Law enforcement and justice in South Africa continue to falter

What is it with South African law enforcement and justice, that they so much want to emulate the same in Zimbabwe?

I read a blog post about continued "jail raping" of white "offenders" that are thrown in holding cells together with hardened black criminals who then gang rape these white "offenders." It is absolutely sickening to see what is happening and how our own law enforcement people (aka police) could become such vile criminals themselves to allow this to continue in police holding cells.

Next, I read a news article at Independent-Online of a woman who thought that she could be hijacked, who ended up being beaten by a traffic officer in front of the police at a local police station! The sad thing is that this is not an isolated case. The problem with this scenario in South Africa is that many in the police see their job as a way to collect a salary. It is just another job! They don't have any honour in the execution of their duties! The problem with these thugs is that they think they are the law instead of upholding the law and protecting the citizens of this country.

Does the South African government know about these offenses happening under their noses? Or, should I rather ask, do they care? When considering the government's track record in fighting crime since the ANC took over in 1994, the answer is undoubtedly "NO!"

These thugs that are supposedly our police force, should be fired, and should be charged against every possible law that they broke during these events, from gross human rights violations to physical assault. But, will that happen? Dream on!

This government and their paid thugs are sowing to their own reward, and they WILL reap what they have sown! The question is, will they realize this before it is too late and standing before the Great Judge of heaven, Jesus Christ?

Read More......

Being ridiculous about 2010 Soccer World Cup

This is probably the most stupid, ridiculous, pathetic thing I've seen. I hate crime in South Africa just like anyone living in South Africa, unlike the ANC and its leaders in government!

And don't think I do not hate crime. Here's my list:

• 2 Nieces' cars stolen from them at gun point in 2 separate instances.
• 1 Niece raped by a thug.
• 1 Uncle murdered in his home.
• 1 Cousin murdered.
• 1 Car stolen from our home.
• 1 Break-in into our house and goods stolen.

Believe me, I hate crime with a passion, but to try to get people to buy kevlar vests when coming to watch the 2010 soccer, is simply ridiculous and it is making South Africa look like a war zone! Millions of South Africans drive to work and back in peace with no incidents whatsoever, apart from the many morons driving on our roads!

Read More......

Skype and other phones

Is there anyone here that uses Skype?

I think I have used Skype for real calls as much as 5 times in the past 5 years. All business calls. To me it is just another phone, and I hate phones. I use a phone only if I really have to. I certainly do not use it as a socializing device. I find it very restrictive and it puts me at the mercy of the one that called me. That is why I have instituted a call-answering policy (CAP).

When using a cell phone, the number of the one that calls me is usually displayed on my phone. If your phone is set not to send that information through with your call, it displays as "Private" when that call gets through to me. Some phones display "Unknown" or "Withheld" and some display "Private." My CAP is that if a call comes through to my phone with the originating number withheld, I simply do not answer that call. So, as soon as a call comes through to my cell that displays "Private" I shut it down. The reason I do this is that at some point I started getting many spam calls, so-called marketing calls. I got tired of having to interrupt these people within the first 10 seconds and asking: "Are you trying to sell me something?" "Umm, yes?" "I am really not interested. Have a good day! Goodbye!" This became the norm for several months. So I simply stopped answering calls made from phones that do not send the originating number through. I could set my previous phone not to answer calls like this. It was great. My current phone cannot do it. Pity!

I read Joel Stein's piece in the Time magazine (January 18, 2010) today called "Call Me! But Not on Skype or Any Other Videophone."

Talking about video calls, Stein writes: "In fact, even though Skype is the only one of all the cool gadgets that cartoons promised me would exist by 2010, people don't seem nearly as excited as they should be. Only 34% of Skype calls even use video. And when Skype announced on Jan. 5 at the Consumer Electronics Show that we'll soon have videophones on our televisions, everyone went right back to talking about which booths gave out the best key-chain lights."

