Recently in General Category

From the Ministry of Bizarre Press Releases today we get this:

In response to media inquiries, the Cabinet Office today confirmed that Head of the Civil Service, Mr. Kenneth Dill reaches retirement age in September 2010. Public Officers appointed under section 82 of the Bermuda Constitution reach retirement age at sixty-five years.

Premier Dr Ewart Brown indicated today that despite numerous attempts to contact the outgoing Head of the Civil Service, the matter had not been discussed with Mr. Dill.

"I have spoken with the Governor today concerning an interim arrangement for the period between Mr. Dill's departure and the swearing-in of a new Premier in October," the Premier said.

The Premier can't get hold of the Head of the Civil Service? Or the Head of the Civil Service won't return his calls? Really. That's shocking.

And the outgoing Premier has issued a press release telling Mr. Dill to not let the door hit him in the ass as he's run out of the office on his birthday because he's 65?"

How bizarre is this? Way to go on succession planning.

The Cup Match slip and slide was both an amusing diversion and ill-advised.

Marc Bean's comments in the Senate are rather narrowly targeted however.

If it's wrong to slide over a covered wicket after hours of delay and alcohol induced boredom, it's wrong for fans to run on the field and all over an uncovered wicket to mob the batter and celebrate a half century or century - not to mention the added impact of delaying the game.

He made no mention of that widely accepted behaviour.

Should those individuals receive lifetime bans as well?

I'm a little surprised that the PLP, in defending the hostile takeover attempt of the Corporations, want to open this argument:

The truth is, Bermuda is the size of a small town in the United States or United Kingdom.

The implications of conceding this point are potentially far-reaching for our highly paid, internationally jet setting small town Government.

Why is it that whenever we're treated to another of the outgoing Premier's grip n grins with some foreign politician, celebrity or athlete - which inevitably become a Facebook profile picture and press release - I think of the White House State Dinner crashers?

Remember them - the Salahis - whose full time job seems to be trolling around Washington for photos to post on their Facebook page and hosting questionable charity events.

I guess the idea is that if you lack your own power and fame you have to settle for trying to impress others with proximity to it.

The problems Bermuda face are self-evident to everyone except the PLP's fear merchants:

Increasing debt, a declining economy, an expanding education gap, declining social standards; and it's all encapsulated by a pathological reliance on vulgar and violent political discourse and tactics from the governing party.

The fundamental question to me is whether Bermudians want a better future or to endlessly re-litigate the past.

There's a lot of things that our insufferable self-promoter of a former US Consul General could be called. "Expert on reinsurance" is certainly not one of them.

A taxpayer funded thank you political appointment to an out of the way posting where you can't do much damage is one of the more unconventional routes to an adjunct professorship (of reinsurance), although evidently it's a fast one.

If just living and schmoozing for a few years in Bermuda makes you an expert in reinsurance then there's at least 65,000 more experts.

After my last post I received an email from Kath Bell a bit surprised that I didn't realize that her Letter to the Editor about Senator Burch was satirical.

I'm a fan of satire, but that one went over my head, and a few others, none of us who could decide whether it was serious or not. In hindsight the first paragraph is obviously satirical, but I have heard people seriously argue some of her later comments, and the last sentence of the first paragraph isn't satire, it's demonstrably true:

We could dispense with the rest of his colleagues in Cabinet - most of them haven't the slightest notion what they are doing anyway.

After listening to the budget debate over the past few weeks, where Ministers read prepared briefs for hours on end, I'm convinced that a handful of Cabinet Ministers would fail the Work Permit Holders' Competency with the English Language test that Government launched today.

The possession of power unavoidably spoils the free use of reason.

--Immanuel Kant

Interesting article in the New Yorker on NY Times Columnist and Economist Paul Krugman.

Consistent with my ongoing assertion that the PLP are Bermudians Republicans (essentially driven by dogma), I liked this quote:

"Some of my friends tell me that I should spend more time attacking right-wingers," he wrote in 1998. "The problem is finding things to say. Supply-siders never tire of proclaiming that taxes are the root of all evil, but reasonable people do get tired of explaining, over and over again, that they aren't."

This is how many in Bermuda feel when trying to debate pretty much anything with the PLP, whether it's immigration, the media, debt, overspending, independence or race for example.

Reasonable people who see the nuances of real world issues tire of trying to discuss rationally Bermuda politics with another side who relentlessly repeat canned slogans and engage in endless demagoguery.

If you can all indulge me an off topic rant for a moment on one of my favourite topics, Bermuda TV.

In a lot of way the local TV stations are much like Bermuda politics, we have been conditioned to accept an inferior product and performance.

On Feb. 8th I posted on twitter the following:

Completely fed up with local network and Cablevision signal quality. Thinking about some guerilla tactics. Anyone want to join in?

Shortly afterwards I got a phone call from Cablevision's Terry Robertson who saw my post and offered to help. We had a good conversation, with the thrust of my complaint being that the signal and picture quality on the Fox channels (10 and HD) were terrible and that the local channels (7 ABC, 9 CBS and 11 NBC) are terrible, channels 7 & 9 being the worst.

Terry conceded that Fox was an issue for Cablevision, but that it is now resolved (which it appears to be) and the pixelation at night on the Fox HD was caused by us being on the edge of the satellite footprint.

Then there's the local channels, which are not good, Bermuda Broadcasting's in particular. Channel 9 is pretty much unwatchable and the audio is low relative to the other channels. I've previously spoken with Rick Richardson at BBC about this and he conceded a problem which was connected to the out of sync audio and video late last year (fixing that involved lowering the audio levels).

Much of this is technically above me, but ultimately we've all witnessed both BBC and Cablevision pointing fingers at each other over signal quality.

All that I can say on that topic is that the over the air signal for channels 7 & 9 sucks and you can't pin that on Cablevision. And I've also been in ZBM's studios enough to know that it looks like some sort of a history of broadcasting exhibit. The equipment has to be 30 years old at least, and I'm not exaggerating. So the prospect of HD for the US networks (so I can get my sports in HD) is never going to happen at this rate - and the local channels should be providing that over the air as well as cable.

You might recall that BBC wants Cablevision to pay per channel for carrying the local channels, something alot of people think is an outrage when you consider the quality of the product. I would tend to agree.

I think there is a solution here, but it's going to require the applying of some pressure.

Firstly, the local channels should be given a timeframe to start providing HD for the US networks (ABC, CBS and NBC). I'm sure the networks would be appalled at how their product looks in Bermuda, but we're small enough that it's not enough to expend much energy on.

Secondly, on the topic of Cablevision paying a per station fee for the local stations (75 cents per station per month I hear). This will obviously get passed through to the customer, because no business is going to voluntarily take that hit.

I could take a $1.50 increase in my bill a month. But there's an if. A big if.

If the local stations can't or won't upgrade their equipment to offer HD, or even fix their below standard definition signal that they currently offer, the Telecommunications Minister should allow Cablevision to offer an HD option for each US network in their HD tier ion exchange for a $1.50 per channel compensation to the local affiliates.

This is obviously not so simple to get done due to legal issues and exclusivity agreements, but the economic model for 3 local TV stations all trying to sell ads and generate a local news broadcast is really being strained if not already broken.

I don't think Government has helped this situation with CITV. A better arrangement in my view than running a station (with great equipment I might add) would be to create or subsidize the creation of local programming which then runs on the private stations. That gets Government out of the TV business, although the PLP are unlikely to do that because they want to control the content of CITV to maximize exposure for themselves and their issues (ie. press conferences which don't broadcast the questions, only the MInisters' prepared remarks.)

I'd be interested in others thoughts on this topic. One other avenue to pursue is for people to start filing complaints with the Consumer Affairs department.

But all the broadcasters and carriers better get with the program fast, because in the past week I've testing a Slingbox feed from NY (great but a little hard to integrate in a living room), Boxee which is a surprisingly good little open source application that includes Netflix (if you use a US proxy or VPN) and there's a lot more out there on the horizon.

I received the Rent Commission's flyer in the mail today.

It might seem trivial, but the increasing use of the PLP's signature green in Government documents continues to proliferate (check the budgets of the past few years. 2007 was the last year it was not printed in green).

This the most visible demonstration of partisan messaging overwriting policy. (The other is of course the move to name public buildings after partisan figures).

Government mailers and PLP election materials are becoming indistinguishable.

The civil service is apolitical (hence the heavy use of consultants - they're loyal to their patron and bypasses checks and balances).

The blatant and not-so-blatant infusion of political branding is insidious and indicative of the the rampant politicisation of public policy and the Civil Service.

An important comment today about local Government:

We were very proud to announce that the city is debt free and has been for more than 15 years for all of its operational purposes. And our financial affairs are audited every year by independent auditors, and without fail the reports are clean and unqualified.

That'a the Corporation of Hamilton, not the Government. What would the Corporations finances look like 5-10 years after the PLP got hold of it?

Probably something like this:

Auditor General's Consolidated Fund Chart

This will be a long post, because I want to take the following email I received from a reader and respond. First the email.

Christian,

The gay agenda relates to efforts to change government policies and laws on LGBT issues (e.g., same-sex marriage, LGBT adoption, recognizing sexual orientation as a civil rights minority group, LGBT military participation, inclusion of LGBT history and themes in public education) as well as non-governmental campaigns and individual actions which increase visibility and cultural acceptance of LGBT people, relationships, and identities.

Today they may be saying they simply want an amendment to the Human Rights Act, but if the US gives us an indication of their next steps, and I believe it does, then the items noted above will soon follow. Thus, it is properly referred as the Gay Rights Agenda

First we need to evaluate if this is a life style decision or if it has a genetic base. While scientists have found intriguing biological differences between gay and straight people, the evidence so far stops well short of proving that we are born with a sexual orientation that we will have for life. Identical twins have identical genes. If homosexuality was a
biological condition produced inescapably by the genes (e.g. eye color), then if one identical twin was homosexual, in 100% of the cases his brother would be too. But we know that only about 38% of the time is the identical twin brother homosexual. Genes are responsible for an indirect influence, but on average, they do not force people into homosexuality. This conclusion has been well known in the scientific community for a few decades but has not reached the general public. Indeed, the public increasingly believes the opposite. There are numerous other studies that lead us to the same conclusion, but for the sake of brevity I will omit further details. Consequently, I think we can conclude that LGBT is lifestyle decision and not a genetically determined factor.

Most, but not all, of the characteristics protected by the Human Rights Act relate to matters that are outside of a persons control - sex, race, colour, language, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status. However, by and large the same protections are not extended for individuals lifestyle decisions. For example, we would not argue that the Human Rights Act should be amended to protect drunkards, drug addicts, thieves, slanderers or pedophiles. Likewise we should not be extending special protection to those who identify themselves as LGBT. Why?

Because, just as drunkards, drug addicts, thieves, slanderers and pedophiles are detrimental to society, so are those who are LGBT. The degree of harm to society is not the same (just as the degree of harm by two different drunkards is not the same), but it is still detrimental to society.

Consider some of the following:

* Analyzing data taken by the Ministry of Health of 15,000 New Zealanders between 2003 and 2004, the researchers found that 42.7 per cent of those in the homosexual lifestyle regularly smoke cigarettes in the last year compared to 27.7 per cent of heterosexuals. Homosexuals of both sexes are also twice as likely to have used marijuana; nearly four times as likely to have used amphetamines; more than four times as likely to have used LSD and more than three times as likely to have regularly used Ecstasy.
* April 11, 2007 - Last year, 6,360 gay men were tested by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center for sexually transmitted diseases, and one in four had used methamphetamines at least once, the Los Angeles Times has reported (1). That frequency is twenty times greater than in the general population.
* Homosexual promiscuity is well documented. Before AIDS almost half of white homosexual males had had at least 500 different partners, and 28 percent had had 1000 or more, mostly strangers.32 Homosexuals still have 3-4 times as many partners as heterosexuals6,66 (when medians rather than means are compared), and between 13 percent and 50 percent of gays continue to practice high risk sex post-AIDS, evidence surely of an addictive drive.
Please refer to Vexed's post regarding the importance of families at http://www.vexedbermoothes.com/nuclearfamily/
* and here is a link from the Gay and Lesbian Health Association regarding the health issues http://www.glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage

&pageID=690 of the LGBT community.

Again, I could continue with other examples, but for the sake of brevity I hope you will agree that LGBT is detrimental to society. Consequently, I would ask you to rethink your position on this matter.

I appreciate the email, however there isn't anything that I can agree with or endorse. The reader has gone to great lengths to attempt to justify discrimination and wrap it up in 'science'. What I read was a moral agenda being imposed on others under the guise of a dispassionate defense of the public interest.

This is about equal rights, not 'gay rights'. These are by and large the same pseudo-scientific arguments historically advanced to advocate racial discrimination which the overwhelming majority of people today find repugnant.

To break down some of the assertions.

Whether sexual orientation is a genetic or a lifestyle issue is simply irrelevant with respects to the Human Rights Code. The HRC protects many 'lifestyle choices' including political expression, religion orientation or others. Protecting a choice is not a new concept for the Act to embody, and protecting the private sexual behaviour of consenting adults strikes me as no greater or lesser a choice than religion or political views.

Regardless, lifestyle choices invoked by the reader - "drunkards, drug addicts, thieves,
slanderers or pedophiles" - involve a violation of the law or rights of others, excepting drunkards. However a drunk still has rights (but a gay drunkard has less).

Of course theft, defamation or sexual abuse of children is detrimental to individuals and society. But you cannot equate the sexual preference and behaviour between consenting adults with crimes against person or property by thieves, slanderers or pedophiles. The comparisons are simply invalid as they all involve force against someone else.

This is not a logical or legal argument on the reader's behalf but a moral one, based on the reader's own political or religious views (which I would note are protected under the human rights code).

I'm not all that interested in tackling the genetic or choice argument because that has little bearing on the Human Rights Code, but let's go with the example of twins. As the parent of identical twins I can attest that there are many differences between identical twins, identical genes or not. Think about it as two buildings built with identical blueprints. The blueprint may be the same but they will not be completely identical.

Additionally I have read a lot of the science on sexual orientation, and cannot agree with the claim that the biological contribution has been dis-proven. To the contrary, there is extensive research which points to sexual orientation being biologically determined, although it can clearly also be a choice.

As I said earlier though, none of that has any bearing on the Human Rights Code whatsoever.

You're not going to find me agreeing that homosexuality or trans-gender people are 'detrimental to society' any more than you're going to find me saying that inter-racial relationships are a detriment to society. Much the opposite, it's part of the fabric of what makes the world such an interesting place and I hope that as a society we can get past the fear or people who are different and choices we dislike.

Normally what happens is that once these changes are made there's a collective shrug, and everyone looks at each other and wonders what the big worry was.

Government held a press conference today regarding 'reform of the Municipalities' (read dissolution and takeover), and have apparently hired a consultant on this front. (So much for the moratorium on consultants).

A further centralisation of political and economic power in Bermuda is not a positive development. The Corporations provide local government and force collaboration between political entities. The Bermuda Government has not distinguished itself as an effective manager or responsible steward of public funds. They want total control now.

The corporations, while perhaps antiquated, are a key aspect of separation of powers and decentralisation of power in our small island which for all intents and purposes has a combined federal and local government.

Taking over the Corporations is likely to lead to less, not more efficient and effective Government.

Can someone explain to me what a 'gay rights agenda' is please?

The more appropriate terms would be an equal rights agenda.

It is very interesting that the PLP is staking out the territory as the party of discrimination.

Congratulations to Larry Dennis, Olga Scott and Wendi Fiedler for their mentions in this year's Queen's Honours.

Mr. Dennis deserves special mention for the attacks on his character and professionalism that he has had to endure over the past decade. This recognition will perhaps go someway in remedying and acknowledging his service to Bermuda which came with substantial personal sacrifice.

Well done Larry.

The organisers of the Santa Claus Parade shouldn't overreact by banning anyone from the parade or turn this into a witch-hunt.

The solution is to more actively screen the entries and music, and assigning marshalls to each float to address any problems that may arise.

Let's get it back to what it should be, a fun, family event to celebrate the holidays. Holiday music only would be a good place to start, as would no raunchy dance routines.

In response to my previous reader's email commenting on the Cedarbridge Choir and Bermuda Philharmonic concert on Sunday evening, The Royal Gazette did preview the event and I understand will also be publishing a review of the event.

A reader writes on an alternative to the Santa Claus Parade.

I, too, was at the parade, less by choice, and was shocked at the performances of not one, but all the dance groups. The costumes and moves of what were often very young girls was disturbing, not to mention the music. Interestingly many of the girls were followed in the street by their mothers who, judging by their dress, often seemed to have the same agenda.

But the real show, which the media didn't pick up on, was taking place inside Wesley
Methodist Church, where a group of Cedarbridge singers and music students with the
Bermuda Philharmonic were performing Vivaldi's "Gloria". Even if it was Vivaldi, who
can stir the soul of all but the most musically insensitive, the performance was outstanding. The talent and obvious dedication of these students was incredible, and
they did their school and country proud.

At one point, the conductor stopped the performance and motioned for one of the
soloists to sit down while the church vibrated to the beat of the latest 20 megawatt
hit right outside the church door. But the students took it in stride, and resumed
where they left off with confidence.

Too often we write off our teenagers, and Cedarbridge gets a lot of flak for the
actions of a few, but here we have a great example of something truly good.
Bermudians need to hear of this stuff - perhaps more would try to aim for something
better than showing off to gangsta rap.

A phenomenal performance. Hopefully the press won't miss it next time.

Well done to all those involved, parents, teachers and students.

Amen to Senator Wilson for speaking out in today's Gazette on the appropriateness of some of the dancing and music in Sunday's parade.

It was worse than she says though, because she left early.

It's no wonder we're suffering from an epidemic of violent crime and single parents when the Santa Claus parade becomes a rolling Gangsta Rap video.

The huge turnouts to see the Queen and the outpouring of goodwill along the streets feels like a valve has opened to release the pressure that has been building up.

I wandered down to the ferry terminal today when someone told me the Queen was on her way and the crowd was large, diverse...and giddy. People were thrilled to see the Queen, but I think more than that were really proud to show off their island to a large audience.

There's been plenty of comment about the lack of enthusiasm from the Premier and the Government for this 400th anniversary, which really has felt like a colossal missed opportunity. Overlay that with the constant niggling towards the Governor, the UK in general and the antagonistic approach to the British component of our heritage, and you had a population that was tense. Unnecessarily so.

We've heard relentlessly that because we're not independent that it is somehow 'unnatural' or that Bermuda is not mature. But I think the polls, and the atmosphere on the island this week, have shown that on this issue the Premier and his party are seriously out of step with the public by continuing to try to push an issue that people simply do not want.

I don't think that we Bermudians are royalists in any sense, or somehow enamored with the UK, or afraid of change. I'm certainly not. It seems to me that the constitutional arrangement that Bermudians ratified in 1995 and polls show support in larger numbers today, is rooted in our pragmatism.

The disconnect between the PLP and the Bermudian people is that while the vast majority of Bermudians are deeply pragmatic, the PLP leadership and membership are dogmatic on this issue. What we've seen is a shift from an overt pro-independent campaign to this campaign of contrived confrontation, culiminating with the Uighur issue and the fight over the Police, to somehow convince us that we're being oppressed or treated like children.

It would seem that the enthusiasm for the visit of the Queen has blown open this idea that we don't have shared interests and history, both which should be celebrated and exploited not suppressed.

So we've ended up with our 400 year celebrations feeling like they really started with the Queen's visit because the Government seems so ashamed of who we are as a country. The Bermuda 400 organisers have been working so hard, but it felt like they really didn't have the support of the political leadership. This culimated with the Premier being on vacation for the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Bermuda.

The political campaign to suppress and erase all things British has had the side effect of squandering one of our greatest tourism marketing assets. It's also wasted thousands of hours of energy on an issue that doesn't help advance solutions but creates new problems by embedding real problems in an outdated dogmatic political argument, rendering them that much harder to resolve.

It's been refreshing to see the Bermudian spirit unleashed over the past few days, and people from all backgrounds so excited to be showing off what makes Bermuda such an international success story and a unique blend of cultures.

May it continue.

Considering that Bermuda bills itself as the world's risk capital it doesn't help the brand when the Premier of said island makes the following statement about health insurance costs:

Dr. Gibbons interjected: "If you have three times the number of people enrolled in something, it's roughly three times the cost."

But Dr. Brown said: "It's statistically dangerous to assume the second set of people who come into FutureCare will carry the same statistical likelihood of disease."

Say what? Statistically dangerous to assume that large pools of individuals have similar risk profiles?

Um, that's not 'statistically dangerous', unless you mean dangerous to weak political arguments. That's statistically sound. Law of large numbers and all.

Unless Dr. Brown intends to start screening Future Care applicants for pre-existing conditions, or weighing them, or taking their blood pressure, there is no reason whatsoever to assume that the next 5,000 entrants will look any different in medical profile than the first 5,000. None.

I'd go so far as to say that the projections of the Future Costs of Future Care being used today are going to end up being vastly underestimated.

As one of my readers emailed me today:

Christian, one thing you might want to remember. In 1966 Medicare cost $3 billion.
At the time the Ways and Means Committee estimated that it would cost $12 billion in
1990 - instead it cost $107 billion (a factor of 9).

I don't know what sort of analysis the PLP has done of this program (apparently none) but even if they had why should anyone be confident that any such estimate is more accurate than the one that the US used when it introduced Medicare.

Government is terrible at projecting and controlling costs on the simple stuff. The horror stories of capital project overruns are well documented.

This unreal and optimistic attitude to planning and costing out Future Care is worse because as crazy as the construction overspends have been at least when the job ends the costs stop (and the lawsuits end).

