There are 2 similar hand gestures.

[El Supremo]

Sorry if this has been covered before - things are posted pretty fast here.

The one Scalia claims he was doing is this:


Me ne frego.
English translation: I don't give a damn.
http://italian.about.com/library/nosearch/blgestures026.htm

The finger goes back and forth.

It appears to me that he was moving all his fingers. It is the obscene gesture if it was done in one motion like he was shoving a lugie out of his throat.

Say, what does flicking your teeth with your thumb mean? Sofia Loren used to do that in movies.

And it looks like we need a new smiley!

[bullimiami]

1. scalia is a liar. like his buddy georgie.

[mainegreen]

2. "Sir, do you bite your thumb at me?"

Yes sir, I do.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. What Scalia did usually means "Go to hell"

My knowledge is from being a 2nd generation Italian-American and my trips to Rome.

On edit: What he SAID was "Fuck you". The gesture is "go to hell". The guy's an asshat in any language though.

[C_U_L8R]

7. It appears that Tony "Go Fuck Yourself" Scalia

and Dick "Go Fuck Yourself" Cheney
have more in common than just Quail Hunting

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

9. They both have PhDs in "Asshole"

Little known fact. :D

[montanacowboy]

4. It is a gesture of

anger vented towards a person you have much disdain for

[Tyler Durden]

5. What horseshit.

He defined it himself. He used the term "Vafanculo." That defines the gesture as the obscene one.

[Warpy]

6. He SAID that???

OK, now I know something is going on with his mental health.

He'd never have done that even 5 years ago, no matter how he hated Clinton.

He's getting more and more disinhibited. Something serious is going on.

[Tyler Durden]

10. This is from the other thread:

Photographer: Herald got it right
By Marie Szaniszlo
Thursday, March 30, 2006 - Updated: 09:39 AM EST

Amid a growing national controversy about the gesture U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made Sunday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the freelance photographer who captured the moment has come forward with the picture. “It’s inaccurate and deceptive of him to say there was no vulgarity in the moment,” said Peter Smith, the Boston University assistant photojournalism professor who made the shot.

Despite Scalia’s insistence that the Sicilian gesture was not offensive and had been incorrectly characterized by the Herald as obscene, the photographer said the newspaper “got the story right.” Smith said the jurist “immediately knew he’d made a mistake, and said, ‘You’re not going to print that, are you?’ ”

Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship. “The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.

The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.” ....

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?arti...

[rman]

11. Same guy that said people should participate in sex orgies

because it relieves stress.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. Yes.

Cecil Adams defined that term in "The Straight Dope" Volume 2 (I think), and what it meant was definately obscene. When I read that Scalia said that word, I knew the gesture was meant to be obscene as well.

[AndyA]

12. Any provision for removing a sitting Justice for mental illness?

What is the process?

Let me guess...the House has to initiate something, right?

Or worse, the President must do it.

What if everyone in charge is mentally ill? :o

[El Supremo]

13. I believe that it is the same as removing the President.

impeachment in the House, conviction in the Senate. But that would mean Roberts sitting as judge.