Slashdot Mirror

The news are in on the lie as well, right?

There is also a political dimension that hasn't been reported very widely. According to this opinion piece, part of the issue is that the national government is led by the ANC, while Cape Town is led by the (largely white) Democratic Alliance party. This leads the national government to be unsympathetic to the city's needs.

You don't need 19 gallons per person a day to survive.

Ideally, we would like to keep some semblance of an economy, so that people also have food to eat, can pay their rent or home loan etc. If they aren't to buy food, then they would need water to grow crops ...

You need less than 1 gallon per day per person of drinking water. If water is going to run out in 3 months then limited everyone to 1 gallon per day gives you almost 5 years to bring more desalination plants online and/or relocate some of the people.

At the moment, I believe the plan is that when there is less than 13.5% water that can be used from the dams (e.g. at the 23.5% level, assuming that it is challenging to extract the last 10% due to silt etc.), they will start water rationing of 25l per person per day, and no homes will have running water (in taps), but have to collect water in person.

The point is that you don't want to run out of water because then you have death by dehydration, mass riots, and chaos. If you really are going to run out of water in 3 months then you better come up with a game plan now that prevents mass hysteria and death.

Solely relying on price just means that the ultra-rich will continue to waste water, even if it costs them $500/month, because they don't feel it. I think they could raise the prices a bit, as that may provide some small motivation to the middle class to save more. However, they are preventing abuse; households that use more than 10.5kl have to pay for the installation of a water demand management device that limits their household water consumption to ~330l/day (unused can accumulate) and 10.5kl/month (unused can't accumulate/roll over to the next month). In order to raise funds for the desalination plant that is being built, the city has proposed a drought levy (based on property value) to be added to normal municipal levies/rates/taxes.

Sorry, I don't believe it just because a couple of researchers, presumably with an agenda or a desire for further funding of their anthropological tintinnabulations, have written about it.

WTF is wrong with you? I live here, I've suffered under white rule and my entire family was a struggle family so I've got no agenda. The fact is that this is a belief that is shared by many of the locals here :-( Why don't you believe what newspapers, researchers and people on the ground are telling you - these folk are still stuck in the stone age in many respects. Grab any local newspaper you want and see for yourself the pathetic beliefs these people have:

Virgin cure belief

Another one of many

Here's official african government admitting to the baby-rape problem

How about bullet-proof vaseline and other stupidities?

Results of the official inquiry into the massacre

Strikers use body parts from security gaurd for their muti

Cutting up a 6 year old girl for body parts for their muti before they even killed her.

In fact, there are too many stories in the courts to even list. You no longer have the assertions of a couple of anthropologist's, you have the statement of a born-and-bred african who is living here, you have official reports of cases in courts and you also have independent newspapers all verifying the same facts.

Maintaining your skepticism in the face of all this will just make you look foolish. These thugs from the above stories aren't ignorant; they've all completed high-school (equivalent to a US HS diploma) and many of them even have tertiary education. It has become abundantly clear that the problem cannot be solved by relieving these idiots of their ignorance with education; the problem is not ignorance, it's stupidity.

Just wait till they start cloning (160+ IQ) Jayne Mansfields as a tourist attraction to their cloned cities like Hallstatt.

You're mistaking us for Swaziland

Holy shit, I never thought anyone else would notice al-Qaeda is just the Saudi wing of the CIA.

List of prominent people which had noticed as well (some even in the US congress).

Ummm... some would say US is happily in bed with such trouble makers.

I doubt it for these reasons.

The Russian government continues to cover the back of the Syrian government as it has for decades.

Ummm... yeah. Seems that I'm not alone not buying it.
* Syria strike would turn US into 'al Qaeda's air force'
* Obama's obsession with Syria

Who would benefit from US involvement?
What does the Saud house have at hand to force US into this conflict and on their side?

BTW: In 2012, Android moved more units than Windows.

This year it looks to best them by thrice.

Windows Mobile used to have 36% US market share. Now it has 3.

Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.

- Linus Torvalds, 2003

Cloned human skin? Like this?

this whole article is mostly pointless (besides the interesting story about rat farming).

Which itself seems to be a fabrication (unless this is the one story unavailable anywhere else on the internet). Johannesburg certainly has a rat problem, but there's no reports of the city paying bounties.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Johannesburg-waging-war-against-rats-20110801
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Anti-rat-campaign-moves-to-Soweto-20110812

this whole article is mostly pointless (besides the interesting story about rat farming).

