Samanta Di Persio has written a book entitled “Morti bianche” (White deaths), which will be published soon on this Blog, free of charge. She sent me the testimony provided by Mrs. Franca, who is battling (unsuccessfully I might add) to get some sort of justice for her husband and her son who were both killed at work, and she is fighting against statute barring, pardons and “ad berlusconian” laws.

People are dying at work, but the real problems facing the country concern blowjobs.
“Today the workplace fatality counter stands at 533 victims and the real bitterness lies in knowing its destiny, because it is destined to increase. The present Government, like the previous one, are to busy with other things. They would have us believe that the real emergencies needing to be addressed do not include the deaths of men and women that are simply exercising their right to be able to take home a piece of bread. We are stuck on the issue of tapped telephone conversations proving that, today, the primary objective is to recommend certain dancing girls, actresses and ballerinas …but we are not entitled to know all the details … However, who will explain to Mrs. Franca Mulas that the world is running back-to-front, that those who make the mistakes will never be called to account, and that those who have lost a husband and a son will never see justice done, in addition to never having received any form of compensation. Our dearest Prime Minister, the prosecuted one who spends every Saturday afternoon with his attorneys, emerges unscathed from all the court cases, statute barred, “ad personam” laws, pardons and all. The sweetener is some or other legal decree, consolidated act or sneaky little law, no matter whether or not, or if they are ever applied, meanwhile, life on Earth is very different.
Gianfranco took Franca away from their native Sardinia so as to be able to provide a better life for their family. They arrived in Bergamo. He found a job in the building industry and his 17-year old son Luciano is engaged as well. This is a large family and everyone must do their bit in order to maintain a certain dignity.
Franca: “On 28 April 2000, Gianfranco and Luciano left home early in the morning. They had to get to Briosco (Mi) to renovate an old wooden roof. My husband was driving the crane and, at around 07h30 he loaded a batch of beams, which were wet and came loose from the crane. There were two men working under the load at the time. He shouted at them to jump out of the way. One of them managed to jump aside, but the other was struck head-on and died immediately. That other person was my son Luciano. He was 22 years of age at the time. Following the accident, my husband was charged together with the company partners. I won the case and I won the appeal case, but still no one has compensated me for the damages I suffered. In addition to the pain I have suffered, I have also had to pay out tens of thousands of Euro in attorney’s fees.” Franca’s life was not only turned upside down by the tragic death of her son, because a little more than one year later, another tragic event was about to occur. “Over a number of days my husband had been working at Varese, once again on a renovation project. He had told me that the scaffolding they were obliged to work on was not up to standard and he asked me to call the ASL (National Health Service) to get them to send over one of their technicians to do an inspection. I called them and they responded by registered mail, stating that they did not have any staff available to carry out the inspection. On the 23rd July one of the platforms flipped and my husband, who had been standing on the scaffolding at the time, was thrown off. The 15-metre fall tore him away from me just like my son had been earlier.”

Now Franca is all alone, attempting to raise 5 children and having to endure the hardships of two court cases. One of these, scheduled for December, will be statute barred by that time. This is a woman in anguish, resentful because she had been hoping for some sort of justice. She has had to endure being told: “You have had two family members killed on the job, heaven alone knows how much money you have received!” Franca has received no compensation and indeed no justice either. At the time of the last hearing, the Public Prosecutor had forgotten to notify the witnesses to attend the hearing. Not even a newly graduated attorney would make such an elementary mistake. Nevertheless, using this calibre of person is precisely the reason why so many cases are eventually dismissed due to the expiry of the statute of limitations. There are many other cases that are precisely the same as Franca’s, sufficient to say that each year there is an average of 1300 workplace fatalities, few of which are ever afforded nearly the same media attention as that afforded to the Thissenkrupp case, which has certainly helped to ensure that the investigations are expedited in order to reach a speedy verdict, rather than being forgotten. No one will ever be able to give Franca back her heroes that died on the job.” Samanta Di Persio

