The Uff Report and Jail

Prof. John Uff

On the day the Uff Report was submitted to a happy looking President, the Prime Minister suddenly realized the people needed more hospitals and Summits. The Prime Minister did not say how the country was going to fund these hospitals or any project in the future since the country is nearly out of money, low on natural gas and expect the price of LNG to drop to around 1/8^th of its current low price in a couple years. It was also on the same day of the Uff Report WASA announced again the country will run out of water before the rain starts, so citizens will have to bathe less.

Calder Hart and possibly aka Carlos Corazón or even aka Manuel Digoutui

Luckily, the press did not fall for any of these Government-planned distractions and the first few pages of every newspaper featured the Uff Report and talked about the recommendation that some people involved in many big construction projects might have to go to jail if found guilty or if found. Sometime around the handing in of the Uff Report there was a newspaper article saying the corruption police, or is it the anti-corruption, ass-dragging police, couldn’t contact Calder Hart. I don’t know if they contacted the AG because the AG told the population not to worry, he knows how to contact Mr. Hart – The number you have reached is not in Service. Please get on a plane and get cracking. This is a recording. The police have to consider Mr. Hart may have changed his name to something like Carlos Corazón or Manuel Digoutui (Man-Well-Dig-Out-U-Eye).

in butt-saving-mode

The only thing the people are talking about  in Trinidad is corruption and a church in the Heights of Guanapo. Strangely, the Prime Minister is not addressing any of these issues in his pre-campaign trail excursions and instead continues to kiss those too young to read about him in the press and projects a body language which says “if you don’t support me I will destroy you.”  Our Prime Minister may not be well respected by the majority of the population because of his open expressions of hate for his countrymen but he is feared by all, especially  professional grass cutters and the Gang Land finance people.

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Maracas Bay Trinidad Photos – 2010

I don’t go to Maracas often enough and after many false starts during the last twelve months, I finally went in January.  The shark and bake was  drooling-good as always and the prices now seem stable and as affordable as KFC. I will say this again, do not kill a shark and bake with too many extras as you will miss the whole point of the dish.

I took a few photos of the beach but decided that there were only ten I cared to share.  It was a hazy day with only a few people on the beach so early on a Sunday morning close to Carnival. This meant bikinis were in short supply as they were still asleep in their owner’s draws. This was my first outing where I tried my Sigma 28–300mm F3.5-6.3 DL lens. It’s an ok lens that won’t break the bank or reveal too much bikini detail when stretched to 300mm. The Sigma is a finicky auto-focus lens which is nice to walk around with by the beach or possibly even on Carnival days. I haven’t had the time to use the Sigma too much but when I do (I used it on Carnival Monday) I will post photos for inspection, if not admiration. Click for Maracas Bay photos.

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M. Night Shayamalan’s The Last Airbender

“You are the last of your kind, all that remains of a once powerful nation” ~ from The Last Airbender

For the Summer of 2010, or as we in Trinidad and Tobago are fond of saying, for The Rainy Season, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies will release M. Night Shayamalan’s latest flick, The Last Airbender.  The movie was originally called Avatar: The Last Airbender which is the name of the animated TV series the movie is based  but after James Cameron rushed and named his movie Avatar, the production houses dropped Avatar from the name in order not to have Cameron ride Shayamalan’s back for free. Shayamalan’s Last Airbender stars Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel, Cliff Curtis, Nicola Peltz, Randall Duk Kim, Jessica Andres and many more too numerous to cut and paste into this bog post. The movie is not without controversy as the original TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender “is set in an Asian-influenced world of Chinese martial arts and elemental manipulation” but the movie’s cast is mainly white. This angered pro-Asian people and I suppose the movie was made to make money more than anything.

The Last Airbender is opening on the 4th of July weekend in the US and was recently promoted with a high-price TV ad spot during the Superbowl . I am not sure what the production cost is for The Last Airbender but it looks like quite a few million dollars US but less than the cost of one Chinese  NAPA. Unlike NAPA, The Last Airbender seems set to be enjoyed by millions plus make some money.

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Maxim Models

Maxim is a magazine for men containing women but not just any women but women who are role models for other women. Maxim models are famous for knowing many things, especially how to bend for the camera. This feat of bending while starving to stay slim has earned them more money in a day than the average male spends on beer in a lifetime. The women who have been lucky enough to have made it to Maxim are a combination of celebrities and those girls in the gym next door.