Which itself seems to be a fabrication (unless this is the one story unavailable anywhere else on the internet). Johannesburg certainly has a rat problem, but there's no reports of the city paying bounties.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Johannesburg-waging-war-against-rats-20110801
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Anti-rat-campaign-moves-to-Soweto-20110812

Sure... unless your Government has big problems issuing duplicate ID numbers

Some RSA news: http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2010_05_28_archive.html http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2010_05_21_archive.html Make up your own mind: http://www.news24.com/Tags/Topics/crime Why waste resources on this bill and not on real issues?

http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica

Whites are on level 5 of 8 on genocide watch list.
Yet the bread winner's money (a 1/3 of the government's income is paid by 4 million whites' income tax, look at income distribution, there are 50 million people we support)and they waste money on things like this, they also go to court to oppose a ban on genocidal hate songs 'Kill the Boer'.

89 deaths a day, every other rape is a HIV infection which is a death sentence yet they waste their time with an anti-porn bill.

Well, we all know chinese "science" is faked quite often. E.g. : http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/China-warned-over-fake-science-20100107 and so on.

How to make sure this is not just yet another bullshit from them?

The same way it's always been done; reproduce the experiment as precisely as possible and see if results are the same.

Well, we all know chinese "science" is faked quite often. E.g. : http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/China-warned-over-fake-science-20100107 and so on. How to make sure this is not just yet another bullshit from them?

The Vatican doesn't even have as much money as minor movie studio, just a lot of old stuff that frankly isn't worth very much.

The Vatican itself is estimated to have assets of between $1.5 to $15 billion.

If you consider the Vatican to be the head of a multinational corporation, and include all worldwide assets of the Roman Catholic Church, some estimate they have close to $100 BILLION in money, property and other assets. And think how much of that is tax-free.

While South Africa isnt nearly as big as the States in terms of online news, the most popuplar website in south africa is in fact a news website ( source ). 24.com is a large conglomerate and own the countries biggest newspapers. It appears that they have long understood the importance of online news content

And yet you, yourself are being intellectually dishonest by trumpeting your opinions as facts and your tinfoil conspiracy theories as truth.

Which one?

you immediately retreated to a "I'm really stupid, please enlighten my ignorance on Sunni-Shiite relations" position which you should have taken in the first place, since it was so God-awful clear from your first post.

And somehow I know more than the entire GOP ticket from the last election. I don't mind saying I was wrong - I misunderstood the relationship between Al Qaeda in Iraq and the militant Shia movements. I admitted it after I reread some things. Life goes on.

The Iraqi government is rolling in cash right now due to the petroleum deals(so much so that the US Congress is complaining of how much free money the Iraqis have and how much reconstruction the US is paying for).

They don't have 24 hour electrical service or sewage in much of Iraq. Much of their infrastructure is completely destroyed, and now their literacy rate is dropping like a rock. It's going to cost some money to build it back, and just as Iran did in 53, there will be a movement to stop the theft of oil profits from western countries.

Contrast this to Venezuela, whose oil rigs are falling into disrepair and whose production will plummet due to the lack of technical expertise available to the Venezuelan government bureaucrats after kicking out the Western energy companies and the reduction of reinvestment in new exploration. Nationalization is sexy and all to the global leftists, but it runs up against the hard reality of actually maintaining resource production (see: Zimbabwe after kicking out all the white farmers). Appointing paper pushers to do the job based on their political loyalty is a great way to send your country on a short road to North Koreaville.

Read the fine print. Oil companies are allowed to take 60 to 70 percent until their costs are recouped. Anywhere else in the world it's 40%. Once complete, American and British companies, who did not have to bid for access to Iraqi oil, keep 20% of the profits, which is double the normal rate of 10%. So, Venezuela is still doing better than Iraq. Their output has suffered under Chavez, but not as much as Iraqi output has suffered under the US.

Oil prices have gone down about $100 per barrel as well. That's an important fact to remember.

Also, a quicker way to dictatorship is to try and nationalize any of your industries and harm US and British investors. The CIA and MI6 will be up your ass in a heartbeat.

Do you think the US would just stand by and let them do it?

