Damn yo

This new blog layout be hawt.

Congress approves $3,400bn budget

Well actually just a budget resolution, which isn't binding. But still, that is an eyewatering number. Ka-ching.

Got tix!

Wahoo two of my three World Cup ticket applications were successful! I'm going to B1 v B2 at Soccer City and E1 v E2 at Ellis Park! No idea who will be playing since the groups haven't yet been announced, but who cares.

Needless to say my application for the opening game was d-naaid.

Looks awesome!

Forget JayZee, he didnt get the 2/3rds. This movie looks rad...

Taking bets

On who JayZee will name as his First Lady...

He has 2 at present I think...? Some people say three. And there's Nkosazana too of course, although they be divorced now.

So who will it be? Old crusty first wife? Young hottie (about half his age) married last year? Or this new Durban "socialite" chick he apparently married in Jauary this year? Tough call!

PS. Hope you all had a happy vote yesterday.

Stuff that has been pissing me off lately

I am about to go out for some delicious tandoori and Halaal gelato (could i make that up?) so i'll make this brief. I think that the 300 year old virgin, who has a whole life of sexual angst pent up inside her badly styled hair and a mediocre voice isn't that exciting, but maybe wishing for her swift demise wasn't appropriate. I will however reserve my right to an 'I told you so!' when she releases an album of shitty Julie Andrews covers (or gott forbid, an Andrew Lloyd Webber tribute album). Shitty modern pop culture, you made this bed, now lie in it!

Anyways, what has really been pissing me off is a Facekak status update that i saw a few days ago. Now Philimon, don't tell me to stop checking Facebook, because i had no choice - I was retrieving a message someone sent, and i stumbled upon this ghastly status entry : 'What's on my mind? Teabagging'. WHO THE FUCK WRITES THAT AS A FACEBOOK STATUS? It's revolting. I don't care much for biting my tongue, but when i have a hankering for dirty dwarf sex with multiple, leathered mini-dominatrixes (a word? probably not) I keep it to myself.

What has also been pissing me off is my sore throat.

Also, the fact that two people were sacked at work last week (one was a good guy, and didn't deserve to lose his job, the other supported the England Rugby team, so he got what was coming to him).

Also what has not been pissing me off is K-Rudds stimulus bonus. Seems the tax office is staffed with people who cant count and they paid me the amount for people in a lower income bracket, so i got $900!!! For doing nothing! Thanks K-Rudd, that's going straight to stimulating my savings, your economy can get stuffed.

How to beat depression in the Economic Crisis

Ha ha ha - this what the office has been watching. Keeps me laughing while I reject projects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHvATmUsSg

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8yowi_susan-boyle-47letnia-ypiewaczka-z-b_music

I think Britain's Got Talent is going to be my new favorite show!

How to make friends and influence people

Well if Phil isn't going to be the one posting political links, I may as well...

I haven't got any insights to add really, except that the new DA and VF posters lining our streets since this weekend appear to have taken white politics right back to 1999. For those oorsee, the DA's say 'Stop Zuma' on an alarming red background, and the VF have a 'Stop Crime' slogan beneath a picture of a white lady with a black hand covering her mouth. But if the ANC rally is anything to go by, they could easily achieve the 2/3s majority that they're after.

Anyways, what I really wanted to add are these two links (here's one and here's another) to soundclips of Jesse Duarte being a complete and utter bitch. the first is in an interview with the 'colonialist' BBC and the second is in a telephone interview with a subversive 'third force' journalist from the Times who would be a racist if he weren't black.

Abuse of power

Ha - you thought this was another politics post. Well, it is!

I abused the power entrusted in me, albeit not so democractically, and just somma changed the blog template. Black is so 2008.

To warm up for Wednesday here's your chance to exercise your check on this flagrant abuse of executive power. Voting may now commence. Only 1 vote per reader - in the comments box please. Greg, you are not allowed to delete other peoples' votes.

The Doctor.

PS. The first time I used the M&G poll predictor, whose questions are frustrating I must admit, I got Azapo as my number 1. DA, Cope, ID were there and there abouts. ANC and VF were rock bottom. The second time I did it, just now, I got Cope as number 1. Azapo was down at the bottom with the ANC and VF (at least those two are consistent - and prove I am definitely not racist - lol). ID was second this time, with the ACDP (yay for Jesus!) third and DA fourth. So I still have no idea who to vote for. I wish the ballot paper had an 'abstain' option, or even better, a 'myself' one.

PPS. The coils for Renault Clios are super expensive (they connect the spark plugs to some other part of the engine's electrical system). Jusus kristofolous.