A poorly planned and politically oriented public health insurance plan will see costs compound at an astronomical rate with no way to put a lid on them.

You can't blame the local insurers for this debacle. The first rule of business is don't compete with the Government. Hence they pulled out of the over 65 market. After all they weren't just competing with Government, but Government offered to take the most expensive clients off their books.

The Minister said that the local Insurance providers had a responsibility to the public, saying that they work almost as a monopoly on the Island.

No. They have an obligation to their policy holders and shareholders. Government has a responsibility to the public. When Government offers free insurance to the highest risks, an insurer would be nuts to try and compete. How do you make money competing with free.

Dr. Brown is a medical doctor who owns private clinics. Dr. Gibbons is part of a family that owns a health insurer and sits on its board.

Setting interests aside, who do you think has a better understanding of the long term costs of insurance?

I'd say it's the guy cutting the cheques, not the one mailing the bills.

LIstening to the debate on Future Care in Parliament has been interesting. Let's just say that it's a good thing the Premier went into medicine and not actuarial science. But that's not what I want to comment on here.

He also made a statement in rebuttal to Grant Gibbons and his estimate of the ultimate cost of Future Care.

Dr. Brown paralleled the cost which the UBP are using with the PLP's number during the election campaign around status grants. You may recall the PLP attacked the UBP for wanting to create 8,000 new status Bermudians (and the press duly repeated it, even though it was on its face absurd creating a phony controversy).

The Premier said that the PLP put a number out there, and he paused to pick his words carefully, 'which resonated', suggesting that the UBP was adopting this tactic on Future Care to 'frighten people'.

So there you have it folks, the Premier proudly admitted that his party blatantly lied to the public during the election campaign as a scare tactic (even though I have no idea what the UBP were doing bringing up status during an election campaign).

Of course this admission invites the completely reasonable accusation that he is similarly fabricating a number now on the low side to give false comfort over the true cost of Future Care.

The extension of the argument was that it's the current and future Governments job to control the cost of Future Care. We know how well Governments in general, but particularly this Government, controls costs don't we. And construction costs are much easier to project and control than health care costs.

Revealingly the PLP, and even the Speaker, continued to interject that the UBP can't criticise the PLP for not costing it out properly because "it was an election promise". There you have it, election promises shouldn't be taken seriously. That was in fact the core rebuttal to the UBP's critique.

While most people expect a certain amount of silliness, political campaigns need to be grounded in some level of honesty. That was one of the UBP's insurmountable challenges; they've been operating around a basic level of seriousness while the other side will say anything no matter how outlandish.

As a friend constantly says to me, riffing on comedian Stephen Colbert's famous line, "reality has an anti-PLP bias".

We desperately need to elevate our political discourse, and demand reality based politics.

Future Care was an election promise issued on the assumption that the details were unimportant and Government revenues would always increase.

Is there anyone left who needs disabusing of that notion? Can Bermuda afford to continue on this way?

With all the focus on the Regiment lately, but more specifically conscription, it got me thinking about public service, but more specifically political service in Bermuda.

I can think of many Bermudians who are not involved in politics but whose character and skill sets would make a positive difference in what is currently a rather lacklustre Parliamentary lineup. Bermuda's Parliament, and politics in general remain dominated by a generation that has been at this for a long time.

When I look at the split in the UBP, and the more muted but clearly present divisions in the PLP, I see more of a generational break than an ideological one. Many people who are involved no longer want to do things the 1960s way.

So my question is:

If you could draft someone (or someones) into Bermuda politics, who would it be and why? (Bermudians only please.)

Shoot me an email with your thoughts and I'll post some of the feedback.

Fareed Zakaria - Oct 4. 2008

In a world of competitive capitalism, you need not big government or no government but smart government. We are not in a race to the bottom, on wages, regulations, or anything else. But we are competing against other countries to come up with the government policies that most effectively foster growth, innovation, and productivity. It's a time to figure out what works, not what ideological mantras to keep repeating. It's the age of Michael Bloomberg, not Margaret Thatcher.

An interview tip for the two finalists for the Premier's cook:

No arsenic jokes.

(And does Cabinet really need to be involved in the hiring decision? Really. Nothing better to do? Global credit crisis. No?)

Sorry for the lack of activity lately, but I've been watching, increasingly with bewilderment, the US party conventions, which are at best staged news but seem to be moving into the parallel universe territory now.

The Gazette also yesterday had a piece on the complicated relationship that many Bermudians have with Obama, which is something that I've been thinking and writing about for some time now.

If you're sick of my comparisons to US politics then stop reading now, but the Republican and Democratic conventions have really crystalised for me the parallels that I've discussed previously between the PLP and modern day US Republicanism and the UBP and the Democrats.

Firstly, on Obama, I admit I'm an admirer, but I should probably stipulate that Bermuda's interest in this US election is certainly with a McCain presidency, in the sense that Obama has made targeting non-American jurisdictions a central plank in his economic plan.

I say 'non-American' for a reason, because 'offshore' is a perspective not a location. The US is offshore to me, and any attempt to penalise Bermuda companies because of the US's own ridiculous tax code is something that we should all be concerned about and will have real consequences for Bermuda.

Generally these threats have been empty Democratic party rhetoric in the past 2 or 3 US elections; the US's economic problems and need to generate more tax revenue to pay for the debt generated by the war(s) make these more real this time around.

However, setting Bermuda's interest aside, I find Obama a very compelling, intelligent, charismatic politician who as I've said before is trying to combat a formidable political machine, and he's trying to do it by (largely) rejecting the traditional culture wars, identity politics and elevate the tone of Presidential politics.

That to me, is the same challenge that the UBP have proven unable to master in Bermuda (which I wrote about here recently), with the PLP's political playbook of exploiting racial tensions and divisions, emphasising political identity and a bare knuckle street fight style of campaigning.

Obama summed up to me very well the Bermuda dynamic in a recent 60 Minutes interview where he said:

The Republicans don't govern very well. But, they know how to campaign.

That's precisely how I would categorise the PLP: they're great campaigners.

You're seeing that right now, with the PLP (or at least the Brown loyalists) in full campaign mode until the PLP delegates conference in October after a rocky first half of 2008.

I predict that, for example, Brown's embrace of a 35 hour work week will get lots of lip service as the BIU core probably overlap heavily with the party delegates who will have a say in any PLP leadership challenge in October.

As soon as that leadership vote is done, and assuming Ewart Brown is successful, that's the last you'll hear of it.

It will go the way of the Workplace Equity Act, Goodwill Plus, the St. George's Police Station renovation, free daycare and any other host of broken promises.

During a campaign, and the PLP are pretty much in a constant campaign, they'll say anything and promise anything, even things they previously opposed (35 hour work week in 2006) or ultimately support (the UBP's means tested daycare proposal). The PLP's 2007 election platform was for all intents and purposes the UBP's ideas + 10%.

The UBP said St. George's needs a Police Station, the PLP send the Hustle Truck.

The UBP promised means tested daycare, the PLP say daycare for everyone.

That was the way the election went almost on a daily basis.

Now, I know I'm rambling because it's getting late, but back to my main point, the UBP have proven unable to articulate with brevity the problems with the PLP's style of campaigning, and also seem unwilling to fight back with any sort of vigor.

So I defer to Obama, in his 2008 Democratic Convention speech, to describe all that is wrong with the politics that the PLP are practising today, that of demonising any critics as racists, angry partisans and pseudo foreigners:

Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

And you know what - it's worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.

I get it.

I get it too.

The PLP don't have a record, and much of what they claimed was their record during the election was a fraud and is crumbling under the weight of its spin - 'increasing tourism' and 'declining crime' for example, so they painted their 'opponent as someone people should run from.'

That much is undeniable, with the ads that Michael Dunkley was 'out to get you', supported lynching, wanting to 'lock everyone up'. It was shallow, crass and despicable.

But it was also successful.

So as I watched the Republicans over the past few nights try to paint Obama as someone people should run from, I grew weary and appalled. It all felt too familiar, so eventually, tonight I just had to turn the TV off.

There is a better way.

And the verdict is...A Pyramid Scheme (or perhaps a multi-level marketing scheme).

Either way, because you need to recruit new members to make it work, it's nothing more than a slightly dressed up pyramid scheme. It should be shut down. I imagine that someone who's lost money will make a complaint soon enough and that will be the end of that.

As an accountant Wayne should be sophisticated enough to know what it is. As an MP he should be self-aware enough to stay the hell away from this crap.

It's a scam. I'm appalled that a Member of Parliament brought it to Bermuda.

A reader writes on the sorry state of Bermuda politics:

I liked this passage: "I think that Wayne could sit as a very credible, reasonably influential Independent. As a PLP MP he would be too beholden to them , having to prove his loyalty and never being truly trusted (although Dr. Brown likes to have people around him who need to stay in his favour rather than people of principle)."

Right now we have far too few people of principle in both parties. Most of those deeply involved, I sense, are in it for personal gain: some financial; some status; and some for self-worth. Name for me the people who passionately work for an issue (environment, needy, etc.) or even have a platform of issues. Both parties play at the game with little community involvement and therefore little relevance to most of us folks, other than dolling out the goodies (qlq) or protecting the status quo (ubp). A sorry picture for me. One that breeds desperation, resentment and instability.

I also agree that Wayne should fish or cut bait as they say. I see no hope of the UBP evolving into anything different nor the qlq becoming competent or trustworthy. Like in Quebec, a third party will certainly spice things up.

There are a number of politicians who I believe are in politics for the right reasons.

Sadly, there are far too many that are not; too many conflicts of interests, too much selective outrage and too much 'but they did it' for starters.

Transactional politicians is a term that sums up my view of the current political landscape.

I am becoming both depressed and disgusted with the state of affairs in Bermuda right now; be it the outright lies, the shallowness of political debate, the rampant identity politics, the racialisation of everything, the poorly drafted and hastily crafted legislation, the dominance of short term politics over long term public policy.

I'm genuinely disgusted.

At the risk of sounding like a starry eyed dreamer, Bermuda needs transformational not transactional politics.

Yet another Government statement posted on the PLP's party website but not the (terrible, and terribly expensive) Government website.

But ignoring the troubling merging of partisan party communications with official government work for a second, try to make sense of this statement:

During today’s gathering all sides agreed to the Premier’s request to reconvene the same parties around the table for monthly meetings on the topic of labour relations. The Government’s goal is to tackle specific issues of concern during those gatherings. Mutually workable dates for future meetings will be arranged, and at a mutually agreeable time, the meetings will be held on a quarterly basis.

So they're going to hold monthly meetings quarterly?

That's Government efficiency at its best if I've ever seen it.

We are not elitist... pleads the Playboy Premier who just took possession of an oversized and totally overpowered BMW 750, while his Cabinet colleagues drive cars that are bigger than allowed for non-politicians; who just flew (with entourage) to Washington DC on a private jet; who park in Cabinet only VIP parking at the airport; who sponsors family events at the Playboy Mansion on the taxpayers dime; who stayed in the 7 diamond Al Burj hotel at taxpayers expense; and who vacations in Martha's Vineyard and Turks and Caicos with his celebrity friends.

Nah. Not elitist at all.

The upside of Ewart Brown and George Bush getting together, as reported today, is that their combined approval rating may actually break 50%.

Vexed is quick off the mark to point out that electoral reform conducted behind closed doors is not reform:

Appalling. In the name of equity and transparency, it’s remarkable that changes to the Parliamentary Election Act could be proposed without structured involvement of all political parties, and then be provided solely to the political incumbent.

This document should have been released to the public and the political parties simultaneously. To do otherwise risks attracting accusations of favoritism.

When the public and other political organisations are kept in the dark until the Governing party gives a supposedly non-political appointment 'the green light' to let others have a peek, then you have a process which is illegitimate and politically poisoned from the start.

A reader extracts a point from my snarkiness:

Regardless of the price it [Spanish Point Boat Club] is another piece of Bermuda, with a considerable history to the ordinary Bermudian, being sold off to effectively foreign interests. No doubt there will be no reaction, as per Alexandrina Hall.

Indeed. It's a sign of the times really. The social clubs are disappearing rapidly, with National Sports Club (now Somersfield Academy), the Old Colony Club (of which I was a member and is now owned by Argus Insurance), Alexandrina Hall and others I'm sure.

I'm not sure what can really be done; you can't force a club to persist forever and the memberships have generally aged and reduced - although I think Spanish Point's membership is a bit younger and larger than most.

My prediction is that the increasing presence of mid-rise apartment buildings in Hamilton (which isn't a bad thing in theory) is going to gobble up many of the older buildings on Cedar Avenue.

The successful developments of Atlantis and the two Gilbert Lopes built apartments on Cedar Avenue and Dundonald Street have created an area that could become a residential hub in town, and, I predict that the properties all the way down Cedar Avenue will become attractive for real estate developers.

In particular I'm thinking of Queen's Club, Leopards Club and even down to the Bermuda Public Services Headquarters.

That stretch of Cedar Avenue seems very likely to become lined with apartment blocks.

The following is a an article written by columnist Gavin Shorto for this month's Bermudian Business magazine, which they have both kindly agreed to have republished here.

I felt that it deserved a wider airing, as it provides some counterbalance to the one-sided version of the formation of party politics in Bermuda that has been, and continues to be peddled for partisan political gain.

Julian Hall, and others who speak for black people in Bermuda, have recently been claiming that the birth of the United Bermuda Party was nothing more than a product of white fear of losing economic and political control.

On the other hand, says Mr Hall, the Progressive Labour Party, at its birth, was intended to “meld basic Christian principles and ethics concerning how we should treat and deal with each other, with the broader aims and goals of the Bermuda Labour Movement with a view to pursuing social and economic justice for all the people of Bermuda.”

Anyone who was around at the time knows those two assertions are an odd way of putting it, to say the very least. The whole truth is more complex than Mr Hall would have us believe, and much less convenient for those who like to portray the PLP as the flower of entirely noble instincts and actions.

The whole truth is joined at the head, hip and knees to what was going on outside Bermuda in those days, when the world was still being roiled by the effects of the Second World War.

Once, Britain had been the most powerful nation in the world...the sun never set on the British Empire, they used to say. But the war wrecked its economy. Any sliver of hope that it might somehow have been able to hang onto its Empire was destroyed by the entry onto the world stage of the United Nations.

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan privately called it “this Frankenstein which we have created”, and no wonder, because at its creation, the UN accelerated the process of fighting against colonialism in a big way. It short-circuited the power of colonial nations to deal with often violent independence movements, by giving them a voice, and a cloak of political respectability.

At the time of the creation of Bermuda’s two political parties, the world had been watching as country after country after country fought for and won independence from Britain, France and other colonial countries. Sometimes, perhaps especially in African colonies, the struggles were violent and ugly. Very often, violence became a way of life in those countries, and the world today is still struggling to deal with the consequences.

Perhaps we now understand that many countries which opted for independence were taking a step back in order to move forward into a better future. But while Bermudians of the 1960s would have been very aware of the steps backwards, it was too early for movement forward to have become obvious.

These days, we are used to knowing more or less what the country thinks about issues because of the benefits of modern polling techniques. Now, it’s easy to extrapolate backwards and surmise that a big majority of Bermudians in the 50s and 60s would have been dead set against independence. They would have seen the idea in the light of what had happened in other countries – communities and economies damaged and sometimes destroyed by the process – and would probably have thought of independence as reckless in the extreme – an absurd risk for an Island in our fragile line of work.

But in those days, it was a guessing game, and the founders of both political parties would have constructed their platforms on the basis of what they guessed (and no doubt hoped) the voters would find attractive.

The founders of the PLP knew all about post-colonial politics. Given Bermuda’s segregationist history, the fact that power had always been in the hands of a tiny white oligarchy, the gap between rich and poor, the absence of social services, and so on, Bermuda seemed the classic case of a colony that should be gasping for sweeping and rapid political change. The PLP’s founders must have thought it would be easy to take power simply by opposing everything Front Street stood for.

But the character of the Bermudian population turned that assumption on its ear. The PLP’s founders fell afoul of the same thing that drove Dr Gordon to despair of the labour movement – the fear and the lassitude that kept Bermudians from taking action to turn their hopes for a better society into reality.

That wasn’t the only political mistake the PLP made. They proclaimed themselves in favour of independence. They went over to Britain and had tea with the Russian Ambassador.

They hired a political advisor named Geoffrey Bing, whose reputation, to a conservative, was only slightly better than that of Beelzebub himself. He was as far to the left as you can get and still be called a socialist. As Attorney General of Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast), he helped its first president, Kwame Nkrumah, deal with the very high level of political unrest that characterised his time in office. Bing was AG when the infamous Preventive Detention Act came into effect, legislation that made it possible to arrest and detain anyone suspected of treason without reference to the courts.

So the formation of the UBP was far from simply a result of white fear of losing power, it had to do with the fear of both races, given wings by the nascent PLP’s apparent left-wing radicalism, that political change was going to be the apple that got us cast out of Paradise.

It also had to do with the realisation by Sir Henry Tucker and others that Bermuda had penetrated more than half-way into the 20th Century with a society that owed more to feudalism than contemporary best practice.

No one in Bermuda at the time, in politics or not, had any accurate idea whether change might be accompanied here by the kind of violence seen elsewhere. But it was a cast-iron certainty that failing to do something about improving Bermuda society would be the very best way of encouraging radicalism and violence.

For Sir Henry Tucker and his supporters, it was time to get with it...time for sleeves to be rolled up, and for action to be taken to ensure the sweeping changes that were necessary were managed by capable people of both races who had Bermuda’s best interests at heart. They saw the alternative as being torn apart by that peculiar political maelstrom that was destroying countries the world over.
It was something of a miracle that they actually managed to do it – the task was no less than a complete re-engineering of Bermuda’s society and its infrastructure. The list of things to be done was thoroughly daunting: A Constitution had to be negotiated. The remnants of segregation had to be swept away, and a platform created on which an integrated Bermuda could stand. There was no labour legislation, no hospital insurance. Even the poorest families had to pay for their children’s education. There was no planning department, no central bank, no financial assistance and no guarantee of any kind of human rights.

That Bermuda, led by the UBP and pushed by the PLP, managed to cram a century’s-worth of progress into a generation, without falling apart at the seams, is an extraordinary tribute to the resilience and good sense of the whole community – something to be shouted from the rooftops. Denying it is a mean-spirited, outrageous assault on the truth.

Former Republican Speaker of the US House during the height of the Republican majority, Newt Gingrich, dispenses an assessment on what got his party to the position they are in today:

Q: What happened to your party over the last eight years?

A: They went off the rails. That's it. They took a majority that took 16 years to build and they destroyed it....

There was a fundamental misunderstanding about how to govern. The concept of red versus blue is a tactic, not a strategy. In the long run, in order to mobilize your base, you tend to become more intense and your positions become more vitriolic, and you drive away the independents. Then you are no longer a majority.

"They took a majority that took 16 years to build and they destroyed it."

It took over 30 years for the PLP to build their majority.

"Red versus blue is a tactic, not a strategy."

Nor is black versus white.

"In order to mobilize your base, you tend to become more intense and your positions become more vitriolic, and you drive away the independents."

More vitriolic? Check. Drive away the independents? Not yet.

"Then you are no longer a majority." Time will tell.

A reader dissents:

With all respect, I disagree about the 'anachronism' statement. The Queen is still the Queen, still the head of state here (for now at least), and there is nothing anachronistic about having a holiday to celebrate it. The US has President's Day, after all. If we're only interested in having public holidays for recent things, let's do away with Cup Match (as emancipation was a long time ago), Veterans Day (as the world wars were a long time ago), Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Easter (...you get the point).

I agree that swapping a day off in June for one in October is a daft move, but I also find it unappealing to cease a long-standing tradition in favour of celebrating the latest 'hero' (an overused adjective these days). That is, unless we can call it 'David Beckham Day' next year...

It's a fair point (except the Beckham bit), particularly the overuse of the word 'hero'. That is spot on.

Whether the holiday itself is an anachronism, the change was meant as a dig at the UK that's for sure. It's also part of the broader move that is constantly chipping away at any acknowledgment of the UK's formal role in Bermuda's life and formation.

I think most people see the holiday less as a celebration of the Queen herself, but more one of our history generally. The petition itself is has far too much of a Royalist tone for my liking, but I understand why people are signing it.

I think that we can celebrate both our distinct Bermuda heritage and our historic ties to the UK on Bermuda Day, rather than have a specific "Queen's Birthday" holiday, which is the celebration of a random event that doesn't actually occur on her birthday anyway.

I still think we should keep the June holiday date anyway. The days are longer and the weather's better.

I must say that I'm intrigued to see how the 400 year celebrations of Bermuda's founding are conducted next year, because they'll be very reluctant to give much recognition to the UK's role at all, not to mention that history goes against the political folklore being peddled with the use of terms like 'indigenous Bermudians'.

Of course Bermuda was colonised, and colonialism has a very ugly side, but there wasn't anyone here so it has to be viewed in a different light in our case.

Others have commented that the removal of the Queen's Birthday holiday threatens traditions like the Dinghy racing etc., but that argument isn't going to go far with the powers that be.

That's the wrong kind of heritage to be celebrating.

And finally, I, like my dissenter above, find the whole idea of a "Heroes Day" to be pretty silly really.

If we're honest, it's little more than a political ploy to profile partisan figures for short and long term indoctrination purposes, just as the naming of buildings etc. is both here and abroad. Wake me up when a building is named after someone in the UBP, or a non-PLP affiliated figure is honoured as part of National Heroes Day (throw in the "National" to drum up nationalistic sentiment to be exploited when the next inevitable push for independence occurs).