There is something about being adored by millions of men every month, which attracts attractive women to want to pose for Maxim. Maxim is not like Playboy so it doesn’t encourage magazine nudity in most countries. Maxim magazine is now published in the US, UK, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, India, Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, Israel, Belgium, Romania, the Czech Republic, France, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, and Portugal. The women’s equivalent to Maxim is probably Better Homes and Gardens.

Men all over the world are the same and are attracted to the shape of shapely women. Maxim provides men with all the information they can understand about women in pictures. Maxim speaks the universal male language known as sexy in most countries and hotness in others. Some women consider the male obsession with looking and drooling over nearly nude, sexy women to be disgusting but most men are quite happy with this.

I doubt there will be a Maxim Trinidad and Tobago because local men don’t spend money on women on paper. We prefer the real women though that can also cost paper.

Mandira Bedi

Mandira Bedi

Rihanna

Alice Goodwin and Bianca Knight

Amrita Rao

Bar Refaeli

Charlize Theron

Maxim Models Sexy Wallpaper

Maxim India audition

Maxim Model

Maxim Model

Olga Kurylenko

Priyanka Chopra

Rihanna

Maxim Girls

Freida Pinto

Trinidad and Tobago – Running on Empty

I yawned last night when the news on all local TV stations reported that the police, famous for being loyal to our incorruptible leader, raided UDeCOTT offices, Sunway International’s offices and the home of Calder Hart, possibly looking for remnants of The Treasury. They did this after months of intense investigations – the AG claimed the investigations started since September last year but it appears nothing was done until the suspect fled the country maybe on a tipoff from one in the know. From what I saw on TV, the investigators wore shirt jack suits and detained some Dell and Lenovo PCs, a few external hard drives and laptops probably sporting quad and dual core processors. The police will probably find nothing but some local and foreign pornographic photos, a few good Malaysian jokes, family photos of long lost relatives and very little about churches or bank accounts. Even I don’t leave that kind of thing lying around my hard drive.

This raid was very entertaining and caused the press and print media to squeeze as much mileage from the recent government orchestrated stage show featuring loyal supporters of the God of the Government. The media however missed the most important piece of news to affect Trinidad and Tobago now and way into the future and that news is the money done. This report was pushed to page 10 of the Trinidad Express which says “BPTT Head: Natural Gas boom over.” Now, if a man like BPTT’s current head can face reality for a change and tell the public there will be no more easy money and we in Trinidad and Tobago must start to actually produce things the world wants  besides gas, oil and Chubby sweet drink, then things must be really bad. The Government knows this and many sensible people also know that the chances of getting their money from any failed insurance companies are getting dimmer by the second despite a bankrupt Government’s guarantee.

All these non-productive Port of Spain cosmetic projects, including the billion-dollar-fiasco-summits, have finally taken its toll on the country and all the money ain’t even done pass yet. The freeloaders appointed to cabinet are shaking in their shoes trying to justify their existence to the Prime Minister by nodding after every sentence the man utters, even when he is in a heightened state of delusion. I guess they must be suffering from his delusion as well.  A snap election is inevitable as more news of suspected financial wrongdoings is leaked to the public. Those contractors who had the foresight to milk the country dry before the downturn must be commended for their clear vision of the future. Hopefully they were smart enough to change their money into US dollars and bank it in Miami before our TT dollar floats away. I also hope they found the time and took those well-deserved European vacations. Hopefully, Citizens finally realize that God is not a Trini and he is extending the drought,  and WASA’s and UDeCOTT’s officials tenure just to prove this point.

Horning For Dummies

According to the Trini Dictionary the word horn or horning means to cheat on your spouse or lover, as in “She horning him like reindeer!” or as I like to say “He get more horn than a garbage truck on Frederick Street.”

Though horning in Trinidad and Tobago goes on quietly, and too frequently behind closed bedroom and office doors, the ones that make the public happiest are the ones taking place with celebrities. People were always entertained by celebrity-hornings but I think the resurgence in public interest started with the iconic golfer and horner-man, Tiger Woods. More recently, there were rumours that Sandra Bullock may have been a victim of her husband’s infidelity and the public shame made her suddenly cancel a public appearance in the UK. I can only imagine how difficult it was for Sandra Bullock to go on stage and accept an Oscar, which represented the panicle of her career, while knowing along with the world her husband had secretly enjoyed a different main course for desert. Naturally, her husband expressed regret and I suppose if he was not found out he would have little to regret.