Voting Oor See

So kids far and wide... Did you manage to get to a voting station today??
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-04-15-south-africans-line-up-in-london-to-make-their-mark

Plagiarism

You know how you are threatened with university expulsion if you plagiarise? Seems this was lost on the geniuses running the NPA. Apparently large parts of Mpshe's statement on the Zuma charges are remarkably comparable to some obscure Hong Kong High Court judgement from 2002. An NPA spokesperson confirmed that they looked closely at this judgement, and that their failure to acknowledge the source of their 'wisdom' was an 'unfortunate oversight'.

They took two weeks to copy someone else's judgement, and couldn't do it well enough for people not to notice? See the full story here.

Also, for everything that is wrong with the NPA decision, see Mark Gevisser's piece from the weekend M&G here. He wrote MacBeki's bio, which is long but good. The revised edition with everything from the end of 2007 should be a cracking read. He's turning into a great political commentator. Right up there with my hero Steven Friedman.

Guess who is famous?

Come on, guess, she has curly hair, is SHIT scared of spiders (on a rainy day i will tell you the story of her run in with Hunny the Huntsman in my toilet), and is involved in thyeeaaaaataaaaah in Melbum??? 

Yes! Its Talya, of Thalia if you're Australian, or maybe Thaliyah. Australians love changing the spelling of their names by the way. Natasha becomes Natarsha, Taylor becomes Taylah, and sometimes they make up names like Shaqkane. Thats a real name, i swear. 

ANYWAY, here is some famous stuff about Talya, and she wants you to know that she didnt make me write this, I'm actually quite impressed.

Talya wouldn't send me a picture of herself for this post, so you get a picture of Morrissey instead.

Pesach

What better way to celebrate Passover and our friends employment than with some cracking Lebanese food? Was pretty funny actually, Talya and i trying not to say any Yiddish words, or give any indication that we were Jewish (Jews not really welcome in Lakemba...). These fallafel are good, but they're not as good as the ones in... the holy land. Amen, and cheers to that!

following in Al's footsteps...

Who says the unemployment rate is increasing? OK so it is, but thankfully not among us anymore... I got a J.O.B and I start Tuesday. Wooo Hooo!! Ok so it is only a 5 month contract but it is a foot in the door with a reputable NGO (http://www.beatit.co.za/home/index) in a fairly senior position as the project manger for a new PMTCT (that is preventing mother to child transmission) training program. It is a national project that has potential to go beyond the 5 months. I am happy :)

And back to Zuma

Yes yes I'm hearing you say quit it with the bladdy politics already. Whatever! JZ just won't stop.

I have always maintained that there can be no real reason to be genuinely worried about one's future in our beautiful SA until one or both of the following things happens:

• You or someone you love is harmed by crime. Such an experience fundamentally alters your outlook on life in SA.
• The independence, legitimacy, and authority of our courts come under attack from the ruling party, which has the power to change or at least seriously undermine the constitution. See I avoided saying 'rule of law' again.
  

The former hasn't really happened to me so I've never been genuinely worried.

But last year Gwede Mantashe, Sec. Gen. of the ANC, started hurling abuse at Con Court judges, questioning their objectivity in the Zuma issue (via the Hlope issue). No specific action plans, but a fair amount of emotion and anger. Ok, so Gwede was caught on a bad day. The incident was sort of brushed aside.

But now that Zuma is 'free', he's gone a step further:

"In an astonishing attack on judges, President-in-waiting Jacob Zuma has blasted the conduct of the judiciary and questioned the supremacy of the Constitutional Court as the highest court in the land, saying it is ‘not God’. According to a Cape Times report, he also accused Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke of declaring war against the ANC, and harshly criticised other judges who ruled against him in his corruption court appearances. Zuma said he wanted a review of the status of the Constitutional Court, because its judges were capable of committing mistakes. ‘If I sit here and I look at a Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, that is the ultimate authority. I think we need to look at it, because I don't think we should have people who are almost like God in a democracy… Why are they not human beings?’ The report notes that he said the JSC should review the status of the Constitutional Court. Zuma added that the impression had been created that Constitutional Court judges could not make mistakes. ‘That's why I am saying they are almost close to God…’"

Just who the fuck do you think you are Jacob Zuma?

Gliklech Pesach

Apparently "gliklech" means "happy" in Yidd. So ya, happy constipation to all my furry little Jewish friends!

and now for a giggle...

Can't stop obsessing about JayZ

"On whether Zuma would reveal where he was on the weekend of March 10 and 11 2000 -- his former financial advisor Schabir Shaik during his corruption trial confirmed that he had set up a meeting with Zuma and Alain Thetard, former head of Thompson CSF’s (Thales) South Africa division to facilitate a R500 000-per-annum bribe on March 10 -- Zuma responded by saying: 'Where I was on the 11th and 12th … this question has always been asked wrongly and everybody has been following it. It is an issue that relates to the substance of the matter and I answer this question all the time in Parliament … it has always been asked wrongly and that is not my business, to help people ask the correct question. Some people have even won an award on this wrong question.'

