Keep Bermuda beautiful

November 26, 2009

Dear Sir,

Too right! The Queen hit the nail on the head when she recounted Sir Edward Richards' description of Bermuda:

"A land fetching and beautiful, which we must keep fetching and beautiful; a people renowned for their friendliness and courtesy whom we must keep friendly and courteous."

I'll add to that, only to say:

"For our children's children and our children's children's children."

Bless.

RASTAFARI

Southampton

Another classic example

25 November 2009

Dear Sir,

It is becoming increasingly difficult not to criticise without violating your rule regarding personal attacks in Letters To The Editor, particularly when Premier Dr Ewart Brown is the subject and directly responsible for a lot of the problems currently plaguing the island. The Premier's handling of the BAS / Sovereign situation is a case in point. After reading Phil Perinchief's comments in yesterday's paper, one has to wonder why BAS bears the brunt of the Premier's displeasure and more importantly where he gets his legal advice. It is obviously not from the Attorney General's Chambers who are employed to protect Government's interests and prevent them from getting into predicaments like this. If the Premier were operating in the private sector on an similar issue of this magnitude and lost the case, he would have lost his job as well. He should have obtained a second opinion and avoided what is now another classic example of squandering millions of dollars of public money without showing the slightest hint of remorse.

A Commission of Inquiry should be set up to investigate all aspects of the misappropriation of public funds since the current Government came into office. All other avenues seem pointless. The Auditor General's contributions have been stifled, organised demonstrations fall on deaf ears and a broadside from local businesses threatening to withhold payroll tax payments would probably be illegal. Failing this of course, The Royal Gazette could take up the challenge and employ Roger Crombie and David Marchant to do another piece of investigative journalism like you did recently on the Dockyard project. Last week you printed a very amusing article about how the Premier's ten best political moments have been immortalised by the Workers Voice in the form of a fridge sticker. With tongue in cheek and the utmost respect for your rules, I don't think they make a fridge large enough to attach a list of all his worst moments or a fridge with enough volume to contain his irrepressible ego.

WHO'S KIDDING WHO?

Warwick

Neglecting to reflect

November 22, 2009

Dear Sir,

In criticising the writer of 1 Kings 7:23 (that the writer was ignorant of the value of "pi", The Royal Gazette, Wednesday, November 18), Mr. Lima ignores the principle of "significant figures", (used in all scientific calculations), claiming that the writer thought the value of "pi" was exactly 3.0, not 3.1416. It is possible that the dimensions of Solomon's sea could range from a diameter of 9.5 to 10.5., and a circumference from 29.5 to 30.5, giving "pi" a value somewhere between 2.81 and 3.21 — with the figures given in 1 Kings obviously as round numbers. If Mr. Lima wants to pick nits, he should have a look at the enormous discrepancies in age estimates given for fossil dating and the age of the earth using the various methods. Far from being the absolute proven fact that it is purported to be, evolution is facing some serious challenges. But I will let the scientists (who should know the most about the subject) speak.

On the Big Bang, David Darling writes "on Creating Something from Nothing", New Scientist, vol. 151 (September 14, 1996): "What is a big deal the biggest deal of all is how you get something out of nothing. Don't let the cosmologists kid you on this one. They have not got a clue either despite the fact that they are doing a pretty good job of convincing themselves and others that this is really not a problem. 'In the beginning,' they will say, 'there was nothing no time, space, matter or energy. Then there was a quantum fluctuation from which ' Whoa! Stop right there. You see what I mean? First there is nothing, then there is something. And the cosmologists try to bridge the two with a quantum flutter, a tremor of uncertainty that sparks it all off. Then they are away and before you know it, they have pulled a hundred billion galaxies out of their quantum hats.

"You cannot fudge this by appealing to quantum mechanics. Either there is nothing to begin with, in which case there is no quantum vacuum, no pre-geometric dust, no time in which anything can happen, no physical laws that can effect a change from nothingness into somethingness; or there is something, in which case that needs explaining."