Yes. Do you know why? Because since oil is Iraq's lifeline, they will still sell it.

That's a logical fallacy. Iraqis, given the choice between extermination and dictatorship, will probably choose dictatorship, even if it's installed by the United States.

And it's not control of petroleum that the US is after as a strategic priority, it's the continuing free flow of petroleum to the world market. We don't care who owns the oil. We care that any one person or country isn't threatening to monopolize a large majority of the world's proven reserves, thus allowing them to destabilize the US and world economy, which is highly dependent on energy for transportation.

False. We want to make sure that we maintain control over the worlds proven reserves, in case someone thinks about threatening our empire. Then we have the power to cut them off and throw their society into ch

>Let me try to calm myself a bit. I can accurately be accused of trolling in a sense, which is to say I'm sensationalistic to get people to at least read something besides the same rhetoric passed to us from major news sites that, in my honest opinion, are completely dishonest.

And yet you, yourself are being intellectually dishonest by trumpeting your opinions as facts and your tinfoil conspiracy theories as truth. And that makes you different from a supermarket tabloid writer because...?

You are trolling. Period. Not in "a sense". So grow up. You started another post about al Qaeda having a grand opportunity with all these "militant Shiites", even though al Qaeda has traditionally terrible relations with Shiites, being a fundamentalist Sunni organization that has killed many innocent Shiites for terror and intimidation purposes. And yet when a poster called you on your ignorance, you immediately retreated to a "I'm really stupid, please enlighten my ignorance on Sunni-Shiite relations" position which you should have taken in the first place, since it was so God-awful clear from your first post.

>Of course I can't read that agreement in the ten minutes I took to respond. Let's say the language was clear and even well intentioned. What happens if Iraq wants to again nationalize their oil fields?

Why the fuck would the Iraqis want to nationalize the oil fields? The Iraqi government is rolling in cash right now due to the petroleum deals(so much so that the US Congress is complaining of how much free money the Iraqis have and how much reconstruction the US is paying for). Contrast this to Venezuela, whose oil rigs are falling into disrepair and whose production will plummet due to the lack of technical expertise available to the Venezuelan government bureaucrats after kicking out the Western energy companies and the reduction of reinvestment in new exploration. Nationalization is sexy and all to the global leftists, but it runs up against the hard reality of actually maintaining resource production (see: Zimbabwe after kicking out all the white farmers). Appointing paper pushers to do the job based on their political loyalty is a great way to send your country on a short road to North Koreaville.

> Do you think the US would just stand by and let them do it?

Yes. Do you know why? Because since oil is Iraq's lifeline, they will still sell it. And it's not control of petroleum that the US is after as a strategic priority, it's the continuing free flow of petroleum to the world market. We don't care who owns the oil. We care that any one person or country isn't threatening to monopolize a large majority of the world's proven reserves, thus allowing them to destabilize the US and world economy, which is highly dependent on energy for transportation.

> We didn't allow it to happen in Iran. We tried to stop it in Venezuela, but the coup failed.

Isn't it ironic? The Iranians have a populist revolution to only set up their own oppressive theocracy. 30 years later, the newest generation wants to have a populist revolution, only to have it squashed under the thumbs of the Ayatollah and the Revolutionary Guard, who at this point are starting to look worse than the Shah in terms of mismanaging their own country and citizens. The CIA had no involvement in the attempted Venezuelan coup, other than to indicate that the US government would rather have a military coup by halfway reasonable generals rather than another crackpot demagogue who is only interested in plundering his country's wealth for his own image and legacy. Which was perfectly fucking reasonable. Unless you happen to l

If they can access the internet they can perhaps improve their agricultural output for a few years, until the demand is satisfied and the surpluses go to waist. Access to the internet certainly will not cause them to reform their governments, construct efficient cement plants, power plants and transport networks or conquor malaria.

South Africa (in particular Gauteng and the Western Cape) has economies of scale in all these fields and is accepting African migrants en masse. Instead of sending Zimbabweans food aid, it is after all much more productive to employ them in South Africa, by for example building houses. So investing in the South African economy is by far the best way to help the continent's poor (and has been more profitable than investing in America during the last decade).

You're referring to a narrow strip of GSM and GPRS coverage along the highway. It will be expensive to upgrade and maintain.

