Cheeky Watson wins the Kurt Gödel prize for 2008

Kurt Gödel is widely seen as the most significant logician of the 20th century.

 

In the proud tradition of Gödel, we have our own master logician, one Cheeky Watson. Cheeky Watson, a veteran anti-apartheid campaigner and a legend in his own mind, has just been appointed the president of the dismal Eastern Province Rugby Union. The EPRU has never won the Currie Cup and looks highly unlikely to do so in future. Could this be due to its successful transformation programme?

 

The Eastern Cape, in addition to generally sucking at rugby, is also the home of the powerful Xhosa faction of the ANC, such as Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Mandela, so it is no surprise that Watson would win the presidency there. In addition to being a logician of note as well as a loose forward who would have done any under 11-C team proud, Watson is also a prime exponent of the art of ass-kissing when it comes to the ANC.

 

In his opening address, and in a masterful display of his genius at the art of logic, Watson called for more blacks in top positions in SA Rugby. As many of the replies to this article have pointed out, the fact that Watson himself is a pale male, seems to have been totally lost on this wonderful logician. Lesser mortals like us would have expected that the logical thing for Watson to have done would be to step down in favour of a black president, but clearly Watson's advanced thinking is on a different level and he clearly has his reasons for not doing so. Either that, or perhaps he doesn't own a mirror and doesn't know he's a mhlungu.

 

I therefore have no hesitation in awarding the Kurt Gödel prize (honoris causa) to Cheeky Watson, South African rugby's greatest logician.

 

 

 

Time for Toughlove in Africa?

Toughlove is an approach for the parents of troubled teenagers who are often struggling with a drug problem. Instead of taking a softly-softly approach, Toughlove focuses on discipline and parents' rights, instead of bowing to the demands of unruly children.

 

After World War 2, Germany was in ruins. Cities like Stuttgart were practically flattened. In some city blocks, only one or two houses remained standing. Millions of German men had died in the war. The Allies instituted a massive aid programme, called the Marshall Plan, to revive the German and European economy. Within 30 years Germany's was again the largest economy in Europe. If you drive through Stuttgart today, you can hardly believe that it was in ruins 65 years ago.

 

Since 1960, Africa has swallowed up no fewer than the equivalent of 6 Marshall Plans' worth of foreign aid, with no tangible results. Africa today, 50 or more years after the end of colonialism, is a sorry tale of civil wars, poverty, disease and corruption. As Dr Anthony Turton, the suspended CSIR scientist, has pointed out, it takes approximately 10 years for the colonial infrastructure to start crumbling due to neglect, criminal behaviour and incompetence. One only needs to think about Eskom and the coming water crisis to realize that he has a point. From that point it is all downhill to dire poverty.

 

The West's solution is limited to massive infusions of cash, which promptly gets stolen by a corrupt kleptocracy, as well as vague demands for Western-style democracy. Surely it must be obvious by now that democracy simply does not work in Africa. The reasons for this are not clear, and may include cultural differences. Those who lose elections often simply refuse to leave office - Kenia and Zimbabwe are obvious recent examples. However, democracy in a skills and integrity vacuum which is a feature of African society, is meaningless and a mere Western delusion.

 

Mass starvation is only a few months away in Zimbabwe, due to the above problems. As the comments to this article have pointed out, drastic action - Toughlove - is called for. That is unless the West abandons Africa as a perennial lost cause and allows the Chinese to re-colonize the continent.

 

By Toughlove I mean forceful measures that are coupled to foreign aid. If Africa's leaders continue to behave like unruly children, they should be treated as such. Measures can include, for example, steps to ensure that another Mugabe can never take over the reins of power in Zimbabwe, and to remove him from power if he refuses to leave of his own accord.

 

This could include military intervention as an option. It will take one cruise missile strike to remove Mugabe and his henchmen from power on a permanent basis. Perhaps such an intervention will make other miscreant leaders, like Kenia's, also think twice. Interestingly, this was a real threat issued against the previous government in South Africa. An American-funded airport was built in Botswana, for example, which was a clear threat of military intervention against the then white ruling party.

 

The above may seem draconian, but measured against the lives of millions of Zimbabweans, it's a no-brainer.

 

 

 

 

The Economist, 19 October 2018

Many economies have, in the past few years, started to recover from the deep recession caused by the credit crunch which started in 2007 and hit its peak in 2008, ten years ago. 

