You make an excellent point here.

Whatever makes you happy.

Most enlightening -thanks.

Anyone familiar with American history would know that most Americans (white, black or whatever colour) would rather die than give up their freedom.

Too many Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice in wars and other global conflicts starting with the American War of Independence for the right to live free. It's just culturally ingrained in patriotic Americans to live free or die.

I suspect many right thinking patriotic Bahamians would also rather live free than revert to the days when their freedom was either very limited or did not exist.

Time to move on Rashad.....you can only milk the news for your employer by telling it a limited number of different ways.

> Michael Maura stated: "They {the cruise ship companies} say The Bahamas is significant and strategic in their return to the water. They see themselves calling on The Bahamas first because of the three to four-day cruises, enabling them to offer two to three calls in the same itinerary, and with only one head (departure) tax needing to be paid.”

This guy should carefully listen to himself and ask, as a Bahamian: "Why on earth have our governments, both past and present, allowed these monstrous cruise ships to make as many as three calls on the same itinerary but only pay one head tax?"

The passengers on these ships should be paying a head tax for each and every port and island they call on in our country, including the smaller islands leased (hopefully not freehold owned) by certain of the cruise ship companies. And this head tax for each port/island called on should be in addition to the normal departure tax per head.

Perhaps most important of all though, Minnis and D'Aguilar really need to stop their sucking up to these very greedy cruise ship companies and start demonstrating that the Bahamas is no longer content for them to continue operating their greedy "all-inclusive" business models as they have done in recent decades. These cruise ship companies are notorious for their corrupt wheelin' and dealin' with corruptible elected and other senior government officials in order to get whatever they want. And prior to the Covid-19 crisis they were raking in record breaking huge profits year after year from the operation of their cruise ships in our seas.

Meanwhile we have stood by and watched our once thriving downtown Nassau district shrivel up and become a dirty rundown place with most shops now reduced to selling lower-end merchandise like cheap imported T-shirts and trinket souvenir items. It is well known that the cruise ship passengers are aggressively encouraged to spend the lion's share of their budgeted vacation money in the many shops and at the casinos on board the monstrous floating hotels while being feted and fed.

Minnis must make it known that there is a new sheriff in town and that the Covid-19 crisis has made his government acutely aware of the need to go about repositioning the Bahamas as a higher-end tourist destination. And for starters this will mean reverting back to the days when the cruise ships were prohibited from opening their shops and casinos while in our territorial waters.

*Repost:*

The problem here is that the Red China Virus anti-body test currently costs about $100 in the US and may not be fully reliable for quite sometime, i.e. the chance of a false-positive result remains much higher than it should be. Senior healthcare officials in the US are therefore presently recommending at least two, and preferably three, independent anti-body tests be done to ensure reliability of the findings. This means the current cost of being reliably certified immune in the US rises to about $300 per person. The total cost of everyone residing in the Bahamas being reliably tested for anti-bodies would therefore be about $115 million.

While the higher-end tourists arriving by air may be willing to pony up the additional $300 for a reliable immunity certificate prior to their arrival in the Bahamas, I seriously doubt the cheapskate cruise ship passengers would be willing to do so. Nevertheless the corrupt cruise ship companies (as well as the Nassau Cruise Port developers) are already putting big time pressure on both Minnis and D'Aguilar to allow their passengers to gain entry to our country on the basis of only an inexpensive pre-screening temperature test for fever. Of course that proposal is absolutely ludicrous and a complete non-starter given that super spreaders of the Red China Virus are usually asymptomatic, i.e. they are highly infectious but show no symptoms at all.

Don't expect Marvin Dames to offer the public an explanation.

The problem here is that the Red China Virus anti-body test currently costs about $100 in the US and may not be fully reliable for quite sometime, i.e. the chance of a false-positive result remains much higher than it should be. Senior healthcare officials in the US are therefore presently recommending at least two, and preferably three, independent anti-body tests be done ensure reliability of the findings. This means the current cost of being reliably certified immune in the US rises to about $300 per person. The total cost of everyone residing in the Bahamas being reliably tested for anti-bodies would therefore be about $115 million.

While the higher-end tourists arriving by air may be willing to pony up the additional $300 for a reliable immunity certificate prior to their arrival in the Bahamas, I seriously doubt the cheapskate cruise ship passengers would be willing to do so. Nevertheless the corrupt cruise ship companies (as well as the Nassau Cruise Port developers) are already putting big time pressure on both Minnis and D'Aguilar to allow their passengers to gain entry to our country on the basis of only an inexpensive pre-screening temperature test for fever. Of course that proposal is absolutely ludicrous and a complete non-starter given that super spreaders of the Red China Virus are usually asymptomatic, i.e. they are highly infectious but show no symptoms at all.

Ditto that @bahamianson. And @ThisIsOurs had better thank his luck stars that Minnis may well be more inclined to take his cue from Trump rather than Cuomo.

Like many, @Bonefishpete is fed up with the whole Red China Virus ordeal and just venting frustration in the form of sarcasm. Can't blame him for doing so.