Gaddafi Resurrects Barbary Pirates Tactics

This sounds like a resurgence of the golden days of the Barbary Coast pirates. Libya's grand leader follows up his handing out of Korans after getting off his jet in Italy with an extortion demand to Europe.

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi says the EU should pay Libya at least 5bn euros (£4bn; $6.3bn) a year to stop illegal African immigration and avoid a "black Europe".

Speaking on a visit to Italy, Col Gaddafi said Europe "could turn into Africa" as "there are millions of Africans who want to come in".

This is exactly the kind of protection money that Europeans and Americans were forced to pay in the 18th and 19th century to Libya until Thomas Jefferson said enough is enough and built a real Navy with some good Marines and solved the problem.
Now you know where the line "to the shores of Tripoli" in Marine Corps Hymn comes from.

It seems that Italy has ruffled some feathers by *gasp* enforcing their immigration laws. I guess we can expect our State Department to immediately report them to the United Nations Human Rights Council much the same as they did Arizona.

Italy has drawn criticism for handing over to Libya migrants it intercepts at sea, without screening them first.

Far fewer now reach Italy from Libya.

European Commission figures show that in 2009 the number of people caught trying to enter Italy illegally fell to 7,300, from 32,052 in 2008. The data was collected under the EU's Eurodac fingerprinting system.

Wow who knew that deporting people trying to enter your country illegally could have such a positive effect?

I wonder what is prompting such a rise in Qadaffi's craziness? Maybe he senses that he friends in low, er high places.

Sign of the Times

Well, this sure is an attention grabber. Probably very helpful if you're looking for a hooker.

The experienced motorist will have seen a multitude of road signs warning of children crossing, elderly pedestrians and wildlife.

But the one to the right would surely prompt a second glance.

Some might say that the image of a well-endowed woman in mini-skirt and high heels is, in itself, a hazard.

Giovanni Azzolini, mayor of Mogliano in the Italian province of Treviso, however is determined to use every means to fight the growing number of prostitutes – often transsexuals – who line the streets at night.

‘I will not leave any citizen alone to combat this phenomenon, which has by now surpassed any level of tolerability,’ he said.

He added that some motorists were having accidents after being distracted by scantily-dressed hookers.

Underwater Volcano Could Destroy Italy 'At Any Time'

The ironic part? They don't blame global warming.

EUROPE'S largest undersea volcano could disintegrate and unleash a tsunami that would engulf southern Italy "at any time", a prominent vulcanologist has warned.

The Marsili volcano, which is bursting with magma, has "fragile walls" that could collapse, Enzo Boschi told the leading daily Corriere della Sera.

"It could even happen tomorrow," Prof Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said

"Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions," he said.

"All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time."

Of course this could be, like hysterical "climate change" claims, complete nonsense.

"While the indications that have been collected are precise, it is impossible to make predictions.

"The risk is real but hard to evaluate."

In other words, check back in a million years.

Instapundit links. Thanks!

'He's Filled Parliament With Beautiful Girls'

Must be a terrible burden for those Italian politicians having to work with beautiful girls. It would be nice if we'd have more attractive politicians in office here, but we know how much they frighten the Democrats (see Palin, Sarah).

Let's give Silvio Berlusconi some credit. He does have an eye for the talent.

The Italian prime minister has spent weeks denying reports that his party would stack its list of candidates with attractive young models or actresses.

But the 73-year-old premier was apparently unable to resist the charms of Nicole Minetti, a showgirl turned dental hygienist who he met when his teeth were being repaired after he was attacked by a man with a history of mental illness in Milan in December.

Despite the furore and the wrath of his wife caused by his attempts last year to promote a string of glamorous women as candidates for the European elections, Miss Minetti is reportedly now on a short list to run as a candidate for Mr Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party in Lombardy, northern Italy.

A former dancer who has appeared on various TV variety shows, she graduated as a dental hygienist last November and within weeks was tending to the prime minister when he was treated in Milan's San Raffaele Hospital for two broken teeth and a smashed nose following the assault on Dec 13.

Hers will not be the only pretty face in the ranks of Mr Berlusconi's party as it seeks to consolidate its hold on power in the elections in 13 of Italy's 20 regions at the end of March.

Graziana Capone, a law graduate and model who has been dubbed "the Angelina Jolie of Puglia," the southern region from which she hails, was recently hired to help mould Mr Berlusconi's image on television, La Repubblica reported. She had also been touted as a possible candidate in the elections.

A smiling Mr Berlusconi was photographed this week as he presented four women who hope to be elected as regional governors, two of whom have cover girl looks: Monica Faenzi and Anna Maria Bernini.

His penchant for favouring brains over beauty earned him exasperated criticism from the main opposition party.

"Berlusconi chooses candidates more for their good looks than for their experience," said Anna Finocchiaro, the Senate leader of the Democratic Party. "He's filled parliament with beautiful girls, albeit competent, but they don't count for anything within the party."