As expected, the Chinese and Indians were among the first economies to recover.  The US today is clearly not the hyperpower it used to be. The high rates of taxation under President Obama, used to fund his ambitious but unaffordable healthcare plans, has proven to be a hindrance to the US's growth.

While many have started to recover, to some countries, 2008 was the beginning of a precipituous decline. South Africa is one of them. It started when investors started fleeing emerging economies and the South African currency, the rand, started dropping dramatically.

From a high of R5,50 to the dollar in the mid-2000's, the rand stands today at R100 to the dollar.

South Africa was not only hit by the credit crunch. Its banks, ironically, were in fairly good shape at the time. The double whammy was a combination of the credit crunch and the disastrous policies the ANC under President Zuma implemented. After the split in the ANC in 2008, the left, in the guise of the Communist Party and Cosatu, grew increasingly influential.

Major industries such as steel, Sasol and many mines were nationalized under pressure from the communists. Two mainstays of the economy, gold and platinum mining, were in decline already, and platinum mining suffered under the slump in vehicle sales caused by the worldwide recession. The nationalization of key industries caused a sharp drop in productivity and investor confidence, a flight of capital, increased emigration of skilled individuals, a crash in the currency and inflation approaching 50%.

The 2010 Soccer World Cup, widely expected to have brought a much-needed stimulus, instead turned into a damp squib due to the worldwide recession. Far fewer Europeans could afford to fly south than were anticipated. The event was also marred by at least 50 murders of soccer fans. The vast investment in white elephant stadia to this day continues to haunt the very few remaining taxpayers.

Further exacerbating South Africa's woes was the fast-tracking of the land reform policies. By 2008 it was already clear that land reform was a dismal failure. Blacks without agricultural skills were forcibly placed on former white farms. Within 2 years, these farms died - often literally, in the case of livestock. The Zuma government however sped up the process, leading to a complete collapse in agriculture.

Millions of rural and urban dwellers went into a state of permanent semi-starvation. From being a nett exporter of food a few decades before, South Africa turned into a typical African begging-bowl country, dependent on food aid for its people to survive. The collapse in the currency made importing food much more expensive and unaffordable to the ordinary man on the street.

In short, a country that was once the richest and most developed in Africa, has turned into yet another African basket case.

Your correspondent will leave the last word to a very old black man, who grew up under the apartheid regime: "Come back, PW! At least we had food back then..." 

Another incompetent pig at the trough cries racism

As we have come to expect, any incompetent ANC politician or AA-appointee, when caught with his hand in the cookie jar, will immediately cry racism. Tito Mboweni, the politically-appointed governor of South Africa's Reserve Bank, and clearly an AA appointee who is totally out of his depth, is no exception.

Although Mboweni is a corpulent individual who refuses to be photographed due to his excessive perspiration, "pig at the trough" refers not to his build, but to his naked greed and gravy train riding. South Africa is nowhere near the fifth largest economy on the planet, but nevertheless Mboweni's salary ranks among the top 5 among central bankers worldwide.

The official policy is to keep inflation between 3-6%, but Mboweni awards himself a 25% increase in 2008.

Oink!

At a Reserve Bank shareholder meeting yesterday, shareholders tried to raise the above issues. In the proud tradition of incompetent affirmative action appointees, Mboweni refused to even discuss the issues raised, and immediately accused his critics of racism.

No, Mr Mboweni. They are not racists. They are merely concerned individuals who are entitled to raise their legitimate concerns. It is you who are incompetent and it is you, not them, who is a greedy, racist pig at the trough.

Jimmy Manyi: spokesperson for the fat cats

Jimmy Manyi is once again "disappointed" in the so-called lack of progress in employment equity (EE). According to his latest report, blacks in top management increased by only 3.9% last year. However, the number of blacks in professional management positions declined dramatically by 14.9%.

It is very interesting that the number of blacks in professional management positions declined by almost 15%. No reasons are supplied in the report quoted above, but it would be interesting to speculate why. Are black professionals dying of AIDS at a much greater rate than was previously suspected, for example? Are they also following the white brain drain and fleeing for greener pastures in the UK and Perth?

Jimmy Manyi is of course complaining with a full belly and a huge personal bank balance. He is a senior executive in Tiger Brands, a listed company. Tiger Brands is the same company that was involved in the bread price fixing scandal a while ago. What exactly qualifies him for his exalted position, apart from a propensity to complain and whine, is not too clear. One should therefore take his tantrums with a large pinch of salt.