Africans needs electricity, clean water, transport, a stable political system and relief from malaria much more than broadband. So it's not surprising that they are migrating to Gauteng, South Africa en masse.

When was the last time you heard of anyone getting killed by a meteorite?

It is often claimed that there are no "well documented" cases of a human being killed by a meteorite.

The problem with that statement is that most of the human race lives poorly documented lives.

According to this article, two people were killed by a meteorite last year in the Indian state of Rajasthan. But those reportedly killed were nomads, not folks living in an area where every aspect or their lives was recorded.

Here and is some info about injuries and damage (reportedly) caused by meteor strikes.

The risk of being killed, injured, or having one's property damaged by a meteorite is small, but non zero. If nothing else, barring a highly-effective planetary defense system we will eventually have a Tunguska-level event that will hit a populated area - there being more and more area populated by Homo sapiens with every passing year, the risk grows with time.

But the question of natural risk is non-informative of the legal and ethical implications of deliberately de-orbiting junk that you know might survive to the ground. Let's say that the risk of you getting hit by a meteorite is (pulling a number out of my ass) 1 in 10,000,000,000. Does that mean that it's acceptable for me to take a gun that has a 1 in 10,000,000,000 chance of being loaded, point it at you, and pull the trigger? Does the answer to that question change if I have to pay $10 to refrain from shooting? $100? $100,000?

We each do things every day that marginally increase the risk to other human beings. Figuring out what is an acceptable amount to increase somebody's risk is a hard enough problem that most of us simply ignore it most of the time.

Yea!

And this building steel's crystalline structure gotta have toppled it to the ground!!!

Oh wait. It didnt? And the fire completely engulfed it? And it burned for more than 20 hours longer than the WTC?

Gulp....

Frankly, this must be why Scientology and Intelligent Design has so many followers. Some people would feel and believe rather than think.

One of the bigger efforts to make Beijing more reasonable for the olympics ? Adding "luxury items" soap and toilet paper to the bathrooms. http://www.news24.com/News24/Sport/Olympics2008/0,,2-9-2370_2351873,00.html We could complain, but the olympic committee won't be able to hear us while they're swimming in their scrooge mcduck-like money vaults. Next time, maybe we could pick a location that already has those "luxury items" in place ?

Actually, as a (not very proud at the moment) South African, I am familiar with the term.

It just seem that you are not aware of recent news....

I was making an observation not a recommendation...

The split of Humans from the Apes pushed back by another 6 to 7 million years earlier than previously thought based on molecular genetics. The difference from the earlier estimate of around 5 to 6 million years is therefore over 100%
http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_2169361,00.html

Fossils of early apes especially during the critical period of 14 to eight million years ago were virtually non-existant - until now.

What I find disturbing is the fact that a number is this widely off and no one discovered it for such a long time! I can imagine deviation by x % or less where x

The split of Humans from the Apes pushed back by another 6 to 7 million years earlier than previously thought based on molecular genetics. The difference from the earlier estimate of around 5 to 6 million years is therefore over 100%
http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_2169361,00.html

Here are a few ACTUAL statistics, so you can stop repeating your ignorant and prejudiced viewpoints:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20050429103530387C962494

More than a fifth of South Africa children are having sex by age 14. Over a third by age 15, and nearly 50% by age 16.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2221933,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1304584,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1899863,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2227893,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2228181,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2102140,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2173180,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2078582,00.html

Keep in mind the population size when looking at absolute numbers (population is a small fraction of the US).

Here are a few ACTUAL statistics, so you can stop repeating your ignorant and prejudiced viewpoints:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20050429103530387C962494

More than a fifth of South Africa children are having sex by age 14. Over a third by age 15, and nearly 50% by age 16.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2221933,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1304584,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1899863,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2227893,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2228181,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2102140,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2173180,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2078582,00.html

Keep in mind the population size when looking at absolute numbers (population is a small fraction of the US).

Here are a few ACTUAL statistics, so you can stop repeating your ignorant and prejudiced viewpoints:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20050429103530387C962494

More than a fifth of South Africa children are having sex by age 14. Over a third by age 15, and nearly 50% by age 16.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2221933,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1304584,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1899863,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2227893,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2228181,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2102140,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2173180,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2078582,00.html

Keep in mind the population size when looking at absolute numbers (population is a small fraction of the US).

