Well today is a busy day. www.healtcare.gov is open for business, the discretionarily funded US Federal Government isn’t. There is a political crisis in Italy (no that doesn’t happen every day anymore) and there are crises both in the Republian party and in the PDL (Silvio Belusconi’s party which he considers his as his shoes are his).
Berlusconi wants to vote no confidence in Prime Minister Enrico Letta and have early elections (whenever he loses an election he demands a rematch starting the next day). Just to make it clear that he thins his party exists to serve him, the issue is whether he be expelled from the Senate because he has finally finally been finally convicted of tax evasion.
Some of the legislators in his party who are tired of being treated as his servants are threatening to split the party and send Berlusconi’s rump …. party into opposition.
All this reported with great delight in Italy’s leading daily La Repubblica (where Berlusconi is especially hated because long ago he tried to buy the paper and fire the staff). But best of all, it isn’t even their top story. They lead with an interview with the Pope (not because they are Catholic but because their former director is the informal leader of Italian atheists)