Barbados Advocate Deliberately Erases The Past – “Disappears” Water Park Article!

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”

“And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became the truth.”

… from George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (pages 78 & 37)

Barbados Advocate Removes Caribbean Splash Water Park Article

The Barbados Advocate has removed an online article that quotes Matthew Kerins – the developer of the doomed Caribbean Splash Waterpark – as saying that he has “invested” some $2 million dollars in Barbados waterpark project, and if he cannot do it he would have to walk away from the $2 million …

“And I feel that I have already invested $2 million of my money without an approval. If the Government decides for me not to do this project then I lose $2 million and I walk away”

… Matthew Kerins, developer of the ill-fated Caribbean Splash Waterpark proposed for Barbados. (Note: Mr. Kerins is on record in a few places explaining that this is US$2 million – but this was the exact quote from this particular newspaper article)

On July 12, 2006, BFP reader Hants filed this comment and directed everyone to the Barbados Advocate article at this URL …

http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/NewViewNewsleft.cfm?Record=26811

Last week, Cliverton was clicking through some old BFP posts researching another waterpark post and he discovered that the Barbados Advocate waterpark article that Hants referred to in his comment had been removed.

“Isn’t that interesting?” thought Clive, and he took a closer look at The Barbados Advocate.

What Cliverton found is straight out of George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Barbados Advocate has deliberately set up it’s website to conceal all past writings from the public.

The website of the second largest newspaper in Barbados is designed to erase the past!

We’ve heard rumours about the destroyed paper archives at The Barbados Advocate, and what we discovered shows an obvious intent to ensure that no member of the public is able to dig into the historical record and, for instance, quote what some government offical or politician said on such and such a date in the newspaper.

The Barbados Advocate does not allow the public to search it’s online archives … AND … it has blocked Google and other search engines from crawling it’s website and including the results in replies to online search queries.

For The Barbados Advocate, The News Is Only What Is Convenient For The Moment.

If what they have written is later found to be inaccurate, an outright lie or evidence of an agenda – well, the proof has already been disposed of.

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”

What Foul Intent Is This?

Our blog, the Barbados Free Press, has a “search” box that allows anyone to search any word in our archives and pull up any article we’ve written. We also allow the public to access our archives on a month by month basis, or to search for all articles that are “tagged” in various categories, such as “Africa”, “Environment”, “Politics & Corruption” and the like.

Similarly, anyone can search the archives of The Nation News or the Broad Street Journal and read past articles for free. This is pretty standard stuff. Virtually all newspapers these days allow the public to access their archives and read entire articles either for free or on a fee system. For many newspapers like The New York Times, the online archives provide a significant revenue stream.

This is not high technology. In fact, Google will catologue any website for free and provide a search engine – for free. All one has to do is to insert a bit of code into the website’s homepage. Millions of websites use Google’s little search box because it works, and… it’s free.

The Barbados Advocate has no search function on its website. In fact… The Barbados Advocate blocks Google and other crawlers from making a daily record of it’s articles.

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”

Barbados Sanitation Service Authority – “Friends Are Coming, Let’s Clean This Place Up”

January 29th – Get Rid Of Old Appliances, Mother-In-Law etc.

We received this press release from the Sanitation Service Authority about a big pickup of appliances and other large items – to happen on Monday, January 29th. We think it is wonderful that the SSA is taking a lead in cleaning up before our Cricket World Cup guests arrive – but we wish that the government would fund them well enough to continue the effort over the entire island.

Like your mama used to tell you… there’s the kind of person who cleans up only when they know that company will be arriving soon – and then there is the kind of person who keeps their home clean all the time.

Oh well, it’s a good start. Let’s hope that the SSA will continue to clean up even after Cricket World Cup is finished…

(Kind of interesting how the government sends us their media releases when they would like some quick help getting the word out on something, hmmmm?)

IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE: Removal of Bulky Waste Items in New Orleans & Pickwick Gap Areas

The Sanitation Service Authority in association with the Black Rock Polyclinic is removing bulky waste items from the New Orleans and Pickwick Gap areas only from Monday 29th January 2007.

Bulky waste items consist of old appliances like fridges and ovens as well as similar metallic items like galvanise as well as old furniture or other wooden or plastic items, etc. This clean-up is in keeping with Government’s wishes to make the Cricket World Cup a complete success.

