It’s such an annoying habit. The moment the government of the day feels that it is losing the PR plot somebody in the communications department rushes to the file cabinet marked “Red Herrings” and pulls out the thickest file of them all. “Bridge to Gozo” has all...
Bang! Bang! Democrac...
posted by Jacques René Zammit
Two shots. It could take two reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, illegal shots to finally get the people to “wake up and smell the coffee”. It might. There’s no telling really how willing an electorate can be to allow the fundamental tenets of a democracy to shatter before...
By Appointment
posted by Jacques René Zammit
I was asked recently to give my two cents’ worth for an article being prepared by a MaltaToday journalist. He was looking into the recent history of KSU and more particularly the trend of ex-KSU council members becoming politicians (even more particularly Nationalist politicians). Was...
Ġej budget li ma jit...
posted by Jacques René Zammit
Difficli li timmaġina li dan il-baġit ikun wieħed li jitwemmen. Difficli, biex niftehmu, li jkun xi baġit fantastiku. Roħs ta’ prezzijiet u taxxi. Jekk jgħidulek li se jseħħu wisq probabbli tkun int l-ewwel wieħed li jgħajjat “Ħożż fl-ilma”. Kumpens għall-għoli...
The Merry Wives of C...
posted by Jacques René Zammit
Con Artistry Just before I graduated from the law course and set off to the College of Europe to harden my bones and extend my experience in the arcane arts of European Law I finally managed to get linked to a law firm. Such link included a promise of employment, particularly a promise of...
The Twits
posted by Jacques René Zammit
Somewhat grandly they’re calling it “guerilla tweeting”. It was yet another inevitable corollary of the immediacy of social media. We had observed the clumsy manner with which the political parties adopted “the internet” and had witnessed how hard they tried to...
Labour’s Bulls...
posted by Jacques René Zammit
There’s no two ways about it. The only quirk in the Grand Theory of Labour’s Bullshit Factory is that Muscat seems to be resiliently surviving in the popularity stakes. The people still hang on to whatever fairy dust he can throw at them – and from the looks of it there is...
Sino-Maltese
posted by Jacques René Zammit
Sino- is a prefix that we get from Latin, Arabic and Sanskrit. In all three of these classical languages it refers to the land of the rising sun. In Latin they were referred to as Sinae, the Arabs call them Al-Sin and for the Sanskrit it is Cina. The prefix was quite the vogue in the cold war...
Thank you India
posted by Jacques René Zammit
Traffic on this site is low. The main reason is simple. We have not been blogging too often lately. It’s not that there is nothing to blog about. It’s just that the insanabile cacoethes scribendi has subsided for a while. No harm in that. We aten’t dead though and trust...
Quod non fecerunt
posted by Jacques René Zammit
MaltaToday carries a story about how 1 million euros of EU funds are being allocated for the “restoration of the prime minister’s residence”. As is done these days the press got the information from the horse’s mouth i.e. the non-constitutional role of Prime...
Kliem il-Fieragħ
posted by Jacques René Zammit
“Mhux fjer. Korrotti. Ħbieb tal-Ħbieb. Issa jmiss lilna. Issa daqshekk. Roadmap. Tagħna lkoll. Gvern ta’ Kullħadd. Għal kullħadd. Tagħna lkoll. Neħilsu iċ-ċittadin mil-jasar u mit-tgħakkis tal-kontijiet. Tagħna lkoll. Tagħna lkoll.” Xi krexxendo sabiħ. Ifjen mill-oħla...
Democracy Everywhere
posted by Jacques René Zammit
Joseph Muscat’s positively progressive band of meritocratic men announce the scrapping of Local Council Elections as a cost cutting exercise and practically nobody other than the opposition bats an eyelid. Ah but the opposition is negative isn’t it? And we need to save money...