South African education on the downgrade

With South African education as impossibly poor as it is, it seems that the ANC has found further measures to make it even worse! And with these measures, they will flood the job market with more people with absolutely no skills!

With our education as bad as it is, and our matric (Grade 12) pass rate as pitiful as it is, you would be forgiven for thinking that our education “authorities” would think of ways of making education stronger in this country!

However, Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, and her band of, dare I say “clowns”, think that it is better to simply let kids that are 15 leave school, thinking that this would address the country’s skills shortages. Leaving school after grade 9 would endow the child with a General Education and Training Certificate (GETC). The next step is for these kids to study at a Technical Vocational Education and Training College (TVETC). I probably don’t have to mention this, but I will anyhow. The GETC will only work if the TVETC is compulsory. Without it being compulsory, all that the ANC would be doing is to load our streets with more unemployed and homeless people, and this country has enough of that already!

The fact that there are educationists that are in favour of the GETC simply boggles the mind. In their educated minds, all that is necessary to win the confidence of prospective employers is that these grade 9 kids should write a credible exam! And then what? Employers will fall over their own feet to employ 15/16 year-olds who have written a credible grade 9 exam? That is absolutely foolish! Employers don’t think that our matric (Grade 12) exams are credible, yet these educated people think that a grade 9 exam will be credible; an exam that makes kids marketable in the job market?

We used to have technical colleges years ago, but these were closed down. Then Technicons came onto the scene, that provided diplomas in a more technical direction. Next thing, these technicons were all converted to universities to be more academic and inline with universities. And now they want to go back to TVETCs.

When will these people realize that their policies never amount to anything and that is why every five years or so, a new curriculum must be devised to replace the previous one, and so the downgrade continues!

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Republicans win senate, but this is not the time to gloat

In an article by the lovely Katie Pavlich, she quotes RNC chairman Reince Priebus as saying that winning the U.S. senate shows that the "American people have put their trust in the Republican Party."

While on the surface that may seem to be the case, I wonder if it isn't rather a case of the American people being sick of the way Democrats have run the U.S. into the ground! Perhaps, in their minds, anything is better than the Dems right now.

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Big government and jobs for the youth

Image courtesy Africartoons

The University of Cape Town (UCT) recently did some research for the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) which showed that 67% of South Africa’s youth believe that the government is the best way to earn a good living. Big brother has really done his job admirably to get the youth of the nation to the point of thinking that their chances are best when employed by the government!

The issue with this idea is that government should never be a nation’s primary job supplier. It simply cannot be. It is an entity that produces nothing! Unless, of course, the South African government moves over to a socialistic model, or even worse, communism. That is not very unlikely when it is considered that some of the ministers in government have strong ties to the South African Communist Party (SACP)! When the government becomes the biggest provider of jobs, it will have to raise taxes to be able to provide the salaries for those jobs. Since it produces nothing, raising taxes can only go so far before they will have to move over to a communistic model, meaning that private ownership, private businesses and more will come to an end, and the government will end up owning everything, producing everything and no-one will have the incentive to better themselves.

Government’s job is to govern, and to ensure that services are supplied that make running homes and businesses most effectively. Government must come up with policies that make it easy for businesses to grow and become job suppliers. When a government’s policies restrict businesses to become primary job suppliers and entrepreneurs to be successful, then it is failing in one of its primary purposes.

Big government is not a good idea, since a nanny state is not interested in the welfare of its people, but in how those people could be kept in line.

The kicker of the research done by UCT is the fact that 61% of the youth that were surveyed thought that starting your own business means that you have to work too hard to be successful. This already tells me that the youth are clearly in the pockets of this government even at this age. The government has already created a culture of hand-outs, and when a government starts giving something to people, to take it away later becomes almost impossible. Of course, the youth now expect the government hand-out policy to continue when it comes to jobs. Do they even realize that you don’t simply walk into a government office and get handed a well-paying job?

