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Politicians and consistency. Paradoxical?

This last week has been a roller coaster of inconsistency from politicians.

First, the long awaited release of the NIB "forensic" audit has still not happened.

Second, the PLP and FNM are accusing each other of political malfeasance over the PLP's proposed gambling Bill, and,

Third, a PLP businessman says the work permit debate is "fueled by inconsistency" by the other side. Not by him of course.

If these men were not holding the fate of us all in their hands these stories would be hilarious. But they're not funny.

The only thing about either side of these discussions is their remarkable inconsistency. However, the PLP Government has the responsibility to get these issues resolved so the country might start to move forward out of the current malaise caused by their inconsistencies.

The fact is, it does not matter if the opposition FNM party is inconsistent at this point. That matters when the next General Elections take place and the voters can decide their fate.

The naked truth is the PLP are losing credibility day by day on these three issues alone.

In relation to the NIB matter, how can auditors not share information with the person being "audited"? This is a remarkable inconsistency.

With regard to the gaming issue. Both political parties have been all over the map on this one, with each trying to out do the other. Just get on with legalising it!

Finally, with the Atlantis work permit issue, the PLP were out of order by picking a person up that is legally entitled to be here under the terms of our laws. Simple.

No amount of speechifying will change the facts in these three cases alone.

Government mismanagement is the source of the confusion. And supporters of both political parties are not innocent bystanders either, we allow our false beliefs in the politicians we support to get in the way of sensible public policies.

So yes, politics is rife with inconsistencies. The big question is, why do we allow it?

I move that politicians and many political supporters should wear name badges shown in the graphic above; Hi, I'm a Politician and I'm Consistently Inconsistent.

Testing Your Core

By S3S

Sometimes, life throws up challenges that prompt us to rise to them and renew our passion and appreciation for life. Such is the situation that confronted my friend, Chris Eglin, in 2008. 

As an experienced Systems Analyst/Developer, specialising in 'stress' testing complex systems, Chris has worked on numerous extended projects in many industries, including Investment Banking and e-trading.  His work has taken him to locations around the world, most recently, Boston, Santiago and San Francisco. In 2008, Chris was on a project in Stuttgart, when he was senselessly attacked on the street by a knife-wielding mad man for no apparent reason.  As he said, 'there is no template for recovery from something like that' but for more of what Chris did in response to his near fatal encounter, see: http://www.justgiving.com/Spitalfields-Crypt-Trust

On Sunday, Chris leaves London on an awesome 10-day Expedition to the North Pole to complete his response that will test his physical and mental endurance to the core.  He will raise money for charity in the process, on a trip that will take him by air to Oslo and then by air to Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen (Svalbard), before travelling by helicopter to Barneo Ice Camp: http://www.icetrek.com/?id=937 from where his 4-man team's 110 km trek to the farthest point north will commence. 

"You could be a part of this epic adventure by making a small donation to the SCT Charity that will be the main beneficiary of Chris' efforts, for which he has been training for the past seven months, the last three of which have been intensive endurance training with weights":
http://www.testyourcore.com/#!donate/c1ghi

Antique Auto Club, Auto Show & Steak Out, Saturday, March 23, 2013

Photo of the week: Long Island Skiff

I think I took this photo of one of the Sands Beer sloops at the Cultural Festival at the Botanical Gardens a couple years back.


Rick Lowe Images by Rick Lowe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.weblogbahamas.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.weblogbahamas.com/.

Find more photos at Through The Lens

NFL Super Bowl 2013 Prediction

Okay I'll lay my cards on the table, I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler fan so as a rule support the AFC in the Super Bowl.

And this Sunday will be no different. I'm sticking with the AFC and the Ravens!

And here's a quote from Bruce Raffel and his post at SB Nation, from a little earlier today:

"Expect the points to come slowly and be within one score until the game-sealing defensive play puts enough of a distance between the two teams late in the game with one final score to let everyone know which team will be holding a victory parade in the next day or so."

