Your Tongue, My Cheek

Last Thursday's little PPM gabfest was fairly instructive to us voyeurs- nothing's changed. The boys all trundled out their wares for the curious public to see and hear, and as one would expect, there was not really that much to taste or sniff. Tonie trundled out his less-than-passionate plea for more cooperation amongst legislators- one would be forgiven for assuming that Tonie would wilt somewhat in the face of a little MacDaddy cooperative assistance in this regard- and noble sentiments like this expressed in a forum such as this give the constituents the warm feeling that Tonie is actually on the case and is earning his CI$100k+ annual emolument for making sentimental little speeches like this. Democracy is really alive when politicians such as Tonie are out there warming the seats. Aldon blabbed on about revenues, fees, fiscal responsibility, fees, prudent management of the Islands' economy, too many fees, development strategies, fees- pausing only to remind everyone (again) that he again has to take his licks for screwing up last time, but really has a better plan and a better way of doing it all, if only he could remember what that better plan was in the first place. Kut gave another of those standup orations, full of his rolling intonations and finely crafted sentences. From that vast gut emanated sonorous observations on the efficacy or otherwise of the Planning and Development Law amendments. All those good ideas pent up in that great head, the reasons why and the reasons why not and which never saw the light of day when he was The Boss, flowed like hacked snot. "Sommmmme.. thing.. stinnnnks," intoned our Kut, perceptive as ever. Move on people- nothing really to see, hear...

'ArdOn! (Go on, shout that out like the dudes in the Gino's radio spot). Our man! What a guy! Once again, Mister Action Man takes it on and goes for the main play. T'row out the Premier! Do a coup! Must be a few dissatisfied UDP backbenchers ready to disrespect Beloved Leader and throw their lot in with the PPM+M*, surely? 'ArdOn has a plan. All PPM members have to do is call up a UDP backbencher or two and convince them to join them in voting their lack of confidence in Beloved Leader. One can imagine the call to the 3rd Elected Member for Bodden Town JokeJoke, for instance-

    "Uh, Dwayne, er- JohnJohn, you there?"
    "Huh?"
    "You there?"
    "Huh?"
    "You wanna join us an' wote off dat premier? Boy, he not treatin' you right!"
    "Huh?"

A vote of no confidence in Beloved Leader is going to take Kut, Aldon, Tonie, 'ArdOn, Jesus Kirkconnell, maybe Lizzard and then who? Forget about JokeJoke- can you see Ellio leaving MacDaddy's side? Incline is so far up Boatswain's Creek, he can wave from the bridge. So it immediately became apparent, that hot Thursday night last week, that Action Man really was fishin' hard. There is simply no way he's going to get a vote of no confidence in the Premier- no reason to rush home, MacDaddy. Everyt'ing good. Trouble is, he should have known that. Two things bother me about all of this- the PPM are proving to be as useless an Opposition as they were a Government, and that they remain arrogant and worse, asinine- their justification of the comments made by 'ArdOn at that meeting were as unconvincing as their premise of party cohesion and unanimity. It seems that Duckwork is no longer providing the direction and somewhat clearer thinking enjoyed by the Hapless Bunch a few years back- wha' happenin'?

God, it's going to be a long, hot summer...

* People's Progressive Movement and Miller- an opposition wet dream.

BANG! You're Dead...

... now, get out of my house.

It was bound to happen, wasn't it? Up to now, burglars, thugs and toy-gun toters have enjoyed pretty much free rein in the pursuit of their nefarious deeds. Whatever their target- sleepy variety store or late-nite gas station- they have had a not unreasonable expectation that resistance to their efforts would be minimal, if non-existent. A combination of non-police patrol presence, unarmed general public (as well as most plods on 'beat/patrol') and the persuasiveness of their own weapons, fake or otherwise, ensures a high success rate. No one wants to dissuade an intruder if he has better power projection. No expat Filipino gas station attendant wants to go home to Mama in a box. No security guard- Filipino, Jamaican or otherwise- is going to throw his MagLite flashlight at an armed intruder shouting 'Go away!'