But loyalists within the ranks of his party angrily hit back. Margherita Boniver, an MP, told Corriere della Sera: "I'm astonished. You only have to look at the CVs of our candidates to understand that they are people who are dedicated to politics," said Barbara Saltamartini, an MP who has responsibility for equal opportunities within the PDL, said that Miss Finocchiaro's remarks had shown "that she is an enemy of women".

Here's a look at Graziana Capone. I'd say she's got the right, um, assets for higher office.

By the way, for more Minetti photos, go here.

This. Pisses. Me. Off.

This is the price of appeasement. This is what happens when you attempt to buy off the bad guys. This is an idea that is being floated about the halls of the White House right now.

When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified.

Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.

What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.

Things could have been worse except for the help of some US Special Forces guys who were in the area.

Had it not been for the chance presence of some US special forces in the area who were able to call in air support for them, they would have been in an even worse situation.

With friends like this who needs enemies? I hope this information is being disseminated to all the troops. They need to know that if they are going into an area that the Italians had been working in they are in very real danger. Just like an addict can't go without his drug of choice, so too when you cut off the money to the terrorists. How much of that money went to furnish weapons and ammunition and funding to other Taliban across the country to carry out attacks and kill other NATO soldiers from all countries, while the Italians sat back confident that they would face no pressure from home because of dead soldiers? In their world it was perfectly acceptable to pay the bad guys protection money to go and attack the other areas and kill other countries soldiers, like the US, UK and French.

How many lives of soldiers from other countries did this cost, just so that the Italians wouldn't get so much as a scrapped knee?

You know I thought the Italians were supposed to be these bad ass mafia types. The type who collect protection money, not pay it.

It would be a cold day in hell before I had interaction with Italian forces and would darn sure watch my back around them.

It is time to send a message to all NATO countries. You are either in this war to fight and win or pack your crap up and go home. Same message to Obama and his bunch of wussified advisers. Damn it man instead of talking tough to Fox News how about talking tough to the real enemies of this country. The ones that are killing Americans, not merely hurting their feelings.

Or has Obama ordered up copies of the Rossetta Stone to brush up on his Italian?

Another Shining Example of European Tolerance

Man, could you imagine the indignant howls if this ever occurred in the United States?

An Italian court has ordered the government to pay 100,000 euros (£79,919) to a man who had to retake his driving test because he was gay.

Danilo Giuffrida, now 26, told doctors he was homosexual during a medical examination for military service.

The information was passed to the defence and transport ministries.

Mr Giuffrida was told to repeat his driving test or have his licence suspended because of his "sexual identity disturbance".

Mr Giuffrida passed his test for the second time but his licence was renewed for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.

A court in Catania, Sicily, ordered the ministries to pay damages on the basis that Mr Giuffrida's constitutional rights had been breached and that homosexuality could not be considered a "mental illness".

Another One Bites The Dust

Italian Premier Resigns After Vote Loss
Italian Premier Romano Prodi resigned Thursday after his center-left coalition lost a Senate confidence vote, a humiliating end to a 20-month-old government plagued by infighting.

Calling early elections or asking a politician to try to form another government are among President Giorgio Napolitano's options as head of state. Until he decides, Prodi will stay on in a caretaker role.

Elected in April 2006, Prodi has had a shaky government from nearly the start. It lurched toward collapse this week after a small Christian Democrat party, whose votes were vital to his Senate majority, yanked its support in the latest coalition spat.

Prodi, a 68-year-old former economics professor, went into the vote with the numbers stacked against him after a few additional senators in his coalition parties said they would cast "no" votes.

The government lost 161-156 after a fiery debate during which one senator was spat upon, fainted and had to be carried out on a stretcher.

[...]

Although decades of revolving-door politics has produced 61 governments since World War II, Italy's political climate had stabilized in recent years, with Berlusconi's government lasting for a full five-year term starting in 2001.

[...]

Read it all at The AP/MyWay

Previously: Well, they're they go again

Well, There They Go Again

Prodi Coalition on the Brink of Collapse
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government seems on the brink of collapse after a tiny party withdrew from his shaky center-left ruling coalition on Monday. The beleagured prime minister said Tuesday he will now try to maintain continuity by seeking a confidence vote in both houses of parliament.

The crisis comes in the wake of the resignation of Justice Minister Clemente Mastella last week and his decision on Monday to pull his small UDEUR party out of the coalition.

Prodi still has a majority in the lower house, but the loss of UDEUR's three senators means that his already precarious one-seat majority in the Senate is now gone.

Mastella had initially indicated that he would support the government from outside after his involvement in a corruption scandal prompted his resignation. He and his wife Sandra Lonardo, a senior official in the Campania region, have been placed under investigation, though both deny any wrongdoing. Mastella insists that he has been targeted due to his attempts to reform the judiciary. On Monday, Mastella complained that his fellow ministers had failed to back him up and that he would now vote against the government, adding: "This center-left experience is over."