These items are to be set near your regular refuse by no later than Sunday 28th January 2007 please separate your bulky waste items into wood and other items in one pile and another for only metal objects for collection by the Sanitation Service Authority.

The following areas only will undergo the bulky waste clean up – 1st & 2nd Ave New Orleans; as well as 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th & 10th avenues of the Orleans – in addition to Pickwick Gap itself along with 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th avenues of Pickwick. All residents from these districts are urged to place your separated wood and metal objects outside your homes by no later than Sunday 28th January 2007.

The actual cleansing of such items from the Orleans and Pickwick Gap areas starts Monday 29th January 2007.

Cricket World Cup Visa Problems – Pakistan Fans Told To Send Passports To India!

“It’s like telling the Americans to send their passports to Iran.”

From our “What The Heck Were They Thinking?” files…

… and also note the headline “Pakistan Joins In the World Cup Visa Chaos”

Pakistan Joins In The World Cup Visa Chaos

Pakistan fans facing visa problems for World Cup

Cricinfo staff

January 25, 2007

If Australian and New Zealand fans thought they were facing problems in obtaining visas for the World Cup in the West Indies, then they should spare a thought for their Pakistani counterparts. Anyone from Pakistan will have to apply to an embassy in India, a country with which relations are notoriously fragile, for visas to travel to the Caribbean.

According to Caricom guidelines, fans from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan must send their passports to the Trinidad and Tobago embassy in New Delhi, the Indian capital, to obtain special visas for all nine countries hosting the games of the March 13 to April 28 event. The exercise, for obvious reasons, is fraught with risk.

But negotiations are underway between the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Pakistani foreign office to get the visas issued in Pakistan instead. Ahsan Malik, PCB spokesman, told AFP, “There is a precedent that special visa arrangements were made for fans in the past.”

Citizens from the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland and South Africa are exempt from the visa requirement but supporters from major cricketing countries like India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka are not…

… read the rest of this article at CricInfo.com (link here)

Trinidad Jihad – al-Qaida Doesn’t Need A Visa To Attend Cricket World Cup

The Joys Of CARICOM: FBI Says al-Qaida Now In Trinidad

When the last cheers roll through the stands at Cricket World Cup in Trinidad, the police and other anti-terrorism groups might start to relax a little – but until then they won’t be getting much sleep. The threat, of course, is that Islamists will be trying to murder cricket players and spectators, which would bring them the most publicity they have seen in the Western Hemisphere since 9/11.

If you want to use violence to impose your religion upon the world as the Muslim terrorists do, it doesn’t work unless you get the publicity – and Cricket World Cup would provide lots of publicity.

So the anti-terror teams are nervous: because Trinidad would be a relatively easier target for Muslim terrorists than any other Cricket World Cup West Indies venue. Trinidad has a larger Muslim base than the other CWC countries, lots of guns floating around compared to say, Barbados – and the island already has a history of Muslim violence and jihad.

The anti-terror squads will be working hard throughout the Caribbean and they can’t afford to let their guard down anywhere – but it is Trinidad where they will really be sweating it out.

Our thanks to “P”, one of our readers working at a US-based investment firm, who sent us the following editorial from Investor’s Business Daily…

Jihad In Trinidad

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY (story link here)
Posted 1/23/2007

Homeland Security: There’s a lot of talk about al-Qaida safe havens in Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. But the FBI is closely watching a potential hot spot in our own hemisphere. Al-Qaida is suspected of having set up a front in the Caribbean island state of Trinidad, and sympathetic jihadists have already launched a movement there to replace Trinidad’s Westernized government with Islamic law.

The militant Muslim group Jamaat al-Muslimeen staged a bloody coup attempt in Trinidad last decade that involved the firebombing of police headquarters in Port-of-Spain. A rash of bombings over the past couple of years has been linked to the group, whose leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, recently was released from prison after claiming to be ill.

Local police had arrested him in 2005 after raiding his headquarters and seizing high-powered rifles, grenades, walkie-talkies and 700 rounds of ammo. He awaits trial for inciting religious violence and terrorism.