That perception may have changed early this Thursday morning. Mr Harrington Rivers, armed or otherwise would-be burglar, had decided he was going to break in and purloin the assets of John Wayne (although he did not at that stage realise that it was John's house he was breaking into), and in so doing, enjoined himself to the common wisdom amongst the Islands rapidly-burgeoning criminal element that is was going to be extremely unlikely that he would come to any harm as a result of his intrusion and assets-harvesting expedition. The odds (and power) was in his favour. Little had prepared him for the 1,200 foot-pound punch to his gut as the .45 slug hit it at 1,000 foot per second. Only a numb shock would have pervaded his senses as he realised what had happened- the other guy actually hit back. He would have tried to comprehend the blood and half-digested pizza drooling from the entry wound and the lightheadedness that preceded his loss of consciousness. He may also have regretted the rash act of assuming that we are all quivering in our beds at night, waiting to be pistol-whipped and expecting to give over our possessions without a fight.

Whilst John Wayne has some explaining to do, such as why his handgun was not safely locked away in its secure storage container (per the ridiculous gun safety regulations imposed by the RCIPF) but ready at hand to do what it was designed to do- shoot intruders, how he was able to establish the fact that Mr Rivers was not the pizza guy or a rent-boy and therefore had no business being where he was at the time, and to justify to the satisfaction of our justice system that the level of force deployed was appropriate to the resistance of the crime being perpetrated- in other words, whether he 'used too much gun', I am of the opinion that John Wayne, no matter what his justification was to use his handgun to defend his property and whether he will be sanctioned for doing so, will provide a new and useful deterrent to would-be intruders with mal-intent, and for that I appreciate and applaud his action. For anyone out there contemplating armed or otherwise robbery, burglary or breaking and entering, there may just be someone facing the intruder that has a firearm, is skilled in its use, and is prepared to use it.

Beware, all ye who vex us with your callous disregard for law and order. We sometimes bite back...

'Cos I Didn't Feel Like It...

Due to inclement weather and concern about the occurrence of lightning and the safety of volunteer passengers, the Cayman Islands Airports Authority (CIAA) and the Airport Emergency Exercise Committee have voted to postpone the planned mock aircraft accident scheduled for tonight. Weather permitting, the exercise will take place on Tuesday, 27 July, the CIAA said Tuesday afternoon. CNS, 20 July 2010.

Who's Your Daddy?

When running for election, Beloved Leader made it perfectly clear that he was going to get things done, his way. Both him and the UDP promised the electorate that the new Government would be a different government- proactive, unflinching and not afraid of getting to task with the issues of the Cayman Islands- most of which are the collapsing economy and crashing government revenues, and naturally, the burden of a spending and hiring spree initiated over a series of kind morning by the previous government of Kut and his PPM cronies. The electorate took note, and voted MacDaddy and the UDP into government (as well as accepting the well-meaning but flawed Constitution). Beloved Leader proceeded to make good what he had promised- decisive goverment executed from the secure powerbase of a Legislative Assembly majority, co-opted Ministers and a compliant Governor- the ideal formula for an effective Executive Committee of One. That's what MacDaddy promised- and that is how MacDaddy is delivering.

So why all the whining? What has changed in the way that Beloved Leader is taking care of business? The financial services industry is upright, but staggering- more players are needed in this game and constrictive 'due diligence' rules will squash aspirant service providers, not attract them. Development and construction is suffering, and little can be done in the way of stimulation other than by radically loosening the planning and development consent process- we need to build, develop and build a whole lot more. The rampant rise in crime must be clipped by a more draconian courts trial process- judges can dispense justice so much more efficiently and without the bother of a trial by jury. The rules have changed, muchachos. This is a different Island now, and this is a different world. Seven Mile Beach area is a different place to what it was even ten years ago. Time does not stand still, and these Islands need to be constantly evolving in order to generate the expansion of its economic base- this is the rice and peas of every Caymanian still calling these Islands home. What is evident from the constant noise emanating from Anonymous and friends over at CNS (stoked no doubt by Wendy Ledger's thought-provoking redtop headlines such as 7MB Skyscrapers Coming!) is that there seems to be a fundamental disconnect between what Beloved Leader needs to get done in order to provide for the maintenance of the Islands' economic base, and the appreciation of just what it takes in terms of political capital to convince the stakeholders of the Islands to see it all his way. From sharp glances at backbenchers who stray from the MacDaddy line to conceding difficult deals with vested interests- developers and other inward-investors, snake-oil sellers and carpetbaggers- the wrangling skills of Beloved Leader are being taxed to the hilt and further. His way must prevail, or there will not be a kind or any other sort of morning on which Caymanians will wake up that still has an economic model worth waking up to.