As Solidarity's Dirk Hermann pointed out, much energy and hot air is expended complaining about the lack of blacks in top management positions. Top management however constitutes only 0.06% of the workforce. There is relatively little noise about the remaining 99.94% of the labour force. Hermann also points out that the number of whites in top positions has declined by a staggering 20% since 2003.

Manyi's focus on top management in a way reveals his true motives. He is quite simply not interested in the problems of the black working class. If he were, he would surely make equally as much noise about the dreadful state of basic education in South Africa. Regardless of Manyi's verbal diarrhoea and tired cries of racism which are utterly devoid of any credibility, the problem is not discrimination on the part of white companies, but rather the fact that many blacks are simply unemployable.

The real issue in South Africa is that the unemployed are simply not equipped for the challenges of a modern workplace, and they are especially ill-equipped to compete with billions of well-educated Chinese and Indians. The root cause can be traced back to woefully inadequate education in childhood, due to the ANC regime's failure to provide decent schooling. No black pupil currently attending school was ever subject to Bantu education, yet the quality of school leavers keeps declining. South Africa spends more than any other developing country on education as a proportion of its Gross National Product. Can the lack of success in education still be attributed to apartheid?

Manyi spends little energy bemoaning the poor state of education, however. Clearly Manyi has very little desire to address the root cause of  unemployment. His true constituency is rather the parasitic class of the elite, the 0.06%, who expect a 6-digit salary in return for their mere presence. Do not expect these members of royalty to work, but do expect to have to pay them a huge salary. Expect to see them living in opulent mansions and expect to see them driving in the emergency lane of the highway in their German sedans costing more than R1.5 million.

Robert Mugabe won't let an affirmative-action doctor operate on him but chooses to fly to Europe to receive medical treatment. Naledi Pandor sends her children to private schools with mostly white teachers. They look for excellence when it affects them personally, but Manyi expects employers to pay a fortune for employees who are somewhat less than excellent.

Most, if not all, employers realize that to appoint this kind of employee is nothing more than a kind of tax, as it were. They do not add value, but it is part of the risks and costs of doing business in South Africa. This acts as a disincentive to do business in South Africa, and makes the country less competitive internationally. Continued complaints by the likes of Manyi can and will only have one effect: it will discourage employers to hire, thereby exacerbating unemployment.

No wonder employers like Nicole Katz simply refuse to hire the Jimmy Manyi's of the world.

Mike Sutcliffe, idiot extraordinaire

Mike Sutcliffe is the town clerk (muncipal manager) of eThekwini - "The Place by the Bull's Testicles" in Zulu. Also known as Durban.

Sutcliffe is notorious for his tasteless, Afro-kitsch dress sense, self consciously favouring gaudy, Madiba-type shirts. Typical of your leftie white liberal, kissing Azanian ass wherever he goes, and generally trying much, much too hard to be in with the right crowd.

To call Sutcliffe monumentally incompetent, would be to flatter him greatly. Under his so-called management, Durban's beaches have literally become cesspools, reeking of human excrement, and have accordingly lost their international blue-flag status.

However, true to his Marxist, totalitarian ideology, and like so many incompetents, Suttcliffe is above criticism in his own little mind. Dare to criticize him, and he is apparently prone to childish temper tantrums and outbursts. How professional can you get?

Incompetent Commie asshole with bad dress sense

The Stalinist ANC city council, enthusiastically supported by the sycophantic Sutcliffe, has decided to rename hundreds of Durban's streets. Amongst those honoured are such luminaries as Andrew Zondo, the simian scum who murdered innocent civilians in the Amanzimtoti bombing. Ché Guevara, a Marxist mass murderer, likewise has a street named after him.

While Durban's roads are degenerating to potholes joined by small pieces of tar, the council is spending millions on renaming streets in honour of terrorists, criminals and other sub-human scum. All of this is happening in the face of vehement opposition from for example the IFP and DA. A huge number of objections - 28000 - have been received.

Sutcliffe, true Stalinist asshole that he is, is unfazed by this. During an SABC radio interview, his recommendation is that those objecting to the name changes "will have to get used to it" (sic.)

