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8 years of J’accuse

This year’s blogging anniversary for J’accuse was lost amidst the chaos and confusion of a General Election. On the 10th of March 2013, J’accuse turned eight. Eight years of constant blogging have not only been a gratifying experience (for myself of course) but also an enriching one. This blog has evolved over time as has its readership. The advent of social media has meant that the blog becomes a tool for more specific – longer – reflections than the immediacy of Facebook or Twitter. J’accuse survives all the same.

With the 8th anniversary comes an important announcement. For the last few months J’accuse has transformed into a purely political blog and become less of cyclopaedic blog that comments upon everything. Furthermore, this has been the first campaign in which J’accuse openly backed one of the running horses – AD – as I felt that this would be completely in line with the editorial policy and beliefs of this blog.

The political side of this blog will no longer be a predominant factor however. The main reason is that over the last few months those to whom I am answerable by way of employment have frequently voiced their worry that my political opinions be associated with themselves – something to which they do not take too kindly. I stress that this is an opinion of theirs which I do not share but which I cannot ignore both out of respect as well as out of exigencies at the workplace. There is no doubt that “guilt by association” is very much alive in Maltese politics (and in the observation thereof) and that my continuing to voice my political opinion would risk the very consequences of such an association being perpetrated much to the chagrin of my immediate work superiors.

It is therefore with a heavy heart that I have agreed not to continue blogging about Maltese politics in this space. I would like to stress that everything that has been written up until this very post – from the very first post on the 10th March 2005 – is my opinion and my opinion only (for which I assume full responsibility) unless otherwise stated explicitly. Nothing contained in this blog should ever have been, or be, construed as reflecting the opinion of any individual, organisation, institution or party other than myself.

J’accuse will continue existing as a blog upon everything – pointing out the idiosyncrasies of life as an expat and observing life in Malta from a distance. Blogging is a vice as much as it is a pleasure. I sincerely hope that you continue to enjoy the posts from this blog at least with a fraction of the pleasure that I derive writing them.

Thank you so much for being with this blog until this point. Till the next post…  comment and be damned.

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We were wrong.

This wouldn’t be a serious blog if I was unable to admit to being wrong whenever necessary (and whenever it proves to be so). A few days ago I blogged about the extra-territorial application of criminal law and in particular about what would be my interpretation of the combined articles 5(1)(d) and 241(1) and (2) of Malta’s criminal code. I could blame “the ravages of time” or my lack of attention during the lectures given by Prof. De Marco but that would just be me pussyfooting. I could also obliterate the blog post in question as though it never was but our blog is made of more serious stuff than that isn’t it? I should have read the articles in question more carefully and I would not have committed such a simple error. So here is the explanation:

A foreign doctor intervening on a pregnant Maltese woman on a foreign territory so as to terminate her pregnancy IS NOT CRIMINALLY LIABLE under Maltese law. The reason is that a thorough reading of article 5(1)(d) gives you the indisputable fact that for a crime to subsist it would have to be committed BY A MALTESE NATIONAL (or permanent resident) ON ANOTHER MALTESE NATIONAL (or permanent resident). Essentially the crime would only exist abroad if both doctor AND patient are Maltese.

I hope that it is clear and regret any inconvenience that my interpretation might have caused. Incidentally this new (and correct) interpretation does not change for one iota my assessment of the duplicity of Gift of Life -style activists who are quite content with the containment of our anti-feminist laws within the jurisdiction of our country.

 

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Kangoo


One for the Letzeburg residents. I thought of using J’accuse to plug the better half’s more productive hobby/passion. For more information go to the site: www.kangoo.lu . I’ve tried the boots and believe you me… it’s fun (though too much exercise for the likes of couch potato/FIFA12 me). If you’re not in Luxembourg and would love to try the boots… well, that’s tough.

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The J’accuse Wedding Break

J’accuse is finally tying the knot and it’s seven days to W-day. I’ve dragged this announcement long enough in the hope that I might throw in a few more posts before the final rush and hustle and bustle. The last week will involve an incredibly full schedule and the week after the wedding will (obviously) involve a deserved rest and chill out. Which means that you are being served with an “out of office” notice by J’accuse while we are away tying knots. We will probably be back on the 15th November with the J’accuse column on the Malta Independent resuming on the 20th.

For those who follow us on tumblr there might be a few photographic surprises or one word reflections every now and then. (n case you never noticed our tumblr posts also appear at the bottom of the J’accuse main page. We’re also on twitter of course: @jacqueszammit

So please bear with us for the longest pause in J’accuse blogging yet. It’s for a good cause…

 
Here’s a bit of a marriage story for Halloween… (I’ll change this midweek don’t worry)

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Closed for Bachelors

I’m off to Bologna this weekend. I’m supposed to be looking forward to a weekend of drunken excess since I will be “celebrating” my bachelor’s party. The thing is I’ve never been an enthusiastic participant at this kind of event – I’m more like the wet blanket at such occasions. Most times I end up man marking the more excessive and crazy members of the crowd trying to ensure that no physical harm is done.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m the first in line for practical jokes and love a good laugh when the prank is well thought out. It’s just that the wankellectual snob doesn’t relate to the primitive idea of stripping, strapping and throwing up that seems to be the sum total of a bachelor party activity on the island. Give me a “Zingarata” any day… but hell, how do you explain the Monicelli concept in this day and age?

So yep, I am off, packing my bags for the city of three T’s (that’s apparently Tits, Towers and Tortellini). Given that my level of alcohol resistance is that of a three year old thanks to my having switched to tea or diet coke as beverages of choice you may very well hear of a Maltese national having been arrested in Bologna after being discovered trawling the streets naked covered in whatever inventive substance passes as fun at a bachelors these days.

Still. The good thing is that the intercettati will be passing through Bologna on Saturday night. With a bit of luck (make that a lot in my case) I might witness the face of the disappointed intercettato fan first hand. Forza Bologna! Forza Di Vaio!

Back on Monday! (fingers crossed)

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Hack, Hacker, Hacked

While I was busy posting about hacks yesterday (De Moribus Viator) J’accuse (the blog) was being mightily rogered by some mini-genius hacker. That shot most of the afternoon for me trying to understand why the hell any outside links to J’accuse were being redirected to some weird site with a .ru appendage. I say for me but what I really mean is for me and a number of very friendly co-bloggers and savvy acquaintances who wracked their collective brains to solve this mysterious problem. We could come up with some conspiracy theory and claim that some underground movement of J’accuse haters planned to block access to the site. We could, but we already know what measures are taken by those who find J’accuse’s sting too hard to digest – besides it would be attributing too much net savviness to them for our liking.

Instead we discovered eventually that the hack was in the form of some script that plants itself onto your site (expressly a wordpress run site) following the installation or update of templates that have been purchases. It’s a smart little bit of program that (from what I understand) suddenly plonks itself on the receiving end of your site and redirects traffic to some weird destination registered in Russka. J’accuse would like to thank SL, MB and RV for their kind attention and attempts (finally successful) to solve the frustrating issue.

So if you tried clicking on J’accuse links yesterday (particularly from Facebook) and failed to reach the hallowed ground of this blog you now have the reason why. We would also like to reassure readers that no viruses or other similar devious contraptions could have been caught by clicking on links. At most your click will have taken you on a virtual trip to Russia and who knows were else… and denied you the daily dose of quality blogging.

Merci.