Unlike one particular EU commissioner, who morphs into “Cittadin Malti” as he sees fit:

http://loubondi.blogspot.com/2011/11/hello-john-cittadin-dalli.html#more

Well said, Lou!

Baxxter, next major invention from Apple: i-pussy, a relaxation gadget.
Try throwing in some Botox with Alphaville.

– Thom Yorke

Top o’ the evening! Waiting for that crucial vote in parliament ;) Jitters!!!! Lol! Trying to relax with my ipod. Alphaville – Forever young :)))))))))

Out of respect to this other “Martin” – whoever he is – I have never drawn any cartoons – crude or otherwise – in my life.

Yes, the judges have to act within the constraints laid down by the law, but if the law is inadequate, then who is responsible for fixing it?

I think you’re missing the point if you view this case as being about a specific driver and a specific incident.

If we can’t have confidence in the judicial system, then how can we have confidence in the government that should be legislating it?

[Daphne – Please know that it is not government which legislates, but PARLIAMENT. It is not as though you haven’t seen this demonstrated in spectacular fashion earlier this year.]

Having grown up in the 1980s, I’m one of the last people who want to see a Labour government return to power, but we do have to rein in what we’ve got.

The sad story of these poor twins would read like a comedy of errors if it weren’t so tragic.

According to reports I read, the driver was not even charged with reckless driving — why not?

[Daphne – Have you read the law? I haven’t. There might not be a specific crime called ‘reckless driving’. ]

Who is responsible for this police failure?

And who is responsible for policing the police and investigating if that was a result of incompetence or intentional wrongdoing?

Why was the driver released early on good behavior after he apparently tried to have drugs smuggled into prison and even set fire to his cell?

[Daphne – Do we know this for a fact, or is it just gossip? Excuse my scepticism, but given the fact that I am supposed to be a transsexual lesbian witch who lives off corrupt favours from the government while having affairs with men and being married to a gay man with sons who traffick in Class A drugs, I rarely believe anything that is said of others.]

Why are heads not rolling? I’m not looking to you for news, Daphne, but for more of the investigative journalism you excel at.

Leave the Sunday afternoon gossip to the Perez Hiltons (yes, Perez, not Paris) of this world.

[Daphne – Yes, I do know who Perez Hilton is. I also know that Perez Hilton does not discuss politicians. What politicians do is far more relevant than what 20-year-old men do, unless those 20-year-old men pick up a sub-machine gun and mow down many people in a shopping mall or on campus. I like to keep a sense of perspective.]

The twins’ accident case is every bit as important as JPO’s antics because it is symptomatic of a government that has either stagnated or, worse, one that is corrupt.

[Daphne – I cannot for the life of me imagine how you connect the two. So forgive me if I do not share your concern. Maybe I have lived a rather less sheltered life than you might have done, but even cursorily looking back over that life right now, I can think of several people I knew or knew of who died or almost died because of reckless driving, and the people who killed them or almost killed them didn’t even go to jail. I was one of them as it happened. I was almost killed in 1984, aged 19, by a government minister’s driver who – in a panic because he was late for a meeting – sped down Spencer Hill in Marsa and rammed my car at the roundabout at the bottom, flinging it into the wall built around the coal storage depot. Did I blame the government at the time for the fact that he didn’t go to jail? No, of course not – even though I hated that government and he was a minister’s driver. I actually felt sorry for the man, he was so distraught at the thought that he could have killed me. Imagine that, no Daphne.]

The difference is that the Prime Minsiter actually can do a lot to fix the injustices within the judicial system, and he can ask the Ombudsman to investigating police incompetence and look into questionable rulings by the judiciary.

On the other hand, what can Gonzi do with JPO?

Try to impeach him, assuming there are grounds to do so?

I’d say that would be too risky.

Have him declared mentally unstable so that his seat can be reassigned?

Again, not a simple as it sounds.

I completely agree with you that JPO is a major problem, but I think Gonzi’s hands are tied precisely because of the one-seat majority, and his best option is probably to ride it out and hope everything holds together until the next election.

[Daphne – Possibly, yes. But I also think he should slam his foot down and show some anger, for the sake of those of us out here if for no other reason. I don’t know about you, but I feel now exactly as I do when I watch those scenes you sometimes see in public: some child flinging itself about and screaming and sulking while the parent goes ‘But hon, what do you want? Come, I’ll buy you a nice toy. U ejja, please, stop it. Do you want this? Shall I give you that?’ It makes you angry at the parent, as well as angry at the child.]

And to conclude, the economic crisis is indeed a big issue. Even when you consider that in the grand scheme of things Malta is but a cork bobbing on the ocean, there is a lot that the government can do better, starting from cutting waste and making a much more prudent use of public money.

Let’s have more discussion about that by all means, but let’s also put pressure on those responsible for fixing those other important issues that are completely within our control.

I’m not just looking at you, Daphne.

While all this is going down and the whole of the western world is up in arms demanding government reform, the so-called Maltese ‘activists’ are busy protesting about what?

The blessed Arriva bus service. Enough said!

[Daphne – Oh, we agree wholeheartedly on that one, at least.]

Martin, your own fun consists in drawing crude anti-PN “cartoons”, as you call them.

Ever heard of Irish coffee?