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To BLP Administration: Re. Covid 19 protocols

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Submitted by William Parker

I wish to congratulate the BLP government on their handling of the Covid 19 in 2020.

Now that the various “versions” of the original Virus has reached here and the infection rate and deaths are spiralling out of control it is apparent to some, including me, that the government has no answers and is reacting and not pro-acting.

I understand the need for the current lockdown and we all know that 2 weeks is just a start and it will be needed for a lot longer.

However the shutting on the mini marts and way side vendors leaves a lot of us bewildered as the logic behind it. In the area that I live R&R convenience, Mikes Mini Mart, EZ mini Mart and all the others are closed. These were locally owned shops where the poor, and not so poor, could get a little credit until the NIS cheque arrives, when the Post Office reopens, and walk a short distance home in the fresh air.

Now these people have to get an occasional bus to Massy in Oistins, and mix with those in the shop and be infected not only by the current shoppers but those who were there one or two hours ago. Are you telling us that it is safer for a person, who does not have a car, to catch a ZR and travel to Oistins to get a few items than to visit the corner shop?

The word that I have heard from more than one person is that in the last shut down the Major Supermarkets lost a lot of revenue because people switched to minimarts and a lot of way side vendors started. Is the way to make sure that the large foreign owned companies got more of the pie? It certainly seems so.

You have closed them on weekends so their overall sales will increase and their overheads will decrease. Bajans have been very good in following the new rules, and rightfully so, but there is a growing undercurrent of frustration and if the government is not careful there will be mass disobedience. This will hurt everyone. I hope that you can take a pause and consider the additional hardships you are causing a lot of Barbadians.

Thank you. I am a proud Bajan and supporter of the BL&P in the last few elections.

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725 responses to “To BLP Administration: Re. Covid 19 protocols”

  1. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Pacha
    Show me where I have written anything that is unsupportive of government’s efforts.
    My views were if the PR exercise in which the PM is engaging.?
    You simply responded because I merely stated a view that was in concord with Comrade Austin’s. You walk about de place branding people by some childhood methodology.
    You and one other are pretending that you are the self appointed editors of BU. Why the hell don’t you convince @ Hal, to meet you at a convenient place and then try to blow his brains out if he is such a problem to wunnuh ?

  2. Miller Avatar
    Miller

    @ Sargeant February 26, 2021 8:57 AM
    “The IGNORANT JACKASS hereby offers a heartfelt apology to the brilliant researcher and scientist John K for criticizing any aspect of his work on the spread of the Corona virus. I recognize that his genius and dedication will prove to be an asset to all Bajans. I would like to petition the Barbados Gov’t to issue a “boil water advisory” so that the lives of more Bajans are not sacrificed through the simple act of drinking a glass of tap water, I await John’s pronouncement on bottled water.”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    What a perfect piece of wit, there Sarge!

    You have noticed that the “Johnny K”, the king of the Corona virus killing army, has deliberately evaded the thought of the virus hiding in water stored at room temperature in plastic bottles.

    Since his ‘waterborne’ thesis has been ratified by another man of both his sleeping god and pseudo-science the go(o)dly doctor GP, then Bajans should look forward to their sons and daughters in their local Defence Force to fall like flies on the battle field in their futile pursuit of trying to ‘kill-off’ the deadly Covid virus which can be found lurking in the thousands of imported bottle water they are consuming daily.

  3. angela cox Avatar
    angela cox

    Details of a National Vaccine Fund should be interesting
    Most likely govt would draft a piece of legislation(optional) whereby part of employees earnings would go towards the fund
    Cant fore see Corporate funding alone to be the saviour of the huge vaccine debt coming down the pipe yearly
    AlsobLook out for on going fights coming soon out of some Caricom nations targeted towards Barbados

  4. GP Avatar
    GP

    re What a perfect piece of wit, there Sarge!