Fortunately the citizens of Durban have had enough of this totalitarianism. Some of the new street signs have been defaced already. Well done to those who are responsible. Expressing your displeasure in this way is not a crime - it is justified resistance against an oppressive regime. The only reason why idiots like Sutcliffe are able to impose their will on us, is because we allow them to.

Cutting one's nose to spite your face

Twee jaar gelede in Wiskundige Geletterdheid as 'n skoolvak ingestel vir diegene wat nie matriekwiskunde wou ondergaan nie.

Vandag berig die SABC dat ontevrede matrikulante uit Kabokweni na die Mpumalangase Departement van Onderwys gemarsjeer het.

Hulle klagte is dat Wiskundige Geletterdheid "te moeilik" is. Hulle het vrywillig 2 jaar gelede in Graad 10 gekies om die vak te neem. Die vak is alreeds afgewaterde wiskunde, wat konsentreer op praktiese vaardighede soos persentasies en geldelike berekeninge.

Hulle oplossing vir hulle wiskundige probleme? Kom ons brand ons handboeke (ja, reg gelees - brand die boeke.) Dis 2 maande voor die eindeksamen. Hoe sodanige optrede hulle gaan help om te slaag, sal iemand asseblief aan my moet verduidelik, want alhoewel ek wiskunde kon deurkom, is ek heeltemal te dom om hierdie sonderlinge logika te kan kop.

Aan die ander kant van die aardbol is daar enorme mededinging onder Indiese en Chinese leerlinge en studente wat baklei om by elite ingenieurs-akademies in te kom, leerlinge wat lag vir die moeilikheidsgraad van Amerikaanse Graad 12-wiskunde.

En so ploeter ons aan op pad na die Afrika-Renaaisaans.

Back to the future on agriculture

Measured even by the subterranean standards of the intellectual vacuum represented by the ANC regime, Lulu Xingwana represents a special case. This so-called cabinet minister has to qualify as either one of the most dim-witted specimens of simian life ever to blight the planet with her presence, or one of the most recalcitrant and deliberately obstructionist Stalinist ideologues in history.

Ms Xingwana has occupied the post of minister of agriculture since 2006. In all this time, she has been seemingly oblivious to the fact that the disastrous programme of Zimbabwe-like land redistribution has been systematically destroying the country's agriculture. Or was she perhaps for reasons of anti-white racism and Afro-fascist ideology deliberate in her attempts to destroy agriculture? Either way, either her incompetence or ideological obstinacy has been spectacularly successful in destroying South Africa's capacity to feed itself.

What sane farmer would want to invest in an industry which is constantly under threat? Who wants to build up a viable farm if there is a very real possibility that it will be nationalized and given to peasant farmers, who are sure to ruin it within at most 24 months?

In a typical display of snail-like mental processes, something we have come to expect from the dim-witted ANC regime, it has finally dawned upon the honourable minister that the country actually needs farmers. Read this article which was published in the Business Day. Well done, Ms Xingwana! It only took you, what, 2 - 3 years to come to this realization.

The Ministerial Advisory Council for Agriculture and Land Affairs has been mooted since 2001, but was only launched yesterday. Yet another prime example of the efficiency of the ANC regime - it took a mere 7 years for the transformed public service and regime to establish the council, but at least the public servants are of the right skin colour and that's what REALLY matters, isn't it? Will we wait another decade or two before it actually starts to do anything?

Whereas South Africa was a nett exporter of food in the past, it has turned into an importer. Wait - it's coming to me - yes, it has to be the fault of apartheid. Of course. (Except the reverse is the case, is it not? Under the previous government we could feed ourselves...)The Business Day article blames external factors such as the exchange rate for this, but fails to squarely place the blame where it really resides: the utter incompetence and / or extreme ideologically driven arrogance of the criminal ANC regime.

There is one and only one solution to the looming agricultural crisis in South Africa. That is to immediately halt and indeed reverse the failed land reform programme. Subsistence farming by peasants, which lies at the heart of the land reform programme, is nothing but a romantic dream. In reality it is sure to destroy the country's capacity to feed itself.

What to do when you make an accident in your government vehicle

The following actually happened.

Government Department X, somewhere in South Africa, has a number of employees who have to drive government vehicles in the course of their official duties.

Of course, this being the Azanian banana republic, government vehicles are seen as private property, to be utilized as the "owner" (aka the employee) sees fit. Its official purpose is of tertiary importance. Vehicles are therefore used to ferry kids to school. As an informal taxi. As a hauler of Black Label quarts, which are sold out of the back of the official vehicle. Call it a shebeen on wheels. On some weekends they haul concrete. In a vehicle that is not a bakkie or a truck.