Here are a few ACTUAL statistics, so you can stop repeating your ignorant and prejudiced viewpoints:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20050429103530387C962494

More than a fifth of South Africa children are having sex by age 14. Over a third by age 15, and nearly 50% by age 16.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2221933,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1304584,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1899863,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2227893,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2228181,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2102140,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2173180,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2078582,00.html

Keep in mind the population size when looking at absolute numbers (population is a small fraction of the US).

Here are a few ACTUAL statistics, so you can stop repeating your ignorant and prejudiced viewpoints:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20050429103530387C962494

More than a fifth of South Africa children are having sex by age 14. Over a third by age 15, and nearly 50% by age 16.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2221933,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1304584,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1899863,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2227893,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2228181,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2102140,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2173180,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2078582,00.html

Keep in mind the population size when looking at absolute numbers (population is a small fraction of the US).

Here are a few ACTUAL statistics, so you can stop repeating your ignorant and prejudiced viewpoints:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20050429103530387C962494

More than a fifth of South Africa children are having sex by age 14. Over a third by age 15, and nearly 50% by age 16.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2221933,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1304584,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1899863,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2227893,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2228181,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2102140,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2173180,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2078582,00.html

Keep in mind the population size when looking at absolute numbers (population is a small fraction of the US).

Here are a few ACTUAL statistics, so you can stop repeating your ignorant and prejudiced viewpoints:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20050429103530387C962494

More than a fifth of South Africa children are having sex by age 14. Over a third by age 15, and nearly 50% by age 16.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2221933,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1304584,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1899863,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2227893,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2228181,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2102140,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2173180,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2078582,00.html

Keep in mind the population size when looking at absolute numbers (population is a small fraction of the US).

Here are a few ACTUAL statistics, so you can stop repeating your ignorant and prejudiced viewpoints:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20050429103530387C962494

More than a fifth of South Africa children are having sex by age 14. Over a third by age 15, and nearly 50% by age 16.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2221933,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1304584,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1899863,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2227893,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2228181,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2102140,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2173180,00.html

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2078582,00.html

Keep in mind the population size when looking at absolute numbers (population is a small fraction of the US).

"Brett Jolly said he planned to have an accredited gemmologist verify within 48 hours whether the gem was a diamond."

"We put it on a garage grinder and the thing won't scratch, so what can it be?"

"The huge stone, which was believed to be the world's largest diamond, is a fake .. Jolly .. confirmed that he had tested the alleged diamond in the company of a journalist on Thursday"

Like why don't he hand it over to De beers and have them test it, before calling for 'investors' in his diamond mine, where can I still l sign up .. :)

Let's make it clear, it was a "mechanical" problem. This was not during a "test" of some new technology but during a live fire exercise done yearly.
Proper facts from South African newspapers :
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2201429,00.html
Link to search on the "Lohatla incident" :
http://search.news24.com/search?s=NWS&ref=NWS&q=Lohatla+accident&x=41&y=13&sit=&sn=

Let's make it clear, it was a "mechanical" problem. This was not during a "test" of some new technology but during a live fire exercise done yearly.
Proper facts from South African newspapers :
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2201429,00.html
Link to search on the "Lohatla incident" :
http://search.news24.com/search?s=NWS&ref=NWS&q=Lohatla+accident&x=41&y=13&sit=&sn=

I'm South African, and this story was all over the news for a couple of days. Seeing the people in the hospital with some of their limbs blown off wasn't a pleasant sight, but there's a consensus here that the whole thing went pear shaped because of inadequate training, and quite probably inadequate maintenance on the machinery.

A bit of background:
Since the government changed from white-run to black about 15 years ago, almost nothing has been done to keep our military equipment up to scratch. We went from having one of the best (sizewise) defence forces in the world to one that "loses" millions of dollars worth of equipment in war torn countries like the Congo and Sudan. And by equipment, I mean armoured cars, transport vehicles, artillery, grenades, millions of rounds of ammo, you name it. When called to account, the minister of defense (Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota, I kid you not!) basically said that all armies lose equipment, and that he's not even going to bother looking into it. There's lots of things they won't look into these days. Even when our own health minister expounds on the value of garlic, lemon juice and beetroot as a cure for HIV, she's completely backed by all her cronies in the SA gvt. But I digress...