    BULLSHIT WHAT WIT?

    there is nothing witty about a display of ignorance
    there is something called the scientific method……you propose an idea and you present it and seek to prove it with persistence
    that is what the inventors of the aeroplane did…….that is what the inventors of the lightbulb did

    ON BU THERE IS A RUSH ALWAYS TO PULL DOWN PEOPLE WITH STUPID SILLY REMARKS WHICH ONLY SERVES TO DISPLAY THE IGNORANCE OF BOTH THE REMARKS AND THE REMARKERS

    IT SERVES NO PURPOSE REALLY

    ON BU THERE IS A RUSH ALSO TO PULL DOWN PEOPLE BY USING LIES IN THE ATEMPT TO WIN SILLY ARGUMENTS
    QUITE HILARIOUS

  5. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Lorenzo
    Please show where I have been unsupportive of government’s policies. All I said is what others have said of the incessant PR. by Mottley. I guess one is only neutral when they praise or support. However that is expected of you. My real loyalties are for Barbados. You have been trying to prove the same crap for nearly four years. Give it a rest. Get over it!
    I now ask you a simple question: Do you know what critical support means?
    In case you don’t reply my eight year old grandson just told me , when I asked him.
    He said: It means that although you may be critical of SOME of a person’s decisions or acts you still give them support.
    I am glad that he has parents who taught him to think before he speaks or writes. Your inability to understand simple things should not be blamed on you.

  6. GP Avatar
    GP

    RE Not even vaccines and the much vaunted herd immunity most jurisdictions are racing to achieve.

    THE WORDS OF ANOTHER JACKASS BRAYING ABOUT STUFF ABOUT WHICH HE KNOWS NAUGHT

    IT IS NOW THOUGHT BY SOME EXPERTS THAT DECREASING INCIDENCE OF THE VIRUS IN SOME COUNTRIES IS DUE TO THE ACHIEVEMENT OF “the much vaunted herd immunity” IN THOSE “jurisdictions”

  7. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    Thank you. I am pleased that you have noticed that some BU regulars, many of whom I do not engage, like to take almost daily pops at me. That is fair enough. I have broad shoulders.
    What I would like is for people to discuss the issues and ideas raised. CoVid is a temporary distraction, but the long-term future of Barbados is hanging in the balance.
    @ William, I am not an intellectual, and I know you are a great stickler for the principles. But there is a crisis in black political praxis caused by the tensions between what I call black popular nationalism, the paradigm of black particularism, which undermines the very idea of of the black experience as part of cosmopolitan universalism.
    We have got to decide if we are world class, which implicitly measures our achievements against European domination of the arts and sciences, while at the same time promoting black exceptionalism.
    In Barbados the challenge is much the same, if only on a smaller canvas. The settlement we reached in November 1966, or which was forced upon us, was blacks would control the political institutions and business would be controlled by the white planter class.
    Times have moved on and the planter class has lost control of business, mainly through incompetence, but mainly because business has moved on from just middle-person import and export and there are new players on the field.
    Business is now far more complex and if we want to function as part of a globalised network we have to up our game; so far we have not.
    I have said that CoVid is a slight disruption, European (in which I include American) science has restricted the dangers posed by CoVid and is in the process of defeating it with it vaccines.
    What I want to see, and so far I have not, is the very beginning of a serious national debate about the post-CoVid Barbados.
    All the talk about how we manage CoVid seems to exclude, as a matter of routine, any discussion of how we will recover from the pandemic. It seems to concentrate on lockdowns, pauses, begging for vaccines and how they are distributed.
    Further, there is a lot of meaningless background talk, grumbles and stone throwing, and silly attacks on myself and one of the few people on the blog (@Angela) – yourself excepted – who try to raise their game.
    It is a mind-set, part of our cultural DNA, a belief that if things are so in Barbados they must be so all over the world.

  8. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    I just read the Barbados Today editorial. wunna could do the same.

  9. GP Avatar
    GP

    RE I am glad that he has parents who taught him to think before he speaks or writes.
    Your inability to understand simple things should not be blamed on you.

    to think before ONE speaks or writes IS QUITE THE NORM ON BU, AND HAS BEEN SO FOR YEARS. HAL WOULD CALL THIS “A BAJAN THING”
    .
    THE ” inability to understand simple things” IS ANOTHER NORM ON BU, AND HAS ALSO BEEN SO FOR YEARS.

    IN THE ATTEMPT TO PUT DOWN OTHERS PEOPLE JUST EFFLUX FROM THIER SHELVES OF HOUSTON, AS THEY ENGAGE BETZ CELLS THAT HAVE UNDERGONE METAPASTIC CHANGE TO RECTAL MUCOSA

  10. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    William Skinner February 26, 2021 9:11 AM #: “You and one other are pretending that you are the self appointed editors of BU. Why the hell don’t you convince @ Hal, to meet you at a convenient place and then try to blow his brains out if he is such a problem to wunnuh ?”

    @ Mr. Skinner

    You’re a very disingenuous and deceitful individual.