With this attitude in the minds of the youth, we have to turn to our education and wonder what they teach the kids in the state high schools. We already know that the quality of South Africa’s maths and science education is so bad that it places last out of 148 countries. That puts us behind countries like Haiti, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, etc. It is seriously not a stretch of the imagination to think that we do not do much better in other areas of our education.

With an education of this pathetic level. no wonder our youth think that the government is the best option as a provider of jobs.

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Porndemic: a quick book review

I have just written a review of the book, “PORNDEMIC: How the Pornography Plague Affects You and What You Can Do About It.”

You can find the review here. I thought that the book and the review is applicable at this blog too!

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Rape: Identity of a nation

South Africa, as the rape capital of the world once again shows why that is the case.

Just recently a 5 year old girl was raped at her school. . . , by three 7 year old boys! I know! You are probably shocked and rightly so! Should we surprised that something like this could happen in this country! No! If you are surprised then you have been living under a rock! Boys of 7 don’t learn to act like this in a vacuum. They learn this from what they see and hear.

Our nation truly is in a steep perverted decline and no-one seems to care! It is an environment created by the liberal policies of the ANC with regard to pornography and the death penalty. Murderers and rapists, if they are ever caught, get to live in our prisons at our expense. We, as the citizens of this country, become victims by proxy of these violent crimes when we have to keep on paying to house these criminals for many years. By 2010, South Africa had 132 rapes per 100,000 people. That put us at 40 rapes above the country second on the list of countries with the most rapes per capita. The U.S.A. were at only 27 rapes per 100,000.

It is time South Africa does something about this epidemic of Gomorrhic proportions. We can start by putting a stop to pornography in this country. Scores of rapes have been preceded in the hours before the crime by the viewing of pornography. We can start by educating ourselves, and this we can do by reading a book like PORNDEMIC: How the Pornography Plague Affects You and What You can Do About It.

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God votes ANC?

Image courtesy Mail&Guardian

Once again, it is the moron silly season here in South Africa. Which means that we are in election season. Parties make all kinds of claims concerning their plans to make South Africa a better place to live. Yet, none is as bold and crass as the claims of the ANC! These people once again claimed that they would rule till Jesus returns. However, they have made that claim a bit more edgy, as when President Jacob “Shower Head” Zuma said as reported by the Mail&Guardian, “Even God expects us to rule this country because we are the only organisation which was blessed by pastors when it was formed. This is why we will rule until Jesus comes back."

Many empires in the past have proclaimed their eternal existence with great boldness. All of those empires have ceased and are not simply stories in history books. The ANC would do well to learn from history, which they are obviously not very familiar with, and certainly do not know what happens to empires, and kings and despots that claim to be ruling for all eternity.

The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, viewed himself as this great and wonderful king, and was in awe of his own greatness.

“’All this happened to Nebuchadnezzar the king.  (29)  Twelve months later he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon.  (30)  The king reflected and said, “Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”  (31)  While the word was in the king's mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you,  (32)  and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.”  (33)  Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws.’” (Dan 4:28-33 NASB)

The complete passage can be read at BibleGateway.

The difference with the ANC is that they, in their own self created deep deception, actually believe that God is on their side. Little do they know that in God’s sovereignty, and in His providence He is merely using the ANC at this time as a tool to accomplish His purposes, certainly not because God is on their side. Once God has accomplished His purposes in using the ANC, He will discard them like He did with Babylon, the Medo-Persians (King Cyrus) and others through history like them.

Zuma, as the demon-empowered head of the ANC, has also said that voting for the ANC ensures voters’ entry into heaven. It is obvious that these ANC cadres don’t have a clue as to how one gets into heaven, especially with regards to his invoking the name of Jesus in such a blasphemous way. Entry into heaven has never been, and never will be according to a voters’ roll, and neither is it according to one’s genealogy! Mr. Zuma, entry into heaven is only through belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wrote that “by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2:8-9)

Boasting by the ANC will ultimately secure their demise. Unfortunately, the tool of an empire’s demise (in this case an empire of fools) is not always what we had hoped for; but if terminated it must be, its termination will be deadly!

