As an Italian citizen I have to educate you about my country, because your post seems so superficial.:-)
>Then I found out they pay almost 50% income tax.
Wrong. Italy has a progressive taxation system. That means you pay a different taxation rate for your earnings. The maximum rate is 40% if you earn more than 100.000 EUR (although current government wants to introduce a new maximum rate of 45% for income higher than 150.000).
>On top of that, there is a 20% VAT on most items.
Wrong. VAT for real useful items as raw food (groceries, wheat, sugar and medicinals) is 4%. Not to mention the special VAT for disabled people, that is 4%, too.
>On top of that, gasoline was almost $5 per gallon (a few years ago...almost certainly more now
1.22 EUR/litre. Consider that car engines allowed for use in Europe doesn't drink as much gasoline as american counterparts, so the consumption is almost equivalent. Consider also that cars propelled with with methane (0,60 EUR/litre) or GPL (0,50 EUR/litre) are more spreaded in Italy than in your country..
>The high taxes were there to support their social services. Free medical. Free dental.
That's a competitive advantage for Italy (and the rest of EU) considering how medicare and medicaid works in USA.
>Good unemployment and retirement.
That depends for how long did you work. If you began to work in Italy after 1993, the prospective public pension will not be good as the one currently received by retired people.
>Almost no chance of getting fired. Correct. You're likely to be fired only if you steal money from the company or you fight (as in fight club) with your colleagues. If you don't work as expected, you won't be either fired nor harassed, but simply demoted to unsatisfying tasks, usually as an hint to yourself to get another job as soon as possible.
>6-hour work days and 30-days of vacation. Virtually no concept of sexual harassment or workplace Wrong. workdays are 8 hour or more, days of vacation depends from the collective contract you've signed (in italy people - except managers and salespersons - have all the same rights and all the same pay: the latter of course varies according to your experience level).
>Virtually no concept of sexual harassment or workplace misconduct.
Sexual "harassment" in Italy is usually viewed as a nice way to get your career start up, especially from beautiful women (heck, why one would harass an ugly coworker?!?).
>Then you realize that the social services suck.
Where did you live when you were in Italy? social services quality varies from region to region. The best ones are usually in North Italy.
>Want a painkiller for your broken leg? Tough.
Maybe yours was an example, but painkillers aren't considered as free medicinals, but self-medication drugs and you've to pay for them. You expect social services to pay 5 euro for every aspirin pack used in Italy? nay:-)
>Want an annual dental checkup? Tooth care are considered self medication. but you can get back 19% of all your dental expenses during tax report compilation.
>Tough. Want a cop to investigate repeated break-ins? Tough.
I suspect you lived in a big town of center/South Italy, heh? responsiveness from cops varies from region to region also. The most efficient are in North-East Italy.
Recent versions of this emulator can be used on daily basis. Genesi stated that they'll include a PPC version in the official release of MorphOS.
You can buy the x86 supported edition (with legal kickstart ROMs and a fully functional workbench) at Cloanto's. I used it once and it made a very good impression on me.:-)
The only game company that support PPC is Hyperion Entertainment (ported or porting freespace, worms: armageddon, heretic2 and shogo to amiga), but they're going to support AmigaOS4 instead, since they bought the right to develop and maintain it.;-)
I think they're the only people on amigascene with the know-how and the guts to get your favourite FPS on amiga (they also maintain a quake2 aniga GPL'ed port).
In other words, a right is a permission to do something without limits.
That's plainly wrong. I think you need to read again your Constitution, or at least any European Union's member Constitution: they truly say that a "right" is a "permission to do something without limits", but they say too: "your right will be limited if the civil society will have an overall gain from those limitations"
In Europe, the freedom of speech/act right is usually unlimited, but not if one's religion is offended. And this why?
Because from 1500 until 1945 the European countries were usually ravaged by wars caused by religious matters!
So, after the 2WW, the main european leaders (Degasperi from Italy and Adenauer from Germany, among the others) while discussing on how avoid future wars, they decided to not consider religious offense as a freedom of speech, thus giving religious minorities the right to sue offenders instead of taking guns against then (and maybe provoking another war...)
Freedom of speech is the right to say something ESPECIALLY if it offends someone
I want to see what are your reactions, if you say something bad about a person without proofing your claims. He will certainly sue you for slander.
The same thing applies to religion: if you're in an European country and say something bad about one's religion without proofing that, the other can sue you for slandering and win easily because you cannot demonstrate the truth of your words! And why? Because all religions are made of beliefs that are difficult, or impossible, to demonstrate! So, the courts, for the sake of law, tend to consider this acting as a slandering.
