I was in West End two days after the hurricane hit Grand Bahama and saw the devestation that Wilma brought -- in particular a brand new dock that was lifted out of the water and two massive boats lifted onto now dry land.

One thing that is amazing is how people pulled together -- while the government was sending a motorcade of smiling politicians to survey the damage -- private citizens were spontaneously bringing aid -- such as fresh drinking water -- paid for out of their own pockets. Sure there were a few looter and moocher types, but they were a minority. Plus, the Bahamian police have been doing a fantastic job of keeping law and order.

Compare this to the situation in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. Writes Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson:

Most of us would take our families out of that city quickly to protect them from danger. Then, able-bodied men would return to help others in need, as wives and others cared for children, elderly, infirm and the like.

For better or worse, Hurricane Katrina has told us the answer to the second question. If you're black and a hurricane is about to destroy your city, then you'll probably wait for the government to save you.

This was not always the case. Prior to 40 years ago, such a pathetic performance by the black community in a time of crisis would have been inconceivable. The first response would have come from black men. They would take care of their families, bring them to safety, and then help the rest of the community. Then local government would come in.

No longer. When 75 percent of New Orleans residents had left the city, it was primarily immoral, welfare-pampered blacks that stayed behind and waited for the government to bail them out. This, as we know, did not turn out good results.

Enter Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. Jackson and Farrakhan laid blame on "racist" President Bush. Farrakhan actually proposed the idea that the government blew up a levee so as to kill blacks and save whites. The two demanded massive governmental spending to rebuild New Orleans, above and beyond the federal government's proposed $60 billion. Not only that, these two were positioning themselves as the gatekeepers to supervise the dispersion of funds. Perfect: Two of the most dishonest elite blacks in America, "overseeing" billions of dollars. I wonder where that money will end up.

Of course, if these two were really serious about laying blame on government, they should blame the local one. Responsibility to perform – legally and practically – fell first on the mayor of New Orleans. We are now all familiar with Mayor Ray Nagin – the black Democrat who likes to yell at President Bush for failing to do Nagin's job. The facts, unfortunately, do not support Nagin's wailing. As the Washington Times puts it, "recent reports show [Nagin] failed to follow through on his own city's emergency-response plan, which acknowledged that thousands of the city's poorest residents would have no way to evacuate the city."

One wonders how there was "no way" for these people to evacuate the city. We have photographic evidence telling us otherwise. You've probably seen it by now – the photo showing 200 parked school buses, unused and underwater. How much planning does it require to put people on a bus and leave town, Mayor Nagin?

From an editorial in the Nassau Guardian:

Both the Minister for Trade and Industry, Leslie Miller and members of his Petroleum Usage Review Committee, have suggested that the savings that could accrue to The Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC), is reason enough for The Bahamas to sign on to PetroCaribe.

They have stated that if BEC purchases $100 million of petroleum products a year, they could finance up to $40 million for up to 25 years, at the reasonable rate of 1% per annum. This $40 million can be used each year, to create a welfare state.

So being skeptical of offers that sounded too good to be true, prompted a few calculations:

1. Assuming there are no payments made during a five-year loan period, The Bahamas will owe Venezuela $202 million dollars.

2. Taking this one step further, The Central Bank of The Bahamas has indicated The Bahamas imported fuel totalling of $265 million during 2004 (net the BEC purchases). 40% of this amount would provide an additional $106 million in loans per annum.

3. Here again, if no payments are made to reduce this indebtedness during a five-year period, The Bahamas will owe Venezuela another $535.3 million.

Combining the purchase of fuel for BEC and the fuel for the general consumer over five years, The Bahamas total indebtedness to Venezuela would be $737.3 million dollars.

In addition, these numbers are simply staggering when extrapolated out over 25 years. The National Debt would increase by $3.7 billion, which is more than our current national debt of $2.65 billion.

Of course, these assumptions will differ, based on changes through negotiation and do not factor in the two-year grace period or any required payments.

However, they do provide a quick summary of how fast the country's debt could mount, utilising an arrangement like this.

This begs the question: Should The Bahamas be mortgaging its future on a consumable item such as fuel, with long-term foreign hard currency borrowings?

Petroleum is a "consumable" item in both economic and physical terms and should not be financed with long-term borrowing.

The theory of long-term borrowing is that it is appropriate when used to finance an investment today that will produce an attractive return over a long period of time. Of course, when the petroleum is gone, no asset will remain.