Some reasons why God is NOT on their side:

• Murder of babies on demand became the law under their government (abortion on demand)
• Legitimization of perversion as marriage became law under their rule (homosexual marriage)
• Objectification of women was signed into law by the ANC (legalization of pornography)

There are more reasons, but I believe these are some of the big ones.

The ANC knows their constituency, that they are easily duped into believing the deception of the ANC. As a result, many that normally vote ANC, believe the drivel being vomited up by the Abortion Nepotism and Corruption party.

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Nelson Mandela (1918-2013): An Imperfect Hero

Normally, when most people think of heroes, they think of Superman, Ironman, Thor, Spider-Man, Captain America, Batman and many more. First, these heroes don’t die. They were conjured up in the minds of people and as long as people are willing to conjure up more stories about these heroes, they will live on. Second, these heroes do not exist. We do not have a Man of Steel flying around with people saying: “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it is Superman!”

Some of these super-heroes have made some real memorable quotes, as non-existent heroes.

"In this world, there is right and there is wrong, and that distinction is not difficult to make." (Superman – D.C. Comics)

"Wars are never won, regardless of who might be the victor. The very act of war is itself a horrible defeat." (Green Lantern – D.C. Comics)

“What do you think the A stands for? France?” (Captain America – Marvel Comics)

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Is the ANC feeling the pinch?

The next general elections in South Africa is in 2014. As usual, the elections machinery goes into overdrive and the elections trickery gets under way. However, I am not sure if the following is just elections trickery, or whether the ANC is starting to feel the pinch and pressure of electioneering. Especially now that Julius Malema started his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF for short).

It is very clear that the ANC no longer has any ideas as to the running of the country, especially when taking into consideration how many poor and unemployed people we have in South Africa. How do we know this? ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, visited the hometown of EFF leader, Julius Malema. How did he counsel a woman who was disappointed with the ANC and did not want to vote? He told her, “If all South Africans don’t vote, we will regress. The Boers [white people] will come back to control us.” South Africa is long past that point, and all this so-called leader of the ANC (Abortion Nepotism and Corruption/Condoms) could tell her is to watch out for the white monster! The ANC is policy-less. They have no answers for the problems of this nation. The fact that he told this woman to beware of the “dangerous” whites is because the policies of the ANC have not brought the freedom they promised. It has brought greater unemployment, creating a greater welfare problem, and invited more criminals into the fold.

In an unrelated event, “ANC treasurer general Zweli Mkhize wants companies to fund political parties and has suggested the establishment of a trust fund, the Sowetan reported on Monday.” This was reported in a news article at News24. If it wasn’t so sad that the ANC now thinks that businesses should pay them for democracy in this country, it would be quite laughable. Don’t think for a moment that the ANC is doing this for the good of democracy in this country. They have this demented idea that they would reign in this country until Jesus comes. Further, with a current, almost two-thirds majority vote, they sometimes actually believe they will never be dethroned. Hence my belief that this democracy trust fund, is simply a ruse to get companies to bank-roll the ANC. Further, Mkhize believes that the fund should be “administered by the office of the Speaker of the National Assembly, which would allocate the funds in line with proportional representation of parties.” Of course, the fact that the speaker is just another ANC crony should not alarm us, should it? OF COURSE IT SHOULD! The fact is that large companies such as Anglo American have followed this idea of proportionate funding for many years. All that this does is to perpetuate the current situation. The parties that roll in the money, such as the ANC, will always come out on top since their budgets allow for so much more marketing of their brand. Small parties, with real answers for this country such as the ACDP, can’t get anywhere since they do not have the funds to market themselves and to make sure that people know what they stand for.

What Mkhize is proposing, is to perpetuate crony capitalism in South Africa. That is a capitalism that benefits the ANC and the businesses that support it. Herman Mashaba, chairman of the Free Market Foundation, is against this type of capitalism.

Mashaba

“has been an outspoken and uncompromising champion of the free market in the new South Africa. His great strength is that he is beholden to no political party or politician. He believes the opposite is true of too many business leaders in South Africa.

“This is their great weakness, and the whole country is suffering because of it.