In the biology lab, the poor old Drosophila fruit fly has been bombarded with radiation to "speed up" evolution. Many thousands of generations of flies have been produced, big-winged, small-winged, big-eyed, small-eyed, short-legged, long-legged. Every mutation imaginable, but nothing other than a fruit fly has been produced. No onward and upward evolution here. With regard to the chance of spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter occurring, mathematical astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle's estimate is "one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution" Hoyle, Sir Fred and Chandra Wickramasinghe "Evolution From Space" (Simon and & Schuster, 1984). Or, if you don't like the 747/junkyard scenario, Sir Fred offers you this "No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and certainly not the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong attempts. The same is true for living material."

While it is probably true that evolutionists of today do not believe in imperialism, racism, Naziism or any of the other abominable systems dreamed up in the past, it cannot be denied that Darwin's theory had a profound effect on the founders of those systems. For those still lost in the Darwinian fantasy world, Kenneth J. Hsu declares "We have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy. It is time that we cry: 'The Emperor has no clothes." Dr. Hsu is an outstanding Chinese geologist working in Zurich. The situation in our institutions of higher learning is described by Science writer and biologist George Kocan in the Chicago Tribune, Monday, April 21, 1980: "Unfortunately, many scientists and non-scientists have made Evolution into a religion, something to be defended against infidels. In my experience, many students of biology, professors and textbook writers included have been so carried away with the arguments for Evolution that they neglect to question it. They preach it College students, having gone through such a closed system of education, themselves become teachers, entering high schools to continue the practice, using textbooks written by former classmates or professors. High standards of scholarship and teaching break down. Propaganda and the pursuit of power replace the pursuit of knowledge. Education becomes a fraud."

Even before the infamous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee, (for a more detailed look at what really occurred there, see "A Second Look at Fundamentalism, The Scopes Trial, and Inherit the Wind" by Nicholas M. Aksionczky, Institute for Creation Research 1999.), Western society was being press-ganged into the belief that "science" had proved that evolution was the only possible explanation for the universe and everything in it, therefore belief in any sort of creator was the domain of ignoramuses, bigots and "Bible thumpers". More recently, those who have had the audacity to challenge the evolutionary establishment are exposed to ridicule and even denial of tenure (for college professors) for espousing "Intelligent Design". See Ben Stein's movie "Expelled No Intelligence Allowed". For those with an open mind, a very helpful resource on this whole subject is "The Long War Against God", subtitled "The History and Impact of the Creation/Evolution Conflict", by Dr. Henry M. Morris, 1989, Baker Book House Company. One hopes that true science will prevail.

JOCK STEWART

Somerset

Freeze frame game

November 29, 2009

Dear Sir,

After watching another frozen-screen on ZBM TV 9 on Sunday when I was planning to watch the NFL on CBS coverage instead, I have to seriously ask if there is anybody at all either monitoring the feed or the conscious decision is made to just let it run all day and hope nothing breaks down? This trend of neglect when the Y&R-TV news-Oprah blocks aren't running leads me to suggest that Bermuda Broadcasting relinquish their rights to CBS and ABC programming, broadcast whatever they want when they are in the mood, and allow Cablevision and WOW to broadcast the CBS and ABC stations of their choice.

DAVID A. GIBBONS

Warwick

Time to open PATI up

November 25, 2009

Dear Sir,

The following submission was sent to government at pati@gov.bm:

In his letter dated October 15, 2009, promoting the introduction of the draft PATI legislation, the Premier mentioned over 60 countries that have put in place their own PATI legislation; and that the concept is also supported and recognised by a number of international organisations including but not limited to the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. On the surface that all sounds very honourable. However, in its current form, Bermuda's PATI Bill will not allow public access to information except on a severely restricted basis. If, indeed, the purpose of the legislation is to give the public the legal right to access information, thus increase transparency and allow the public sector to learn of all actions of public authorities, then it is imperative that the PATI legislation be retroactive, in line with most of those 60 countries listed in the Premier's letter.

