BUZZURRO

Ruben Cantu was 17 in 1984 when he was charged with capital murder in the fatal shooting of a man during an attempted robbery in San Antonio. The victim was shot nine times with a rifle before the gunman unloaded more rounds into the only eyewitness.
The eyewitness, Juan Moreno, told the Chronicle that it wasn’t Cantu who shot him. Moreno said he identified Cantu as the killer during his 1985 trial because he felt pressured and was afraid of authorities.
Cantu was executed at age 26. He had long professed his innocence.

If a person is put in jail for a long time, and years later if new evidence appears to prove him innocent the state can simply open the jail doors, perhaps pay the person some compensation money for being locked up for a part of his/her and let them go.

If a person is executed however, and years later if new evidence appears they are dead. There is nothing to be done to bring him/her back to life.

There are certain times when I do think the death penalty is just. If there is overwhelming DNA evidence, or if the crime is caught on camera, or maybe a credible confession…

A few weeks ago I tried to explain to somebody why I prefer to pay a tip in a restaurant because it leads to better service.
The server wants as big a tip as possible so will often go out of his/her way to give good service.
They responded of course that the system in Italy of paying all the waiters and waitresses more so the clients do not have to leave a tip is better.
Since in all restaurants you have to pay a cover charge (usually 1 to 2 Euros) and a 10 percent service charge it amounts to paying the same money for eating a meal at a restaurant anyway, I didn’t argue wholeheartedly. Maybe I should have.

Yesterday Buzzurro and I went to a restaurant/pizzeria. I should have known something was wrong, by the lack of other customers in this restaurant, but, well, we eat dinner early in Italy (7:45pm) so it’s not uncommon to find only 1 or 2 other patrons in restaurants.
We went to a large restaurant with beautiful artwork on the walls and 2 floors. 3 waitresses were gossiping amongst themselves in the corner on the first floor..
” The customers will surely come later.” I thought to myself.
The waitress sat us at a table on the second floor. Then she went back to talk to her friends.
We decided what we wanted to eat right away, and signalled that we wanted to order. All to no avail. Nobody came up to take our order, so Buzzurro went down the stairs to where the waitress were all congregating and talking to each other and said:
“We are ready to order now.”
Our waitress gave him a dirty look as if to say “Don’t interupt my conversation !” But went to our table anyway and took our order.
10 minutes later she brought us our food. She slammed it on the table and stormed away.

Excuse me for ruining your day, lady, by making you work, but YOU are getting paid and WE are paying.

When we were done with our meal the same thing happened to us. Nobody was in sight and we wanted our bill so we could pay and leave.
Finally Buzzurro went down the stairs and saw our waitress talking to the other waitresses, who hadn’t moved from the spot either. He asked for our bill.
Our waitress replied without interest “Yeah, OK” But 15 minutes later when she still didn’t arrive at our table we just got up and went to the cash register, where there was somebody.
We repeated our order. Paid. And Left. The whole time of course our waitress was still in the corner with the others talking.
Now I understand why there were hardly any customers in the restaurant. The food was OK, but the service stinks. Who wants to pay for that ?
Under a tipping system our waitress would have received a very small tip, and she would have wisened up fast and changed her behavior if only to get bigger tips.
Under the non-tipping system that they have here she was paid the same whether she was nice or not.
There was no incentive to be nice or friendly at all and as you know from reading the many posts on this blog, being nice and friendly is not a natural trait of North/Central Italy.

Al Qaeda had a suicide bomber drive a car into a Iraqi muslim funeral today, killing 25 people.

Yesterday, Mr. Al Zarwaki said that Al Quada “did not target Muslim civilians.”
Who did he think was going to attend this funeral anyway ? Coalition forces ? Israelis ? Jooos ?
Obviously Muslims were there. What a liar. A Hypocrite.

Read about it here.

I am against suicide bombings against any people, Muslim, Jew, Christian, American or Spanish, military or civilian, but especially civilian.
Zarqawi is full of lies. He is saying one thing and doing another. I can see it, and it looks like several people are finally opening their eyes and seeing the truth too.

There was a rally in Jordan with approximately 200,000 participants, several calling Al Zarqawi a “coward” and saying that he should “burn in hell.”

Several radical Islamic websites that normally celebrate al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks are now replete with criticism of the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent Muslims.