The center-right opposition, led by former Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi, is chomping at the bit to profit from the Prodi government's disarray. "We should have elections straight away," Berlusconi insisted on Monday. But one ally, Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, who faces a confidence vote himself over the Naples garbage crisis (more...), urged his fellow politicians to back Prodi: "It would be masochism to hand Italy back to Berlusconi," he said Tuesday.

[...]

See the rest at der Spiegel Online

Heh. With sixty-one governments under their belts since 1945, you never know, the Italians just might get it right . . . this time.

Woman Self-Immolates in Italy

Warning: This is very graphic.

Story here.

ROME, Dec 7 (Reuters) - A Senegalese woman set herself on fire at Rome's city hall on Friday in an apparent protest over a visit to Italy by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade.

The woman, identified by city officials as Kebe Peinda Gotha, was in critical condition after dousing herself in flammable liquid and setting herself ablaze.

Police who were on patrol in the square outside the city hall quickly put out the flames.

Dramatic images of the suicide attempt were captured on a closed-circuit security video and broadcast on Italian state television RAI's evening news.

"She wanted to kill herself at all costs," a police officer told RAI, adding the woman also wanted at one point to throw herself off a ledge.

Senegalese officials, asking not to be identified, said she had wanted to meet the president. Italian media reports described the woman, who lives in northern Italy, as an activist for the rights of Senegalese immigrants.

H/T Killgore Trout, who also passed along this link.

Italian Pol Recommends Nazi Policies for Immigrants

This idiot is shocked how people would frown upon this.

Some people just don't get it.

Italy politician urges Nazi policies for immigrants

A local politician has shocked Italians and Jews by proposing that immigrants be treated with the same severity the Nazis used when they occupied the country.

Giorgio Bettio, a city councillor in the northern city of Treviso, said during a council meeting earlier this week: "With immigrants, we should use the same system the SS used, punish 10 of them for every slight against one of our citizens."

His comments revived memories of the 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre, when Hitler ordered that 10 Italians be executed for each of the 33 German soldiers killed in a partisan attack against occupying forces on a Rome street.

Immigration has been a burning issue in the rich northern Veneto region where Treviso is located. Tensions have flared regularly between residents and immigrants, some of them seeking work in the area's factories and fields.

Bettio, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League, was roundly condemned by politicians and editorialists.

"Even if he was drunk or his brain short-circuited ... he must be condemned without appeal," Il Giornale, a conservative newspaper which normally supports the Northern League, said in a front-page editorial on Wednesday.

A leader of Rome's Jewish community, described the comments as "abhorrent".

Bettio told Reuters by telephone that he was "agitated and mad" when he made the remarks because an Asian immigrant had threatened his mother.

"I certainly made a mistake in citing the SS," Bettio said, adding that he believed "the whole thing has been blown out of proportion" by national politicians and the media.

When in doubt, blame the media.

Transportation Shutdown in Italy

It must be the fashionable thing these days in Europe to go on strike. Now the Italian transport system has decided to shut down for the day.

Italy hit by transport shutdown

Italian transport unions are striking for eight hours in protest at plans to cut government spending on transport.

Most train, air, sea ferry and bus services are affected by the strike and millions of Italians are expected to walk to work or take the day off.

Not to be left out of anything, the cab drivers in Rome have walked.

Rome is experiencing additional chaos because of a strike by taxi drivers.

The drivers are protesting against a decision by Rome's city council to issue some 500 new taxi licences.

I find the logic of the taxi drivers particularly interesting. In essence, they are refusing to work because demand for their services has grown to the point where 500 more will be licensed. Seems to me you would want to work all the harder in that case. Try refusing to work in your office next time the boss hires new staff and see what happens.

But I digress. Getting back to the transport shutdown.

The negotiations "did not produce a solution to public transport problems", transport union chief Claudio Claudiani said, in a statement quoted by Reuters news agency.

These socialists actually think that shutting down the transport system and damaging the local economy will somehow produce more government revenue for their system.

Amazing. Hey morons, your work action costs the government revenue, not increase it.

This shows what happens to your brain on socialism.

Al-Qaeda Suspects Arrested in Italy

They're everywhere. Countdown to Keith Olbermann questioning the timing in 5...4...3...

Via Jihad Watch.

Milan, 7 June (AKI) - Police in Milan arrested Thursday at least nine suspected militants who are accused of having provided logistical assistance and funding to an Algerian terror group which pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda last year, security officials said. Investigators believe the suspects had set up a cell in Milan of the Al-Qaeda Organisation of the Islamic Maghreb, the former Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which has claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks in North Africa's largest country including suicide bombings that killed 33 in Algiers on 11 April.

The cell is also accused of providing logistical support to militants operating in Tunisia and among the arrest warrants issued Thursday is one against a Tunisian citizen, Essid Sami Ben Khemais, who had just finished serving a six-and-a-half year jail term on terror charges.

Shocking. A terrorist recidivist.

Speaking of the lunatic Olbermann, Hugh Hewitt asks an important question.

Islamist/Communist Alliance

Counterterrorism Blog calls it strange, but is it really? Both ideologies are enemies of freedom, so an alliance seems natural.