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Sweden in the top ten of HDI (Human Development Index)

In my daily search of news about Sweden, my love, I found an interesting post written by an Italian member of Community of Sweden, a popular and international community.

In his post Tommaso, wrote about different ways to give average statistics about distribution of richness and welfare.
Iceland it's at first place and Sweden "only" seventh.

But this is the classification of 2008.
Now Iceland is in a situation of economic collapse.

So, how reliable are these statistics?
IMHO they are enough reliable.

I have not the previous HDI data, but I think that when Iceland was not in the first 10, Sweden was.


Let me know about your opinion :)

Don't Mess with the Zohan

Last night I watched an Adam Sandler's movie, "You Don't Mess with the Zohan".
I love comedies of Sandler.
They make me smile really tasty.
I like this kind of comedies, and as Sandler I like so much Ben Stiler's movies too.

If you want to have fun in a calm evening at home, follow my advice, You Don't Mess with the Zohan is the right movie.

Time to post again

I Opened this blog, with my friend puntino.
but after a lot of time I lost my good intentions.

Otherwise puntino (little dot in english loll), was really consistent and acutally he is working on his project.

I want come back posting in english again.

Stay tuned :)

Sweden - Immigration agreement for Greens and government

Published: 27 Mar 08 08:49 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/10728/

The Swedish government and the Green Party are to present a joint proposal on Thursday for new rules governing labour force immigration.

* Asylum system 'stuck in Stone Age' (25 Mar 08)
* The path to Swedish asylum: A smuggler speaks (19 Mar 08)
* UNHCR criticizes Sweden's Iraqi refugee policy (18 Mar 08)

Under the terms of the proposal, Sweden would not send anybody back to their homeland if they had managed to secure employment.

"This is the biggest reform of Swedish immigration policy for several decades," said Migration Minister Tobias Billström and Green Party group leader Mikaela Valtersson in a jointly penned article in Thursday's Dagens Nyheter.

If a job seeker outside the EU receives a concrete offer of work from a Swedish employer, this will in future be enough to secure permits for residency and employment.

The proposal also sets longer time limits for residence and work permits. The first permit will last two years. If the applicant still has work after this period, the permit will be extended by a further two years.

After four years, an applicant will be eligible for a permanent residence permit.

"From now on, no labour force immigrant will be forced to go home despite having work," said Billström and Valtersson.

The government and the Greens also want to make it easier for job seekers to attain visas to travel to Sweden for interviews.

Under the new regulations, an applicant who is offered employment will no longer have to return home to apply for permits to live and work in Sweden.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)



Source The Local.se

Episode IV: Learning a foreign language by Livemocha

We (me and my fellow Puntino) have talked yet about some communities useful for English Learning.

In this forth episode I wanna talk about LiveMocha.



LiveMocha it's a well organized community for language learning.
This site use an interactive way of practicing a foreign tongue, through a very smart method.

You can practice at the same time your skills in, reading, writing, listening, speaking.
For instance you can practice and traing your speaking abilities recording a short dialogue.
The other members of community are able to listen to it and send you some advice or simply correct mistakes you have done.

And all this not only for English but for other languages too! (French, Spanish and so on)

IMHO the best featurs of the mocha are three.

1) It is free (obviously :P)
2) It is very simple and useful
3) It is a cosmopolitan community.


So....see you around the mocha ;)

Agony and the Ecstasy (where are you going my beloved Italy)

Where are you going my beloved Italy?
Where are we going too???

I don't Know.



but may be somebody knows.
I want to point out to you two interesting articles publsighed on newsweek.
The first is "Agony and the Ecstasy" (stealed the title :P for my post).
The second is "Farawell, Dolcevita?".

I hope these two pieces of writing can help you to understand more a lot of Italy.

this is a quote from Agony and Ecstasy:

"Yet for all this, many Italians feel that the country still has the potential—the creativity amid the chaos—to make a magnificent comeback if only … what? "I believe a lot of people are asking themselves the same question I ask myself," says Pino Arlacchi, a former member of Parliament and senator, and a leader of the anti-mafia fight in the early 1990s: "Why have we not succeeded in turning the page in this country?"

See you ;)
p.s. let me know what do you think about it.

Aviator...where are you going?

Puntino, who had the idea of an english blog, went away.
He learned the basic of blogging by the master and now he had his own Blog.

Good Luck Puntino.

"May the Force be with you"

[YodaGun] LOL



And now? wich is the destiny of Aviator Over The Sea?
It will survive.
I Got new ideas and project for my english blog.



Stay tuned ;)

My last post

Hi guys

This is my last time that I post on this blog because the marriage between TopGun and me is over!
He is too possessive ! no I'm joking he is a great fiend who has led me in the Blog world and hosted my thoughts here.
From now on my window on the blog world will be Switching my mind and I hope whoever you are sometime you take a look at it.
Thank you again, Top!

