Weblog 17 January 2009
Jozi: Southern Azania/ SA
It’s the middle of the month and Mr O is about to take over the ‘saving of the world’ job in the USA and is aided in his task by a miraculous piece of demonstrable flying skill on the part of an airline pilot called ‘Sully’, not to be confused with a tv character called Scully from a tv series about miraculous and awesome feats. Mazel tov Sully.
In the Middle–East the Israelis have reached the end of their free time, and in order not to rain on Mr O’s parade are declaring a unilateral ceasefire in their Armageddon prelude. Perhaps they are hoping against hope that the stunned Palestinians of Gaza will be cowed into some form of agreement to live better lives than they presently enjoy. I for one shall not hold my breath in anticipation. The ‘rapture’ mob are out calling ‘the end of days’.
The whole Baghdad, Grozny rerun has been an interesting media blitz really. The world stopped while we watched to leaven the vicissitudes of the so-called “silly season”. It didn’t have the same sense of heart-warming joy we all got a few years back from pouring in aid [presumably largely “evaporated” by now] when that wonderfully scripted and timed Tsunami, swamped the south-east Asian region. There are people, I believe, who have just lost all their money, who are still paying off that largesse.
No: this Christmas venture brought no cheer. It was nasty and brutal; and gained the Israelis few friends, even amongst those who understand that brutalising someone is an effective form of deterrence, and must occasionally be given free rein, in situations that are otherwise intractable.
Logic and reason suggests that the disputed territory should be shared. Nonetheless, precedence, evidence: well beyond circumstantial, common histories and uncommon histories all indicate that this is an improbable event. What happened in South Africa was a one off event. The Afrikaner hegemony was broken, the nation split asunder and has been absorbed into a collectivist mindset that has devalued their position considerably. In practice there are many winners, philosophically there are more losers. Who would want to emulate that without causing unspeakable pain for the winners?
Anyway my main thought is about the 800 billion dollars that President O is going to chisel out of the US Congress. Ostensibly the point is to kick-start the American economy with a huge ‘jobs for upgrade’ scheme. It sounds like, and is, a huge amount. However, City Bank took about 300 billion from the State a month or two ago, and now we discover that it has vanished, simply vanished, into Accounting heaven and the hand is out for more: precedents having been set: let us milk the cow.
I can’t help thinking therefore that if 300 billion can simply vanish without trace into this steaming cauldron of global financial stew then what will be the fate of a figure only two and a half times greater.
As a consequence I am sceptical that Mr O’s scheme can have any impact on the American economy, the tide is flowing… [coming in], and just because the king has been replaced on the beach there is no reason for the tide to ebb. I don’t think 800 billion will even touch the surface, and will be gobbled by more as Mr O attempts to inflate his way out of trouble. In a year more or less he will have to raise taxes and then we will understand a slowdown.
At home the interminable saga over the aspirant president in waiting Mr J Z has moved like a bad soapie into extra time and will no doubt drag on. It is either back to court for Mr Z to face more than 700 charges according to press reports or toss his case to the Constitutional Court for final adjudication. On the principle espoused by the late WC Fields [I think] that “there is no such thing as bad publicity” I predict a solid win for Mr Z in the forthcoming election, the date of which is yet to be announced… but may be before the Constitutional court deliberates…
I also think there is a possibility that the governing party could lose the key provinces in the country: Gauteng [ aka Zone One] and also the Western Cape. These are not strong possibilities you understand, more like medium odds, depending on what rabbits the Government can bring out of the woodpile before election day: or what bad news thy fail to bury.
I would imagine that anyone attempting to get something as parochial and mundane as a driving licence test appointment, for instance, would vote for anybody but the government. The latest appointment for the bloggers's child took 52 phone calls and six weeks. And then once you get one [an appointment] imagine standing in a queue at a place like the Germiston testing grounds from 13.45 to 16.20, hoping to pay to confirm a hard won appointment. The line was interminable. It drudged on waiting to be served by a single slow moving cashier, who was wilting under the stress [ not to mention the heat and humidity].
Then at 16.40… after long boring hours of nudging forward one at a time, a supervisor appears and boldly asks why no other cashier point is open… There were a number of points occupied by slow moving uninvolved people, none of which were serving the public. Of course they needed to clear the day’s haul of abused citizens from the halls by 16.30 so they could all go home, hence boldness
Now I can’t imagine too many people wanting to vote for a Party that puts incompetent people in charge of important functions, and then abuses the citizen… however as we know the memory is paper thin and as the old cliché goes “Time will tell”.
Like it’s doing in Zimbabwe which has just launched a One Hundred? Trillion dollar note. How does one even begin to figure out that? Presumably a matchstick costs about a hundred million. The idea of even printing currency in those denominations is a joke… the country is a slave state by default. I remember once hearing Carl Sagan say that it would take forty years to count to one billion, how does one count to a hundred trillion.
I can only imagine we need to poach Zimbabwean talent, since we are apparently doing an ineffectual job of producing our own. It can only be this short sighted idea that provides a sub- text for our curious unwillingness to engage Robert [Bob the Roz] Mugabe and clouds our inaction. Our failure to remonstrate with the bad guy Mugabe has brought catastrophe to our borders and the idea that it can all be fixed with a few aid packages from the UN and a couple of donors once The Roz is nudged aside is a delusion.
Like the delusion that 800 billion is going to repair America.
The good news is that we all had another day of loving.
Cheers.