It's an exercise for politicians to adore their partisan predecessors and hope that the favour is returned later.

As if getting into politics is 'heroic'. It's a noble pursuit (or should be), and I strongly advocate more (and better) people spending part of their time in public life. But 'heroes'? In most cases, not.

Parties in power do this in the US all the time, and I find the idea of putting partisan political names on public facilities to be inherently distasteful.

A reader sent in a link to a petition that's circulating calling for the retention of the Queen's Birthday Holiday. Right now it's received over 1800 signatures.

In the spirit of Walton Brown's break from his Party's intimidation tactics with a welcome defense of free speech, I figured I'd pass it along.

Personally, I'm not too bothered about celebrating the Queen's Birthday as a holiday; it's an anachronism really.

I just think it's a bad trade.

What bright spark thought that giving up a holiday in June for one in October was a good trade?

To summarise the Minister of Health:

'Botox? Very bad. Unregulated Stem Cell experimentation on humans? We'll get to it sometime.'

Membership has its privileges.

UBP MP Bob Richards speaking on the antiquated nature of our Public Accounts Committee, which he now chairs but is one of only two Opposition members:

We think it's quite antediluvian that these things are held in secret.

Not being a religious kind of guy, I had to look that one up:

1: of or relating to the period before the flood described in the Bible2 a: made, evolved, or developed a long time ago b: extremely primitive or outmoded

Shaun Goater is absolutely correct - and as usual a class act - in his analysis of the state of local sport:

I feel we have become an arrogant sporting nation. Do we really believe we can hold a dozen national team training sessions and expect to roll over countries who have invested in top coaches and training camps? How arrogant!

For me our attitude is a major stumbling block. I don't see a great deal of commitment from the players and I don't think the necessary sacrifices are being made.

In sport, more often than not, you get what you deserve. And right now we're reaping the rewards we deserve.

It isn't restricted solely to sport however; the exact same dynamic is at play economically in Bermuda today, we are giving away our economic edge through arrogance, complacency and bad public policy.

We have become an arrogant economic nation (even though we're not a nation).

"It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success."

Joseph Geobbels, 1927

The UBP have been calling for mandatory drug testing of MP's for some time now, but evidently there is a more pressing test which should be administered, a hearing test.

First up? Dr. Brown, who evidently only hears praise and adulation, mishearing Charles Gosling who assessed him as a "fascinating character" rather than the "fantastic man" that he heard.

And then there's Michael Scott, the Health Minister who evidently hears things which were never actually said during secret strategy meetings which he attends and takes notes in. The Minister, a lawyer, evidently never heard it said that the Johns Hopkins report was 'devastating' and would be an 'embarrassment to the GOB [Government of Bermuda]' and 'must be managed'. The notes he made? "Grossly inaccurate" and his "personal thoughts". Never happened. Clearly.

Perhaps they could perform the hearing tests while they are being drug tested? Or, on second thought, perhaps they need some drugs to treat them for the voices which they are hearing?

With Dr. Brown starting this campaign off in an extremely hyperbolic and divisive manner, I though I'd repost the Street Fight post from February.

It's well worth renting.

--------February 19, 2007--------

Last night I watched "Street Fight" a documentary about the Newark, New Jersey Mayoral Race between challenger Cory Booker and incumbent Sharpe James [Note: It is available at Leisure Time].

You may remember that Cory Booker was brought to Bermuda twice by the UBP to speak.

Besides being a gripping documentary, anyone who is interested in the mechanics and tactics encountered when running an on the ground election campaign against a no-holds barred opponent shouldn't miss this.

There are many parallels to the racialisation of our election campaigns, alhough this one is between two black American Democrats; one representing the old guard and the other a young up and comer.

Observers of Bermudian politics will note the many overlapping themes and tactics involved. For example, Mr. Booker - a black Democrat - was labeled by his opponent as a white Republican jew because he dare challenge the black establishment candidate.

Sound familiar? Shysters and Uncle Toms anyone?

Watch the trailer:

A reminder, that the final day to get on the Parliamentary Register for the election is one week today, Wednesday November 14th.

You can check your current registration online here.

You can access the registration forms here.

If you have any questions I'll do my best to assist or find out the answer.

Remember, 70 votes across a few constituencies was the difference last time.

The Premier has called the election for Dec. 18th.

I'm a little surprised, in that the Throne Speech today was very underwhelming, not quite what you'd expect to be the launch of an election campaign.

But there it is.

As I said this morning:

"The ultimate way to stop an imminent revolt is to call an election."

Sort of off topic, but I thought it an interesting tidbit.

A Rolling Stones tribute band is playing tomorrow night apparently, which is funny considering that the real drummer of the Stones, Charlie Watts, was having dinner with his family at Speciality Inn last night.

A reader sends in a very interesting study recently conducted at Princeton:

Abstract

Predicting political elections from rapid and unreflective face judgments

Charles C. Ballew II and Alexander Todorov

Here we show that rapid judgments of competence based solely on the facial appearance of candidates predicted the outcomes of gubernatorial elections, the most important elections in the United States next to the presidential elections. In all experiments, participants were presented with the faces of the winner and the runner-up and asked to decide who is more competent. To ensure that competence judgments were based solely on facial appearance and not on prior person knowledge, judgments for races in which the participant recognized any of the faces were excluded from all analyses. Predictions were as accurate after a 100-ms exposure to the faces of the winner and the runner-up as exposure after 250 ms and unlimited time exposure (Experiment 1). Asking participants to deliberate and make a good judgment dramatically increased the response times and reduced the predictive accuracy of judgments relative to both judgments made after 250 ms of exposure to the faces and judgments made within a response deadline of 2 s (Experiment 2). Finally, competence judgments collected before the elections in 2006 predicted 68.6% of the gubernatorial races and 72.4% of the Senate races (Experiment 3). These effects were independent of the incumbency status of the candidates. The findings suggest that rapid, unreflective judgments of competence from faces can affect voting decisions.

All that advertising and canvassing for nothing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are increasing similarities between US politics and the American style stuff that is being imported to Bermuda.

The Onion sums it up:

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

A reader sent in an April 2006 story from the BBC on the problems the UK's sham marriage law encountered after being ruled to be a breach of Human Rights.

Tough government rules to prevent sham marriages discriminate against immigrants, the High Court has ruled.

In a significant defeat for the government, Mr Justice Silber said the rules were unreasonable and breached human rights.

Campaigners said the law was discriminatory because it effectively labelled some immigrants as fraudsters.

The judge gave leave to appeal - but the Home Office has partially suspended the rules while it considers its case.

However, Mr Justice Silber's "declaration of incompatibility" against the rules is the most severe defeat the courts can inflict on the government on human rights grounds.

and

Amit Sachdev, a solicitor representing two of the claimants, said that the law was the first time that a British government had sought to restrict the right to marry.

"Sadly, this Act once again shows the government's abject failure to respect the human rights of immigrants," said Mr Sachdev.

"This Act was a knee-jerk reaction based on speculation rather than evidence. The House of Lords complained that the Act had not received proper scrutiny. By this judgement, their concerns have proved correct.

"A vast majority of British and European citizens [caught up by the rules] have been complaining that this law brought pain, suffering, humiliation and misery to them."

I won't have much time until tonight to research the UK law that is apparently being used as a model for our law, but I'll give it a shot later.

This article is a year and a half old, so there could have been developments.

VSB radio news reported this morning that the Government is about to introduce new legislation requiring Bermudians who want to marry a non-Bermudian to first obtain permission from the Department of Immigration.

Presumably this means that if you have to get permission that some bureaucrat at Immigration can say no. Perhaps you'll have to also consummate the sham marriage on the officer's desk as well?

The assumption here of course is that Bermudians marry foreigners out of convenience to circumvent a work permit and/or use their rich spouses (aren't they all) money to buy up property that the poor Bermudian couldn't otherwise afford.

Sledge hammer tactics as usual.

Is the idea here to get us all inter-breeding? Because it won't take long to turn some family trees into stumps with no branches.

But here's a serious question:

If I were to decide to circumvent the Department of Immigration's permission by marrying overseas, in the home country of my spouse, would Bermuda not recognize that marriage?

Even the most casual observor would have probably noticed that there's been a flurry of activity over the past few weeks of unexpected developments and renewed talk of an election as the next logical window approaches (December).

Most notably there's been developments around moving the Southlands development to Morgan's Point; supplementing the Bermuda Police with some nebulous imported force; importing a foreign consultant to cool down the economy (or just advise on tourism development if you believe the latest shifting justification); and the draft racial quota law.

I don't claim to have any insight on the timing of an election, although it should be pretty clear that one was about to be called in the summer before the leaked Police files threw the Premier into damage control and diversion mode.

People seem pretty much split on whether it would be advantageous to call an election before or after Christmas, but my sense is that the Premier is taking things a couple of weeks at a time...much like the UBP was in 98 when things weren't going well.

Maybe he'll call it before Christmas, maybe not, I'd say probably not, particularly as the Privy Council is due to rule on gag orders versus the public interest in less than two weeks on October 29th.

I haven't seen any polls lately, although the Gazette probably is about due to publish a new one about now anyway, but this feels to me like one of those scenarios where a wounded incumbent party is waiting for the slightest little uptick in favourability to go to an election, but it just isn't coming.

We're even hearing that some PLP insiders think that the Premier should try and capitalise on the Music Festival and PGA event (which he and his party seem unable to share the credit with the members of the Mid Ocean who put in so much time and effort to both secure the tournament and run it). That's a rather shallow and insulting rationale for someone to vote PLP ("Well, they threw a good concert and sports event").

What I think is more significant is that there has been a sudden pivot on Southlands, the telegraphing of a policing arrangement, talk of cooling down the economy and the study on black males in conjunction with the workplace laws (ie. the tried and true pre-election demonising of whites and expats to redirect from a lack of progress under almost 9 years of PLP rule).

These three or four moves (plus the public education review) are all efforts to minimise as best as possible some serious vulnerabilities by putting them "under study".

These three or four moves were all relatively unexpected (and the draft Workplace Equity Act appears to have been hastily thrown out and legally problematic) but are all quite specifically targeted at trouble spots in their record.

It's a clear admission that a serious disconnect has developed between the public and the direction/performance of the PLP, particularly the Dr. Brown era.

The question is whether the UBP are able to turn this disconnect into support for them. That's hard to gauge because people appear to be keeping their cards quite close to their chests, although there is a steady chorus of dissatisfaction out there, and the UBP appear to be banking on a lower key one on one doorstep campaign.

The fact that Alex Scott in Warwick was put forth as the one who brought the sides together to discuss moving Southlands is clearly an attempt to rehabilitate some PLP candidates in Warwick, where resentment was running high over the fait d'accompli that was the Southlands development.

This election, whenever it happens, will be hard to read, and very competitive I believe. Clearly the PLP's cockiness of early 2007 has disappeared with some second guessing of the decision to not go early, giving the electorate time to digest the radicalised PLP under Dr. Brown and discover the details of the Police files.

The UBP appear quietly confident (is Dunkley trying some Jedi mind tricks here - does he want it early or not?). I'd like to see some of their new candidates raise their profile a little, but if the Southlands switch in Warwick is any indication, their doorstep strategy could be paying dividends.

A reader writes with a serious take on the sarcastic Licensing Your Spouse:

It is good to see this issue is still getting attention. I am a spouse of a Bermudian who owned a house well before we met which we decided to sell. We have now been waiting for our buyers to obtain a license for about 2 ½ months. Until this license mess is sorted, we definitely won’t be reinvesting in Bermuda. More and more I see my husband pushed out of his own country (most of the time because of me!). It is quite sad!

Obviously, the reader comment in Licensing Your Spouse was an extreme comment to take the policy to its furthest, but the comment above expresses a real life example of the impact of shallow politicking through heavy handed and ill conceived policies designed to drum up a few votes but that have a real impact on people's lives, both financial and otherwise.

Surely if we treat Spouses of Bermudians as Bermudians for employment purposes (outside of the Civil Service that is), there is no reason that we can't do likewise for jointly held investments.

The example the Minister cited about how we'd then have to allow Spouses of Bermudians to vote is just an attempt to inflame the issue.

Voting is an individual right whereas issues of jointly held assets and financial decisions in marriage is not.

You gotta love this.

First Dr. Brown got a grip n grin with Condi Rice. Then, Michael Dunkley stuck his finger in Dr. Brown's eye with a grip n grin with Tiger Woods. And now Dr. Brown reciprocates with today's toothy grip n grin with Barack Obama on the front page of the Royal Gazette (Friday's caption competition front-runner).

I'm reliably informed that Michael Dunkley intends to put this one to bed when he produces the photo of him and Jesus.

With the roll-out of "Goodwill Plus" we're seeing a page taken out of a very American political tactic of naming policies in ways that evoke strong emotive responses while actually achieving the opposite.

The New Onion touched on this a few days ago:

For the record - Goodwill Plus - is in the American style of naming something positive (Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, etc.) that is in fact a terrible idea.

Controlling the language - nicely Orwellian.

I would imagine that the Premier is using some American advisors and/or has read noted US Political consultant Frank Luntz, who specialises in testing words to help sell a product.

Luntz recently published a book entitled "Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear".

Salon.com interviewed Luntz in January of 2007 in a great article entitled "How to speak Republican".

So, for example:

- laws to relax air pollution standards in the US were called the Clear Skies Initiative.

- laws to expand logging were coined as the Healthy Forests Initiative.

- the estate tax was rebranded the Death Tax

- tax cuts were called tax relief

In our case here, we're seeing this as well under our American President impersonator.

The response to this is of course to counter the spin by not adopting the Orwellian terminology and using more appropriate terms.

Language is powerful, and most people are cursory observers of politics and news, and don't dig deep to see how shallow and sincere the politicking is and how counterproductive these 'policies' are.

So "Goodwill Plus" is more accurately called "Opportunities Lost", Government TV is "Propaganda TV" and "term limits" are "Losing competitiveness" for example off the top of my head.

Or of course we could call this what it really is, a pre-election campaign to push some buttons. None of this is intended to communicate anything; it's all geared around playing on people's fears, prejudices and insecurities.

Like most good lies, it's all built on a bit of truth, but twisted to further a narrow short term political (and financial) agenda.

We shouldn't forget that term limits were trotted out right before the last election, and then quietly shelved until recently when it was needed again to score a few cheap votes.

At some point however, the international businesses will tire of being used as whipping posts. Is it going to take someone to leave to prove the point?

Bermudian jobs are already being lost, with positions moved overseas at many companies, as a commenter at 21 Square has demonstrated.

And now, at the Monte Carlo Rendezvous (which is an informal gathering of top level (re)insurance execs from around the world), Bermuda and political corruption was a topic of discussion as an element of our declining appeal and viability as a home base.

The PLP under Dr. Brown are, to use an American term he may be familiar with, a clear and present danger to all Bermudians' aspirations for a prosperous future, both economically and socially.

Bermuda may be a small place, but it's bigger than Dr. Brown's personal ambition (although probably not his ego).

For the enlightened, and I'm talking about Tivo users here, the lineup problem has been corrected and your Tivo's should now be fully functional. This is a far more significant event for Bermuda than any golf tournament, or the Olympics for that matter.

All 3 of mine units are working, including the High Def one.

Just input 00532 as your zipcode in Guided Setup (go to the "Channels" menu in Settings and click "enter" on your remote to re-do Guided Setup) and follow the steps.

If you did Guided Setup already with the 00532 zip you don't need to redo it to get the corrected lineup, but you do need to force an update (Connect to Tivo Now").

There are a few little corrections that need to me made. So if you stumble across anything in your travels around your lineups, send them to me and we'll compile a list to send over to Tivo.

Also, if you are a Tivo user, or know others, please send me your email address so that we can get a mailing list going.

Michael Branco has started a Tivo Facebook Group, in addition to his website's Tivo page.

For the long-beleaguered Bermuda Tivo users:

Tivo is back. Rerun guided setup with ZipCode 00532.

Thanks to Michael Branco.

It's Tuesday, which means that like every other day of the week, some Government stooge is creeping me out. Don't they have something better to do?

Friday I had a nuisance libel suit delivered, today's installment of Let's Creep Out Christian saw a special delivery of two books, hand delivered by the PLP's taxpayer funded political operative, the always unintentionally entertaining Mr. Commissiong.

I'm honoured that he dragged himself away from his urgent taxpayer funded work of standing around to pump up the attendance at PLP candidate announcements to pay me a visit. Too bad he did a drive-by and didn't hang around.

In light of this kind gesture of dropping off two painfully predictable book choices, Dr. Hodgson's Second Class Citizens; First Class Men and Robert Jensen's The Heart of Whiteness (I read the first awhile ago thanks and read the review on the second - which is almost as long as the book) I thought it only appropriate that I reciprocate.

As I'll be near a mega bookstore soon, I though I'd prepare a reading list for Mr. Commissiong and his colleagues.

I'm taking suggestions for my list, please send them in, but so far I've got:

If It Weren't for You, We Could Get Along: How to Stop Blaming and Start Living

Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences, and Reform

Ethics 101: What Every Leader Needs To Know

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War

As is inevitable in the internet age, footage of the booing and heckling of the Premier at the Collie Buddz concert has shown up on YouTube, first picked up by Dennis Pitcher at 21 Square. Not a very Bermudian welcome.

I hope no MPs who were at the concert were drug tested afterwards. They couldn't help but test positive after breathing in that air, as a reader writes:

There was so much weed at the Collie Budz concert that passing aircraft on their way to Europe had to fly around the column of smoke above Snorkel Park. And in the middle of it, there was Grandpa Brown trying to look hip.

A couple of readers have similar thoughts:

With all the talk around election timing, the exploitation of Dame LBE's death to rally the masses, and the timing around the Privy Council, I haven't heard anyone mention the upcoming Labour Day rally in early September. I wouldn't find it hard to believe that Dr. E could time an election immediately following the Labour Day parade and celebrations. The college kids will have gone back to school, but I'm not so sure they turned out to be the support base he anticipated anyway.

and

So, if he's got to give 5 weeks notice, he's gotta drop the writ in next day or two if he wants to hold it before Labour Day and kids going away.

Labour Day could be it. I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Brown calls it around Cup Match, but more speficically Emancipation Day for the symbolism (We already had the Sally Bassett statue not-so-subtle message).

The window is closing though. I think it's pretty clear that the election was going to be called immediately after Dame Lois' funeral to capitalize on that good will, but that the police report leak nixed that and continues to be the elephant in the room.

My understanding is that 32 days is the minimum time which must pass between the filing of the writ and election day, which puts us squarely into Labour Day territory.

My guess is that they're looking for a window where things look a bit rosier than the very messy scenario that has shaped up over the past several months (leaked Police report, Privy Council cliff-hanger, Faith Based Tourism, Southlands SDO not-yet-announced-but-clearly-a-done-deal, polls show UBP slightly ahead/a virtual dead heat but having gained a lot of ground since March). It feels very much like the UBP in 1998 in that regard, they were waiting, waiting for the smallest little positive up tick to try and go on, but it wasn't there.

And don't forget that I was solicited by the PLP for focus groups. The message from those was probably not very positive.

The tone and content of the Main Event rally suggests to me that the PLP's election strategy is all about bringing out/energizing the radical base and hoping that can carry the day (exactly what Karl Rove resorted to to get George Bush re-elected). The problem though is that that strategy can alienate the undecideds, you then have to really focus on the nuts and bolts of getting out your vote.

The militant, extremist, radical language and message that were deployed will turn off swing voters but energize the true believers. The question is, can the UBP deliver a message that pulls over that swing, or do they stay home?

I think the PLP's campaign is largely known now after their rally last week: demonize the UBP and exploit the memory of Dame Lois to cover up Dr. Brown's problems (see Pat Gordon Pamplin's quite good take).

The UBP will take a more balanced approach I think; they'll oscillate between pointing out the PLP's failings and pointing out what they'll do. It's pretty obvious that they're holding back a lot of their platform so that the PLP can't get their response lined up before they call the election.

But if you've been paying attention the UBP's Throne Speech and Budget replies for the last few years have been very much a shadow agenda - despite what the "all they do is criticize" robots try to present. It's undeniable. They've laid out ideas for years now, they just don't get as much attention as the criticism, and the PLP want to try to present the UBP as always criticizing, never suggesting.

I'd be interested in other people's interpretations and predictions.

I've been meaning to ask:

What campaign do you think the UBP will run and/or should run?
What do you think the UBP need to do to win?

What campaign do you think the PLP will run and/or should run?
What do you think the PLP need to do to win?

I won't ask for seat predictions yet. It's too early. But I will say that this is an election where a handful of votes will be hugely significant.

I'm being cc'd and bcc'd (as are others) on inane email exchanges from the self-appointed PLP truth squad berating anyone who dare take an opposing view.

The underlying message that seems to be being peddled is driven by paranoia.

Anything and any one who doesn't fall in line with the PLP is some sort of UBP front, whether it's the Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce (Southlands opponents), the Facebook Students Against Independence and Government Corruption, the Voters Rights initiative or the All Bermuda Congress.

Paranoia is a very unappealing trait for a political party.

The PLP may want to reign in the truth squad; it's awful early to be this shrill. It'll be hard to sustain through the coming weeks and will become more and more of a turn off to the discerning voter who is quietly making up their mind.

Interesting quote from Orwell that feels appropriate as we head into an election:

"The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions — racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war — which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action ... He [H.G. Wells] was, and still is, quite incapable of understanding that nationalism, religious bigotry and feudal loyalty are far more powerful forces than what he himself would describe as sanity."

Setting aside the dispute over the authenticity of the election date memo, can we now admit what we all know; that Rolfe Commissiong is a political operative and not a 'consultant to the Premier'.