So:
slandering in general == lack of respect for the person
offending one's religion == Lack of respect for the lifestyle choices of that person
freedom of speech == You're free to speech but respect the other's beliefs (a la Voltaire), first
I find a lot of Catholic belief particularly offensive, such as their medieval attitudes towards science, their anti-contraceptive stance and their denial of female reproductive rights.
Consider this: when you were a child, your mother told you to do not this thing or another one, because that would be dangerous for yourself.
now, the Christian churches shouldn't be considered as a "political organizations", but as wise mothers who suggests the right way of life to their children.
Note the emphasis. I said "suggest" and not "impose". This is the thin red line that separate the best religions (Christian, Jewish and the oriental ones) from the worst ones (i.e.: Scientology, Islam). A religion that respects the freedom of choice of their followers is more powerful than one that claim that they will give them happiness by asking to plan their life...
Maybe the muslim population is growing, and native italians' one will remain steady, but I want you to consider that:
1) There's no really "native italian" people. Italian people are truly a melting pot like american one. We have at least 21 different cultures and more than 100 dialects with celtic, french, german, slavonic, latin and spanish ancestry:)
2) Muslim immigrants are a minority of overall immigrants in Italy: the most predominant ethnic groups are from China, Philippine and East Europe: they may be everything but not muslim:)
3) Current government is considering the idea to put the muslim under special control, both because the 9/11 facts and because muslim aren't "good" citizens in the sociological meaning of the term: it's demonstrated that chineses works hard and better and, most important, are more likely to respect their host country laws than muslim immigrants.
4) the predominant muslim "sect" in italy isn't the wahabite one (the one Bin Laden came from) or the shiite one, but the moderate ones who "rules" in Tunisia, Morocco and Libia: all of them are ex-western colonies heavily influenced by French (and Italian) liberal and positivist culture of the nineteenth century.
5) In the near future (not next year, but in two-three year from today) government will setup a plan for increasing birth rate. The government is heavily influenced by conservative parties ("conservative" as in "preserve our traditions!")
.. signatory to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [coe.int], which should protect 'freedom of thought, conscience and religion' as well as 'freedom of expression'.
well, Italian government has signed a special convention with the Catholic Church (in the 1920s) long time before signing the Council of Europe Convention (in the 1950s).
This agreement with the Church is written in the Italian Constitution (dated 1947) and it obliges Italy to act against people who dare to slander the common religious sentiments.
Note that "freedom of expression" != "freedom of slandering" !!!
The real fact is: that guy who sold t-shirt with anti-religious sentences will probably be accused not only of slandering common religious sentiments, but of having evaded tax and VAT too, because the "special police force" mentioned in the article is the Italian equivalent of the american ATF (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms) plus the duty of hunting tax evasors.
So, as an Italian, I'm not worried at all for the freedom of expression question, because those policemen works for the Treasury Minister and they receive a percentual on the tax recovered...:)
oh boy, I don't believe politicians at all. I worked with EU for some time and I know them and the european legislation. Bureaucrats are different from politicians, you know.:)
no, European Union collect money from customs tolls and VAT payed between two different EU countries. This money is redistribuited to the EU members according to the local needs. It seems that Greece, Italy and Portugal usually have some more money than the other countries.
But what I said (and you said) is true: that the rural south is control by northern noblemen in a feudalistic manner. With all legislation passed in favor of northerners.
Are you dislessic?:) Northern noblemen never controlled southern Italy. The real rulers of the land were the local italian barons, who passed all legislation in favor of themselves. So, only sicilians and neapolitans are the people to be blamed for the birth of the mafia. Leave us northerners out of this thing, please
Exactly, Italy was fragmented until Grabaldi unified it in the late 19th century (1862??).
Garibaldi unified Italy? muahahahah:), he was the puppet of the British Empire (it paid all his war expenses)....The real unificator of our country was the Count of Cavour and his successors as prime minister of the Kingdom.
Hence the black hand and then the rampant facists emerging around WWII. Sicilians in particular were extremely vicious in rejecting the facisits.