I remember when Skype first became the hype, I was very excited. It seemed like the answer to Telkom and cell phone hell here in South Africa. Making calls in South Africa are expensive, so Skype became a delight. However, the reality of it became apparent very quickly as we started running out of bandwidth using Skype over the internet. In South Africa we pay dearly for the internet bandwidth we use. Expensive is actually just a euphemism for we pay for our bandwidth in this country! So, beware internet prices when you come to South Africa for the 2010 soccer world cup! In the end, we do pay for that Skype call via our expensive internet rates. So, while Skype is the only gadget that lived up to the promise of the cartoons, I am certainly not excited about it at all!

I find Stein's article very funny, but also very true! He really nails it on the head for me.

Read More......

ANCYL wants more to be educated

ANC Youth League (ANCYL) spokesman Floyd Shivambu said that South Africa's educational system is not adequate enough to serve the country's skills development needs.

Of course, this is once again the old mantra of the ANC youth league, "Gimme, gimme, gimme!" Of course, it has nothing to do with the ABBA song. ANCYL thinks that since the ANC is running the country, that they should simply use public money all over the place to educate their cadres! Because, as this happens again and again, whenever ANCYL or even the ANC wants something for the citizens of this country, what they really mean is that they want it for those that are ANC/ANCYL members. I have heard so many times from people that I have spoken personally with, that they were turned away just before the final hurdle in job hunting merely because they were members of non-ANC parties. This scheme will once again be a way of keeping public education within ANC circles, using taxes paid for by the ordinary man in the street.

ANCYL must think that South Africa is rolling in the dough. In the U.S.A. the average in tuition fees at the top 18 universities is around R277,500 ($37,000) per annum. In England it works a bit differently, but there it comes to around R38,700 (£3,225) per annum.

Year	U.S.A.	England
1	R2,775,000,000	R387,000,000
2	R5,550,000,000	R774,000,000
3	R6,325,000,000	R1,161,000,000
4	R9,100,000,000	R1,548,000,000
TOTAL:	R23,750,000,000	R3,870,000,000

The above table shows what it would cost South Africa the first 4 years. Almost R24,000,000,000 in the U.S.A. and R4,000,000,000 in England! After the first 4 years, it will cost South Africa R36,400,000,000 per four years in the U.S.A. and R6,192,000,000 in England for those 4 year periods. This is assuming there are no fee increases over those periods. These exorbitant amounts of money are only for tuition fees and do not include the living expenses of the student! From the start of the 4th year of this program, South Africa will be forking out between R1,514,000,000 and R9,100,000,000 per annum.

According to a News24 report, ANCYL wants this "scholarship [to] take care of all the students' needs, including transport, accommodation, tuition fees, food and a monthly stipend." This could essentially double, and in some cases triple the amount spent on each student that the taxpayers would be paying for! This means that tax payers will pay between R3,028,000,000 and R4,542,000,000 per annum for South African students to study outside of South Africa! This amount excludes studying in the U.S.A.!

Apart from the already planned NHI tax, does this mean that if ANCYL gets its way we would get NET (National Education Tax)?

Does ANCYL really think that South Africa can afford to pay between 3 and 4 billion Rand per annum to send many undeserving kids into another country to study? What if these kids don't get their way over in FAR, FAR AWAY? Will they strike and burn down buildings and destroy property like they do here?

How many of those 10,000 kids that will be sent out on my hard earned money will actually make a success of it? What would be ANCYL's measure of success in this program? Who will be sent? Will students be sent based on skin colour (typical apartheid system) or on merit? Oh yes, merit to the ANC means having an ANC membership, doesn't it? How many of these students will actually qualify for entrance in those foreign universities?

Once again ANCYL shows that our country is in deep trouble if they are the barometer of the kind of leadership that they will provide to the country in the future. Their track record is against them: from a wood-working failure in Julius Malema and the nationalization of mines to this hare-brained educational scheme!

A country allowed to be ruled by fools will produce many more fools!

Read More......

Advertising sometimes says more than intended

HT: Dan Phillips

Read More......

Bank Irresponsibility

At a time when the world economy is in recession, and especially here in South Africa where we already have an economy that can certainly not be seen as one of the strongest by a long shot, banks should encourage people to save and not to extend themselves too far. Yet, banks in South Africa are encouraging people to live more in credit and to become bound to those banks! This is simply irresponsible!

