Time for the IEC to get its thumb out of its ass

The so-called "Independent" Electoral Commission (IEC) (in reality a collection of transformed ANC lackeys with an anti-white racist agenda, determined to deny whites the vote in any way it can) has said in its application to the court that the court decision to allow South Africans abroad to vote would be, and I quote, a "logistical nightmare" unquote.

Well, gee, whiz, IEC, we're so sorry to inconvenience you. We, the taxpayers who pay your enormous salaries, apologize most humbly that you now actually have to do some planning and remove your collective thumbs from your posterior orifices. I know this will probably mean no more arriving at 10am and leaving at 2pm as those who were appointed on the basis of their skin colour and not necessarily competence are wont to do, but hey, you do draw a fat salary, don't you? This will probably impact on your golf handicaps, I know, but you are supposed to be public servants, y'know?

I know I'm just a white guy and my thinking is admittedly not as transformed as yours is, but here's a thought. Somehow the most successful democracy of them all, the USA, manages to allow its citizens to vote by means of postal votes. So do the UK and New Zealand.

You're always telling us how South Africa is such a modern, advanced democracy. South Africa has one-sixth of the population of the USA, so surely we can do what the Yanks can do, can't we? I know a lot of the postal votes will get lost or stolen by the transformed Post Office, which is why Amazon doesn't deliver to South Africa any longer, but surely you can appoint a few token blacks in the Post Office which will in and of itself immediately resolve all the issues there, transformation being the magic bullet that it is?

Time is running out, guys. Stop shopping for your next Maybach, sexually harrassing female employees and start working for a change.

South Africa pays the price for Muslim extremism and a corrupt ruling regime

The United Kingdom has announced that, in future, South Africans will also have to apply for visas in order to visit the UK. Up to now, South Africans could visit that country for a period of up to 6 months without the need for a visa. The UK is South Africa's main trading partner, and visa restrictions would impose a significant penalty on trade between the two countries.

 

The reason supplied by the UK is concerns around terror, and it is not hard to guess why. South Africa has a large Muslim community and a history of Muslim extremists in its midst. One Muslim group, Pagad ("People Against Gangsterism and Drugs") were guilty of planting explosive devices at the Cape Town Waterfront. It is also rumoured that there are South African links between planned bomb attacks in the UK and refuge for alleged terrorists on local soil.

 

Furthermore, there seems to be a growing Muslim militancy in South Africa. During the past week, for example, an illegal demonstration was held against the Israeli invasion of Gaza, after the organizers had been forbidden from doing so by the police. A leading Muslim politician and deputy minister in the ANC regime, Fatima Hajaig, recently made remarks to the effect that Jewish money was controlling Western governments (sic.) Such talk from a senior government official could hardly have helped reassure South Africa's Western allies that South Africa did not offer sanctuary if not active assistance to Muslim extremists.

 

Another huge contributing factor to the visa restrictions that are to be imposed, is the endemic corruption and criminality of the ruling ANC regime. Home Affairs, the department responsible for issuing passports and identity documents, is notorious for its hugely corrupt and criminal officials. It is allegedly easy to purchase counterfeit South African passports for a few dollars from corrupt officials.

 

All in all, South Africa is now paying a price for entertaining the illusion of the so-called benefits of multiculturalism, as well as the extremely corrupt nature of its ruling regime, the ANC.

 

 

Science fiction or reality?

A common theme in Dystopian science fiction stories and novels is the complete breakdown of law and order, which is then restored by the hero. Here I'm thinking of for example Robocop and Escape from New York, in which the hero restores law and order by strewing the landscape with the bodies of the bad guys.

A feature of these movies is that the police forces are often extremely corrupt and that there are even tribes of police in conflict with other police or criminal tribes. Another common theme is that of the crooked cop, and corruption at high levels in the police force.

Of course these movies are aimed at tittilating the citizens of countries where there is effective policing and political accountability, and scaring the moviegoers with what might happen in the future.

