Jose Herrera – above the law (and he wants to be made Justice Minister)
I have just received this email with the attached photograph. To the email, I must append a caveat: Herrera’s reserved parking space in front of the family home is entirely justified as one of his children is disabled.
Jose Herrera’s car is regularly parked on double yellow lines on the corner of Hal Bordi Street, Lija, but usually it doesn’t remain there more than say half a day.
This time however, it’s been parked there since last Saturday while the reserved parking space in front of his house is used for his wife’s car.
That’s 4.5 days not only parked illegally but in a way that creates potential danger to drivers. It was still there when I last looked an hour ago.
Anyone driving up Hal Bordi Street can never know whether another car is coming from the opposite direction and has to pull out towards the middle of the road to go round Herrera’s car.
I’m sure that if this had been anybody else’s car it would have been clamped or towed within an hour but of course it’s Herrera so he can do it anytime.
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Don’t you become minister exactly for that kind of thing – being above the law? Nice place to be in.
“Now we have the papacy, let us enjoy it”.(Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici, Pope 1513- 1521)
“The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.” (Machiavelli)
This shows clearly, for those who want to see, that minister Herrera is not one of those who pushes his weight around.
All he has to do is order another reserved space to be added to the one he already has.
The one he already has is to be used for his wife when taking out their children.
The other one is his due as a minister.
Seems it has been some time since you came over to Sliema.
We have reserved spaces for some who have been dead for some time, and for persons who are living in care homes.
Silvio, then it is up to you to report these abuses to the local council. Stop finding excuses for wrong doings. The council is very stringent in issuing these forms of permits and they are very vigilant with respect to obstruction of public places and of making sure that parking is respected. And, yes, I live in Sliema.
I have had enough with this Maltese gem gem. Constantly grumbling about problems behind everyone’s back and not taking any initiative whatsoever.
And no, this case is not an example of Herrera not being one of those who throws his weight around. In normal countries, people obey the law. Period.
Wrong doing by people occupying important posts get reported in the paper and normally people in charge issue apologies.
Silvio, you always come up with something near to logical, but there is always something even more logical which can be done. Try harder.
To see the FA playing the petty xenophobia card in these day and age, while anti-immigrant rhetoric is blasted out of the mainstream media on a daily basis, is hardly surprising.
The government and many of the opposition parties to boot have been laying the groundwork of mistrust and suspicion for the last few years.
The FA can push the idea that English football is some sort of delicate native species, likely to be destroyed by interbreeding with horrible alien football styles.
In a country where an education minister can talk with a straight face about a need to promote ‘British Values’ and not be laughed at and fired, the idea that ‘English football’ is a thing, a thing that must be nurtured and protected, can look almost normal.
http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/06/whos-blame-englands-failure-world-cup-theres-only-one-answer
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140625/local/new-policy-aims-at-encouraging-breastfeeding.524994
If , God forbid, men instead of women had to have babies, not only would the Homo Sapiens species be facing extinction but free formula milk would be provided in all households and places of work to feed those few babies that make it to the world ,And we would be spared this yearly nonsensical national drive about the benefits of breast feeding..
Are you suggesting that there is no benefit to breast feeding? If so, that’s categorically wrong. Wherever possible breast feeding should be preferred to formula. I could point you to the mountain of evidence, but perhaps you should listen to the breast feeding drive.
[Daphne – The mountain of evidence is skewed. There are no control mechanisms because you cannot rear the same baby twice, once on breast-milk and once on formula, so you can’t possibly have any idea of the difference it would have made to the individual. The ‘breast-feeding drive’ is Stalinist propaganda and yet another attempt at controlling women through one of the few means now possible. Take me, for instance (so as not to mention others). I was a Cow & Gate baby: big (in terms of height and long limbs, certainly not fat), strong and glowing. I was the tallest child in the classroom from the age of 4 to the age of 15, when I left. I was in the top percentile in terms of grades. I rarely got ill and still rarely do. Even when I weighed 55 kilos and was skinny-skinny, I had the strength of an ox and still do. Are you telling me that if I had been breast-fed for two years I would have been six feet tall, with the physical strength of Hercules and now working for NASA? I don’t think so. Breast-feeding really doesn’t make a difference when you live in the first world. And formula milk is probably even better now than it was in 1964/1965.]
I too was fed Cow and Gate as a 60s baby. At 50, I am very healthy, strong and rarely get sick.
It doesn’t make a difference whether one opts for breast milk or formula.
I breast-fed my son for a long time. I did this out of choice. It was cheap and conveniently always available. However, this did not have any effect on his health and growth. Breast milk does not reduce the risk of allergies, diabetes etc.
My son suffers from all the allergies on this earth, from asthma, hay fever and eczema, and has done so since the age of eight months. He is of average weight and height and gets sick like any other child.
Therefore breast feeding or not, it’s just a matter of choice and nothing else.
Hear, hear Ms DCG.
The breast-is-best myth is misogynist propaganda aimed at keeping women chained to the kitchen sink and away from the boardroom. If men had to breast-feed, bottle-feeding would have been elevated to human-right status in the Bill of Human Rights aeons ago.
Well said, Daphne. Thank you!
Kudos, as practical an answer as ever.
Men are probably more vociferous about the benefits of breast feeding (and, when it comes to that, the ills of abortion) than women.
They are getting more arrogant day by day and the people still do not complain for fear of losing a job opportunity, or any other perks that the PL government is dishing out paid by of course the Maltese taxpayer. Carry on stooges.
Don’t you think these proposals are slightly invasive and rather fascist to say the least? Mothers are now being forced (encouraged) to breasts feed for up to 2 years? Low income families not given free formula? What if she simply cannot or doesn’t want to?
Where has the freedom over our bodies gone?
http://www.independent.com.mt/mobile/2014-06-25/news/breastfeeding-should-become-the-norm-fearne-5613649920/
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-06-25/news/presidents-foundation-for-the-good-of-society-launched-5614895104/#prettyPhoto
‘…The Foundation will be incorporating four entities within it, namely l-Istitut Nazzjonali għat-Tfulija, ċ-Ċentru għar-Riċerka fuq il-Familja, l-Osservatorju għall-Għixien Xieraq u ċ-Ċentru għall-Ħelsien mill-Vizzji….’
Where’s Baxxter?
Here. Seething.
Is the President trying to create a parallel government or what?
And what exactly can former presidents and prime minister bring to this bloated organisation? Their anecdotes about butlers, extensive grounds and swimming pools at the various official residences?
To hell with foundations. We have far too bloody many already.
I suppose Andrew Azzopardi’s already ordered new visiting cards.
Don’t get me started on HIM.
Forgot that one.
Yes, and Xarabank becomes San Anton TV.
Bad enough having to endure minimalistic Shakespeare last year, the set was one row of lightbulbs, but this year’s Merchant of Venice may be prohibited on ideological grounds.
All that silk, tsk. hela hux?
“Is the President trying to create a parallel government or what?”
Baxxter, this is precisely what I thought when I heard this news on PBS today. I thought “Wow, the president has formed her own government.”
Apparently she was denied the opportunity to take the Ministry for Social Policy to the Palace, because of some technicality in the constitution, so instead she formed her own government.
Isn’t this a coup?
Prat.
Ic-Centru ghall-Helsien mill-Vizzji would do well to start with the vizzju li nwaqqfu l-fondazzjonijiet u c-centri.
We’re not talking harmless board meetings, my friends, but salaries paid out of public funds. Paid out of your taxes and mine. Report commissioned from other bodies, and paid for out of public funds. Premises for the foundation, paid for out of public funds. Press conferences with complimentary coffee and biscuits, paid for out of public funds.
One thing both parties and all the Maltese agree on is profligacy. Min ghandu l-bzar ha jroxxu, hux hekk, Marie-Louise?
Oh, have to add, it’s not only a government Her Excellency is proposing here. She is also setting up a separate Parliament – modelled on Emy Bezzina’s “Il-Parlament tal-Poplu.”
Because as the Malta Independent reports:
“President Coleiro Precai said that the Foundation will help to better the country’s democracy as each and every citizen can be active in the discussion.”
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-06-25/news/presidents-foundation-for-the-good-of-society-launched-5614895104/#prettyPhoto
Is the President going to register with the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations? And will she be dismantling the Community Chest Fund?
What? No Osservatorju Centrali ghal-Studju Profond u Proponiment ta’ Roadmap Xierqa Ghall-Qerda Definittiva tal-Hamallizmu Malti?
I had never heard of some of these organisations. Osservatorju għall-Għixien Xieraq. What’s that? Ċentru għall-Ħelsien mill-Vizzji? Sounds like the Salvation Army without the uniforms.
“Osservatorju ghall-Ghixien Xieraq” sounds like a voyeurs’ club…
If a person is disabled that should not justify the creation of a road hazard for everybody else by the parking of a car for long hours at a blind corner. It should justify only the temporary stopping of a car to pick up the disabled person.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140625/local/new-presidents-foundation-includes-former-presidents-prime-ministers.525000
Is it my impression or have the PN disappeared from the face of the earth? With so many irregularities going on, they should be having a field day. Instead, complete silence.
I do not recognise the political landscape anymore.
Within a year the country has descended into rampant opportunism, government supported racism and brainwashed complacency.
Moonies are free thinkers in comparison (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/03/moonie-cult-leader).
We have a prime minister who flaunts every known and respected rule of democracy, decency, behaviour or protocol.
We have a Sports Board chairman who, from what one can see, has never practised any kind of sport – and, apparently, has no intention of ever doing so in the future. This, not to mention a Criminal Court conviction against him for fraud.
We have a ‘consultant’ on EU affairs at the prime minister’s office who doesn’t know a single thing about the EU – and has shown it in his three years’ tenure as local councillor in Sliema. This, not to mention a Criminal Court conviction against him for what amounted to blackmail.
We have an internal security minister who sends his house-keeper to steal water by the jerrycans from a public fountain.
We have (or is it ‘have had’) a consultant in the ‘health and energy’ ministry who was unceremoniously chucked out of his office and function as EU commissioner.
Why. oh why, can’t we have an aspiring minister for justice flouting mere traffic regulations – and possibly causing nasty accidents – by parking his private vehicle on a corner and on double yellow lines?
And here’s a good topic on which the Reverend Friar can enlighten us with his sophist’s arguments. Maybe he can recommend this Great Leader to another Great Leader for an Honoris Causa in Philosophy?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/north-korea-threaten-to-wage-war-on-usa-over-seth-rogen-and-james-francos-kim-jongun-assassination-film-9562426.html
No you do not become minister to be above the law, but under Labour anything goes. SHAME.
Well this is usual – I live close by and if it is not this corner it will be some other, but don’t get me wrong always on a yellow line and not just now it has been going on for years.
What are Labour government ministers afraid of? What extra power are the AFM going to have? Policemen would have done the job quite well.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-06-25/news/armed-forces-outside-ministry-buildings-required-for-security-reasons-5620105216/
Why does this country need a parallel government, this one run by Dad’s army from San Anton Palace?
Can someone in power please put an immediate stop to this nonsensical proposition?
We are all equal, but in Orwell’s world and Malta, some are more equal than others.
Seized tanker slips away, containers in Freeport disappear. Who is running this country?