The Telecom letters saying you are sacked are arriving. 5000 straight away and 10,000 to follow. An office worker has sent us his letter. It’s subject is “Dismissal to reduce personnel – art.24 of law n.223/1991”. The letter specifies that Telecom “intends to start the “mobility procedures” for 5,000 workers that are in excess of its technical-organisational needs”.
The letter is a showcase of bureaucracy, sub-articles, articles, laws, and arrangements that have a single meaning: “You are sacked. Your family can no longer count on your salary.”
Telecom gives 3 reasons for your sacking:
1 “on the technological side, from the simplification of the production processes that have had an impact on the functions of specialist support, as well as on the provisioning activities of the network and of services, with the consequent need to rationalize the address and government structures and the territorial ones.”
2 “for the market structures, from the recomposition of the activities and the responsibilities of the positions in the functions of the company (for example the pre- and post-sales, and the commercial programming), the significant reduction in the profitability in the more traditional business, of the progressive defocalisation of the outbound activities and in the simplification of back end activities.”
3 “for the Staff functions, from the need to rationalize the company structures connected to the completion of the company and organizational merging of Telecom Italia S.p.A and TIM S.p.A., as well as the integration of the central staff with the staff of the former Operations and Corporate”.
The former Telecom employee will thus be able to explain to his children that he has been sacked for “progressive defocalisation of the outbound activities and in the simplification of back end activities.” Or alternatively for “simplification of the production processes that have had an impact on the provisioning activities of the network and of services”.
The children will be able to ask if these are the only reasons or whether the company has been plundered with the sale of the productive parts of the company, of buildings, of foreign investment to give dividends to Tronchetti and stock options to Buora, and Ruggiero and salaries among the highest in Europe to the trusted directors and to the members of the Board of Directors. The children could ask why the one who has put their family out into the streets has been rewarded with millions of euro as a golden handshake instead of being taken to court by Telecom.
It’s well known that children, that youngsters are naïve. They are “pezzi 'e core” as they say in Naples. They would never be able to understand the strategies of Tronchetti-the-unhappy and perhaps because their parent is crying in secret.
Once more IÂ’m inviting the sacked Telecom employees to participate in the initiative of class action against the former administrators.

(Photogramme)

Antonio Di Pietro on Berlusconi: "Ponce!".
Berlusconi on Antonio Di Pietro: "Mascalzone!" (Rascal)




IÂ’m publishing the letter sent to me by Antonio Di Pietro

Dear Beppe,
There are moments in the life of the nations when the citizens have to make choices. Moments in which itÂ’s no longer possible to pretend that nothing is happening and continue to believe that in the end, nothing really will change. The laws that are continually being proposed by the new government are an attack on democracy. If they are passed, the regime will win and democracy will be the loser for an indefinite period of time. It is enough to manipulate information and thanks to this, to get elected to Parliament. Then to make laws against the Constitution, against the independence of the magistracy, against the security of the citizens, against the freedom of information. One law after another.
What distinguishes a prime minister of a democracy from a dictator? The true distinctive feature is the absolute impunity of the dictator. When Silvio Berlusconi has achieved that, Italy will be in all ways a dictatorship. WhatÂ’s surprising is that authoritative opinion leaders have given credit to Silvio Berlusconi with qualities of a statesman and itÂ’s surprising how a part of the opposition itself has believed it to be possible to start up a dialogue with him on the reform of the institutions. BerlusconiÂ’s history speaks for itself. His numerous trials, the conviction of his lawyer, Cesare Previti, for the corruption of judges for Mondadori, his membership of the P2, the abusive occupation of the frequencies on the part of Rete 4. The list is endless as are the damages suffered because of him by our country. Above all, IÂ’m referring to the extinguishing of the civic conscience, of the morale and of ethics. As a devastating example that Berlusconi has offered to the nation and to the young generations over almost 20 years, an example of his impunity. A situation similar to that where the village lads in the South admire the local mafia or camorra person.
Today, 27 June 2008, the Council of Ministers approved the DDL to guarantee the impunity of the top positions in the State while they are in office, so that they thus become more equal than the citizens before the law. In the last few weeks, laws have been presented by the government for which the definition of “shameful” is not sufficient. It is more correct to call them subversive and criminal as they undermine the basis of the State and are in favour of delinquents.
The suspension of trials for a year means the avoidance of the possible conviction of Berlusconi in the Mills trial in Milan.
Another one hundred thousand trials will be blocked for crimes that range from rape, to fraud, to the kidnapping of minors. The security of the citizens, so much discussed during the election campaign by Berlusconi and the Lega, is sacrificed to the interests of the President of the Council. The prohibition on publishing the intercepts once they have been deposited in the tribunal and available to the two sides in the case, and thus in fact already public, would have prevented us from knowing about Parmalat or about the local wide-boys.
The journalist who publishes the intercepts would end up in prison, his publisher would close down and the one who has committed the crime would not have to respond to public opinion.
With this law, in the United States there would not have been Watergate and Nixon would not have resigned. Italia dei Valori will propose a handful of referenda to repeal these laws against democracy and if necessary it will promote actions of civil disobedience like the publication of judicial acts. No one can stand and look any longer.
On 8 July in Rome at 6:00pm in Piazza Navona, at the same time as the approval of the law on intercepts, Italia dei Valori together with leaders of civil society are having a demonstration for the freedom of information and for justice.” Antonio Di Pietro

This Blog interviewed Gian Carlo Caselli, High Court Prosecutor of Turin, regarding the latest legislation proposed by the Government concerning the justice system.