    Not one word on condemnation from you when Austin unprovokedly use pejorative remarks to describe contributors.

  11. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    **** word of condemnation……

  12. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    William Skinner

    Expectedly, you have resorted to your tried and trusted tacit of selective recall, obfuscation and denial.

    This seems to be a disease shared with the ugly man from england.

    We have no need to meet him anywhere and blow his “brains” out as you have proposed. But then again you will say that you ain’t say so. To us he has no importance whatsoever. And certainly if we wanted to kill somebody it would have to be a whale not a sprat.

    It amazes what the world has become. Right os wrong, truth is falsehood and denial of everything unfavourable is in vogue.

    How do both, you and him, so continue to exhibit such levels of dishonesty in such small matters?

  13. Miller Avatar
    Miller

    @ GP February 26, 2021 9:33 AM
    “re What a perfect piece of wit, there Sarge!

    BULLSHIT WHAT WIT?

    there is nothing witty about a display of ignorance
    there is something called the scientific method……you propose an idea and you present it and seek to prove it with persistence
    that is what the inventors of the aeroplane did…….that is what the inventors of the lightbulb di..”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Quite! We are seeing eye-to-eye on this “Scientific method”.

    Our only wish is that you, as the great GP of science, look into the mirror and heal thine own self from the intellectual virus called ‘blind ignorance’.

    The application of the same scientific method has proven, through the ages, that your Judeo-Christian story about some six-day Creation event is nothing more than a load of plagiarized bull which can serve one purpose and that is to be classified as nothing more than the airy-fairy imaginations of myopic writers of bedtime stories fit only to put asleep puerile minds like yours.

  14. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    Mia would do well to LISTEN TO REAL MEDICAL EXPERTS….who does not answer to government just to keep a pick….

    open the borders to ALL CARIBBEAN NATIONALS…for business etc…am sure that is what i heard last night and not only for tourism…… last night but kept falling asleep..

    and train her BLACK WORKERS…to be TOLERANT OF BLACK PEOPLE who look just like them..instead of perpetrating the same black on black hatred and useles uppity shite that is sinking the island…..Caribbean Black people are OUR BLOOD COUSINS…i can find THOUSANDS of them in in bloodline from the coast of Venezuela all acoss to the Florida Panhandle and beyond..STOP the divisive bullshit with borders… if yall dont want starving populations.

    pay attention to what’s really happening in UK that’s the REAL MEASURING STICK.

  15. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    I repeat for CLARITY……everyone can do THEIR OWN RESEARCH…ask people who live in UK…THOSE WHO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON…

    pay attention to what’s really happening in UK that’s the REAL MEASURING STICK…

    forgive the errors…am still sleepy..

  16. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Waru

    To see this as only a medical crisis is insufficient.

    Pretend you are PM and imagine all the forces impacting you.

  17. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    The Miller

    Are you going to intellectual kill the porgie georgie

    You should expect the usual rote prescriptive retort.

  18. GP Avatar
    GP

    RE The application of the same scientific method has proven, through the ages, that your Judeo-Christian story about some six-day Creation event is nothing more than a load of plagiarized bull

    SIMPLE BASIC COMMON SENSE SHOULD SHOW YOU THAT YOUR STATEMENT ABOVE IS RUBBISH

    YOUR STATEMENT ABOVE INDICATES THAT YOU ARE IGNORANT OF THE WAY the scientific method IS APPLIED

    IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO USE the scientific method TO PROVE OR DISPROVE THE GENESIS ACCOUNT. WHICH MUST BE TAKEN BY FAITH, OR REJECTED AS INFIDELS LIKE YOU DO

    Job 38:4 ASKS “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

    YOU OUGHT TO THINK BEFORE YOU OPINE RUBBISH

  19. GP Avatar
    GP

    RE The Miller Are you going to intellectual kill the porgie georgie

    SCUM LIKE YOU MILLER, KIKI AND OTHERS OF YOUR ILK ARE REALLY NO INTELLECTUAL MATCH FOR ME

    RE You should expect the usual rote prescriptive retort.
    ALL LEARNING BEGINS WITH ROTE SO TALKING ABOUT ROTE IS RUBBISH, AND A BARE MORONIC MOUTHING

    FOR EXAMPLE HAVING LEARNED HETEROCYCLIC CHEMISTRY, I COULD READILY APPRECIATE AND THUS APPLY WHAT QUININE AND HYDROXY CHLOROQINONE COULD DO TO AN RNA VIRUS

    HAVING LEARNED 1 2 3 BY ROTE I CAN APPLY THIS TO MANY MATEMATICAL ISSUES

    HAVING LEARNED DOH RAY ME BY ROTE I CAN SIGHT SING MANY “HYMNS AND PSALMS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS”

    HAVING LEARNED A B C BY ROTE I CAN READ AND WRITE FLUENTLY

  20. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    As long as Hal Austin has his “Bajan Condition” theory I will have my Overseas Bajan Condition theory.