“They keep quiet because they are terrified of losing their political connections, fearing that if they lose them, they will lose government business, he says.

“In effect, this means that crony capitalism rules -and crony capitalism is a devastating threat to democracy in South Africa, he believes.” (Business Day Live)

He said that

“Draconian labour legislation has destroyed entrepreneurship in this country.”

In the end, I believe that the ANC is suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder. On the one hand they need to scare people into voting for them, and on the other hand they believe that they are the party of the Almighty. Or maybe it describes schizophrenia?

On the one hand the ANC claims to uphold democracy, but on the other hand they want to force businesses to pay for that democracy. Weird!

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Teen sex in South Africa apparently has no consequences

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On 3 October 2013, the South African Constitutional Court (similar to the American Supreme Court), proclaimed sections 15 and 16 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, relating to sexual offences, to be unconstitutional. The unanimous judgement was written by Judge Sisi Khampepe. According to the judgement, these two sections “infringed on the rights of adolescents between 12 and 16 to dignity and privacy, and further violated the best interest principle contained in section 28(2) of the constitution.” (IOL)

According to the Constitutional Court’s (ConCourt) judgement summary, the court used expert evidence to conclude that “the impugned provisions criminalise what constitutes developmentally normative conduct for adolescents, and adversely affect the very children the Act seeks to protect.”

Further, “[t]he provisions were declared invalid only to the extent that they criminalise consensual sexual conduct between adolescents [defined as 12- to 16-year olds]: the criminal prohibitions against non-consensual sexual conduct with children of any age, and against sexual activity between adults and older children on the one hand, and adolescents on the other hand, remain in place.”

In this judgement, the ConCourt is reticent to criminalize “what constitutes developmentally normative conduct for adolescents.” Really? So, the measuring rod for behaviour amongst our children is what constitutes as “developmentally normative conduct for adolescents?” What other conduct related to developmental conduct will next be decriminalized? Your guess is as good as mine, and it sends shivers down my spine when I just think of the possibilities.

Violence among teenagers is a growing problem in South Africa. More and more teenagers think that the best way to solve differences is through physical violence. Just this week a group of teenagers from one school used a taxi to get to another school to exact vengeance on pupils of that school for bullying a friend of theirs at the school. A couple of weeks ago a pupil attacked and seriously wounded a teacher. This type of violence among teenagers has become normative developmental conduct in our nation. Will this be decriminalized?

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A letter of objection to a casino at Menlyn Maine

I was alerted this week by a friend concerning a casino that may be built at Menlyn Maine, opposite the Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in the east of Pretoria. Sun International, the gambling mega corporation started by Sol Kerzner many years ago, has applied for gambling rights in order for them to build a casino at Menlyn Maine.

I felt it necessary to write an objection to the relevant person at the Gauteng Gambling Board (Bheki Nkosi – bhekin@ggb.org.za). My letter of objection follows:

To whom it may concern:   I was made aware of an application for a casino at Menlyn Maine, across from the Menlyn Park Shopping mall. I would like to object to such a venture for several reasons:   1. There are 2 schools in the immediate vicinity of Menlyn Maine: Glen High and the Hatfield Christian School. For obvious reasons it is not a good idea. 2. Gambling does not uplift people, but makes them poorer. The lure of quick money makes people go to extremes and end up squandering their money, making gambling corporations rich at the expense of the people. 3. Apart from being a costly enterprise for the individual, it further ruins marriages, the building block of society. The number one cause of divorces is money, and gambling brings severe monetary strain to marriages. 4. Gambling can lead to bankruptcy, where people can lose their homes and more. 5. Statistics have also shown that crime rises in metropolitan areas after casinos have made their inroads into those areas. 6. When people start losing all they have because of their gambling addictions, they themselves tend to turn to crime to make money or turn to loan sharks for their money, putting their lives at risk. 7. Those that do gamble the most to alleviate their hopeless situations are the poor and the elderly. 8. Gambling is an immoral venture by definition, since it feeds on the hopelessness of the poor, promising them great rewards while gambling houses know for a fact that the gamblers are not the money makers but the casinos themselves. Thus, casinos pull the old bait and switch, luring the defenseless with images of great riches, and once they are trapped, they are sucked dry by a vicious entity who does not care about the lives it has ruined.   Regards, William Dicks

If you feel like objecting to this casino, please make use of this opportunity to write to the Gauteng Gambling Board.