ELIZABETH

Southampton

Give cruisers better service

November 22, 2009

Dear Sir,

On Monday November 8, I disembarked at Heritage Wharf, Dockyard from the Carnival Dream after a trip around the Mediterranean and a Trans-Atlantic crossing. This is a very big ship and was carrying 3,600 passengers on that journey. I spent a lot of time selling Bermuda to many of my fellow passengers who were excited to be coming here. It was a very disappointing to discover that the Carnival Cruise Director had hardly any information on the island and relied on myself and some other Bermudians who were on-board to fill him in. As we approached Dockyard early on that Monday morning I was most surprised to see another very large cruise ship just ahead of us and also preparing to dock. I found out that that ship was carrying approximately 3,000 passengers. You do the math and imagine the scene when I disembarked after having cleared Bermuda Customs and Immigration on board.

I should add here that this was the most pleasant arrival experience I've ever had upon returning home from abroad. I think that henceforth I'll travel by ship and avoid the Gestapo-esque style at L.F. Wade. But, I digress. The point I want to make was the sad scene at Dockyard as over 6,000 visitors poured off the two ships and queued at the ferry terminal and at the Visitors' Centre looking for transportation and information. I didn't see any buses and only a half dozen taxis were to be seen. The long lines wound around and around and I would hazard a guess that most of those people never left Dockyard. Having said that, how did the restaurants and merchants cope with that many people at once?

So, Dr. Brown, you've got your numbers, you've got the big $70m plus terminal to berth the big ships; but to what end? What kind of experience did those visitors have? In every other port we stopped at from Italy and along the coast of Spain the infrastructure was in place to handle these numbers. We are not able to support the arrival of two mega cruise ships at once. In fact, from what I saw I don't see how even one can be properly handled. Regretfully, very few of those people saw Bermuda at all. What's more, the cruise lines don't care. They've got their money and the folk who were trapped probably just went back on board where top grade service was provided. If we are going to accept this volume we must provide them with something. It's not just about the numbers.

M. COX

Devonshire

Time to walk away

November 26, 2009

Dear Sir,

In Southampton, I am blessed when I get mail delivered, at the most, twice a week, to my shiny new mailbox situated right where it's supposed to be. I'm very impressed when a magazine gets there within a month or two of its issue date ... but then, it's somebody else's fault. And I presume I will never know if somebody or some company sent mail to me that wasn't addressed exactly as the PO decides ...? We have 13 sub Post Offices and a main Post Office in town ... and every time I go in there, they have enough empty space to hold a Shania Twain concert. All these places and probably some others we don't know about have to be staffed. The cost of all this must be staggering. And for what? The service is abysmal and by that I mean the time it takes to get a piece of mail and the frequency it gets delivered. If this was the private sector, and here I might add that the US Postal Service has clearly understood this, they'd be broke or maybe somebody would be thinking outside the box and making some changes in service levels instead of irritating everybody with where to put a mailbox into which very little mail goes.

They say when a customer gets bad service, you'll never really know because they just walk away and use an alternative. Well, I'm walking as far away as possible. I now get all bills and most bank statements sent by e-mail. I have all my subscriptions sent to my office address or my Mailboxes Unlimited address. I've told everyone I know who can be contacted by e-mail, to send me invitations to all their Christmas parties by e-mail. There's not much more that I can do but I'll try when I figure it out. Why do we have to have 14 post offices on a 25-square-mile island? Why can't we have fewer post offices with many more post boxes? If somebody wants to have mail delivered straight to their door ... well, deliver it five days a week and charge them to do it! But provide an alternative... conveniently located post boxes. Thank the good Lord for e-mail.

THE WIDDER DOUGLAS

Southampton