In Tiger Woods’ case, he was the horner and in Sandra Bullock’s case she was the hornee. People would say being a hornee is harder than being a horner but I can only imagine the agony Tiger Woods must have endured over the last few months trying to figure out why horning is bad for endorsements.  There are many reasons why people horn but the only good reason is that people think they could get away with it. I don’t know anybody who is being horned or horning anybody and that might be because a good horn is always secret. Horning is not a good thing and should be avoided daily. Most hornings end up in disaster similar to  chewing a stiff piece of curried goat but unlike chewing stiff goat meat, a pressure cooker cannot help.

Swiffer Justice in Trinidad and Tobago

The citizens of Trinidad and Tobago have been hounding the Government down for years to provide swift justice but today, in Parliament, the Minister of Public Administration, on two occasions, clearly said the Government aims to provide citizens with Swiffer justice. The Minister, an educated man who worships Chinese tile floors the Prime Minister walks on, left citizens puzzled as he did not say how a device which cleans up to 50% more dirt, dust, and cat hair than a broom will improve the criminal justice system.

Hurricane Season Predictions 2010

An active Atlantic hurricane season is predicted for 2010 but this might not translate into productive rainfall for Trinidad and Tobago which will cause WASA, a proactive organization, to prepare a future press release claiming that though the country is constantly under flood water, the dams are still dangerously low so the country will have to invest billions on energy-hungry, corruption-resistant desalination plants which will feed those water leaks that will be maintained for  both cultural and financial reasons.

On the bright side, the drought of 2010 has Trinidad looking more and more like the Prime Minister – destroyed via stupidity. As part of the country’s 2020 vision for the Hurricane Season, more of Trinidad and Tobago will be under mud when it rains because citizens have been comforting themselves with soft drinks in plastic bottles and replaced those third world foam mattresses with developed nation status mattresses from Serta, Restonic and King Koil.  Though we have parts of Port of Spain looking almost first world with the Waterfront Project, garbage bins, and that other national pride, the analogue-ready NAPA, these building are like some beautiful women, good to look at but suck the treasury dry.

Sex and West Indies Cricket

It would seem that every West Indian batsman wants to be a hero and end up on the back page of Caribbean daily newspapers for their heroic batting deeds the day before. They do this because in the Caribbean, if you are perceived as a good West Indian cricketer, especially a batsman, you will get plenty woman. Some West Indian men get women with charm and a check book while others get women by appointing them as Government Ministers. But West Indian cricketers feel in order to get the best shaped women with firm bodies and looks that would kill even after these women have just woken up from a night of partying and group sex, batsmen have to score sixes and fours at the international level, regardless of the pitch and bowling. If you are a bowler, you have to take scores of wickets but batsmen are considered sexier than bowlers because a man swinging a good size piece of willow is sexier than a man throwing  a ball at stumps.

This egoistic sexual urge by the West Indies batsmen has been the downfall of West Indies cricket over the years. The average West Indian batsman makes easy things hard because they let their urge for sex override the common sense lobe of their brain and therefore they get out quickly and by their own hand. It is known as an unforced error. Some say it is the lack of discipline by West Indian cricketers and I suppose discipline can be considered the ability to dampen ones sexual urges while batting.

Some say the West Indies have the talent to beat any team but I disagree. To me talent is having skilful brains and a desire to win. So far, and for a number of years, most West Indies cricketers have displayed almost none of the attributes of talent so how can we beat any team.  Maybe we in the West Indies just don’t have cricket talent anymore but the public have failed to admit this. For West Indies cricketers with and without talent, cricket is a job not a passion. Talent and passion for the game of cricket beats ego and sexual desires any day.

The Integrity Commission Part 2 – Manning vs Rowley Again?

With the new Pro Max Integrity Commission about to be installed, the bets are on as to who the Commission will be instructed to target first. The public might be in for a surprise as the tangled web of corruption gets tangled even more. Maybe the people handpicked by Pro Max and his consultants will be people who will not be easily hounded out of office like the last set.  I am sure once the media smell another Pro Max rat, it will be hound dog country again. With Pro Max being a man who talks strong but acts like a weakling, the public is very skeptical about anything Pro Max touches. We can only pray in Guanapo that the new commissioners have the necessary balls of integrity to resist the temptations of flavorous granted by the Master.

We ain’t nothing but hound dogs and we like it so

Hounding – to pursue with or as if with hounds ~ Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Trinidad and Tobago is a democratic country where the Government is voted into office and voted out of office by a population who believes manna will fall from Heaven via the Government. In extreme circumstances, when a Government behaves in a hostile and arrogant manner towards the public for a number of years , a Government can be hounded into shame and out of office.  Sometimes Government appointed public officials who enjoy the protection and praise of the Government even after strong evidence points to them doing wrong with the public’s purse, are hounded out of office and into high-priced condos in Miami. In recent times, Government Ministers who are fond of behaving arrogantly and using bullying tactics against the population have spoken out against the principle of hounding because these Ministers are shaking in their boots and high-heels. These Ministers are now widely viewed as being corruption supporters and idiots whereas previously they were simply know as idiots.

