ViceZilla’s Views

ROME (Reuters) - It’s official. The language of Italy is Italian!

While it might seem obvious, the Italian-ness of Italian has only just been enshrined in the constitution, with parliament voting this week to state that: “The Italian language is the official language of the Republic”.

Must have been a slow day in parliament! Thank God they didn’t vote Polish to be the official language, as was feared by some.

Tags: Musings by vicezilla
No Comments »

I’m no tax attorney or accountant by any stretch of the imagination, bit I’m thinking something is wrong with the Dutch tax man!

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (Associated Press) A Dutch court has added a new item to the list of activities eligible for tax relief: drug-running. Seems that a local fisherman convicted of smuggling drugs, can deduct the cost of buying and shipping hashish to the Netherlands from his income on his tax return!

The smuggler appealed to the court after being slapped with $4.4 million tax bill! The court ruled that because he was only convicted of drug running, and not drug trading, he could deduct the cost of buying and transporting the drugs on his taxes. That cut his tax bill to a more manageable $2.4 million!

The case is not the first time a court’s ruling on taxes has raised Dutch eyebrows. In 2005, judges in the northern city of Leeuwarden ruled that witches can write off the cost of schooling in witchcraft against their tax bills if it increases the likelihood of employment and personal income. Obviously the “fishing” market in the Netherlands must be very good for this fisherman to owe the Dutch Government $2.4 million in income tax. Either that or he is a very good smuggler who just happened to get caught this time around.

As far as the witches being able to write off the cost of schooling in witchcraft, I’m of the opinion that the Dutch Tax Officials obviously are taking liberties with the above mentioned fisherman’s confiscated smuggled drugs!

Tags: Musings by vicezilla
No Comments »

WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - Overfishing of big sharks in the Atlantic has cut stocks by 99 percent, dooming North Carolina’s bay scallop fishery and threatening other species including shrimp and crabs, researchers reported on Thursday.
With most of the great predatory sharks — bull, great white, dusky and hammerhead — gone from northwest Atlantic waters, the rays and skates the sharks normally feed on had a population explosion, the scientists said in the journal Science.
“With fewer sharks around, the species they prey upon — like cownose rays — have increased in numbers, and in turn, hordes of cownose rays dining on bay scallops have wiped the scallops out,” said study co-author Julia Baum of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Why is it that whenever ‘man’ gets involved, nature gets screwed up? We always tend to want to ‘help’ Mother Nature out, but we almost always end up doing more harm in the long run. If we didn’t interfere with nature so much, we would have less tendency to feel that we need to help it.

Tags: Stop the Finning! by vicezilla
No Comments »

An interesting story tonight on the news feeds. Will Halliburton Energy Services be affected by the recent sanctions of the US Government on Iran, or will Halliburton/Cheney dictate otherwise?

Recent reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post focus on US pressures on foreign companies and governments which are known to have business ties with Iran. Surprisingly, these reports make no mention of Halliburton Energy Services Inc, which has important investments in Iran’s energy sector.

Halliburton Energy, as we all know has direct links to the Vice President’s Office, most notably Dick Cheney being it’s CEO in the 1990s. What might not be as widely known is that ever since the start of the Bush administration, Halliburton was under Federal investigation for violating sanctions against Iran that were in place at the time. What makes this even more interesting is that some of these allegations began when Vice-President Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO!

When Cheney was CEO of Halliburton in 1998, he was quoted as saying, “I think we’d be better off if we’d backed off those sanctions [and] didn’t try to impose secondary boycotts on companies…trying to do business over there.”

Hypocrisy is alive and well in the Vice President’s Office!

Tags: Bush Administration by vicezilla
No Comments »

WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday rejected Saudi Arabia’s charge that Iraq is under an “illegitimate foreign occupation” and said U.S. troops are there at Iraq’s invitation, under a U.N. mandate.

Saudi King Abdullah rattled Washington on Wednesday by telling an Arab summit that, “In beloved Iraq, blood flows between brothers in the shadow of illegitimate foreign occupation and hateful sectarianism, threatening a civil war.”
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States and Saudi Arabia have a close and cooperative relationship but made clear the Bush administration did not agree with the king’s statement.

“When it comes to the coalition forces being in Iraq, we are there under the U.N. Security Council resolutions and at the invitation of the Iraqi people,” she said.
Since when has the U.N. backed the US war on Iraq? If I remember correctly, George “Bring it on” Bush and the UK went into Iraq alone, without the U.N.’s (or World Leaders’) support.

Article 2, section 4 of the U.N. Charter reads as follows: All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

So if the US and UK didn’t have the support of the U.N. from the beginning, how can they expect to be backed by the U.N. now? And as far as Bush’s claim of the US military being in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi Government, this is debatable for obvious reasons
I was under the understanding that one of the traits of a pathological liar is that he or she actually believes the lies that he or she has told. Is this the case here?

Tags: Bush Administration, War in Iraq by vicezilla
No Comments »