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The United Nations (U.N.). Has it become irrelevant?

This piece from The Wall Street Journal sure makes me think so.

The U.N. and Comrade Bob

As with Darfur and Burma, the depredations of Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe have become a target of the world's moral outrage. Also like those two countries, the chances of anyone doing something about Zimbabwe are falling into the diplomatic abyss that is the United Nations. [More...]

Crime in The Bahamas and what to do about it

First published in The Tribune on Saturday, June 21, 2008 under the byline, Young Man's View.

THESE days, Bahamians are falling like stunned bugs because of the vicious of vicious murders that have gripped Bahamian society and mark a depreciated value of human life.

The trend of anti-social behaviour is leading to a state of social chaos, where boorish persons barbarously roam the streets like wild animals, preying upon the weak or engaging in feral, homicidal behaviour to indulge their unabated anger. The senseless actions of uncivilized, dim-witted persons are rapidly casting the Bahamas in the image of a crime-ravaged hellhole on the brink of social implosion. Stricken by fear, Bahamians have voluntarily chosen to live in virtual imprisonment, locked behind iron bars (windows), bolted doors and screens, and sheltered behind iron gates.

In their state of paralysis, law abiding Bahamians have become more distrustful and are swiftly arming themselves with cutlasses, shot guns, bats and other safety measures to ensure their security.

Lessons in Freedom: How Welfare Corrupts

We are delighted to present Lessons in Freedom, essays by Dr. Tibor Machan, for your pleasure.

Welfare Corrupts

by Tibor R. Machan

Before anything else it needs to be noted that most of the welfare recipients are not unwed mothers but people doing business as major corporations. They receive subsidies, bailouts, protection from competition and so forth, all undeserved, all unjust, all lacking any legitimacy in a genuine free country. American firms, as thousands of others around the globe, have managed to persuade politicians to provide them with benefits at the expense of people who haven’t consented to any of the takings that provide the funds that make all this possible.

The Bahamas Government. What Chutzpah

Our Government has an educational system that sends students into the the work force with a D average.

Then it releases the increased immigration fees (Tribune, July 15/08) which tells us that we either hire these students who cannot spell, read, write or figure a percentage or pay an exorbitant fee for someone who can.

A stenographer  $5000   Should be able to understand English when spoken properly

A girl Friday!     $3000   Should know the alphabet

A receptionist   $3000    Should be able to answer the telephone and chew gum at the same time

Am I the only one who sees the irony?

Another perspective of The EPA "discussion" in The Bahamas

First published in The Tribune on Monday, June 16, 2008 under the byline, Young Man's View.

IN an attempt to score cheap political points, Paul Moss’s and Fayne Thompson’s opportunistic protest in condemnation of the European Partnership Agreement (two weeks ago) by parading puppet-like, unapprised straw vendors throughout Rawson Square appears to have been nothing short of a discomfiting rouse.

Mr Moss, the political busybody and leader of the activist group Bahamians Agitating for a Referendum on Free Trade (BARF), appears to have directed a disastrous demonstration centered on a group of less affluent, rowdy protestors who appeared to be thoroughly ignorant to the issues.

As I watched the side-splitting, awkward ZNS segment featuring these protestors, I cringed as one demonstrator after another obliviously suggested that Parliamentarians would be using monies to “over-educate their children” or that they would be pushing up grass while their children would be eating flowers (whatever that means or has to do with the EPA is beyond me).

Lessons in Freedom: Funding Rand Studies

We are delighted to present Lessons in Freedom, essays by Dr. Tibor Machan, for your pleasure.

Dr. Machan holds the R. C. Hoiles Chair in Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at Chapman University's Argyros School of B&E and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University, CA). (www.Tibormachan.com)

Funding Rand Courses

by Tibor R. Machan

Throughout the American Southeast, where BB&T bank conducts most of its business, the company’s foundation has been doling out some big bucks to support the study of the work of Russian born American novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand. The grants are made to various colleges and universities--among them Duke and Marshall--to set up various centers or professorships and sometimes the condition for receiving the funds includes putting Rand’s blockbuster and huge novel, Atlas Shrugged, on a course reading list.

In most cases the funds are welcome, especially--and not surprisingly--by college or university administrators. In a few instances, however, there has been some protest from folks who claim they are worried about academic freedom. Both proponents and opponents have invoked the idea of academic freedom. And with some justification. If you give money to an educational institution, often it is the institution itself that determines how it should be used. But by no means always. People contribute huge sums to have libraries or interfaith centers built with their names attached. Donors often establish endowed chairs--I myself hold one at Chapman University--with the aim of giving the teaching of certain subjects a boost. Although there is no directive to use the money contributed in any specific way, it is most often well understood that a donor’s agenda will carry influence.

Thinking about the EPA and its effects on The Bahamas

How many factories in Europe will stop selling product to The Bahamas and how many investors will stop investing here if we do not sign on to the EPA?

Bahamasair: An Albatross

First published in The Tribune on Friday, May 23, 2008 under the byline, Young Man's View.

OVER the last 35 years, Bahamasair has proven to be a financial albatross around the necks of Bahamian taxpayers and nothing more than a failed government experiment.

In the past, the national airline has been embroiled in scandal about the discrepancies with, and/or unavailability of financial reports which showed that the carrier has been pillaged by some “tiefin”, unscrupulous employees who pocket airfares and freight funds, and arrange free trips for friends and family members.

The national flag carrier has become synonymous with tardiness, delays, lost luggage, persons being “bumped” off flights to accommodate the relatives and associates of aircraft employees and horrendous customer service.

Visitors and locals alike, who have experienced and complained about the crummy service provided, have modified the airline’s logo to reflect its reputation of belatedness to state—“if you have time to spare, fly Bahamasair.”

Lessons in Freedom: Self-Abusive Conduct

We are delighted to present Lessons in Freedom, essays by Dr. Tibor Machan, for your pleasure.

Dr. Machan holds the R. C. Hoiles Chair in Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at Chapman University's Argyros School of B&E and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University, CA). (www.Tibormachan.com)

Victimless Crimes

by Tibor R. Machan

When I go to movies I sometimes experiment. I decide to see some because of what I call education in cultural anthropology. Not all of these are enjoyable, even interesting but some suggest insights it would be useful to pay attention to.

Trees Lounge is a movie, from some time back, in which probably none of the characters is likable, most of the events are kind of disgusting, and only here and there can a viewer empathize with how problems are managed.

Should we care about the oversight of health care in The Bahamas?

by Leandra Esfakis

In 1998 Parliament seemed to think so. It passed an act called the Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities Act, to regulate private hospitals, clinics and "health care facilities". The Act created a Board to carry out the functions contemplated by the Act. The Board should be "...satisfied that the hospital or health care facility would be operating in the interest of the public health or in a manner that is not injurious to public health."

One of its chief responsibilities is to investigate complaints from the public, but it has no record of ever doing so. Hospitals/clinics are by law required to submit notices of fatalities on their premises, but it appears this does not happen.

But the chairman of the Board is on record as stating that the Board does not want to be bothered with investigations of complaints. He also says that the legal requirement for official notification of hospital deaths is "antiquated and unnecessary".

Visit the Bahamas Patient Advocacy web site at this link...