"The legislation concerning telephone tapping is only a draft Bill as yet, so the ball is still rolling on that one. The rolling began with far more disturbing signs. The Prime Minister stated publicly that telephone tapping must be restricted only to investigations revolving around Mafia activities and terrorism. It would thus have excluded cases involving national health scandals, poor administration, corruption, extortion, etcetera. Then, in the draft Bill submitted subsequently, the utility pool for telephone tapping was expanded, leaving out certain crimes of serious social concern, such as criminal association, usury, kidnapping, common theft, exploitation of prostitution, etcetera. Now, it is true that there is a problem in principle with telephone tapping, which is that you cannot use, and even less so reveal any information that is not directly linked to the case in question, in other words getting to the truth, or relating to third parties that have nothing to do with the case, as well as with conversations that, although involving individuals that are involved in the case, nevertheless contain information that is not pertinent to the case itself.
In my opinion, prohibiting the utilisation and the revelation of conversations involving third parties and regarding facts that are not pertinent is an inescapable duty and, in this regard, the draft Bill is moving in the right direction by establishing certain limits. However, we must be careful! This draft Bill prohibits the publication of all tapped telephone conversations, including those that are pertinent to the case. In this regard, Article 2 of the draft Bill states that: "It is prohibited to publish any information obtained, even partially, in summary or included in the content of the preliminary investigation documentation or in the prosecution or defence files, even where there are no existing grounds for maintaining confidentiality, until such time as the preliminary investigations have been concluded." What this means is that it would even be difficult to reveal the name of the individual under investigation. Never mind the nature of the crime for which he/she is being investigated or even any of the exculpatory proof gathered by the defence. Even in the case of material that is no longer deemed to be confidential, we will not be entitled to know anything about anything for many months, or perhaps even years, until such time as the investigations have been concluded. This is extremely dangerous! Not only because it sweeps aside every last vestiges of freedom of the press, but also because any public authority, and the justice system above all, must be open to so-called public scrutiny. We need to know what the justice system does and precisely what it is doing at the moment. This is so that we can decide whether what it is doing is right or wrong. If I as the Public Prosecutor am allowed to work in the utmost secrecy, without anyone knowing what IÂ’m getting up to, then I will be able to carry out the most iniquitous of iniquities without anyone being any the wiser, is this what we call democracy?
To me this situation seems to be extremely dangerous. Another aspect to be taken into account is that telephone tapping operations will only be allowed to continue for 3 months. Allowing telephone tapping for 3 months, in other words for a time period that in many cases will not be sufficient time, to then have to cease the tapping just when things are starting to happen, does not mean prohibiting the entire operation, but is tantamount to making it meaningless or to emasculate it in the sense that, as regards its impact on the investigations, such an action could be dangerous. But there is another point that is even more striking due to its seriousness: if, for example, a telephone tap is authorised in terms of an investigation into a robbery and, while the alleged robbersÂ’ conversation is being monitored, the robbers themselves admit to a murder and provide the listeners with precise, concrete proof regarding the murder under discussion, well, now this evidence will no longer be admissible in court! The draft Bill establishes that the only information that will be admissible is that which directly concerns the case for which the tapping was originally authorised.
Therefore, if the individuals whose conversations are being monitored happen to mention a murder, during an investigation into a robbery case, then nothing can be done about the murder. One would have to take this information and throw it away or block his ears, how should I know... Undoubtedly there are also problems relating to the cost of telephone tapping. Here I am not quoting my friend Marco Travaglio who, like myself, is suspected of being an executioner, but rather, I quote the Corriere della Sera and I quote Luigi Ferrarella, from the article entitled “A string of legends” as being only two of many who state that soon all our conversations will be monitored! This is not so. For example, the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office handles hundreds of thousands of cases, yet only 0.2% of these include the monitoring of telephone conversations, and this in a Country that is still experiencing major problems with organised crime and major problems with serious white collar crime, and where, not entirely coincidentally, the greatest use made of telephone tapping is in Palermo, Catania, Reggio Calabria and Milan.
Telephone tapping costs too much, yes itÂ’s true, it is an expensive exercise! But why is it so expensive?
Every time the State requests a telephone call listing, it pays over 26 Euro to the telephone company, and then it must pay the service provider 1.6 Euro per day in the case of a normal landline, 2 Euro per day in the case of a mobile phone and 12 Euro per day in the case of a satellite telephone. Funny enough, no one has bothered to find out what happens abroad in this regard, where almost all of the Governments either pay the telephone operators a flat rate or, in some cases, even oblige the service provider to agree to special tariffs at the time of issuing them with an operating licence. I grant you a public concession, but when I request a service that is in the public interest, I demand to pay only a fair amount, as occurs everywhere else in the world. That is not the case here in Italy, and so we pay too much. Now, allow me to make one final observation. In return for the costs, there are also certain benefits. Staying with Ferrarella, the Antonveneta investigation, the cost of the investigation, 8 million Euro, monies recovered from the 64 suspects in terms of a plea bargain, 340 million, tens of millions of which were handed over to the State to be allocated to the creation of new nursery schools. From this we can see that reality is actually far more complex than what they would have us believe. Reality cannot start from this basic tenet. Telephone tapping is an essential activity and is often decisive in terms of getting to the truth. The truth often means the security of the citizens. We talk a lot about security. Good! LetÂ’s at least be consistent! We must not only talk about security when addressing certain issues, for example the gypsies, yet fail to mention security when discussing the issue of telephone tapping. If security is the issue, then security it must be, but always in the same manner. The suspension of court cases is the result of an amendment introduced in the security Law. All good and well, we freeze the court proceedings regarding kidnapping, extortion, robbery, burglary, bag snatching, criminal association, rape and sexual molestation, illegal abortion, fraudulent bankruptcy, exploitation of prostitution, tax fraud, usury, forgery of public documents, corruption, breach of confidentiality, computer fraud, sale of counterfeit products, possession of paedophilic-pornographic material, illegal possession of unregistered firearms, culpable homicide resulting from violation of traffic laws, slander, European Union fraud, arson, illegal handling of refuse, and tampering with foodstuffs, almost all of which have something to do with the security of the citizens. What about those people who have experienced the consequences of these crimes and who see nothing happening in terms of the associated court cases, which have been suspended for one year? How can these people ever feel that their right to greater security is being safeguarded, by the acknowledgement of the guilt of the person that perpetrated the crime against them when, after a year of delay in the court proceedings, we are suddenly faced with a scary backlog of cases to get through? No one quite knows precisely which cases will be suspended: the National MagistratesÂ’ Association estimates that the suspension will affect some 100-thousand court cases. A veritable mountain of work, which, a year from now when the landslide commences, as it will have to do, will cause an truly unbelievable bottleneck that will further aggravate the Justice DepartmentÂ’s problems instead of helping to sort them out. Former US President Bill Clinton, the most powerful man in the world, went through 7 court cases, 6 of which saw him come out unscathed. During the week he was constantly embroiled in a matter that was part public and part private, yet it never even flashed through his mind to take it out on the judge hearing his case. In all democratic countries, the law may well be criticised, but it is also respected at the same time! Agreed! That is because the law is a pivotal part and one of the foundation stones of Democracy and good neighbourliness. If it is true that these things are only happening in our Country, then this concept of Democracy that cannot but arouse more than just a little concern." Gian Carlo Caselli