Sounds like a good game to me.

Read his entire "Preview & Prediuctions" here…

"Enjoy the game everybody".

No legal gambling houses mean higher taxes and more crime?

The debate over "legalising" what already operates with the sanction of the the government and many in society seems trite at this point.

While I am a firm believer that individuals should be allowed to spend their hard earned money however they wish, without a referendum to change the Constitution as it relates to gambling and women's rights is like abolishing slavery except for ships arriving or departing the port of Bristol, as a friend put it recently.

In other words it's all making a mockery of us as a people.

And then for the Prime Minister and Junior Minister of  National Security to suggest that if the public votes no higher taxes and crime will result would be laughable if not for the seriousness of the matter.

These comments, coupled with reports that Mr. Perry Christie (PLP), Prime Minister "has questioned why the vote-no campaign is taking issue with the first referendum question when they had the opportunity to personally speak with him on the question prior to its release," while he says the march for the vote yes campaign is an expression of democracy are simply astounding.

The governments intention then, writ large, is to proceed in favour of the gaming houses, while leaving the barn door open for the ships to and from the port of Bristol on what many consider more serious matters.

And with defcits of more than $500 million becoming the norm, the estimated $20 million in taxes from gambling houses is a drop in the bucket.

Remember, the PM calls this deepening democracy?

Ill-Conceived, Ill-Timed, Illogical and Illegal

by Edward Hutcheson

Last week we were told by the Minister of National Security that “regulation implies legalization”, perhaps it was convenient  that a medical doctor made that statement and not a lawyer. Maybe he was “chosen”  because the legal community in the PLP, inclusive of  Mrs Gibson and Mr Fitzgerald would have a problem saying something like that and having  an ill-informed  statement, attached to their names. I know that the good doctor  has been following the series of events, and it would have been in his best interest to let the “legals” in this drama take this to the public. The term “Non-constitutional amendment” should have served as a red flag. I had called the Miller show this week asking him about the logic in his thinking as we “discussed” why he was voting Yes, and he told me that his motives  were “ideological”, a term that has a wide spectrum of meaning that moves from the subjective to the objective. I would think that when it comes to the matter of legality and the Constitution, under which the rights of all citizens are protected, even a medical doctor should see the necessity of logic, discussion and clarity on the gambling issue.

An ill-informed electorate will lean toward a No-vote, no matter how subjective, the Prime Minister paints this situation, even though the social and financial needs of the Bahamian people are pressing in at this time. The fact that many of the constituents who gamble make up a significant percentage of those “in need”, further complicates matters. Voting  yes or no on January 28, will not mean what most of us think it means.  The Minister of National Security has said that the issue right now is regulation, even though there is no legal framework established for those regulations. The Prime Minister was right when he said that he has to wait and see how the vote goes, before he can even pursue regulation and that if the vote is no, he has warned of what will happen in terms of persons being displaced from their jobs. What he and his Cabinet has not brought to the public’s table is the objective or long term issues that the nation will have to face, in this atmosphere of confusion  promoted by his “not having a horse in the race”.

I am waiting on the “other lawyers” in the nation to do  a public service and  have an injunction taken out against the January 28th Referendum vote ( if they have not done so already). A decision has to be forced on those who were elected to lead us. If they are allowed to get away with what is being pushed on this nation, what “convenience” will they attempt next?  I am voting No, because the industry of Gambling takes more than it can ever give, and this No is further encouraged by the confusion being promoted because of the damnable attitudes political, social and religious leaders who are more interested in their bellies that what is good for this nation. With the 40th year anniversary less than five months away will we be content to have this “smearing” of the National image, by an ill-conceived, ill-timed, illogical and illegal Referendum?

January 16, 2012

Kepler telescope: Earth-sized planets 'number 17bn'

From BBC.Co.UK, January 8, 2013

"Astronomers say that one in six stars hosts an Earth-sized planet in a close orbit - suggesting a total of 17 billion such planets in our galaxy.

