The Malta
If there is a safe bet around it is that tonight the blues will win
the World Cup. What remains to be seen is whether it will be Gli Azzurri or Les
Bleus.
Your guess is probably as good as mine. While my heart tells me that the Azzurri should be home and dry following their stellar performance in the semi-finals against Germany, my head tells me that the way they achieved that win by scoring two goals in the last minutes of extra time, when all seemed destined for the penalty shoot out, means the Italians have probably peaked a step prematurely.
The French on the other hand had a much quieter passage through the semi-finals, where they rode on the back of a generous penalty award to coast home without undue risks, even though the Portuguese actually gave as much as they took.
An undeniably clear statistic emerging from this tournament is that those teams, which went through in extra time or on penalties, were defeated in the following round. It happened toArgentina Mexico Germany Argentina Portugal England
The French reached the finals without having the half hour added time as they beatSpain Brazil Portugal
There is still a ray of hope for the Azzurri. This time they had an extra day of rest compared to the French. Will this be enough to neutralise the disadvantage of having played an extra 30 minutes? I certainly hope so.
The blues however are no safe bet onMalta
These are handicaps enough on their own but the local blues seem bent to tilt even steeper their uphill climb for the general election. The changes to the development boundaries are a high stakes game that is bound to earn government many more enemies than friends.
Government obsession to proceed with such a project against very wide public opinion gives me the distinct impression, which probably is wrong and unreal, that the government’s objective in conducting this exercise is to please its friends before its time runs out. But if this is not so then the alternative is that the government is politically naïve. This is equally hard to accept.
Arguments that this is being done for social reasons do not impress and indicate that the government is searching high and low for excuses to justify what cannot be justified. Equally laughable is the argument that this is done to honour an electoral pledge in the 1998 manifesto. Of all electoral pledges that have been allowed to fall by the wayside without the slightest compunction, is this the one that the Blues’ heart is bleeding for? Why not for example the family law to provide for a fair legislative framework for families living out of wedlock?
The best piece of advice I can give on the issue is that once the government is in a hole it should stop digging. Digging will only push it deeper into the hole when it should use its energy to get out of it.
The only logical way forward is to abandon the project and re-propose it in due time within a framework that carries sufficient checks and balances to convince the majority that all is being done for a good cause.
I still need to be convinced.
Your guess is probably as good as mine. While my heart tells me that the Azzurri should be home and dry following their stellar performance in the semi-finals against Germany, my head tells me that the way they achieved that win by scoring two goals in the last minutes of extra time, when all seemed destined for the penalty shoot out, means the Italians have probably peaked a step prematurely.
The French on the other hand had a much quieter passage through the semi-finals, where they rode on the back of a generous penalty award to coast home without undue risks, even though the Portuguese actually gave as much as they took.
An undeniably clear statistic emerging from this tournament is that those teams, which went through in extra time or on penalties, were defeated in the following round. It happened to
The French reached the finals without having the half hour added time as they beat
There is still a ray of hope for the Azzurri. This time they had an extra day of rest compared to the French. Will this be enough to neutralise the disadvantage of having played an extra 30 minutes? I certainly hope so.
The blues however are no safe bet on
These are handicaps enough on their own but the local blues seem bent to tilt even steeper their uphill climb for the general election. The changes to the development boundaries are a high stakes game that is bound to earn government many more enemies than friends.
Government obsession to proceed with such a project against very wide public opinion gives me the distinct impression, which probably is wrong and unreal, that the government’s objective in conducting this exercise is to please its friends before its time runs out. But if this is not so then the alternative is that the government is politically naïve. This is equally hard to accept.
Arguments that this is being done for social reasons do not impress and indicate that the government is searching high and low for excuses to justify what cannot be justified. Equally laughable is the argument that this is done to honour an electoral pledge in the 1998 manifesto. Of all electoral pledges that have been allowed to fall by the wayside without the slightest compunction, is this the one that the Blues’ heart is bleeding for? Why not for example the family law to provide for a fair legislative framework for families living out of wedlock?
The best piece of advice I can give on the issue is that once the government is in a hole it should stop digging. Digging will only push it deeper into the hole when it should use its energy to get out of it.
The only logical way forward is to abandon the project and re-propose it in due time within a framework that carries sufficient checks and balances to convince the majority that all is being done for a good cause.
I still need to be convinced.
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