More than three years have passed since I began beating on the keyboard of a PC with my fingertips. Since then I have written literally thousands of postings. I have received two million comments. Published book loads of complaints. With you at my side, I have fought a hundred battles: from the re-opening of the Pedavena brewery, through to the expulsion of Antonio Fazio from the post of Governor of the Banca dÂ’Italia (the Italian Reserve Bank), and from the murder of Federico Aldrovandi through to getting some help for an unemployed mother with a disabled daughter. I went to Brussels to lodge a complaint about our Parliament that is filled with condemned criminals and about an unconstitutional law that doesnÂ’t allow us to choose our own candidates. In Strasburg I asked the European Community to stop sending money to the various Mafia organisations. Together with a bunch of truly marvellous people I organised two V-day events to demand a Parliament without any condemned criminals and to demand freedom of information in a free State. 74,000 individuals from the Meetups in 364 towns are following the progress and developing ideas for the blog on topics such as the justice system, the public administration system, the environment and energy. I delivered 350,000 signatures to the Senate, for a popular law aimed at evicting all convicted criminals from Parliament. I will be asking to present this proposed law to a public sitting of the Senate. I am still busy gathering your signatures for a referendum on freedom of information and the abolition of the Gasparri Law. I will be submitting these signatures to the Court of Cassation in July. I launched the civic election lists so that YOU could take back your towns from out of the hands of corrupt and incompetent politicians. I attended the Telecom shareholders meeting in order to defend those minority shareholders that have seen their investment capital decimated by the likes of the Tronchettis and the Buoras of this world.
In return, politicians and the media alike have tried to destroy my public image. Fatso, fat cat, lout, boor, populist, political cynic, but also fascist and extreme left-wing hanger-on. My brother has catalogued at least five hundred different insults aimed at Beppe Grillo.
Anyone in a similar position to mine would be questioning whether or not to carry on regardless. I am certainly not doing this for the money. I could earn at least ten times as much by advertising processed cheese wedges. Nor is it for the happiness, or even for the affection. Many of my old friends have stopped calling me and have stopped coming round to visit. My family says that someday someone will make me pay for my actions, and that I should spare more than just a passing thought for the wellbeing of my children. Subpoenas have become a normal part of my life. These days my attorneys are usually working on three court cases at any one time, as a result of all the charges laid against me. At the end of the day, I am about to turn sixty. Hey guys! I know I look as if I have just turned forty but, unfortunately, reality is what it is. I have worked in management since I was twenty years old. I could cheerfully just sit back and enjoy whatever time is left to me. Often I am tempted to do just that. But then I look at Ciro, who is only 7 years of age, and I suddenly realise that I really have no choice. I cannot simply stand by with my hands in my pockets and watch while my Country goes to the dogs. What would my children think of their father one day when they grow up?