The drivers are almost all under- or unqualified. Most of their licenses have been fraudulently obtained. They are often pissed and mostly reckless. Vehicles are routinely revved to levels that would blow up a F1 engine. They end up as wrecks in former homelands, having been used to transport eighteen people and their luggage for a weekend, this in vehicles intended for 2 passengers. They are parked for hours outside local whorehouses and watering holes, instead of working.

Eventually the few remaining non-affirmative appointees at the employer grow heartily sick of wasting taxpayers' money in this way. They put out a tender and install a vehicle tracking system, similar to Netstar, Tracker or Matrix's products. This records and transmits illegal usage, over-revving, harsh braking and moving the vehicle out of officially designated areas. The idiots driving the vehicles eventually wise up and stop their worst abuses, because suddenly the supervisors are mysteriously able to see when the vehicles go to Qwa-Qwa for the weekend, or stand parked outside Mama Ningi's shebeen.

One fine day, Mr Government Employee and his mate decide to play Schumacher. Pissed out of their skulls, they do 140 km/h in a 60 zone. With the inevitable result. They crash their government vehicle into a private vehicle, killing the other vehicle's passengers.

Now they're screwed, and the horrible realization slowly dawns on them. Their vehicle's black box has recorded their transgression. Their guilt will be easily proved. Hau! Eish! What now? After racking their brains, they come up with a truly Azanian solution to their dilemma:

Nothing for it but to pour petrol on the vehicle and set the evidence alight.

Two problems with the above solution.

1. The movement and engine parameters are transmitted to the base station in real time, so it's already in the server's database many kilometers away.

2. The fire destroys the vehicle, but not the EEPROM in the black box. This is recovered, with the evidence intact.

What do Zuma's supporters expect?

There is a huge campaign from those on the left of the political spectrum, including Cosatu, the ANCYL and the SACP, to support Zuma at all costs. They are threatening to bring the country to a standstill. Shop owners in Pietermaritzburg where Zuma is to be tried, are already complaining about the disruption caused by thousands of locusts descending on their town.

There are obviously problematic aspects around the whole, sorry saga, such as the moronic utterances by Julius Malema, who is surely a miracle human, having survived for years after being born without a brain. The judiciary is being undermined and is under real threat by a party which is increasingly out of control. The above issues have however been discussed at length in the media.

What is getting rather less attention is the question why are they so fanatic in supporting Zuma? Why risk international condemnation, increased emigration, instability and anarchy in support of one man? A man, it must be said, who is intellectually way below average (if not retarded), who should keep quiet on economic matters, who is of suspect moral stature (if not a career criminal), with a Grade 4 education and has more than 9 wives, an unknown number of concubines and common-law wives and God knows how many legitimate and illegitimate children. George Bush is routinely mocked for being unable to pronounce "nuclear", yet he went to Yale and achieved a master's degree. Where did Zuma go? Did he pass the old Standard 3?

Or is the above perhaps the very thing that appeals to the communists - the fact that somebody without real opinions of his own or the capacity to make good judgments would be easily manipulated and influenced, unlike the coldly intellectual Thabo Mbeki? Is Zuma furthermore perhaps the ultimate New South African man and therefore a role model to many - a brain-dead criminal whose genitals override his mental processes on a regular basis?

Let's say they succeed in pressuring the judiciary into submission, and Zuma does become president. Jeremy Cronin of the SACP assures us that Zuma will become president and not go to jail. What kind of policy changes do they expect from a President Zuma, and specifically what does the SACP expect from Zuma?

One suspects that there is a perception in South Africa's paleo-Marxist (those idiots for whom the Berlin wall never fell) circles that there will be a marked shift to the left. There is a chilling trend these days to speak about the revolution, something that was mostly absent in Mandela's and Mbeki's day. Unspecified enemies of the revolution are apparently everywhere. These must be quote eliminated unquote.

A big shift to the left has frightening implications. Expect wholesale expropriation and nationalization. Expect more wastage of resources on social grants. Expect a destruction of private enterprise.

Are South Africans staring down the barrel of a second phase of a socialist revolution, whereby the rampant left wing intends to turn South Africa into another Cuba or Venezuela?