Ozzie Saffa

Zimbabwe rations water

2012-02-01T19:57:00.001+11:00

Another African success story. Zimbabwe thinks the answer to their typhoid outbreak is to stop supplying clean water to the 'rich' and funnel it instead to the poor - nothing like buying votes, hey Mugabage? Amazingly, the Zimbaboon government hasn't thought about addressing the problem at the root cause, which is poor water supply in the country. Nah, that's too difficult and takes too many brain cells and hard work - almost as difficult as adding 1+1. The so-called rich can afford to buy their water, so let's take from them and give to others. I'm sure this makes sense to Mugabage on some level - after all he did fall out of the stupid tree and bash every branch on the way down. How low can Zimbabwe go? I think a lot further.....And to think, as little as 15 years ago, Zimbabwe was a thriving country, with an over supply of food. The people were happy - apart from those 'war-veterans' and Mugabe, who thought that Zimbabwe and the West somehow owed them a better life because of the color of their skins. So they decided to thieve and steal from productive people. And 15 years later they're still stealing from people, this time water from the 'rich'. Think where Zimbabwe would have been today if Ian Smith still had control. But no, Black Africans always think they know better and the country to the south of their border is no different and will soon follow in their footsteps.

Instead of fields of wheat, there are fields of graves

Zimbabwean authorities say they are making sure poor townships get uninterrupted water supplies after a typhoid outbreak, leaving wealthy areas with reduced supplies.

Harare official Tendai Mahachi told reporters on Tuesday well-to-do suburbs will get water about twice weekly. He said "the wealthy can afford to buy water" and cope with outages.

At least 900 cases of the bacterial disease have been treated this year in poor western suburbs of Harare, many having had no piped water for months and even years.

No deaths have been reported in the typhoid outbreak blamed on food contaminated by faeces from broken sewers during water shortages.

A cholera outbreak in 2009 blamed on the collapse of water, sanitation and prevention services killed more than 4 000 people.

Source

South Africa: Farmer beaten, tied to tree then shot

2012-02-01T19:31:00.002+11:00

Yes people. This is what is happening to the Boers (farmers) of South Africa. You can only imagine the cowards who would assault a 77 year old defenseless man, tie him to a tree and then shoot him execution-style, left to be found by his family and friends. Yes, this is the fine upstanding Black Africans found in the formerly decent country called South Africa. These days South Africa is known for corruption, nepotism, tribalism and violent crime. In fact, it's the capital for rape and murder. And now decent old people are being brutally murdered. You can always tell the state of a nation by how they treat their elderly and this crime tells you EXACTLY what South Africa is and will continue to become - a crime hellhole, infested with HIV and savage natives. Well done all you liberals out there who supported the ANC to claim the country as their prize after they put NO work into building up the country. No wonder they think they're entitled to all the riches without the hard work. And this lazy corrupt government have produced youngsters who think it's grand to brutally murder and humiliate elderly, hard-working, God-fearing folk (and others). I would like to use a lot stronger language, but I was raised to be decent. This is a hate crime, pure and simple and anyone still in doubt as to the Boer genocide need doubt no longer. If this had happened in Australia it would be front page news for days and the attackers would be hunted down like the cowards they are. In South Africa people say shame, another one..........

A 77-year-old farmer who was murdered on his farm near Stella over the weekend was badly assaulted, tied to a tree and then shot dead, North West police say.

The body of Hendrik Johannes (Boet) Cilliers was found at 19:00 on Sunday near his farmhouse, after his bakkie (ute) was found abandoned on a nearby road.

He had lived on the farm all his life. It is situated about 15km from Stella on the road to Mahikeng.

Police spokesperson Captain Aafje Bothma confirmed that there was a gunshot wound on the forehead.

According to Jaco Scholtz from Stella, Cilliers’s legs were tied up and he was badly assaulted.

Scholtz said Theo Scholtz, one of his neighbours, had found the white Nissan 1400 bakkie on the road about 3km from Erfdeel. He called the police.

Several other people who had seen the bakkie had also called the police and driven to the farm. They saw the house was a mess but there was no sign of Cilliers. He was later found about 30 metres from the house.

Fond of children

Cilliers was a widower and lived alone.

His family suspects he was attacked while mending a fence on the farm.

"[He] usually had money with him and there was nothing on him when he was found,” said Jaco Scholtz.

Cilliers had three children, Chris, 47, Ansa Nieuwoudt, 45, and Willem, 42. He also raised his grandson, Johan Cilliers, 19.

“Oom Boet was mother and father to him. I have tried talking to Johan but he is in a terrible state of shock,” said Jaco Scholtz.

Johan Cilliers matriculated from Stella High School two years ago and is currently a second-year agriculture student in Potchefstroom.

Niewoudt said her father was very fond of children.

“They always followed him around on the farm.”

She said her father was very active and healthy and regularly ran after the cattle when they had to be herded.

“He was generous and always very good to others, even at a cost to himself,” said Nieuwoudt, who lives in Klerksdorp, on Monday afternoon.

Raubie Malan of Agri Stella described Cilliers as full of life.

Suspects

Jaco Scholtz said there had been no serious crime in the area over the past year.

He said the farmers and workers suspected that three young men were responsible for the crime.

Workers on a neighbouring farm had apparently come across three young men who were “stoned and drunk”.

Farmers in the area are now following tracks.

Bothma said police are only investigating a murder at this stage.

Source

Open your eyes. Where’s that warming?

2012-02-01T18:55:00.001+11:00

A good article written by Andrew Bolt, one of the few vocal Australian conservatives. Mr Bolt makes way too much sense most days and is usually labelled by the MSM as being too extreme! Isn't that always the case? The Left's version of debate is censorship when you don't agree with their message and so far Mr Bolt has managed to debunk each and every lie that our warmists have fed us over the years. Once again he has pointed out the scam that is ~~global warming~~ climate change. And just how will history of this scam be written? Why, if the Left have anything to do with it they'll still be peddling their lies whilst we shiver through the next ice age.

IT’S a bright new year, so let’s see how the great global warming scare is panning out, shall we?

First, the planet hasn’t actually warmed for a decade—or even 15 years, according to new temperature data from Britain’s Met Office.

Hmm. That’s not what global warming scientists predicted.

Or look out of your window.

The rain that Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery said in 2007 “isn’t actually going to fill our dams and river systems” any more has just flooded New South Wales and Queensland again.

The Bureau of Meteorology,which three years ago warned “we are just not going to have that sort of good rain again”, now admits last year was our third-wettest on record.

The snowfalls that the University of East Anglia in 2000 said would soon become “a very rare and exciting event” are falling as hard as ever.

The monster hurricanes we were told to expect by Nobel Prize winner Al Gore are coming no more often.

The massive coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, that warmist Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg predicted would occur every second year from 2010, hasn’t hit in years.

Wherever you look it’s the same wake-up-to-yourself story.

Sea levels have recently dipped, the oceans have lately cooled, Arctic ice has not retreated since 2007, polar bear numbers are increasing, global crop yields keep rising and now some solar scientists warn not of warming, but cooling.

So how do the warming activists respond to increasing evidence contradicting their theory that our carbon dioxide emissions are heating the world dangerously?

Simple. They close their eyes.

Take Prof Naomi Oreskes, the author of Merchants of Doubt who famously tried to prove that not one scientific paper dissented from the global warming “consensus”.

Last week she complained people still “cling to the idea that it is reasonable to maintain an open mind”, and insisted: “It isn’t.”

To have an academic demand a closed mind on global warming is a shock. It shows she’s talking not about science but a faith.

Yet her view is depressingly echoed by much of the media, which for years has whipped up the warming scare, refusing to report on scientists who queried it, and demonising the open-minded as “deniers”.

They, too, believe a closed mind—and closed ears—is how to deal with inconvenient truths I’ve listed.

Example?

I once mentioned on the ABC TV’s Insiders that the warming had paused, only to be heckled by one panellist while the other, The Sydney Morning Herald’s David Marr, theatrically buried his head in a newspaper.

Not listening, la la la la la.

What has made the deliberate know-nothingness of such journalists so damaging is that in no other country has the media spruiked the warming creed so hysterically.

Warmist researchers from the Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado in Boulder have counted how often 50 papers around the world mentioned “global warming” or “climate change” and found that in every year from 2006 to 2011 our own beat the rest.

But see how some of the most obsessed outlets—especially The Age and ABC—resist reporting evidence that the late 20th century warming blamed on man’s gases has halted, and few of the catastrophic consequences predicted have happened.

Man’s gases do affect the climate is some small way, but not necessarily for the worst and certainly not by as much as natural influences—some of which may have us heading for cooling.

Henrik Svensmark, director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute, investigates the effects of the sun and cosmic rays on our climate, and last week said a recent cut in the sun’s output could soon reverse any man-made warming: “World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more.”

Who knows if he’s right? Best keep an open mind on this and on man-made warming.

Or, as Harvard University physicist Mike Stopa warned last week: “It is possible that CO2 has effectively no influence on global climate.”

And he asked: “Suppose it turns out that CO2 has essentially nothing to do with the Earth’s climate.

“How will the history of this colossal mistake be written?”

Source

Socialist heaven California will run out of money by March

2012-02-01T18:37:00.000+11:00

Let's see if we can pin-point why California always seems to be broke. Now, I'm no economist, but I like to think I have some common sense, so here goes: Firstly, it's run by liberals, who always dream up wonderful schemes where government controls everything and everybody - under the guise that they're looking out for you, the tax payer. Secondly, these liberal dreams usually cost tons of money, and because their dreams are pie-in-the-sky and not profitable, they usually end up wasting even more money, for example, their green-scheme renewable energy 'job' creation, which has bankrupted the state. Thirdly, in order for them to fund these feel-good dreams, they have to raise taxes to pay for their little pet projects, thereby chasing companies and people out of the state, raising unemployment and decreasing revenue even further. Fourthly, they actually encourage illegal immigrants to move to the state by offering to pay for their education - paid by American taxes to educate illegal Mexican citizens - if that ain't crazy then what is! And then when they are finally completely and utterly broke, they will run to the Federal government to bail them out, which, if it's a Dem WH, they will. So, for California to keep dreaming, everyone else in America picks up the tab. Yeah, isn't socialism grand?

California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today.

The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.

But Chiang said additional cash management solutions are needed because state tax revenues are $2.6 billion less than what Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers assumed in their optimistic budget last year. Meanwhile, Chiang said, the state is spending $2.6 billion more than state leaders planned on.

The Assembly budget committee approved a bill today that would enable $865 million of borrowing from existing state accounts, Senate Bill 95. Chiang, after consultation with the Department of Finance and state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, is also seeking about $2.4 billion in delayed payments to universities, counties and Medi-Cal, as well as additional borrowing from outside investors.

Absent these actions, the state would fall below its prudent $2.5 billion cash cushion on Feb. 29, Chiang estimated. On March 8, the state would actually end up $730 million in the red. The state would be below the safe cash cushion for several weeks ending April 13, save for several days at the end of March.

With such actions, Chiang believes the state would not have to use IOUs or delay tax refunds, maneuvers that have been relied upon in previous years. But Chiang also said that "more cash solutions may be required if our revenues continue to erode or if disbursements significantly exceed estimates."

California borrows money early each fiscal year because the state has regular monthly expenses but receives the bulk of its tax revenues in the spring. The state borrowed $5.4 billion last fall for this purpose.

Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Woodland Hills, downplayed the significance of the new borrowing in a hearing. He said $5.4 billion was small relative to the $10 billion state leaders were prepared to borrow last year.

Some Republicans raised questions about when the borrowing from state accounts from would be paid back and why the state is spending more than expected.

Source

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/01/controller-state-to-run-out-of-cash-in-march-without-action.html#storylink=cpy

Egyptian Cleric Defends Mohammed’s Marriage To Six-Year-Old Aisha

2012-02-01T17:09:00.000+11:00

Hey paedophiles! Good news. Move to a 'warm' climate because, just like fruit, girl-children mature and ripen quicker there!! So, instead of being accused of fiddling with young girls, you can say that you've fiddled with mature women! See? Ain't life grand when you're a Muslim and you want to excuse paedophilia? Just blame it all on the warm weather. You just can't make this stuff up, even if you tried long and hard....

Following are excerpts from a religious program presented by Egyptian cleric Sheik Abdallah Kamal, which aired on Safa TV on January 9, 2012:

Abdallah Kamal: I mentioned yesterday that the Prophet Muhammad married Aisha when she was six years old, and had sexual intercourse with her when she was nine years old. People might raise an eyebrow and ask how such a thing could be.

This hadith has been taken, by people with ulterior motives, and by people who hate the Prophet Muhammad — whether Christians, Orientalists, or even some Muslims. . . They, however, made a great mistake, and in their efforts to defend the Prophet Muhammad — and although we think highly of them — they made a very dangerous mistake, and attributed a falsehood to Imam Al-Bukhari, and made him appear to have made a mistake. [...]

The environment differs from one place to another, from one climate to another, and from one country to another. In some countries, a girl reaches puberty at the age of 8 or 9. Moreover, religious scholars have written, in the books of jurisprudence that a girl may menstruate and even give birth at the age of 9 years. She can give birth at the age of 9 years.

Okay. So where is this cruelty and barbarism they are talking about? How can they claim that the Prophet Muhammad only cared about his desire and his lust? What is this obvious deception?

In warm places, girls reach puberty at a very early age — generally at the age of 8 years. In cold places, girls’ puberty is delayed until the age of 21 years — as is the case in some cold countries.

Read more here

US, UN Helped Colo. Man Now Accused of Terrorism

2012-02-01T17:00:00.000+11:00

Articles like the one below make me wonder: are we as White people that stupid? Yes, apparently we are. Our Western countries have opened their borders to anyone with a sob story. Ron Paul is right in that the USA has become the world's policeman, and it really does have to stop. When America stops this kumbaya nonsense, then the rest of the Western countries will follow suit. Australia isn't much different. Any Muslim or non-White"fleeing" from oppression is allowed into the country on a welfare-funded magic carpet. Before long Australia will also feel what real diversity brings. Already the population is changing and we are told to accept that Australia will become Asian one day, so why fight it? This is treason by our governments against their own people. In the article below it’s reported that America and the UN helped to relocate an Uzbekistan Muslim man who fled from his country because they were 'torturing' him. Lo and behold, hasn't this down-trodden, sad, poor man - who America couldn't help quick enough - just been arrested on terrorism charges! Am I the only person out there who can see what this bloody stupid social engineering experiment of 'love they neighbour' is bringing to our countries? It's time for us to love ourselves before our neighbours and stand together to keep this vermin out of our lives. You can call me racist as much as you like, but the very sad reality is that if we don’t start looking after our own race and the countries we’ve built, then there won’t be a White race to look after in the near future, nor the standard of living we’ve produced over the years. Isn’t it sad that we have governments who impose their world view on us…instead of governing for the good of the people who have elected them to do just that.

Jamshid Muhtorov

A man from Uzbekistan that the United States and the United Nations helped relocate to Colorado now faces a terrorism charge.

Jamshid Muhtorov opposed his home country's dictator following a 2005 massacre, endured a brutal detention, and saw his sister arrested on a false murder charge. The 35-year-old fled his country by night dressed as a woman, and the U.S. and the U.N. helped bring him to Aurora in 2007.

Now, he's accused of providing material support and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union. The violent group opposes the Uzbek government and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

Authorities arrested Muhtorov in Chicago on Jan. 21, the Denver Post reported Tuesday ( http://bit.ly/yHsRIF ).

Federal authorities say the Islamic Jihad Union has claimed responsibility for attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, including a March 2008 suicide attack on a U.S. base. The group is also blamed for carrying out simultaneous suicide bombings of the U.S. and Israeli embassies and a prosecutor's office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

"It is a crime, and has been a crime for many years, to provide material support for a designated terrorist organization, the IJU," said Dean Boyd, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. "Our job is to enforce the law."