Ps: I will be looking out for you on the Trip to Rome on 25 July 2008

The Blog interviewed Jeremy Rifkin, world-known author. Among its books: “The Hydrogen Economy”.
The world as we know it is changing fast. Oil is almost up. Energy will have two characteristics: renewable, like Sun and wind, and distributed. Each one of us will be able to create its own energy and share it with other on the grid.

"So, now at the sunset [of the second industrial revolution] we have four major crisis that are very, very critical. First, the price of energy is going up dramatically on world market as we move toward peak oil production in the world. Food prices have doubled last year, because so much of the food production relays on fossil fuels. As we reach peak oil production, prices go up, inflation goes up, the global economy stalls, we have recession and we have people who can’t afford to put food on the table. Peak oil is when half the global oil production is used up. And when half the oil is used up and you are on the top of that Bell curve, that is the end of the oil era. Because the prices are simply unaffordable for the second half of the oil curve. So, when do we peak? The optimists, the International Energy Agency and others, say: “Well maybe, we peak somewhere around 2025-2030-2035. On the other hand, in the last half a dozen year, some of the greatest geologists in the world, some of the world-class geologists, the best in the field, had been using more sophisticated computer models and looking at the oil and gas reserve figures, their models now suggests that we will peak with oil production somewhere between 2010 and 2020. One of the world’s great energy experts said that we already peaked in 2005. Now, the North Sea peaked three years ago, Mexico, the fourth wide resource producer peaks in 2010, Russia probably peaks around 2010.
Now, in my book, The Hydrogen Economy, I spent a lot of time on this question of peak oil. I donÂ’t know who is right: the optimists or the pessimists. But it doesnÂ’t make any difference. ThatÂ’s a very small window.
The second crisis related to the sunset of energy regime is increasing political instability in the oil producing countries. We need to understand that one out of three civil wars in world today, one third, is occurring in the oil producing countries. So, if we peak these countries as our hotspot today, image what is going to be like in 2009-2010-2011 and 2012 etc. Everybody wants the oil. The oil is getting more expensive. There is a drying in supply and we are going to see more military and political conflicts in the oil producing countries.
And finally, there is the question of climate change. If we simply take the European Union’s targets for Co2 reduction, an the EU is the most aggressive in the World, even if we go with the EU targets, and China, India and other countries don’t want to do that, we can go up 6° Celsius in this century and – this is quote from the scientists – “and the end of civilization as we know it”. Let me say that what we need now is an economic plan that may be ambitious enough, and maybe powerful enough, to address the enormity of peak oil and climate change.
And so, let me say that the great economic revolutions in history occur when humans change the way they organize the energy of the Earth – number one – and then – number two – when we change the way we communicate with each other to organize these new energy revolutions.
In the early twentieth century the telegraph and telephone communication revolutions converged with oil and the internal combustion engine to give us the second industrial revolution.
Right now we are at the sunset of that second industrial revolution. So the question is, how do we open the door to the third industrial revolution. We can now communicate peer to peer, one to one, one to many, many to one, many to many. I am communicating with you now over the Internet. So this distributed communication revolution – that is the key word: distributed – this flat distributed open source communication revolution is just now beginning to converge with a new distributed energy revolution. And the coming together distributed communication and organized distributed energy, that is going to give us the third industrial revolution.
Distributed energies are found in the backyard. They are all over Italy, all over the world: the Sun shines everywhere on the Planet, the wind blow across the Earth, in we like on a coast we have ocean tides and waves, underneath the ground we have thermal heat. We have small hydro, with water. So, these are distributed energies, they are literally found everywhere, so the European Union is committed to pillar one of the four pillar of the third industrial revolution, which is distributed renewable energy.
Number one: we are going to renewable energies, they are distributed. The European Union has made that commitment: 20% renewables.
Number two: we are going to buildings as positive power plants. Millions of buildings that collect their energy. And the first building as power plant is already up. They already exist.
Then, pillar three: how do we store this renewable energy. Because the Sun is not always shining, even in the beautiful Italy, the wind is not always blowing, and you can have water tables down because of drought for hydroelectricity. So pillar three is: we are going to introduce storage technology and the main storage is going to be hydrogen. Hydrogen stores renewable energy the way digital stores media.