And can we have our tax dollars back please and put him on the PLP payroll where he belongs.

Signs an election is imminent?

I was 'surveyed' on Friday night by Bermuda Opinion Survey (Research Innovations - the PLP pollster, aspiring candidate and party news agency). Well, not quite a survey, but 5 questions to see if you fit the profile to fill out some Focus Groups:

1. Do you intend on voting?

2. Age category

3. Highest level of education

4. Family income bracket

5. Would you like to attend a discussion of various issues and be paid $100 for your time.

This could also be a sign that the PLP don't have all of their pieces together right before the calling of an election - or, are awaiting the outcome of these Focus Groups before pulling the trigger. If the election isn't called within the next 2 weeks, I think the window is gone and we're looking at December (that is if the Premier wants to catch students who start leaving at the end of August).

But I think the quote from Friday's Gazette story sums up why the Premier feels he must call it now, despite all the bad news from the BHC scandal, internal fighting and public discord and condemnation of his leadership:

One PLP supporter said: "I definitely feel an election is going to be called. Dr. Brown is not going to make anyone feel you can do anything to change his mind. It would seem like a weakness."

The source said to let up in the face of recent controversy would be to give credence to the suspicions. "He has to keep moving forward."

If there's one thing Dr. Brown can't tolerate, it's being seen to be weak.

However, one can't rule out Focus Groups and polling revealing a huge crisis of confidence in the incumbent party mandating a pull-back to try and make up for lost ground. But the Privy Council appeal looms.

My money is that it gets called shortly.

De Onion is disillusioned. I understand the frustration and hear it constantly, but now is not the time to step back, now is the time for everyone to step up:

Reasons I’m fearful
Anti-white racism is becoming more acceptable.
- hostility to whites at the Premier’s Q&A
- friend getting called a “white bitch” and spat at
Government is resorting to lies, damned lies, and statistics to attract support
- tourism statistics
- graduation rates
Government is spinning reality with professional spin artists
- BHC
- Premier’s personal staff
- Premier has said that he will never lie - but may not tell the truth
The environment is being run over
- unplanned, poor building control
- new hotels without consideration of the social or environmental costs
- longline fishing
- importation of soil
Judicial system is unable to prosecute both common criminals and white-collar theft
- I sat on a jury and a thief walked free on a technicality
- BHC (’nuff said)
Complete lack of governmental accountability
- hundreds of millions unaudited
- millions over budget on a number of projects
- millions stolen and only one prosecution

So if we’re not careful we’re going to end up on a 21 square mile island that formerly was home to unique species, sea life, and trees replaced by Brazilian Peppers and concrete with a population of 80,000 with only a few hundred more housing units, a whole huge band of society who will always be poor because their often single parents were too busy fighting to survive to deal with parenting, while the contractors who build hotels, the locals who grease the wheels, and the foreign investors who own them make millions, politicians totally lacking any sort of moral fortitude rob the citizens blind and tell us that we’re getting laid when we’re really getting fucked, an opposition that are called house niggers whenever they bother to do any critical thinking, a generation of educated, talented young people who see the negativity and choose not to come back to Bermuda, choosing life in the cold rather than deal with the bullshit at home, prisoners who come out of jail and commit another crime because it’s the only thing they can do to survive, the dirt poor dying in the street because they can’t afford healthcare, and somehow I’m not HAPPY about this? What the hell is wrong with me?

A new guy gets to wear the funny hat.

Sir John Vereker steps down to be replaced by career diplomat Sir Richard Gozney, currently the British High Commissioner in Nigeria.

Over at Bermuda Network News, pollster Walton Brown has an article - or an advertorial depending on your view - on the polling activity of both parties (see the PLP's recent poll here, which I believe was conducted by Mr. Brown's Research Innovations under the name Bermuda Opinion Survey.

My favourite line is this:

Polling can cause controversy within a party when a candidate favored by a branch turns out to be weak or unelectable according to a poll. The party will then need to decide if it supports the branch recommendation and face possible electoral defeat or find a replacement and possibly upset branch members.

Did Dr. Brown or Walton Brown write that line? Anyway, enough of me being bitchy.

But, at the end of the article Walton Brown describes the two different processes for candidate selection between the PLP and UBP.

While I can't comment on the process he describes for the PLP, I can definitively state that he is incorrect on how it works in the UBP.

For the UBP there are a number of different steps:

(1) A prospective candidate submits a letter expressing interest to the party executive committee.

(2) The party creates a list of approved candidates.

(3) Any approved candidate can submit an interest in any constituency.

(4) The branch constituency meet and vote on their choice of representative.

(5) the decision of the branch is forwarded to the executive committee for ratification.

Steps 4 and 5 are wrong. That is not how it works. The party executive does not 'ratify' anything. While the PLP's process appears to be ultimately controlled by a small group of central party workers, the UBP's is not.

The final decision is made jointly by a committee of branch and central representatives, and the branch can always carry the day because they've got the most votes...and then there's always primaries.

Government's portal has come back to life.

An inauspicious start to Government's Tech Week, with the Government portal down since Saturday, displaying this message on a blank webpage:

The server has experienced an error on startup. This problem must be fixed before using the system.

I'm told that they've had to fly an expat in to fix it. Horror! An expat. I hope they've identified a trainable Bermudian in accordance with the latest term limits face-saving exercise.

CORRECTION: According to a representative from the Department of E-Commerce the repair will be handled by the local contractor who was overseas but returned yesterday.

Damn. It was much funnier the other way.

A reader writes on the power of prayer:

Don't know if you have read the paper yet this morning (Friday April 20th), but there was something in the front section that made me smile. CADA has requested for the power of prayer to be used to help combat the islands alcoholism problems. Thinking about the recent "boat load of gays" that God himself steered clear of the island thanks to the power of prayer, I guess it is safe to assume that alcoholism will be solved within a week!

A reader comments on the letter I posted a few days ago from a US national who felt that she was discriminated against by one of our international companies based on her sexual orientation:

I have been thinking about that e-mail you posted. If I had to bet, I would bet that the job offer was pulled because the employer realized that this woman was going to try to put her partner on her work permit application. No way that would fly, so they had better find someone else now instead of fighting Immigration for a permit.

I agree that discrimination based on sexuality should be illegal, but
that should be extended to the government, too.

Can you imagine the reaction over there when that permit application
went in? The company would probably have work permit problems for years after that.

I've been thinking about it too, and I agree...with a slightly different twist that really should have occurred to me at the time.

While Immigration would almost certainly have had a problem when they saw a same-sex partner coming with a work permit application, they would have a problem with any non-working partner in this situation - regardless of gender.

As someone else pointed out to me, a Bermudian can barely get their fiancee on the island to work before they get married, let alone a non-married partner of a work permit holder, or a same sex non-married partner of a work permit holder.

So ultimately Bermuda Immigration policy would have been a problem regardless, and I really don't think this had anything at all to do with the company itself discriminating.

And I should have realised that at the time.

While United by Faith are busy celebrating today that prayer, not their threat of protest, stopped the R Family Vacations cruise to Bermuda, I thought I'd share the following email which I received about a week ago.

Legal discrimination remains in Bermuda.

I am a United States citizen who recently received a written offer of employment with an expatriate reinsurance company in Bermuda.

Three days later I received a phone call and was told that the offer was being withdrawn.

I believe that the offer was withdrawn because I spoke about my family like any human being speaks about his or her family. The problem for the reinsurance company seemed to be that I am a 43 year old professional woman who has a 50 year old professional woman as a life partner.

I had hoped to bring my life partner to Bermuda. Our plan was that she would do volunteer work for an organization such as Meals on Wheels while I worked to support us.

The polite people of Bermuda were very impressive and I really wanted to live among them.

Bermuda does need laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Bermuda's getting some great international press, with top stories on Yahoo , MSNBC and other major media outlets about the cancelling of the Bermuda stop by R Family Vacations.

But, now that we're likely in the final countdown to the calling of an election (weeks not months), I can't see Dr. Brown following up too aggressively and calling the churches who chased out 2,000 visitors "un-Bermudian" as he did the Southlands objectors.

The irony of course, and elephant in the room, is that many of the same people who chased out the gay and lesbian tourists, would be the first in line to decry racial discrimination.

Bermuda has a lot of growing up to do.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A summer cruise for gay and lesbian families organized by Rosie O'Donnell has cut Bermuda from its planned itinerary because of possible protests by church groups in the British island territory.

O'Donnell's charter company said it would replace the Bermuda stop with two other ports of call in Florida. It will also stop at a private island in the Bahamas. The tour is scheduled to leave New York in July on a ship owned by Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line.

The charter company, R Family Vacations, said on its Web site that it wanted to avoid the type of protests that greeted passengers when one of its cruises stopped in Nassau, Bahamas, in 2004.

In the statement, the company said Bermuda's prime minister had assured them they would be welcome as tourists and they had also received hundreds of supportive e-mails from people who live in the wealthy British enclave.

Still, organizers felt they could not be certain there would be no protesters greeting them upon arrival. "We feel that our cruise would be more enjoyable with an alternate itinerary to ports where we know we are welcome by everyone."

In 2004, about 100 protesters chanting anti-gay slogans met one of the company's cruises when it arrived in Nassau with about 1,150 passengers.

O'Donnell, 45, is a co-host on ABC's "The View."

R Family Vacations, with offices in Nyack, N.Y., was founded by Gregg Kaminsky and Kelli O'Donnell, partner of the talk-show host.

Kaminsky said in a phone interview Tuesday that he expects the cruise will be sold out with about 2,000 passengers.

"We have no hard feelings against Bermuda. It's just a few church groups," he said.

Nice to see we've now manufactured a "security threat" to justify the bodyguard, entourage and motorcade:

"Dr. Ewart Brown was sat listening to tributes in honour of the late PLP leader Freddie Wade at the airport when a man walked straight up to him. He was able to shake the Premier's had and tell him he loved him before press secretary Scott Simmons and chief of staff Wayne Caines intercepted."

Actually, was this a security threat or has the Premier never met Johnny "I love you" Barnes before?

Classy.

The Premier - not the Health Minister - has been single-handedly driving the decision to close the Medical Clinic, but doesn't even have the decency to meet the patients and protestors whose dignity he repeatedly claims to be concerned about, thrusting out the Health Minister to take the heat.

Sort of makes Tuesday's 'caring government' sound-bite ring a little hollow doesn't it.

You see, this is how this Premier operates. If it's a ribbon-cutting, trying to steal the glory from the cricket team or holding a carefully scripted press conference he loves the camera and limelight, but if the people want to talk to him directly about a controversial issue, he hides in his office.

Probably futile I know, but in light of our simmering controversy over the R Family Cruise to Bermuda in July, I thought I'd link to a very interesting NY Times article on what science is learning about how genes factor into human sexuality, both heterosexual and homosexual:

When it comes to the matter of desire, evolution leaves little to chance. Human sexual behavior is not a free-form performance, biologists are finding, but is guided at every turn by genetic programs.

Desire between the sexes is not a matter of choice. Straight men, it seems, have neural circuits that prompt them to seek out women; gay men have those prompting them to seek other men. Women’s brains may be organized to select men who seem likely to provide for them and their children. The deal is sealed with other neural programs that induce a burst of romantic love, followed by long-term attachment.

So much fuss, so intricate a dance, all to achieve success on the simple scale that is all evolution cares about, that of raisingthe greatest number of children to adulthood. Desire may seem the core of human sexual behavior, but it is just the central act in a long drama whose script is written quite substantially in the genes.

And then the Older Brother Theory:

A somewhat more straightforward clue to the origin of homosexuality is the fraternal birth order effect. Two Canadian researchers, Ray Blanchard and Anthony F. Bogaert, have shown that having older brothers substantially increases the chances that a man will be gay. Older sisters don’t count, nor does it matter whether the brothers are in the house when the boy is reared.

The finding suggests that male homosexuality in these cases is caused by some event in the womb, such as “a maternal immune response to succeeding male pregnancies,” Dr. Bogaert wrote last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Antimale antibodies could perhaps interfere with the usual masculinization of the brain that occurs before birth, though no such antibodies have yet been detected.

The fraternal birth order effect is quite substantial. Some 15 percent of gay men can attribute their homosexuality to it, based on the assumption that 1 percent to 4 percent of men are gay, and each additional older brother increases the odds of same-sex attraction by 33 percent.

Now if you reject evolution I know this will all be irrelevant to one's 'right' to discriminate.

Far more important news than politics, Tivo will be reactivated for Bermuda shortly.

Michael Branco has been slaving away for us on this and what looked bleak a week ago now appears to be resolved in our favour.

Well done Mike.

I'm not a fan of the Zimbabwe/Bermuda parallels, but I can't resist on this one.

In Zimbabwe they actually arrest members of the opposition, in Bermuda, David Burch threatens to...

I suppose this is one instance where we should be thankful that our Government is all talk and no action.

Yet again, I was polled last night, by Total Marketing and Communications, in what is presumably the Government's regular Omnibus poll, although this poll was quite a bit shorter than the usual ones from TMC, so it does make me wonder if it was a special order with a focus on health care. It was also free of much of the extraneous commercial questions that businesses tack on to the Omnibus poll.

One question that did jump out at me (not word for word):

"Are you aware of the existence of the Government's Medical Clinic?"

"Have you ever used, or taken someone to use, the Government clinic?"

Hmmmm. Government's polling (albeit briefly) the Medical Clinic.

But here's a question, if it's used mostly by those with limited financial resources and those who are homeless, won't any poll results be skewed away from those without a phone?

And...doesn't the Government already know exactly how many people use the clinic. Just count the files.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the significance of the question was, but it was interesting that it was included in a poll when we've been repeatedly told that it's a done deal.

Well, I've been glued to the internet scoreboard all day watching Bermuda vs India in the World Cup, and must say that despite the impossibility of a win, the game today seemed to have lots of compelling stuff.

A first ball wicket for Malachi Jones in his first ever world cup delivery.

76 for Hemp.

A couple of spectacular catches.

Some clear progress and a litte discipline at the wicket. Now if we could eliminate the 5 ducks we'd be in good shape.

But all in all it seemed, from afar and over the internet, a fun match with some invaluable experience gained.

A friend who was following the match on a South African website sent over this commentary for Malachi Jones' wicket, which pretty much encapsulates the small victories and moments that will capture the imagination of us all:

"Jones to Uthappa, OUT, OMG! what a catch by Dwayne Levorock! And what wild celebrations! Let no body say anymore that a fat man can't jump! Uthappa has a nervous poke, away from the body, at a length-delivery outside off stump. It flew to the right of Leverock hurled himself - hard to visualize, I am not lying but that's what happened- to his right and plucked it single-handed. And the celebrations followed. He ran off to nowhere in particular, changed directions and again went on a jig. The players mobbed him, few other went down in heap in midwicket in celebration. All over each other. Bermuda are overjoyed. The bowler is the bottom of that heap and hold on he is crying. Tears of joy! What a start!"

Great stuff. Well done today Bermuda.

On March 7th I said that updates would be light for 10 days, to which a reader immediately sent me the following email:

"Cool.... usually when you do this a lot of crap hits the fan!!"

Well, I hear he's right, with David Burch evidently forgetting to take his meds before the Senate today where he said that he'd like to arrest UBP Senator Gina Spence for her work in St. George's with the homeless squatters at Club Med. [Translation: Gina Spence is too effective.]

The absentee Premier Dr. Brown who has been off the island for the better part of the last 3 weeks might want to pay a little attention to the homefront for a change rather than playing international man of mystery

The Mid Ocean News runs three very good letters today (buried at the back of the paper), which I've reproduced below.

With respects to the first letter that comments on a not surprising but revealing essay penned by the Premier's 'consultant on race', I have heard about this but not seen the actual essay.

If someone can provide it to me I'm happy to publish it here, in the effort to further the honest discussion on race.

February 27, 2007 A FEW months ago an essay expounding the fanatical racial theorising of one of the Bermuda Premier’s close advisors did the email rounds in a number of off-shore companies.

It was a bizarre and unsettling rant on what he perceived to be the threat of miscegenation to the “purity” of the black race in Bermuda.
He was very much opposed to the “mixing” of the races (professionally,
socially and romantically/sexually) and recommended the Government do its bit to discourage this sort of thing.

Strangely, he had emailed this message to about 30 of his closest friends, one of whom forwarded it to a leading member of the corporate community, so there can be no question this individual’s “thinking” on the subject is reserved for behind-closed-door meetings with fellow true believers.

It was a very ugly screed, one that could easily have been written by one of those brain-dead, backwoods Southern segregationists in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, only with the racial roles reversed.

Since this is the sort of poison that is being poured into your Premier’s ear (at taxpayer’s expense since this individual was recently given a Government position), certainly any number of off-shore companies which have been asked to make “donations” to Dr. Ewart Brown’s party in recent months will be more than happy to follow backbencher Derrick Burgess’ recently reported suggestion (or should that be “warning”?) that they “keep out” of local politics.

And more than a few might be more than happy to relocate when an opportunity presents itself because they are getting tired of paying a form of unofficial taxation to this Government while being told by this same party they should not countenance any form of political representation.

Although a few companies cling to the hope they are taking out a form of “political insurance” with their large contributions to the ruling party, many others realise they are buying nothing with their money: certainly not moderation, nor tolerance nor business-friendly policies (witness the Finance Minister’s recent across-the-board attack on an industry that actually employs her during the Budget debate).

With incendiary zealots now in positions where they can actually influence the direction of Government policy, I imagine things will get worse in Bermuda on the race relations front before they ever get better. Good luck to you all but I plan to be elsewhere.
ANOTHER EXPAT CEO
City of Hamilton

February 26, 2007
GOVERNMENT Minister Derrick Burgess has today fired a shot
across the bow of the expatriate community, demanding it not involve itself in local politics. I couldn’t agree with him more. So does that mean Mr. Burgess’ Progressive Labour Party Government will be returning all of those $25,000 cheques signed by members of the international corporate community that were recently collected at Dr. Ewart Brown’s coronation festivities at the Fairmont Southampton? And will the governing party’s representatives now stop knocking on the doors of off-shore companies demanding five and six-figure contributions for their “election warchest”, demands that have
been interpreted by more than a few industry power players as thinly veiled shakedowns (pay us or your expatriate accountants and actuaries will go the way of the Elbow Beach chef or the Global Construction site manager ...)?
INQUIRING MIND
City of Hamilton

February 23, 2007
IT has become depressingly clear that we are dealing not with a democratic government but with a dictatorship by intimidation. It has become terrifyingly obvious that people now run the risk of losing their jobs and being booted off the Island for having an opinion other than that dictated by Papa Doc Brown’s PLP. Just this morning some rent-a-protester (with a name horribly similar to that of Osama Bin Laden) was photographed with an untidy placard demanding that Christian Dunleavy be fired for having an opinion with which he disagreed.

It is now quite obvious that the PLP and its shock troops aren
’t above using its Government power over immigration control to intimidate Mr. Dunleavy’s employer into doing just that.

We have seen this ruthless PLP dictatorship get a chef at Elbow Beach sacked and removed from the island for making a joke. We have seen the Auditor General booted out of his office for questioning the PLP Government’s accounts.

We have seen a (black) construction foreman thrown off the island to sooth the damaged ego of some no-account also -ran PLP politician. This piece of vicious vengeance was backed up by the BIU, whose job it should have been to defend the worker involved, not the egotistical arrogance of the politician, for whom no right thinking person can have a vestige of respect left.

Apparently no one involved in this witch-hunt thought that the man being railroaded off the Island deserved a hearing at all. To such depths has Bermuda’s erstwhile democracy sunk.

Dr. Wakely of the Medical Clinic lost her job for expressing a perfectly valid medical opinion on behalf of her patients that was contrary to the received dogma of the PLP. The messenger, it is now clear, will be shot without trial.

All of this vicious seeking of revenge by the PLP and its more
lunatic-fringe adherents is merely an expansion of the now time honoured “race card” defense beyond its usual intent to intimidate to the point at which serious injury is imposed on those who question the almighty PLP. Mr. Ottiwell Simmons used to liken dismissal to industrial capital punishment.

We haven’t heard from him lately. I guess it isn’t the firing but who is being fired that actually concerns Otti.

If we have learned one thing from the recent sackings, deportations and accusations of racism (even against blacks) it is that the Government’s position is invariably wrong when it resorts to such expedients. If the PLP position is indefensible and someone has the audacity to point it out, they can be sure of a full broadside of intimidation. This now happens with distressing regularity as the greed, vanity and pomposity of our ruling politicians cloud their already limited ability to reason.

Consider the inflated (at the public’s very considerable cost) entourage with which Papa Doc Brown now surrounds himself including even some kind of bodyguard to protect him from attack or assassination on his numerous forays into the dangerous outside world, where no one will have even heard of him.

He has a “chief of staff” and four or five other expensive props to the ego, none of whom actually seem to do anything to justify their very substantial salaries.

All this preposterous pomposity, far from doing anything for Bermuda other than further inflating the enormous ego and outrageous cost of our otherwise quite ordinary Premier, will bring us into international ridicule and contempt (if anyone actually notices it, that is).
All of this could almost be considered as just plain laughable in an island as small and essentially insignificant as Bermuda, but for the fact that it is escalating so rapidly. The similarities between the behaviour of the Brown government here and the late Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti and more recently the unfortunately still living Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe are obvious, if still lesser in scale. If this tendency towards ruthless dictatorship continues, however, it would seem entirely probably that Bermuda will end up in impoverished misery and starvation like the unfortunate citizens of Haiti and Zimbabwe. Like Papa Doc Duvalier and Robert Mugabe, the cronies of Papa Doc Brown will reserve what little is left of the fat of the land for themselves. Any one who complains will be shot.
DIOGENES
City of Hamilton

Today's Royal Gazette story about Premier Brown promoting business links between US and Bermuda companies contains a couple of zingers, but here's one that screams that there's more to it:

"For example there's a construction company that built the Atlanta airport that could have an interest in building a hotel in Bermuda, but there would have to be a linkage between a Bermudian contractor and an overseas contractor and then together they could bid for a large job."