Read more here

Romney Staffer: It’s Not About Winning Anymore, It’s About Destroying Newt Gingrich

2012-01-30T23:14:00.000+11:00

I have listened to my sixth sense for my entire life and it's gotten me quite far in life. My sixth sense is telling me that Mitt Romney is going to be oh so bad for America - whether he is elected the GOP nominee or whether he eventually gets the top job as US President. And why is this you ask? Well, Romney has been promised the GOP nominee since the last election when John Mc-RINO-Cain got the nod. Off Romney went and started planning and campaigning, backed by his millions of dollars. From day one of the election campaign he has targeted only Newt Gingrich with negative advertisements and no one else. Even when Newt was nothing in the Polls in Iowa Romney focused only on NG. Why? Well, because he and his puppet masters know that Newt is his biggest threat, with his intelligent mind, wonderful debating skills and his conservative record. Romney didn't expect the smack down he got in South Carolina. Boy, you can just imagine how Mr Plastic reacted behind the scenes throwing his tantrums and demanding he win Florida. As a result, Romney unleashed his temper on Florida. Negative ads after negative ads, all aimed at Newt, just so that Mommy's Boy can win and get his prize. What does it tell you about Romney that he can lie in the debates with such a straight face and nothing is ever his fault? After the SC smack down, he employed a debate coach just so that he could beat up on Newt. What a wussy pants. Romney is not to be trusted. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing and I can only hope that the American people will see through his deception. He is not a nice person.

Mr Plastic

NAPLES, Florida—Mitt Romney's goal in Florida is no longer just winning.

After Gingrich Newt scored a surprise blow-out victory in South Carolina last week, the former Massachusetts governor not only unleashed a political broadside of epic proportions.

"It not about winning here anymore," one Romney staffer told BuzzFeed. "It's about destroying Gingrich — and it's working."

After two standout debate performances that put him up 9 points in recent polls, Romney is keeping the pressure on Gingrich, looking to score a blow-out victory of his own here.

To that end, Romney has rolled out a team of surrogates in the Sunshine State to take the fight to Gingrich in person: from Connie Mack (III) and Connie Mack (IV), to Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Sen. John McCain. Romney has also aired a controversial ad featuring Tom Brokaw announcing that Gingrich had been sanctioned by the House.

Today both Macks took the stage before Romney to attack Gingrich's character, proclaiming that he has a “checkered past with ethics and honesty."

Romney also launched into his longest attack directed squarely at Gingrich, devoting almost four minutes of his 18 minute stump speech attacking the former Speaker of the House.

"Mr. Speaker, your trouble in Florida is not because the audience is too quiet or too loud or because you have opponents that are tough," Romney said, comparing Gingrich's complaints about debate audiences to Goldilocks. Then, with a broad smile on his face, he listed the reasons why Florida voters are now moving away from Gingrich's campaign.

"Your problem in Florida is that you worked for Freddie Mac at a time when Freddie Mac was not doing the right thing for the American people," he added.

Shortly after Romney's remarks, his campaign emailed "Earth to Newt: Tell The Truth" detailing a long list of alleged lies while mocking his ambitious space agenda.

As the clock ticks down to the polls closing here, what's clear is that this state is no longer about winning for Romney — he's out for total destruction, and he's probably going to get it.

Source

Lite Moments

2012-01-30T22:45:00.001+11:00

Djokovic: We made history

2012-01-30T22:02:00.000+11:00

What a final! I had to get up for work this morning so couldn't watch the last set of the match, which I taped and watched when I got home. I was backing Novak, but went to bed thinking that Nadal would win the title. So imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to the news that Novak Djokovic had prevailed and won the Australian Open in Melbourne, my hometown. And what a match it was - lasting nearly 6 hours and the lead swapping over and over. Games lasting over 10 minutes, and rallies of 32 shots. It goes down in my books as the most exciting tennis match to date. They were superheroes and very inspiring to all young kids out there. Congrats boys! You did your sport and countries proud.

“Black People Have Become Too Ignorant For Me To Claim, I Need To Invent A New Race”

2012-01-30T21:45:00.000+11:00

There is no PC here so if you're easily offended then don't watch (that's a warning for the liberals who might stumble on this blog). This guy actually tells the truth about Black people, without sugar coating with double speak. Enjoy!

NYPD detective guilty of trying to kill his wife by setting her on fire with petrol and candles because she wanted to divorce him

2012-01-30T20:44:00.000+11:00

Take a good look at the picture below. This is what is left of a beautiful, young, blonde woman after her African American husband decided to change her appearance for her. First he tried to rape her; then he hit her four times with a hammer; then he poured petrol on her and set her alight. And the reason? She wanted a divorce. Apparently being married to a Black man isn't all it's made out to be. The print media, TV shows and movies are largely responsible for promoting miscegenation. They deliberately have mixed-race couples (usually a White and a something else) shoved in our faces so that we can get sensitised until we believe it's the norm. But, what they fail to inform the public, and especially women, is that a White female in a relationship with a Black man is 12.4 times more likely to be murdered by their partner than a White female in a relationship with a White male. In other words, they are just begging to be a victim of crime - all so they can be hip and can brag to their friends and family how non-racist they are. They usually pay with their lives. The internet is full of these types of stories, where a Black man has either attacked or killed their White female partner - in fact, there are too many to post - but females need to be aware of this statistic. And the worst part is that they usually have mixed-race children who usually identify with their Black half and turn out to be just as bad as their father. White women need to learn to have some self-respect for themselves and their race and not be so desperate.

Audrey Mabrey

A retired NYPD detective severely burned his estranged wife by dousing her with petrol and setting her on fire because she was divorcing him.

Christopher Hanney, 46, of Tampa Bay, Florida, forced Audrey Mabrey, 29, into the garage of their marital home and tried to rape her.

He then struck her four times with a hammer, threw petrol on her and used one of her scented candles to set her on fire, the court was told.

Hanney faces a life sentence after being found guilty by a Tampa jury on Thursday of attempted murder, aggravated battery and arson.

Ms Mabrey, who claimed her husband was jealous of an ex-boyfriend, was passing by Hanney's home in Apollo Beach in November 2009.

She had moved out of their home to an apartment in nearby Brandon, Florida, and they were preparing for a divorce.

They were sharing care of their two small children despite divorcing. Ms Mabrey was on her way to college when the incident happened.

Hanney attacked her when she stopped by at the house. He tried to rape her and set her on fire, but she managed to run away and a neighbour helped her put out the fire burning on her.

But Hanney claimed he was the intended victim, tied to a chair and had a gun put to his head by his wife with an armed, masked accomplice.

Ms Mabrey had threatened him with a lit candle and petrol bottle, he kicked her and she went up in flames when the liquid spilled, he claimed.

Hanney had a full two years in prison to develop that false explanation, said Jennifer Gabbard, prosecuting, reported the Tampa Bay Times.

‘This defendant decided to kill Audrey Mabrey because he finally figured out that he lost her,’ she said, reported the Tampa Bay Tribune.

He had even written her a letter from jail begging forgiveness, insisting that she was still beautiful and she loved her more than ever.

Hanney wanted to commit murder and suicide on the same day, Ms Gabbard added.

Ms Mabrey was in a coma for a month after the attack and had seven surgeries. Eighty per cent of her body was scarred from it.

Her dad Richard Brown said he was told about the attack by a plainclothes policeman who came to his home in Texas, reported the Tampa Bay Times.

However in an unfortunate miscalculation Mr Brown had tackled the officer to the ground outside his home as he thought he was an intruder.

Mr Brown and his wife, Lisa, could not recognise their daughter because of the scarring when they came to see her at Tampa General Hospital.

After she recovered Ms Mabrey became a campaigner against domestic violence. Hanney will be sentenced in March. ‘I'm just relieved,’ she said.

Christopher Hanney

Source

Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about

2012-01-30T20:06:00.001+11:00

The Global Warming scam is hopefully coming to an end. The UK Met Office has released new figures which show no warming has occurred in the last 15 years. A few years back when the so-called climate-alarmist 'scientists' realised what was happening, they changed the Global Warming term to Climate Change, so they could blame any change in the 'climate' on their scam. When it's hot it's due to Climate Change; and when it's cold it's due to Climate Change - a win-win no matter which way the weather goes. 1000 years is a blip on the timeline of the Earth, yet they expect us to look at the last few years so they can prove their warming theory, which apparently is due to the rise in Carbon Dioxide, of which humans produce 3%. The only problem is that even whilst Carbon Dioxide has risen, the Earth has failed to warm up. Ooops! No one is against cleaning up the planet and looking after the environment - but don't lie to us and tell us that CO2 is to blame. See, when you can blame warming on a tangible, then they can put a price on it. Al Gore has made billions off this scam. Still today, he flies all over the world lecturing us - the little people - on how we should pay him more money so that he can continue scaring kids. He flies all around in his fossil fuel burning aircraft; drives in chauffeured limousines; lectures us to stop having kids (even though HE has four of his own) and flogs his stupid lie-filled movie making more and more money. At some point you have to stop and start realising you've been had. The reality is that the Earth is probably entering the next Ice Age which is not going to be great. The next truth is that the Earth's climate is controlled by the Sun - duh! Now all we need to have happen is for the MSM to start reporting the truth and stop with the scaremongering, but I'm not holding my breath. The Sun: An Inconvenient Truth.

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.

We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.

According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.

Two Al Gore's mansions, where he shivers in the winter so he can feel like a little people:

Read more here

Allen West to Obama - get the hell out of the USA

2012-01-30T19:32:00.000+11:00

The reason I like Allen West is that he doesn't sit in the racist corner, using the predictable race card. No, he sees and knows what's going on. He's been on the battle field where he's had to command and look after his troops. He is probably the only Black person I have some respect for because he's willing to call out all those lazy Blacks who have used the color of their skin to get ahead in life. In the clip below West tells Obama where to go and he also asks the WH to bring it on if they want to make him enemy #1. Wussy pants Obama won't bring it on, he'd rather use his DoJ to do his dirty work, ala Chicago thugs.

Reagan vs Obama

Netanyahu vs Obama

See a pattern here? That's who the USA has as it's President...

Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice

2012-01-28T13:26:00.000+11:00

Hey, my fellow conservatives, not only are we racist, but now we also have low IQ's! From now on I'm only going to post pictures so that y'all can understand what I'm saying......For those of you who can read and understand, then here's what I have to say to author of this incredibly insightful article, Ms Stephanie Pappas (who has one of those lucky dip BA degrees in Psychology, so apparently isn't conservative or dumb): How do you explain that the majority of African Americans in the USA have an IQ of 80, whilst the Whites have an average IQ of 100? Who's more dumb, racist and, according to you, more conservative now???? See your little problem Ms Pappas?

Stephanie Pappas

The researcher who produced the marvelous results in this article is Gordon Hodson, whose primary research interests examine intergroup processes related to prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination. Shame on you Prof Hodson - why, your research shows you up to be discriminatory, prejudiced and stereotyping conservatives as being dumb and racist! Who votes for Prof Hodson to leave his little safe Brock University and go get a real job in the real world, where he'll find lots of scary people who are racist, prejudiced and who stereotype, all over the place and in all races? Me, me, me. Oh, I just love it when these so-called academics have to dream up such crap research in order to keep their bank accounts ticking over, because nothing funds research like showing us how racist, dumb and prejudiced conservative Whites are. But you know what Prof Hodson, I'd like to know when you'll do some research into the psyche of Left-wing extremist liberals?? Let me know when you've done that research because that shouldn't take too long!

Prof Gordon Hodson

There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.

The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.

"Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood," he said.

Controversy ahead

The findings combine three hot-button topics.

"They've pulled off the trifecta of controversial topics," said Brian Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not involved in the study. "When one selects intelligence, political ideology and racism and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables, it's bound to upset somebody."

Polling data and social and political science research do show that prejudice is more common in those who hold right-wing ideals that those of other political persuasions, Nosek told LiveScience. [7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You]

"The unique contribution here is trying to make some progress on the most challenging aspect of this," Nosek said, referring to the new study. "It's not that a relationship like that exists, but why it exists."

UK: Metropolitan Police commander warns of rise in gangs

2012-01-28T12:52:00.000+11:00

Gang numbers are on the increase in London, with 4 500 gang members responsible for 22% of the crime in the capital. But, no worries mate, just get the liberal feel-good judges to give them lenient sentences and increase the number of tax-funded 'charities' to work with the offenders and the problem will soon be under control.....

Hat tip: Mark and H

One of London's top police officers has said tackling the problem of gangs in the capital was a "enduring challenge".

Commander Steve Rodhouse said there are up to 4,500 gang members responsible for about 22% of crime in the capital.

He made the comments at the first meeting of the Greater London Authority's police and crime committee.

St Giles Trust, a charity which works with offenders, said the economic downturn had created a "toxic potential for gangs to expand".

Authority member Joanne McCartney, who chaired the meeting, said tackling gang crime was not just the responsibility of the police.

"We all have a part to play in tackling problems like gangs that can have such a devastating impact on communities," she said.

The police and crime committee took over from the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) last week.

It has a scrutiny role as deputy mayor Kit Malthouse takes on key aspects of the MPA's role as part of national moves to replace existing police authorities with directly-elected police and crime commissioners.

Source

Haitian man freed when Obama halted deportations after earthquake 'went on to murder three people'

2012-01-28T12:47:00.000+11:00

This is what compassion brings to law-abiding citizens. It always astounds me how the world has been turned upside down when it comes to criminals and their 'rights', above the law-abiding population's rights. Remember the days when anyone caught doing anything bad would be strung up and hanged right there and then with everyone looking on? These days, you may as well hang the victims, that's how much the tables have turned. Case in point is Kesler Dufrene, who had a long criminal history, had been arrested NINE times, with his first arrest being at 14 when he bashed a teacher (yeah, no clue as to the fine upstanding person they were dealing with, hey liberal judges?). Mr Dufrene was released after Obama halted deportations to Haiti due to their earthquake. How did he repay Obama's good deed? Why, funny you should ask. He thanked Mr Obama by slaughtering 3 people before killing himself. This is the type of fine characters who the American government have allowed to stay in their country on the grounds under the headline of compassion. If it were my family that had been killed, I'd sue the USA government up to their eyeballs. Their $15 trillion debt would swiftly go up to $16 trillion after I'd finished with them.

Hat tip: Mark and H

Convicted felon, Kesler Dufrene

A Haitian immigrant, freed after the Obama Administration halted deportations to his native country, went on to kill three people before shooting himself, police say.

Twice convicted felon, Kesler Dufrene, of Manatee County, Florida, was due to be deported after a five-year jail term ended in October 2010.

But deportations to Haiti were temporarily halted after the country was rocked by a devastating earthquake in January that year.

Two months after his release, Dufrene, 23, went on to slaughter three people including 15-year-old Ashley Chow, in North Miami, according to police.

Ashley, a High School student who dreamed of becoming a lawyer, lived in the house in the 400 block of Northwest 134th Street, along with other victims Harlen Peralta, 25, and her boyfriend, Israel Rincon, 35.

After worried relatives called police on January 2, 2011, officers burst into the house to discover all three had been shot dead.

DNA found on a rifle left inside the house and mobile phone tracking technology linked Dufrene to the murders.

But before detectives could interrogate the drifter, Dufrene shot and killed himself during an unrelated burglary and shooting, 18 days after the murders.

The victims reportedly did not know Dufrene. Their families are now angry over the halted deportation and want answers into the as yet unsolved murders.

'This guy shouldn’t have been in America,' Audrey Hansack, 37, mother of murdered Ashely, told the Miami Herald. 'I’m so upset with the whole situation. Because of immigration, my daughter is not alive.

'The case has cast a black cloud over U.S. authorities, who by law could not keep Dufrene indefinitely after the Obama administration ordered the halt on deportation.In a statement issued on Friday, the ICE did not reveal how many other convicted criminals were freed and not deported during the deportation halt.

He had a long criminal history and had been arrested nine times, the first at the age of 14 for battering a teacher.

Read more here

Haiti and the shaming of the aid zealots: How donated billions have INCREASED poverty and corruption

2012-01-28T12:27:00.001+11:00

When an earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, charities rushed into the country in the hope of cashing in on the crisis. People and governments from all over the world donated billions in aid for the country. What people fail to understand is that the majority of charities are money-making rackets, and do little to help the victims they claim to help. Before the earthquake, Haiti was already a basket case, with a revolving door of governments, the one more corrupt than the other. There were already over 12 000 'charities' on the ground, apparently helping the people to better their lives. America has poured billions into the country over the last century in the hopes of dragging it into the 21st century but to no avail. All the billions spent on infrastructure lay in ruins before the earthquake as the Haitian people failed in the upkeep. The West owed them a better life and the more money given to them, the worst off they were. Liberals don’t believe in allowing people to fail – they always reach for the cheque book to buy their way out of reality. Why teach them to fish if you can give them a steady diet of lobster and prawns? As a result, Haitians have learnt to rely on everybody but themselves. They complained of their dirty streets, dirty water, no houses, no food - and that was before the quake. Since the quake, their grumblings have only gotten louder as the world has failed to build them their mansions and give them their better life. Why should they clean their own streets? Why should they, as a community, look after each other and support each other? No, they wait on these so-called charities and NGOs to give them the life they deserve. As a result, the aid money has done nothing except create more chaos and unhappiness. These charities should have had stayed out of the country which would have forced the Haitian people to work to clean up their own country in return for food and other services. Their streets would be beautiful today. Instead, these so called charities, have haphazardly done the odd good deed and shown the photos all over the world in the hope that even more money will pour into their coffers. Money that will be used to keep the NGOs and charities in the luxury they’re accustomed to. And then you have the stupid White people - usually the Christians who want to do something for these poor Blacks - who rush there and live in tents, not getting paid and doing the manual work, whilst the Haitians sit back and watch. Actor Sean Penn has ‘moved’ to Haiti so that he can feel all fuzzy and warm about his nobleness. He often appears in the media - CNN being his latest stint - to brag about how much he's done for Haiti and all the good the money has done. The reality is far from his version. The stupid White liberals fall over themselves to donate money to him. I wouldn't be surprised if he's earned more money through his 'charity' than through his acting. You only have to cast your eyes to the Dominican Republic just over the mountains to see what hard work does for a country. They are relatively prosperous compared to Haiti, and you only have to look at the population make-up to see why.

The first thing that strikes you is the smell: a sweet, sickly stench that sticks to your skin. It is worst in the morning, since women are terrified of risking a nocturnal trip to the handful of lavatories serving the thousands of people in the camp because of an epidemic of rape. Even the youngest girls are in danger.

I stop to chat to a young man in a green polo shirt. Ricardo Jenty says we must take care because three gunmen have just walked by on their way to settle a feud. He fears trouble; already he has seen friends shot dead.

Ricardo, 25, a father of three young children, recounts how the earthquake that hit Haiti two years ago ruined his home and wrecked his life. His makeshift tent is one of thousands crammed onto what was once a football pitch.

‘Every day there are fights between gangs. There are so many young bloods that don’t care now. You have to avoid them — most of us don’t want any part of these things.’

Ricardo lifts the faded sheet that serves as his front door. His three-week-old baby lies asleep on the single bed that fills the family’s home, while his two-year old son screams at the back entrance.

The heat under the plastic roof is so intense his wife Roseline, 27, drips with sweat as she describes living in such hell. She looks exhausted. If she is lucky, she says, she has one meal a day, but often goes two days without food, putting salt in water to keep her going.

Since giving birth she has passed out a number of times and does not produce enough breast milk to feed her new son. She shows me a small can of condensed milk she gives him; she cannot afford the baby formula he needs.

So had they seen any of the huge sums of aid donated to alleviate such hardship? They shake their heads — just one hygiene kit from the local Red Cross. ‘I have heard about this aid but never seen it,’ says Roseline. ‘I don’t think people like us stood a chance of getting any of it.’

Ricardo says it makes him angry. ‘If I looked back two years ago I would never have thought I would still be here in this camp. If the aid organisations really cared about our lives, they could have done something. But how can I have hope for my future, living like this?’

The family’s story shames all those international organisations that flocked to Haiti after the earthquake two years ago, which killed an estimated 225,000 people. It was one of the most devastating natural disasters of recent years — and the world responded in sympathy. The international community claimed to have given £6.5 billion to heal Haiti’s wounds, while donations poured in to charities.

Earlier this month, on the quake’s second anniversary, aid agencies pumped out press releases proclaiming their successes. Add up all the people they claim to have helped and the number exceeds the population of Haiti.

The reality is rather different — and shines a stark light on the assumptions, arrogance and deficiencies of the ever-growing global relief industry. As promises were broken, mistakes were made and money was wasted, prices of food and basic supplies for local people soared, sanitation deteriorated, there was less safe water to drink and well-meaning interventions made matters infinitely worse.

United Nations peacekeepers, supposedly there to protect local people, presided over the world’s deadliest cholera outbreak that has killed nearly 7,000 people and infected half a million more.

Only 4,769 new houses have been built, and 13,578 homes repaired, while 520,000 people remain in those squalid camps. Many more returned to wrecked homes rather than endure the camps’ inhuman conditions, blamed for driving up violence, rape and paedophilia.

‘Aid did some good and saved some lives early on but ultimately led to more division, more cynicism and made the mercantile class even richer,’ says Mark Schuller, a U.S. anthropologist who teaches in Haiti. ‘In the end the way the aid was delivered, the lack of co-ordination and the lack of respect for the Haitian people did more harm than good. It would have been better if they had not come.’

Schuller, who spends $375 per month renting his three-bedroom flat, is critical of humanitarian staff earning up to ten times local salaries, with big cars, drivers and $2,500-a-month housing allowances. Rents have soared since the quake.

Haiti’s prime minister has pointed out that 40 per cent of aid money supports the foreigners handing it out. Undoubtedly, huge sums have been wasted: for example, humanitarian groups paid double local rates for lorry loads of water.

One car dealer sold more than 250 Toyota Land Cruisers a month at £40,000 each. ‘You see traffic jams at Friday lunchtime of all the white NGO and UN four-wheel drives heading off early to the beaches for the weekend,’ said one Irish aid worker. ‘It makes me sick.’

Haiti had huge problems even before the earthquake ripped it apart in 35 terrifying seconds. The poorest nation in the western hemisphere, it has had a turbulent history since a slave revolt against French colonial masters led to independence in 1804.

It suffered from suffocating foreign interference and a succession of brutal, hopeless and hapless governments. In the past 25 years alone Haiti has endured nine presidents, two coups and one invasion.

It has also received astounding amounts of aid: in the half century before the quake, Haiti was handed four times as much per capita as Europeans received under the post-war Marshall plan.

There were more charities in Haiti — an estimated 12,000 — on the ground per head of population than any other place on earth.

Over the same period incomes collapsed by more than one-third in a nation nicknamed ‘The Republic of NGOs’. It is hard not to wonder if the torrents of aid were one cause of the nation’s problems, creating a culture of dependency, fostering corruption and undermining its image.

After the quake, the world rushed to help again. But many official pledges of assistance turned out to be little more than lies, with half the promised funds never turning up and huge slices of the rest diverted back to donors. The largest single recipient of U.S. earthquake aid, for example, was the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, Haitians themselves were largely ignored. A study of nearly 1,500 contracts awarded by U.S. authorities found only 23 went to Haitian companies while contractors based in Washington received more than one-third of funds — hardly the best way to help Haiti’s development.

As images of biblical devastation played out on the news, aid groups were flooded with donations, but substantial sums remain unspent. Major charities still hold one-third of the cash they raised; the American Red Cross alone has more cash in its coffers than the £107 million donated to the disaster by Britons.

Devastated areas were plastered with logos and flags as charities fought to get in front of the cameras and tap into the goldrush. One U.S. preacher held up traffic on a main road as he filmed a video of himself handing a bag of rice to a kneeling Haitian; another flew in by private jet from Texas to make fundraising videos using orphans as props.

One aid group stood apart: Medecins Sans Frontieres — which had worked in Haiti for 20 years — closed its appeal after a few days as it had raised enough for immediate needs.

Gaetan Drossart, its head of mission, said it was wrong for charities to raise more than they could spend. ‘Organisations want to be in front of the cameras in an emergency to attract attention since this gets the money,’ he said. ‘The humanitarian business is no different to any other business.’

Drossart wants limits placed on the numbers of groups allowed in to disaster zones given the chaos and poor co-ordination he witnessed in the earthquake’s aftermath.

Just down the road from his office colourful wooden sheds called Transitional Shelters dot the landscape. These tiny temporary homes were built not because survivors wanted them — they would have preferred to have ruined properties rebuilt or new homes — but because donors wanted visible signs of progress.

They are taking twice as long and — at £345 million — nearly three times as much money to build as planned. The flagship community was Corail, about ten miles outside Port-au-Prince. Families were lured here with promises of clean water, medical care, education and jobs in proposed garment factories. The actor Sean Penn, who spent several months in Haiti after the quake, was among those who persuaded people to move.

Now these unfortunate people are marooned on a rocky patch of land: the factories have not materialised, there are no hospitals, the schools are inadequate and they have started being charged for water at more than twice the cost in the camps. Vast squatter camps have sprung up on the hillsides around them.

‘They promised us when we came here we would find everything we needed,’ said Marjorie Saint Hilaire, a mother of three boys whose husband was killed in the quake. ‘Now we are living in a desert.’

Pregnant women have died trying to get to hospital, a journey that can take three hours on four different buses. Two days before my visit, a woman in labour had to take a motorcycle to hospital.

Fernande Bien Amie, a mother of two, said they felt betrayed by aid groups reneging on promises and by their government’s failure to monitor them. ‘These NGOs just do whatever they want, then leave whenever they want,’ she said.

As so often with the aid industry, for all its undoubted achievements in difficult conditions, good intentions keep backfiring. Camps were given soap but no water, condoms but not food. Text messages told people to wash before eating when babies were being bathed in sewer water.

Payments for rubble clearance led people to stop clearing streets until given money.

Curiously, it was in the notorious ghetto of Cite Soleil — avoided as too dangerous by many relief groups — that I found the most hopeful signs of Haiti’s rebirth. Young activists are cleaning up the streets, going out with brushes to sweep away rubbish, unblock evil-smelling canals and foster communal pride. The results are impressive.

‘People come to our meetings as they want to see our streets clean,’ says Robillard Lovino, 25, one of the organisers. ‘It’s not a foreign NGO telling them to do things, this is communities figuring out their own change.’

In a decrepit building, students are crammed into classes in journalism, theatre, dance and music organised by Hilaire Jean Lesly, director of a community radio station. ‘We have no help and have not asked for help — Haitians must take responsibility for themselves,’ he says.

‘We want to show the good side of Cite Soleil. You only hear bad things about gangsters,

violence and poverty,’ said Lesly. ‘NGOs just want to show places like this as weak and vulnerable because that justifies always asking for their help.’

Harsh words. But as the aid industry moves off in search of new emergencies and new funds, perhaps it should listen to such voices.

Source

Educators Alarmed: Black, Latino High School Students Perform at Levels of 30 Years Ago

2012-01-26T16:40:00.000+11:00

America has thrown good money after bad trying to buy a solution to the ever-increasing education performance gap between Blacks and Latinos, compared to White students. And year after year this has proved to be an epic fail and a huge waste of money. Instead of admitting the cause (lower IQs), they paper over the cracks with even more money in the hopes that one day they'll wake up and bingo, there's a beautiful wall-paper on the walls with no more cracks. When that day comes, we'll know for sure that we've entered liberal utopia la-la land where the unicorns and fairies play. Far cheaper would be to admit that the more money, the worse the performance. Blacks and Hispanics, generally, don't want to study. They'd rather play sport, be gangsta's, do crime, make babies, hump anything that moves.....I think you know where I'm going. They have no interest in opening a book and studying how to build a bridge or design a car, or how to get to Mars. So why force them? We force them because we have liberals amongst us who believe that the world should be equal for everyone and if that means they have to take from the haves to give to the have-not's - who have not earned it - then so be it (just don't think of touching their money of course!). So, why should education be any different. To close the gap, the liberal answer would be to drop the standard so that everyone is once again equal (just not at the private schools their kids attend). As we've seen in South Africa, this usually back-fires as the more you drop the standard, the dumber the students produced and the more you have to drop the standard - a vicious circle. In any case, the article below lists why educators think the gap is increasing and, shock, horror, not one of them admits to the lower IQ issue. Tap dance people, tap dance.

WASHINGTON—Educators are expressing alarm that the performance gap between minority and white high school students continues to expand across the United States, with minority teenagers performing at academic levels equal to or lower than those of 30 years ago.

Despite the hope that improving education for children of color would propel them to better life outcomes, Latino and African-American students are not being prepared in high school classrooms for brighter futures. While achievement levels have improved considerably for minority elementary and middle school students, educators say their academic performance drops during high school years.

How prevalent is the achievement gap at the high school level?

On average, African-American and Latino high school seniors perform math and read at the same level as 13-year-old white students.

“We take kids that start [high school] a little behind and by the time they finish high school, they’re way behind,” says Amy Wilkins, vice president for government affairs and communications at the Education Trust, a Washington-based educational advocacy group. “That’s the opposite of what American values say education is about. Education is supposed to level the playing field. And it does the opposite. . . .While many people are celebrating our postracial society . . . there is still a significant hangover in our schools.”

The Education Trust says African-American and Latino students have made little to no progress in 12^th-grade reading scores since 1994, continuing to lag behind white students. Math achievement has also remained flat, with the gap between white students and those of color widening.

Educators cite these causes for the disparity in performance:

Lowered expectations for students of color
Growing income inequality and lack of resources in low-income school districts
Unequal access to experienced teachers
An increased number of “out of field” teachers instructing minority students in subjects outside their area of expertise
Unconscious bias” by teachers and administrators.

These factors, experts say, produce an opportunity gap for students of color.

Read more here

Danish police: Immigrant criminals target Danes to make them move out of the (Muslim) area

2012-01-26T16:00:00.000+11:00

Muslim ghetto's are popping up all over European and Scandinavian countries. To form these ghetto's the Muslims have to ~~force~~ encourage the local population to leave, usually by targeting and attacking them , as described in the article below. It's almost as if a form of ethnic cleansing is being practiced, but this can't possibly be true because we're talking First World countries here - or what am I missing? These ghetto's then go on to become no-go zones for the local police - accusations of racism and/or Islamophobia are the most useful weapons used to keep the police out of these areas. As a result, the balance of power in the area shifts to the Muslims. Once these ghetto's are established, they just grow and grow and grow, swallowing other suburbs as they grow. Mosques soon follow. Pretty soon, the whole region is taken over by the new Muslim population. I think you get the picture. This is what is scaring some European leaders - hence also why The Netherlands government, for example, has started enforcing their dutch culture again. However, the Scandinavian countries seem to be accepting this slow Muslim invasion - even though their people are screaming to stop it - so I hold no hope for them. Will the last Dane switch off the lights?

Muslims’ right to rob non-Muslims has been established since their prophet (always “their”, not “the”) attracted fighters by allowing booty and rape when attacking non-Muslims. An anonymous Danish police officer now says that “immigrant” criminals are targeting non-Muslims because they want them to leave the area. I guess the non-Muslims could avoid such attacks if they paid jizya to the local mosque.

Here is an account of Muhammed’s copy cats at work, translated from B.T., January 23rd 2012. Vollsmose is one of the biggest Muslim ghettos in Denmark, located in Odense on the Island of Funen. “Police officer: They want the Danes out of the area. Danes targeted in burglaries in Vollsmose“:

If your last name is ‘Hansen’ or ‘Nielsen,’ and do you live in the Odense district of Vollsmose, your risk of becoming the victim of a burglary is significantly higher than if you had had a more foreign-sounding surname.
A burglary campaign against ethnic Danes has spread in the troubled district in the recent months.
- There is a kind of racism out there, where we find that more and more Danes are chased out of the area. It happens as a result of a big increase in burglaries. There have been approximately 150 burglaries the last four months. What is striking is that nine out of ten burglaries are now directed against ethnic Danes, a cop at Funen Police headquarters explains. The cop does not want us to publish his name for fear of losing his job. His name is known by the editors. The officer believes that someone is trying to cleanse the area from the remaining Danes.
- Several of the young offenders have directly said that they want Vollsmose for themselves. Last year a Danish family reported several incidents, with the result that the family’s apartment was vandalized every week until the family finally gave up and moved out of the area. Additionally, many of these burglaries resemble actual vandalism, which make it look like some kind of revenge.
The officer criticizes the way the authorities are handling the problem. He believes that they are trying to cover up the development simply because it is controversial.
- Everyone knows it . . . Why they put a lid on it I do not know, but I guess it is because it is politically controversial. . . .
The local police deputy in Vollsmose, Bjarne Puggaard, confirms that there is a dramatic increase in the number of burglaries in the area. He does not want to confirm whether it is especially ethnic Danes who are victims of the many burglaries.
Shortly after the interview with the local police, bt.dk, however, receives a phone call from the Funen chief of police. After a little reflection, the police now suddenly wish to confirm that the burglaries are mainly targeted at Danes. . . .
- I have no idea why they look at the name of the mailbox before they commit burglary.

