Yeah, that’s the one. She was on an episode of Real Sex. She’d walk around and flash everyone at political events.
This wasn’t the only time Basil Fawlty mentioned the war. During the classic episode “Basil the Rat”, when the health inspector comes to Fawlty Towers, Major goes to get his gun after seeing a rat lose in the bar. Basil sees him in the bar with his gun, after the rat has diappeared. (I’m quoting from memory.)
Basil: There aren’t any in the hotel today.
Major: What?
Basil: Germans. We don’t have any staying here now.
Major: But they’re animals!
Basil: Still, forgive and forget. Or at least pretend we do, eh, Major?
Major: But it was a gigantic vermin! A hideous rat, if you please.
I think Basil is more diplomatic than Berlusconi, a two-bit thug. His comments are despicable.
Damn,with all the US politicians that say stupid shit we’re still not World Class yet. When Berlusconi “steps on his dick” he uses both feet.
Not to defend the comment, which was pretty inept, but Italian politics is a bit more complicated that most people understand. Most non-Italians can’t understand how Italians can be so blase about Berlusconi’s conflicts of interest.
Many Italians don’t care much about B’s conflicts because they assume, unfortunately mostly correctly, that every politician has conflicts of interests and ulterior motives. They take it for granted that politicians will act to benefit themselves and their friends. In B’s case, they can at least see and understand exactly what his conflicts are. So B is actually an improvement over politics as usual, a breath of transparency, as it were. Many ordinary Italians will tell you that since B has huge amounts of money, he won’t be that tempted to engage in corruption – an activity that everyone assumes most politicians engage in as a matter of course.
** To what, specifically, do you refer?
Yup. That’s her. Apparently she’s a young model/jetsetter/“it girl” type in Italy. I ran across this odd little tidbit a few months ago while paging through an “Italian Life” ( or some similar title ) magazine in the lobby of an Indian restaurant while waiting for my takeout ( now, why in the world such a magazine would be in the lobby of an Indian restaurant I have no idea ).
Here’s the full spread from that url I googled up ( I guess this guy is quite the fan 
) :
http://members.lycos.co.uk/yukimatsuoka/barbara.htm
- Tamerlane
So let me see. first you state that arguably Italy is a cradle of modern civilization, but then agree with Cervaise that the fact that ancient Rome had a senate makes the point not arguable but obvious is contradictory.
Ah, the Germans and Italians trading potshots at each other about being fascists. Now that is some good stuff.
Oh, and tacky? Come on, the guy’s got suits that cost more bribe money than most Western leaders spend on armored limos. What does a degenerate waste of oxygen have to do for a little credit?
Somebody get me a plane ticket to Italy! Yowza! She’s hot!
Her dad, OTOH, is an ass.
Who says fascism is dead? Ethiopia is next!!! Addis Ababa didn’t count!!!
Do over you bastards, do over!!!
Whenever I hear about Silvio Berlusconi, I can’t help but have the image of Stevie van Sandt in his Sopranos wig come to mind.
That’s all.
Don’t spoil a perfectly good pitting by bringing in bullshit arguements. Carlo Giuliani was a fucking idiot who tried to throw a fire extinguisher a policeman, and got a bullet in the head for his trouble. He got what he deserved. Period.
It was just the gene pool cleaning itself.
This was all over the news in Finland (as I assume it was in the rest of Europe, as well). Every time the video clip came on, I got a sudden urge to bang my head against the wall. Nice to see the EU will be under such professional leadership for the next six months.
Obviously, someone who doesn’t understand a reference like “Italy is arguably one of the cradles of modern democracy” (civilisation is a tad broader - and I didn’t use that term, anyway) is obviously not worthy of my time, but what the hell, I just had a wisdom tooth extracted and have nothing else to do.
Obviously, I used the word “arguably” in the second meaning here.
So, first you either pretend to not know of the Roman Empire and its contributions to modern democracy, or you are really dense enough to actually not know this. Then, you start splitting hairs about the various meanings of the word “arguably”, even though the correct meaning of said word could be easily deduced from my initial statement by the average 10 year old.
I guess the response would be: what the fuck is your major malfunction, kiddo?
Actually, it wasn’t fully an oligarchy since theorically, the people could overturn the decisions made by the senate. Of course, when it was actually attempted, it ended up with the popular leaders being assassinated, so…
Actually, Berlusconi did make an electoral alliance with what was previously the fascist party, one of the most proeminent member of is the grand daughter of Mussolini, IIRC. (of course, they made some hastly changes, explained that they’re now very attached to democracy, etc…). Anyway, the Northern League which is part of his coalition isn’t vastly better, IMO.
As for him commenting about homosexuals or muslims, I don’t remember anything about the former, but he definitely pointed at the inherent superiority of the christian civilization, and said that we shouldn’t hide our face any more and admit this obvious fact.
Berlusconi – world-class dickhead, his own sick parody, fake tanned, tooth-whitened, leering, self-serving, unashameably corrupt moron. You really couldn’t make him up.
[aside]
What’s going on with the translation of kapo, in the first instance the BBC had this as “prison guard selected from the ranks of prisoners”, now it’s just, “prison guard”, and I swear I heard Channel Four News give it as “camp commandant”(!)?
[/aside]
They may be confusing different words.
kaPO = prisoner who cooperates in the running of the prison
CApo = boss,
world-class dickhead - definately
his own sick parody - maybe
fake tanned - probably
tooth-whitened - probably
leering - whatever
self-serving - yep
unashameably corrupt - absolutely
moron - not a fucking chance
You don’t get to be the richest man in any country without being intelligent.
Ah well, if they want an Italian replacement they could always ask Umberto Bossi.
His right wing views and lack of diplomacy make Berlusconi seem like Kofi Annan.
Did anyone else see the clip they showed on Channel 4 news of the how some Italian (Berlusconi owned) TV station reported this? It was so obviously slanted and biased it was amazing. I honestly don’t know why they bothered when its easy for Italians to see news from other sources on the web and newspapers.