via Yahoo! News:
An Italian court on Wednesday upped the sentences for 23 CIA agents convicted in absentia of abducting an Egyptian imam in one of the biggest cases against the US “extraordinary rendition” program.
The 23 CIA agents, originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison, had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal in what one of the defence lawyers described as a “shocking blow” for the US.
They were also ordered to pay 1.5 million euros (2.0 million dollars) in damages to the imam and his wife for the 2003 abduction.
Washington has refused to extradite the agents, who all remain at liberty but now risk arrest if they travel to Europe.
Osama Mustafa Hassan, a radical Islamist opposition figure better known as Abu Omar, was snatched from a street in Milan in 2003 in an operation coordinated by the CIA and…
Prostitutes Sign Confuses Motorists
From the Telegraph:
A road sign warning of prostitutes is confusing motorists in an Italian town.
The red-bordered triangular sign shows a scantily-clad woman, who is also carrying a handbag, in the city of Treviso in northern Italy.The sign states ‘Attenzione Prostitute’ – seemingly warning people of prostitutes in the area.
Motorists and pedestrians have complained that the sign is ‘confusing’, saying they don’t know if it means to watch out for crossing hookers or if it means prostitutes operate in the area.
Vampire Exorcism Skull Found in Venice
Move over Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, looks like the Old World had their fair share of these abominations. Christine Dell’Amore reports on National Geographic:
Among the many medieval plague victims recently unearthed near Venice, Italy, one reportedly had never-before-seen evidence of an unusual affliction: being “undead.”
The partial body and skull of the woman showed her jaw forced open by a brick (above) — an exorcism technique used on suspected vampires.
It’s the first time that archaeological remains have been interpreted as belonging to a suspected vampire, team leader Matteo Borrini, a forensic archaeologist at the University of Florence, told National Geographic News.
“I was lucky. I [didn't] expect to find a vampire during my excavations,” he said. Belief in vampires was rampant in the Middle Ages, mostly because the process of decomposition was not well understood.
For instance, as the human stomach decays, it releases a dark “purge fluid.” This bloodlike liquid can flow…
Want To Get Into A Recession-Busting Business? Join The Mafia
From Reuters:
Italy’s mafia crime syndicates bucked the recession in 2009 to raise ‘profits’ by almost 8 percent with the financial crisis making companies and even the stock market even more vulnerable to cash-flush mobsters.
“Mafia Inc. is reinforcing its position as the number one Italian company,” said a report published on Wednesday by a body whose members bear the brunt of mafia extortion and crimes, the small business and shopkeepers’ association Confesercenti.
It estimated that the impact on business equaled about 7 percent of Italy’s economic output, enjoying healthy growth in a year when the Italian economy shrank by almost 5 percent.
Experts had predicted when the crisis began that Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta, with its huge slice of the global drugs trade, Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, Naples’ violent Camorra and Puglia’s Sacra Corona Unita would see more demand for loan-sharking.
But the report said mobsters had also been able to launder their earnings by buying up…
Was Berlusconi Attack Faked? Conspiracy Theory YouTube Video Becomes Overnight Sensation
Now that the attack on Berlusconi seems to have made him more popular, achieving the opposite of what was assumed to be the assailant’s goal, comes this conspiracy theory, reported in the Daily Mail:
A You Tube video which suggests the attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was faked has become an overnight sensation.
Berlusconi, 73, was hit in the face with a souvenir marble and metal replica of Milan’s famous Gothic cathedral following a political rally and suffered a fractured nose and two broken teeth.
TV footage of the politician showing him bleeding profusely from cuts to his lips and gums went around the world in a matter of seconds and were seen by millions.
However, today a video posted on You Tube suggesting the attack in Milan was faked had received almost 500,000 hits in just a matter of hours…
Sleazy Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi Punched
Sure, violence should never be used to express political opinions, but in the case of notorious right-wing-a-hole Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, it somehow seems appropriate (from the New York Times):
An attacker hurled a statuette at Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, striking the leader in the face at the end of a rally Sunday and leaving the stunned 73-year-old media mogul with a broken nose and bloodied mouth.
Berlusconi had just finished delivering a long, vigorous speech at the rally to thousands of applauding supporters from his Freedom People party in the square outside the cathedral at about 6:30 p.m.
The attack occurred at a time when Berlusconi, one of Italy’s wealthiest men, is embroiled in a sex scandal, a divorce case with his wife and public protests demanding his resignation.
On Dec. 5, tens of thousands of Italians fed up with the premier marched peacefully through Rome to demand [that Berlusconi step down].
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