Then pillar four: this is the last pillar. This is where that distributed communication revolution, that I mentioned earlier, connects with distributed renewable energy to create a third industrial revolution. We take the same technology that we use for the Internet. It is identical. And the take the power grid of Italy and the EU and the World and we turn it into an inter-grid that acts just like the inter-net. So that, when you and I and millions of others produce our own energy, just like we produce our own information out of our computers, we store our energy in hydrogen just like we store our media with digital, and then with a smart power grid manager we share the surplus across Italy and Europe on an InterGrid that acts like the Internet. That is the third industrial revolution.
Let me say I work with the many of the leading power utilities companies in the world. I advise and consult. Let me give you a business perspective, not an ideological perspective. I don’t think nuclear power is going to be very significant in the future. I think it is essentially a dead-end and it would be a very poor course of action for any government. Let me give you the reasons. We don’t have Co2, with nuclear power. So, shouldn’t it be part of the solution for climate change? Alright? Now, let us look at the numbers. There are 439 nuclear power plants in the world today, it is all there is. They make up 5% of the energy that we create. That is all. These nuclear power plants are very old. They are grand-fathering out. They are going to be de-commissioned. Has anyone in Italy, or in the world, really believed that we are even going to replace the exiting 439 power plants in the next twenty years? But even if we did that, it gets back to that 5% of the energy. It will have no impact on climate change. It is very well considered that if we want to impact climate change, nuclear would have to take up 20% of the energy. Just like renewables. But, in order for nuclear power to be responsible of 20% of the energy, we have to put under construction three nuclear power plants every thirty days for the next sixty year. Did you hear that? That is two thousand power plants. Three news one every thirty days for the next sixty years. We don’t know how to get rid of nuclear waste. We are sixty years into nuclear power. The industry told us sixty years ago: “build the power plants, then give us enough time, we will figure out a way to dispose nuclear waste”. Sixty years later, this industry is saying: “trust us again, we can do it”. But the still don’t know how to get rid of the nuclear waste.
The International Atomic Energy Commission says we face potential uranium deficit, between 2025 and 2035, just for the existing 439 power plants that make up only 5% of the energy. We could take the uranium we have and recycle it to plutonium. But then we will have the threat of nuclear terrorism. Do we really want plutonium all over the world in an age of potential terrorist attacks? I think that is insane.
Then, finally, this is what all the people that watch this should discuss with their neighbours. We don’t have that water. This is something that utilities companies know, but the public doesn’t know. Take France. France is the quintessential nuclear power company. Over 70% of their electricity comes from nuclear power plants. Here is what the public does not know. 40% of all the water consumed in France last year went to cooling the nuclear reactors, for their nuclear industry. 40% of all the water in France. You recall thee years ago, when all the elderly people died in France during the summer because of the air conditioning – they didn’t have it? What you don’t know is there was not enough water to cool the nuclear reactors. So that nuclear reactors had to move down the amount of electricity they where putting out. So where is Italy or any other country going to find the water? If France doesn’t even have it. So, what we need to do is to democratize energy.
The third industrial revolution, this distributed revolution is power to the people. And for generation that grew up on the Internet this is the conclusion and completion of that revolution. Just like we can now rely on things like this Internet: we are now sitting and talking on the Internet at each other and you can have hundreds of thousand of people on the Internet and it is all free and you donÂ’t have to rely on some centralized television network and it is all open source and you are sharing it. Is it correct? Why canÂ’t we do that with energy?
Italy is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. There is some much distributed renewable energy in your country, it frustrates me when I come to your country and I see that is not moving like Spain is moving, for example. Spain is moving aggressively into renewable energy. All across the regions. For example. You have Sun. You have so much Sun from Rome to Bari. You have Sun. You are a peninsula, you have wind coming in all the time. You have the ocean waves surrounding you on all sides. You have rich geothermal deposits in Tuscany. You have forestry waste up in Bolzano and Northern Italy. You have snow for hydro from the Alps. You just are overflowing with renewable energy possibilities. You are not using them. I donÂ’t understand why.
I guess the bottom line is, what I would say to the Italian government is: what is your game plan? If your only game plan is to stay on the old energies, then Italy will not be competitive and will not get the economic multiplier effect of moving into the door to a new economic revolution and will fall further and further behind other countries as we proceed into the twenty-first century. But if Italy decides that it is important to move into the sunrise energies and industries of the third industrial revolution, the opportunities are enormous for Italy. And enormous for the citizens of Italy.
I have been keeping in touch with what you have been doing with this website in the Internet now for a number of years, and I wish we had some voices like him [Beppe Grillo] in other countries.
That allows some many people to become engaged and it is instructive of the way we need to go. "