What is science fiction in the United States is however reality in South Africa. The chief of police, an ANC cadre and career diplomat with no experience in policing whatsoever, called Jackie Selebi, was suspended due to his ties with organized crime. We're not talking about a precinct commander here; this joker was the country's Chief of Police.

In South Africa the traffic police are typically run by the cities, whereas the ordinary police are a national function. The traffic police do not usually investigate criminal matters other than traffic offences. In a truly bizarre incident during 2008, however, the city of Johannesburg's Metro Police and the national South African Police Services were involved in - wait for this – a shootout!

Yes, you read correctly. One police tribe shooting at another police tribe, unbelievable though this may sound. The Johannesburg Metro Police is on strike again, this time because its chief, Chris Ngcobo, is corrupt according to the ordinary members. A female police officer has additionally laid a claim against Ngcobo whom she accuses of raping her.

This is clearly a mutiny in the ranks of the Metro Police against their chief, against whom the city seems unwilling to take any action. It is probably also an opportunity for the many obese members of the Metro Police to stock up on their Big Mac calories.

What is science fiction in America, is reality in South Africa.

Why the South African property market is a huge bubble

Influential publications such as The Economist have long held that the true economic value of a home, if a rational economic approach was the only consideration, would be the value of the rental you could obtain by owning the home plus the capital growth over time.

My contention is that the South African property market is one enormous bubble, which, in line with other international property markets, is due for a huge correction. There is no doubt that it is a bubble waiting to burst.

Let's do the math.

The average house price in South Africa is around R950,000 (more or less US$100,00.) If you were to purchase a home and obtain an 80% bond, your monthly repayments would be around R9400 per month.

Average rentals obviously vary per area, but a monthly amount of R5500 is a fair estimate of a rental for the size of house you could buy for R950,000. It should immediately be apparent that you are losing around R4000 per month, if you purchased the house as an investment, intending to rent it out.

But wait, some would say. The house is a capital asset that appreciates over time. OK, let's take 5% per annum as a long-term average capital appreciation rate. At the end of your 20 year bond period, your home would be worth R2,5 million rand. You would have paid R2,26 million in bond repayments, but would have received R2.18 million rand in rental income, assuming you increased the rentals by 5% per year as well.

Your net position after 20 years is: R2.5 million plus R2.18 million minus R2.26 million which adds up to R2.43 million. There is a problem, though – this amount is of course excluding taxes – rental income is taxable, and you'd have to pay municipal rates and taxes too.

However, if you'd merely invested your money in a bank account, at 9% interest, you'd be R6 million richer! You would have had no administration to worry about, no maintenance, and no municipal taxes. In short, buying a property at the current prices would be an extremely poor investment, far, far worse than just leaving your money in the bank, which is also not the best investment strategy.

The above of course also implies that properties in South Africa are still vastly, immensely overpriced. I would say that even halving the price of the R950,000 house would still result in a price that is too high.

There is no way that, given the current rental market, that a R950,000 house is worth that amount in economic terms, no matter what estate agents try to tell you. You would be far better off from a financial point of view renting a house. Do not even consider buying a house as an investment, because it is clear the South Africa's property market is in the throes of a huge, unsustainable bubble.

If you want a good investment, almost anything is better than South African residential property at present. Put your money in the bank, for example. At least that way, you won't have the headache of tenants wrecking your property.

The National Mall in Washington after Obama's speech

The picture below was taken at the National Mall in Washington DC, shortly after Barack Obama's speech which included references to personal responsibility.

Anybody who's been to an African city like Johannesburg or Maputo, would immediately recognize both the litter and the attitude to personal responsibility that are apparent in the picture.

Is Acsa guilty of BEE fraud?

South Africa ostensibly put apartheid behind it in 1994. In practice, it did no such thing. What happened instead was that it merely changed the beneficiaries of state-sponsored racial discrimination. But that's OK, isn't it? I mean, as long as it's whites who are on the receiving end, nobody says a word...

