Let me stop you there Gordon ...

Gordon Barlow is getting steamed up at people suggesting we solve the scumbag gangsta gunmen problem by doing a little assassination of our own.

I'll agree it sounds immoral on the face of it but we need an answer to this crap for the greater good because it's only going to get worse otherwise.

If the latest fatal shooting, this time of a small child, don't float your boat for toying with the idea of bit of extra-judicial you must have someting other than blood in your veins.

Police harrassment of the Evil 15, the known but 'above the law' gunmen is a good start but let's get creative. Let's get the SAS involved: they don't take prisoners.

Here's how it works.

For a specified period reverse the presumption that those who get arrested get bail unless the police agree waive that on a case by case basis.

Continue to harrass the ass of the gunslinger's minions until they are nailed for something, like intefering with an officer in the course of his duties, littering or breathing in and out in a threatening manner.

While they are in jail pending a bail hearing the SAS who have been spirited into the country draw numbers  to decide which gunslingers get an unexpected visit. Some entrepreneur could even run a little numbers racket on the side here. Pick 4 from 15.

Nobody ever sees anything anway so they won't see the bad guys being snatched even if it's done in broad daylight accompanied by a marching band - but of course it will be a lot sneakier than that.

Take these badass gangstas for a little cruise, about 12 miles off the island, and drop them off to swim back. If these gangstas are as hard as they think they are they may even live.

If that doesn't quite things down repeat until it does.

Naturally the Police aren't involved in any of this extra judicial stuff, just uphold the law and make the initial arrests for minor offences. And of course it would be their duty to investigate these disappearances to the usual high standards with the usual level of witness co-operation and support from the public.

Get it done while the UK politicos and media are caught up in General Election fever and too busy to poke around investigating a few missing criminals, who may have fled the island anyway because things were getting too hot. How did they leave? Who knows, same way the guns get in probably.

Deniabilty is built right into the whole process. The criminals 'advantages' are all turned against them. Poetic Justice.

You see, if you are motivated enough, negatives can be turned into positives.

Sorry Gordon but enough is enough -  those who dare win.

Headless Chuckie

An ex MLA, former Minister of Who Cares and one of Cayman's several surviving brain donor's, Charles (Chuckie) Clifford has decided enough is enough wit Mac.

While he was at the Legislative Assembly trough Chuckie displayed some talent in base political skills, he could lie, equivocate, dissimulate and grandstand but overall he was out of his political depth.

Backgound for those who need it:
Just before resigning as Minister of Tourism Chuckie, was a high minded whistleblower, ratted Mac out over a financing deal Mac swung re that popular and profitable tourist trap Boatswains Beach. Then got himself elected on the 'Anyone but Mac' ticket in the 2005 election 

Chuckie seemed to mistake Mac's fall from favour in 2005 as a positive vote for himself, a misunderstanding Bodden Town voters corrected for him in the 2009 election.
 
Safe in the knowledge that Mac is off island Chuckie has begun a re-run of the old themes, the main one being Mac is giving away Caymanian birthrights with his relaxation of immigration control on the finance sector.

Mr Clifford claimed that the United Democratic Party (UDP) government recently implemented a policy by means of the Immigration (Financial Services Sector) Directions 2010 to the Immigration Board to grant key employee status to a large number of employees, which he estimated to be 9,000 persons, plus their dependents, who are currently working in a wide range of positions in the financial services industry. According to Mr Clifford, the total estimated addition to the population of residents with Caymanian status would be 27,000 as a result. ”

Now I know the PPM aren't supposed to be very good with figures, hence the financial crisis, so I refer Mr Clifford to this document - http://www.eso.ky/docum1/docum94.pdf - an official publication of the ESO.

To save you valuable hammock time , dear reader, here is the key part..

See the problem with Chuckie's 9,000 figure - wrong ballpark - there's no evidence, except perchance evidence of prejudice for that 9,000.

Chuckie says that ain't so

Recognising that most modern democratic nations have had to rely on immigration and expatriate labour to build their economies, Mr Clifford does not denigrate expatriate labour or skill, attributing the “miracle” of the Cayman Islands’ economic growth to them.

Chuckie may not "denigrate" expat labour but he sure as hell would rather it knew its place compared to the chosen ones and he's not above a little rabble rousing to make it so.

Best thing you could do here Chuckie is
a) get your facts straight before you stir up unrest and
b) send a Get Well Soon card to each of the two expats lying in hospital with machete wounds who were "denigrated" in separate incidents.

Cayman needs a better thought out and more comprehensive plan for these hard times than one for re-electing Chuckie - wearing Ezzards stolen clothes this time instead of Mac's.

The List that Time forgot

I was glancing at the new look CayCompass when this caught my eye ...

Book ban still in force

Good to see that some tendril of the Civil Service brambleweed is engaged in looking out for the soul of Cayman, I thought. These are dire times: another child gunned down, this one almost a baby, by monkey-see-monkey-shoot gangstas.

Still at least those wanabee bad-asses won't be able to read literature that may corrupt them further, no suh!

Although the law has not been updated in 12 years and lists publications that are out of print or discontinued, it is still being enforced by Customs and Excise officers.
“Once the law is on the books, it will be enforced,” said assistant collector of Customs and Excise Trevor Williams.

 'Leg Show' and 'Swank'' are banned for example but not Playboy' - then again Heffner has money and rich friends and may like to build or buy in Cayman.

I read the list of banned publications with growing amazement. The sub-text of the list is less about common decency and more  "Permit nothing that would get the locals uppity or overstimulated": there are some real boners (oops, Freudian slip there) on the list.

For example 'Evergreen' - a UK publication aimed at the elderly that concerns itself with things like happy childhood memories, Olde England,  and pictorials on quaint parish churches and cottage gardens.

Banning a thing increases its desirability and, knowing dollars speak louder than words in Cayman, I expect there is a  literary shebeen tucked away in a backstreet selling copies of 'Evergreen' in discreet brown wrappers.

Picture the scene, Little Nicky, collar pulled high and casting nervous glances about him, enters the establishment.

Ah Reverend, good day!

Oh, er, good day.

Sorry but this month's 'Swank' never made it past Customs but 'Evergreen' did. It was inside a copy of Playboy. There's a great centerfold of Salisbury Cathedral. I ain't never seen flying buttresses like it! Nice set of cloisters too!

Er, thank you. I only buy it for the crossword you know.

Whatever you say Rev. That'll be 50 bucks please. Yes all in ones is OK.

Equally bizzare  is this ban:

All publications published by persons or firms whose address is Suite 2305, 450 7^th Avenue, New York

The present occupants of that address, Coalfire Systems, are specialists in the field of IT Security and Auditing - why would their publications be banned in the Cayman Islands?  Is auditing such an undesirable activity. Sorry, silly question.

The ban on some of the milder forms of erotic and sexual literature, given the ready access to cable-tv-sex and the internet seems rather passé. Educating boys and young men that women aren't sex objects for their immediate gratification (so they don't, say, go out and rape and murder them like poor Estella) is first and foremost a parental duty isn't it? Sorry again, what am I thinking - everything is Government's job isn't it? Then again as half the population is in government jobs ...


In the age of the internet expecting Customs to hold back an incoming tide of filth and subversion is as futile as King Cnut trying to hold back the sea - although I have heard it said Customs and Excise do act like a bunch of Cnuts (anag.)