Source

Lite Moments

2012-01-26T15:28:00.000+11:00

USA: The Feds Had Better Stop Alabama…Before Everyone There Has a Job!

2012-01-26T15:16:00.000+11:00

Alabama implemented its immigration enforcement law last September and so far it has proved disastrous! Disastrously good that is! The unemployment rate has already fallen 17% with many of the illegals fleeing the state (they've probably hightailed it to California, home of the illegal). Obama and his side-kick, Eric Holder, have already sued Alabama to try and stop them from being successful, because otherwise other states may just follow Alabama's lead, and they don't want that now do they. They want Americans out of work, dependent on government handouts and welfare. They don't want Americans to earn a good salary, they want illegals to offer cheap labor, thereby bringing Americans down further. They want America on her knees. That's what socialists do - they destroy to gain power and the prize couldn't be bigger. Too much further success and The Messiah in the WH will start looking as if he's not doing all he can to put America back to work......

Oh no! It’s happened again. Alabama’s unemployment rate continues to plummet.

Ever since Alabama began implementing its immigration enforcement law, H.B. 56, in late September, the state’s unemployment rate has been dropping like a stone. In just the first month the law was in effect, unemployment in Alabama shrank from 9.8 percent of the workforce to 9.3 percent. And now the latest figures are in…and the news couldn’t be worse (for the Obama administration, the illegal alien lobby, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that is): Alabama’s unemployment rate checked in at 8.1 percent in December. That’s more than a 17 percent reduction since September.

No wonder the Department of Justice sued Alabama and its Civil Rights division continues to harass state agencies, even though the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed that all but a few provisions of the law could go into effect. Illegal aliens are responding to the law by leaving, which is not what the Obama administration or the illegal alien lobby want. And lots of jobs being vacated by illegal aliens are being filled by American workers, which is not exactly good news to cheap labor interests which have insisted that only illegal aliens would do those jobs.

Why the next thing you know, other states might get the idea that they too can reduce illegal immigration, tame unemployment, and cut costs by enacting similar policies. People might even start to wonder why the federal government isn’t doing it.

Source

Egyptian Sheikh: Driving a Chevy is Haram

2012-01-26T14:23:00.000+11:00

We do live in an interesting world it seems - or backward, take your pick. Speaking of backward, an Egyptian sheikh has issued a fatwa that buying a Chevrolet is 'haram' because, wait for it, the brand's logo looks like a Christian cross! You can't slip anything past these guys! No, they are way too clever to live amongst us mere mortals. Now that I look at it, he does have a point, but why stop there, I ask? Why not ban cars completely because didn't Christians design them too? How about computers and TVs? Ban them as well. In fact, why not just take your country back to the heydays of the 7th century, when Islam first came onto the scene? You know, those days where everyone got to ride a camel to get anywhere. Yes, I say, ban everything from the West and take your people back to the good old days. That way, we wouldn't be reading about tripe like this and I'd be a happier person.

"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world..."

A Salafi sheikh in Egypt has reportedly issued a fatwa that buying [or driving] a Chevrolet vehicle is haram because the American brand’s logo looks like the Christian cross.

A prominent Egyptian TV presenter Amr Adeeb takes the sheikh’s joke-of-a-fatwa to task, saying, “We’ve reached a really strange place with this.”

“The car’s been around [for a century] and only now did you notice there’s a cross on the car?”
Adeeb also notes that the car is not used or presented as a form of religious iconography: “Do we hold mass for it? Do we pray for it?” And his guest chimes in with a comment about the self-centered nature of the fatwa itself: “As if the people who came up with the logo were thinking that we want to put this special logo on the car just to piss us [Muslims] off?”

The TV presenter concludes, “With all of the problems in Egypt, you’re concerned about the cross?... We’re calling for unity [in the country] and then you come up with [fatwas] like this?”

By the way, there’s actually a few theories going around about the symbolism behind the Chevrolet logo. One common story is that General Motors co-founder William C. Durant copied the design off some wallpaper he saw in a Parisian Hotel. But historian Ken Kaufmann says the logo is actually based on iconography used by the Southern Compressed Coal Company ad for its “Coalettes” logo.

Either way, it’s usually referred to as a bowtie emblem, of which there are many examples in various corporate logos.

Knowledge is power, people. And I’m too annoyed to comment further.

Source

Liam Neeson Considers Giving Up Catholic Faith, Turning To Islam

2012-01-26T13:26:00.000+11:00

Never accuse actors of being shallow. Liam Neeson has been filming in Istanbul and has decided that due to the beautiful calling to prayers 5 times a day and because of the 'stunning' mosques, he's thinking of converting from Catholicism to Islam. Wow, so deep and for all the right reasons it seems. Never mind what the religion actually stands for, as long as those buildings are beautiful then life is grand. This is why actors need to just keep their mouths shut when they're not 'filming', otherwise they come across as being a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Oh well, another liberal actor to add to my 'not-to-watch-ever-again' list. At this rate, I'm never going to the movies or watching TV again.

Irish actor Liam Neeson has revealed he is considering giving up on his Catholic faith and converting to Islam.

The Hollywood star, 59, was recently filming in Turkish city Istanbul and became fascinated with the Muslim faith during his stay.

Speaking to The Sun, he said: "The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it's the most beautiful, beautiful thing.

"There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim."

So he won't be copying Madonna and taking an interest in Kabbalah or following in Tom Cruise's footsteps and become a Scientologist?

The actor was raised in Northern Ireland as a Catholic alter boy and was named after his local priest.

On his Catholic beliefs, he said: "I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?

"I'm constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism."

Source

Obama’s SOTU ratings tank 12%, worst of presidency

2012-01-26T12:55:00.000+11:00

Shock, horror! It seems as if the love affair between Obama and the American people has come to a long-awaited end (thank goodness). Yesterday he gave his State of the Nation non-speech, where he bored most sane people to tears. The only people who thought they were witnessing Lazarus rising were the rusted-on Dems listening to him in the chamber and who had to stand every 5 seconds to applaud some BS comment he made. I managed to last 20 minutes - in retrospect, I would have preferred having my toe nails forcibly removed than having to endure that experience again. Alas, he defeated me. His whiny tone and condescending manner seems to have put a lot of Americans off him as well. His speech would have been great if he'd just told the US people what he's done exactly to contribute to the sad State of the Nation. He didn't mention the $500 million he gave to his little green-jobs experiment, Solyndra (which has gone bust, along with all that tax payer money); he didn't mention that he's vetoed a huge shovel-ready jobs project, the Keystone Pipeline which would lower gas prices; he forgot to mention that when he said “No bailouts, no handouts, no cop-outs” that he's been the brainchild of all three departments since taking office. The list could go on and on. And then to cap it all, he attacks his own people because of their wealth. I don't know, but it seems as if he's trying to turn the focus of his non-achievements into hatred of the rich. Now, who else came to power using class-warfare....hmmmm.....Hitler?

President Obama’s State of the Union Address was the lowest rated of his presidency, down 12 percent from last year’s speech.

Obama drew 37.75 million viewers last night on 14 networks and cable news channels, according to the website TVbythenumbers, which tracks television ratings.

During his first speech to a joint session of Congress in February 2009, Obama drew 52.4 million viewers. His first official State of the Union Address on January 2010 attracted 48 million and last year’s SOTU had 42.8 million.

Though down from prior SOTU addresses, last night’s ratings were higher than Obama’s two September speeches to a joint session of Congress, on health care and the economy.

His jobs speech last September speech garnered 31.5 million viewers, according to TVbythenumbers, which was slightly lower than his Sept. 2009 health care speech to Congress, which drew 32.1 million viewers.

Source

Lite Moments

2012-01-24T20:55:00.001+11:00

Never accuse South Africans of not having a sense of humor! Below is an actual advertisement placed by a South African witch doctor, otherwise known as a sangoma. In his advert, he promises various things, not least of all it seems that if I contact him, he'll make sure I'm smothered in food! He's sold me as I have two hungry teenage boys who'll appreciate it very much! I'm really not sure why South African Blacks don't hurry on over to this guy because he can make them rich by giving them the lotto numbers; make them smell nice; make their tenants always bake cakes for them and so much more! I'm almost tempted to move back to the country! Yes people, this is the mentality that we have to live with as the majority of Black South Africans actually believe this.....

Newt: 'Nobody in the Elite Media Wants to Cover' Obama's Alinsky Roots

2012-01-24T20:33:00.000+11:00

Newt is really taking it to the media. He isn't a wussy pants, too scared and timid to take on Obama's little foot soldiers. Here he tells the liberal media man what he thinks the media are trying to hide....Respect!

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Sunday told Meet the Press host David Gregory, "Nobody in the elite media wants to cover" Barack Obama's Saul Alinsky roots.

This came in response to Gregory asking the former Speaker of the House if he can "win independent voters in a general election campaign" talking about Obama's ties to Alinsky and other "radical left-wingers".

Source

Afghan exodus sees 30,000 quit homeland for asylum abroad

2012-01-24T20:25:00.000+11:00

As I wrote the other day, Afghans are using the current war as their trojan horse to seek asylum in Western countries. In years gone by - for example WWII - European people stayed to fight and build up their countries during and after the war. Not these days. The Afghans, along with their fellow Arab Muslim brothers, can't run fast enough to any Western country with generous benefits. They country hop until they get just the right welfare fit! I have personal experience of how these economic immigrants/welfare shoppers land up in Australia and go on to produce buckets of children and still live their backward Muslim culture, all on the tax payers dime. We pay for their housing, health - including dentistry, food, transport, schooling, cigarettes, trips back home - you get the picture! No wonder they're prepared to board rickety boats and pay thousands of dollars to the people smugglers to get to Australia - land of milk and honey, that is, only if you're an 'asylum seeker' with a prepared sob story and doctored documents. Sometimes I just want to scream.

Hat tip: Mark and H

On the road again with my 11 kids and 3 covered-up wives....

More Afghans fled the country and sought asylum abroad in 2011 than in any other year since the start of the decade-long war.

From January to November, more than 30,000 Afghans applied for political asylum worldwide, a 25 percent increase over the same period the previous year and more than triple the level of just four years ago, according to the U.N.

The figures highlight worries among Afghans about what may happen after 2014, when American and other NATO troops turn security over to the Afghan army and police.

The true numbers of people leaving is likely even higher - since those who are successfully smuggled abroad often melt into an underground economy.

'I don’t think anything will improve in three or five years, so it’s better to leave now,' said Ahmad, who expects to leave for Iran within a few weeks.

He asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of being arrested.

Ahmad’s family fled to Iran during the Taliban’s late 1990s rule and returned full of hope after the regime fell. But now, he sees no future in his homeland.

'If foreign troops leave, the situation will only get worse, not better,' he said.

After the 2001 U.S.-led military intervention that toppled the Taliban, some 5.7 million Afghan refugees returned. The vast majority of those came back in the first five years.

The numbers have since dwindled, with about 60,000 refugees returning last year, about half the number as the previous year.

As the pace of returns slowed, the number of Afghans seeking asylum abroad rebounded. In 2011, 30,407 sought asylum through November, the latest available figures.

Driving both trends is not only economic ambition but deep uncertainties about the country’s future, says Abdul Samad Hami, deputy minister of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.

'Who knows what happens when foreign troops leave Afghanistan? Is it going to get better or worse? Who knows what happens with the foreign aid to Afghanistan - going down or increasing?' he said.

Some Afghans fear that once most foreign troops leave, the Taliban will take over more territory and civil war could erupt along ethnic lines, as it did in the 1990s. Others worry the Afghan economy will collapse if foreign aid dries up.

Source

South Africa: DA Youth turn up heat with poster

2012-01-24T20:01:00.000+11:00

In case anyone in South Africa was in any doubt if the ANC's main opposition party, the DA (Democratic Alliance) are any different to liberal Left-leaning parties all over the Western world, then doubt no more. The DA Student Organisation campaign poster (below) which is meant to show how non-racial the country will be in the future, at one glance, shows you exactly what they want to encourage in South Africa. Gone are the days of being racially proud. Instead, they are promoting mixing of the races on a grand scale and a future country of mulatto's - ala Brazil - to look forward to. This is the ultimate goal - White identity theft and it is blatant, in-your-face and disgusting. If the DASO were aiming for that then they succeeded. This is going to be happening more and more as they try to encourage inter-breeding of the Whites with any of the non-White races, thereby ending the proud South African White's by genetic and social engineering. In this way, you remove the intelligence issue and you get rid of those pesky, racist Whites who are still hoping for the Old Country back. However, the DA leader, Helen Zille (who has a Jewish background as so many liberals do), is married to a White man and has White children. I can guarantee you they'll be keeping their family White. However, it's not ok for the rest of the White population to remain that way...NIMBY - not in my back yard, hey Ms Zille, NIMBY!

Cape Town - A DA Student Organisation campaign poster showing two people of different races in a provocative position caused a stir on social networks on Monday.

The poster shows a white man embracing a black woman with the tagline: “DASO In our future you wouldn’t look twice.”

The organisation got a flood of responses on its Facebook page with many complaining about its implied nudity.

Arlette Franks wrote: “The nakedness completely diverts from the intended message of political togetherness - unless politics really is all about sex?”

Estelle Nel said: “I don't care if who they put on there, I just think its stupid to have naked people on there. That's what made me look. [sic]”

Masoga Rueben merely called the poster “disgusting”.

But Simon Cameron-Dow countered, saying: “I don't see something sexual. They did this pic very well. The pose, the embrace, their expressions. It looks convincing, it looks like love, it looks beautiful.”

Meanwhile on Twitter, “NomalangaSA” stated: “In my future, I hope those damn townships are gone in Cape Town and all the Blacks have moved into Camps Bay to share that view. [sic]”

The DA Youth told News24 that if educated university students see the poster as promoting sex, "then we have no hope".

Source

Racism links to Aussie car flags

2012-01-24T18:58:00.001+11:00

If the MSM thinks that the meaning of 'racism' is pride in your country, then Australia sure is the most racist nation on Earth! This coming Thursday (26-Jan) is Australia Day - a national Public Holiday which celebrates the First Landing Day or Foundation Day of the country. That was the day in 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the First Fleet of eleven convict ships from Great Britain and the first governor of New South Wales, arrived at Sydney Cove. Every year around this day, like clock-work, the liberal MSM plays their part in destroying the Australian identity a little more. They always seem to find a way to dig up reports or write articles on how racist the country is; how the country was ‘invaded’ by the Europeans; or how we need to further open our borders to non-Whites so as to repent our past sins. The ‘report’ below gives you an indication of how low they can go. Australia Day is a day of pride for the country – a day to celebrate where the country started and what it has become today. It is a day to say thank you to all those people who worked so hard, for little money, to build this country up into the nation it is today. As recognition, people often attach flags to their cars, or fly the flag at their homes. Today we are told that it makes us 'more racist' to do this. If so, then I’m a big, fat, hairy more-racist! The 'researcher' is an academic (who else?), Prof Farida Fozdar. I'm guessing Prof Fozdar won't be flying her little flags seeing as she seems to be on her own little anti-White crusade judging from some of her publication titles (listed below). It seems that some people have their own little agendas, and they need to remove the log from their own eyes before they can see the truth. But the quandary for these academics is that there's lots of money to be made proving how racist we are.....

Publications (since 2000; prior to 2008 published as Tilbury)
Books
2009 Fozdar F, Wilding R and Hawkins M Race and Ethnic Relations, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 324 pages.
2007 Colic-Peisker, V and Tilbury, F (eds) Settling in Australia: The Social Inclusion of Refugees. Centre for Social and Community Research, Murdoch University, Perth, 148 pages.
2004 Wilding, R and Tilbury, F, (eds) A Changing people: diverse contributions to Western Australia, Perth, Office of Multicultural Interests, Dept Premier and Cabinet, 351 pages.

DRIVERS who fly Australian flags on their cars to celebrate Australia Day are "more racist" than people who do not, according to research from UWA.

University of Western Australia sociologist and anthropologist Professor Farida Fozdar and a team of assistants surveyed 513 people at the Australia Day fireworks on Perth's Swan River foreshore last year to find out whether there was a link between car flag flying and racist attitudes, Perth Now reports.

Professor Fozdar said the team found that of the 102 people surveyed on the day who had attached flags to their cars for the national holiday, 43 per cent agreed with the statement that the now-abandoned “White Australia Policy” had “saved Australia from many problems experienced by other countries”.

She said that only 25 per cent of people who did not fly Australia car flags agreed with the statement.

Under the “White Australia Policy”, which was non-official government policy until after World War II, non-Europeans were barred from migrating to Australia.

The survey also found that a total of 56 per cent of people with car flags feared for Australian culture and believed that the country’s most important values were in danger, compared with 34 per cent of non-flag flyers.

Thirty-five per cent of flag flyers felt that people had to be born in Australia to be truly Australian, compared with 22 per cent of non-flag flyers. Twenty-three per cent of flag flyers believed that true Australians had to be Christian, while 18 per cent of non-flaggers agreed with the statement.

An overwhelming 91 per cent of people with car flags agreed that people who move to Australia should adopt Australian values, compared with 76 per cent of non-flaggers.

A total of 55 per cent of flaggers believed migrants should leave their old ways behind, compared with 30 per cent of non-flaggers.

“What I found interesting is that many people didn't really have much to say about why they chose to fly car flags or not," Professor Fozdar said.

"Many felt strongly patriotic about it - and for some, this was quite a racist or exclusionary type of patriotism - but it wasn't a particularly conscious thing for many.”

The research backs up an opinion piece from PhD student Michael Britton, who has lectured in history and politics at Curtin University and Notre Dame University, which argues that flying an Australian flag on a car may actually be a sign of disrespect for the country.

Source

The MSM attack on 'racist' Gingrich

2012-01-24T18:28:00.001+11:00

Boy you know you've hit a nerve with liberals when they send out their media pack to attack you. It seems they're getting a bit nervous now that their favorite GOP nominee, Mittens Romney, may not cross the line as the eventual GOP candidate to face Obama. See, the liberals know that Mittens is easy pickings and they'll be able to beat him up good and proper if he goes up against their messiah, BO, whereas Newt is a different kettle of fish. Can you imagine Obama having to actually debate and form cohesive sentences on his own without his teleprompter - although, to be fair, Newt has said he'll let Obama use his TOTUS in the debates! From the New York Times to the MSM TV 'News' channels, they've been on a 24-7 hounding of the former Speaker of the House. Below are two examples of how they have decided to handle Newt - accuse him of using 'code' words and of course the predictable, racism. Why, after seeing these two clips I'm sure you'll be hiding your children in fear of the Speaker! I'm hoping the Speaker will prevail to take the nominee. America needs a strong candidate with a backbone, which Mittens doesn't seem to have. Even when Mr Romney tries to come across as stern and commanding, he comes off as the Cheshire cat who got the cream. He needs to lose the smirk! If he is the nominee, then good luck to America. Until then, I'll be holding my thumbs for Newt!

In the first clip, the seething MSNBC host (or M-BS-NBC as one of their ankers Chris Matthews referred to them recently - Freudian slip you understand?), Martin Bashir - he who is the minority with the posh put-on accent - accuses the Tea Party Express founder Judson Phillips of lying when he supports Newt when he said that Obama was the President who has put the most Americans on food stamps. Au contraire Mr Bashir!

As the Huffington Post reported November 3 :

USDA data released this week shows that the number of Americans receiving food aid from the Supplemental Nutrional Assistance Program (SNAP) hit another all-time high in August. 45.8 million people -- almost 15% of the country -- were enrolled in the program, which replaced Food Stamps in 2008. This is only a slight increase from July, when 45.3 million Americans were receiving SNAP help -- but a massive 31% jump since June 2009, when the National Bureau of Economic Research declared the most recent recession over.

Notice the phrase "all-time high?" Here's the chart the Post included in its piece:

Look like more people were on food stamps - now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - under Bush than Obama?

More recent data from the USDA show 46.2 million on SNAP as of October 2011. This compares to 32 million in January 2009, a 44 percent increase since Obama was inaugurated.

The website DailyJobsUpdate.com offers an even longer view of this issue:

The slimy Mr Bashir accusing Judson Phillips of lying:

The second clip is the once again overly-sensitive Mr Bashir from the M-BS-NBC accusing the Speaker of using racist 'code' words. Mr Bashir must be a bundle of nerves having to go out into public, surrounded by all those racist red-neck conservatives who use 'code' words. Heck, I hope I get my code-breaking book in the post real quick as even I'm not understanding all this code-speak! Food stamps must be a different meaning to the Newtser than what I understand it to be. Thank goodness for the M-BS-NBC! Quick, pass them the tinfoil hats!! Make it stop someone, please make all these codes stop!!!!

South Africa: Gravy train continues

2012-01-22T12:28:00.001+11:00

It has now been revealed - after initially denying the claims - that when the South African Gravy Train President, Jacob Zuma, attended the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York recently, not one, but two - yes two - aircraft shadowed his jet at an estimated cost of R10 million. Just what was he scared of that he required two extra aircraft to follow his own jet? According to the SA Air Force, one back-up plane was required because Zuma had a ‘time-critical’ engagement on his way back. They neglected to explain the role of the second back-up aircraft. And in any case, just what does time-critical mean exactly?? It sounds like some gobbledy-gook, BS diversion from a person with a forked tongue in the hopes that no one asks what it does mean. No, this sounds like a tax-payer funded junket/shopping trip for him and his 4 wives and 20 children. This is what liberation brings you – another African dictator, surrounded by his harem and firmly welded to the make-them-up-as-you-go perks of Office. Let no one be under the illusion that the ANC care about anyone apart from themselves. And the soon to be implemented 'secrecy bill' where no one is allowed to question the ANC without fear of prosecution, will further keep the tax payers from finding out about all these little trips being made on their money. Hey, it seems the ANC aren't stupid after all - they're as crafty as the next African Dictator and loving the power.

Johannesburg - Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu must take full responsibility for the use of two back-up planes that shadowed President Jacob Zuma's jet to the United States, the Democratic Alliance said on Saturday.

"Sisulu must publicly explain why it was necessary to use two aircrafts to shadow the presidential jet," the party spokesperson on defence David Maynier said in a statement.

He was reacting to the admittance by the SA Air Force on Friday that the Bombardier Global Express shadowed Zuma's Boeng Business jet on his recent visit to the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York.

Lieutenant General Carlo Gagiano told reporters in Johannesburg that one additional aircraft was there because there was a time-critical engagement on the way back.

He said a standby aircraft was vital to ensure the president did not miss the appointment if the one being used experienced technical problems. However, Maynier insisted that two more aircrafts were used in the trip.

"I understand that not one, but two aircrafts were used to shadow Zuma's jet," he said.

"I will be surprised if the combined costs of the aircrafts did not cost up to R10m. This is simply mind-boggling."

Maynier also asked why Zuma and his staff did not use a commercial flight. He said this was because the SA Airways was now offering direct flights to New York from Johannesburg.

Source

Ain't Multiculturalism Just Grand!

2012-01-22T10:53:00.001+11:00

Australia's soft-touch "Refugees Review Tribunal" is putting the public at risk. Anyone (non-whites only of course) arriving in Australia - either via boat (the best way!) or via air - seeking 'asylum' and who has a sob story, gets to stay in the country, free of charge, supported by the hard-working tax payers. This so-called Tribunal has believed 98% of the sob stories with only 2% of the chance takers get rejecting (who then go on to rioting and burning detention centers down). That's pretty good odds to tempt these illegal immigrants so why wouldn't they try their luck. In a recent article in The Guardian (Boomtime for Afghanistan's people smugglers) people smugglers brag about how they traffic Afghans all over the world, promising them free money from whichever country is unlucky to end up with them. It is so easy for them to equip potential country-shoppers with any false document they need: ID; birth certificate; CVs; marriage certificate etc; and for some extra money, they can even whip up a Taliban death threat letter which ensures asylum wherever they land up. The West has become such a soft-touch. Notice how these poor 'asylum' seekers bypass every other Muslim country on their way to their new country of milk-and-honey and generous welfare entitlements. Australia even gets illegal boat people from as far away as Iran, that's how much of a soft-touch we now are. One can only hope that this ridiculously inept Labor Australian government gets tossed out next election and is replaced by the more conservative Coalition. The Coalition at least are worried about this influx of illegals and have vowed to return to the successful Howard policies that stopped this orgy. It can't come soon enough.

Police lead Esam Moshi

LATE IN JULY last year, Saddam Hussein’s court musician, Esam Moshi, received good news from the Refugees Review Tribunal, which swallowed its reservations and granted him the right to remain in Australia, where he arrived on an entertainment visa before applying for permanent residency. “The refugee tribunal also admitted it had some concerns about the man's claims,” the Herald Sun reported, “but said he did not endorse Saddam's regime and was ‘forced’ to provide entertainment.”

With every reason to celebrate the gullibility and trusting natures of the officials who took him, Moshi did just that. Less than a month later he was arrested and charged with a pair of brutal attacks on elderly women. It was no big deal, Moshi was quoted in The Age as saying, perhaps because he expected to find the same level of credulity infecting his adopted country’s courts.

Today, Judge Michael Bourke proved that hope false by sending him away for five years.

It costs something like $100,000 a year to house a prisoner, plus there will have been the benefits he has received, as Moshi told the court he was unemployed. Yet he was driving a taxi when he committed the assaults and is also reported to have been the former co-owner of a Reservoir reception centre, so there must at some point have been private wealth he was able to tap.

Is there no way this creature can be obliged to re-pay the vast sums that have been poured into helping him, preferably before he is deported? If neither of those options is possible then the law needs changing – and fast.

Source

Yes We Did: Obama Deploys ‘Change Is’ Slogan

2012-01-21T18:13:00.001+11:00

Is this the best that Team OB could come up with - 'Change Is'?? I couldn't have picked a more disastrous one if I tried. Let's see, Change Is......13 million Americans out of work; Change Is.....gas at $4 a gallon; Change Is.....an Islamist-led Middle East; Change Is...more powerful unions; Change Is.... spending 5 trillion and not even having a t-shirt to show for it; Change Is....8.9% unemployment rate; Change Is....downgrade in the S&P credit rating; and the best one, Change Is....all I’m going to leave you with America! Yeah, America certainly got change, that's for sure, but not in a good way. The Chicago Messiah thinks that an old, boring slogan printed on T-shirts is going to get him re-elected. If that does happen, then kiss America goodbye. They certainly can't afford this tosser being in the WH for another 4 years. Change Is.....overdue!

Barack Obama campaigned for president four years ago promising “change we can believe in.”

Now, he’s running for a second term touting the ways that “change is.”

The emerging slogan for the 2012 campaign, on display during a high-profile New York City fundraiser Thursday night, thrusts Obama’s social and domestic policy achievements to the forefront of his re-election pitch.

And its appearance on new Obama-Biden campaign merchandise and apparel suggests the “change is” meme will likely be here to stay.

The messaging – unabashedly transcending criticism and disillusionment over what Obama has not accomplished – raises the stakes of the election for Obama supporters, reminding them that issues such as the health care law, “don’t ask don’t tell” repeal, and federal student-loan aid could all be rolled back if they don’t win.

“Everything we did over the last three years is now at stake in this election,” Obama told a crowd at the Apollo Theater, a line he repeats regularly before donors on the campaign trail.

By touting a litany of the ways “change is,” Obama also complements his economic message on the campaign trail, which has focused less on a defense of his administration’s response to the recession and more on accentuating a philosophical contrast with Republican candidates.

Obama mentioned the word ‘change’ 26 times in his speech before 1,400 fawning supporters at the Apollo Theater in Harlem Thursday. He hailed seven policy accomplishments as “concrete examples” of promises from 2008 that have been fulfilled.

He also promised to affect additional “change” in the next five years if voters agree to give him a second term in November.

“If you want to end the cynicism and the game-playing and the point-scoring and the sound bites that pass for politics these days, then you’ve got to send a message this year, starting right now, that you refuse to back down; that you will not give up; that you intend to keep hoping and keep pushing and keep fighting just as hard as you did four years ago,” Obama said.

Obama’s Republican critics laugh at the notion that the president has affected change in Washington, noting an unemployment rate persistently above 8 percent since he took office, skyrocketing deficits and rising health care insurance premiums, despite promises to turn the trends around.

Obama himself has acknowledged falling short on changing the polarized partisan culture in Washington – a promise from the 2008 campaign – saying the challenge of restoring a spirit of bipartisanship has proved a greater challenge than one man and one term.

“That mindset doesn’t exist in Washington right now, and I do take some responsibility for making sure that that spirit which I think the country longs for, that we can somehow get that in the Congress as well,” Obama told ABC News’ Barbara Walters in December. “But that seems to be a longer than one-term project.”

As for whether “change is” will be the official slogan for 2012, a campaign official did not immediately respond to ABC News request for comment. The president told Walters that “we’re still working on it.”

Source

Australia's Pacific gangland

2012-01-21T17:46:00.000+11:00

Australia has a rising Polynesian gang problem and authorities aren't admitting to it. Or the truth is most likely that they are aware of the growing problem, but are reluctant to highlight it because they'll either be branded as being racist (as per the usual ongoing PC indoctrination) or they might exacerbate the situation further. And from the article below, there doesn't seem to be an easy answer. My answer would be to 1. Stop Islanders immigrating to Australia; 2. If a minor is caught, the whole family should be deported back to their island of origin. That should stop this nonsense. I have personal experience with the Islanders due to my sons playing rugby at club level. I see what they are like. Some of the boys are well behaved and respectful, but the majority are belligerent, have an attitude and are extremely racist. The parents aren't much better, and Islander woman are to be avoided at all costs! Add to that the Maori problem (they are the second highest race incarcerated in Australia). Islanders say their children suffered identity crises and low self-esteem, felt confused and "bombarded" by Western values, and were becoming alienated from parents and extended family. So why bring them to a Western country if they’re not adapting easily? They should stay and build up their own islands and leave civilized people to live in peace. Yes folks, this is what our countries are being riddled with and to not accept them is to be labelled the world's worst racists. I’m thinking that sooner rather than later, people won’t mind the racist badge anymore.

The year did not start well in Sydney's Harris Park. As a 30-year-old man walked to his car in the shopping centre near Parramatta he was stabbed in the stomach and battered to the ground by about 15 young Pacific Islanders.

It was, police said, a random attack and robbery. But it spurred growing concerns that Islander street gangs are extending their violence and crime through the streets of major Australian cities.

From Brisbane and the Gold Coast south to Melbourne and across to Perth, headlines have claimed Pacific Island gangs have become the nation's most dangerous. Fears have grown with the recruiting of young Islanders by established crime groups and outlaw motorcycle clubs, and warnings that loose neighbourhood gangs could grow into serious, organised, crime networks.

But youth workers and experts on street gangs say though there is a problem, it is nowhere near the levels of media hype. Islander community groups worry their children are at risk, and want urgent measures to address family, cultural and social issues before worse does happen.

"It's no use hiding the elephant in the room," prominent Melbourne youth worker and community activist Les Twentyman said. "We need to get these kids connected.

If kids are not happy we'll be bringing up potential urban terrorists."

No one really knows how large or serious the Islander gangs are. There has been little specific research, and statistics are rare or non-existent. New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research director, Dr Don Weatherburn said: "I have no knowledge of Polynesian gangs."

But the figures that are available are disturbing. The Bureau of Statistics reports Samoans have the third-highest rate of imprisonment in the nation's jails. Fijians rank eighth.

In Sydney, figures provided to the Pacific Islanders Strengthening, Supporting, Advocating and Mentoring Network showed that in the Mt Druitt police area in 2008, Islanders accounted for 15 per cent of serious juvenile charges, 21 per cent of jailings for assault, and half of all custodial sentences for robbery.

Islander gangs have been identified in areas including Parramatta, Mt Druitt, Granville, Fairfield, Auburn, Liverpool and Punchbowl. In Melbourne their activities are mainly centred around Altona, Werribee, Sunshine and Newport.

Others have been reported by police in Brisbane's south, at Logan and the Gold Coast, and in Perth.

Many have taken their names from Los Angeles street gangs, or use aggressive Islander identifiers: Bloods and Crips, The Bloods, Tongan Mafia, Samoan Assassin Squad, Gee40, Crazy Little Coconuts, Full-Blooded Islanders, CB4 and RSP (Respect Samoan People).

In Melbourne gangs of young Pacific Islander teenagers, including women, are beginning to emerge. One, the Lavs, became prominent in Laverton in the city's southwest.

The crimes attributed the gangs have been serious, including:

* A brawl between about 100 members of rival Islander gangs last year in the crowded Mt Druitt, Sydney, shopping mall using iron bars and baseball bats.

* An attack by five members of the Gee40 gang on Merrylands High School in Sydney in 2008, wielding machete, baseball bats and a samurai sword. Seven students and two teachers were injured.

* Street battles among themselves and with Lebanese and Sudanese rivals in Sydney and Melbourne.

* The bashing last week of a 15-year-old in front of his family, by six Islanders at Sunshine, Melbourne and assaults at train stations.

Police response has been tough, with heavy policing and special task forces set up. In Queensland the Gold Coast City Council moved two years ago to launch special programmes to head off what it feared was the rise of violent Islander gangs.

But strongarm tactics could rebound. Twentyman said young Islanders were not easily intimidated: "Courts don't seem to be a deterrent. They don't give a stuff about the justice system. They're so far on the deficit side they don't see they have any real hope of getting out of it."

University of Tasmania sociologist Professor Rob White, an expert whose research over the past decade has been widely published, has warned Australia needs to learn more, and tread carefully.

"Denial that gang problems exist precludes early intervention efforts," he said in a study for the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth. "Overreaction in the form of excessive police force and publicising of gangs may inadvertently serve to increase a gang's cohesion, facilitate its expansion, and lead to more crime." Research has indicated that as yet the Islander gangs are informal, loose groups with no real criminal structure or direction. Many join to escape abusive homes, rebel against parents, and seek friendship and protection. Most crime is opportunistic, but violence - especially brawls over turf or racism - is endemic.

White's study said research in Perth concluded gang culture was largely one of violence. But a national project he conducted found that in Sydney Samoans carried weapons only reluctantly and were "disdainful" of their wide use on the streets.

Researchers say that to tackle the gangs Australia has to deal with serious, fundamental, social issues. Studies by the Pacific Islanders advocacy and mentoring network found heavy rates of truancy, problems with bullying and petty crime at home, and fear of physical punishment by parents among their children.

Islanders told the network their children suffered identity crises and low self-esteem, felt confused and "bombarded" by Western values, and were becoming alienated from parents and extended family.

Islanders suffered further from lack of education, unemployment - up to 8 per cent in areas where most lived - poor, overcrowded housing, racism, health issues, substance abuse, gangs, family breakdowns, debt and mental illness.

Twentyman said social problems were mounting with the loss of low-skilled jobs, creating a "vacancy of idle youth" at increasing risk of falling into gang culture.

But Islanders were helping themselves. Twentyman said successful touch football competitions had been launched by worried elders in Melbourne and Perth: "They didn't go crying. They said, 'we've got issues with our kids. We want to do something because we don't want them to end up in jail'."

Plans had also been made to draft Melbourne Storm and Rebels stars into a programme this year. But more was needed. Twentyman wants leadership programmes, outreach workers at schools, and more political commitment. "It costs A$140,000 ($181,707) a year to keep a kid in jail," he said. "You can get two youth workers for that."

Polynesian gangs in Australia

* Gangs of young Pacific Islanders are emerging as a violent threat in major cities, marked by turf wars, beatings, stabbings and property crimes.

* Scant work has been done to gauge the extent of the gangs, but statistics show Pacific Islanders are over-represented in courts and prisons.

* Little evidence supports claims the gangs are forging organised structures despite the adoption of American-style names such as the Crips, with most still loose neighbourhood groups.

* But members are being recruited by serious crime groups for work such as drug mules and enforcers, and by outlaw motorcycle clubs such as Sydney's Notorious gang.

* Girl gangs are also starting to appear.

* Special task forces and social programmes have been set up to tackle a problem experts fear could become a major issue if not addressed.

* Much of the growth of gangs lies in factors such as high unemployment and low incomes, truancy, breakdowns in relationships with parents and extended family networks and problems in adjusting to unfamiliar social systems.

Source

UK: Rioting is 'airbrushed' from official crime statistics as most trouble-hit areas record a DROP in violent crime

2012-01-21T16:58:00.001+11:00

No country wants to admit that they have a crime problem. So, what's the best way to disguise what's really going on without alarming the citizens of the world? Why, you doctor the crime stats! The English government is desperately trying to hide the increase in violence on their streets and has resorted to fudging the crime stats to make as if all is well in the land of halal meat and mosques. The only problem is that they chose the wrong stats to fudge as people all around the globe still have visions of people jumping out of buildings as the 'youth' went on their rampages of looting and destroying. The crime stats during this rioting period show an amazing reduction in the crime levels - in stark contrast to what I witnessed on my TV here in Australia! How's that for re-writing history? So, according to the crime figures, England had a relatively safe and peaceful August 2011 and it's as if the rioting and a-looting never happened. Stupid sods.

Hat tip: Mark and H

The riots that left whole neighbourhoods up and down the country in a state of ruin last August were the worst civil disturbances for a generation.

But reading crime figures released yesterday, it is almost as if the five days of widespread looting and violence never took place.

Nearly half of the areas worst-affected by the riots saw crime fall during that month, according to Home Office statistics.

In Croydon, where a 144-year-old furniture shop was one of dozens of buildings burned to the ground and a photo of a woman jumping from a first-floor inferno became one of the defining images of the riots, police recorded just seven disorder offences.

The disparity comes down to the way officers recorded the avalanche of offences committed during the unrest.

Some forces classified hundreds of feral thugs rampaging through different streets in the same city as just one incident of public disorder.

Similarly, mass looting in which one person broke into a shop only to be followed by dozens more was recorded as a single offence.

And not one force reported the offence of rioting, officially defined as '12 or more people who are present together use or threaten unlawful violence for a common purpose'.

In a statement, the Home Office said: 'It is important to understand the basis of crime recording to appreciate the impact of the disorder incidents on crime statistics.

'Police record crimes according to the number of specific victims, rather than the number of offenders.'

But Trevor Reeves, the owner of the 144-year-old Reeves Furniture Store in Croydon that was destroyed in an arson attack, slammed the police's method of recording crime as 'crazy'.

'You would expect a great big blip in the crime statistics after those five days of rioting,' he told the Telegraph.

'It is crazy to put down something like looting as one crime and is unnecessary. The whole world saw what was happening and to record it like this will just make them look ridiculous.'

Police in the London borough of Southwark recorded just one public disorder offence despite five days of unrest and 314 other offences.

Officers in Manchester also said crime fell during August, despite recording 11 public disorder offences and 386 related crimes.

A total of 184 incidents of violent disorder and 5,112 connected offences were recorded by police forces across England.

Despite this, nine of the 15 worst affected councils recorded more crime in August 2010 than a year later.

The figures did show that knifepoint robberies rose by 10 per cent last year and that one victim is held up by a knife-carrying criminal every 35 minutes.

Read more here

Boy or girl? The parents who refused to say for FIVE years finally reveal sex of their 'gender-neutral' child

2012-01-21T15:14:00.001+11:00

More stupidity from White people. What is the Left's current obsession with 'gender neutral' kids? These two adults, let's call them #1 and #2 seeing as we don't want to offend them, had time to make a baby and then found lots more time to decide that they were going to raise it as an It! Gender can never be neutral so I'm not quite sure how idiots #1 and #2 came to the conclusion that raising this It 'gender-less' equals not stereotyping the It's upbringing. I mean, look at the picture below and try and guess the sex of the It. Then read the story to see if you are correct. I could see immediately what the parents have been 'hiding' from the world for the last 5 years. And if they think they've done this It any favors by being such crappy, hippy parents then they need to seek professional help ASAP. How can this kid not be screwed up by having adult #1 and adult #2 socially engineering against what It was born as? No matter how they try to spin this, every sane person out there knows that this is pure pandering for attention. It's not about It, it's about them. Why else would you do this to your own flesh and blood? How unlucky was this child to get parents like them!

His fairy wings, pink tutu and ballet pumps suggest this little boy has raided the dressing up box.

But if five-year-old Sasha wanted to wear this every day, his parents would have no problem at all.

In fact, as they are bringing him up to be ‘gender neutral’, they would see it simply as their son expressing himself.

Not that they usually refer to him as ‘him’. From the moment Sasha was born, Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper have been at pains not to lumber their son with the stereotyping they fear that gender brings.

So they simply called him ‘the infant’ and kept his gender a secret from all but a few close friends and relatives. As he grew older, he was encouraged to play with dolls as much as Lego, slept in a neutral yellow room and was allowed to wear both boys’ and girls’ clothes.

But now that he is five and at school Miss Laxton, 46, and Mr Cooper, 44, believe it will be almost impossible to keep it up.

Sasha’s parents, who have faced their own share of raised eyebrows, are thought to be among the first British parents to speak about this far-from-traditional method of raising a child. They are keen to highlight the issue publicly and get other parents talking about it.

‘I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping,’ Miss Laxton explained yesterday. ‘Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?

‘Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become. I start to get cross with it if it skews their potential.’

The process began even before Sasha was born, with his parents choosing not to be told their baby’s sex after scans during the pregnancy. It wasn’t because they wanted a surprise, they just wanted to avoid the inevitable expectations of what having a boy or girl meant.

After he was born, they waited 30 minutes before asking midwives his sex because they ‘did not want to prejudice his life with gender’. They gave him a name that suited both boys and girls and referred to him as ‘the infant’ rather than a son or daughter.

It is only now that Sasha has started primary school that the secret has become impossible to keep and they have started telling the wider world that Sasha is a boy.

Miss Laxton, a web designer from Sawston, Cambridgeshire, admitted that keeping her child’s gender under wraps for so long had not been easy. At her mother and baby group, she said she was regarded as ‘that loony woman who doesn’t know whether her baby is a boy or a girl’. ‘I could never persuade anyone in the group to come round for coffee,’ she said. ‘They just thought I was mental.’

At school, Sasha sometimes wears a ruched-sleeved and scalloped-collared shirt from the girl’s uniform list. But he has yet to encounter any teasing or bullying. ‘Nobody’s ever mentioned it and I would hope that if they actually said something to Sasha, he’d be confident enough to make a good response,’ his mother said.

It and Adult #1 - the less said the better

Read more here

News from Oslo Ghetto 30/11. Several rapes, murder, exploding apartment.

2012-01-20T22:16:00.000+11:00

Not sure who the woman is in the video, but she's not afraid to admit that the 5 rapes committed that week-end in Oslo were perpetrated by either Arab or African men. Last year, all the rapes in Oslo were perpetrated by these two racial groups. It makes me wonder what the Norwegian people think about the eagerness with which their government has embraced these backward savages and which has had such a devastating effect on their country. Not that it's going to get better - no matter how much they hold hands, turn the other cheek and support their new cultural, entitlement-chaser immigrants. Western countries need to take the welfare sugar off the table if they are to stop this rot, but the so-called progressives believe in open borders and giving everyone with a sob story tax payers money for free.

Hat tip: Mark and H

A picture says a thousand words....

2012-01-20T20:37:00.000+11:00

President Obama shut down Main Street USA at Disney Land, Florida yesterday, so that he could give a speech on jobs in front of Cinderella's castle. What's the bet kids - who'd probably booked their adventure months in advance - were not too excited that their day was ruined by this publicity stunt? His PR people couldn't have picked a more apt place for him stand - he's been living in fantasy land for the last 3 years. Sometimes, BO should just stay home....

USA: Climate change skepticism seeps into science classrooms

2012-01-20T20:15:00.001+11:00

It seems that American kids are starting to doubt the climate change bogus hocus-pocus that Green radicals are trying to shove down kids throats in school. Good on them - there is hope after all. States are following the trend with Texas and Louisiana introducing education standards that require educators teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. Utah and South Dakota have passed legislation denying climate change; and Tennessee and Oklahoma have also passed legislation giving skeptics a say in the classroom. When they start losing the kids, then their little experiment is officially over! Hallelujah!!

WASHINGTON -- A flash point has emerged in American science education that echoes the battle over evolution, as scientists and educators report mounting resistance to the study of man-made climate change in middle and high schools.

Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.

Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.

Last May, the school board of Los Alamitos, Calif., passed a measure, later rescinded, identifying climate science as a controversial topic that required special instructional oversight.

"Any time we have a meeting of 100 teachers, if you ask whether they're running into pushback on teaching climate change, 50 will raise their hands," said Frank Niepold, climate education coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who meets with hundreds of teachers annually. "We ask questions about how sizable it is, and they tell us it is (sizable) and pretty persistent, from many places: your administration, parents, students, even your own family."

Against this backdrop, the National Center for Science Education, an Oakland, Calif.-based watchdog group that supports the teaching of evolution through advocacy and educational materials, announced on Monday that it will launch an initiative to monitor the teaching ofclimate science and evaluate the sources of resistance to it.

NCSE, a small, nonpartisan group of scientists, teachers, clergy and concerned individuals, rose to prominence in the last decade defending evolution in the curriculum.

The controversy around "climate change education is where evolution was 20 years ago," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the NCSE.

At that time, evolution - the long-tested scientific theory that varieties of life forms emerged through biological processes like natural selection and mutation - was patchily taught. Teaching standards have been developed since then, but it's unclear how widely evolution is taught, given teachers' fear of controversy.

Studies show that teachers often set aside evolution for fear of a backlash. Scott worries this could happen with climate science, too.

"The question is self-censorship and intimidation. What you have to watch for is the 'hecklers' veto,' " she said. "If a teacher ignores a particular topic, it will likely go unnoticed."

Climate change skeptics like James Taylor, environmental policy fellow at the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, said the pushback in schools and legislatures reflects public frustration at being told "only one side of the global warming debate - the scientifically controversial theory that humans are creating a global warming crisis."

"It is therefore not surprising that state legislatures are stepping in to ensure that taxpayer dollarsare not spent in a manner that turns an important and ongoing scientific debate into a propaganda assault on impressionable students," Taylor said.

Climatologists say man-made climate change is not scientifically controversial.

Instruction on climate change is typically introduced in middle school earth science classes and in recently popular high school environmental science courses, often electives.

Read more here

Lite moments: The page turner

2012-01-20T09:12:00.000+11:00

If only life were this uncomplicated!

Cost of failed Chicago Olympics bid? Half a million.....

2012-01-19T21:03:00.001+11:00

After two years of ducking and diving, the true cost of Obama's little tax-payer funded jaunt to Copenhagen to pimp Chicago for the next Olympic games has been released - $467,175, and that excludes the in-flight costs associated with the two Boeing 747s and several Air Force cargo planes! The hotel bill alone for ONE NIGHT was $235,659. In case anyone was wondering, after spending all that money and with King and Queen Obama in attendance, Chicago didn't make it past the first round of voting. King and Queen Obama then jumped onto their little Boeing and hightailed it back to America with their tails firmly tucked between their legs. That was Obama's first taste of being rejected - I'm sure he believed that his mere presence would win the bid for Chicago. I mean, he did win a Nobel Peace Prize just for being voted the first Black American President, so the Olympics should have been a walk in the park! All his little Chicago friends who had invested in Chicago property (property which miraculously was going to be used to build the Olympic venues on) were mightily disappointed.....and then lived happily ever after.

