Press Reports

The press review today comes in with the following pearlers

A Ghana Prison Services officer was arrested by his colleagues for smuggling weed into the local prison. I am assuming “Rasta Weed” and no kakibos. The lad was duly locked up in the local police cells. Mortified at facing some quality time with the inmates he was “keeping under control”, the lad decided to take a “sharp object” and attempt to commit suicide. His method of suicide was such that bought a tear to my eye. He decided the best way to die was to cut off his manhood.

Now forgive me for crossing my legs as I write this. The poor bugger survived and is currently been treated at 37 Mil Hospital. He now faces time in the big house without his manhood, which was not reattached.

Methinks Bubba is rubbing his hands (and other parts) in glee awaiting his arrival.

Pres. Robert Mugabe clocks in at 82, Tuesday this week. In true African style his birthday was greeted with birthday wish supplements in the local press and State Radio playing songs praising Mugabe. One of the songs has lyrics as follows: “Let us praise President Mugabe. One day he will liberate the whole of Africa”

God I hope not! 500% inflation, no fuel, no food and Farmers with no money.

An MP has proposed a novel method to prevent deaths resulting from Mini Bus accidents. Her solution is to ban mini buses. I wonder how this will go down in South Africa if the same proposal was made….

The Police in Osu got a bit of a shock when they arrested 2 drivers and a mechanic for illegal parking. The problem arose due to the fact the mechanic was busy fixing the vehicle, a hearse: The hearse of course had a coffin inside complete with the mortal remains of some poor person.

A ruckus developed between the police and mourners, stones were thrown and people were arrested. The mourners that were not arrested decided the deceased was the cause of all the problems (evidently) and dropped said casket inside the charge office. Citizen’s arrest I think the term is. The police were reluctant to lock up the dead man and the article did not mention if the casket ever reached its final resting place.

Ghana Telecom announced – in a half page advert – that the area housing government ministry’s will have their service interrupted. This was to enable Telecom to carry out a “cabinet” cleaning exercise. The issue however is the duration of the interruption. 4 weeks!!! I wonder if this has anything to do with the large amounts outstanding on the ministry’s phone bills…. Time will tell – Oh yes – The interruption would commence on Monday 13th February 2006. The date published in the newspaper Thursday 23rd February 2006.

And finally – how not to get to heaven. Worshippers at the Seventh Day Adventist church in Brong Ahafo were shocked when a bailiff entered the church with a court order to lock up the church. A bailiff agreeing to take on the church is a brave man – or woman – indeed. A bailiff exercising a warrant to lock up a church while a church service is going on leaves the realm of brave and rapidly enters the realm of stupidity!

Methinks said bailiff will have some explaining to do when they look into the big book guarding the pearly gates.

And that dear reader is what grabbed me in the press today.

Needless to say I have a smile on my face.

I hope you have a hint of a smile as well….

Have a happy one!

No Experience Required

Ghana politics continue to make me chuckle. In more ways than one I must add.

The latest furore to overtake the MP’s is the introduction of a bill which in part will allow non resident Ghanians to vote in National Elections. The bill was introduced by the Ruling party (NPP) much to the consternation of the opposition NDC.

The NDC had a solution to the fact that the NPP majority would ensure the bill was carried. They boycotted parliament. Which for elected individuals boggles my small brain.

Not content with that, they decided that a march would be required as well. The destination of the march was…….. the houses of Parliament. In order to present a memorandum expressing their problem with the bill.

Now I would have thought that more voice would be heard by vigorous debate within the hallowed sitting room would be more appropriate instead of the infantile route taken. What it did do however was generate a huge amount of press – which one would feel was their original goal.

Listening to the lads discuss this on Ghana Radio, I had a quiet chuckle as to certain aspects of logic used:

Interviewer: “why would you not want Ghanians living abroad not to vote?”
MP: “because they do not pay taxes”

Now forgive me if I cursed the interviewer for not following up on this rather interesting answer.

I pay tax in Ghana. Using the same (flawed) logic of our opposition MP, I should demand my vote.

I can then hear the MP say in his logical way “NO you cannot vote as you are not a Ghanian”

So then – in order to vote you must be BOTH a Ghanaian and pay taxes?

Yes?

What about the unemployed Ghanians that do not pay tax as they do not have a job. That means they cannot vote.