On 25 July 2008 there’ll be the Trip to Rome. The route will wind round the HQs of the parties that are expropriating democracy. The streets of the capital, deaf and grey, reduced to a bivouac of soldiers by the psycho-dwarf, will be filled with colours. Via della Scrofa (AN), via dell’Umiltà (PDL), Piazza Sant’Antanastasia (PDminusL), Via Due Macelli (UDC), a spectacular show.
Anyone participating in the Trip will have to be on foot or on non-motorised transport. The only limit is your imagination. Bicycles, rickshaws, skates, skate boards, on the back of a mule, on a sledge pulled by a San Bernardo or in a horse-drawn carriage.
During the Trip there’ll be a distribution to the people of Rome of fliers containing all the “porcata” {pig-like-things} about the Justice System that have been approved by the Grand Council (the former Council of Ministers) of the psycho-dwarf and its catastrophic effects on the security of Italians. The PDL, voted in for security, did not however specify that they were referring to the security of not finishing up in prison for their leader. Legislative details.
Delinquents out of prison. Tribunals paralysed. The save-the-criminals law. 95% of crimes not punishable. The army in the cities. I smell a slight scent of shit in the air.
On 25 July 1943 “il Duce” was sacked by the Grand Council and he was then arrested. It’s a special day. An anniversary that augurs well.

Translation from the Italian entry in Wikipedia: “The agenda item prepared by Grandi was one of the three agenda items presented to the secret sitting of the Grand Council of Fascism organised for Saturday 25 July 1943 (that turned out to be the last). The agenda item was approved and brought about the fall of Benito Mussolini and opened up the final phase of the fascist regime, characterized by the Italian Social Republic.”
From Beppe Grillo’s blog: “The Grillo Trip to Rome was organised for Friday 25 July 2008. It brought about the final phase of the Berlusconian regime and it was felt to have led to a new Renaissance.”


The details of the itinerary and the starting time will be given in the next few days.

IÂ’m publishing the text of Marco TravaglioÂ’s speech.