In an effort to bring our defence force back up to scratch, a number of black former anti-apartheid "struggle heroes" got involved in buying about R40bn (about US$6.5bn) worth of materiel from overseas arms companies based in Sweden, Germany and others. Corruption and kickbacks were so rife at this point that even the Germans are still trying to untangle the South African side of things (our government doesn't believe in transparency when it looks like president Thabo Mbeki might be involved, and he was, which is why the investigations keep stalling). But to give you an idea, the SA government purchased some new corvettes for what passes for our Navy, which are too expensive to run. Last I heard they were sitting in dry dock, because it was going to be too expensive to maintain them if they actually put them in the water and used them for exercises. I'm not sure who we'd be defending ourselves against anyway, actually...

More than to 40% of our military (which is about 90% black now) is infected with HIV, and half of them don't know which end of an automatic rifle is which. They lose or sell their weapons and ammunition to criminal syndicates which use them for cash-in-transit heists (there's at least 2 a day, they don't even make the papers any more unless the guards in the armoured cars died a more gruesome death than usual). They also use them in armed home invasions, where a group of 3-10 armed blacks will burst into a home, torture and rape and kill the homeowners and families (usually white) before making off with the family car and a few electrical goods. We have about 55 murders a day (conservative estimate, (think a tour bus full of people)), roughly 144 rapes a day, and about 880 burglaries a day in this country, all aided indirectly by incompetent military and police personnel. That may not sound like much, until you work it out, to about 50,000 people die. every. single. year. And those are just the ones reported. And it's getting worse. Have a look at what's going on in an average suburb in Pretoria (name sooned to be changed to "Tshwane", see below). http://search.news24.com/search?s=NWS&ref=NWS&q=Lynnwood&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0/. This page covers just the last 3 months, more links at bottom.

Many of you will nod your heads and go "yeah well, you deserve it after apartheid", but there's a couple of things you need to realise. 1. that most other countries that have at some stage practised (or still practise) some form of racial segregation. That doesn't make it right, but the only main difference between those countries and ours is that SA had an actual word for it. "Apartheid" basically means "separateness" in

Then again, if you take a hand every time he steals something, he won't be able to do it more than twice. It works in Saudi Arabia. A mate of mine forgot his cell phone on a table in a restaurant, and only realised it the next morning. In a flat panic, he asked the staff if anyone had seen it. One of them pointed to the table where he'd been sitting. The phone was still sitting there. Untouched. Exactly where he'd left it.

Contrast that with the brutal home invasions by armed robbers here in South Africa, where they will torture the families (children included) by pouring boiling water on them, or dripping melted plastic on them. This just to get hold of a cellphone or two, some cash and maybe a laptop if they're lucky. And then they'll probably shoot at least one of the family members, and rape another, just because they can. Then they'll go and rob the house next door, because it'll take the cops hours to arrive, if they ever do.

You think I'm joking?

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2184926,00.html/ (Pensioner killed at home)
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2157731,00.html/ 3 women repeatedly gang raped while robbers cook and eat the food they were preparing. Then robbers moved on to another house and repeat the process.
Usually the crime is black on white (gangs of 4 or 5 blacks, usually armed with guns and knives will force their way into a home).

South Africa has the highest rate of murder in the world. Over 50 people a day are murdered in this country. Approximately 18,000 women are raped every year. At least those are the ones being reported. You cannot open a newspaper without being bombarded with news about a baby being raped (certain superstitious sectors of our society believe that raping a 9-month old baby will cure them of HIV/AIDS, or they do it for revenge e.g.(http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=304811&area=/insight/insight__national//)). They have no scruples. No shame. They take what they want, when they want it, and fuck you if you even look like you'll get in their way.

My point (after all that) is that prison doesn't work in terms of rehabilitating these people. Most of the people who do the kinds of atrocities mentioned above are people that have already been in prison, and have been let out or escaped (our prisons are well over 100% full). Prison is no deterrent. The only way to stop these guys from doing exactly the same thing 24 hours out of prison is to make them incapable of doing so. I'll leave those methods out of here, but I am pro-death penalty (I'm sure there's nothing like having your mom tortured, raped and then shot in the face, right in front of you, to make you radically change any liberal views you may have on something like that).