First National Bank, one of South Africa's biggest banks, is currently having a competition, running between 15 Nov 2009 and 31 Jan 2010, through which a person can win back his weekly spend on his credit card up to a maximum amount per card category. To see how a person can win, see the graphic here below.

Based on the gold card category, if I am nuts enough (there are many such nuts out there), thinking that I could possibly win a week's spending back to a value of R6000, and I keep on trying, I could soon sit with a maxed out card with say, R40000 in debt. That means I bought stuff to the value of R40000 to win back R6000 and the bank owns me!

I know exactly what the bank would say. "You should know your limits! It is not our fault if you spend too much!" That is like telling a donkey not to over extend itself to get to the proverbial carrot on a stick. Many people are like that donkey, and while the bank holds out that carrot, the donkey will keep pursuing! Of course, FNB will not take responsibility for the donkey falling off a cliff while running after the carrot, which was held there by FNB, that was always just those few inches out of reach!

FNB, and other banks should be doing more to get people to save money and not to enslave them. That is essentially what FNB is hoping for, the enslavement of their clients! People will go out and swipe those cards more and more, ensuring FNB of a much longer period of higher income.

By having competitions like this one, FNB and other banks try to ensure its own long term existence without thinking what it does to the people they enslave through this unconscionable trap! The fact is that they are willing to give away R220000 while they will be making millions via people having to pay back their credit card debt! SHAME ON YOU, FNB!

"The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender." - Proverbs 22:7

"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one." - Ben Franklin

Read More......

Global Warming Hysteria: coming for you this month!

Where do you think this AGW hysteria is leading to? BTW, AGW stands for Anthropogenic Global Warming, man-made global warming. To learn more about the global warming hoax being foisted upon the people of this planet, see my post of links on global warming here. Remember http://tinyurl.com/agwlinks, because this is where I keep adding more links to articles debunking the notion of AGW.

So, have you wondered about the question I posed at the beginning of this post? If AGW wins the day in Copenhagen and in similar meetings in the future, then the future for humanity will be sealed… extinction! And to wit, at the hands of humanity itself.

China has already spoken up concerning their fool-proof method for stemming the AGW tide… population control! Even now, there are voices from countries like Canada pointing to this same solution.

Wesley J. Smith, author of the blog Second Hand Smoke, featured at First Things, highlighted the call for this solution to population control:

Global Warming Hysteria: The Potential for Tyranny
Global Warming Hysteria: The Potential For Tyranny 2

So, will you be standing first in line to show your commitment to the "cause," or will you rather keep standing against the tyrannical hysteria of the AGW proponents?

Read More......

Medical fraternity in South Africa may just destroy your life!

Without saying anything, I want you to visit these links which deal with the medical fraternity in South Africa and the care you could expect from them.

Mom dies in hospital "mistake"
Medical waste dumped in yard
Medical waste burnt at office
Wrong op costs baby her legs
Baby maimed during labour

These are just a few of the horror stories in South Africa.

Now this is not what it is like at every hospital and all doctors' rooms. There are some brilliant doctors out there and some really good hospitals, but the scenarios above are becoming all too common!

Could this be one result of affirmative action? I would like to see some statistics on this.

Read More......

Driving in South Africa - Pt 4

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 if you haven't yet.

What is it with South Africans and the right-hand lane?

Here in South Africa, since we drive on the left-hand side of the road as in England, the right-hand lane is considered the fast lane, unlike in countries like the U.S.A. where it is the complete opposite.

In this country, people just love the fast lane, even if they are slow drivers. What is it with that? Why is it that on our highways, where our speed limit is mostly 120km/h, there are always several cars travelling at 100km/h or less… in the fast lane?

The problem with this is that it causes problems with traffic flow. The end result of this, especially on busy highways is a major traffic jam on the highway. There is a definitive concertina effect on busy highways when slow cars pop up in the fast lane, eventually leading to complete stops.

