Today, after almost two months of publicity and preparation, a demonstration will take place in Rome in support of the family. The Italian family is in decline, it would seem. Low birth rates and marriage rates, according to the organisers demand urgent action on the part of the government.
Almost four years ago a row exploded over the display of religious symbols in state-run institutions. An Italian convert to Islam brought the state to court, demanding that a crucifix prominently displayed in his daughter’s classroom be taken down. The case was decided, initially, in his favour, provoking tempered headlines in right-wing outlets worldwide along […]
A Wall Street Journal article (link via Fimoculous.com) examines the “second-generation” impact of search engine technology: “When Ms. Wilson, now 32, was pregnant with her first child, she ran every baby name she and her husband, Justin, considered through Google to make sure her baby wouldn’t be born unsearchable. Her top choice: Kohler, an old […]
I’m perversely partial to reading the Becker Posner blog, a dialogue on various themes between Economics professor Gary Becker and Law professor and judge Richard Posner. Posner’s worldview, is always worth a chuckle, were it not for the fear lurking at the back of your mind that he actually means even half of what he […]
One of the more interesting figures on the Italian political scene is Antonio di Pietro, founder of the Italia dei Valori party, and someone who first came to public prominence as a prosecuting magistrate during the mani pulite era, when Italy’s ruling political class was decimated by investigations into corruption. Di Pietro’s party, founded in […]
Frank McDonald, the environmental correspondent of the Irish Times, is a self-confident (some might say self-satisfied) journo who has succeeded in establishing a niche for himself as an expert. Long known for his blistering attacks on aesthetically crippled development projects (which often appeared–like the articles in Playboy–amidst reams of glossy hype in the paper’s property […]
The Presidential election victory in France of Nicolas Sarkozy has meant that, by necessity, this entry concerns representatives of Italy’s centre-right parties. Had Segolene Royal won, no doubt exactly the same problem would have reared its head, but from the other side of the political stage – and one uses the word stage advisedly. Sarkozy’s […]
The front page of today’s Gazeta Wyborcza – apart from the strange claim that a 46.7% voter share for the left wing candidate in France’s presidential elections is a “crushing” defeat – re-runs the pensions time bomb scare story. The story is expanded on in the economics section and commented on by Witold Gadomski on […]
It’s the time of year when Polish schoolchildren don suits and take school leaving exams, wrestling with the incompetence of Poland’s Ministry for Education bureaucrats. The reason they dress up like Little Lord Fauntleroys is that until very recently their own teachers examined them and pronounced them fit or unfit for further education, imprisonment, poverty […]