"Such opaqueness may work in personal defence of an individual who increasingly refers to himself in the third person, but whether it will facilitate the accountable governance of South Africa is doubted."

From M&G

NPA se moer

Ok so the dust is settling a little, and at least four things stand out.

1. The merits of the Zuma case remain untested in court. Mpshe stressed that the evidence he has still provides the basis for a strong case against Zuma, and that his investigative and prosecutorial teams have done little wrong. So Zuma is off the hook but the cloud remains. The cloud is, however, a little less dark, since Mpshe promised the NPA would end its Zuma dealings here.

2. There is nothing in the Leonard McCarthy-Bulelani Ngcuka conversations, which were mainly about the timing of the re-instatement of charges (after Polokwane instead of before) that seem to fatally wound the investigation. Mpshe took pains to single out this one issue as the only problem in the EIGHT YEAR investigation. This seems like a tiny problem to most people, including my hero Steven Friedman. It certainly doesn't seem like enough of a reason to drop everything. Why? Because although the conversations should never have happened, Mpshe presented no evidence showing that these conversations in any way dilute the strength of the evidence against Zuma. See point 1.

3. Thint gets off the hook too, which is especially galling since the issue raised in point 2 cannot in any possible world apply to Thint. Will the NPA open a separate case against Thint? Might that be a backdoor for re-opening the Zuma investigation? I hope so.

4. If the NPA has already suffered illegal political influence, can you imagine how compromised it might become under a President that retains a strong interest in seeing lots of evidence disappear? Some lawyers have argued that because of this conflict of interest it is ridiculous to allow Zuma any say whatsoever in the administration of any aspect of the criminal justice system in South Africa. I agree.

Lots of good coverage in Business Day today. This whole thing sucks. Zille is applying for the NPA decision to be reviewed in court. Let a judge decide if the NPA should stop its prosecution. For once I agree with the DA.

Oh ya one last thing - who else's phone conversations is the NIA recording? Jislaaikit, I work for government too!

Hold the phone

I didn't read the M&G piece that closely. The taped conversations between Ngcuka and Leonard McCarthy (former head of the DSO (Scorpions), which means he was basically deputy head of the NPA under Pikoli and Mpshe, and is currently head of the World Bank's Integrity Unit), which formed the core of Zuma's representations to the NPA, will be released today. Mpshe actually quoted from them during the press conference this morning. These conversations show that the NPA didn't act independently - that there clearly was political meddling in the Zuma case. That doesn't mean Zuma didn't do anything wrong, but it does mean the NPA can't be trusted to prosecute him in a constitutionally fair manner. Zuma's rights have been abused.

This is explosive stuff. Presumably once these tapes are out there anyone can mount a case against Ngcuka and McCarthy. And maybe others? How the tables have turned.

Full Mpshe statement

As expected - all charges dropped

A great pity. This tells people that politicians can be 'too big to stand trial', and that political advancement is all about identifying the next hugely popular politician and giving him lots of stuff. That's always been the case, but now it seems you can give him stuff illegally too. Because, if he becomes popular enough, he will be able to do no wrong, literally.

I don't know what to think. So we've avoided a short term meltdown and potentially violent elections, but long term I don't think this does us any favours. All I know is that I've done two posts on this issue without saying 'rule of law' once. Oh yes, and that the Shaik judgement definitely does mean that Zuma is guilty of something corrupt. That is fact. If it weren't, Zuma's assertions that he is innocent should have led him a long time ago to opening proceedings against the NPA. He didn't, of course, because it was useful to run around claiming victimisation, knowing that right at the end, just before the election, you would get off scott free.

What's next? Zille has said she would force the NPA to defend its decision in court if it did this. We'll see. I just want to see written reasons. The NPA promised us they would provide some.

So the NPA hey

Wow. The National Prosecuting Authority is supposed to be announcing today its decision re. the Zuma charges. This is a really big day in our country's history. Who would want to be Mokotedi Mpshe? Will he drop the charges or not?

He will drop the charges. Duh.

It concerns me. Not because I find Zuma distasteful or unfit for office. Whatever man - most politicians are rubbish manipulative unscrupulous people who had to resort to politics when every other respectable profession kicked them out.

No, this whole thing concerns me because South Africa has quite clearly, in the space of 5 short years, developed a class of untouchables. Everyone with any sort of power and something significant to lose now has a good few skeletons in the closet. So no-one rolls over on anyone else, and corruption becomes something that is not just tolerated but is a means of political survival. The dirtiest sit on top doling out enough cream to keep enough powerful people on sides. Those perceived to be clean or incorruptible are forced out to let the rest of the dirty little monkeys carry on throwing their poo at South Africa's institutions.

Maybe Zuma only came to understand this recently. Maybe his lawyers have been delaying for so long because they needed more time to dig up more dirt on people like Comrade Thabo. Maybe.