Just an example. You know, this construction company 'could have an interest in building a hotel in Bermuda', they could... theoretically, you know...hypothetically speaking.

Maybe it's just cynical ole me, but doesn't that statement really mean:

Dr. Brown has a friend in Atlanta who he's pre-selected to build Southlands (presumably) but he needs a Bermuda business to make it all appear legit.

This idea that Bermudians "have been reluctant or unaware that these linkages can occur" is total nonsense.

These linkages have been going on with major construction projects for years here, the former BC&M construction is now BCM McAlpine, with a major foreign linkage and off the top of my head the ACE building was built as a venture between a local and foreign contractor.

The fact that, as the Mid Ocean News reports today, Dr. Brown bought a property to operate as a new private healthcare facility at Winterhaven days before announcing the publicly funded Medical Clinic will be shut, shows that the line between the public interest and his private interests is blurry at best - if it exists at all.

Hot off the presses, get your very own Bermuda Expat merchadise, courtesty of Whiny in Bermuda (not me...I swear) who says that "Every Government crackdown deserves its own T-shirt":

Man, these rent-a-protestors aren't even committed to their cause. A few drops of rain and they're gone.

At it's pinnacle I think reporters outnumbered protesters 2 to 1.

I'd like to thank the two people (is that all they could muster?) who went out of their way this morning to picket me outside of my office because of my column today.

Thank you for proving my point about intimidation, that it starts with the expats and has already moved on to the locals.

You know what's both annoying and worrying?

That when I watch CNN on Cablevision, the audio is routinely interrupted by by marine radio communications by the Marine Police and Harbour Radio.

Right now I'm listening to the Marine Police and Harbour Radio try and identify the owner of an overturned boat on a mooring, but Harbour Radio can't find mooring information more recent than the year 2000.

It's annoying, for the obvious reasons, but worrying that I can listen in on Marine Police communications on my TV. Maybe that's because it's on an unsecure marine frequency, but surely this can't be ok.

I called both Cablevision and the Police about this a couple of weeks ago and was told very nonchalantly that "Yeah, we're aware of it" and "It happens sometimes."

Following up on my post of this morning with respects to the candidates mentioned for the potential All Bermuda Congress, one of those individuals was on ZBM/ZFB to clear things up a little. It would seem that Khalid may have got a little ahead of himself in trying to present the ABC as far along in its development and candidate recruitment.

Former NLPer Charles Jeffers came on the news to clarify that he would NOT be a candidate for the ABC but had been invited by Khalid to hear some of the proposals.

Not quite an endorsement. Mr. Jeffers did say that he supports some of the things Khalid has been talking about, but he clearly not on board.

Not a good start when people are already bailing out.

But that's the whole issue with the situation around the UBP right. After the initial allegations - which have never been supported with anything approaching substance - the UBP's opponents, those seeking to replace the party, as well as a slighted Max Burgess and a media seeing a good story have kept up the pressure.

At its core there are two people making unsupported allegations coupled with Maxwell making an entirely different case (which he probably wouldn't have made at all if Wayne hadn't preempted his retirement announcement), which some have tried to also turn into racism, when he's said nothing of the sort.

But that's politics.

ZBM/ZFB news last night ran a report and interview last night with Khalid Wasi who is trying to start a new political party; one predicated on the UBP falling to pieces.

Without getting into the full details of the interview, he expressed supreme confidence that at the next election there will only be two parties...the PLP and the All Bermuda Congress with the UBP having folded.

I can't say I agree with him there. The UBP continues to have its issues but much of it is being spurred on by one or two loud individuals and Khalid is using it as his springboard for a new party; its demise is far from certain. Political parties have their ups and downs, and the UBP is in a down for sure, but I don't feel any upswell of support on the island for a new party, other than those trying to promote it as their political vehicle.

At the end of the interview, Gary Moreno, who appeared to be writing the story as he was going along, said that the names currently floated as candidates for the ABC were Stuart Hayward, Sheelagh Cooper, Charles Jeffers (former NLP), Khalid Wasi himself presumably, and also 2 more, one of them being a UBP MP (Maxwell Burgess?). The final two comment seemed like an afterthought and far from certain. In fact it appeared that this information was being relayed to Gary Moreno off camera and probably shouldn't have been included in the report. Tacking that on at the end made the whole report feel hasty and overly speculative.

I say all that only to make the comment that no-one in that lineup strike me as individuals who are fresh, dynamic or exciting enough to carry a new political party far. They're all people who have their pet projects and causes that serve as platforms for their opinions.

And as much as I like Khalid, he is a thinker not an organiser. And starting a new party requires some serious logistical work which is not his forte.

I think I can be of assistance here:

A British MP has surprised Regiment officials by suggesting recruits have to pee in plastic bags after lights out.

The MP, Andrew Mackinlay, has been asking questions about the Regiment for years, usually about conscription. In his latest assault he asked the British Government to tell him "when the practice of requiring conscript recruits in the Bermuda Regiment to urinate in plastic bags after 11pm was ended?"

Government Minister Geoff Hoon responded saying: "It has never been the practice for Bermuda Regiment recruits to be required to urinate in plastic bags."

Here, Captain Marlon Williams, Second in Command of Training Company, is baffled by the question, although he suggests it might have originated from a story he read in another newspaper here.

"Surely he [the MP] would understand that is not the Regiment's proper protocol. There are measures in place to protect against those sort of abuses," he said.

Blogs people. The pee in a bag thing came from Regiment recruit Denis Pitcher's blog.

It's called Google, people.

Try: "bermuda, regiment, pee, bag"

Bada bing.

And why would the Regiment be baffled? Their public relations officer and model of a modern Major General - Stephen Caton - addressed the issue over at Limey in Bermuda:

“What of the 18 hour days during recruit camp? Where individuals are forced to constantly run and perform tasks as demanded by their superiors. Are they not forced to ask permission to eat, sleep, attend the bathroom? Are they not confined to their rooms after lights out and forced to pee in a bag should they need to urinate between the hours of 11pm and 5:30am? Sleep often falling shy of these hours due to extra duties that will result in further punishment?”

Like many, I have 18 hour days in my civilian life too. Yes the Regiment is disciplined, with protocols, practices, parameters and sometime, punishment. Ps all over the place, if you will.

You too can be the Premier's bodyguard. Perks include many trips to anything with the word celebrity in the title; because what self-respecting wannabe celebrity travels without a bodyguard?

But first, you must take the Bermuda Secret Service Entrance Exam.

My geek side has been showing through recently, but I've now been reliably informed that, as previously indicated, Cablevision will be launching the following High Definition channels on January 15th:

Movie Channels
HBO HD - 450
Cinemax HD - 455
Showtime HD - 460
TMC HD - 465

Variety
Food - 425
HGTV - 430
Wealth - 435
National Geographic - 440
Sportsnet - 445 (likely)

The variety channels could be better (ie. ESPNHD, ESPN2HD, HDNet and DiscoveryHD), and there are no local networks (ABD, NBC, FOX, CBS) right now, but it's a good start.

It would seem that you will need to use either CableCard (available at M&Ms), Cablevision's DVR, or an HD Tivo instead of the existing box which lacks the HD outputs.

For the TV-aholics out there, Cablevision (that company we have a love-hate relationship with) is running a message on Channel 100 about some system changes in anticipation of High Definition programming.

Finally.

I hear through the grapevine that they'll be rolling out 10 HD channels with 5 'variety channels' and 5 'movie channels' on 15 January.

No networks 'yet'. Hopefully 'yet' is the keyword. If 24 isn't addictive enough, imagine it in HD.

You really couldn't make this stuff up:

The Bermuda Football Association has turned over sponsorship of the annual Dudley Eve Trophy to the Government (ie. Ministry of Education and Sport), who evidently spent $150,000 for the sole purpose of boosting the fragile ego of Dr. Brown and giving him yet another event to profile at by renaming the tournament the "Premier's Dudley Eve Cup".

If Dr. Brown really understood Bermuda, our culture and our history he'd know that these events are important, dare I say more important than his presidency.

South Africa yesterday legalised same sex marriage:

The government has defended the new legislation for representing a wider commitment to battle discrimination.

“In breaking with our past ... we need to fight and resist all forms of discrimination and prejudice, including homophobia,” Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told members of Paliarment earlier this month, when the bill was passed by the National Assembly.

Barely a decade ago the country had legalised apartheid. Today, they have same sex marriage. Bravo South Africa. They understand discrimination in a way that too many Bermudians evidently do not.

Here we can't even get our Parliament to even debate homosexuality as a protected class and our new supposedly progressive civil rights driven Premier says he sees no need for it.

We have a long way to go.

The Limey reports in:

Finally, Dr. Brown said that he will be making an announcement next week “that will make all of you proud to be Bermudians”.

I'm always proud to be Bermudian, as are every Bermudian I've met. An announcement from the Premier won't help in that regard. Is the Premier suffering from some self-esteem issues? A feeling of inadequacy perhaps, explaining the meaningless little fights he's trying to pick with the UK?

Maybe he'll announce campaign finance reform. Maybe he'll announce the Berkeley bond receipt has materialised. Maybe he'll announce that Berkeley didn't cost twice the budget. Maybe he'll announce that the Cedarbridge mould has miraculously cleaned itself up. Maybe he'll announce a racial code of conduct for Parliamentarians.

Maybe he'll announce that he's resigning. Now that would do it.

Nah.

Jake over at Limey in Bermuda has his knickers in a twist over my post of a few days ago suggesting that some disclosure is warranted by the Royal Gazette when running polls produced by Research Innovations, run by Walton Brown, cousin of Premier Brown.

His argument seems to boil down to this statement:

"Walton Brown demonstrates that 'disclosure' is trumped by integrity."

Not quite. I would agree that it would be silly of Walton Brown to mess with his poll results, as an example, to pump his causes. He'd lose credibility.

And Jake is correct and fair in pointing out that Walton Brown routinely produces polls that are overwhelmingly against independence while he himself if an ardent independence advocate.

He's also right that Walton became an unlikely member of what Bermuda Independence Commission member - and now the Premier's consultant on race Rolfe Commissiong - termed the 'white cabal' critical of the BIC report (of which I'm an honourary member).

But the point remains. You err on the side of too much disclosure. The post was more about the Royal Gazette disclosing this as is their obligation in my opinion.

Research Innovations' polls have proven pretty reliable. That's true. But there are other aspects of the familial relationship that warrant disclosure beyond allegations of manipulation (which I don't argue is happening).

Situations like:

Would Dr. Brown get inside info on the polls?
Was Dr. Brown aware of the last poll results prior to publication and early enough to time his leadership campaign around that?
When Walton Brown interpets results and analyses situations (as he did the leadership challenge), could he not be swayed by his internal biases, best efforts to be objective notwithstanding?

I maintain that the disclosure if relevant.

My rule is that you always ask yourself if the shoe was on the other foot how would you feel. To PLP supporters such as Jake I'd ask: if the UBP leader's cousin was running polling for the daily paper would that be relevant and worthy of disclosure? You're damn right it would be.

The line that integrity trumps disclosure sounds nice, but integrity mandates disclosure.

For some reason in Bermuda we don't expect much disclosure, and that opens up challenges to integrity, and frankly many of the abuses of power we suffer from.

So I think Jake's defence of Walton Brown is valid to the extent that Walton and his polls have integrity. But that doesn't negate disclosure.

The Flyer Phantom strikes again (see editions 1.0 and 2.0 here), with a new flyer hitting the streets this morning.

No longer just complaining, we now have an immigration platform:

1. Status Bermudians need to be deported when they divorce their Bermudian spouse.

2. Permanent resident cards need to be abolished if the holder is not married to a Bermudian.

3. Non Bermudians need to be banned from entering the Public Education System as students.

4. Status Bermudians, Permanent resident card holders need to be banned from Social assistance and government jobs.

Firstly, kudos on adopting the spell checker.

Secondly, I love point 3, specifically that Non Bermudians be banned from the public education system, with this caveat: "as students." Presumably non-Bermudian teachers are ok then?

Thirdly, we're seeing the hierarchy of "Bermudian" now, with the suggestion that Status Bermudians be banned from social assistance and working in the government.

Lovely.

I presume it's the same for all users of Google Earth, but has anyone else noticed that a slice of the island is without images (Pembroke, Paget and Warwick)?

Anyone know how to report this to Google Earth? I can't seem to find a support address.

It's reassuring to see that our National Cricket Team players have embraced their newfound professional athlete status so well that they're already in contractual disputes and boycotting training.

Covering themselves in tattoos and physically assaulting reporters and fans can't be too far away at this pace.

First Fabian, now it could be Florence (see RG story here).

What the F is going on?

I'd like to thank Florence for inviting herself as the first potential guest to the extremely exposed house on South Shore which I'm moving into tomorrow morning.

So, I'll be signing off for a day or two while I move house. Back on Saturday or Sunday, when we'll have a better idea as to what Sunday/Monday holds for us.

Sadly, recently elected Mayor of Hamilton Jay Bluck who suffered a heart problem several days ago, passed away today.

The Corporation has sent out an announcement.

My condolences to his family, friends and colleagues. He'll be missed, and he seemed on a good track as well.

Sad.

You might be interested in two legal opinions I received on the response from the Premier with respects to the Human Rights code and sexual orientation:

That is the most pathetic legal 'analysis' ever...What a completely bullshit answer you received.

and

If that wasn't so hilarious, I would cry!!

Well, I've been meaning to get aroung to this for awhile, but my business trip and vacation interrupted.

On June 27th I emailed the Premier the following:

Dear Mr. Premier,

I listened with great interest to your presentation on the motion to adjourn this past Friday in Parliament.

You have stated several times now, as you did then, that 'all Bermudians' are protected under the Human Rights Code, including those who may be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation, and unless proven otherwise (presumably in the courts) that an amendment is unnecessary.

I would be most appreciative if you could point me to the relevant section of the HRC from which you draw your conclusions. I have attached the Consolidated HRC document for your reference.

Best regards,

Christian Dunleavy

I received this reply on July 18th (the first day of my 3 week trip off the island):

Dear Sir:

Your email of June 27th, 2006 with respect to the captioned matter and addressed to the Premier, the Hon. W. Alexander Scott, JP, MP refers.

In the first instance, the Human Rights Act 1981 (the “Act”) affirms the rights and freedoms of all members of the community. “Community” is defined in the Act as: “All persons lawfully residing in Bermuda”.

Please refer to Section 2(2) (a) (ii) of the Act as read with sections 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Please also note that under “Interpretation” [Section 2 (1)] of the Act, “he” includes “she” and vice versa.

I trust the foregoing is helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Kenneth S. Dill
Assistant Cabinet Secretary
The Cabinet Office
105 Front Street
Hamilton
Tele: 292 5501
Fax; 292 8397
Email: ksdill@gov.bm

While I appreciate the response, I can't begin to describe how weak it is. It's a good thing the Premier isn't a lawyer. He just creates laws.

It's pretty evident to even my non-legal brain that Section 2 defines specifically what categories of discrimination are protected under the Act - and sexual orientation isn't one of them:

(2) For the purposes of this Act a person shall be deemed to discriminate against another person—

(a) if he treats him less favourably than he treats or would treat other persons generally or refuses or deliberately omits to enter into any contract or arrangement with him on the like terms and the like circumstances as in the case of other persons generally or deliberately treats him differently to other persons because—

(i) of his race, place of origin, colour, or ethnic or national origins;
(ii) of his sex;
(iii) of his marital status;
(iiiA) of his disability;
(iv) he was not born in lawful wedlock;
(v) she has or is likely to have a child whether born in lawful wedlock or not;
(vi) of his religion or beliefs or political opinions;or
(vii) of his criminal record, except where there are valid reasons relevant to the nature of the particular offence for which he is convicted that would justify the difference in treatment.".

(b) if he applies to that other person a condition which he applies or would apply equally to other persons generally but—

(i) which is such that the proportion of persons of the same race, place of origin, colour, ethnic or national origins, sex, marital status, disability, religion, beliefs, or political opinions as that other who can comply with it is considerably smaller than the proportion of persons not of that description who can do so; and
(ii) which he cannot show to be justifiable irrespective of the race, place of origin, colour, ancestry, sex, marital status, disability, religion, beliefs or political opinions of the person to whom it is applied; and
(iii) which operates to the detriment of that other person because he cannot comply with it.

(3) For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that the rights conferred by this Act on any disabled person do not in any way restrict any right or duty that any other person or any authority has under the Public Health Act 1949 [title 11 item 1] or the Misuse of Drugs Act 1972 [title 11 item 4] to perform any function conferred or imposed by either of those Acts upon the last mentioned person or that authority in relation to that disabled person.

[Section 2 amended by BR 54/1994 effective 16 December 1994: amended effective by 2000:37 August 24 2000]

The only grey area to me would be the term 'sex', but it's clearly used in the gender sense. Sexual orientation is not covered.

In fact the Human Rights Commission themselves have affirmed that, in their ruling reported the day after I sent the Premier my email.

Not surprisingly, as the Bermuda Sun reports today, the Human Rights Commission rejected the complaint by Mark Anderson (aka Sybil Barrington) that Government discriminated against him based on his sexual orientation by throwing him out of the Bermuda Day parade.

According to the Sun:

But the HRC said he didn't have a case. The HRC said in a letter there were no grounds under the Human Rights Act on which to proceed with a formal complaint.

Duh! There's no provision protecting sexual orientation. There is a provision on the basis of 'sex', a term which clearly means gender, although I've been told that the UBP's Neville Darrell - a former CEO of the Human Rights Commission - argues that 'sex' is interpreted in Europe to include sexual orientation.

That seems to me like a big leap.

Regardless, the Premier has repeatedly stated that he would revisit the issue if it became clear that 'all Bermudians' weren't protected. So what will happen now?

Nothing, except more double talk.

Can some reporter, any reporter, ask the Premier to point out the section of the Human Rights Code which protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation?

If I have to hear Alex Scott profess that 'all Bermudians are protected' one more time, as he did in Parliament on the Motion to Adjourn Friday night, I'll go postal.

I received the following email which was circulated at 12:38 today advising that every department in the Ministry of Works, Engineering & Housing would be closing for a staff meeting at 3PM.

2 1/2 hours seems like short notice don't you think?

Anyone know what's up?

-----Original Message-----

From: Dept. of Communications & Information
Sent: Wed 6/14/2006 12:38 PM
To: All GOV Users
Subject: ADVISORY - MWEH Closing early today

Good day Colleagues,

Please be advised that the Ministry of Works and Engineering and Housing will be closing today at 3.00 p.m. in order for all staff to attend a meeting.

All Ministry Departments will be affected, including Ministry Headquarters, all Quangos under the Ministry, the Quarry, the Rent Commissioner's Office, Tynes Bay and the Prospect Depot.

Any related queries should be directed to the respective Departments prior to 3.00 p.m. today.

Offices will reopen for regular business tomorrow morning (Thursday June 15).

The Ministry apologises for any inconvenience and thanks you for your understanding.

Nea N. Talbot
Public Affairs Officer (MWEH and MoT&T)
Department of Communication & Information
Bermuda Government
Global House
43 Church Street
Hamilton HM 12
BERMUDA

ntalbot@gov.bm

1 (441) 294-2779

http://www.gov.bm

I must be, without a doubt, the most polled person in Bermuda. In the past few weeks I've been polled multiple times, moments ago by the Government (and by that I don't mean the PLP, I mean the taxpayer was footing the bill for this one). It was probably the Omnibus poll which is conducted quarterly I think.

I seriously question the quality of sampling used by all the pollsters. It seems to me like if you get a live one, who actually takes the polls, as I always do cuz I just love it, then they keep pinging away.

But I don't just answer the questions. I take notes. You can thank me later.

So here's the content of tonight's poll - not verbatim, conducted by a subsidiary of Total Marketing and Communcations:

What is your age range?

What is the single most important issue facing Bermuda?

What is the single most important issue facing the Ministry of National Drug Control?

How do you feel about independence (ie. Strongly agree to strongly disagree)?

Explain why?

Education

How would you rate the quality of Public Education?

Compared to 5 years ago?

How would you rate the quality of private education?

Please state your opinion (ie. Strongly agree to strongly disagree) on the following questions about public education:

- Are teachers held accountable for performance?

- Is discipline handled appropriately?

- Public school students are prepared for post-secondary education?

- The student teacher ratio is appropriate

Utilities

Who is Bermuda’s best wireless provider

What are the most common uses of your cell phone?

How likely are you to replace your home phone service with cellular in the next 12 months?

The Bermuda utility companies provide value for money?

How would you rate the overall quality of service?

To what extent are the public’s needs met by the utility sector?

How satisified are you with the attitudes of workers in the utility sector?

Retail Business

Would you like to receive KFC via home delivery?

Which drug stores do you shop at?

Do you shop at People’s Pharmacy?

Are you aware that they have a toy shop?

Are you aware that People’s Pharmacy has a caby shop?

Banks

Which banks in Bermuda do you currently own shares?

Which bank do you do the majority of your household banking with?

In the next 12 months how likely are you to make a term deposit?

In the next 12 months how likely are you to open a savings account at another bank?

What influences your use of financial institution? Print ads? Broadcast media? Word of mouth?

What comes to mind when you think of Butterfield Bank?

Which financial institution provides the best customer service?