    And now that I have taught him the meaning of the word “ignore” I have even more fun taking daily shots at him. I regret to inform William Skinner that this will continue for as long as Hal Austin arises every morning with the sole purpose of taking undeserved shots at all Barbadians who live here, because I am one of them.

    I cannot promise to beat him up but if I meet him anywhere I have a few rassholes in reserve for his insufferable ass.

    William Skinner skirts all around the often unprovoked attacks by Hal Austin, offering some watered down criticism of him when challenged, while launching without restraint into his defence against those who respond to Hal’s nastiness. He has some sort of blind spot.

    Most of us have no such loyalty and can see him as he is – a conflicted soul who does not know if he is fish or fowl, contradictory, hypocritical and no proponent of true black power.

    William Skinner’s tirade will not shut me up!

  21. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Artax
    You seem to believe I am responsible for Hal Austin. If you were to read BU carefully you would have noted several of my direct advice or suggestions to Hal that he stopped what others consider to be nasty responses. On each occasion Hal responded to me that he will continue to fight fire with fire or whatever.
    What I do not appreciate is you @ Pacha or anybody else trying to force me into daily telling you @Pacha @ Hal or anybody else what to write.
    I have been cussed ,lied on and David has been told to ban me on BU. I made a decision, a few months back to not question anything not directly related to me on BU. You have chosen to take on @Hal and that is your choice. I give you the same suggestion and now I give it to @ Hal. Have a damn shoot out and whomever is left standing wins. Leave me out of all yuh nonsense.
    And let me be frank in many cases considering who is nasty and insensitive on BU, it’s just a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I included.
    Now I would ignore your totally underserved and nasty comments directed at me . I don’t recall referencing you in any of my recent posts.
    I name William Skinner. I am not Hal Austin.
    I’ll supply the damn guns. Kill one another .!

  22. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    Don’t let them get to you.

  23. TLSN Avatar
    TLSN

    @ Lorenzo,
    In the old days of mining, The life of a miner was attached to the survival of a canary. The death of a canary brought underground was a signal that poisonous gas was present.

    I would ask you to view me as a canary whose sole intention is to sound the alarm when danger is present.

    It serves no purpose to dismiss the warning signs of a canary. Barbados Today played the role of a Canary in its editorial today.

    I have shown this video before and it still resonates, even today.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=185vCvsvEP8

    Hal AustinFebruary 26, 2021 9:46 AM comments are poignant. I do not believe that this government is prepared to discuss a plan for Barbados post covid-19. Pachamama would like to see some form of land expropriation. Whilst, I would ask Mia to sever her ties with the minority business community and to create a Barbados which includes at its heart the economic and social enfranchisement of her black majority population.

  24. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    William Skinner,

    But you are not responsible for us either yet you try to tell us how to deal with Hal Austin.

    Why, just this morning you over -reacted with some shite remark.!

    Make up your mind, man!

    How about you leave us ALL to speak as we see fit!

  25. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    “To see this as only a medical crisis is insufficient.

    Pretend you are PM and imagine all the forces impacting you.”

    ditto…Ase.

  26. Tron Avatar
    Tron

    The vaccine donation from India has impressively proven to all of us that the opposition between blacks and Indians in the Caribbean is a construct of the white colonial masters to secure their own supremacy.
    Those on the forum who were ranting about Indo-Barbadians not long ago should be ashamed of themselves. We are one big family in Barbados.

    Also: When the British vaccination campaign is finished, London should send at least 20 million vaccine doses to the Caribbean as a gesture of reparation for slavery. We don’t need theoretical discussions about monetary restitution, but action.

  27. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Well well! Now I know the origin of “the canary in the coal mine”. Never thought of it before.

  28. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Tron

    What nonsense. Geopolitics are tooooo complex for these simplistic notions.

    There are no friendships in international relations just interests.