Sincerely
Puntino

Leonardo da Vinci's Maxim

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. - Leonardo da Vinci"

Episode III: Learning a foreign language by Dave's ESL Cafè

By TopGun

In my first Year at University there was a good English teacher.
His name was Roy Boardman.

I liked his way to do.
He often used new media and innovative methods to teach English.
One of these was, obviously, online resources.

He gave us a list of links.
One of these was Dave's ESL Cafe.

Dave's ESL Cafè is "a meeting place for ESL teachers and students".
ESL means English as Second Language if you don't knew this.

It contains a lot of useful links, didactic materials,podcasts,forum links and a good frequented chatroom.
In Dave's ESL Cafè chatroom you can practice English with beginners as you are, and ask for help from ESL teachers.

There is only one thing to do.
Try it and let me know what you think about.



See you Fellows ;)

I thank guusebumps for his corrections.

An old board game...

By Puntino

I don't like playing cards very much, I don't know games like poker but only some easy ones I learnt when I was a child (in my childhood I used to play cards with my maternal grandfather).

This year, I played, after a very long time, an old board game called Hero Quest, it was like coming back to my past when I played it with my friends.

I found this kind of games appealing and a funny way of spending your free time, unfortunately now I haven't got any free time to spend on it.

I can't forget the pleasure of choosing your plastic miniature (dwarf, elf,..) with their eye catching shape, challenging the "game master" and the sound of rolling dices.
I think this kind of games are much better than playing alone against a stupid and motionless machine like a Pc. If a day I have some sons I will encourage them to play board games with real dices and touchable challengers. What do you think about?

Thank you Zsofia for her corrections

Dump? No, thank you

By Puntino

Napoli has been facing a dirty and demeaning situation since last summer, I'm speaking about the rubbish spread everywhere due to the dumps lack.
The emergency has become so strong that the European Commission has alerted Italian government to possible fines if Naples will not get out of its rubbish.
At the moment the Campania region government (whose Naples is the capital city) is looking for places where to build a temporal dump, and as you can imagine the people who live there refuse the building of any dump even for a short time, and I think they are right because we need an effective solution, we mustn't put it off anymore.
In the meanwhile the rubbish heaps grow day by day and the people frustrated by unbearable stench have got to torching the rubbish pile.

Who is responsible for this upset situation?

The mayor of Naples, Rosa Russo Iervolino, says I haven't the power to sort out this problem and pass the ball to her friend and region president Antonio Bassolino who has been saying nothing, Where is Antonio ?
I read some articles (mostly by BBC journalist) and no one of them mention the word criminal organization.
Behind all, there is the criminal organization's paw which, for a longer time , has taken over the rubbish collection system.
An example in Naples there was a dismissed petrol station whose fuel cisterns were completely
full of rubbish, it isn't a fantasy story.
I'm laughing and crying at the same time...In the rest of the world the people are discussing "the going in green"... what a shame

FireFox tools for our English

By Puntino

How many times have you made a spelling mistake?
It could be lots of times, after you posted your comments or wrote a mail and so on.
In this case, a tool provided by FireFox (FF) could be very useful: Dictionary
To add it to your FireFox, you have only to click on the world "install" of chosen dictionary and let FireFox install it, then you need to restart FireFox.
The dictionary checks the spelling of the words and when they are wrong written it suggests possible solutions (right click on the word and it will appear some possible correctrections , look at the picture below, I wrote "word" badly)
From now on your spelling mistakes will be fix for ever :)

Another utility that can help us, but has nothing to do with the spelling check, is Backwards, the developers state the following features:

*Translate an English word into French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Traditional or Simplified Chinese when mouse cursor hovers over it.
*With one click, remember all context of the word, such as URL of the page and the paragraph which the word belongs to.
*Get Pronunciation of the word with a flash.
*Write a note for the word.
*Search more explanation of the word with one click.
*Review all words and context collected on a build-in page.

I add that the translation function is a bit shallow but useful to get, just in time, the gist of the unknown word and it is easier to use, indeed you need only to place the pointer near the world that you desire to translate.
At the first use, you have to point out which language to put the English words in.

1. Go to Tool (FF' s tool bar)->Add-ons.
2. You'll find Backwards-> click on "option" button.
   
3. Choose the language in "Dictionary".
   

If it seems not to work you need to enable it, you should find a little grey cross in the right low corner of FF (take a look at the snapshot below), double click on it, the cross turn into green from that point on Backward is enabled but sometime it could disable on its own and you need to click on the cross again, instead by turning the cross from green into grey you can disable it when, for example, it's annoying you .