”Good day to all. There’s a word that is over-used, abused and by now creates annoyance when people talk about it. The expression is “conflict of interests”. I’m saying straight away that we need to change its name. We should call it Tom or Dick of Harry, whatever comes to mind. The important thing is to revive the attention of people about this concept that has become really boring and unpronounceable.
Thos on the Left canÂ’t stand hearing it spoken of, because their representatives betrayed their popular mandate and didnÂ’t create the laws to resolve the conflicts of interest s. In fact they multiplies them by creating their own conflicts of interests. For an example, look at the Unipol case.
In the Centre-Right as soon as someone hears talk of conflict of interests, they say “there you are, a communist has arrived, one who has it in for Berlusconi”. It’s as though the conflict of interests was just a single thing about Silvio Berlusconi’s TV channels. That’s the biggest, but it’s not the only one.
Thus it is the conflict of interests that relates to the size of the playing field where the Right and the Left have to play the game, that is relation to the rules, and it has become a sort of political war.
A war between gangs, so it’s a bit like when they are talking about justice. They say: “there you are, this one is Left-wing!” In fact, talking about justice is not Right-wing or Left-wing. It’s a matter of pre-politics about keeping to the rules.
These are all examples given by the Magistrates Association in a research report on the effects of this law. A law that above all does not suspend the trials just for a year. It says that they are suspended for a year, then in reality they have to be reinserted in the list of trials. The statute of limitations is blocked for a year. After that, all the dead-time, years and years, needed by the tribunals to put them back on the list of trials, will result in all those trials being suspended for a year but then they will rest in peace and will finish with time outs for the statute of limitations. Including BerlusconiÂ’s trial.
That’s what I said before. It’s very easy to see from these examples, that so as to block the Mills trial, a third of the trials that are really going on are blocked (or a quarter or a fifth). We are anyway talking about an enormous portion and all the victims that were expecting to have justice from those trials will be told: “Too bad. To make sure that Berlusconi goes free, your criminal too will go free.” The conflict of interests is clear straight away. It’s really easy to understand. It’s in our interests that those trials go ahead.
ItÂ’s in his interests obviously that those trials donÂ’t go ahead because that way neither will his, and he wonÂ’t get a verdict and a penalty. And he knows what his sentence will be. Next week we will see. They are writing it right now, We will see what will be the consequences and what lies they will be telling us in relation to the Lodo Schifani Bis.
The Lodo Schifani Bis is in preparation and they are deciding which other top positions to include. Because five seemed too few so now it seems that they want to include nineteen, perhaps even the president of the hunting society or perhaps of the Salvation Army. There are various organisations to be given immunity. And probably, since he put on his panama hat, like Al Capone and asked a bishop to allow him to receive Communion even though he is divorced, it’s very probable that in the Lodo Schifani Bis there is also the right to receive Communion for those who are divorced and have a first name starting with “S” and a surname starting with “B” and their head covered with tar.

Thanks and spread the word.”

"This autumn we take to the streets against the Government " Walter Veltroni.
We stay,
as in autumn,
in the trees,
Veltroni.

Text freely taken from “Soldati” (Soldiers) by Giuseppe Ungaretti

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What would happen if your apartment building manager were to spend one million Euro on unplanned expenses without first discussing it with the apartment owners? And what would happen if he passed the one million Euro of debt onto the community by levying taxes? In such a situation you should be asking yourself two things: why can the Manager simply go ahead and spend money that he does not have? Why must the community foot the bill? This is, however, what is happening on a daily basis with our local mayors at our local municipalities. The more you go ahead and spend money that you donÂ’t have, the more votes you will garner in the next election campaign. If James Bond was licensed to kill, then Topo Gigio Veltroni and his colleagues are licensed to spend.
The General Accounts Department of the State has discovered a black hole in the Rome MunicipalityÂ’s financial accounts. Between accumulated debts of 8,151 million Euro as at the end of 2007, financial market loans, completion costs for the Underground train service, off-balance sheet debts and debts incurred by para-statal companies, the Capitoline municipality has amassed debts to the tune of 10,709 million. A veritable Roman K2. Technically speaking, the Rome Municipality is bankrupt because it is physically unable to pay its employees.
Marco Causi, Councillor in charge of Financial Accounts during Veltroni’s two terms in office stated that: “We didn’t hide bugger all. In 2001 we inherited a heavy debt load, equivalent to 6.1 billion in fact, aggravated by the investments made in order to finish construction on the new Undergorund train services. It’s all a bluff”. In other words then 60% of the blame lies with “Er Cicoria” and the remaining 40% with Topo Gigio. A ten billion Euro bluff, paid for by all of Italy’s taxpayers. Long nights and accounts in the red.
The inspectors reported that: “The current trend as regards revenues and outlays shows a total lack of financial sustainability, even in the short-term”. Without being too obvious about it, Tremonti is busy using a few hundred million Euro of Government money in an attempt to shore up the empty coffers of the debt Capital.
Local mayors must be controlled and must not be allowed to spend money they donÂ’t have. If they do so, let them pay the bills, not the taxpayers. The next administrative elections are due to be held in 2009. Perhaps it would be a good thing to start preparing ourselves now. Rome is simply the tip of the iceberg. Starting today, I will be publishing any reports I receive regarding Municipalities that are throwing money around. Take a look at the Municipal Accounts, investigate, write in and send the documentation in to this blog.