The number of Bakr’s followers is said to be growing, along with the number of kidnappings, murders and bombings in Trinidad. And fears are growing within the Department of Homeland Security and FBI that Trinidadian jihadists could train and export terrorists to strike the U.S.

Trinidad might be harboring the “next Mohamed Atta,” a college-educated, English-speaking Saudi native known within al-Qaida as “Jafar the pilot.” His real name is Adnan El Shukrijumah, and the FBI considers him “armed and dangerous.” He’s been connected to al-Qaida plots to attack America with dirty bombs.

Local papers report that Shukrijumah has stayed with friends in Trinidad, and worshiped at local mosques, indicating a possible cell exists there. U.S. authorities at Miami International Airport are closely monitoring inbound flights from that area.

The FBI’s Web site says Shukrijumah “carries a Guyanese passport but may attempt to enter the United States with a Trinidadian passport.”

Shukrijumah’s late father is Guyanese. He taught Arabic and lectured in mosques there and in Trinidad before moving to America to work for the Saudi Embassy and then run a small radical mosque in Florida (which was bankrolled by the former Saudi ambassador, according to Newsweek). Shukrijumah still has relatives in Guyana, which is near Trinidad.

So is Venezuela, headed by the anti-American thug Hugo “El Diablo” Chavez, who could ally himself with jihadists against their common enemy.

A jihad domino effect in our hemisphere isn’t far-fetched. If Fidel Castro dies, it would create a power vacuum in Cuba that could be filled by jihadists. Haiti also is vulnerable, and could fall to Islamists. U.S. authorities worry that Caribbean blacks have been targeted by al-Qaida for Islamic conversion and recruitment along with African-Americans. Though the majority of Trinidad’s population is Christian, its Muslim population is growing.

The communists tried to set up a beachhead in Grenada during the Cold War. We did not hesitate to stop them. Trinidad may not be the next Grenada, but we certainly can’t risk letting al-Qaida raise its black flag of jihad in our hemisphere.

Magician Elliott Smith At Barbados Limelight Cafe Friday – This Guy Is Good!

Robert Says “You Will Be Amazed”

Look. I know there is no “magic” – it is all “illusion” – and yet…

I saw Elliott Smith in a casino a couple of years ago, in Atlantic City, I think.

Some friends and I were sitting in the audience after dinner. No one had touched me – of that I am positive. Halfway through the show, Smith had one of my friends come on stage and do the old “pick a card” trick. My friend picked a card, put it back in the deck and then the card disappeared. My friend looked through the deck, couldn’t find it and we were all expecting Magician Smith to pull it from behind his ear or something.

The card was in MY pocket.

Me, sitting in the audience.

I know Smith got to me earlier in the evening. Somehow. But I’m equally sure that no one touched me. For the next few days, I just kept saying to myself, “There was no magic. It was all a trick. There was no magic….”

Magician Elliott Smith – Friday January 26 – Limelight Cafe

One Night Only

Caribbean Buffet and Magic Show BDS$100

(Kids under 12 – $50, under 6 eat FREE)

Reservations 435-9471

Limelight Cafe

Bridge House, Cavans Lane, Bridgetown

Dance To RED ALARM after the magic

Cricket World Cup – Cruise Industry To Profit More Than Hotels, Yet Barbados Subsidizing Most Profitable Cruise Line

‘… the cruise shipping industry stands to profit more from Cricket World Cup than hoteliers’

Allen Chastenet, Head of the Caribbean Tourism Organization & St. Lucia Minister of Tourism

It’s official.

These words would spoken yesterday (January 23rd) in an interview carried by Radio Jamaica with the Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation and Minister of Tourism for St. Lucia, Allen Chastenet. (Radio Jamaica story link here)

Speaking on the Beyond the Headlines programme, Mr Chastenet said several factors have contributed to the fall-off including the late implementation of the Caricom visa.

Yet our Government has stated it is borrowing nearly US$15 million to charter Carnival Destiny, which at least for a period of the hire will be moored in other islands.

It is time that Minister of Tourism, Noel Lynch, fully explained the justification to the Barbadian taxpayer.

The real possibility of empty hotel rooms and tourism industry workers not fully employed while ‘we’ subsidise the most profitable cruise ship company in the world!

Adrian Loveridge
24 January 2007

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