I suggest you to read Indro Montanelli's History Of Italy to correct your prejudices about fascism and Italy in general.
no, mostly private investment firms, like JP Morgan, Autostrade SpA (major owner of the italian highways), some private ventures, the builder, and a japanese keiretsu whose name I can't recall.
don't worry it wont. At university (I'm a student of business administration) we studied the bridge from an economic point of view. Only one fifth will be paid from the government, the other 4/5 will be paid from private investors, and they will gain the right to impose bridge tolls for a eriod of 30 years circa.
as far as i know the most poor region of italy isn't sicily anymore (due to hard investment by STMicroelectronics, Nokia and other electronics firms), but Calabria, the peninsula at the other end of the Strait of Messina.
And Calabria is more richer than the poorest region of Portugal....
I'm Italian. Don't pretend to teach me my history.:)
Unfair laws in southern italy were made not by northern noblemen, but by the local petty noblemen themselves! Southern Italy was always a possession of a foreign country (HRE, France and Spain) whose ruler was too far to put those lord on strict control like they did in homeland. So southern barons acted as they liked, telling the people to blame their distant ruler if they complained about government.
The mafia as we know it born just after the proclamation of the Italian Kingdom because the sicilian barons (with the cooperation of the last King of Naples) didn't like the new deal, more centralistic than before.
About current power of the mafia (and other criminal organization), yes, maybe it's still powerful in south Italy and not in the US. But one thing is sure. Criminality usually have "horror vacui": they always tend to fill the void left by the defeat of other organizations. Guess who has substituted our mafia in your country? I know, but I won't tell you;-)
the muslim population isn't so huge as you can imagine. on 57 millions of inhabitants, only 800000 are muslim. 1,5 % A very huge percentage, indeed...:)
(Clandestine immigrants aren't counted, of course.)
If you run a business in the north of italy you aren't going to be threatened by mafia, because northern italians enforce the law more than southern ones.
Slashdot Mirror
ehm, they're not a bank. they are an electronic money institute. Check EU directive 2000/46/EC.
oh, anyways, there is also the new Payment Services Directive (2007/64/EC), with more stricter rules about liabilities.
have fun!
As an Italian citizen I have to educate you about my country, because your post seems so superficial. :-)
:-)
>Then I found out they pay almost 50% income tax.
Wrong. Italy has a progressive taxation system. That means you pay a different taxation rate for your earnings. The maximum rate is 40% if you earn more than 100.000 EUR (although current government wants to introduce a new maximum rate of 45% for income higher than 150.000).
>On top of that, there is a 20% VAT on most items.
Wrong. VAT for real useful items as raw food (groceries, wheat, sugar and medicinals) is 4%. Not to mention the special VAT for disabled people, that is 4%, too.
>On top of that, gasoline was almost $5 per gallon (a few years ago...almost certainly more now
1.22 EUR/litre. Consider that car engines allowed for use in Europe doesn't drink as much gasoline as american counterparts, so the consumption is almost equivalent. Consider also that cars propelled with with methane (0,60 EUR/litre) or GPL (0,50 EUR/litre) are more spreaded in Italy than in your country..
>The high taxes were there to support their social services. Free medical. Free dental.
That's a competitive advantage for Italy (and the rest of EU) considering how medicare and medicaid works in USA.
>Good unemployment and retirement.
That depends for how long did you work. If you began to work in Italy after 1993, the prospective public pension will not be good as the one currently received by retired people.
>Almost no chance of getting fired.
Correct. You're likely to be fired only if you steal money from the company or you fight (as in fight club) with your colleagues. If you don't work as expected, you won't be either fired nor harassed, but simply demoted to unsatisfying tasks, usually as an hint to yourself to get another job as soon as possible.
>6-hour work days and 30-days of vacation. Virtually no concept of sexual harassment or workplace
Wrong. workdays are 8 hour or more, days of vacation depends from the collective contract you've signed (in italy people - except managers and salespersons - have all the same rights and all the same pay: the latter of course varies according to your experience level).
>Virtually no concept of sexual harassment or workplace misconduct.
Sexual "harassment" in Italy is usually viewed as a nice way to get your career start up, especially from beautiful women (heck, why one would harass an ugly coworker?!?).
>Then you realize that the social services suck.
Where did you live when you were in Italy? social services quality varies from region to region. The best ones are usually in North Italy.
>Want a painkiller for your broken leg? Tough.
Maybe yours was an example, but painkillers aren't considered as free medicinals, but self-medication drugs and you've to pay for them. You expect social services to pay 5 euro for every aspirin pack used in Italy? nay
>Want an annual dental checkup?
Tooth care are considered self medication. but you can get back 19% of all your dental expenses during tax report compilation.
>Tough. Want a cop to investigate repeated break-ins? Tough.
