VI Ramblings

• What’s up with all of the suspicious fires on St. Croix?
• It’s kind of sad when statutory rape cases are a weekly offense.  What does that say of the frequency with which they happen?  At least this guy got convicted.
• Here’s a link to the 2008 VI Carnival schedule.  Anyone headed to Rock City?
• Skeletal remains were found on St. Croix.  This article doesn’t tell much about the case though.
• The Senate just passed a bill to improve customer service in the VI.  What took them so long?  I wish I could help establish these metrics.  Here are my top 3 suggestions: (1) Measure the average wait in line, (2) Measure the time representatives spend on personal calls - how many times have you been trying to get something done and someone was on a personal call?, (3) Create a customer service hot-line to report complaints.

I know I haven’t written in a while, but here are a few things I found interesting…

 VI Ramblings

Will Golden Gaming ever get the Great Pond project going?  This latest article casts more doubt on the St. Croix Wyndham.

Does anyone have any good ideas to help improve our tourism product?  The Department of Tourism may need your services.

There are Republicans in the VI.  Really.  Here’s proof.

Say goodbye to Leyon Sneed.  That was quick.

 Random Ramblings

 This one is too good to make up.  TSA screeners force a woman to remove her nipple rings…

 Is Elliott Spitzer Finnished?

How do you practice your marksmanship if you are shooting blanks?

Twins unwittingly got married in Britain

 LONDON - Twins who were separated at birth got married without realizing they were brother and sister, a lawmaker said, urging more information be provided on birth certificates for adopted children. A court annulled the British couple’s union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord David Alton said.

“Everyone has a right to knowledge about their lineage, genealogy and identity. And if they don’t, then it will lead to cases of incest,” Alton told The Associated Press during a telephone interview Friday.

Alton first revealed details of the unusual case last month during a five-hour debate about a bill that would change regulations about human embryology.

“I was recently involved in a conversation with a High Court judge who was telling me of a case he had dealt with,” Alton said according to a transcript of the Dec. 10 debate. “It involved the normal birth of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents.

“They were never told that they were twins. They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation.”

Alton gave no additional details and would not reveal the name of the judge who told him about the case.

The High Court’s Family Division declined to discuss or confirm Alton’s account about the twins.

Alton, an independent legislator who works at Liverpool’s John Moores University, said the siblings’ inadvertent marriage raises the wider issue of the importance of strengthening the rights of children to know the identities of their biological parents, including kids who were born through in vitro fertilization.

Under British law, only a mother has to be named on a birth certificate. Such certificates also are not required to identify births that result from IVF or to identify the sperm donor.

In addition, British law does not require parents to ever tell children that they were the result of donated sperm.

Alton believes this should be changed.

Alton said he favors an amendment to the Human Fertility and Embryology bill — which is still being debated in the House of Lords — that would require birth certificates of children born from donated sperm to say that and to identify the genetic father.

Referring to the twins’ case, he said: “If you start trying to conceal someone’s identity, sooner or later the truth will come out. And if you don’t know you are biologically related to someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur.”

This is by far one of the most crazy thing’s I’ve ever heard.  My mother has been telling me reggae music is bad for my health for some time now.  Who would have thought that she was right….

 FYI - the song is Temperature!

Another reason to be nice to cashiers.

 It’s about time they increased airlift to the Big Island.  Airfare prices to St. Croix have been ridiculous.

 Hopefully, Governor DeJognh’s second pick fares better than his first.

 This is huge news for STX and the VI.  Hopefully, it’s good news.

I found this pretty entertaining. 

 The quote about Barack is apalling:

 9. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” — Biden describing rival Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

 The quote from Sen. Larry Craig is hilarious:8. “(I have) a wide stance when going to the bathroom.” — Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig’s explanation of why his foot touched that of an undercover policeman in a men’s room.

No. 6 should have been number 1:

6. “There’s only three things he (Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani) mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.” — Sen. Joseph Biden, speaking at a Democratic presidential debate.

The recent posts were e-mailed to me in the form of a forward.  No link was provided, but it’s some pretty heavy stuff.  I think this is very bad publicity. 

 What do you think?

