Francesco Schettino, the Italian cruise ship captain who caroused with his passengers before steering his ship dangerously close to shore and then fleeing immediately when it ran aground and capsized, leaving 11 (at last count) to die and thousands to flail in terror, sounds like a real go-getter. Here is a tape of an Italian Coast Guard official ordering Schettino, who was speaking by phone from a lifeboat, to get back aboard and help evacuate the women and children who were still on his boat. He said no.

The cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized over the weekend, just off the coast of the Italian island of Giglio, killing at least six and terrifying the ship's 4,200 passengers. (All but 15 have been accounted for.) It sounds unbelievably horrifying. But also sort of funny.

For a country led into ruin by a fuckhappy Oompa Loompa, Italy has its fair share of hangups when it comes to sex. One such instance is currently splashed across that country's headlines, for the way that it led to a Gypsy shanty town being burned to the ground.

Respected economist Mario Monti has been asked by Italy's president to form a new government. We'd point out that "respected technocrats" were the guys who got Europe into this mess in the first place, but, shit, anyone's better than Berlusconi.

The Bunga Bunga Era is over. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned as expected this afternoon, bringing to a close 17 years of his wacky, corrupt, and deeply embarrassing domination of Italian politics. Arrivederci, asshole!

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the man who's kept his job despite constant sex scandals, sex trials, and other criminal charges over the last couple of years, appears to have finally been ousted by the only people who matter in this world: creditors.

Uh-oh: The name of Italian prime minister and oversexed jack-o-lantern Silvio Berlusconi shows up in the U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons 2011 report. Can you guess why? If you said, "Hmmmm, well I bet it's because he had illegal relations with that Moroccan 17-year-old dancer, Karima El Mahroug, at his haunted villa of horrors," then reward yourself with a handful of delectable Mellowcreme pumpkins, because you are right.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world marched on dozens of cities on Saturday, joining the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations against greed, inequality and everything else that's screwed up right now.

There is much hatred for the eight guidos on Jersey Shore, the most important sociological experiment of our time, but even people who love the guidos and even the guidos themselves hate The Situation. He is the black sheep of the black sheep, and he will be his own destruction.

The latest issue of the Italian gossipy mag Oggi features a cover story on Amanda Knox and her acquittal on stab-murder charges last Monday, plus a free set of knives and a pizza cutter. Clever.

Probably no one has ever been happier to see Seattle than Amanda Knox was this when she touched down at Tacoma this evening, a day after having her murder conviction overturned in Italy.

In their haste to get a story about the Amanda Knox verdict up, British tabloid the Daily Mail accidentally announced Knox's appeal rejected. Knox was actually exonerated, and will soon be released. From the Mail's florid fictional article about Knox's guilt, which we assume they pre-wrote:

Amanda Knox's study abroad from hell is over. Today an Italian appeals court overturned the American co-ed's conviction for the sexually-motivated 2007 murder of roommate Meredith Kercher. After four years in detention, the woman known to the international press as Foxy Knoxy will be "immediately released."

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may be a corrupt misogynist who's largely succeeded at turning his country into an international joke—but don't let anyone say he doesn't have stamina in the bedroom!

Now that we've taken the eight guidos from Jersey Shore, the most important sociological experiment of our time, out of their natural habitat, they deserve a vacation! At the Italian shore a strange love develops, and then there is an accident. Guidos in peril!

Eight people have been charged in Italy for allegedly supplying tangerine sex machine PM Silvio Berlusconi and his associates with prostitutes for his legendary "bunga bunga" parties. Berlusconi has not been charged in this case. [BBC]

Jaundiced grifter-king Silvio Berlusconi was secretly recorded by police in July telling a business associate that "I'm leaving this shitty country of which I'm sickened." That would be his own country, Italy! Hard to blame him. If Silvio Berlusconi were our prime minister, we'd want out, too.

Is there any kind of crime better than the crime you can imagine being committed by a good-looking and diverse team of criminals cracking stilted jokes on, say, USA or TNT? No, there is not! And so it is with the "Sleeping Gas Bandits":

Anthony Weiner and improbably patient wife Huma Abedin are on an "Italian babymoon," which is when you take time off work to hang out atop an Italian baby's butt. Haha, just kidding, it's when you celebrate the fact that your wife is five months pregnant and still married to you, even though you are a exhibitionist idiot who has showed his penis to half of the planet while she was carrying your first child in her womb. By going to Italy.

A group of Franciscan monks are furious over two recent thefts of rare and expensive bibles from the lectern of their 15th century church in Florence, Italy. So they took action, pinning up a note for their congregation in which they expressed hope that the thief would see the error in his ways and return the bibles. Should he not, however, they added: