Where we explain why a J’accuse comment on the Runs might still be awaiting moderation. It’s about Porn, il-Qahbu and il-Qattus.
Funny how the PLPN game can shoot some parallels at you when you least expect it. This week Daphne Caruana Galizia enagaged in one of her pet games of picking on Anglu Farrugia. Anglu was guilty of defending known criminals who go by the monikers of il-Qahbu and il-Qattus.Here’s her ladyness commenting on a lawyer representing his clients:
You’d think the Labour Party’s deputy leader would have more sense than to act as defence counsel to il-Qahbu and il-Qattus. Oh I forget, this is the land where people take off one hat, put on another, and protest if you point out that they’re a walking farce.
Ok. So a representative of the upper echelons of the Labour party is being told off for representing criminals in court. He was not exactly handling stolen goods or an accomplice in one of their crimes you see but simply guilty of representing them in court. Much like other able lawyers before him (President Emeritus Guido de Marco comes to mind) he was simply doing his job.
As was Georg Sapiano of course when he (or his lawfirm) accepted the dossier to represent clients who are busy raking in money on the back of the porn industry. Raphael Vassallo points this out quite clearly in his article “Porn-again Christians” on Maltatoday:
The government currently administered by the PN – the same party which coincidentally also pays all the journalists’ salaries at Net TV – has tacitly allowed the country to be used as a hub for Europe’s entire internet porn industry. (…) Many of the porn sites in question use CCBill, or other similar payment services, to collect subscription fees for their site. Consequently, a user who wished to view the images on a particular porn site would be directed to CCBill’s payment gateway where the user’s payment would be processed. (…) What this description omits to mention is that CCBill’s payment gateway happens to be located in Strait Street, Valletta – fittingly enough, I suppose – and that the legal firm representing this online porn billing company was (according to the first press reports) none other than Sapiano and Associates: fronted by Dr Georg Sapiano, who contested the 2004 general elections on the ticket of the same Nationalist Party which today piously denounces ‘pornography’ from the pulpit of its ill-gotten TV station, Net TV.
Apologies for the snippets but you can see the whole shebang on the link provided. I tried to point out the curious commonalities between Dr Farrugia’s and Dr Sapiano’s choice of clients on the Running Commentary website. Apparently my comment is still awaiting moderation notwithstanding the fact that other persons have added their own comments after my own was submitted (and these were posted).
Whatever the case J’accuse being a lawyer’s blog I would like to point out that I am in no way implying that I disagree/agree with the choices doctors Farrugia and Sapiano make when accepting clients. What I AM pointing out is the inconsistency in the criticism – what is good for the goose should be good for the gander no?
…
And like magic the comment is approved… (at midnight of course) with the following commentary appended:
[Daphne – Hardly, Jacques, but then you do have to stretch the evidence sometimes, don’t you, to make it fit with your spent MLPN propaganda. If Labour and the PN were really much of a muchness, as you insist, the former wouldn’t have lost every general election bar one since 1976.]
Stretch the evidence? ROTFL… a lawyer, his client, the party policy. What’s there to stretch? It’s an alternating muchness of mediocrity… but you only get to see it if you look at the big picture. Otherwise you get to see the Qahbu but not the pornsite.
6 replies on “The Devil's Advocate”
haha tajba din. love the last line.
U iva. Din dejjem hekk. Tigustifika kull barbuljata u tahwida tan-Nazzjonalisti ghax il-Laburisti ghamlu bhalhom…..ma nafx kif xi nies ghandhom il-wicc li jitkellmu fuq vjolenza…. X’jghid dak il-qawl Malti….?
It’s good that someone keeps tabs on the Runs. But doesn’t your line of thinking imply that you still expect la DCG to meet out ‘equal treatment’ to all involved. She won’t. Why doesn’t anyone expect, say, Mario Vella (the bearded one)or Flores Charles to do that?
Perhaps because Mario Vella and Charles Flores do not hide their allegiances, while DCG claims to be independent
this brings to mind what a certain italian priest, father dell’olio, had to say on contradictory values as applied within a catholic culture: …quote (2004) a few days ago italy launched the largest air-craft carrier in its naval history, the cavour, and among the special guests was the cardinal of genova who blessed the ship…there is a culture within the official church that opposes abortion to the hilt as it threatens life, yet takes a back-seat when life is threatened by war…unquote
can it be that it all bolis down to a matter of power, the more power I have, the more inconsistent and self-serving I can be?
Should be renamed to “constipated commentary” …
Sometimes so desperate to throw sh** to the extent of sticking hands (and head)up one’s own a**s to fetch it.
Then when the argument is lost, it’s back to the historical seizures recounting how bad Malta was then and how blue it is now (tipo: int ma tiftakarx…)….