  29. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Pacha
    “ However, we supported this government with the strategic default when most commentators thought that the shy would fall in if the government defaulted, including William Skinner.”

    Please produce where I predicted that the government will fall if it defaulted. If I did I would humbly agree with the statement quoted above.

    I know you are not a liar. I know that you are the most virtuous contributor to BU.
    All I ever stated was that I am diametrically opposed to any IMF program anywhere in the region.

  30. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    William Skinner 10 46

    What a childish spat! Yes we are the ones calling for your banishment because you insisted on raising a tired issue over and over again, over years.

    We also supported the banishment of Trump from twitter because he plotted an insurrection. So you are in good company.

  31. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Last night, the president spoke for 62 minutes in an address to the nation on what was meant to be on CoVid, but most of it was about herself. It took her 40 minutes to announce the phased re-opening, otherwise most of her lecture was telling us how good she is, how much she knows Barbados and Barbadians, that she did not have a privileged upbringing and giving workers a moral lecture about selling food on the ABC and cleaning up after they have finished.
    It was the same mono-tonal political speech which she gives time after time with nothing new added, apart from a few lines on CARICOM.

  32. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Donna
    Where have I ever told or try to influence you or anybody else how yo write or respond to @ Hal.
    Please leave me out of this ongoing nonsense. Please go and read on the many occasions I disagreed with@ Hal. I, to this day , have told him via BU that Barbados is not a failed state. @ Hal has accused me of pushing a nationalist agenda.
    What do you and others expect me to do . Like I said this is just a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I included.
    Furthermore, I was told that BU is not my blog and I should not comment on its content. I am staying in my lane.
    Wunnuh could kill one another. Leave me out . Give me the same respect I give all of you. Support whomever wunnuh like, agree , disagree . I am nobody’s hit man.

  33. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    William Skinner

    Oh jesus christ

    Can you really be such a bits and pieces man!

    You did NOT say the sky will fall literally. That is merely a linguistic device to capture what you and your friends were predicting about the SD.

    What a fucking simpleton.

    You now have on full display what we find objectionable about the Bajan condition.

  34. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    We are not out of the woods yet about that irresponsible default. It was bad economics, it was bad policy and it was bad politics.
    You do not have to apologise. In two years this government has borrowed nearly Bds$1bn dollars, which helps to kick the redemption day down the street. Once the music stops she must find a chair.
    Now we have Dr Greenidge telling us they are getting loans at about one per cent. Who from? Bretton Woods organisations?

  35. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Evidence?

  36. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Pacha
    I never even hinted that the country will collapse. You are just brilliant- come here with your accusations and when you can’t prove them resort to verbal hostility.

  37. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Hal
    “ @ William, I am not an intellectual, and I know you are a great stickler for the principles. But there is a crisis in black political praxis caused by the tensions between what I call black popular nationalism, the paradigm of black particularism, which undermines the very idea of of the black experience as part of cosmopolitan universalism.
    We have got to decide if we are world class, which implicitly measures our achievements against European domination of the arts and sciences, while at the same time promoting black exceptionalism.”
    The truth is that as correct as you are, there is no serious debate going on. One is supposed to ignore the real realities of our current existence and just move on.
    I know what crocodile tears are. What I would really like to see, is all Barbadians having a genuine pride in our country. The country has been good to us but we only pay it lip service.
    Keep up the good work and insightful commentary. We don’t have to always agree but we came from a different time.

  38. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    If you did not say the country would collapse what then was your argument against the SD.

    Was it just more useless postering in disagreeing with that decision?

    Unlike you we write as we speak.

  39. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    Introducing a new phrase.
    Milder than the ‘Bajan condition’ is the ‘BU condition’. Please note that there is no overseas BU condition.

    The BU condition was first identified in a ‘pseudo-Englishman’ in 2012.

  40. Disgusting Lies & Propaganda TV Avatar
    Disgusting Lies & Propaganda TV

    Re :- Hal Austin February 26, 2021 11:28 AM

    Poor HAL9000, even though he is bitter that Mia hasn’t shown him any love, he still takes the time to watch her, He even noted how long she spoke. I mean you pay more attention to Mia than some of her supporters. Its is all too cute but pathetic all at the same time. I’m sure there are other people you can love. There is a lady called Ms Depieza, nobody ain’t showing her any love. All the fellas are just running away from her and she is sad. She is also sad at holding parties too. Show her some love HAL9000. She ain’t a bad looking lady or are you just attracted to low pitch sounding voices.