Most people (especially those who have never even been to Africa) are quick to point the finger, play the race card, and blame it all on the previous (White) government, forgetting that the regime changed nigh on 14 years ago (in 1994). That's a whole generation of school kids. With time to spare. And things have not improved. In fact they've deteriorated. Grinding poverty, failing infrastructure, crushing governmental incompetence and a lot of rage and hate are the primary contributors (particularly with regards to the gratuitous brutality of the crimes). We have (on average) a 2% conviction rate for violent crimes. 2%. And that's for the guys who get caught. Most don't get caught. They make a living off robbing people like this. Taking a life, even that of a child, means nothing to them.

And if you're coming here for the soccer world cup in 2010, please, for FFS be careful, because they WILL target foreigne

Then again, if you take a hand every time he steals something, he won't be able to do it more than twice. It works in Saudi Arabia. A mate of mine forgot his cell phone on a table in a restaurant, and only realised it the next morning. In a flat panic, he asked the staff if anyone had seen it. One of them pointed to the table where he'd been sitting. The phone was still sitting there. Untouched. Exactly where he'd left it.

Contrast that with the brutal home invasions by armed robbers here in South Africa, where they will torture the families (children included) by pouring boiling water on them, or dripping melted plastic on them. This just to get hold of a cellphone or two, some cash and maybe a laptop if they're lucky. And then they'll probably shoot at least one of the family members, and rape another, just because they can. Then they'll go and rob the house next door, because it'll take the cops hours to arrive, if they ever do.

You think I'm joking?

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2184926,00.html/ (Pensioner killed at home)
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2157731,00.html/ 3 women repeatedly gang raped while robbers cook and eat the food they were preparing. Then robbers moved on to another house and repeat the process.
Usually the crime is black on white (gangs of 4 or 5 blacks, usually armed with guns and knives will force their way into a home).

South Africa has the highest rate of murder in the world. Over 50 people a day are murdered in this country. Approximately 18,000 women are raped every year. At least those are the ones being reported. You cannot open a newspaper without being bombarded with news about a baby being raped (certain superstitious sectors of our society believe that raping a 9-month old baby will cure them of HIV/AIDS, or they do it for revenge e.g.(http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=304811&area=/insight/insight__national//)). They have no scruples. No shame. They take what they want, when they want it, and fuck you if you even look like you'll get in their way.

My point (after all that) is that prison doesn't work in terms of rehabilitating these people. Most of the people who do the kinds of atrocities mentioned above are people that have already been in prison, and have been let out or escaped (our prisons are well over 100% full). Prison is no deterrent. The only way to stop these guys from doing exactly the same thing 24 hours out of prison is to make them incapable of doing so. I'll leave those methods out of here, but I am pro-death penalty (I'm sure there's nothing like having your mom tortured, raped and then shot in the face, right in front of you, to make you radically change any liberal views you may have on something like that).

Most people (especially those who have never even been to Africa) are quick to point the finger, play the race card, and blame it all on the previous (White) government, forgetting that the regime changed nigh on 14 years ago (in 1994). That's a whole generation of school kids. With time to spare. And things have not improved. In fact they've deteriorated. Grinding poverty, failing infrastructure, crushing governmental incompetence and a lot of rage and hate are the primary contributors (particularly with regards to the gratuitous brutality of the crimes). We have (on average) a 2% conviction rate for violent crimes. 2%. And that's for the guys who get caught. Most don't get caught. They make a living off robbing people like this. Taking a life, even that of a child, means nothing to them.

And if you're coming here for the soccer world cup in 2010, please, for FFS be careful, because they WILL target foreigne

...the ones who really lose out are the normal members of society.

But the big winner is the prison industry, for which these laws were designed to benefit. The law isn't about justice. It's about generating revenue. The only relation it has to society is its ability to squeeze more money out of that society. So, in some places you will spend more time in prison for drug law violations while they tell you that they are too full to incarcerate somebody for assault on a child!

In all seriousness, I was also wondering, but I think they're simply waiting for the right moment to buy the technology from another company that actually does it well and bundle it into Windows ("right moment" presumably means "after competitive pressures force them to" e.g. if Apple gets excellent speech recognition or something, as MS tends to avoid progressing faster than the market conditions call for). Then they'll market it in a way that gives the impression they pioneered this stuff. I think that's what Bill Gates really means (and aims to achieve) by continually telling the world that they are leading some amazing innovation and development in this area, e.g.:

2005: "Internet security is Microsoft's greatest challenge while developing mainstream technology to be able to talk to a computer is a frontier about to be crossed, company chairperson Bill Gates said here on Friday"

2001: "Gates said there was plenty of room for innovation in future versions of Office. He said computing holy grails like voice and handwriting recognition were just around the corner. 'The world of computing has frontiers that we're finally tackling,' Gates said."

