Shocking Italian Senate...

Let's talk about the Italian senate, as something quite peculiar happened a few days ago. Peculiar might not be the right word to describe the situation actually! So, the temporary president at the Senate the other day was a woman called Rosi Mauro, from the Northern League party within the government coalition. I am not sure exactly why, but that day must have been a really bad one for her (and for Italian politics!). The Senate was meant to discuss new university cuts and laws, together with other related austerity measures. Rosi Mauro decided all by herself which laws to pass and which not, in a totally random way! I am not joking, even though it might seem that way. It was truly random. So random infact that she did not realise she was blocking the laws her own party and coalition wanted to pass, and passed some opposition laws by mistake! Incredible! Even more incredible is watching her do this! She is screaming at the whole Senate "Votes for article 123, Who is for? Who is against? Who abstains? NOT PASSED PLEASE RESPECT THE PRESIDENCY", while everyone in the background, opposition and government politicians, were trying desperately to tell her to stop what she was doing. She really did not appreciate being told what to pass or what not to pass, even though they had to vote on this stuff! The next day the real president of the Senate had to call off the day before and repeat all votes and discussions in a more orderly manner! Again I am amazed by the general Italian situation. I have never witnessed such craziness, and the funny thing (I think) is that had this happened in any other country, that woman would have resigned or be kicked out by her own party. In Italy this will never happen! They are all too close friends to do that, even though it doesn't look that way from the below video showing a small clip from the whole scene in the Senate the other day. Have a laugh and enjoy, it's all real made in Italy... 

Welcome to ghost town...

So where to start? I guess first things first, I should introduce myself to the world of blogs! My name is Simone Scaringi, and I have been working (and still am) at Radboud University Nijmegen as a postoctoral researcher in astrophysics. My main interests in the field are Galaxy evolution, particularly our own Milky Way galaxy, cataclysmic variables, QSOs from the SDSS, and also pattern recognition and machine learning.  I will try and regularly post about my current research, however briefly, I am involved in the EGAPS survey. This is a multi-colour survey of the Galactic plane. I am interested in photometric global calibration of the survey, and more interestingly, I will use this global calibration to infer a 3D-dust map of our own Milky Way. The EGAPS colour plane allows me to infer the extinction and distance to main sequence stars by comparing their measured colours to synthetic stellar spectra.  More about this when I get back in the Netherlands. At the moment I am in Vasto, Italy. I call this the "ghost town" in winter. I got here last night and went round town with a few friends. I am not joking but we were the only ones around! No people, no cars, no nothing....just police checkpoints! Very scary! It took me less than 4 hours of being in this town and I was already stopped at check point by the military police (Carabinieri)! Now, I am not a criminal (and nor are my friends!) but being here makes me feel that way. It's the only place in the world I've been that makes me feel this way. Whoever you are, once you put feet in this town, you WILL be stopped by the police. Honestly, imagine being in a town with no one around except for police check points. Makes you think of any place? It makes me think of a war zone to be honest. Unfortunately this is one of the many towns in Italy, where criminals are everywhere and nowhere. A beautiful looking town, with a rotten scent in the air...
I'll be staying here until christmas, and I'll probably keep you updated on the number of times I'll get stopped by the police, given there is not much to do here anyway! Ah! I'll also post something a little less depressing about my research proposal at some point soon... :)   Ciao!