  41. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    More than most, you know I always sing the praises of St Giles, the most exciting educational institution I have ever had the good fortune to attend.
    But I am not going to pretend the Barbados of today is the same as the Barbados of my youth; it is not – nor am I going to play birthright nationalism.
    Our institutions are fractured; our collective ambitions are short-sighted; our business and political leaders are lacking in dynamism.
    A few days ago I saw a video of the president heaping praise on Peter Minshall, the Guyanese-Trinidadian carnival designer, it almost made me vomit.
    This is what we have to contend with as a serious public conversation. You see it everyday on BU, no matter the subject, it is reduced to a black and white binary; a Dee or Bee; right or wrong; plain unadulterated nonsense.
    I tolerate it because we are in lockdown and I have nothing else to do all day apart from reading, listening to the radio and watching television.
    I am sure you are also familiar with those who create strawmen then go on to knock them down. I have seen some of your responses.
    That is the reason why I have told you and others not to believe everything you read on BU. I know from experience.
    I have been called a Roman Catholic, who I respect, but I am not; a polymath and intellectual, I am not, I left education too early; an insurance agent/financial adviser, and other things.
    They even speculate about a person’s mind, telling you what you know or should know, and what you are thinking.
    Yet, for a year, we have been facing the peril of CoVid, and some of us have been calling for a serious discussion about post-CoVid Barbados. No takers.
    Or we talk crap abut how wonderful the Indians have been to give us CoVid vaccines, nothing about how the 15m-member CARICOM has failed. We cannot even procure medicines in an emergency.
    @ William, we cannot plaster over this collective failure. It is real and to some of us humiliating. I will end with this: in 1961 the first DLP government came to power, 60 years ago. I remember the excitement.
    Filling in the Careenage and Constitution river, opening in the Deep Water Harbour, promises of cement and glass-making factories, Texas Instruments and others on five-year tax-free periods, all wonderful Keynesian stuff, and all failed.
    To my knowledge, we are still to see Cabinet minutes from that period, documents that will tell us something about the so-called Father of Independence, why certain policies were introduced. Why not?. Our court records are not available; why not?
    They are not because there is no demand for them. The so-called political scientists, economic historians and biographers of Barrow are fiction writers. They prefer to make up our nationalistic history as they go along.

  42. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    Mr Williams here..
    Quite a good post.
    You need to drop
    “I have been called a Roman Catholic, who I respect, but I am not; a polymath and intellectual, I am not, I left education too early; an insurance agent/financial adviser, and other things.”

  43. GP Avatar
    GP

    re The truth is that …………… there is no serious debate going on.

    THIS IS A FACT THAT CAN NOT BE REFUTED
    BUT IT WAS NOT ALWAYS SO ON BU
    BUT THEN AN ABSOLUTE MORON WAS ALLOWED TO INTRODUCE WHAT WAS CALLED CHALLENGING. THIS FOOL SOUGHT TO REFUTE INFORMATION ABOUT WHICH HE OBVIOUSLY KNEW NOTHING
    IT HAS BEEN DOWN HILL EVERY SINCE

  44. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    I’ll always maintain Hal Austin’s morning words often differ from his evening words. And, he’s the main reason why this forum is always in turmoil.

    Hal Austin September 4, 2020 4:45 PM #: “Don’t take BU too seriously. I use my lap top, so can multi-task when doing other things. I HAVE AN ESCAPE – we have literally scores of televisions stations, 18 national newspapers, hundreds of magazine and journals and nice, cheap restaurants in which to relax. I enjoy my own company.”

    Hal Austin February 26, 2021 1:35 PM #: “I tolerate it because we are in lockdown and I have nothing else to do all day apart from reading, listening to the radio and watching television.”

    He has an ESCAPE, but he’s NOW tolerating BU because he’s in lockdown.

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Hal Austin February 26, 2021 1:35 PM #: “I have been called a Roman Catholic, who I respect, but I am not; a polymath and intellectual, I am not, I left education too early; an insurance agent/financial adviser, and other things.”

    You’ve called us, silly, appallingly ignorant buffoons that learnt by rote, mealy mouthed keyboard warriors, cyber bullies, passive aggressive…….. savages, predators and wild beasts that should be in the jungle, wild barking dogs, hungry dingoes, slimy pigs, BU hyenas, vultures, buzzing flies and lotus.

    So, what exactly is your point?