 Here are some posts that an employee at Ackley Media Group, Robert
Merrigan, has been using as responses to questions on Yahoo Questions.
This has transpired over the last couple of days. Of course Yahoo
Questions is viewed by people all over the country, event he world, and
this is what they get from people living here here in the Virgin
Islands? Well this guy is busted!!!!! He was busted because the web
site he created (link listed below) was linked to him as the owner and
author. His answers are in blue.

I am sure posting will anger the do gooders and propaganda perps for the
VI, and it will be reported, but I really need to get the truth out
there about this place.

Hilarious!  I would like to see the ten-year and twenty-year Net Present Value (NPV) calculations on this one…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071010/od_nm/newyork_husband_dc;_ylt=AlpnAhL7ZXUg3nVrfHXBi4wuQE4F

 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Deal or no deal? An online exchange between a woman looking for a husband who earns more than $500,000 a year and a mystery Wall Street banker, who assessed her potential for romance as a business deal, has cause quite an Internet stir.

The anonymous 25-year-old woman recently posted an ad on the free online New York community Web site Craigslist, http://newyork.craigslist.org/, appealing for advice on how to find a wealthy husband.

“I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all,” the woman, who described herself as “spectacularly beautiful” and “superficial,” wrote.

“I dated a business man who makes average around 200 - 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. $250,000 won’t get me to Central Park West,” she said, asking questions like “where do rich single men hang out?”

The mystery banker, who said he fit the bill, offered the woman an analysis of her predicament, describing it as “plain and simple a crappy business deal.”

“Your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity … in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!” the banker wrote.

“So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset,” he said. “Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!”

“It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease,” he said.

While the woman has since removed the ad from Craigslist, it — along with the response — has become a popular email joke that, bank JPMorgan Chase says, led to one of its bankers mistakenly being credited with writing the response.

Brian Marchiony, spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, said the banker did not write the response and that his email signature accidentally became attached to the ad and response when he forwarded it to friends and it then wound up on blogs.

Craigslist was not immediately available for comment, but a spokeswoman told The New York Times that “it does look as if the post was made sincerely.”

FYI. For those of you getting familiar with the blog idea, just click the highlighted text to be linked to news articles.

Plane crashes off of the STX coast.  A sad story for all involved.

It seems that people in the VI now have a reason to cheer for alternative fuels.  But let me get this straight, if ethanol is the fuel of the future, what does that make gas?  What does that mean for Hovensa?  I wonder.

What reason could anyone possible have for burning a classroom?  Unless, of course, they were students at that school.

Rash on the radio has a new gig.  This guy has to be the busiest man in the VI.  How many jobs is this now?

Random Ramblings 

Marion Jones has seen better times.  Not too long ago, she was sitting on top of the world.

Okay.  How stupid can you be?  I doubt many supermarkets allow their cashiers to keep $999,953 in their register.  You think it might be time to make a bank run?

Killing for pride is not an option, but killing for hunger is okay.

That was a very cruel Monday Night Football game.  Growing up in the VI and without a professional team of our own, I was unlucky enough to become a Bills fan.  You figure any football team up 8 points with 20 seconds to go should win the game, right?  Wrong.

FYI. For those of you getting familiar with the blog idea, just click the highlighted text to be linked to news articles.

Was anyone else really disappointed when they found out the subject of a nationwide manhunt was from
St. Croix. I was.

As if living in the VI wasn’t expensive enough.

Editor of Fortune on St. Croix. Very cool.

Who said unemployment was high in the VI. This guy is trying to quit his job and they just won’t let him.

Jeffrey Prosser in one word: Ballin’.

Another murder in the VI. The VIPD calls this a homicide. Really? Multiple stab wounds would seem to indicate that.

Random Ramblings

OJ. Wow. Seems like the guy got set up (seeing as how the guy that got robbed taped the whole ordeal). But if I had narrowly beat a murder charge, I don’t think you would catch me caught up in anything remotely close to armed robbery. RIP Johnnie Cochran.

I saw 3:10 to Yuma the other day. Great movie. Horrible ending. Anybody else seen it? Leave a comment.

So Kanye won his showdown with 50. Great! Now, all is right with the world. 50 a Republican?