I suspect you lived in a big town of center/South Italy, heh? responsiveness from cops varies from region to region also. The most efficient are in North-East Italy.
simply read the PDF published on the website.
morphos != amigaos
:)
it's a os on top of another os.
You forgot UAE .
:-)
Recent versions of this emulator can be used on daily basis. Genesi stated that they'll include a PPC version in the official release of MorphOS.
You can buy the x86 supported edition (with legal kickstart ROMs and a fully functional workbench) at Cloanto's. I used it once and it made a very good impression on me.
The only game company that support PPC is Hyperion Entertainment (ported or porting freespace, worms: armageddon, heretic2 and shogo to amiga), but they're going to support AmigaOS4 instead, since they bought the right to develop and maintain it. ;-)
:)
I think they're the only people on amigascene with the know-how and the guts to get your favourite FPS on amiga (they also maintain a quake2 aniga GPL'ed port).
So, forget MorphOS and Pegasos, please
In other words, a right is a permission to do something without limits.
That's plainly wrong. I think you need to read again your Constitution, or at least any European Union's member Constitution: they truly say that a "right" is a "permission to do something without limits", but they say too: "your right will be limited if the civil society will have an overall gain from those limitations"
In Europe, the freedom of speech/act right is usually unlimited, but not if one's religion is offended. And this why?
Because from 1500 until 1945 the European countries were usually ravaged by wars caused by religious matters!
So, after the 2WW, the main european leaders (Degasperi from Italy and Adenauer from Germany, among the others) while discussing on how avoid future wars, they decided to not consider religious offense as a freedom of speech, thus giving religious minorities the right to sue offenders instead of taking guns against then (and maybe provoking another war...)
Freedom of speech is the right to say something ESPECIALLY if it offends someone
I want to see what are your reactions, if you say something bad about a person without proofing your claims. He will certainly sue you for slander.
The same thing applies to religion: if you're in an European country and say something bad about one's religion without proofing that, the other can sue you for slandering and win easily because you cannot demonstrate the truth of your words! And why? Because all religions are made of beliefs that are difficult, or impossible, to demonstrate! So, the courts, for the sake of law, tend to consider this acting as a slandering.
So:
slandering in general == lack of respect for the person
offending one's religion == Lack of respect for the lifestyle choices of that person
freedom of speech == You're free to speech but respect the other's beliefs (a la Voltaire), first
freedom of speech != offending one's religion
'nuff said
I find a lot of Catholic belief particularly offensive, such as their medieval attitudes towards science, their anti-contraceptive stance and their denial of female reproductive rights.
:)
Consider this: when you were a child, your mother told you to do not this thing or another one, because that would be dangerous for yourself.
now, the Christian churches shouldn't be considered as a "political organizations", but as wise mothers who suggests the right way of life to their children.
Note the emphasis. I said "suggest" and not "impose". This is the thin red line that separate the best religions (Christian, Jewish and the oriental ones) from the worst ones (i.e.: Scientology, Islam). A religion that respects the freedom of choice of their followers is more powerful than one that claim that they will give them happiness by asking to plan their life...
Apart for this, I agree with Voltaire's motto.
Maybe the muslim population is growing, and native italians' one will remain steady, but I want you to consider that:
:)
:)
1) There's no really "native italian" people. Italian people are truly a melting pot like american one. We have at least 21 different cultures and more than 100 dialects with celtic, french, german, slavonic, latin and spanish ancestry
2) Muslim immigrants are a minority of overall immigrants in Italy: the most predominant ethnic groups are from China, Philippine and East Europe: they may be everything but not muslim
3) Current government is considering the idea to put the muslim under special control, both because the 9/11 facts and because muslim aren't "good" citizens in the sociological meaning of the term: it's demonstrated that chineses works hard and better and, most important, are more likely to respect their host country laws than muslim immigrants.
4) the predominant muslim "sect" in italy isn't the wahabite one (the one Bin Laden came from) or the shiite one, but the moderate ones who "rules" in Tunisia, Morocco and Libia: all of them are ex-western colonies heavily influenced by French (and Italian) liberal and positivist culture of the nineteenth century.
5) In the near future (not next year, but in two-three year from today) government will setup a plan for increasing birth rate. The government is heavily influenced by conservative parties ("conservative" as in "preserve our traditions!")
ah ah :)
:)
Of course, they cannot censor sites located outside of Italy..
well...the exact translation of the italian
blasphemy should be "Mary is a bitch", not "pig Madonna"..
sometimes babelfish is more blasphemous than those censored sites...