"The result comes from an analysis of planet candidates gathered by Nasa's Kepler space observatory.

"The Kepler scientists also announced 461 new planet candidates, bringing the satellites' total haul to 2,740.

"Their findings were announced at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in California."

More…

By the way, if you are interested in identifying the stars and planets with your smart phone, download the SkyView App. It's amazing. See their link here for the iPhone. I understand it's available for other phones as well.

Should the gambling referendum be put aside for now?

by Edward Hutcheson

Maybe it is co-incidental, but almost 40 years ago, a group of predominantly Baptist Ministers made a choice to side with then Prime Minister Lynden Oscar Pindling, when he and the majority of elected Members of Parliament chose to go against what they had promised in the campaigning that led up to the 1972 Election. The Reverend Carlton Francis who was a Cabinet Minister, in the first administration following July 10, 1973,  made a decision to go against his party, because the promise his Party had made to allow all gambling licenses to expire was not kept. In a meeting held by the Christian Council at the time, the Reverend Reuben Edward Cooper, who had delivered the first national sermon in an Independent Bahamas, made a plea for the government to seek a different path; but many were of the impression that the decision was made long before that meeting was convened.

When Carlton Francis went against the decision, his fate was sealed. The rest of his life was lived as near the poverty line as one could get. No one dared help him openly. It was clear that the Ministers of the Gospel did not know their flock at all, especially to the extent that they would put their Christian convictions aside and follow a political “Moses”.

However, there is a not too obvious parallel; in the same way that Pastors do not know their members, members may not know their Pastors, even though they hear them preach every Sunday.  The decision of Pastor’s McPhee and Hall to support the “Yes” vote in such an open fashion should be a wake up call for all Christian congregations in the Bahamas; especially as we prepare to celebrate 40 years as an Independent nation. What could have been an excellent opportunity to correct a mistake made more than 40 years ago has been compounded by an ill-advised decision fuelled by, “social expediency” or just short- sightedness. There are too many scriptural references to look at when it comes to matters of conscience and the exercise of common sense, even for Pastors, but those among them who blatantly lead members of the household of faith astray through arbitrary or indiscriminate  decisions will have to answer at the end of the day.

Those of us who tend to get caught in the socio-political  view of the of what we want the Word of God to say have to take a step back.  They struggle with “what does the Word of God means to me” and give little consideration to “what the word of God means”. Perhaps the Pastors have read too much into what it is to be free. Pastor Timothy Stewart gave a sermon at a Majority Rule celebration earlier this year where he stated that when things changed in 1967, many Bahamians got the freedom issue wrong. Before 1967 the cry was for Pharaoh to let the people go so that they could be free and serve the Lord, but for some reason or other they chose to serve the Party. Maybe the gambling referendum should be put aside for now and we should decide whether we and those who lead us are going to abide by what we agreed to in the Pre-amble of our Constitution almost 40 years ago.

December 27, 2012

Two cheers for CB Moss

by Rick Lowe

Rev Dr. CB Moss is correct when he said in The Tribune recently that:

“There are so many things that require fixing in our beloved nation that if our political leaders were to fully apply themselves to this challenging task there would be precious little time, or desire, to be at each others throats,”…

“The question is, are they listening? Do they really care?”

His "list of problems is extremely long, and includes crime, unemployment, poverty, illegal immigration, poor housing, decaying communities, staggering national deficits, crushing energy costs, teenage pregnancy, national debt and the failing education system."

What strikes me about his statement is most of the problems he outlines are a direct result of poor public policy. In other words they are exacerbated by government itself.

So it begs the question that is the "theatre" (read spectacle), being created over the gambling issue intentional or just a by product of them knowing no other possible way to solve the problems they themselves have created?

When Dr. Moss connects the dots about where the problems commence and how we might get to solutions he'll get that third cheer. And very loudly at that.