The principle of hounding is as old as the hound dog itself and was developed in democratic countries as a tool to prevent democratic leaders from pulling wool over people’s eyes for an extended period of time. Hounding is a form of empowerment and sometimes the only tool the public can use to get redress from oppressive democratically elected leaders who think during their elected period they could mash up the place and build in Guanapo as they see fit. Without the ability to hound, a democratic society might as well become a dictatorship and subject itself to the rule of an Attorney General whose brain and eyebrows are clearly on the dotish side.  Hounding is an essential tool used in democratic countries to keep a country free from oppressive, insane and sometimes, stupid people. Taking  away people’s ability to hound public officials out of office is like taking away people’s ability to wine on Carnival days.

You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog
Cryin’ all the time
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog
Cryin’ all the time
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit
And you ain’t no friend of mine

From the song Hound Dog, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

Under CONstruction

Maybe we in Trinidad and Tobago are Australian in nature and that is why we believe in the Kangaroo Court while the Government just like to cover up with construction dust and derelict Government Ministers.

I doubt very much that Mr. Hart will be arrested, much less found guilty of any wrong doing because the rumor is he has many files he will buss if they push him too far – we live in the land of rumors about escape clauses. It is heartening to know that Independent Bob is once again on the case but what Independent Bob finds may remain with those who have plenty to lose. All these investigations are an attempt by the Government to say to the public “We are on top of corruption” and I don’t disbelieve them for a second. What I find strange is that everybody had an idea that things were not right at UDeCOTT years ago except the Government who sang, and still sings praises to UDeCOTT all the way to Malaysia and back.  These announcements about criminal investigations are designed to save face and to distract. What the kangaroo-loving public must remember is that they should always keep their eyes on the real ball though that ball might still be under construction, or else the public might get shanghaied.

The Fall of a True Family Man

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done

Kenny Rogers – The Gambler

So, another alledged family man has bitten the Trinidad and Tobago dust. Like the Street Lighting God, he didn’t bite it voluntarily or with a smile, but he bit it like the sun and in a way, by the bullying forces of the press and the politicians.

Our local newspapers and those opposed to the tall and sometimes Chinese direction the country was heading, decided to gang up on a man who was legally here and banish him from the country; away from both persecution and prosecution. A man, who by his own assessment, did the country proud by ensuring his boss’s will be done on time and within padded budget. A religious man who collected offerings on behalf of his boss has left, not only the buildings, but the country.

The ink on his resignation letter has not even dried and people are already worried, asking “who dey goe put?” But as Beyonce is fond of saying in song, he is Irreplaceable. Some say they will pray for him in Gunapo while others say we will now get water. Some sick people concluded that the problem at the hospitals will suddenly be solved and doubles will miraculously once again cost $2.00. Almost overnight, traffic into Port of Spain will flow smoothly and without any harsh words aimed at the Arrogant  Shortsighted Defender of Government Stupidity. There will be no more tall buildings in the country, not because the builder resigned, but because de money done.

Oh Fook, dat is you?

People are jumping to conclusions and assuming that Harty did something wrong by awarding a contract to a company where it is alleged that at least one “director” is his relative. But what people must remember is that relatives are a relative thing. I don’t see why people are assuming Harty gone to jail already since ignorance of a relative is not a crime and sometimes a blessing. Here are some questions that will have to be answered to get Harty off the hook of the newspaper kangaroo court.

a)      Is it reasonable to expect Harty to know all his family?

b)      Is it reasonable to expect Harty to know all his wife’s family.

c)       What proof does anybody have to suggest Harty awarded a contract to a certain company because there was a family link?

d)      I don’t know all my relatives and that is probably a good thing. Harty will claim, like aka_lol, he also doesn’t know all his family as he was so busy building things over the years.  When confronted with the evidence Harty will simply shout in excitement “Oh Fook, dat is you. Ah diden make yuh out when ah see the list of directors on the bid nah?”Or something like that. Case dismissed.

e)      PM PM will simply say “if Harty don’t know he own family, you expect me to know?”

As for PM PM and the Shanghai church, that too will blow over and here is why.