.. signatory to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [coe.int], which should protect 'freedom of thought, conscience and religion' as well as 'freedom of expression'.
:)
well, Italian government has signed a special convention with the Catholic Church (in the 1920s) long time before signing the Council of Europe Convention (in the 1950s).
This agreement with the Church is written in the Italian Constitution (dated 1947) and it obliges Italy to act against people who dare to slander the common religious sentiments.
Note that "freedom of expression" != "freedom of slandering" !!!
The real fact is: that guy who sold t-shirt with anti-religious sentences will probably be accused not only of slandering common religious sentiments, but of having evaded tax and VAT too, because the "special police force" mentioned in the article is the Italian equivalent of the american ATF (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms) plus the duty of hunting tax evasors.
So, as an Italian, I'm not worried at all for the freedom of expression question, because those policemen works for the Treasury Minister and they receive a percentual on the tax recovered...
oh boy, I don't believe politicians at all. I worked with EU for some time and I know them and the european legislation. Bureaucrats are different from politicians, you know. :)
no, European Union collect money from customs tolls and VAT payed between two different EU countries. This money is redistribuited to the EU members according to the local needs. It seems that Greece, Italy and Portugal usually have some more money than the other countries.
But what I said (and you said) is true: that the rural south is control by northern noblemen in a feudalistic manner. With all legislation passed in favor of northerners.
:) Northern noblemen never controlled southern Italy. The real rulers of the land were the local italian barons, who passed all legislation in favor of themselves. So, only sicilians and neapolitans are the people to be blamed for the birth of the mafia. Leave us northerners out of this thing, please
:), he was the puppet of the British Empire (it paid all his war expenses)....The real unificator of our country was the Count of Cavour and his successors as prime minister of the Kingdom.
:)
Are you dislessic?
Exactly, Italy was fragmented until Grabaldi unified it in the late 19th century (1862??).
Garibaldi unified Italy? muahahahah
Hence the black hand and then the rampant facists emerging around WWII. Sicilians in particular were extremely vicious in rejecting the facisits.
I suggest you to read Indro Montanelli's History Of Italy to correct your prejudices about fascism and Italy in general.
You deserve your C+
And what is the problem , exactly , with the water supply in Sicily?
Usually lack of maintenance and some unfinished but very important buildings.
EU contributions are only for developing local economy (especially small and medium enterprises), not great public buildings.
no, mostly private investment firms, like JP Morgan, Autostrade SpA (major owner of the italian highways), some private ventures, the builder, and a japanese keiretsu whose name I can't recall.
don't worry it wont. At university (I'm a student of business administration) we studied the bridge from an economic point of view. Only one fifth will be paid from the government, the other 4/5 will be paid from private investors, and they will gain the right to impose bridge tolls for a eriod of 30 years circa.
oh really? :)
as far as i know the most poor region of italy isn't sicily anymore (due to hard investment by STMicroelectronics, Nokia and other electronics firms), but Calabria, the peninsula at the other end of the Strait of Messina.
And Calabria is more richer than the poorest region of Portugal....
I'm Italian. Don't pretend to teach me my history. :)
;-)
Unfair laws in southern italy were made not by northern noblemen, but by the local petty noblemen themselves! Southern Italy was always a possession of a foreign country (HRE, France and Spain) whose ruler was too far to put those lord on strict control like they did in homeland. So southern barons acted as they liked, telling the people to blame their distant ruler if they complained about government.
The mafia as we know it born just after the proclamation of the Italian Kingdom because the sicilian barons (with the cooperation of the last King of Naples) didn't like the new deal, more centralistic than before.
About current power of the mafia (and other criminal organization), yes, maybe it's still powerful in south Italy and not in the US. But one thing is sure. Criminality usually have "horror vacui": they always tend to fill the void left by the defeat of other organizations. Guess who has substituted our mafia in your country? I know, but I won't tell you
figliolo, stai facendo una grande confusione. Hai visto napoli e fai l'equazione napoli=italia.
questo paragone e' insultante per me che sono milanese.
PS = e poi, chi l'ha detto che sono state le brigate rosse?
the muslim population isn't so huge as you can imagine. on 57 millions of inhabitants, only 800000 are muslim. 1,5 % A very huge percentage, indeed... :)
(Clandestine immigrants aren't counted, of course.)
If you run a business in the north of italy you aren't going to be threatened by mafia, because northern italians enforce the law more than southern ones.