This is a small, but welcome step. Perhaps if everyone, even the fanatic and non-fanatic supporters of Al Qaeda see that he is hypocritical, maybe, just maybe Al-Qaeda will lose it’s welcome in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Another article of interest about the same topic as above.

A woman was sentenced by a court to spend the night in a park without food or shelter because she abandoned kittens to the same fate. Well, not exactly the same, she is allowed to have water. She also has to go to jail for 60 days and pay a fine after all abandoning animals is a crime.

She abandoned 33 cats in 2 parks near Lake Metropark, in northeastern Ohio, and subsequently a few of them died, or are sick.

The sentencing judge wanted her “to suffer the same consequences as those kittens.”

Some people might think this is a severe punishment. I don’t. As much as cats are independent animals and act like they don’t need humans to survive, they do. Especially when they are in the kitten stage of life.

I wish more judges handed out unusual sentences like this, especially those in Italy, where the abandonment of domestic animals is quite common, especially in the summer holiday months.

Read more about it here.

Thank you Drudge Report.

This USB key, if stolen, is able to send an email to the legit owner saying: hey, I’m here, here’s the IP address of the PC I’m connected to, take me back home ! Cool.

Not only…

It can be remotely controlled, so that it clears out all data it contains. Not bad.

And, who stole my laptop ?

[Via Geeksquare]

When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the great Rabbi Israel Shem Tov, saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “Master of the Universe, listen ! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer,” and again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say, “I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place, and this must be sufficient.” It was sufficient, and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was sufficient.

And you know why ? Because God loves stories.

I know that the MSM has been bending over backwards when discussing the riots in France to not use the M word (Muslim), but this is ridiculous.

The problem is not polygamy it is a lack of feeling French.

France is trying hard to be secular society, but according to me, J.Doe, to deny that most of the present, or all of the early rioters are Muslim is to do a grave disservice to finding the root of the problem and possibly correcting it. Throwing more money at the affected areas won’t do it. Letting 14 year old children out of school so they can learn trades won’t help either.

I have been tagged by Gia-gina to list 10 shallow things I am thankful for and 10 things I am genuinely thankful for. I admit that I had to look at Google first to see exactly what a meme was. Technical and blogspeak terms evade me. Starting with “On” Button.
Here are my lists.

10 Shallow Things I am Thankful for:

1. Most of my houseplants have survived the years of living with me and my notoriously black thumb.
2. I can take many pictures with my digital camera and not have to spend thousands of Euros on film and developing fees. I can just delete whatever comes out bad (80%).
3. My brother made it across the finish line in a runner’s marathon (because if he didn’t I’d hear about ‘Why I didn’t’ for months).
4. One of my neighbors went to work today so I was able to sit in my livingroom and surf the internet without hearing him argue with his roommate.
5. It rained yesterday and I actually had an umbrella with me.
6. I made it through Italian Driving School without killing anyone/being killed (even though I had been driving for 17 years in the US before I moved here). The roads are scary places.
7. There is a sale next week at the market near my house on rucola (arugula). I am addicted to that stuff. I never ate it in the US before, but it is really good. (and healthy too!)
8. Wine is cheap in Italy (not that I’m an alcoholic or anything, but I appreciate wine).
9. Tiramisu’. Need I say more? (well I will. I always hated Tiramisu’ in the US, but here in Italy it is delicious).
10. I love how Buzzurro says my name, even when he’s mad at me.

10 Things I am Genuinely Thankful for.

1. They finally turned the building heat on so I don’t have to nearly freeze every morning and night.
2. The Italian Countryside is breathtaking beautiful and when my husband and I take drives around to see it I am at peace.
3. I get to relax and vent my frustrations out on our blog (so thank you to all you readers who at the same time are my therapists J ).
4. We have 2 computers in our house so Buzzurro and I don’t have to share.
5. My brother and his wife had a baby girl, my first niece. She is the cutest thing too!
6. I met my soulmate in Italy, my dear husband, Buzzurro, who I love with all my heart.
7. My parents taught me to be independent.
8. My health is very good compared to many others.
9. I am a good cook because I like to eat well.
10. The conversations Buzzurro and I have in any place, at any time.

I would like to pass this Meme to Indigo Bubbles, Mad Minerva and Nickie Goomba. The meme is to make your own shallow things I am thankful for and genuine things I am thankful for list and post it on your blog.