Which financial institution offers the most competitive products and services?

Which financial institution has the best reputation as an employer?

Which financial institution is most involved in community?

Ad campaign awareness

Are you aware of the print ad campaign called “Did you know” promoting the advantages of DSL?

Are you aware of the radio ad campaign sponsored by the Dept. of Health entitled “Healthy people, healthy community”?

Are you aware of the ad campaign around AIDS and AIDS prevention?

Are you aware of the “Cover your Cost” campaign?

Economy

How would you rate the economy versus 12 months ago? (ie. about the same, better, worse)

How do you see the economy in the next 12 months?

Household finances

Is your standard of living become better or worse in the past 12 months?

How would you rate the economic prospects for your household in the next 12 months? (ie. Better, about the same, worse)

Do you own your own home?

Have you renovated in the past 12 months?

Do you own one residence but don’t live in it; own one residence and live in it; own more than one residence and live in one; own more than one residence but don’t live in any of them?

In what year did you purchase your first residential property?

Do you have a parent or sibling who owns a home in Bermuda?

Internet

What are the primary reasons you use the internet at home?

Which online weather site do you visit?

Do you visit weather sites on a regular basis or infrequently?

Business in Bermuda

What is your opinion on work-permit term limits in Bermuda? (ie. support or oppose)

In April the first work permits expired under this policy? What was the impact? (ie. Free form answer requested)

Politics

Are you satisfied with the government’s overall performance under Alex Scott?

How would you rate your satisfaction with Specific Ministers?

The Minister of Telecommunications – Michael Scott

The Minister of Tourism and Transport – Dr. Ewart Brown

The Minister of Finance – Paula Cox

The Minister of Health – Patrice Minors

The Attorney General – Larry Mussendon

The Premier – Alex Scott

If an election were held today would you be eligible to vote?

Which party would you vote for?

Charity

Have you heard of YouthNet?

What is the primary focus of YouthNet?

Demographics

Do you have someone in your household under 18 years old in public education?

What is your highest level of education?

Are you Bermudian?

What is your household income range?

What is your parish?

What is your race?

Would you be interested in participating in focus groups? Contact info if yes.

Online surveys: willing to contact online survey? Email contact info if yes.

What is your postal code

What is your first name for my supervisor to prove I conducted this interview?

What is your phone number for verification by my supervisor?

Tom Ehrich of the Herald Sun waxes eloquently on the gay marriage ban pseudo proposal in the US Senate.

The Constitution doesn't exist to resolve religious disputes. It exists to provide a just and equitable environment of laws and rights in which citizens can address religious issues, along with equally thorny issues involving human rights, property rights and competing claims for power.

The Constitution doesn't exist to implement a certain "American way of life." It exists to ensure an environment of freedom in which the ways Americans live can flourish and evolve, within a common commitment to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

The Constitution doesn't exist to implement certain religious beliefs. The colonies had been down that road and it was disastrous. The Constitution exists to provide an environment in which all citizens are free to worship and to believe as they choose. It is difficult to imagine a situation more antithetical to the American way than faith by fiat.

Further complicating matters with respects to sexual orientation in the Human Rights Code, I inadvertently came across the Bermuda College Code of Conduct which explicitly prohibits discrimination on that basis:

"a) Be free from discrimination on the basis of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation "

and under "Violations Against the College Community":

"Actions that violate the human rights of any member of the College community including but not limited to areas of culture, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexual orientation."

If the college can do it why not Parliament? And if someone were to successfully allege discrimination on this basis could the discriminator challenge the College's code of conduct in court?

Probably my last comment on the whole sexual orientation amendment before I move on.

The first point I think needs reiterating is that the timing of this bill was completely wrong.

As someone put it to me this morning, the difference between the Stubbs bill in 1994 and the Webb bill in 2006 was 4 years. Meaning that there were 4 years between the Stubbs bill passing and an election in 1998.

Renee Webb's amendment was pitched right before a highly anticipated early-ish election.

Secondly, I haven't spoken to any MPs who feel good about the way this all went down. Paula Cox put it well in the Bermuda Sun when she said:

"I think that all players were diminished somewhat in the actual proceedings."

Ms. Cox also shed light on what I think is a unanimous consensus in Parliament that Ms. Webb didn't do the standard legwork, work that is much more critical for a private members bill to gain support:

"To credibly discuss this issue, I would have approached the process completely differently. We all know the hype and emotionalism that surrounds the issue of sexual orientation. Some clear, objective and factual discussion and consultation needed to occur prior even to any debate. If not, you contribute to a situation where in the absence of information there is a vacuum and in which fear and misinformation can flourish."

It seems pretty clear to me after some feedback that I've received that some of those 'against' votes were actually 'I could have been persuaded but Renee didn't go about it properly'.

That may not make some people happy but that's politics.

As I mentioned in my article in yesterday's RG, there's a lot more to politics than voting your conscience. A number of MPs seemed torn by what some may characterise as self-preservation (which is probably the case in some instances) but was actually the push pull between voting your conscience and representing your constituents, while others resented what they saw as a lack of respect given them by Renee.

The rapid defeat of the bill is more indicitive of a lack of support for Renee Webb than the amendment itself.

I was told this morning that after Renee spoke for an hour and a half and Nelson Bascome began to speak, she started to leave the gallery. At that point Environment Minister Neletha Butterfield said something to the effect of: "Where do you think you're going. We sat here and listened to you", which caused Renee to return to her seat.

That's very revealing. MPs felt like they were disrespected through the process and returned the favour.

One other thing I'd like to mention. There's also been a fair amount of consternation about who should have spoken to continue the debate after Nelson Bascome.

I maintain that the UBP's position that the Minister responsible (ie. Dale Butler) or a Cabinet Member should have gone next is entirely reasonable, particularly when I've been reliably informed that Renee Webb had indicated that both Dale Butler and Ewart Brown would speak in support of the amendment -- one who claimed to be in the bathroom (oldest excuse in the book) and the other (Dr. Brown) who engaged in characteristic double talk:

"I elected not to speak today. I intend to speak on this issue another time and another place."

If a private member can't even get a member of the Government to support her bill, only having one of her backbenchers oppose it, then there is no hope of it moving forward with or without the opposition.

Ms. Webb has been around long enough to know that and should have read the writing on the wall. But she's a politician who thrives on confrontation, and it seems to me that she was led down the garden path by her own party in particular.

Someone got punk'd.

Normally I give people the benefit of the doubt, but we're reaching a new low here as Limey in Bermuda summarises.

There's a rule in politics that goes something like this, "when in a hole stop digging". Time for a little refresher course on the hill.

The sidebar on the Bermuda Sun story today is both revealing and confusing.

The most glaring flip-flopper, wanting it both ways (not in the gay way) is UBP MP Jamahl Simmons. I'm not sure what the hell he's thinking.

Before Friday's vote on the Human Rights Code amendment he told Phil Wells at Limey in Bermuda that he would vote in favour. He told the Royal Gazette the same thing, with a dopey disclaimer at the end:

"Shadow Transport Minister Jamahl Simmons said: "I will vote for it.

"I don’t think people should be discriminated for what they do in their private lives although I am not a fan of the whole thing."

And now he says that he voted against:

"MP Jamahl Simmons said: “I voted no. At the end of the day I have to respect the wishes of my constituents.”"

There's a few other "againsts" in there that are both surprising, and don't make sense. Trevor Moniz for example. The only thing that makes sense there is that he wasn't going to work with Renee Webb.

I'm also a little surprised at Cole Simons, Suzann Holshouser, Neville Darrell and Michael Dunkley on the UBP side.

UBP Wayne Furbert doesn't help things by suggesting they had no strategy. Political parties always have a strategy in Parliament. The UBP's strategy seemed reasonble to me, let the Minister responsible speak first. So for Wayne to suggest that they didn't have a strategy is dishonest.

This whole thing is such a mess. There are so many reasons that this failed, but the more information comes to light the more it seems that Renee Webb had no allies to call on, no-one was prepared to work with her, and the topic is just too hot to handle with a likely election on the horizon.

As a politician the only thing that you have is your integrity. For our MPs to be changing their stories on a minute by minute basis like this is very very disheartening and only feeds into public cynicism.

The Bermuda Sun does a good job today of fleshing out just why the proposed sexual orientation amendment to the Human Rights Code failed on Friday.

It provides a number of direct quotes from MPs, confirming a lot of what I discussed in my Royal Gazette column today, but goes into more detail about the control that the PLP Central Committee appears to have over Cabinet.

This snipped from slate.com (half way down the page) seems topical in light of Bermuda's Parliamentarians rejecting the amendment to protect sexual orientation under the human rights code:

"A study hints at the mechanics of prejudice in your brain. College students were asked how two hypothetical people—a young liberal and a fundamentalist conservative—might feel about various questions. The students relied more on a frontal brain region while thinking think about the liberal but relied more on a back region while thinking about the conservative. Previous research suggests the frontal region is involved in putting yourself in another person's shoes. Researchers' conclusions: 1) You discriminate against people different from you by using stereotypes rather than empathy to guess how they think. 2) So the key to fighting prejudice is to help people see others as similar. Cynics' view: We could have told you that much. Good luck with the hard part."

Seems there was a little bit of excitement on Bermuda Day other than the races and the parade, of which the latter was filled with excruciatingly long gaps between floats that pretty much killed it for me.

The excitement I refer to was the banning of our very own drag queen from participating as the "Queen of the Gomeys".

The first I caught wind of this was Tuesday night when ZBM News reported that Cabinet had rejected the drag queen's entry as it didn't reflect Bermuda's heritage or our "social and cultural mores". Which is a pretty flimsy excuse really considering that we had clowns, uni-cyclists and in the past US Marching Bands.

Shouldn't Cabinet have just come out (pun intended) and said that "they don't like fags", or maybe more like "we don't want to appear to like fags for fear of alienating the AME church" (see today's RG story)? That would have been much more honest, at least I could respect them for that.

Cultural mores? It seems that the mores we celebrate in Bermuda now include xenophobia (remember the problems that the Filipino entrants experienced several years ago), hate speech (David Burch's digusting tirade) and homophobia.

Surely that's not the Bermuda we're builidng.

On a related note, the stage has been set for the rejection of Renee Webb's amendment to the Human Rights Code tomorrow in Parliament. The likelihood of that passing with the talk of election in the air, and todays shot across the bow by the AME church (9,000 members) is unfortunately slim to none.

Today's RG editorial drops the C-word, no not the one you're thinking of. Cuba to be precise.

That's been the one thing that hasn't been said about the Premier's grand tour of Washington DC.

US Consul Gregory Slayton also lays it down today with respects to the Premier's much trumpeted efforts to get the US to relax the travel restrictions on those with a criminal record:

"We don’t need to be importing felons to our country,” he said. “If you want to maintain the right to travel don’t get involved in crime, even smoking drugs."

Translation: "Ain't gonna happen."

I'd lay some serious money down that this whole trip was the Consul politely saying to the Premier and his Cabinet: "Let me remind you who your friends are."

Typically, all we've heard from the Premier -- on a daily basis for the past week - has been the things the US can do for us: drop the stop list, a coast guard etc..

In life, and particularly international relations, no-one receives something for nothing; and definitely not a politically insignificant island of 60,000.

Hence the C-word. We're not getting anything, not a thing, until we drop that pointless exercise. And even then the Premier won't be getting his little stop-wish wish. But it does make for good election material.

Money quote from the US consul:

“We are sitting down and having substantial discussions on real issues which is extraordinary, and extraordinarily productive.” He added: “You can’t criticise this. For ten years both Governments, frankly, did not speak to each other too much. We now have excellent relations and respect – that’s how good laws are passed.”

You certainly can criticise it.

"For ten years both Governments, frankly, did not speak to each other too much."

Exactly.

Relations between the US and Bermuda have suffered terribly during the PLP's era (approaching 8 years). So while the Premier crows about how US lawmakers now "know the Premier by name", what he's really saying is that our key economic and political partner has been neglected by his Government, both the current and prior.

The spinning of this trip has moved into comedic territory; farce seems most appropriate. It is however necessary, 8 years overdue. How many trips have our Cabinet Ministers made to Caricom while not one has bothered to make the short hop to DC?

The harshest condemnation of all is that the one chance the PLP actually had to sit face to face with US officials and represent our interests -- as well as develop relationships with their US counterparts -- was in negotiating the Baselands agreement.

So how was this handled?

Government kicked it over to the UK to negotiate on our behalf and accepted an appallingly inadequate $11M settlement for pollution cleanup and bridge maintenance. A drop in the bucket in terms of both the real cost and the US Government's annual budget of several trillion dollars.

Don't believe the hype.

As the Premier calls his DC trip one of the "highlights of his political career" in today's paper -- if you haven't got the picture yet that this trip was about Alex Scott, Alex Scott and Alex Scott you never will -- a reader chimes in with some perspective:

I’m still trying to predict how Alex will spin his DC trip into the independence debate/brainwashing. Clearly he has taken every opportunity to communicate to the media and the public (before, during and presumably after) every successful meeting opportunity with a Washingtonian heavyweight and this certainly serves to reinforce his already ludicrously high opinion of himself but, after all is said and done, how will this trip reconcile with his government’s misguided stance that we Bermudians aren’t able to represent ourselves on the world stage and must inevitably run to mother Britain every time we want to negotiate an international treaty, agreement, memorandum, etc.?

Perhaps he’ll suggest this trip evidenced that we Bermudians can do it ourselves and don’t need the assistance of others when establishing and promoting relationships with other nations … well … except of course for the American (chapeau wearing) Consulate and the immeasurable contributions made by Sir John before, during and after his stint as Premier. Unfortunately, however, he would be dead wrong.

As a matter of comparison Sir John (and a host of very capable Bermudians) successfully negotiated and entered into a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (“TIEA”) with the United States in 1985. To the bet of my knowledge, the then UBP led government completed this landmark agreement almost entirely on their own and without the assistance of the UK. It ended up as the legislative framework that paved the way for the tremendous success Bermuda enjoys today; establishing a bond with the U.S. that solidified our collective commitment which has proved to be mutually beneficial ever since.

By comparison, the current government (at the behest of the OECD) recently entered into a TIEA with Australia that is completely one-sided and has provided absolutely no material benefit to Bermuda, our economy or our people … and never will. Already the international tax pundits have hailed this Agreement as a great success for Australia and have questioned why Bermuda agreed to it in the first place given its completely skewed language in favour of the Aussies.

Again, we did not rely on the UK to assist us in this matter. The difference this time of course was the government. Alex and his stable of international neophyte ministers thought they knew what they were doing and rather than using the 1985 agreement as a precedent they decided to have a go at it on their own and as a result have established a new precedent (that Bermuda will presumably be using for other planned TIEAs with Mexico, UK, etc.) that will perpetuate and reinforce the one-sided nature of this document for generations to come.

Unfortunately Alex and the current PLP government have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that when given the opportunity he and his party are neither capable nor able to represent our interests overseas or, for that matter, at home.

Well, the Royal Gazette may have never put yesterday's joint op-ed by the Premier and US Consul on their website, but it has shown up today on the National Review Online.

I understand the intent of the piece, and the need to point out Bermuda's value beyond a vacation spot, but as one reader pointed out to me, the op-ed presented a rather shallow and distorted view of Bermuda's historical relationship with the US:

"Not only has an entire decade of very close US/Bermuda relations been written out of history, the early history of Bermuda's ties to the 13 colonies (and later United States) has been reworked almost beyond recognition. Yes, Bermudians collaborated in the gunpowder plot; left unmentioned is the fact the British fleet that burnt Washington DC to the ground embarked from Bermuda during the War of 1812 -- and that Fort Cunningham, the Commissioner's House and numerous other fortifications were built here to prevent a US invasion! And let's not talk about the Civil War -- when Bermuda openly backed the Confederacy and poor Mr. Allen, the US Consul here at the time, was routinely stoned as he walked to his office!"

Ok folks, the planets are clearly lining up (or being lined up) for an election sooner rather than later.

- Premie's off to DC trying to rehabilitate his image and convince people that he could actually be the leader of a country, or at least play one on TV.

- rumour has it that the PLP are getting parochial again with little projects in long-neglected but key areas...

- while unpopular projects in key areas are being pulled -- a victory for John Barritt and the UBP in the Mary Victoria Rd. case no matter how the PLP try and spin it

- there's been a resurgence of contrived press events dressing up policy failures as successes, like those mobile homes finally finding a home (just in time for hurricane season)

- the independence propaganda sessions -- aka fire up the base -- have started with the usual suspects providing their usual level of insight

- Dr. Brown does his best to make declining air arrivals look like a positive

- the UBP's racial code of conduct was rejected (what a shock) out of hand and without explanation by the PLP; the motive being self-evident -- it would render the PLP's election playbook useless.

and finally, the most important piece of the puzzle is about to fall into place:

- MP pay-raises are set to go through this week after I recently suggested that there would be no chance of an election -- no matter how good the timing looked -- until pay/pension raises were put in place.

Now if only we could get confirmation that Roy Boike has been on island....

This love-in between the Premier and US Consul General Gregory Slayton is getting a little creepy, with a joint op-ed in today's Royal Gazette (not yet online). Could the Premier be any more giddy and self-important ("Why should a Premier take the Opposition into that cauldron of politics?") about this trip?

Lost amid all of the collegial back-slapping, press conferences and bickering over who was or was not invited, is what the purpose is, or should be.

There's a variety of things in play:

Let's start with the 'official' reason, this nonsense about an 'unprecedented' and 'first-ever official bi-lateral meetings' -- key word being 'official'. That means the Premier needs a chaperone, in the form of the US Consul, who is probably using this for his own networking purposes (he's a big Bush fundraiser). Former Premier John Swan is well known for his genuine contacts during his 14 year tenure. But we all know that Alex Scott has a short and selective memory.

Then there's the Premier, who's sees a chance for an image makeover (Alex Scott the Statesman) after a lacklustre Premiership.

The real reason should be for the PLP to start repair work on a previously strong relationship which they have damaged through forays into Cuba and a love affair with Caricom resulting in a lack of attention to the one relationship that counts.

Let's just hope they don't take along the Deputy Premier, Dr. Brown, who displayed his penchant for diplomacy by ridiculing US President George Bush's intelligence, with a comment about the President and his 'colouring books' at an anti-Iraq-war rally several years ago.

Phil over at A Limey in Bermuda has a write-up of Saturday night's poorly advertised, badly scheduled and hence lightly attended forum on reshaping Bermuda's political system.

I'm not going to rehash every point he has outlined, but I can't help but comment on the absolute absurdity of this position:

"A recurring topic was the unwritten rule of British politics that politicians caught lying or engaging in unethical behaviour must resign at once. Both Julian Hall and Stuart Hayward suggested that such a principle was unworkable in Bermuda because of the risk that it would exhaust the small pool of political talent from which Bermuda has to draw. I wondered how, then, politicians were to be kept honest. Mr. Hayward later suggested to me that giving the people the ability to recall an MP in the middle of their term was one way to do this. Since Bermuda does not seem to have the UK’s “culture of resignation”, this seems like the next best thing. However I’m still uncertain how it mitigates the risk of exhausting the talent pool."

Anyone else do a double take here?

I don't care how talented a politician is, if they're a liar or unethical - and we've got an abundance of that around right now - they have no place in Parliament...small talent pool or not. In fact, there seems to be a surplus of politicians right now whose sole talent is lying and acting unethically.

There is no excusing dishonesty or a lack of ethics. Period. Anyone attempting to rationalise should be ashamed.

Fair point by John Zuill in his rapid response Letter to the Editor in today's Royal Gazette (scroll to the bottom, second letter) to my column of yesterday on the idea of eliminating the UBP and PLP to usher in a new political era:

"I would not put idealism and Sharon in the same sentence. I would say Sharon is a political realist and quite amoral."

My intention wasn't really to get into the minefield of Israeli politics, but to touch on the fact that the only way ABC's objective can be achieved is if some MPs on each side say enough is enough and abandon the status quo.

I don't really think the All Bermuda Congress is the answer, but the idea of moving past the UBP and PLP has some real appeal to it. And I don't say that thinking that we're all going to join hands and sing kumbaya around a campfire afterwards.

People will still be cycnical about their politicians. Political fights will still go on. Politics will remain adversarial. But it might allow a little more focus on the current issues we face versus the ones we faced 40 years ago.

I was polled last night by Research Innovations, in what I assume is their 2 monthly poll commissioned for the Royal Gazette.

Apart from the usual and expected questions about popularity of the Premier, Opposition Leader, performance of the Government, Independence etc. there was a strong focus on immigration, labour and crime.

The immigration questions were interesting, along the lines of whether I thought our immigration policies were working, being violated, and adequately enforced and whether I would support extending more benefits to long-term residents.

With respects to labour there were questions about whether I thought the Government to be pro-union.

On crime there were the usual questions about perception of changing crime levels and the effectiveness of the police.

If anyone else is polled I'd be interested in their impressions.

I guess we'll see the results in The Royal Gazette shortly.

I've been thinking about a lot about the All Bermuda Congress that Khalid Wasi is floating. He's been doing the media rounds and is talking a lot of sense.

But every time I hear the phrase 'All Bermuda Congress' it conjures up some image of a Bermudian chapter in the Kama Sutra.

I'm interested to see if the proposed 3rd party (let's be realistic, the NLP is no more) in today's paper gets off the ground.

I'm skeptical for a number of reasons.

They do seem to have one important side of things in place: funding. But there are other bigger hurdles than that, the PLP proved in 2003 that you can win elections on a shoestring budget.