One of the pillars of the neo-apartheid being perpetrated by the ANC regime against whites is known as Black Economic Empowerment or BEE. BEE is nothing but a form of racial discrimination against whites, and a legalized way of plundering of whites' resources. In addition, it represents a creeping form of nationalization by means of which white assets are systematically being stolen and placed in the hands of ANC cadres.

Because of its racialized nature and inherent dependence on cronyism, BEE lends itself to large-scale corruption. Companies are for example awarded state tenders on the basis of how many black faces work for them or how well they are connected to the ANC regime, and not on their ability to actually do the job. In the latest example of probable BEE corruption, the Airports Company (ACSA) has awarded a tender to a company called Vuda Bus.

The tender was to provide a shuttle bus service from the terminal buildings of OR Tambo International Airport to the long-term parking. (OR Tambo was formerly Johannesburg International - OR Tambo was an ANC non-entity, only known for his total mediocrity.) All good and well, except there is a problem with the awarding of the tender to Vuda. Vuda was clearly surprised by winning the tender. Perhaps those submitting the tender did not actually believe they stood a chance, or perhaps it was submitted as a joke.

You see, vuda Bus does not actually own any vehicles. It won the tender without having a single bus to its name.

It had to hastily approach the previous bus operator to borrow its vehicles. God only knows what expertise it has in terms of, say, scheduling and fleet management. How did this happen? Did somebody not actually check up on the company's credentials? You know - due diligence and all those racist practices that are apparently superfluous in the New! Improved! South Africa?

Well, the name Vuda should give us a clue. Its name indicates that it is in all probability a black-owned fronting company, no doubt with links to a) somebody high up in Acsa, or b) with connections to the ruling ANC regime. Do not be surprised if it turns out that the owner of Vuda is perhaps related to the affirmative action-appointed head of Acsa, one Monhla Hlahla.

(Practically no state-owned company such as Acsa would be headed by a white, with predictable results - the state airline, SAA, is losing billions due in no small part to the sheer incompetence of its black, affirmative-action CEO, Khaya Ngqula. Khaya Ngqula awards himself and his cronies millions and bonuses each year, in spite of costing the taxpayer billions.)

Yet again we are confronted with the gross corruption and anti-white racial capitalism which taints South African society.

Why Zuma is an appropriate leader for South Africa

The leader of the ruling party, the ANC, Jacob Zuma, will have to face a criminal trial starting in August 2009. He was fired from parliament for his nefarious dealings with a Muslim businessman and member of what is literally a crime family, Schabir Shaik. (Shaik's brother, Mo, is also being investigated for corruption around the arms deal.)

Zuma has deployed all the tricks in the legal book to stay out of court and out of jail. Would an innocent person allow accusations and charges against him to drag on for 10 years? Why not get it over with and simply prove your innocence in court, especially if you have the incentive of becoming president?

The irony is that, with an election looming in April, Zuma will probably be president of South Africa in August. A sitting president will thus be involved in a criminal trial. The first citizen of the country in the accused dock.What a truly elevating prospect for a country which aspires to be a modern, liberal democracy but which is in reality just another failed African banana republic, with a fundamentally corrupt regime at the helm.

A criminal leader for a criminal nation

Zuma's criminal trial will however not be inappropriate, considering he is the leader of what is still one of the largest organized crime organizations in the word, the ANC, a motley collection of former terrorists, Marxists, kidnappers (Winnie Mandela), the corrupted (half of the entire ANC MP's were implicated in the Travelgate scam) and other diverse criminal scum, including murderers and rapists. Furthermore, South Africa is in the top 3 nations internationally in terms of its murder rate. Since the dawn of so-called "democracy" in 1994, it has effectively become a criminal state, similar to countries like Colombia, where upward mobility means participation in crime. (In South Africa even the state participates enthusiastically in the plundering of others' resources, by means of the legalized racial theft called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE.))

