It is hard to not be annoyed with our economic condition at this point.  When warnings were called out they were quickly hushed as fear mongering and cast aside.  This when if the concerns had been heard and addressed we likely wouldn’t be making a ridiculously late scramble to do something about our impending economic slide.

Look back at all of those who warned of the risk of our economy overheating over the last few years.  Look back at all of those who warned that the US was in for a downturn that would likely impact Bermuda quite heavily and that we should be prepared.  Look back at all the cautionary measures we took to prepare in case such a thing happened.  Oh right, don’t waste your time on that last one.

I like this.  Were these worldly town crier competitions a part of a tourism promotion to win a trip to Bermuda? The article doesn’t say.

Ultimately these are the kinds of thing we could be leveraging YouTube to promote and incite a bit of user generated content momentum.

Who else is appauled at what Vexed Bermoothes has to say about our Premier's commentary regarding the Summit of the Americas?

"the Premier avoids mentioning the breathtaking allegations of corruption and mismanagement in TCI. It’s worrying that the Premier would attend such a high profile event, and this is all he has to offer."

Vexed, how could you?  Clearly you missed the very important detail where the Premier and his wife got the chance for a photo-op with Obama.  Obama! 

Why should we waste our time with trivial details like the potential of Cuba opening up to American tourists and effectively slaughtering our already poorly performing volume based discount approach to tourism?  Please.  That'd be like admitting that the nitwit that writes that 21 Square blog actually may have been on to something when he never shut up about shooting for exclusivity over discount tourism.

Thankfully we don't have to and shouldn't believe anything the Royal Gazette prints as clearly our Premier covered all of this and allayed the concerns of our people but the biased media prevailed by not printing it.  No, the PLP.bm website doesn't need to be updated with full exerpts of what he actually said, nor does gov.bm which doesn't load anyway.  Get your facts straight people!  Talk to the right people in the know and when in doubt 'believe'.

This I like.  It's not what I've been pushing, but it's a step in the right direction.

Here’s a little can’t sleep thought…  What happens when you combine the atmosphere typically associated with low cost housing with the atmosphere expected of a luxury hotel?

Streetfilms.org has an excellent documentary about the rapid transit system in Curitiba Brasil which is an inspiring model for ideas of how to improve our own transportation infrastructure.

Of note, a few of the ideas are actually quite applicable here:

• High capacity buses running very frequently on express lines
• Raised height entry/exit to speed the rate at which passengers can board/exit (also possible, low floor buses)
• Prepaid fare systems prior to boarding the bus

Our system unfortunately is very cumbersome.  We use buses too large to move quickly, send them to areas far too congested and waste a huge amount of time loading and unloading passengers.  On top of that, the buses aren't even all that convienent as there are many portions of the island that they cannot access.

Is there a better way?  Are there ways we can change the dynamics of public transport in order to make things far more efficient and satisfy the needs of more Bermudians?  If so, getting from where we are to where we want to be begins with measuring the problem and then adapting a plan to solve those problems.

As we've noted, the present system is less than ideal though rather than embark upon random untested and unpredicted solutions to problems that may not exist it would be valuable to spend some time understanding the problem.

Ideally, we should be monitoring and modelling our entire transport system.  We've already covered how anonymous cell-phone signal tracking can be a non-invasive means of monitoring private transport usage so we're left with how to monitor usage of the public systems.  The combination of GPS and automatic passenger counters would enable us to track and model where and when people get on and off such that we could better understand the overall usage and capacity of our transport infrastructure.

Once we actually understand how our transport infrastructure is used we can better adapt and evolve it to better meet the needs of our people.  Through modelling we could discover that there are core bus stops that service the majority of people leading us to create a set of express bus lines that only service those stops.  We could identify spots where buses are frequently stuck waiting for traffic to let them out and add special traffic lights at those points triggerable by bus drivers to force traffic to yield to let the buses out.  We could discover that town is a huge culprit towards the slowdown and resolve to create bus depots outside of town and switch to a minibus system for serving town from those depots.  The possibilities are endless however if we don't take the time to start measuring the problem we'll unfortunately never succeed at managing it.

*satire*

You've got to love the attempts to spin anything and everything as a positive as it has reached a point where is it just plain humorous.  The latest?  Health Minister Nelson Bascome's suggestion that the high level of interest in Future Care is indicative of it's success.

"Although there has been some concern in the media about us creating limitations on who can access the plan in the first year, I believe that this concern is also an endorsement of how well we have done in creating FutureCare."

"While there was limited interest in the Government's HIP, the interest shown towards FutureCare tells me that we have gotten it right."

Sure.  Clearly last election could have included the promise to make every Bermudian a millionaire and no doubt we'd be in the same predicament.  Subsequent to the election it would have been realized that it wouldn't actually be as simple as printing more money, millions would have been handed out to a handful of people with most Bermudians having gotten the shaft.  Despite this, clearly the program would have been a tremendous success given that every Bermudian scrambled to apply and the media raised questions about how it'd be paid for.  Right?

Clearly since everyone signed up to be a millionaire and there was previously limited interest in our "you're poor, so here's some foodstamps" program, the make everyone a millionaire program is a tremendous achievement.  Nevermind that only a handful made it now, don't worry, we'll get to you later.  Concern over how we'll afford it when we do you say?  That's trivial babble talk as we're taking a 'phased approach' and no indication whatsoever should be required as to how those other than the handful would also receive their millions.  Those are none other than boring actuarial minor details that no one needs to be bothered with.  Don't focus on the fact that you got nothing, focus on the program's success because everyone wants to be a millionaire and you were almost one of the lucky ones who got the chance.  Remember the program is a success people!  A success!

It's magic.