Police: a thankless job

Reason #27 why I wouldn't want to become a police officer in Bermuda:

the defendant kept telling him "I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill your children".

acting magistrate Justin Williams said: "I've heard what you have to say and what the officers have had to say. From what I've heard I believe the Police officers. I find you guilty of these offences."

Bassett was fined $2,500 and banned from driving for a year.

You're kidding me. The judge found the man guilty of violently resisting arrest, using threatening words, using offensive words, and assaulting a Police officer among other things, but gets sentenced to a fine and a ban from driving (which seriously, doesn't get tracked anyway). Zero prison time. The man threatened to kill the officer's family.

I can't add anything else to this farce masquerading as justice. Nothing else. Good luck with recruiting others.

Enough is enough

To Government House, the Bermuda Government, the Police force, and all those involved in this bickering over who controls what in regards to law enforcement here...

Enough is enough. Take some action.

Blog is blocked

Interestingly, my blog as well as the outstanding 21 Square, are now blocked from my office. I'm not sure what the algorithms are for the blocking tool to operate, but people can still freely browse the more animated local online discussion arenas.

Mind you, they also block the interesting New Onion blog, classifying it as 'Sex' when I have yet to see anything relating to that topic on that site.

If I ever get free time again I'm going to try to 'unblock' it by finally moving it to the same host as the rest of my underdeveloped, ancient and somewhat lifeless rest-of-the-site. Heh.

Taxi Drivers - they have to earn sympathy [VA/Beachlime Simulpost]

Bermuda's taxi drivers have been in the spotlight in recent times. A mandatory law for cabbies to install GPS systems in their vehicles met with stern opposition, meanwhile drivers have lobbied to be allowed to raise their rates.

Hearing taxi drivers in conversation, you can tell that they are feeling like Government has imposed insane restrictions on them while not allowing them to earn a decent living. One may be able to understand their frustration. Taxis are expensive - I can only imagine how much they have to pay for these large minivans that they now bring into the island to use, and as of now they don't seem to get much in the way of tax breaks and they don't receive any breaks for gasoline, etc.

However, while there are many hard-working drivers out there, it's really hard to have much sympathy for taxi drivers as a whole. Experiences that I've witnessed or heard about:

Drivers refusing to take you certain places because it's "out of their way"
Drivers telling you that they're already booked, then you see them pick up a set of visitors who clearly just hailed them
Arranging taxis can be an adventure, sometimes the dispatched taxi detours somewhere else and you're waiting in vain
Virtually impossible to hail a passing taxi even if their "available" light is on
Drivers acting as if they have the right-of-way, at *all times*
Hard to find waiting taxis in places you'd expect them to be, such as after a concert or sporting event

It's tough to own a cab. You have to deal with potential crooks trying to mug you, drunk people vomiting over your seats and carpet and the high costs of maintenance; but when you make the choice to run a taxi you have to be prepared somewhat to deal with the risk when undertaking a venture. If you feel entitled, then people are simply going to not use your service, instead calling friends, or using the increasing minibus services, when available. Perhaps taxi drivers as an entire organisation should offer up a Passenger's Bill of Rights and then work hard to gain public trust and support. Bermudians will tell you, that if the service is of quality then they'll be willing to pay the extra.

Can I install a water gun to my bike?

This ticked me off the other day. Riding along Somerset Road the other day and I'm behind a woman driving a red car. She is annoying me with her waving her lit cigarette out the window while she's driving. Little red sparks flew up toward me and I'm glad I had my visor down, really. Of course this was followed by the standard toss the finished butt into the road where it bounced near my bike.

Stupid numb-brain bitch.

If I had the technical know-how I'd try to rig up a small water gun to my bike and soak the ciggy once it was outside the window. Polluting litterbug.

Heck, it would also serve as double when drivers fire their windshield wiper fluid all up and over the hood and into my face anyway. I wonder if I can enlist Wookie and others to get some tips...

Voting pecularities

I had thought of something like this some time ago, particularly when I was discussing the change from us voting for two people in Parliament to us voting for just one person, and it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but Fred Barritt of the Bermuda Sun threw it into writing today.

Wouldn't that be interesting? Everybody votes for their preferred 36 people. It sure would be interesting to see how the final scores would tally up.

One obvious issue that may come about is that you'd end up with all kinds of splits in Government, decisions may get held back more because you may not get a clear majority of supporters and there's the chance (small, but possible) that a third party or set of independents could become critical swing votes in Parliamentary motions.

Curious, indeed.