See – when you try and fight something that is logical with an argument that is illogical – you will fall flat on your nose every time!

The fact that my country does not allow me to vote if I live offshore is a problem for me as well. Despite the fact that I do not want to vote – refer previous blog – I am pissed that I am not allowed to exercise my right not to vote. And that logic is deeply flawed. SO I will not argue it. *chuckle*

Developments in this regard will be watched with interest.

Aircraft in Nigeria have been getting bad press over the last few months. Having a few of them falling out of the sky tends to do that.

I thus read with interest an advert in the local press placed by Virgin Nigeria for an Aircraft Captain.

Part of the required attributes was “Jet Flying experience will be an added advantage”
*cough*

If you going to fly a Jet as a Captain I would hope that Jet Flying Experience would be a REQUIREMENT not just an added advantage. I will have to ask the skipper next time I fly Virgin Nigeria just how much “jet flying” experience he has……

I am on the road at the moment and had occasion to drop in and check up on the progress of one of the jobs we are doing up country.

The job was somewhat on target, but some rather interesting aspects of the job came out in the meeting we had. We were given a pipeline to run, which evidently ends at a pump station. The job was critical and had to be completed in 11 weeks. Threat of death and dismemberment etc. if it was not done.


It however turns out that no-one has determined where the pump station is going to be. So no trench has been dug. And because no-one knew where the pump station was going to be, no-one ordered any pumps. Result: Some scratching of heads and fast blinking of eyes when this aspect was noted under the “possible delays” section of the meeting.

It remains to be seen when the line will be operational.

Of Mortals and men

The Electricity company of Ghana today published a full page advert in the Daily Graphic apologizing for the power failure at the Cape Coast Centre for National Culture.

On closer reading it appears the apology was not because Ghana Power does not usually have power failures, but rather because the President of Ghana was in attendance.

So Ghana Power! When dignitaries are in attendance at a function, they rate full page apologies. There is obviously no apology for the piss poor service given to the mere mortals of the country when their power fails, or power surges cook all the electrical appliances in ones house.(as happened at our Accra office in January).

The best part was, the power failure was caused by overloading of the internal wiring system of the building, causing a fire to break out.

The meter that formed part of the burnt wires was bypassed.

I assume if we had to bypass our meters for any similar reason there would be hell to pay.

As my uncle George once wrote “some animals are more equal than others…..”

The Jungle has not changed!

Back into the Jungle and having to get used to the heat, humidity and problems with getting water out of taps to carry out ones daily ablution.

After almost two months at home, we were blessed with an empty flight to Accra. I had three seats to myself and was able to stretch out and read for the entire flight. I even managed to nap.

That said, the flight was delayed for an hour due to “the plane been lost”. We had a skipper with a sense of humor and addressed us as “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls”. The “security” requirements of flying to the USA required additional security measures in place when boarding and as the plane was parked at the opposite end of the airport, we could not board until it had been moved to a “secure” gate.

The buggers insisted on confiscating lighters – one day someone will explain to me why they have a phobia about having lighters on a plane to the USA – but I was wise to their tricks and managed to secret mine away so at least when we landed I could light up a well needed ciggie.

Apparently the house in Accra had a power surge while I was away which cooked most of the electrical items in the house. Water was an issue as the house is fed by a pressure pump. One fridge is cooked and aircons are not as effective as they can be.

I am back in Ghana!

Getting used to driving on the “wrong” side of the road again and it always amazes me how a conscious thought process has to take place when I am driving. My car has been fixed from its mishaps while I was away and it appears the only the wheel alignment remains an issue.

I have a load to do as a start, and it looks as if the first 10 days back will be spent on the road. I am in Accra today, off to Tarkwa on Friday, Obuasi – Sunday, Newmont – Monday, Tarkwa Wednesday and back to Accra over the weekend.

Best I have the wheel alignment seen to today.

On going through the local newspapers today. There is nothing of interest to anyone!

You have a fun day all.

Oh yes – We do not have internet at the residence again. But then again – with my ISP – what is new!

Growl!

News and views

Been in Joburg gives me access to all the news and views. 702 is my source of news and after a fire at their transmitter you now find them on 540 MHz.

That said – a few items which I believe do deserve comment.

Different peoples views of “justice”. We have two high profile cases currently in the courts. Case #1 is three employees murdered at a laundry service in Vereeniging. After a short investigation, the owner, his daughter, son in law, friend and gardeners are arrested for the murder. The town and people are suitably shocked.

Bail application was made and denied. Second Application was made and after a hearing the public prosecutor did not oppose bail, basically stating that the case against the accused was “not strong”. Apparently the entire case revolved around a “forced” confession from the Gardener who claims he was tortured. Bail was granted.

The court room apparently went wild and the accused family members were pelted with objects and a near riot ensued. Even the press came under attack.

The reason - the accused only got bail because they were white and the judge (also white) was racist. The mother of one of the murdered woman was quoted as saying :”I will teach my children to hate white people because white people hate blacks”.

Innocent until proven guilty was not an option here evidently.

Case #2. Our erstwhile former Deputy President – fired for been implicated in a bribery scandal – was charged with rape. Salient facts are he invited a married woman over to his place and allegedly “forced himself on her”. His trial started yesterday and first motion was to request the judge to recuse himself. Said judge duly recused himself – for personal reasons – and a massive victory was claimed by the Zuma camp and their supporters. It is understood the next judge is now facing the same application. I assume they will continue this ploy until some judge says no.

Zuma supporters claim Zuma is innocent and is subject to a smear campaign. They mention the complainant could not have been raped.

Zuma is on Bail. No problem there for them.

This is looking like a move towards Justice Africa Style.

One thing that concerned me about the judge was – as Judge President – he appointed himself to hear the case. And then decided to recuse himself for “personal” reasons?

Was he got to?

Joburg – and most of SA for that matter – has had day after day of rain. The roads have been interesting and it takes 90 mins to travel 50kms on a highway. I am very good at following distances when the roads are wet as most vehicles on the road drive as badly as I do.

Yesterday a good following distance proved useful. Traveling along at 60kmph the traffic decided to stop. I stopped around 10 meters from the car in front of me and as I do looked into my rear view mirror to make sure the lad behind me noted I stopped.

See 8 ton truck in rear view mirror. See 8 ton truck slam on brakes. See 8 ton truck skid out of control. Pull off the highway at a dash of speed. See 8 ton truck crash into poor Nissan 1400 Bakkie.

Shake head at the wonderful drivers we have. Continue on journey.

Tomorrow I go back to the Jungle! Tonight I have nookie…. Lots of it!!

Have fun people

And oh yeah – Happy Valentines day!

How to fool the electorate all the time

South Africa has their local government elections on March 1st 2006. True to form the day has been declared a public holiday so the 35% can go vote. The other 65% of people smile happily and make plans on what to do that day.

Business bemoans lost productivity and additional costs.

Why can the guys not make voting day on a Friday. Long weekends are so much more fun than a holiday on a Wednesday.

That said: All the lamp poles over the province have grown placards. The DA seems to have spent a load of money on Tony Leon pictures and the ANC has one basic poster which elicits a chuckle every time I see it.

“IMPROVE SERVICE DELIVERY – VOTE ANC” the poster extorts. My argument is the ANC is in power and have been for the last 12 years or so. Saying if you vote ANC it will improve service delivery is a bit like shooting yourself in the foot. Friendly ANC – you have been in power for 12 years. If you have not done what you had set out to do over the 12 years and improvement is required… you are doing something wrong!

BUT: The best of it is:

Due to the weird voting system we have here, at local government elections you do not vote for a person. You vote for a party. The party then decided who represents you at your ward level. That way ensuring that the person that represents you is not responsible to the voter, but to the party. And I am sure that many people are scratching their heads wondering why service delivery is foul. Rocket science it does not take. Managment 101 it does.

But even better this year, the ANC has decided not to declare who the mayors are going to be until AFTER the election. Now kick me and call me stupid! Ask me to vote for a leader when I do not know who the leader is….if by failing to declare who is going to head the local government that you rely on all sorts of daily services and making it a party responsibility do you really expect me to cast my vote?

I mean let’s see. On the party list you have a candidate who was tossed out of government due to fraudulent travel claims. You can quite happily make that person mayor. And I “voted” for that person. There are numerous mayors who have run their municipal areas into the ground and quite happily got paid bonuses. I must “vote” for them?

Nope – I think the ANC are telling the voters “we do not give a shit about you. Vote for us (we are going to win anyway as we rely on uneducated masses who are still thanking us for liberating them from the evils of apartheid) and we will put whoever we feel like in charge.

The DA? They are very much a me too party. No new ideas and happily part of the opposition and will always be. You can see who is resigned to been opposition. No new ideas and only knock the ruling party, even if what they plan is a good idea.

So our democratic society stumbles on.

Me? I am not registered to vote as I do believe the voting system is rigged by not making a person responsible to the electorate. SO what the hell – screw me with your increase in rates, poor water service, billing problems and roads that fall apart. Boast that you have delivered houses that are falling down, increased people’s living standards and are the best thing for the people.

I will put my head down and work for a living. Cause at the end of the day that’s all we the masses can do.

Of Prophets and Parody

It would be remiss of my blog not to comment on the current furore caused by the little Danish newspaper and 20 cartoons depicting the Prophet as a “terrorist”.

This has caused boycotts against the Danes and their wonderful foodstuff, the odd burnt down embassy, a few deaths and a whole lot of Danish flags in flames.

Now I look at this and wonder what the hell is happening in our little world and the concept of religious tolerance.

Two cartoons I have heard of sounded like a pretty interesting commentary of what is happening in the Islamic world. And that dear reader has always been what political cartoons are all about. Commentary on world matters.

Let’s take a scenario. Abdul – a young chap from western Iraq. Devout, attends mosque every day and is rather cheesed off about all these shaved people wandering around his piece of desert, nicking the oil. Some equally devout older chaps come along and say to young Abdul – “you can become a martyr. We will look after your family and in the afterlife you will go to a better place and be presented with 100 virgins”.

Now considering all the woman in your village walk around covered from head to toe and the only exposure to nookie has been the unshaven ones Hustler that was left in the garbage, this sounds like a wonderful thing. You never think to wonder why the exact same people who are telling you how cool it is to become a martyr do not think of been martyrs themselves.

So young Abdi straps on 10kg of stuff that goes bang! And shouts the usual chant before he sets off the 10kg in a crowded market place and passes on to the next world.

Walking up the path, following the sign that says “Martyrs” he notes the long queue and a turbaned lad running down shouting “STOP STOP!! We have run out of virgins!!!”

Personally, I find this a rather interesting commentary of exactly what is going on in the world, and as Zapiro (a well known South African political cartoonist) said “Damn, Why did I not think of this!”

Now this cartoon – and 19 others, were published in August last year. In February 2006 – a full six months later, the entire Muslim world erupts and starts burning stuff. Why the delay I ask myself……

Could it be that their methods of communication are a tad slow. Could it be that they ran out of stuff to do on a Friday. Could it be that it takes a while for their level of intolerance to run out. I have no idea – but what I do have as an idea is that their reaction was waaaaaaayyyyyy over the top.


I also think that once they decided to start the riot thing, they displayed a level of intolerance which can only make people who believe in free speech and the art of parody shake their heads in amazement.

From what I know of the Prophet, he was a peace loving individual who preached what a lot of Muslims follow today. Peace, love and respect for your fellow man. He would have looked at the parody, shook his head and maybe, just maybe, looked behind the cartoon and realized that there was some thought required to why people seem hell bent on becoming martyrs.

By making it an issue they ensured that the small newspaper and the cartoons got all the publicity that they required. They also took on an entire government – that is well known for monitory aid to poor countries – and every believer of free speech in the free world.

Good going lads!!!

There has been over the decades a large amount of religious parody. This is the first time I can recall that innocent people have been killed over it. People complain bitterly, and have done – but do not go out and kill other people!!

I am a believer in free speech. I am also a great proponent of tolerance to my fellow man. Accept people for what they are and laugh at their foibles.

In South Africa, we have a Sunday Paper – The Sunday Times - that would have had some commentary on the issue. They were approached by the local Muslim leadership to give a guarantee that they would not publish the cartoons. The Editor – I am assuming a Christian fellow – refused to give such an undertaking. Said Leadership took the matter to the high court and banned any publication of the cartoons under “Hate Speech”. The interesting part of the high court decision was that the judge was…. A Muslim. I do scratch my head on how a learned official like a high court judge cannot recognize his conflict of interest here. There is a word – recusal!

The net effect of this decision is that we, in South Africa, can now go to court and ban things we do not agree with before it even gets published. I want to see this in action.