More importantly, the debt is likely to be foreign hard-currency debt, which will greatly alter and magnify the country's financial management problems. "Bank-ruptcy" usually occurs when a country can no longer service its foreign indebtedness; and such bankruptcy usually means devaluation of the currency and a drop in the standard of living.

To date, The Bahamas has financed its fiscal deficits with B-dollar borrowings and this practice has been sustained with the maintenance of exchange controls. If The Bahamas eliminated exchange controls, then there would be a capital outflow and a pressure on the exchange rate. It is this fear that has restrained the country's fiscal excess.

PetroCaribe financing starts this country down the road of financial mismanagement of the type that has plagued Latin America for decades. It is no surprise that it is being proposed by a Latin American socialist strongman, who offers cheap long-term foreign financing, as an inducement to enter his international political alliance.

Thomas Bowden on why one should celebrate Columbus Day:

On one level, Columbus Day honors the explorer himself, for his many virtues. Columbus was a man of independent mind, who steadfastly pursued his bold plan for a westward voyage to the Indies despite powerful opposition--a man of courage, who set sail upon a trackless ocean with no assurance that he would ever reach land--a man of pride, who sought recognition and reward for his achievements.

We need not evade or excuse Columbus's flaws--his religious zealotry, his enslavement and oppression of natives--to recognize that he made history by finding new territory for a civilization that would soon show mankind how to overcome forever the age-old scourges of slavery, war, and forced religious conversion.

On a deeper level, therefore, Columbus Day celebrates the rational core of Western civilization, which flourished in the New World like a potbound plant liberated from its confining shell, demonstrating to the world what greatness is possible to man at his best.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose philosophers and mathematicians, men such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Euclid, displaced otherworldly mysticism by discovering the laws of logic and mathematical relationships, demonstrating to mankind that the universe is knowable and predictable.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose scientists, men such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, banished primitive superstitions by discovering natural laws through the scientific method, expanding the reach of man’s scrutiny to the farthest galaxy and the tiniest atom.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose political geniuses, men such as John Locke and the Founding Fathers, showed how bloody tribal warfare and religious strife can be supplanted by constitutional republics devoted to protecting life, liberty, property, and the selfish pursuit of individual happiness.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose entrepreneurs, men such as Rockefeller, Ford, and Gates, transformed an inhospitable wilderness populated by frightened savages into a wealthy nation of self-confident producers served by highways, power plants, computers, and thousands of other life-enhancing products.

Read the rest here.

[OPINION] Guest commentary by Michael S. Berliner, Ph.D.

Columbus day approaches, but to the "politically correct" this is no cause for celebration. On the contrary, they view the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 as an occasion to be mourned. They have mourned, they have attacked, and they have intimidated schools across the country into replacing Columbus Day celebrations with "ethnic diversity" days.

The politically correct view is that Columbus did not discover America, because people had lived here for thousands of years. Worse yet, it's claimed, the main legacy of Columbus is death and destruction. Columbus is routinely vilified as a symbol of slavery and genocide, and the celebration of his arrival likened to a celebration of Hitler and the Holocaust. The attacks on Columbus are ominous, because the actual target is Western civilization.

Did Columbus "discover" America? Yes—in every important respect. This does not mean that no human eye had been cast on America before Columbus arrived. It does mean that Columbus brought America to the attention of the civilized world, i.e., to the growing, scientific civilizations of Western Europe. The result, ultimately, was the United States of America. It was Columbus' discovery for Western Europe that led to the influx of ideas and people on which this nation was founded—and on which it still rests. The opening of America brought the ideas and achievements of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and the thousands of thinkers, writers, and inventors who followed.

Prior to 1492, what is now the United States was sparsely inhabited, unused, and undeveloped. The inhabitants were primarily hunter/gatherers, wandering across the land, living from hand to mouth and from day to day. There was virtually no change, no growth for thousands of years. With rare exception, life was nasty, brutish, and short: there was no wheel, no written language, no division of labor, little agriculture and scant permanent settlement; but there were endless, bloody wars. Whatever the problems it brought, the vilified Western culture also brought enormous, undreamed-of benefits, without which most of today's Indians would be infinitely poorer or not even alive.

Columbus should be honored, for in so doing, we honor Western civilization. But the critics do not want to bestow such honor, because their real goal is to denigrate the values of Western civilization and to glorify the primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism embodied in the tribal cultures of American Indians. They decry the glorification of the West as "Eurocentrism." We should, they claim, replace our reverence for Western civilization with multi-culturalism, which regards all cultures as morally equal. In fact, they aren't.