The Obamas have developed quite the reputation for wasting taxpayer dollars on unnecessary global trips. Michelle Obama’s family vacation to Africa is one very recent example. Another is the Obamas’ failed bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago back in 2009.

Just to set the stage, while the nation was facing a large-scale crisis involving Iran’s nuclear ambitions, two wars abroad and a failing economy at home, the Obamas decided to take an extraordinary excursion to Copenhagen, Denmark, to visit the International Olympics Committee (IOC). Their goal was to persuade the committee to choose Chicago, the Obamas’ hometown, for the next Olympics games. It was the first time a sitting president was present for an Olympics vote (they usually have better things to do).

Michelle Obama reportedly made an “impassioned” plea to the IOC, but it fell flat. Chicago did not make it past the first round of voting, and the Obamas came home empty-handed and utterly embarrassed.
Judicial Watch immediately launched an investigation to find out how much this “embarrassment” cost the American taxpayers.

And after more than two years of stonewalling and obfuscating, JW investigators finally got hold of records detailing costs associated with the two-week trip. According to these records obtained from the Obama Department of Defense (DOD), expenses for the trip appear to have far exceeded $467,175. And this number doesn’t even cover the in-flight costs associated with the aircraft ‒ two Boeing 747s and several Air Force cargo planes – which have not been made available.

Here are a few of the known itemized costs associated with the Olympics’ trip (totaling $467,175):

$235,659 – Hotel rental for seven “offices” plus transportation and communications (through October 2, 2009)
$33,044 – Cost of extra day in hotel (October 3, 2009)
$129,276 – Travel vouchers for hotel, mileage, reimbursed expenses, and flight costs for persons attending
$69,196 – Flight costs for press

And who was chosen to be part of the Obamas’ Chicago Olympics dream team?

According to the records, President and Mrs. Obama; Secretary Ray LaHood; Secretary Arne Duncan; Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President Valerie Jarrett; and representatives of the White House Office of Olympic, Paralympic, and Youth Sport visited Copenhagen from September 21 through October 3. The Obama administration ferried dozens of other participants, including supporting staff members, to Copenhagen. However, for some unknown reason, the DOD has redacted many of their names.

You remember Jarrett, right? She’s the corrupt former slumlord once described as “the other half of Obama’s brain.”

The Obamas tried to pass off this Olympics bid as “good for the country.” But let’s be honest, the Obamas wasted taxpayer dollars on a junket that seemed designed for one purpose – to take care of their Chicago cronies who stood to gain financially from the Olympics racket. Valerie Jarrett’s need for an “ethics waiver” to lead this failed bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago tells you almost all you need to know about the scandalous nature of this trip.

Read more here

South Africa: Times have changed!

2012-01-19T19:44:00.001+11:00

This is what a Durban beach looked like under Apartheid:

This is what Durban beaches looked like on New Year's day 2012:

Bondi Beach, Sydney 2012:

I know which one I would chose......

USA: Ted Horrell, Germantown High School Principal, Apologizes For Presentation On Race, Test Scores

2012-01-19T18:47:00.001+11:00

Oh you bad, bad boy! How dare you tell the truth - shame on you! Mr Horrell, school principal of Germantown High School, was obviously absent the day the PC thought police rode into town in their Electric cars to indoctrinate Whites on how not to offend the eternally offended. Well, Mr Horrell, for your sins you will now be hounded by the black race hustlers and liberals and be held up as an example as a racist right-wing extremist. No matter that you just relayed the truth: that Blacks are behind not only Whites and Asians, but Latinos academically. All poor Mr Horrell wanted to do was have an honest discussion on how the school could close the achievement gap and introduce a new program that would offer assistance to struggling students. People need to start living by my motto in life: no good deed goes unpunished. If Mr Horrell still has a job - that is, if Eric Holder hasn't decided to sue him for racism and thought crimes - he should keep his head down and not want the best for his students. Bugger those that need help. As Newt Gingrich said during the last debate, stating facts makes the politically correct uncomfortable. It would seem that being offended is a greater sin than the truth.

Tennessee high school principal has issued a letter of apology to parents and students for saying the school's black students are "less smart," as evidenced by a state report card issued this month.

"I unintentionally offended a number of students on this campus," Germantown High School Principal Ted Horrell wrote in the letter. "I apologize to all the students and parents who were offended."

During a school presentation last week, Horrell reportedly laid out the results of the Germantown High's Tennessee state report card, which breaks down standardized test scores by race and income. The assembly aimed to discuss how the school can close the achievement gap and introduce a new program that would offer assistance to struggling students.

But a number of parents and students were offended by the presentation, arguing that it only created a greater divide among students as some students found it reason to start mocking black students for "being dumb".

"[My daughter] felt he presented this information to basically reflect the African American students were all the reason the scores were down," Germantown High parent Deborah Cannon told WREG.

Germantown's report card reflect a national trend. Results released last fall showed that consistently large gaps in the performance of white, black and Hispanic students remained on the 2011 national math and reading exams. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, administered every two years, 9 percent of white students performed at or above the highest level in 4th grade math, compared with only 2 percent of Hispanic students and 1 percent of black students.

Schools in areas like Chicago still struggle to gain ground in math and reading proficiency to close the performance divide between black and white, Latino and Asian students.

Horrell said that while at the Germantown High assembly, he did note certain groups of students are performing better than others, he "certainly didn't say that white students are smarter than black students," WHBQ reports.

One student publicly came to Horrell's defense, writing in an email to WREG that "information is valuable," and that the principal merely sought to share data with those being evaluated.

"As a student there, I do want to know how we are performing when it comes to standardized tests," the student wrote. "I think (based upon the reactions in the audience at the meeting) that once people were made aware of the data, they made judgments and did not fully listen to Dr. Horrell. The changes Dr. Horrell is making to GHS is to better the students."

Source

Canada: Haitian-born killer granted aboriginal parole hearing

2012-01-18T20:16:00.000+11:00

How does a violent murderer and serial rapist try to get out of completing his jail sentence? Why, he goes the route of the aboriginal elder-assisted parole board hearing - something Canada introduced in 1992 "in order to be sensitive to customs and values of aboriginals". In case you were wondering, that is Liberal speak for "we are evil White people who suppressed the natives so we need to kiss their ass with some native smoke and mirrors so that we can feel good about ourselves again" ceremony. The irony is that the killer is a Haitian (and we know what race that is without this article mentioning it once), so he's obviously thought long and hard and decided that to appeal to the White-guilt gene might get him off quicker. The funny thing is, even though he's not an aboriginal of Canada, he does qualify for this BS elder-assisted parole board hearing if he's “demonstrated a commitment to aboriginal spirituality or way of life,”. Heck, if I wanted out of jail, I'd also invoke my aboriginal spirituality like crazy to fool the peeps. So, Mr I-Stabbed-Her-50-Times-and-Raped-Her-and-Three-Other-Women Bromby, good luck. If Canada wants to be so stupid as to fall for this crap then so be it. And Ms Manning's dad should have known better than to let his 15 year old daughter date this creep.

Tara Manning

When convicted murderer Gregory Bromby faces a Winnipeg parole board on Wednesday, the hearing will be conducted in a circle rather than across a table, the smell of burning sweetgrass, cedar or tobacco will likely fill the room due to a ceremonial process known as “smudging” and an aboriginal elder will open and close the hearing with a prayer.

Bromby has requested an “aboriginal elder-assisted parole board hearing.”

The thing is, the Haitian-born 34-year-old is not aboriginal.

“It is making a mockery of the system,” said Michael Manning, the father of 15-year-old Tara Manning, who was raped and stabbed 51 times by Bromby, a former boyfriend, in her Dorval, Que., bedroom in 1994.

Mr. Manning said he has not been given any explanation for Bromby’s special request “for privacy reasons.”

Elder-assisted hearings began in 1992 in order to be sensitive to customs and values of aboriginals.

Non-aboriginals such as Bromby are eligible for an elder-assisted hearing if they have “demonstrated a commitment to aboriginal spirituality or way of life,” said Gary Sears, the parole board’s deputy regional director for the Prairie region. “There is an overall assessment of the inmate’s interest and commitment,” he said.

Non-aboriginal Craig Munro, a heroin-addicted career criminal who shot Toronto Police Constable Michael Sweet in a botched 1980 restaurant robbery, was similarly granted an elder-assisted parole hearing in 2009.

Victims’ families have reported being intimidated by elements of the elder-assisted process — such as the convention that the hearing be conducted sitting in a circle. “The interviewing is to be conducted in a non-aggressive, non-confrontational manner and the questions are to focus on the offender’s efforts towards healing of himself or herself, the victim and the community,” reads an outline on the Correctional Service Canada website, adding that the elders serve as an “inspirational force” for the prisoner.

“I find it very offensive that such care is taken to accommodate the offender and make him feel comfortable,” said Victoria resident Anita Johnstone in 2008, prior to the elder-assisted hearing of Christopher Alexander, a man of aboriginal descent convicted of stabbing her 36-year-old sister. “It’s all about his rights and what he wants,” she said.

Elder-assisted hearings use the “risk-assessment framework” followed by the parole board in deciding the release of an offender, said Mr. Sears. It is only the process that changes. “The [elder’s] role is not to advocate on behalf of the offender, their role is to assist the board in greater understanding of spiritual decisions,” he said.

In 1997, Bromby was convicted of raping and killing Tara Manning in the early hours of May 5, 1994, in her bedroom.

Mr. Manning discovered her the next morning after entering her room to turn off her alarm clock.

It was not until a 2007 parole board hearing — 13 years after the murder — that Bromby admitted to killing Ms. Manning. Previously, he had pleaded his innocence.

According to a written summary of the hearing, Bromby killed Tara because she “was your on and off girlfriend and after arguing, she told you it was over and she threatened to call the police.

“Aside from the feelings or reasons why you were so violent, you were at a loss to explain why you stabbed your victim 51 times.”

The board denied his request for unescorted temporary absences.

Bromby also has admitted to raping three young women besides Tara.

Since 2007, Bromby has bounced around various federal institutions in Quebec and Western Canada. He had been allowed to perform community work in Blainville, Que., while at Ste. Anne des Plaines prison, but was then transferred to a prison in Saskatchewan in 2009.

After his daughter’s death, Mr. Manning led a campaign to make it mandatory for suspects in major crimes to provide police with DNA samples, and was acknowledged by the House of Commons when the requirement was passed into law in August 1995.

Mr. Manning is travelling to Winnipeg to tell the parole board on Wednesday that Bromby is not ready for parole and should not be permitted to live in a halfway house.

“He hasn’t showed that he is ready to be released,” Mr. Manning said.

Source

USA: Tracking Graduation Rates at HBCUs

2012-01-18T19:44:00.000+11:00

Four, I repeat, four historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are managing to graduate more than 50% of their Black students within 6 years of starting their degree. The rest are all below 50%... this after 6 years of studying. However, this problem starts in the schools. When the USA government decided to make affirmative action their priority and fast-track Black students into colleges and universities ahead of others, so you know, they too could feel clever, then the standard of education went south. Same as what they did to the housing market. When the government decided that all people should have the right to a home loan, they managed to crash the entire world economy, just so that Black people could own a house - money or not. Today, USA schools lag behind many other countries in numeracy and literacy and they have people in colleges and universities who shouldn't be there - all so that White guilt can be wiped out and Black hustlers appeased. But, don't expect these statistics to continue. It's only a matter of time before the standards are dropped so that Blacks don't appear to be quite so stupid - just as long as the Liberals can feel all warm and fuzzy inside, then this is justified in their eyes. The end justifies the means.....

JBHE has compiled a listing of Black student graduation rates at a large group of the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities. The graduation rates shown here are four-year averages for Black students who entered a particular college or university from 2001 to 2004 and earned their degree at the same institution within six years.

The highest Black student graduation rate at the HBCUs is at Spelman College in Atlanta. There, 79 percent of entering students graduate from Spelman within six years. This rate is higher than the Black student graduation rate at many of the nation’s highest-ranked colleges and universities. The Black student graduation at Spelman College is 15 percentage points higher than at any other HBCU in our survey.

The Black student graduation rate at Howard University is 64 percent. This ranks Howard second among the HBCUs in our survey. Morehouse College in Atlanta ranks third with a Black student graduation rate of 61 percent.

The only other HBCU in our survey with a Black student graduation rate of more than 50 percent is Hampton University in Virginia. There, 54 percent of entering Black students earn a degree at Hampton within six years.

At nearly half the HBCUs in our survey, the Black student graduation rate is 33 percent or lower.

At these institutions, less than one third of all entering African American students earned a bachelor’s degree within six years. There are six HBCUs in our survey where less than one in five entering Black students earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.

The lowest Black student graduation rate is at the University of the District of Columbia. There, only 10 percent of entering students earn their degree at UDC within six years. At Texas Southern University in Houston, the Black student graduation rate is 11 percent.

Even more discouraging is the recent trend in graduation rates at historically Black colleges and universities.

Of the 37 HBCUs in our survey, 21 have shown a decline in their Black student graduation rate over the past five years. Only 15 HBCUs have shown an improvement. The Black student graduation rate at Florida A&M University is the same as it was five years ago but is significantly less than was the case a decade ago.

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South Africa: AG findings on govt spending 'scandalous'

2012-01-18T18:56:00.000+11:00

The South African Auditor General, Terence Nombembe, has released his 2010/2011 General Report and found that R20bn has just disappeared by magic - poof! - never to be seen again. Course, we know where it went - the ANC and their fellow comrades have been living the high life, thank you very much. Mr Nombembe though, made sure to tell the ANC in his report that he's happy with the overall improvement of the government department performances, even though they managed to lose R20bn, an increase of 12% from 2009/2010. Yes, only a fellow comrade thinks that this is an improvement; or maybe he was expecting it to be much worse? His report also states that vacant positions be filled by competent staff in all government departments. Haha - yeah, like the ANC would let that happen! No, the next report will have even more money disappearing by magic and the ANC supporters toy-toying in the streets in celebration. Viva black Africa, viva.

Johannesburg - The findings of the auditor general's annual government audit are "scandalous" and heads should roll, trade unions and the Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday.

"This is a serious crisis because service delivery is highly dependent on proper financial controls and accountable and transparent expenditure," the National Education, Health, and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) said

The Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) urged government to stop "cadre deployment" and to curb corruption in local, provincial, and national government.

The DA in Gauteng said financial management in the province was "seriously deficient". Irregular, unauthorised and wasteful spending in Gauteng was among the highest in the country, the party said.

Auditor General Terence Nombembe released his 2010/11 General Report on National Audit Outcomes in Pretoria on Monday.

He voiced concern over all but three of the 39 national government departments.

However, Nombembe said he was happy with the overall improvement in the performance of government departments and the "commitment" of their leadership to achieving clean audit reports.

"Leadership has risen to the commitment [of obtaining clean audits]. The biggest area of concern is when it comes to supply chain and procurement. The rules are known and the expectations are known."

The unions and the DA were less forgiving.

Nehawu spokesperson, Sizwe Pamla, said South Africans deserved better and "their patience has already run out".

The report showed that national and provincial government departments and public entities wasted and misused more than R20bn of taxpayers' money over the past financial year (2010/11), he said.

"According to the auditor general's report, there has been a 12% increase in wasteful and fruitless expenditure by provincial departments this year compared to the last financial year (2009/10)."

This meant the amount of money wasted had increased from R16bn in 2009/10 to R20bn in 2010/11.

"National departments and public entities have squandered more than R4.5bn in unauthorised, irregular, wasteful, and fruitless expenditure," Pamla added.

Western Cape

The DA's Glenda Steyn said the DA-run Western Cape had proven itself a model of good governance.

"It has achieved standards of financial excellence that Gauteng should emulate."

