Incredible electoral systems: Usa vs. Sweden

Swedish ballots in full display, forcing people to vote openly

Voting procedures, a race to the bottom: Fascist Regime Style vs. Banana Republic Quirks. This article contains the ultimate argument in favor of Voter ID laws in the US. Please sit back and enjoy the ride; alternatively you can skim it, relax and skip entire chapters. I’m not used to being surprised anymore. But I was floored by the revelation that international observers, called to oversee the Swedish election for the first time due to fears for a victory for the party of xenophobes, found an unbelievable flaw in the system. One that is obviously favoring the establishment. A hideous ulcer hiding in plain sight. This is as good an occasion…

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The broken bridge

Reflections on a tragedy. August 14 in my mind was already associated to the image of a broken bridge. Don’t ask, it’s personal. You may have heard how my hometown of Genoa was struck by a disaster: the collapse of a significant portion of the Morandi Bridge, a highway overpass 1200 meters long (3/4 of a mile) that meant a lot to us. Not just a vital thoroughfare necessary for traffic coming and going from, to and through the city, the port and the rest of the region. A cumbersome acquaintance, a familiar sight, a piece of our lives. The intersection between beautiful and ugly. A source for apprehension. So many…

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The birth of Fake News

Have you ever wondered how the expression originated? I mean, in a wider sense the dissemination of fabricated stories, mostly for propaganda reasons, dates back at least to Ancient Greece, and that’s just because we have limited data from earlier civilizations. But why the sudden alarm for the spread of fake news? Not all TED conferences are created equal. Some even contain inconvenient truths. Sharyl Attkisson is a tough cookie: a investigative journalist who worked in the mainstream media, a respectable voice that can’t be silenced by pretending she comes from the unwashed fringe. Although of course she left CBS when her tough stance and pointed critique of Obama’s administration…

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Imaginary conversation on a plane in Sweden

This young student, Elin Ersson, became an instant celebrity because she took a stand against the deportation of an Afghan man from Sweden to Afghanistan: she boarded the passenger plane with which he was being sent out of the country and refused to sit down, protesting the deportation while recording the incident on a Facebook video. Teary eyed, she must have felt immensely proud for her bravery and humanitarian commitment while the sheepish Goteborg airport authorities caved in and disembarked the man. This is 2018: people her age have no memory of a world before 9/11. Nowadays air travel is subject to all sorts of security checks: you can be…

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Why so much fake outrage? Why siding with criminals?

Time cover, Donald Trump looking down on crying child (fair use: critique)

The quest for the evil roots of the Left: our first step is observing the apologists of illegal immigration.   Scene 1, Honduras: a well off family, at least for the standards of developing countries; the husband has a good job, the wife drives a car nicer than mine. They have 4 children. Scene 2, USA-Mexico border: the woman from scene 1 decides to leave the country taking the youngest daughter with her, not even bothering to say goodbye to her husband and her 3 other children. She wants to seek her fortune in the United States, even if she’d already been deported in 2013. She gives 6000 dollars to a criminal…

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The truth about refugees

Let’s begin by discussing political asylum per se. Afterwards I want to get to the core problem, the abuse of the term “refugee” while pushing for a path to citizenship for scores of migrants that wouldn’t qualify. It’s the elephant in the room: the meaning and procedures behind the granting of asylum seldom get any attention. As you’ll find out if you follow me in this journey, I needed only a little effort to unearth some gems of social justice extravaganza. I’ll use my country as a reference point, not only because it represents a faithful representation of all the excesses of a leftist cultural-industrial complex, but because over the last few…

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10+1 reasons why my daughter is a cat

10 reasons for a 10 months old child. 1. She seems to enjoy walking on the edges, showing no fear. Ok, here’s a less than perfect parallelism: my daughter barely crawls and she has no idea of the risks involved, while cats are renown for their sense of balance and always land on all fours. But you’d be surprised to know how often they fall ruinously. Oh, since we’re here. 2. She crawls like a cat. Of course, you may add: that’s normal for infants at this stage. I’m not saying my offspring is special. I’m saying we’re closer to felines than we care to notice. 3. She meows. Although she emits all…

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Medium sucks

Soviet propaganda stamp from 1968

Medium is a neutrality-agnostic platform. They push in one direction, even against their interests. Discussing the bazillionth propaganda-infested email I received from Medium, the most successful blogging platform of the moment. In their imagination the titles of the promoted articles would entice me to click, read and possibly become a premium member, paying for the privilege of being served tons of one-sided articles, plus (thanks God) quite a few dealing instead with matters unrelated to politics. In the email I received there were 2 articles in the Politics section. One is just the usual tripe about the dangers of Fascism today, as expressed through the point of view of a hallucinated author…

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Pope Francis: today the Eucharist is for pagans too

Catholic missionaries in Papua New Guinea

A Papua New Guinea pilot project in inclusiveness. This is the latest gimmick devised to make Pope Francis’ Church That Goes Forth reach even further: giving the Eucharist to anybody who asks; but only today, by way of exception, to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. It’s not just about the divorced and remarried, or fellow Protestant faithfuls. Even non-Christians and skeptics can now participate and receive the Sacrament. At least if you live in Papua. This morning, during Easter Mass, thousands of people who had never received Jesus in the Eucharist before were greeted in the churches across Papua New Guinea as honored guests who could now experience a direct,…

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The Revolution: child’s play

Nice Guy Jesus statue resembling the Pope Francis image used to promote his message prioritizing youngsters as agents of change

Your buddy: the Pope. It’s a bit embarrassing for someone like me, utterly dismayed since the day of Pope Francis’ election, but also not wanting to disrespect the figure of the Pope. I must get to it, though. At last. To give some perspective on the foolish self-destruction course chosen by the progressives who gained control of the Catholic Church. Let’s face it, this Pope is essentially on the side of those that opposed all his predecessors. I must muster the courage to speak, as I was saying, even if it means losing some friends in the process.   We’ve had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with…

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Shattered Christmas

A small episode from many years ago. I was a little child walking down the street hand in hand with my daddy. We were living in the Italian town of ***. It was during the Christmas vacations, in fact I remember the festive illuminations that were still customary at the time: tinsels, stars, candle shapes made up of tiny leds, that sort of things. We were returning home through a maze of unfamiliar streets (at least unfamiliar to me); we’d just been to pay a visit to a great-aunt. Think of it, ’twas a bit inconsistent with the character of my father, an old-style militant agnostic, to follow the social…

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Yawn @ German elections

Angela Merkel, 3D glasses

The obligatory comments on the 2017 German general election are pouring in, with pundits serving up large scoops of alarmed rhetoric over the unprecedented return of “the Nazis” to the Bundestag (German Parliament), for the first time since WWII. The reality is way more mundane and unimpressive. The new “populist” party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland = Alternative for Germany) this time was able to seize an impressive 13% of the vote, while in 2013 they fell short of the 5% barrier to entry in the parliament. But they’re far from being Nazi sympathizers. You may ask yourself, instead, since their political platform would have been deemed pretty reasonable for a…

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