(a)    Shanghai may have decided to give a little something back to society in the form of a church not a cash kick-back that is customary in our country. So all yuh doe like church now? Persecution!

(b)   A contractor decided to pave a little road to heaven with asphalt, so what? People have given away billions to various churches so what if a good contractor decided to give the master a little asphalt in a remote part of the country.

(c)    I don’t know about T&TEC, WASA, and Town and Country but if you dig deep enough you might find several cases where these Government people decided to help God with his flock by bending over backwards in the back of nowhere. So you want them to break down a church in the advanced state of construction because of why? So allyuh doe like God or what?

(d)   The method or woman  PM PM use to lift up his Spirit is his business.

I am not overjoyed by the latest development as nobody as yet found any hidden bank accounts with unaccounted for money belonging to PM PM. Until such time, it is only entertainment as usual.

Flow and Directv in Trinidad and Tobago – Video Quality etc

Presently, Flow Trinidad has much better Standard Definition (SD) picture quality than Directv in Trinidad and Tobago because Directv uses more signal compression that Flow. Compression of TV signals is what it sounds like and can be compared to having a box that can hold 10 bags of flour and you want to put 13 bags in it. To get all 13 to fit,  you will have to squeeze (compress) the bags of flour.  After the bags are squeezed to fit some bags may burst and all will become distorted resulting in a disgruntled chef or housewife. The grocer will only care if customers refuse to buy the flour, otherwise he is peddling a defective product  to unsuspecting customers. People assume the term digital quality means something better than average but in Directv Trinidad’s case it is even worse than watching local TV picked up with a properly installed rooftop antenna.

Over-compression is what Directv Caribbean and Latin America (Third World Edition) is suffering from and feel they can get away with this because of the typical thinking that Third World People are not only stupid, but cannot appreciate quality. They are so wrong.  Directv has only a limited amount of satellite space to fit the the multitude of channels their Latin American and Caribbean customers want so they have decided to compress channels beyond the limit of looking good to make that extra dollar. On a 27-inch low-resolution CRT TV the Directv video looks average but on a 50-inch plasma, Directv’s SD picture is not acceptable.  However, from a recent demo, Directv’s sprinkling of High Definition (HD) channels looks great but the SD channels may make you want to pick up a book and read instead.

Dr Yagi and his invention, the Yagi TV antenna

Another serious Directv problem is that customers are not able to view local channels via their satellite dish and instead have to concoct a solution that is extremely frustrating to use compared to Flow’s just-click-and-it’s-there solution. In some cases, Directv’s local channel solution is costly to implement and kept a secret by the installers. From what I saw of the Directv Plus HD DVR receiver, their is no VHF tuner which is a big design bungle, as far as I am concerned,  but the receiver (HR22 I think) has HDMI, optical audio and coax audio outputs – a high-tech device being fed with low quality inputs.

I couldn’t find out if Directv has any plans to address the poor quality video and local channel issues but with Blink Entertainment Cable TV from TSTT soon to be launched with a superior and more affordable channel lineup, it is something Directv must do immediately to survive. Until I am convinced Directv can provide a superior service and quality  product as they claim, I will stick with Flow and consider Blink.

Sorry Directv Trinidad and Tobago, you can’t cut it just yet.

WASA – Still Bathing in their own mess

Here we go again!

Trinidad and Tobago took one step closer to becoming a Police State a couple of days ago  when WASA announced they will be calling the police to arrest citizens who WASA suspects are wasting water. People like housewives, farmers and generally, people who over soap themselves while singing in the shower. Fortunately for citizens, it is the same police who can’t even ketch dey breath after a nap. I think WASA is doing the right thing as now we might actually see police on patrols and the real criminals caught. What WASA did not say was if the police was also going to arrest the WASA officials who refused to fix leaks over the last few decades and still continue to refuse to acknowledge leaks  exist simply because their leak inspectors and supervisors prefer to work in rum shops and malls. Are the WASA officials who glorify the statistics to look good on TV also going to be arrested? Are the officials who will give fast-tracked-due-to-water-crisis contracts to “friends” be arrested? I hope the Minister is keeping a close eye on this deliberately created crisis-for-opportunity.

The only way the water crisis will be solved in Trinidad and Tobago is if WASA starts randomly using the breathalyzer, curry duck and integrity detectors on selected employees. Until such time, more than half of the country’s water will continue to go down drains  and destroy people’s properties in the dry season. Until WASA empower the powerless messengers at their complaints centre, the country is doomed to die from other people’s  preference for getting paid to lime whole day by the riverside.

The situation is serious. WASA is still not.