Waste of money

February 23, 2006

Dear Sir,

So the PLP are to set up offices overseas to promote the Financial Industry. A reason that Tourism failed was interference by incompetent politicians and their hired friends that knew nothing about the tourism business and who should have left it to the professionals that did. Now we have the Financial Industry's own promotional funds frozen, while the same politicians build themselves offices in London and Washington.

The objective of this latest waste of money is solely to provide destinations for more pointless first-class overseas excursions by our politicians, just like this farcical visit to Cayman. The danger to Bermuda is interference by these incompetents in a business they know less than nothing about - and damage to our reputation by exposing themselves to potential customers who are not deceived for a minute, and as a consequence are turned off doing business in a place where such people are actually making the rules.

The Finance Minister says that things are now more challenging than they were for our remaining industry, and that a presence in London and Washington will combat this. For the above reasons this will indeed be a potential disaster. Where the work needs to be directed is right here in Bermuda where our Government's reputation stinks, and this stink has permeated far beyond our shores, and not least to London and Washington.

Taking back our home

February 22, 2006

Dear Sir,

Years ago Bermuda used to be looked on as a possibly becoming the 51st state of the US, because of the US connections and influence. But with the influx of Canadian workers and the Canadian businesses buying up a lot of our major companies, someone seems to be trying to turn us into Canada's 11th province. I have no desire to become a Canuck nor do I have a real desire to visit. I am 47-years-old and passed on the opportunity to attain a full British passport. If they didn't see the need to have me as a full citizen for 40-plus years I surely don't see the need for it for the next 20 or so years of life that I may have left. So I definitely do not want a Canadian passport.

That is why the Shadow Tourism Minister is crying foul on the Club Med deal. The previous developer Quorum just happens to be another Canadian firm. The Canooks already have enough of an influence in Bermuda. Give somebody else a chance. Furthermore, the UBP had from 1988 to 1998 when they were booted out of office to seal a deal on that site now they are the experts on closing a deal. Give me a break. And why didn't the John Swans, David Dodwells, David Gibbons and the like develop the site? Be a part of the solution and not the problem. Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.

I jokingly told somebody when they were fighting to get us full British citizenship that they were only doing that hoping that we would all leave Bermuda to them. Well contrary to Julian Hall's suggestion of moving on, I definitely will not be going anywhere and I hope every Bermudian takes the same stand.

It's time to take our little Island home back. It is ours, not a Canadian's, Indian's, Filipino's or anyone else for that matter. If anyone should be moving on, it should be them. They have a home to go to. This is our home and we should not let anyone force us out of it. If anyone is forced out it should be them and not us. That is not a threat just the way I see it.

Drug testing MPs

February 19, 2006

Dear Sir,

The Government's approach to curbing drug use would be a joke - if it wasn't SO SERIOUS.

The Premier supports mandatory drug testing in the workplace. Shouldn't the House of Assembly be considered a workplace?

How can the Premier and His Cabinet not support Mandatory Drug Testing of elected members of the PLP Government?

There must be some logic to this, but it escapes me.

UK freed the slaves

February 20, 2006

Dear Sir,

I wonder how many Bermudians know that slavery was abolished by the English Parliament in 1834, over 30 years before the Emancipation of Slaves in the United States. Before 1834, slavery had existed since Biblical times and was universally accepted. The moral outrage, which precipitated abolition, was led by William Wilberforce, an Episcopal clergyman who was also a Member of Parliament. The Abolition Act of 1833 provided for compensation to be paid out of the Treasury to slave-owners throughout the British Empire. ?14,000,000 was paid to the Portuguese Government for the loss to their shipping trade and it was the Royal Navy that chased the slave traders from the sea. These facts are easily obtained from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Therefore when Calvin Smith wrote the following in Opinion on February 15, 2006, “Historically, racism in Bermuda reflected the efforts of England, as Coloniser, to create and maintain a source of cheap labour in the form of slavery and of segregation”, he put himself in an invidious position. Either he was ignorant that the abolition of slavery was the result of English moral outrage that any British subject could be treated as property, or he is guilty of pro-Independence propaganda designed to stir up racial hatred against England, the first nation to free the slaves.