Remember, here in South Africa the rule is: "Keep LEFT, pass RIGHT!" Click here for more South African rules of the road.

Another thing that keeps popping up, is people who know that they accelerate slowly will stop in the fast lane at traffic lights or stop signs. Then, when the light turns green, these people will accelerate at the speed of a coral reef! I see that so often when approaching a red traffic light and there are perhaps 2 cars waiting at the light in the left-hand lane. The next person to arrive is really slow, but insists on stopping in front in the right-hand lane. Of course, the people arriving after this assume that the right-hand lane would be quicker with acceleration.

What a surprise to find out that old Mrs. Coral Reef is standing in the front of the fast lane! Apart from messing with traffic flow, this also causes people to get upset with either getting away to slowly, or even being denied getting across the green light because Mrs. Coral Reef was to slow in the front, not letting more people make it across the green light.

Another thing is that many South Africans love sitting in the fast lane playing police man. They will refuse anyone to pass in the right-hand lane that is going faster than the allowable speed. There are others, going slow in the fast lane, who simply do not care and will sit there as if it is their right to stay in that lane.

If each of us drives where and like we are supposed to, we would all have a more pleasant driving experience. By being selfish, we cause others to be unhappy on the road, and at times it becomes so bad that road rage is the end result.

Here is an interesting page called Slower Traffic Keep Right. Of course, if you are from South Africa, read "left" for "right" and "right" for "left!" Wherever this site mentions left, you should read "right" and vice versa.

So, for safe driving in South Africa
(especially you South Africans)

Next, Part 5.

Read More......

Use tr.im to see how many follow your shortened links

I have just started using Tr.im for shortening web page links on my Twitter and Facebook accounts. What I like about Tr.im is that I can see how many clicks I get on a link that I shortened and sent on. Simply open a free Tr.im account, and use it to shorten links while logged in. Then use that link in Twitter or Facebook or your blog (anywhere really) and you will be able to see how many clicks you got on that link. The following screen capture shows three links that I shortened and the results within an hour of sending them out.

Read More......

Education in South Africa is in trouble

The following graphic comes from the You magazine, 19 November 2009. It makes one think, doesn't it?

Read More......

Gauteng gets new vehicle number plates

As it goes in South Africa, the government (whether provincial or national), always finds ways to make more money from its citizens. That is how it seems with the new number plate scheme.

The blue BB00BB GP plates are the standard issue plates. The black PB00BB GP plates are most likely for police services. The green HEITA GP is for personalized plates such as HOTROD GP. Finally, the red GB00BB GP plates are for government vehicles.

It is not that I am against new number plates, since Gauteng will run out of numbers by mid-2010 on its current BBB000 GP number scheme. Vehicles can keep their current numbers beyond that time, but they have to get those numbers re-stamped on the new metal plates. Even though the the new plates will be "equipped with a 2D barcode and a passive electronic chip," ostensibly for security and to stop falsification of plates, it still seems to be another money making scheme. It just would have been so much easier if only newly registered vehicles would be issued with these plates.

Read More......

100 Open Courses and 100 Audio Books

A while ago Amber Johnson sent me a link to "100 Awesome Open Courses for Bibliophiles." Here you will find all kinds of open courses to do online. They have courses on literature, foreign literature, linguistics, books and manuscripts, poetry and drama, ancient texts, non-fiction and more.

I also saw that Dan Phillips wrote a note on "100 Free Audio Books You Should Have Read By now." Here you will find audio books from the UK, Europe, classic mysteries and thrillers, biographies and autobiographies, children's literature and poetry. Have you ever wanted to read Moby Dick? You can listen to it now! What about The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin? It is there too! You will find Black Beauty, The wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, The Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen and even History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol I by Edward Gibbon.

Go, educate yourself! Go, read!

Read More......

Are these pictures photoshopped?

For more of the same, click here.

Read More......

Famous pictures manipulated

Pictures we see in magazines and newspapers aren't always what they seem. See the following two pictures.

Now visit Amazing Facts for the other 9 famous pictures that were manipulated!

Read More......