    That ONLY you have the right to call people whatever you choose to and they should remain silent?

  45. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Pacha
    I philosophically oppose any dealings with the IMF and this is anywhere in the region. Now, because I say that , does that mean I am saying that the country would collapse?
    The problem here is that you are so hellbent on cussing @ Hal, that you and others on BU believe I am to be railroad or lynched. Unlike you and others , when I oppose @Hal, we have a go at it and like gentlemen agree to disagree. I don’t give a damn about all yuh relationship with him or his relationship with all yuh. I don’t sing in anybody’s choir; neither am I waiting on any phone call to hear that some proposal I put to Mottley or Depeiza get approve.
    You obviously cannot find any where written by William Skinner on BU where he says the government will collapse because of SD. All of a sudden you who had nothing good to say about Mottley, the BLPDLP trying to fly up in my face. You who consider the entire Caribbean a hopeless backwater , forever incapable of charting its own destiny. A man who sees no hope for anything done in Barbados for the last forty years pulling some bogus talk on of all people me.
    You who insult people telling them they don’t know anything about geopolitical matters. A man who uses Latin phrases and the purest English ; who writes at the level of Naipaul and then come here cussing playing that you promoting some culture.
    You have overstepped the crease Pacha and you are now sinking to lies and senseless propaganda to involve me in some blasted high school war that I don’t want no part off. You and @ Hal have a lot in common; you were both educated at universities in Englan’ . The same ones the slave masters built.
    Once more leave me out. Find somebody else to tell lies on and that goes for all the rest who want to tell me who to support. Who the hell wunnuh think wunnuh is. I in my lane stay in yours.
    Gimme a frigging break.

  46. John A Avatar
    John A

    I see THE GUardian just published the results of the Oxford Astra vaccine which was specifically tested against the South African variant and it was found on 2 shots to be only around 10% effective.

    They are now studying what effect a 3rd shot will have in its current formulation, if not it is back to the drawing board.

    Like others I have great hopes for the vaccine but we must not drop our protocols.

  47. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    The only university I went to was the University of St Giles. But your analysis is correct. Going to the IMF means accepting its Washington Consensus paradigm, which is awful. There is an alternative to austerity.
    Even the grand author of the Washington Consensus has now repudiated it. That is why the decision to default by the Mottley government was so bad as policy and flies in the face of radical economics.
    Government had a unique opportunity to embark on a massive infrastructural programme, which I have outlined on numerous occasions.
    Instead what we got was Mottley came to power on May 25, 2018, and five days later was signing a contract with White Oaks.
    That has still got to be explained. Was she in talks with White Oaks before the general election? Was it an approach and decision made between May 25 and May 30? Who did she consult, apart from Dr Mascoll, Mr Persaud and junior ministers Caddle and Straughn?
    Another interesting question is whether anyone of those had any contact, professionally or socially, with White Oaks or any of its senior officers.
    When Mottley first came to power it was said foreign reserves were just over Bds$400m, today it is said to be $2.6bn, and in the meantime the government has borrowed a further Bds$1bn.
    We can either discuss this as a party political matter, or as a serious macroeconomic one, with some ready answers, starting with a full and final settlement of the White Oaks affair.
    Where is the national conversation about all this?

  48. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    William Skinner,

    You have got to be kidding!

    Steupse!

  49. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Artax,

    You are wasting your time. William and Hal are locked into their positions. No amount of evidence will move them. I am beginning to understand how Trump supporters can exist.

  50. Tron Avatar
    Tron

    @ John A February 26, 2021 3:10 PM

    We fight on our island with the British variant, not the SA variant. AZ works well here. As with influenza, there will always be new variants against which new vaccine will be needed. Besides, the report from SA doesn’t mean much because many South Africans have HIV and thus a very weak immune system.

    We cannot afford to fall behind our Caribbean competitors in tourism. Those who are now singing with the Quarantine Taliban and want a return to an agrarian economy should be aware of the consequences. If the lockdown and quarantine extend endlessly, we will soon have 100000 blacks on Richard Drax’s sugar cane plantations. Multi-year lockdown plus multi-year quarantine mean nothing other than a return to slavery and the total impoverishment of the black masses. We are NOT independent as Australia or New Zealand.

    I urge our government to stay on course and open the country completely when all vulnerable groups are vaccinated. For the rest of the population, COVID19 is just the general risk of life. The only barrier for tourists should be a vaccination certificate.

    Welcome back, our dear British tourists!

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