My first cause for skepticism is that the move to single seat constituencies prior to the 2003 election effectively ended any hopes for 3rd party or independent candidates. Dual seats were conducive to vote-splitting between a PLP and UBP candidate or a main party and 3rd party/independent candidate. Vote splitting happened pre the 1990s, but the past 15 years have been characterised by party based voting.

Now, with single seats, it's a use it or lose it proposition. The change didn't just correct the constituency size problem, but it effectively entrenched a two-party system, shutting out anyone else.

Secondly, there's some practical problems for 3 parties to recruit a full slate of candidates. Talk to people in either party and they'll tell you that it isn't easy to attract candidates. Maybe that's because the parties are so unappealing, fighting the same old battles the same old ways, but finding 72 candidates for an election is hard enough, let alone 72 good ones. Now, if the All Bermuda Congress were to run an island-wide campaign, we'd be looking for 106 good men and women. Not a chance.

Those are the biggest hurdles facing any attempts to launch another party. And Khalid Wasi is well aware of this:

"At this stage it is just a feasibility study. Bermuda cannot handle a third party, the NLP proved that, but the two parties are at an impasse."

Khalid has been pushing for this for some time, since the 1998 election in fact, and he and I had a number of discussions in 1999 and 2000 about the viability of a 3rd party and whether the UBP could survive. The UBP has proved it can survive, but it remains to be seen whether it can take back the Government.

Although Khalid hasn't named the backers, it's not hard to guess the main players. Khalid is clearly the driving force, and for those who know Khalid, he's a thinker who gets pretty cerebral when he speaks. Putting his ideas into practice and not speaking over the electorate's heads will be the challenge. He'd need to be surrounded by some people who can keep him in reality and what is achievable.

The other main player will clearly be Mike Marsh of Bermudians For Referendum. He's been pushing the Switzerland model of direct democracy for years, where many issues are put to referendum. Mr. Marsh is a very difficult person to deal with. I can tell you that from experience. If he takes a prominent role then he may be a turn-off to potential supporters.

But from the article today it appears that Khalid and his team are well aware of these problems, which is why he's pitching this as not a 3rd party, but a replacement for the UBP. On that basis he might have some reason to hope. But the prospect of the UBP disbanding today is much less than in the 1999 period.

I do however have some sympathy for his argument. And I must confess that as a young Bermudian active in politics I despair that I'm expected to continue a fight from the 60s that is not relevant to me.

Bermuda's political evolution is probably being retarded by the continued existence of the UBP and PLP. My pragmatic and idealistic sides are constantly arguing over what the best course of action is; effect change from within a party or work from the outside of each.

Bermuda's politicians might want to take a page out of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's book, where he recently resigned from his own party in an attempt to rock the foundation of Israeli politics.

It's an interesting option that may just be what it takes in Bermuda to end the UBP vs PLP 40 year war.

I still haven't emerged from my reinsurance cave, and won't until the New Year, but I did want to chime in on a couple of issues that have been nagging at me.

First in that list is Renee Webb's Human Rights code amendment banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

This is such a no-brainer to me that it just saddens me that in today's Bermuda we can't just get this done and move on. Renee Webb is right. It needs to be done, it's long overdue.

On the Government side, it's pretty clear that they don't want to deal with this, having kicked it into the New Year after Ms. Webb announced her intention to add sexual orientation to the code. And the Premier and his Cabinet's cowardice on this issue is astounding, not to mention against everything the PLP claims to cherish.

The PLP profess to be a movement for equality and fairness. But the reluctance to deal with this suggests that the equality is much more narrowly defined. It's safe to assume that it's not at all about human rights in general but about race. And maybe not even about racial equality but creating a new imbalance. To hold positions that it's not ok to discriminate on race but it is ok on sexual orientation just doesn't wash. Nor does Finance Minister Paula's Cox lame excuse that there is no need for the law.

And then there's the UBP. Seven of their MP's stated that they support protection on this basis but need to see the amendment. That's a reasonable position that comes across as a bit of a hedge. But I'm confident that seven will support a well crafted amendment.

For the UBP it's pretty simple: you can't be for "One Bermuda" and not for protecting sexual orientation in the Human Rights Code. It's as straight forward as that.

For once, I find myself proudly in Renee Webb's corner.

The US House of Representatives have passed a resolution honouring the Airmen who disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle 60 years ago:

The disappearance of Flight 19, a Navy mission that began the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, is still unexplained, but not forgotten, 60 years later.

The 27 Navy airmen who disappeared somewhere off Florida's coast on December 5, 1945, were honored in a House resolution Thursday. Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Florida, said he hoped the gesture would help bring closure for surviving families.

Strangely now, only taxpayer dollars not people disappear into the Bermuda Triangle.

Someone sent me this recent article by US Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) which was posted on the blog Daily Kos.

Sen. Obama's piece was a response to a recent discussion on Daily Kos regarding the Senator's comments and subsequent vote on the nomination of John Roberts for US Supreme Court Chief Justice.

The reason I've linked to it here, and posted a snippet below, is because the challenges which Obama identifies as facing the Democratic party are highly relevant to Bermuda's political situation. Specifically he discusses what he sees as the problem with the tone among the Democratic activist base.

I'd highly recommend reading the whole article:

"The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.

"Let me be clear: I am not arguing that the Democrats should trim their sails and be more "centrist." In fact, I think the whole "centrist" versus "liberal" labels that continue to characterize the debate within the Democratic Party misses the mark. Too often, the "centrist" label seems to mean compromise for compromise sake, whereas on issues like health care, energy, education and tackling poverty, I don't think Democrats have been bold enough. But I do think that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don't work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).

"Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will. This is more than just a matter of "framing," although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required. It's a matter of actually having faith in the American people's ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter.

"Finally, I am not arguing that we "unilaterally disarm" in the face of Republican attacks, or bite our tongue when this Administration screws up. Whenever they are wrong, inept, or dishonest, we should say so clearly and repeatedly; and whenever they gear up their attack machine, we should respond quickly and forcefully. I am suggesting that the tone we take matters, and that truth, as best we know it, be the hallmark of our response."

Well, after today's lengthy piece in p. 4 of the Royal Gazette (which again bumped my column, no hard feelings Sir John, but this is becoming a habit!), any questions about what Sir John Swan is up to should have been cleared up.

That piece (not yet online in its entirety but summarized in a front page article) is an election platform and serves as confirmation that Sir John is doing his advance work for a re-entry into the political arena.

I'll comment further on this in a post this evening, but there should be no doubts that Sir John is back in the game.

Well, the good news is that a few more sections of the Berkeley site have been completed and handed over to the Department of Education. We'll forgive the Minister for saying 'on schedule'...it just depends on which schedule you're referring to.

And the bad news?

The footage which was used on the news programs last night was apparently Government footage - the media were not allowed on site.

Why not? What weren't they supposed to see?

OK, better late than never, but here's my take on Sir John Swan's recent comments to Rotary.

Let's face it, love him or hate him, when Sir John Swan speaks Bermudians (and others) listen. And speak he did.

Sir John's speech recently to Hamilton Rotarians was certainly fiesty, albeit clumsily in its delivery at times. But we'll forgive him for the lack of polish, he's been out of the speech giving game for awhile.

Much of what was said has been covered before in a variety of forums, but when our highest profile and long-serving former Premier with everlasting clout (regardles of his acrimonious final chapter with the public) chimes in after a period of self-confessed restraint, people sit up and pay attention.

No doubt the usual lineup of Sir John's supporters and critics will chime in with the usual comments, ascribing all sorts of motives, some probably correct others probably not, but what will be interesting is to see the knock on effect of this.

At its core, setting aside the well-known examples of Government ineptitude and scandal which he cited, Sir John's speech was a challenge.

It was a challenge to the PLP to clean up their act, to the public to start holding their politicians feet to the fire, to the media to not be intimidated and to the community groups and the business community to speak out.

This could be an opening of flood gates to a less restrained more vocal public in holding politicians accountable for their actions. There have been a steadily rising chorus calling for everyone to stop sitting back while the affairs of the island are so badly managed and unpopular initiatives are rammed down our throats.

So from the perspective of criticising the PLP Government, I'd say the effect could be a freeing up of community restraint/deference to think the best about the Government less than any real insights.

The other quite stinging criticism Sir John made was against the UBP, on the thing that the party just can't seem to shake, which is the racial albatross.

Sir John has taken some whacks at the UBP along these lines in the past, and I posted my impressions back then (follow this link and go the bottom and work your way up from Dec. 29th to early January posts). His comments really haven't changed much this time. They were just more cutting.

So do I agree? Not really.

A little background: my time in the UBP began after the 1998 election loss. I don't have any insights into what went on before then. My experience since '98 is that any suggestion that black members perspectives/interests are dominated by whites is just off base.

To start with, the majority of the UBP MPs eligible to elect the party leader (only MPs have a vote) are black. There are 6 white MPs out of 14. What white leadership is in place could be blocked by the black majority. In fact, I attended a meeting for the first time in awhile recently (too many kids at home!) and I was one of 3 whites in a room of about 20 MPs and candidates.

It's really a catch 22 situation. The UBP gets criticised for having a white leader but is attacked if race is used as a consideration in candidate/leadership selection.

At the end of the day you've just got to make the choice and let the chips fall where they may. The criticism is coming regardless: either there's a white leader or a black leader for window dressing. The party can't win on that, so you just got to accept it and move on.

But, numbers aren't everything. Do a minority of whites hold undue sway or force their agenda through by other means? I just haven't seen it, nor have I seen Sir John around.

That's not to say he isn't in contact, but he's certainly not around in any meaningful way. That's not a criticism, I just wonder who he's talking to and where he reaches that conclusion from?

If the UBP were a party trying to advance a white agenda - whatever that might be - or using blacks to advance white interests, I wouldn't want any part of it.

To me, the UBP's 'struggle' with race is not a negative it's a plus.

Why? People from different racial backgrounds bring different experiences with them, and an inevitable and healthy tension arises when those are all thrown into the mix. That's a good thing. It creates some anger and resentment, it creates some public disputes, but they're the same issues that need resolving throughout the community.

The internal discussions that the UBP has around race have been the most eye-opening I've ever participated in or observed. The main reason (I think) is that everyone gets along and understands that the discussions, which get very heated, are a genuine attempt to develop understanding and share experiences.

But it's not easy. It can be uncomfortable. Participating can be intimidating, but as long as the motives are in the right place then the conflict is productive.

Having a caucus of one race isn't going to produce nearly the quality of discussion and depth of experiences that one with a diverse membership of races, genders, ages, professional backgrounds will.

The UBP's got that, it's not perfect but they've got it. The PLP don't, and don't want it.

My hope is that the community would have as honest and open a discussion about race as the UBP does internally, usually when you least expect it.

I also wish that the UBP wouldn't be so worried about having and leading that discussion externally. It's healthy, because everyone is trying to reach a mutual understanding and respect.

Does it mean that unanimous agreement will be reached? Absolutely not. Does it mean the political opportunists aren't going to take the easy and predictable cheap shots? Yep.

But we can all learn from each other. And that's worth it.

Well, yesterday at Rotary Sir John Swan removed the safety and mowed down a lot of folks, including the publication of my column in today's Gazette. I'm outraged.

I guess I'll be doubling up with The Limey tomorrow.

Comments on the Rotary Speech coming shortly...

I've been thinking about this Bermuda Shorts thing all day.

After a little more thought, I'd agree that fewer people are wearing Bermuda Shorts to work, but the whole line about them representing colonialism seems like a bogus vanity argument from the "blame the UK crowd" to me.

The answer I think is much more simple; the workplace has become more casual and I'd imagine that when it swings back, as it inevitably will, the shorts and socks will stage a comeback.

I have however been ruminating a little on this quote:

"Increasingly, the national dress of this British colony is worn only by a diminishing circle of elderly white gentlemen and workers in the hospitality industry, who put them on solely for the paycheck."

I think that's just false, as well as the later characterization of Bermuda as "a haven for U.S. banking and insurance companies". Insurance yes. Banking no. Bermuda actively avoids banking due to the problems it can bring.

I spent a lot of time today at lunch during my walk into town observing knee caps, and the number of people wearing shorts and socks wasn't insignificant, nor was it just elderly white gentlemen or hospitality workers.

It makes me wonder what prompted the reporter to write the story. Surely it didn't just pop out of the air? Ms. Williams achieved a pretty impressive lineup of quotable and notable Bermudians.

I wonder.

Pondblog has picked up on an interesting story in the LA Times today, discussing the relative demise of the traditional Bermuda short (in Bermuda) as formal wear.

There's a whole range opinions from well-known locals on why they wear them, why they don't, why they like them, why they dislike them etc. etc.. Some are predictably political, others insightful.

An interesting read.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I rarely wear 'Bermuda' shorts with socks, jacket, tie anymore. No particular reason really, other than that I've always considered it formal wear, to be worn with jacket and tie. The two companies I've worked for for the past ten years have both been mostly casual, probably too casual in the hot summer months, so we rarely wear suits.

I would make one observation about the acceptance of Bermuda shorts in the international business community: more non-Bermudians wear the traditional short with socks than locals it seems.

Maybe because we spent 12 or so years in them through our school years it does make us feel like we're back in school as Desmond Rickardson noted.

Sadly, Monday has seen everything return to normal. After the excitement, disruption and bickering over the power outage, what happened, whose fault it is and how to prevent it happening again there was one thing that I was hoping power wouldn't return to: Hamilton's traffic lights.

The ride along Front St. this morning (and through Reid St. on Sunday) confirmed what I had observed and experienced post-Fabian; traffic flows much better in 'tawn' with the lights off.

But sadly, at noon, they were back.

At the minimum we should change the law to allow left turns on (most) red lights - as the UK and US allow (albeit a right turn in the US). Hell, very few bikes stop anyway at red lights as it is!

We should also change the lights to flashing yellows on a Sunday and evenings as they do in Halifax Nova Scotia. That prevents people sitting at pointless timed red lights on empty roads; as long as you slow down sufficiently at an intersection - which everyone was doing this weekend with the lights out - there are no problems.

The modified driving behaviour I witnessed this weekend confirms what Phil aka The Limey suggested in his Royal Gazette column about a month and a half ago, in what on the surface might have seemed like an off the wall idea to make the roads more dangerous.

I couldn't help but smile after catching up on some newspaper reading and coming across an article about our cricket team's qualification for the World Cup. It was great news, and as happens everywhere, the politicians were lining up to hitch their wagons to the euphoria and get some lift from the positive vibes.

Which is why I both smiled and cringed after reading Dale Butler's comments in RG, as quoted at the end of the article:

Sports Minister Dale Butler was equally impressed.

“I’m extremely delighted,” he enthused.

“I’m very happy with the team’s success. Remember my farewell speech at City Hall? I told them that they were not going over there to participate but to qualify for the World Cup and my prophecy came true. Based on the team’s talent, commitment and training I felt they stood a very good chance – and here they are!”

What made me cringe? Well, if you've ever listened to Dale Butler, either in Parliament, at a press event, ribbon cutting or maybe even singing in the shower you might have noticed the same thing.

Dale Butler can't stop talking about himself. Ever.

Look at that quote. Instead of focusing on the cricket team, he's telling people how "I" predicted this, that "I" told them, remember "my" speech, that "my prophecy came true", that "I" felt they stood and good chance, that "I'm" excited etc. etc. Six references to himself in 5 sentences!

The moral of the story? Aren't "I" smart. You should all be impressed with "my" wisdom. "I'm" great.

It's pathological. Deodorant Dale has always come across as a self-absorbed ego-maniac. That quote should confirm beyond all doubt that even when someone else does something great, that it's all because of the great Dale Butler.

A little humility would go a long way.

Well there it is. Dr. Brown, through persistence and more than a little bit of shifty tactical work, managed to shove his beloved but controversial mandatory GPS legislation through.

The way this transpired, after years of delay, can't be seen as a big win for the Transport Minister and the PLP. But it's a win nonetheless.

I must admit to being a little surprised (and disappointed) that after years of energetic resistance, the Taxi Industry seemed to just run out of gas, threats of legal action notwithstanding.

No doubt, the sudden re-tabling, and subsequent accelerated timeframe in debating this bill was both intended and successful at preventing the drivers, and the Opposition, in getting organized.

In addition, by choosing to re-introduce the bill at the peak of the tourist season, Dr. Brown put the drivers in a tough position; they were reluctant to engage in another strike and lose valuable dollars. Now is when they make their money, so at some level I understand the practical realities of a repeat of last year's work stoppage (during Race Week) when there was a sense of inevitability to the bills passage.

It seems they're resorting to Plan B: tying the thing up in the courts. How successful that is remains to be seen.

But, and it's a significant but that should not be overlooked, the Government rammed this through in a rare extra session taking up legislation that was only introduced 7 days earlier.

Traditionally, bills sit on the Order Paper for a minimum of 2 weeks, allowing members time to review the bill and prepare for the debate. This legislation however was only tabled on June 23rd. Then, in really underhanded fashion, very late in the week, the UBP were advised that Government would be holding an extra session, solely to debate GPS, on Monday July 4th.

I'm not sure why the UBP didn't kick up more of a fuss frankly, but the intention of this move was clear. It probably came down to the simple act of counting heads, with the bill eventually passing 14-11. Which is a sqeaker.

By only informing the UBP at the last minute of the extra Monday session taking up legislation less than a week old, the intention was clearly to catch the UBP short - a little bit of insurance. And that insurance policy seemed to pay off, with 3 UBP MPs absent for the vote, allowing a severely short-handed PLP Government to sqeak it out by 3 votes.

But the numbers aren't quite that simple. If all of the UBP's MPs were present the vote would have been even. I think the PLP knew it would be close but assumed 15 would be enough by one. With the extra one being PLP MP George Scott who attempted to vote on a bill where he had a direct and well documented financial interest. That is against procedure and speaks to his lack of ethics.

Mr. Scott, when speaking in the debate a) didn't declare his interest until the Opposition Leader intervened, and b) attempted to vote before the UBP asked for a ruling from the Speaker, who ruled accordingly. Pretty scummy in both cases, but not unexpected.

So the Government was probably confident that 15 members would show up for the vote, enough to beat the UBP with all their members present, but further benefited from the underhanded tactic of adding an extra session, with little notice well within the normal waiting period.

I'm not surprised. It's just another example of the disregard of good practice, established precedent and proper procedure, minor annoyances which seem to hold little significance in our increasingly marginalised Parliament, from a Government which abhors open debate.

As one kind emailer says:

'At least it isn't only the PLP'.

No doubt the Premier wishes he'd come up with this gem:

"It's not a pay raise," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."

That's impressive.

Surely the taxpayers shouldn't be funding a trip with "Drugs on the agenda for Scott at Caribbean conference"

Headline writer humour maybe, or I'd like to go.

It warmed my heart today, while sitting in the public gallery in Parliament, to have Labour Minister Randy Horton pay me a special visit to inquire if I had my pen and whether I'd written next week's Royal Gazette column yet.

I'd have never guessed Minister Horton was a fan. I'm flattered.

To show my gratitude, I'm inviting Mr. Horton to be a founding member of my soon to be announced fan club.

Recommended reading on page 1 of the Mid Ocean News this week.

I'd heard inklings that something was coming down the tubes, and I think one other media outlet was working on this story, but it'll probably be dismissed as yet another shameful episode, expected in the New Bermuda.

The Government pension fund seems to be quite an attractive place for Cabinet Ministers to trade favours for dollars, doesn't it? What else don't we know about?

Just to recap: in the past few weeks alone we've witnessed the Premier and Housing Minister be exposed as liars, Renee Webb receive commissions for broking the Government pension fund to a company she held shares in, and now it's been revealed that US businesses are cutting cheques to Ewart Brown.

Anyone who is even remotely considering going Independent under this bunch of bandits need their heads examined.

All my opposition to Independence was eliminated today by the outrageous behaviour of our colonial occupying power.

I just can't tolerate living under a repressive regime who would have the nerve to bump my Tuesday Royal Gazette column, all for Liz's warm and fuzzy Commonwealth Day mesage.

And if they double up and put me below that Limey again, as they did last week, I'll go nuclear, or 'nucular' as George Bush would say.

Disband the Bermuda Independence Commission. I'm on board. Forget a referendum. Don't even bother with an election. After this behaviour we should just declare it a done deal so that I can resume my regular Tuesday whining without such a rude interruption.

I love Wayne Furbert, he's a good friend. But what was he thinking sending this in as a press file photo?

It's almost as bad as that heavenly white backgrounded glamour shot of former Premier Jennifer Smith that used to hang at the airport arrivals hall.

I'm going to give him endless grief over this. I can't wait.

Someone gets it (follow the link and go to the second letter).

The pondblogger has picked up (follow the link and scroll down to Jan. 30, 2nd item) a story in the Telegraph ranking that annoying Scottish Labour MP Ian Davidson, friend of our PLP, 15th out of 658 British MPs in spending.

"In July 2003, Mr Davidson also managed to squeeze in an 11-day trip to Bermuda to observe elections there. His accommodation was paid for by the country's ruling Progressive Labour Party."

They must have formed a common bond over an appreciation for taxpayer funded junkets.

I remember hearing Mr. Davidson, during his 2003 visit, speaking at one of the PLP's rallies in July. That would make his visit partisan and political, not as an independent observer.

On that basis it would be interesting to know if, like the Focus Groups, the taxpayer not the party picked up the bill.

I'm on the fence as to whether to waste energy disecting Laverne Furbert's letter segment by segment as I'd originally planned, but there is one very important thing that needs pointing out here in a separate post, which highlights the dishonesty in her response.

Ms. Furbert said:

After all, it was not too long ago that he used his venom against Dr. Brown in one of his columns by using such words as “inflexible, prime misleader, wicked, weak, cagey,” etc. etc.