Backwords has a helpful feature that allows the user to make a note of the meaning of the word and check it in the future, you have just to click on, respectively, the red cross and the "B" letter that appear when you place the pointer near the word.

That's all

Merry Christmas

Dear readers,

Christmas is coming up, Santa Claus is preparing gifts for everyone and like Paul McCarty says:
we'd just like to wish everything you wish yourself for Christmas

TopGun&Puntino

For the series "Delicacies from Naples", now on air : Struffoli !

By Puntino

Last time I spoke about Baba, which I called the "King of the sweets" now I'm going to write about the little princes of the sweets, Struffoli.
They are homemade sweets cooked only at Christmas time and their recipe is easy and needs few ingredients: eggs, honey, flour, strong liquor (e.g. limoncello).
After making the dough, you shape it in little balls which will be fried.
At the end of the process you'll get little gold tasty balls that you'll wet with hot honey and dust with colored confectioners' sugar.

The rumor says that their origins are Greek and their name means "cut as little balls".
Listen to me, after you pick the first Struffolo, you will not be able to stop eating them and sooner or later you'll pick another one, another one yet and so on.... your fingers will be covered with honey and you take pleasure in licking them...I love them

Thank Zsofia for correcting me

My little Presepio

By Puntino

We start decorating the inside of our houses on December 8th with the Christmas tree and objects with Christmas motives, but for us, I mean the people of Naples, it's very important to
show in our houses the Presepio (Christmas nativity).

Naples is very famous for its long Presepio manufacture tradition, we have an area in the city centre, called S.Gregorio Armeno, dedicated to the developing of the Presepios, there you can see and buy every kind of Presepios you want, little, big, with lights, with an artificial river with classic and new characters...
Some people, here, who are good at shaping woods, make their Presepio on their own.
When I was a child, helped by my father, I made some marvellous Presepios that I rebuilt from the beginning every year .
This year, my father had a very original idea... He developed a small and nice Presepio into a coconut skin which symbolizes only the holy family, the nativity, look at the photo, he added a little light into the coconut too!!.
So you can understand how creative the people are here.

Which Friends Character Are You?

Which Friends Character Are You?
	You are part Ross. You're intelligent and adored by your parents. However, your lack of social skills causes you to talk too much and try too hard. While your friends pick on you for your nerdiness, they better watch our for your rage.
	You are part Chandler. You're funny and that's why people like to have you around. You're also a great friend, and when someone you care about is in trouble, they know to come to you for some level-headed advice followed by some sharp sarcasm.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

The Monthy Phyton: The Meaning of life

By Puntino

Yesterday I watched a movie in English (with subtitles) called "The meaning of life" by Monthy
Phyton. I discovered them thanks to Grazia's me&Dublin blog, who posted their short scene in her blog so I got curious and I wanted to watch at least one of their movies.

The meaning of life is a funny and sarcastic movie, which tends to explain, as its name suggests,
the meaning of life through short musicals, satirical and comic scenes.

The movie, divided into six parts, tells the life cycle of the man, from his birth to the death, while different characters take part, some of them are funny others encourage you to reflect about the life with sharp gags.

Honestly before I watched them I was afraid to face a movie seasoned with the "English humor" that for us is hard to understand and doesn't make us laugh very much, but scene by scene I was surprised how enjoyable the movie was.

I can't explain what sort of movie it belongs to, because it's a mixture of different genres and I'm not an expert.

I also think it is a useful movie to improve your English skills because the actors don't always speak quickly and sometimes there are short pauses among the gags which allow you to take a
breath and understand the meaning of the gags, a short sample....

My thanks to Zsofia for corrections

Italian Television vs Swedish Television

I like to surf around the web.
I love it!

One of these days I found an interesting blog, Stellan Kinberg.
It is an interesting blog.

Stellan lived for many years in Italy and now he has this fantastic blog about Italy, seen from the point of view of an Italian\Swedish person.

Surfing this blog I found out an interesting post about a show broadcasted on Swedish Televison, Solens mat.
I don't know what Solens mat means in Swedish but I love that program.

Central themes of this program are Italian food and Italian cooking.
A journey in the Italian traditions across traditional small Italian "comuni".
Solens mat leads us through marvellous countryside showing the real Italian tradition.
A time travel in the history and in the present too.

You can watch Solens mat online.
it is simple bcause the 90% of the dialogues are in Italian with Swedish subtitles.


I hope you like it. I like it so much. Solens mat lets me know how much Swedish people love Italy and Italian tradition.
I'm really proud of that.
(I hope Swedish are proud of my love for Sweden too :p).

Why "Rai" ,the Italian Television, doesn't produce a show about Sweden???

Enjoy.

Thanks to Bondola for supervision