Millions of idiot voters will still vote for the ANC, in spite of the very dubious morality of its leader Jacob Zuma. By voting for the ANC regime, they are sending a clear message to the rest of the world: South Africans do not view crime as morally wrong. Zuma, the criminal, is therefore a very appropriate leader of a nation of criminal rabble.

Azanian planning at its best

In the period around the first "democratic" (sic) elections in South Africa, around 1994, the province of Kwazulu Natal was in a state of virtual civil war. The violent conflict was mainly between the traditionalist Zulu party, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the African National Congress (ANC).

 

The support base of the IFP is mainly in the rural areas, whereas the ANC's tends to lean towards urban areas. Over the years, there have been many incidents of violence between supporters these two parties. Every so often, a politician is the victim of a drive-by shooting, or there are incidents of violence involving stone-throwing, sticks and even assault rifles.

 

With an election due in 2009, the political temperature is bound to rise, and one would logically expect the politicians involved to keep this in mind. One would expect them to do their planning in such a way that they do not create a situation that could lead to further violence.

 

One would be wrong. This is Azania. Things don't work that way here. Planning? What planning?

 

The ANC and IFP both held rallies in Nongoma over the weekend.

 

Both of them booked the same venue.

 

On the same day.

 

And then there are expressions of surprise and outrage all round when the rival supporters wanting to enter the same venue clash. They pretend to be surprised that violence happened. Three members of the ANC were shot shortly after the rally. Stones were thrown at buses transporting ANC members. Each party is now blaming the other party.

 

Once again, both the IFP and ANC were well aware of the history of violence. There was absolutely no excuse for holding the rallies at the same venue on the same day. It was either shockingly bad planning, deliberate provocation or both.

110 Kenyans qualify for the 2009 Darwin Awards

The Darwin Awards are presented to individuals who, through their own stupidity, improve the gene pool of the human race by dying while doing something extremely silly, thereby preventing their clearly defective genes being passed on to another generation.

In what is probably some kind of record for both the Darwin Awards and group stupidity, at least 111 people died while attempting to scoop up fuel that was leaking from an overturned tanker near the town of Molo in Kenya. Scores of others were injured in the incident.

It somehow didn't occur to those killed and injured that a) they were dealing with a flammable substance leaking from the tanker, b) that most of them do not possess motorized vehicles of any nature and c) that overturned tankers often catch fire. I don't even want to consider the possibility that some moron dropped a lit cigarette thereby precipitating the blaze. That would really be mind-bogglingly dumb.

The tragedy may not be over yet. Presumably, many of those that did manage to survive the incident, are going to use the fuel they stole to do – what? Light fires in their homes, thereby setting fire to their shacks and in so doing perhaps kill themselves as well as a few random family members?

News reports are calling this an accident, but I disagree. The tanker overturning was an accident. The other deaths may be due to a different cause.

Zuma now has blood on his hands

In yet another example of the abuse of state resources, an individual was knocked down and killed by ANC president Jacob Zuma's blue light convoy. They were on their way to collect Zuma from an ANC meeting at Ulundi in the Kwazulu Natal province.

 

Note, once again, that Zuma holds no public office, although he is the head of the ANC political party. His salary is not paid by the taxpayer (one suspects he is still receiving "gifts" from the likes of Schabir Shaik, who was jailed for bribing Zuma.) How can he then insist on the use of state resources - armed police officers who are provided at the taxpayer's expense, but this luxury is not allowed to, say, Helen Zille, the head of the opposition Democratic Alliance?

 

The death of the innocent person at the hand of these simian assholes (and I include Zuma in the latter) is directly attributable to the abuse of state resources, something for which Jacob Zuma is already in legal trouble. The blood of the innocent person over the weekend is therefore on Zuma's conscience, or more accurately it would have been, had this corrupt polygamist had any sense of right and wrong.