Some cultures are better than others: a free society is better than slavery; reason is better than brute force as a way to deal with other men; productivity is better than stagnation. In fact, Western civilization stands for man at his best. It stands for the values that make human life possible: reason, science, self-reliance, individualism, ambition, productive achievement.

The values of Western civilization are values for all men; they cut across gender, ethnicity, and geography. We should honor Western civilization not for the ethnocentric reason that some of us happen to have European ancestors but because it is the objectively superior culture.

Underlying the political collectivism of the anti-Columbus crowd is a racist view of human nature. They claim that one's identity is primarily ethnic: if one thinks his ancestors were good, he will supposedly feel good about himself; if he thinks his ancestors were bad, he will supposedly feel self-loathing. But it doesn't work; the achievements or failures of one's ancestors are monumentally irrelevant to one's actual worth as a person. Only the lack of a sense of self leads one to look to others to provide what passes for a sense of identity. Neither the deeds nor misdeeds of others are his own; he can take neither credit nor blame for what someone else chose to do. There are no racial achievements or racial failures, only individual achievements and individual failures. One cannot inherit moral worth or moral vice. "Self-esteem through others" is a self-contradiction.

Thus the sham of "preserving one's heritage" as a rational life goal. Thus the cruel hoax of "multicultural education" as an antidote to racism: it will continue to create more racism.
Individualism is the only alternative to the racism of political correctness. We must recognize that everyone is a sovereign entity, with the power of choice and independent judgment. That is the ultimate value of Western civilization, and it should be proudly proclaimed.

Dr. Berliner is a member of the Board of Directors of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Copyright © 1995-2005 Ayn Rand® Institute (ARI). All rights reserved.

There will be a wine tasting at the Harbour Room Restaurant (Freeport, Grand Bahama) featuring Stefano Farina Wines of Italy on Saturday October 22, 2005 from 6-8pm.

The wine tasting will feature 17 new and exciting wines including: Barolo, Barbara, Barbaresco, Chianti Classico Gavi, Pinot Grigio, Prosecco. Hot & Cold Hodeuvres, and a full selection of European Cheeses are also included.

For details please visit Harbour Room Restaurant website.

Don’t miss this weeks WASTED WEDNESDAY at Margarita Sand Bar Beachfront Restaurant:
(Located on the sand road off Millionaire's Row , Spanish Main).

Opening from 9:00pm until…for great tunes and lots of fun. Those of you who remember Wednesday nights, we hope to see you there and to those who are new to it: Welcome!!
Wednesdays there is something new and fun to do in Freeport.

From 9 – 10pm there will be complimentary food items, as well as discounted specialty shots each week. Please email the Sandbar for the shots and specials of the week.

First time visitors, visit the sand bar website for a free coupon: www.sandbarbahamas.com

A cultural event celebrating the anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landfall in The Bahamas. There will be local food, drinks and fun activities. The venue is Port Lucaya Marketplace.

For more information, contact Renamae Symonette, Ministry of Tourism, at 242-352-8044.

Interesting article: Did Christopher Columbus "Discover" America?

From MSN's Slate:

We move outside and Sanchez starts talking about Cuba itself. He shows me two maps, one of prisons in Cuba before the revolution and one now. The new map shows perhaps 10 times as many prisons. "We never used to be a country of crime," says Sanchez. "Now we have one of the largest incarceration rates in the world." Thousands—mostly suspected prostitutes, he says—are jailed under a law against "dangerousness," a vague Minority Report-type provision that essentially criminalizes intentions.

Sanchez's work is well-regarded. But it's impossible to verify his numbers, since, as he points out, Cuba keeps its incarceration rates secret and prohibits inspections by human rights groups or the Red Cross—the only country in the Western hemisphere to do so.

"Welcome to our gulag," Sanchez says, pointing to the map. As others have explained to me, it's not that there are thousands of political prisoners. It's that so much of regular life—from selling a car to owning a VCR—has been made illegal. So just about everybody breaks the law. They are pushed into doing so because of the absurdly low state salaries (about 260 pesos or $10 per month). Cubans get free monthly rations—in addition to free education and health care—but it's not enough, so just about everybody in one way or another works in the black market. (One example: When I was driving, I saw farmers offering peanuts along the side of the road. Then, at one point, they ran off into the bushes. Turns out a police car was driving by.)

[...]Castro is like the owner of a plantation. He controls the jobs, he controls access to education and he controls health care. Those who are revolutionaries have access and those who are counter-revolutionaries don't; and he decides who is which.

Sure makes one appreciate the freedoms we have in the Bahamas.