The very substance of the sustainability of the Cayman Islands business and development model is under threat- Beloved Leader has the chops and the nous- sadly lacking in what purports to be the Opposition- to address most of what ails us. Squawking like North Side parrots does not achieve anything other than more clicks per page of Wendy's checkout line newspaper. We cannot remain stuck in some Island-That-Time-Forgot warp- this is an elitist and unrealistic philosophy propounded by those who have no concern for any interests outside that of their shortsighted idyll.

MacDaddy is the man voted for to get the job done. It would be prudent on both strategic and tactical levels, to let him get on with it...

What's Yours, Is Also Mine...

They got the money, hey
You know they got away
They headed down south and they're still running today
Singin, go on, take the money and run
Go on, take the money and run
Take The Money and Run, Steve Miller, 1976

There is no real moral problem with gambling and games of chance in Christian dogma- they are tolerated within the church communities and even practised by many churches in the form of raffles and suchlike as ways to raise much needed funds for social programmes- and there is no Commandment to give guidance on observance. The best our moralists such as !myGod Sykes! can come up with is that gambling is a form of covetousness, a deviation from the moral straight and narrow. The Decalogue in its most basic interpretation is more direct, equating 'covet' with 'take'- you shall not take your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour- a Commandment more akin to that of you shall not steal. What troubles me is that in order for the Cayman Islands to consider gambling as a source of fiscal revenue, it has to consider legalising gambling. Beloved Leader, in a fit of moral rectitude, has ordained a referendum to allow the Islands to speak their mind on the Christian socio-moralistic issues surrounding gambling, and to allow for a debate on this matter outside of the Legislative Assembly- in deference, he claims, to the Christian heritage of the Islanders. So, instead of simply enacting the necessary legislation in the LA as a matter of course in order to establish gambling as a regulated and revenue-generating industry, Beloved Leader and his UDP majority have in a rather cowardly manner, elected to dodge any involvement with the moral aspects of gambling (based as they are on a dubious, even tenuous link to the Sin of Covetousness) by relying on the direct vote of the people on this matter. It is interesting that the UDP believe that they as the peoples' elected government, cannot introduce gambling into law without a referendum- as if the people that refer back a yes vote on this matter will salve their moral conscience and God won't be pissed at them.

The UDP have been less cowardly about their most recent bit of legislation- to appropriate/seize cash lying in dormant bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. Commandment Number Eight in the Talmudic and Christian versions of the Book of Exodus is quite clear and has only rarely been disputed- you shall not steal. In other words, you shall not attach, appropriate, seize without permission, take, illegally possess, make other person's property your own- define it as one will, theft is the capital crime that enjoys its own Commandment. Intriguingly, if the face of a far greater and unambiguous moral import, one that surely wouldn't even begin to tax !myGod Sykes!' moralistic view of the Ten Commandments as a code for righteous behaviour, Beloved Leader and his UDP government have not deigned to test this bit of anti-Christian behaviour with a referendum by the God-fearing citizens of the Cayman Islands. They seem to be quite comfortable with the notion of taking/ appropriating/ seizing/ stealing/ helping themselves to assets that do not belong to them, and the 'escape clauses' of adequate warning of impending attachment- only six months!- and promised of return of attached assets if 'caught out' by owners, do not ameliorate the distinct whiff of impropriety in all of this. We are given to understand that escheat- the legal term for the reversion of dispossessed land to Crown or State ownership (usually by dint of intestate death or forfeiture by criminal act)- is legally practised in many jurisdictions around the world in respect of dormant bank accounts and other unclaimed assets, but when brought into Cayman Islands law very quickly and without consultation with the financial services sector- a jurisdiction that places banking security at the core of its raison d'etre- it smacks of impropriety, and can be construed, erroneously or otherwise depending on ones' point of Christian view, as misappropriation of assets.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's dormant bank account...