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A low flat tax is not something to laugh at

Some believe that in order to get enough money to service the country, taxes should be raised. However, that is a sure-fire way to  bring the economy to a halt, since investments will come to a grinding halt and the people will either do their utmost to keep most of their money to themselves, or go look for greener grass elsewhere.

Others believe that government should should stimulate or boost the economy through fiscal or monetary policy. Jasson Urbach writes:

“The simple reason government spending fails to end recessions is because every rand the government “injects” into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of it. Government merely redistributes money from the productive to the non-productive sectors of the economy. No new income and, therefore, no new demand for goods and services is created.

It is not government but private firms that generate wealth and are the engines of economic growth. Government cannot create new purchasing power out of thin air. The mistaken view that fiscal stimulus can pull economies out of recession persists because the jobs created through government ‘make-work’ programmes are clearly visible. What we cannot see are the jobs that would have been created elsewhere in the economy with that same money had it not been taxed or borrowed by government.”

He further writes about the limitations of government monetary policy. “At best,” he writes,

“it is simply a lever that can be adjusted to influence growth in the short-run. Consider what happens when the Reserve Bank cuts interest rates beyond what would have occurred if interest rates were freely determined by the interactions between the demand and supply of credit. When interest rates are cut too far, the capital allocation in the economy is skewed because capital is allocated to marginal activities. For example, if real interest rates are negative or zero, it would be unwise to hold cash balances because the investment will not earn a return. In this case investors would look for alternative places to invest. In low interest rate environments, these alternatives might be marginal activities that normally would not attract investment. When interest rates are forced to rise because of increasing inflation, marginal investments are exposed and the economy is likely to relapse into another period of recession.”

He can continue reading Urbach’s article entitled A low flat tax will lead to investment, growth and job.

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America on its way to an Orwellian end?

The way that America is going at this moment makes me think of the great demise of the Roman Empire. When it though it was invincible, Rome came crashing down. The same seems to be happening in America.

The big difference between Rome and America is that Rome was pillaged from without and America is being pillaged from within. And, the pillaging is done by the political class, the leaders of the nation. It points to an Orwellian demise.

John W. Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute, has some interesting things to say about the state of the U.S.A.

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New South African Electoral Amendment Bill

South African politics have always been party politics, and not really whether those in parliament actually deserved to be there, or were accountable to anyone but the party they belonged to.

In simple terms, the South African system is a proportional system. That means that each party gets to allocate a proportional number of members of parliament (MPs) according to the percentage of votes it garnered in an election. If there are 162 positions for MPs, and party A got 23% of the vote and party B got 53%, then party A will get to put forward 37 of its members to be MPs and party B 86. This way, the voters will never know whether these MPs are really capable of doing the job, or whether they have a sense of accountability.

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By backing down FNB set a dangerous precedent

This video can only offend the ANC!

The ANC once again has shown that it is incapable of taking criticism and of thinking about the future of South Africa! In just more than a week the ANC, and especially its youth wing (ANCYL) and its Women’s League (ANCWL), bullied First National Bank (FNB) into an apology to the ANC.

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Is this America’s worst mistake ever?

America made their worst mistake in their existence thus far by re-electing Barack Hussein Obama.

I tweeted earlier today:

“America has voted to re-install, what will become the most offensive, perverted and death-lusting president ever: Barack Commodus Obama”

Just a few days ago I asked the question, “How will the U.S.A. define itself come election day?” I think now we know!

Although this next piece has been attributed to some Czech, and it was supposedly said of just about every world leader, and even though it is the stuff of legend and probably never happened, it still makes an eerie point:

“The danger to the U.S.A. is  not Barack Hussein Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails the United States.  Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their President.”

Just wondering…

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