Repeat this kind of thing enough and by the time they actually buy a decent product from another vendor, most people will likely just assume that yet again Microsoft led the way bringing this cool stuff to PCs.

In all seriousness, I was also wondering, but I think they're simply waiting for the right moment to buy the technology from another company that actually does it well and bundle it into Windows ("right moment" presumably means "after competitive pressures force them to" e.g. if Apple gets excellent speech recognition or something, as MS tends to avoid progressing faster than the market conditions call for). Then they'll market it in a way that gives the impression they pioneered this stuff. I think that's what Bill Gates really means (and aims to achieve) by continually telling the world that they are leading some amazing innovation and development in this area, e.g.:

2005: "Internet security is Microsoft's greatest challenge while developing mainstream technology to be able to talk to a computer is a frontier about to be crossed, company chairperson Bill Gates said here on Friday"

2001: "Gates said there was plenty of room for innovation in future versions of Office. He said computing holy grails like voice and handwriting recognition were just around the corner. 'The world of computing has frontiers that we're finally tackling,' Gates said."

Repeat this kind of thing enough and by the time they actually buy a decent product from another vendor, most people will likely just assume that yet again Microsoft led the way bringing this cool stuff to PCs.

Given that we have an obligation to stop Iran because they might gain the ability to kill millions of Israelis, what is our obligation towards a country with thousands of nuclear weapons, which has already caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? You don't need to convince me that a nuclear-armed Iran could be a region-wide catastrophe. What you need to do is convince me that this administration isn't trying to start a war with Iran under the pretense of non-proliferation. It would also be nice if you could convince me that they're not doing what they appear to be doing: compounding lie upon lie by trying to convince the American people that Shiite Iran is providing weapons that kill American soldiers. I know that Bush didn't know his Shiites from his Sunnis when he sent us into this quagmire, but with four years of mismanagement under his belt, he has to know better by now.

As I understand the situation, Iran has the right to enrich uranium under the NNPT, so long as their program is open to comprehensive inspections. Rather than pushing for greater transparency and more inspections, we're demanding that they cease enrichment, all based on our suspicions, which don't appear to be based on real intelligence. You talk about how we can't abide any U.N. actions or treaty obligations that violate our soveriegnty, but other nations should obey our whim or risk military force, even when there is no legal basis for our demands. What makes the U.S. so special?

Oh, because we pay 60% of the U.N.'s budget. Actually, it's 22% of general revenues, 28% of the peacekeeping budget.* But in either case, our contributions are in our financial interest when they result in successful peacekeeping operations. Also, saying that we're entitled to special consideration because of our contributions is like the kid who demands a discount on Park Place because he brought the game board.

I didn't mean to imply you'd quoted Horowitz. I've just found that every time I encourage anyone to give Chomsky a fair hearing, they brush the suggestion off by claiming that Horowitz or Postal has already thoroughly debunked him. If you were familiar with Chomsky, you wouldn't need to ask for evidence for America's "we don't give a shit" attitude towards international law; you'd already be familiar with the evidence that we simple-minded, "truth-doesn't-matter", easily bustdownable lefties use to support the assertion.

* Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the _United_Nations. Of course it's Wikipedia, so you can up our contribution to 60% if you feel so inclined.

This isn't about about the children! It's about the damn MONEY! These people couldn't care less about the children! But apparently bringing up the real issue is considered offtopic to those who prefer to piss and moan about "age of consent".

There's a fallacy: somehow deaths can be prevented.

Welcome to the goals of big government liberalism. "If it can save just one life..."

Well, lets ban:
Guns (already in progress)
Cars
Planes
Bathtubs
Stairs
Electricity
The wheel
Mathematics (led to Hiroshima)

Ahh, but you'll say "but for this list, the good vastly outways the potential for death." How about big govt liberals stop meddling in our lives, and remove the roadblocks to our safety.

Here's new stories that will horrify and anger you (if the husband only had a gun...).

Husband made to witness wife shot in head