[berlusconi] totally innocent of all charges

That symbol, also at Milan station - a serpent spewing forth a new child or a serpent swallowing a child? I'm not absolutely certain. Silvio, of course, is unaware that this symbol is marked on his front lawn. Understandable, really.

What the?!*&^!

Gianfranco Fini, the parliamentary Speaker and one of the most senior figures in Mr Berlusconi's People of Freedom coalition, said there was "a risk that citizens could lose faith in politics and government institutions, which are the foundations of democracy," as a result of the scandal.

Oh, that's just beautiful. Silvio is no sleazebag, he's no way one of the most highly placed lieutenants of the real power which runs Europe and America - no, he's a total innocent.

Miss D'Addario et al never happened and anyway, they're nothing to what came before.

Berlusconi, Alexander Stille writes, "said a host of things that were almost childish in their transparent falsehood ... but he said them with such genuine-seeming passion that I actually began to doubt whether two and two still equaled four."

His comment on judges who dared, in 2003, to oppose his ad personam legislation to protect himself from retrospective charges was that judges are "mentally disturbed" and "anthropologically different from the rest of the human race".

He claimed he was misquoted and that it was a joke. As this is a joke:

In 1998, Mr Berlusconi was formally investigated on suspicion of commissioning the murders of two anti-Mafia judges, based on the testimony of a Mafia informant. However, no case was brought. That proves he is a total innocent.

In the 80s, it became public that the "gardener" at his Arcore estate in Milan was Vittorio Mangano, a powerful mafioso from Porta Nuova. Mangano was described by anti-mafia investigators as "one of those personalities who acted as a bridgehead for the Mafia in northern Italy". Silvio knew nothing of this.

P2

P2 was sometimes referred to as a "state within a state" or a "shadow government". The lodge was peopled by prominent journalists, parliamentarians, industrialists, and military leaders -- including the then-future Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi; the Savoy pretender to the Italian throne Victor Emmanuel; and the heads of all three Italian intelligence services.

When searching Licio Gelli's villa, the police found a document called the "Plan for Democratic Rebirth", which called for a consolidation of the media, suppression of trade unions, and the rewriting of the Italian Constitution.

As is happening now, of course.

The murder of Calvi was ritualistic according to the listed punishment of a certain organization. Leaving that aside, perhaps Silvio would care to explain why the name of his adviser was mentioned by Chief Superintendent Chiara Giancomantonio, while she was investigating missing children who'd been brought into Italian sweat shops? What's his theory on where these children ended up?

No matter. Maybe he could enlighten us on Alessandra Borghese's remarkable rediscovery of Catholicism, the Borgheses being the head of the Black Nobility?

Well, all right, perhaps not. Silvio one of the occult line? Never! Flight of fancy.
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