I think Zuma has always understood the rules of the game. I think his difficulty was that the NPA's top brass changed after he was booted out of government. The old guys (mainly Ngcuka) were as tainted as anyone by the arms deal, meaning that Zuma would never get into court (why else would Ngcuka claim a prima facie case against Zuma but then refuse to proceed with laying any charges? Look, he's guilty, but I don't want to have all his dirty laundry aired in court, because some of it's mine.) .

The new guys (mainly Pikoli) probably were mostly clean, and probably did have a genuine desire to implement the law. Which is why they never got anywhere, and why Pikoli was eventually axed for no (objectively) good reason. Who axed him? Mbeki. Why? Because Mbeki was worried about what might emerge if Pikoli's investigations, which were connecting to the arms deal all sorts of dots that no-one thought possible, continued.

So here we are waiting for the NPA's decision. It has been receiving 'representations' from Zuma's lawyers for about 2 weeks now. We already know their main argument: that they have evidence implicating lots of other powerful people in the arms deal fiasco. The NPA should simply take the evidence and open lots of new dockets. The NPA should be able to do so, since the current NPA leadership should (I hope) have no skeletons of its own to worry about (especially none connected to the arms deal). But I guess there's more to it than that. Can you imagine the chaos when Zuma, by then sitting state president, has to appear in court this August? The country would go nuts.

Seen in this light the COPE sideshow is slightly more interesting than being completely boring. Lekota (defense minister after Modise), George (Lekota's deputy), Shilowa et al either didn't get any arms deal pork, or are confident that a court wouldn't find them guilty of anything related to the arms deal-Zuma saga. If not there's no way they would have run off saying all those bad things about the ANC and Zuma. Or maybe they did and were prepared to do the right thing when the NPA came a-knocking? Ya, not really.

I really really really hate what the the arms deal has done to (political) South Africa, and I will blame Mbeki for all of it unless he writes a bladdy book telling me that it was someone else's fault. Such a book would be a super best seller, no doubt.

I am employed!

So the bad news is that I would like to tender my resignation as group personal secretary. I will no longer be on hand to organise birthday presents, accommodation etc on a permanent basis. But the good news is that I have a job as InVenFin's Research Analyst! (http://www.invenfin.com/) They are a venture capital company, invest in great, innovative new companies, are a group of nice people, they are organised and want to pay me a decent salary! Amazing but true. My job will be to assess new investments and opportunities, make recommendations and assist with managing their investments (2 signed and 3 on the table). Start on Wednesday so the life of leisure is over, but then again the bank account is looking very sorry for itself.

Miss Universe is, like, so smart, and stuff

And like, so well informed and politically aware.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7976207.stm

who has the cutest nephew ever.............

i bought jakob his first anorak.. a swedish stylish number.. oh so cool.

Tshwane nightlife

Rocking! Not an April 1 story either - see here if you donbelievit.

Man threatens fiancee with bazooka

Pretoria revellers had a close call when an enraged man allegedly threatened to blow up his fiancee in a late-night pub with a high-explosive anti-tank rocket.

The 27-year-old Centurion resident is believed to have flown into a fit of rage following a heated argument with his girlfriend outside Firkin Fun Pub during the early hours of Saturday morning.

It is believed that the man became upset with his fiancee after she began flirting with several other revellers in the pub, and stormed out into the parking lot.

Running to his car, he opened the boot and grabbed an Armbrust anti-tank grenade launcher, which is also commonly known as a bazooka, and a .303 hunting rifle before charging back to the pub.

The disposable recoilless German-made rocket launcher, which is specially suited for urban conditions, uses high explosive ammunition that creates a high-velocity jet of metal that can pierce solid armour.

It is not known how the man came into possession of the military-issue weapon, or how long he had it in the boot of his car.

Police from Gauteng rapid response unit and Lyttelton police station arrested the man after they received calls from revellers who spotted the man with his weapons.

Information from police is that the man, who had no rounds for the launcher, apparently just wanted to threaten his fiancee.

"When we came round the corner and saw what he had, we got a hell of a fright. There is no ways our bulletproof vests would have been able to stop those things," said an officer.

He said that if there had been rounds and the man had fired at the pub, he would have destroyed more than just his fiancee.

"There would have been some serious collateral damage. He probably would have destroyed half the block," he said.

The policeman said the man had apparently got the device for a Halloween party in 2008, and had apparently forgotten to return it to the person he borrowed it from.

"At this stage we are trying to establish where the weapon came from, especially as it is not a grenade launcher that is used by the South African National Defence Force," he said.

Decisions Decisions....

For those who are still undecided which way they are going to swing come April 22nd and are looking for a bit of inspiration... Here is a little electioneering fun. Gives some interesting results :)
http://elections.mg.co.za/pollpredictor