In my personal belief the Sunday Times should NOT have published the cartoons as they were obviously inflammatory and could cause more protests and burnings. But the choice should be theirs, not some Judge who had to face his Imam on Friday. And therein lies the definition of Free Speech and the responsibility thereto.

Oh yes. The court application was on the Friday, after the Mail & Guardian had already published a cartoon that day.

The Muslim community made the cartoons newsworthy. If they did not burn and kill it would have died a natural death.

But hey – give me one Muslim country that believes in Free Speech and the rights of an individual. *sigh* - please!!

And therein lies my commentary:

Religion has been hijacked to meet individual needs. No wonder I am agnostic!

And to any Muslim that reads my Blog and gets incensed. Before you flame me please answer the following questions:

Does your religion support the killing of innocent people for the “cause”?

Do you think it is right for people who do not believe in something, to use other people to carry out the killing of innocents?

Do you believe that Parody highlights issues that need to be looked at closer?

Do you believe that Free Speech is a right, which should be exercised with caution?

Do you believe that in a Democracy, the government is responsible for every citizen’s action?

Do you think killing people over a cartoon is justified?

Now if you answered yes to all these questions: Flame away
If you answered No to even one… think why: and the Flame away

(at least I got you thinking – and that is important in my life)

Africamissive moves North

On Wednesday the 15th, Africamissive moves back to Ghana.

See you there!

The stupid tree makes another appearance

To set the scene on this one you will need to understand the following:

Around 8 months ago, our wonderous IT department installed the new "improved" anti virus on all our laptops. This had the effect of making my machine unusable for the first 15 minutes after startup as it automatically scanned for virus's. It also for some reason hooked into my email program and if I stopped the scan prematurely it tended to make Outlook as slow as a child eating vedgies.

In January I finally had complained enough, that said IT dept. had a look at my Laptop and pronounced the registery corrupt. Their solution? Re-Install OS.

After gritting my teeth, I agreed, muttering death threats if I lost any important information.

Francis reinstalled the OS and my laptop worked like an athlete on steriods.

The one issue..... all my downloaded programs had vanished into the ether.

And that dear readers - sets the scene for my brush with the stupid tree.

(well not so much of a brush as loud sound of crashing through the branches of said tree, lifting myself up and promptly crashing through the stupid tree again and again)

Nessers has recently installed 512kb broadband. The non African readers of my blog will not understand what a quantam leap 512kb is to us african people, but it was like the entire world of the internet was finally opened.

I climbed onto the bandwidth like a druggie who has not had his fix for a week!

Useful program after useful program was downloaded. Irfan view, Adobe Professional, Tools for my Sony P910i, Yahoo, Updates for my camera etc etc.

And then came the time to make it all work together.

For some reason one of the downloaded program's was an evaluation version. I needed a key. Now I do not do piracy (often). But in this case I had the original program, but could not for the life of me find the activation key. The software key was in Ghana (odds are) where I had put a whole pile of CD's etc in my bedside drawer.

From my misspent youth, I knew that crack sites are available on the web and happily toodled off to make use of the crack. Not piracy - expediancy.

Everyone who uses crack sites KNOW!!! that you do not download any files from the site. If the key is not immediatly available, you find another link. DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILES!!!! DO NOT!!!!

Find the crack and up pops a " Do you wish to download file something.zip". I am computer aware, I am in a hurry, you cannot access the key without downloading the file, it is a zip file - needs to be extracted first of course..... I download it!

I hear the sound of thuds as the file takes over my PC, I hear the sound of me crashing through the branches of the stupid tree..... I swear like a sailor!!!

This cute little virus happily finds my anti virus and uninstalls it.... and promptly drops 312 files of infected usefulness onto my pc. Takes over my browser and does other disasterous things.

My computer now needs to head back to IT, my head down and a blush visible as I ask them to once again, reinstall my OS.

I am blushing? Damn right I am - I should know better!!!

and to the fool that wrote the virus.. (most probably the vendor of the software I was trying to crack), may your mother find you and ban you from touching a PC again.

Did Nessers and Esther laugh when I told them about this.... you bet they did!! I have a holier than thou attitude about getting virus, as in "you have to be bloody stupid to catch a virus". They will rip me off about this for months to come!!

I look at the stupid tree and shake my head!