Ok, two things here. Firstly, one of her initial points was that she didn't read my columns, but let's not get hung up on that.

Secondly and the real issue is that there’s a, um, tiny little itty bitty, well very big fundamental act of dishonesty here.

The words 'wicked' and 'weak' jumped out at me as things I wouldn't have said. So I went back to do a word search on my RG articles and what did I find? Well Ms. Furbert pulled those from this article on GPS where 'wicked' and 'weak' were words that the taxi drivers had used about Dr. Brown, not me. I was recouting an event. Big difference. The sentence is as follows, judge for yourself:

The mistrust toward the Premier and his Deputy was palpable. Comparisons to Fidel Castro were raised, the Government was accused of running a dictatorship and Bermuda’s leaders were labeled as ‘wicked’ and ‘weak’.

Those funny things around those words are called quotes in case anyone is confused.

And it didn't stop there. 'Inflexible' appeared earlier in the same article, where I wrote that Dr. Brown would have us believe that the taxi drivers were ‘inflexible’ - not that Dr. Brown himself was inflexible. Again a big difference. But you don't have to take my word for it, here's that sentence. Judge for yourself:

"It’s not surprising then the taxi owners are wary, not inflexible, as the Minister would have you believe."

But of course those details might get in the way of a dishonest response.

Which is why of course the Editor allowed me the right of reply at publishing, because her response completely misstated my complaint into a personal attack on Derrick Burgess and contained blatant untruths. But I was only afforded a couple of hours to put together a response, which resulted in my brief and incomplete rebuttal.

Today I broke one of my New Year's resolution not to waste money. But as someone told me this morning that I was honoured with the headline in the esteemed 'The Workers Voice', the BIU's newsletter, I made an exception.

So, at great pains I paid 25c for my copy and, well, the entertainment factor alone is worth more than the cost, by alot.

I'm going to hit a few of the highlights over a few more posts, but the reason I bought it was for the headline story which invoked my name: 'LaVerne responds to Gazette columnist Dunleavy's attack', which was just a reprint of the first of Laverne Furbert's two non-response responses to my column regarding Derrick Burgess' comments on managing the Bermudian worker.

I'm going to follow this post with a line by line analysis of Ms. Furbert's two letters, but the interesting thing was the intro to the piece:

'Editor's note: The following is the text of a column that appeared in the morning daily this week. The piece was authored by Sister LaVerne Furbert and it was in response to a column that criticized Brother Derrick Burgess for a statement that he is purported to have given to The Bermuda Sun recently.' [Italics mine]

'... a statement that he is purported to have given to the Bermuda Sun recently.'

'Purported'! This is The Workers Voice, the official newsletter of the BIU, the union that Derrick Burgess is president of. And they want to suggest that he might not have given the statement but don't have a definitive confirmation or denial from him (he's quoted in other articles so his phone must have been working)!

But I can understand why the Union is furiously backpedaling on this and misstating my argument - or as someone said to me 'trying to unring the bell' - but I've seen no retraction from the Sun, and surely Brother Derrick could have confirmed for his own newsletter whether he actually said it. Which of course he did.

But anyway, the content of the article is a reprint of the original RG non-response. But of course they didn't have the courtesy or integrity to include my original column, which is certainly convenient if you want to misstate my argument in your response and suggest I actually personally attacked Derrick Burgess, and not a statement that he obviously regrets making.

More soon ...

Last night I received this email from Nosheen Syed, Director or Research at Research.bm:

"My name is Nosheen Syed. I am the Director of Research for Research.bm. Your website was brought to my attention. I would like to advise you that Research.bm has no part in any poll that may or may not have been conducted. Perhaps this is another agency. I wanted the opportunity to set the record straight."

Which is interesting because someone else has been then because a number of people have told me they have been polled in the past month, some as recently as in the last week. And one person I spoke with, who I absolutely trust, told me that they were polled in late December and then asked about participating in a Focus Group.

But I have no reason to not believe Ms. Syed, and my beef is with Government not Research.bm, so I'll continue to dig around and see who is behind the recent polling.

If you've been polled recently and/or attended any of these Focus Groups I'd be interested in hearing from you. Just click on feedback here or at the bottom of this message.

Specifically I'd like to know what questions were asked, when the poll/focus group took place, how long they lasted etc..

It seems that not only is Research.bm conducting Focus Groups (paid for by DCI) but that a phone poll is/was being conducted in conjuction with this.

I've now spoken with two people who have advised me that they participated in a phone poll. One was asked upon concluding the questioning as to whether he/she would be interested in participating in a Focus Group (in late December 2004), the other wasn't.

So, on to the poll. The content of the questions were described to me as including issues and being very heavy on education (which is fine), with Independence thrown in there, but also about individuals and parties.

Questions included the favourability/popularlity of Alex Scott, what you liked/disliked about him, who would you vote for (party) etc..

The last point is political in nature and despite Beverle Lottimore at DCI's protests, is inappropriate in a Government poll.

So there's a few things I'll be commenting on over the next several days, arising out of this:

1) Holding the PLP accountable for this misuse of taxpayer funds.
2) What else we're paying for (remember the political broadcasting change of early 2003).
3) What this reveals about the Social Agenda.
4) Implications for the timing of a general election.

CORRECTION: The original post stated that the individuals had been polled by Research.bm. Research.bm denies that they have conducted any polling, and the reference to Research.bm has been removed.

Putting aside the unethical abuse of taxpayer funds and the Civil Service which is occurring in these Focus Groups for a minute, doesn't this blow the whole lid off the Social Agenda?

I mean, according to my attendee, the issue oriented questions were asking about what the participants thought the Government should do on specific portfolios.

Now we did hear in the Throne Speech that much of the Social Agenda was more studies, and there was lots of criticism of that, but weren't we also told about how ready to move on the major issues of the day the Government was? Shouldn't the Government - after 6 years in the drivers seat - be a little further on than this?

Seems that not surprisingly, the Social Agenda was nothing more than a hastily thrown together tagline, a substanceless ploy to buy time.

There's a little more info coming in on the Focus Groups being carried out by Research.bm on behalf of Government (Dept. of Communications or DCI).

Two more people contacted me today, both who were turned away as the groups were over-attended. They got $100 and a 'thanks for coming out'.

But someone who did attend has made it clear that political issues relating to the specific performance and favourability of Alex Scott and the PLP were discussed.

Questions like:

"Rate the Premier's performance on a scale of 1-5"

and

"Use one word to describe the current Government".

That's political and completely out of order. It is inappropriate to use taxpayer funds through the DCI or any department to research on political matters, which is exactly what is going on.

The civil service is supposed to be entirely a-political and this type of stuff is not permitted. Taxpayer funds are not to be used for political activities. Sure PR can be a little fuzzy but this isn't even on the fringe, it is just blasting right through the ethics and independence of the civil service. The civil service has been compromised and taxpayer dollars used inappropriately.

I've always been suspicious of the rapidly growing DCI under the PLP. The Central Policy Unit (CPU), and DCI seem to me like a permanent taxpayer funded campaign organisation for the PLP.

Someone has to answer for this. We deserve to know exactly what went on in these sessions, whose budget it came out of, what the questions were etc..

The session was described to me as a 'fishing expedition' and detailed a little more in this general assessment by an attendee:

"The bulk of the evening was focused around the current government, how we felt they were doing, what we felt were their strengths and areas where they should improve and at the end we were given handouts listing 10 issues from the throne speech (the same issues we had discussed all evening - housing, health, seniors, safety, tourism, finance, education...) with details below and we were asked to add out thoughts and comments to the sheet and asked how important each item was to us and what we would like to see happen in each area."

Larry Dennis (Auditor General), we have another job for you, seeing as the Ombudsman is yet to be appointed.

Well that was fast.

Following up my last post about Research.bm Focus Groups I received the below quoted comments from a reader about one of the sessions.

This sounds an awful lot like taxpayer funded pre-election political work, testing out support levels etc., most helpful in gauging the optimal time to call an election and what to run on.

Key phrase is: 'said she was hired by the Department of Communication'.

Note that at least some of the questions focused on individuals and party not Government policy. That smells fishy to me. We should not be funding either party's polling and message testing etc.. That should come out of party funds.

Due to start at 5.00 for 2 hours, it started at 5.45 due to lateness. I only mention that, because it was 'important' to the leader that the groups of 10 were fully constituted.

Groups were split up into Male and Female - no mixing.

The Group Leader was Black/American...introduced herself as "living in New York".

She told the group, that she had been hired by the Department of Communication, to draw out from the group, their thoughts on various topics - central to which was whether the group felt that the Government communicated with the public.

They were asked a series of questions, and invited to offer a verbal response. The responses were recorded into a tape recorder and they were filmed by way of an unseen camera.

Ethnic composition of the group was 60/40 (B/W) and appeared to be from mixed economic backgrounds.

The types of questions asked were:

* Was Alex Scott a good leader.
* Was the PLP doing a good job etc

Each response to this type of question, opened up further debate on issues raised by the group members, e.g. "They have done a good job on housing". "Oh really"....said another member...."why do you say that"? Etc

Group members were asked to take notes and record their opinions/feelings, even if they did not want to divulge their opinion in public. All notes were kept - and the group was told that they would be summarised as part of the presentation to the Government.

Overall impression, was that the process was professionally handled and managed.

I received a random (or so they say) call the other night asking if I was interested in participating in focus groups on topical issues for an organisation called Research.bm.

After enthusiastically agreeing - I love spouting off as you all know - the caller seemed quite pleased but had one final question:

Q. "Do you work in advertising or marketing, do you work for the press or are you in a political party".

A. (reluctantly) "Well, err, hmmm... well yeah. I write a political column for The Royal Gazette and I was cannon fodder for the UBP at the last election."

Q. Silence. "Well that's too bad. Do you know anyone else who might be interested?"

So, are you interested? If so, send them an email at contact@research.bm.

I scouted around their website a little. It's got a funky layout and attractive design and what they do looks interesting.

There was no information on who the principals of the company are so I did a BermudNIC Domain WHOIS lookup. The site registrant and administrative contact is listed as Ben Fairn, the Managing Director of Aardvark Communications, who may be behind the company or just their advertising agency/website designers.

Anyway, let me know what you hear if you do sign up.

Oh, one important thing I forgot in my last post. In section III of the Bermuda Government's letter of Jan. 20, 2004 it states that:

"The Bermuda Government has tentatively selected a licensee, pending further final approvals and related governmental procedures."

So it looks like we're in negotiations with a DBS company already, presumably Echostar or Direct TV, back before 2004. It will be interesting to find out where the negotiations stand.

Let's see if I can get any joy out of the Department of Telecommunications.

My last post about Government doing something about our historically terrible television options via Direct Broadcast Satellites (DBS) was semi-serious.

Obviously Government shouldn't buy a dedicated Bermuda satellite from one of the DBS companies -- they're extremely expensive, can fail on launch, degrade very quickly in orbit, and the Government can't manage a construction project let alone a satelite, for starters. But I do think that there might be some ways to try and get us some coverage from the big US Satellite TV providers to end the Vulcan death grip that Cablevision have had us under for so long.

Shortly after that post, a master Googler emailed me a couple of links to some recent (2004) correspondence between the Bermuda Government and the US Federal Communications Commission. My knowledge of the satellite business is extremely weak, but I'll make an effort to interpret what I've tracked down.

The FCC International Bureau requested comment in late 2003 on proposals to reduce the orbital spacing between DBS satellites. The full directory listing of correspondence can be found here, but it is quite technical and can take some time to get through.

The Bermuda Government responded on January 20th, 2004. The response is interesting.

What the Government's letter reveals is that we have 3 satellite 'slots' that were assigned to us some time ago. The economic potential of those was minimal or didn't exist until recently -- digital satellite technology was in it's infancy and restricted them to a solely Bermuda footprint.

This changed in the late 90's when:

1) the US government enacted DISCO II, which appears to allow non-US satellite providers to broadcast into the US, as well as US providers to broadcast to non-US customers.
2) digital and satellite technology improved with 'spot-beam' capabilities for targeted broadcasts (used by DBS companies to provide local station coverage for example) as well as signal shaping among other things.

The letter also reveals that the Bermuda Government is exploring the economic potential of at least one of these 3 slots (and has some concern about interference from reducing the spacing between slots and interference from other satellites operated from other regions.)

The only slot that is specifically referenced is at -96.2 degrees West Latitude, and my understanding is all these slots are around/over the equator. This location would appear, to my untrained eye, to be a prime location for the US market, hanging over the US mid-west or thereabouts. (There is also a follow-up letter, reiterating the Bermuda Government's concerns, filed with the FCC on April 21, 2004.)

So in short all this suggests that:

Our 3 slots are not necessarily over Bermuda. If any of those slots have a major US metro region in their footprint, they are worth huge sums of money to license them to a satellite operator. It also sounds like the Isle of Man has done so, but wants to do it in a way that might degrade our slot.

So, what does all that mean. It suggests Bermuda has some potential to commercially develop at least one satellite slot, but more importantly - from my TV deprived self-serving perspective - it suggests that we might have some leverage in making a trade with one of the US DBS providers:

They can rent our slot to serve the lucrative US market, and as part of the agreement we receive spot beam coverage for our little 60,000 people market. We'll happily pay like a regular customer, no more piracy, forged decoder cards etc., we just want some coverage.

Anyway, I'm going to place a little call to the Department of Telecommunications to see if I can get some clarity on:

1) the status of the slots and negotitations over reducing the orbital spacings
1b) if new 4.5 degree separated slots have been created, did we get more allotments
2) what Bermuda's intentions are for our existing 3 slots
3) and where the other 2 slots are (one is at -96.2 WL)

Over the holidays, while on hiatus from my whining on this site, I spent considerable time thinking about a couple of things that consume an inordinate amount of my cranial time: better ways to spend the money that the Guv'ment cronically wastes, but more importantly how to improve our television choices.

Suddenly, in a moment of rare clarity, the answer came to me: these are actually part of the same question. Stick with me for a second.

The Money: Let's look at the money that has been, and no doubt will continue to be wasted at the Money Pit, I mean Berkeley. If it ever is completed, and that's a big if, this is anticipated to run about twice it's original estimate (and actual value as an asset) of $70M. So Government will waste an extra $70M, or maybe closer to $100M, of our money on a building that wasn't really needed in the first place.

The TV: Getting decent TV programming in Bermuda has, and probably always will be, an unsatisfying feat - sort of like expecting the truth from Alex Scott. US export restrictions, our isolated location, small market etc. mean we're of little interest to any decent satellite provider. (I don't even include Cablevision here as an option. They're so hopelessly horrible and WOW doesn't seem to be doing much better.)

So I sat, wondering what we could do to get better TV, when it dawned on me:

If Government can nonchalantly throw an unnecessary $70M - $100M extra at Berkeley, then the least they could do would be to save the money and get us a Bermuda satellite from, or maybe instead a spot beam directed from an existing Dish Netork, DirectTV or Voom satellite. A satellite costs about $250M from design to launch so surely $70M would provide an incentive to give likkle Bermy some coverage!

Imagine, no need for a monstrous 6ft dish in your yard, every channel would be available - all the time, High Definition broadcasts and a Government using our money on something that might actually have a noticeable improvement on our lives for a change. I bet it would be a big vote getter too!

Just a suggestion.

My BS detector is going wild right now.

Now this is a novel political strategy. Apparently the Social Agenda was expected to drive down the Government's approval ratings!

Over the last 12 months Government has taken a tough stance on issues such as gaming, Independence, the Social Agenda, housing, crime and education, he said.

The Social Agenda was a "bold plan moving forward in the next two, three, four, five years and beyond", covering all aspects of society.

Serious consideration has also been given to Independence, he said, adding the combination is a significant amount for a comfortable, conservative society to digest. "I think the polls reflect that.

Well, they took a stance on gaming yes, but what has been done on housing, crime and education? Nothing at all, unless you think there was something in the Social Agenda - which was supposed to turn us all into card carrying PLP members. And Independence hasn't gone anywhere at all, well in Bermuda at least, Londoners appear to be particularly well informed.

How idiotic is it for the Premier to argue that he expected the Government's position on issues like housing, crime and education to decrease his approval ratings?

Cabinet thinking seems to be: "The fact that people disapprove of our performance means we're doing a good job! Keep it up guys, let's think up some more unpopular initiatives.'

Then there's this money quote:

"Bermudians are unique. We want change, but we don't want things to change."

Change isn't the problem. People are crying out for change on housing, crime and education. The problem is that things aren't changing for the better, they're getting worse.

I hope the PLP aren't paying their political advisors for this stuff!

A few more thoughts on the topic of the polls results released yesterday by the Royal Gazette.

One thing to bear in mind is the specific nature of the questions reported on so far. The results released in yesterday's Gazette, were about approval and favourability, not how you would vote. While low approval and favourability is definitely a bad sign, it doesn't necessarily mean that the PLP have the support of only 38% of the electorate for example.

It could be more, it could be less. We can't tell from what has been reported on so far. Responses to a question such as : "If the election were held today, who would you vote for?" will not necessarily track with the approval ratings. A hard core party supporter could disapprove of the performance of the Premier but remain willing to support the party or at least not vote against it.

Party identification would be an interesting question to poll generally to see how the community sees itself:

"Would you describe yourself as UBP, PLP or independent"

as well as questions like:

"Does your impression of Alex Scott make it more of less likely that you will support the PLP at an election?"

and right/wrong direction questions along these lines:

"Is Bermuda heading in the right or wrong direction?" or "Do you approve of the direction the Government is taking us?".

These would help identify some national trends as well as get a sense of party loyalty versus issues and performance.

Isn't it about time that we got some answers on where the Berkeley project stands? There's been absolute silence since the site was closed down at the end of August.

On Sept. 15 The Royal Gazette reported that Government's assessors had completed their work and agreed to give Pro-Active 2 weeks for their own assessment.

So that would take us to the end of September. Today is the 23rd of November. That's three months of in-activity on the site without an update from Government. Every day that site continues uncompleted is just more and more money down the drain.

Last week the UBP gave notice of the following motion in Parliament, presumably to bring this issue back into focus:

Motion to be moved by Mrs. P.J. Gordon-Pamplin, notice of which was given on 12th November, 2004:-

“That this Honourable House deplores the management practices by the Government of the Senior Secondary School construction project at Berekeley [sic].”

So what that means is that as a motion on Berkeley has been tabled, MPs will be precluded from referring to it in the House (you can't 'anticipate' a pending debate).

But that doesn't stop the press from digging, submitting questions to the Minister for Work Stoppages and Poor Engineering Ashfield De Vent, and there's nothing stopping MPs from speaking about it outside of the House.

It's long past time for some answers and some heads to roll.

From Bill Clinton's address at the opening of his Presidential Library last Thursday:

"America has two great dominant strands of political thought -- we're represented up here on this stage -- conservatism, which, at its very best, draws lines that should not be crossed; and progressivism, which, at its very best, breaks down barrier that are no longer needed or should never have been erected in the first place.

"It seemed to me that in 1992 we needed to do both to prepare America for the 21st century: to be more conservative in things like erasing the deficit and paying down the debt and preventing crime and punishing criminals and protecting and supporting families, and enforcing things like child support laws and reforming the military to meet the new challenges of the 21st century.

"And we needed to be more progressive in creating good jobs, reducing poverty, increasing the quality of public education, opening the doors of college to all, increasing access to health care, investing more in science and technology, and building new alliances with our former adversaries, and working for peace across the world and peace in America across all the lines that divide us.

"Now, when I proposed to do both, we said that all of them were consistent with the great American values of opportunity, responsibility and community. We labeled the approach "New Democrat." It then became known as the third way, as it was embraced by progressive parties across the world."

That statement, minues the military and American angle, expresses exactly where I stand philosophically. Bermuda would be well served by a party and political leadership who adopt that approach.

Tonight on VSB News, Rev. Leonard Santucci of the AME (and a former UBP Senator who I know well) was interviewed with regards to the issue of sexual orientation being added to the Human Rights code. (Ed note: VSB stated that Rev. Santucci was speaking in his capacity as a member of the clergy.)

I am more than familiar with Rev. Santucci’s position on this issue and respect his religious beliefs, but could not disagree with him more. To sum up the Reverend’s argument he felt that adding sexual orientation to the Human Rights Code was asking Christians to condone sinning – I’m paraphrasing here. But that is not the case.

I am sensitive to the depth of feeling on this issue by all sides, but particulary those of strong religious belief. However no-one is being asked to ‘condone’ or approve of someone's sexual orientation if they believe it to be immoral, a sin or whatever. What is being asked (or was asked and quickly reversed … more on that later) is that sexual orientation be protected under the Human Rights Code. Simply put, the Code isn’t asking anyone to agree with anything, it is simply ensuring that discrimination doesn’t occur on that basis.

Surely Rev. Santucci and Christians would argue that their religious beliefs should be protected by law and the Human Rights Code (as I believe they are) and that those who don't hold their beliefs should not be able to discriminate against them on this basis. Sexual orientation is no different.

Rev. Santucci is free to denounce the behaviour, free to disagree and free to preach that homosexuality is a sin. I'd fight for that right to be entrenched in law, but surely the position of those opposed to the sexual orientation provision aren't asking to be permitted to discriminate?

I would hope that we as a community are respectful of our differences, even if we don’t like them, and can at least agree that it is wrong to discriminate against someone on any basis - including sexual orientation?

No-one’s asking anyone to modify their beliefs – as much as I would hope that we remove the sexual orientation stigma over time. It's simply being asked that we don't discriminate.

It's my hope that those of faith, those who aren't religious, homosexuals, heterosexuals, all Bermudians and people can find common ground on the basis of fairness and equality in law.