Fedusa general secretary Dennis George applauded the AG, saying he was keeping government on its toes.

"We fully support the auditor general's recommendations that vacant positions be filled with competent staff in all government departments and public entities."

Fedusa also wanted the recommendation implemented that audit committees be put in place to ensure effective governance.

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Newsweek: Why are Obama's critics so dumb?

2012-01-18T18:37:00.000+11:00

Newsweek, once a multi-million dollar enterprise, was sold to an equipment mogul, Sidney Harman, for just $1 back in 2010. Sidney, old chap, you overpaid for that rag - you do realise that by now, right? One can only imagine why a Lefty publication went broke, but cast your eyes to their latest cover to see that the leopard hasn't changed its spots, and Sidney obviously hasn't learnt his lesson yet. My guess is that it's only a matter of time before the publication is once again put back on the market - this time for free. According to Newsweek, Obama's critics are dumb (hey, at least we're dumb for a change and not just racists!). The person who wrote this insightful observation is one Andrew Sullivan (second picture below), the same guy who has been stalking Sarah Palin for years, and who has an obsession with her womb. He has tried to convince everybody that she never gave birth to her son Trig (who has Downs Syndrome). So, yeah, I just have to run out and buy this crappy publication so I can read why Mr Sullivan thinks I'm dumb. Going by his picture, he is just the type of person who I'd want to impress in my lifetime - not!

Genius Andrew Sullivan

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New dad Jay-Z inspired by baby Blue Ivy, vows to drop 'b..ch' lyrics

2012-01-18T18:13:00.000+11:00

Rapper Jay-Z's wife Beyonce has given birth to a bitch child. Yes, that's right, a bitch child. And I dedicate that phrase to Jay-Z who for years has gotten rich off calling women bitches (and a lot other nasty phrases). He's pimped them up, made them shake their booty all over the place, and written disgusting songs about them. So, in honor of his daughter's birth, I will be referring to her as Bitch and not Blue, because ain't Bitch a cute nick-name for the bitch of the King of Smut? You only have to read the lyrics of one of his songs (below) to realise that this world has lost the plot. That someone who writes such crap could become a millionaire many times over is just beyond comprehension. But, then again, it says a lot about the people who buy and listen to this rubbish as well....

IT'S apparently taken the birth of his daughter for Jay-Z to clean-up his act and stop using the word "b..ch" in his song lyrics.

The rapper, who along with wife Beyonce celebrated Blue Ivy Carter's arrival earlier this month, has released a poem dedicated to his baby girl, promising never to use the word "b**ch" in his future rhymes, NME.com reports.

"Before I got in the game, made a change, and got rich/I didn’t think hard about using the word b..ch/I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it/Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it," he reportedly wrote.

“I never realised while on the fast track that I'd give riddance to the word b..ch/To leave her innocence intact/No man will degrade her, or call her name/Forever young you may pass/Blue Ivy Carter, my angel."

As yet, there's been no word from the rapper himself confirming the poem’s existence.

Jay-Z released a new track earlier this week titled Glory, which he dedicated to Blue Ivy. The song features her coos and cries recorded in the hours following her birth.

The track debuted on this week’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs list at No. 74, making baby Blue the youngest person ever to appear on a Billboard chart.

Given that Jay-Z's music has been peppered by the use of expletives, sceptics may be forgiven for wondering just how long his promise to kick the derogatory word to the curb will last.

His latest album Watch The Throne, released when Beyonce was about five months pregnant, includes the track, That's My B..ch.

Other tracks include B**ches and Sisters, Is that Yo B**ch? as well as his collaboration with 50 Cent, My B**ch and duo with Lil Kim, Queen B**ch Part II.

Here are just a few of Jay-Z's lyrics from various hit songs which also feature the word.

"If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you son
I got 99 problems but a b..ch ain't one"
"You ain't a (B**ch), I ain't no ball player, you ain't gonna get pregnant again
Hit off with paper, you gonna get hit off and slid off"
"(B**ch) I got a sister who schooled me to shit you chickens do
Tricking fools, got a whole Robin Givens crew that I kick it to"
"You too dope for any of those civilians
Now shoo children, stop lookin’ at her t...
Get your own dog, ya heard
That’s my b**ch"

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Newt for POTUS 2013!

2012-01-17T18:05:00.001+11:00

In my humble opinion, Newt Gingrich should be the GOP candidate to face Obama in the election later this year. However, chances are slim for him to be put forward as the GOP machine has already decided that Mittens is da man. Conservatives are falling for the popular line that Mittens is the only GOP candidate that can get the Independent voters to vote against Obama. Rubbish. Mittens is an Obama mini-me and chances are good that Obama will be re-elected against him. What the GOP need is a candidate with clear daylight between Obama's socialist policies and their conservative principles and Mittens isn't the right man. No use me opining about this any longer. In the meantime, here's a clip to show you what America will miss out on if they don't support Newt. Pure gold.

South Africa - Pro-ANC Scales fall off Time Magazine eyes

2012-01-15T16:56:00.000+11:00

So much for the ANC celebrating 100 years of existence. Time Magazine has published a remarkably honest article regarding the ANC and it's white-washing of the Party's history and it's non-achievements. The ANC has spent millions of dollars patting themselves on the back for a job well done the last 17 years, all the while leaving their own people sitting in the gutter. They have also failed to recognise the contribution made by White South Africans towards building up the country from nothing, using first world knowledge and technology, because to acknowledge that would be to admit what we know about the ANC - that they are a nothing Party, full of Mr Nobody's. No matter, the history books have been written and no where will you find that the ANC contributed positively in any shape, way or form to making South Africa the country it was when they took over in 1994. Instead, the ANC are regarded as cowards who use violent communist techniques to scare their people into supporting them. Unfortunately for the ANC, history has a way of repeating itself and the ANC will one day be mocked and ridiculed for the abysmal failure they are and no amount of hiding of the truth will save them. Too bad that the damage has already been done. And the latest laughable President Zuma promise is that by 2030, the country will be the communist utopia he promised 4 years ago, and before him, the utopia promised by Mandela and Mbeki since 1994. Once again, I won't be holding my breath, unlike the gullible ANC voters.

How the ANC Lost Its Way

By Alex Perry / Bloemfontein Monday, Jan. 16, 2012

It has been exactly 99 years and 11 months since the world's most storied liberation movement, the African National Congress, was born, and I am looking for its birthplace. In Bloemfontein, the old Boer capital on South Africa's central prairie, a white tourist-information officer points me to a building on the edge of town called Maphikela House — after Thomas Maphikela, who built it and who helped found the ANC. "I've never been there myself," the information officer says. "It's a township." Then she pulls out a map and circles another part of town that I am to avoid. "Dangerous," she says. She means "black people."

On Jan. 8, thousands of ANC supporters and 46 heads of state descend on Bloemfontein to celebrate the party's centenary. I've come early to explore the origins of the organization that gave the world Nelson Mandela and laid the foundations of modern South Africa — and Africa — by inspiring the overthrow of centuries of colonialism and racist deprivation.

At least that's ANC legend. I'm in Bloemfontein to measure that against reality. Because while South Africa has seen steady economic growth in the 17 years after apartheid, it has also experienced an abiding racial divide. That partition is expressed in enduring prejudice on both sides and persistent economic segregation. Remarkably, income inequality rose after apartheid ended: redistribution programs have mainly benefited a politically connected elite. Most whites and a few blacks live in the first world. But out of a total population of 50 million, 8.7 million South Africans, most of them black, earn $1.25 or less a day. Millions live in the same township shacks, travel in the same crowded minibuses (called taxis in South Africa) and, if they have jobs, work in the same white-owned homes and businesses they did under apartheid — all while coping with some of the world's worst violent crime and its biggest HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The ANC blames apartheid's legacy and, as party spokesman Keith Khoza describes it, "the reluctance of business to come to the party." But 17 years is almost a generation. The government's failure to transform South Africa from a country of black and white into a "rainbow nation," in Archbishop Desmond Tutu's phrase, means black poverty is still the key political issue. A second, related one, however, is the ANC's dramatic loss of moral authority. At 93, Mandela is still among the most admired people on earth. But his party has become synonymous with failure — and not coincidentally, arrogance, infighting and corruption. Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and, at 80, still the nation's moral conscience, encapsulated South African political debate last year when he came out of retirement to give two speeches. In the first he asked whites to pay a wealth tax in recognition of their persistent advantage. In the second he called the ANC "worse than the apartheid government."

Africa is littered with liberation movements that, upon victory, forgot the people in whose name they fought. That era is coming to an end as the continent becomes more democratic and prosperous. The International Monetary Fund says seven of the world's 10 fastest growing economies are African, despite holdovers like Zimbabwe. Is South Africa, the continent's economic and political powerhouse, a gateway to this bright future or a window on its unhappy past?

Across the Tracks

The short drive to Maphikela house crosses South Africa's divide. I start in leafy all-white suburbs, home to cafs, bookstores and the Hobbit Boutique Hotel, modeled on the fantasies of Bloemfontein's most famous son, J.R.R. Tolkien. Then I cross a railway track, and I'm in the township: no trees, full of potholes and all black. Where my tourist map indicates Maphikela House should be is instead an abandoned warehouse, the windows smashed, graffiti by its broken door announcing THUG MANSION.

The local metropolitan authority says unemployment is 56%, and 59% of those with jobs earn $100 or less a month. Hanging out on a corner opposite Thug Mansion is Tumelo Lekhooe, 20, who was out of work for a year after school before finding a job as a street sweeper. "The ANC is full of corruption," he says. "There are no good roads here, no parks, good schools or jobs. The ANC use connections to win government tenders, then spend the money on themselves."

Lekhooe is describing a phenomenon in postapartheid South Africa: the growth of the tenderpreneur. The term describes those who get rich from government contracts or from dispensing them for kickbacks. Tenderpreneurs have turned government into a business. The national Special Investigating Unit, which targets corruption, reckons that up to a quarter of annual state spending — $3.8 billion — is wasted through overpayment and graft. The Auditor General says a third of all government departments have awarded contracts to companies owned by officials or their families; in December it found that three-quarters of all tenders in one ANC-ruled province, the Eastern Cape, rewarded officials in this way. Those being investigated for suspected corruption include two ministers, the country's top policeman and the head of the ANC's Youth League, Julius Malema. (All deny the charges.)

Tenderpreneurs are just one chapter in the saga of ANC scandals. There are the perks, like the $550 million the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) claims ministers and their wives have spent on themselves since 2009. There is the state security minister whose wife was convicted of running an international drug ring, and the local government minister who used public money to fly first class to Switzerland to visit his girlfriend, also in prison for narcotics. There is the previous police chief, jailed for 15 years for taking bribes from the mob. And there is a corrupt $4.8 billion European arms deal that has haunted the ANC leadership since it was agreed to in 1999.

South African President Jacob Zuma declined to be interviewed for this article, but he can be candid about the ANC's poor record. "I have traveled to many parts of the country in recent months, monitoring the performance of government," he said at a business breakfast in Cape Town in November. "I come face to face with the triple scourge of poverty, inequality and unemployment." Zuma has taken action, however. He has sacked two ministers, suspended a raft of top officials, including the police chief, and set up an independent inquiry into the arms deal. He appropriated all the duties of a corrupt and inept ANC state government in Limpopo and dispatched his own officials to improve two more. He has already delivered one spectacular success to confound the skeptics: the 2010 soccer World Cup, the world's biggest sporting event, which went off with barely a hitch.

Zuma also has a vision of how to mend the government. In November he published a 19-year national plan that identified the nation's priorities as "corruption, divided communities, too few jobs, crumbling infrastructure, resource intensive economy, exclusive planning, poor education, high disease burden, public service [that is] uneven." By 2030, it pledges to have created 11 million jobs, built two more universities and several railway lines, privatized power, made private business illegal for bureaucrats, deployed up to 1.3 million community health workers and facilitated the installation of 5 million solar heaters. The plan is meant to inspire a party made complacent by a consistent two-thirds electoral majority. "We are too strong," Zuma told TIME in 2009, soon after becoming President. "You take things for granted."

It sounds impressive. Worryingly, that may be precisely the idea. "Eleven million jobs by 2030?" asks a Western diplomat in Pretoria. "Great. Excellent. From where?" After all, Zuma has made similar commitments before. In June 2009 he promised 4 million jobs by 2014 — ambitious then, unreachable now. He also pledged 80% coverage of antiretroviral treatment by 2011 (unlikely, given UNAIDS's figure of 25% for 2010) and an annual 7% to 10% annual cut in serious crime (against an actual 2011 — 12 fall of 5.75%). Critics say his purges of officials are less about corruption or ineptness than political vendettas.

Zuma himself is tainted by charges of corruption. He was linked to the arms deal through one of his financial advisers, who was jailed in 2005 for trying to solicit bribes on his behalf. Since Zuma was elected, the DA says the state has spent $50 million on refurbishing his homes. Tellingly, Zuma goes after those who would check his behavior. In November the ANC-led Parliament passed a law known as the "secrecy bill," which penalizes whistle-blowers or journalists in possession of secret documents and allows no public-interest defense. He has installed unqualified allies in top positions across the justice system. Meanwhile, internal party politicking, particularly Zuma's rivalry with Malema, has overshadowed government, something that will only increase in the run-up to a party conference in Bloemfontein in December at which Zuma is running for re-election as ANC President. "For the next 12 months, nobody will be running the country," says Fiona Forde, author of An Inconvenient Youth, about Malema.

Mythmaking

With such an underwhelming record in office, how does the ANC win elections? By invoking its legend. The centenary celebrations, like so many other ANC events, hammer home how much black South Africans owe the party. Using such a "powerful legacy" only makes electoral sense, concedes DA leader Helen Zille. "When you've fought a liberation struggle and suffered so much and a party is perceived to have given you back your dignity, that party becomes who you are. How are you going to turn your back on that?" On his street corner, Lekhooe says, "I don't know why we still vote for them," then corrects himself. "It's our grandparents. They say we are here only because of the ANC."

Zille based her last general election campaign on the message that the ANC betrayed Mandela's legacy. But how real is that inheritance? The central figure in ANC legend is Mandela, who reinvigorated the party in the 1940s and eventually led it to power in 1994. But as Mandela recounts in his autobiography, his transformation from rebel leader to global icon was, in part, a piece of imagemaking by the ANC. In 1980, after nearly four decades of fighting a regime that had not moved an inch, the party tried a new publicity strategy: personalizing its campaign with the slogan "Free Nelson Mandela." It was wildly effective. The slogan found its way onto T-shirts and posters around the world, even into a pop song. But as it tends to, such mythmaking also distorted reality, not least in regard to Mandela's failing marriage to Winnie. "She married a man who soon left her, that man became a myth, and then that myth returned home and proved to be just a man after all," Mandela wrote in Long Walk to Freedom.

His remarkable ability to emerge from prison with forgiveness for his persecutors was a genuine wonder that averted a looming race war — and, for many, validated his myth. But if his reputation was merely enhanced, his party's was whitewashed. At the time that the ANC was becoming an international cause clbre, a 1984 internal party inquiry — the Stuart Commission — found that the ANC's training camps in Angola were "autocratic," "corrupt" and sadistic, run through a mix of torture, rape and execution. "There was a lot of corruption, a lot of thuggery," says Forde of the party's years in exile, pointing also to alliances with African leaders such as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. "You see that coming to the fore again."

In Bloemfontein, corruption and mythmaking have combined for the ANC's birthday party. When I eventually find Maphikela House — a grand red-brick place with two stories and a porch — the old lady who lives there directs me instead to a second building in another rundown neighborhood closer to town. In 1992, Mandela celebrated the ANC's 80th anniversary at Maphikela House. But in 2002, National Museum historian Hannes Haasbroek discovered that the house was built in 1926, 14 years after the ANC was formed, and the party's true birthplace was a former Wesleyan church hall a few miles away, since converted into an auto-body-repair shop. Unperturbed by this uprooting and relocating of its nativity fable, the ANC city authority promptly bought the bare-brick, wood-frame, tin-roof building and began fixing it up — at a total taxpayer cost of $4 million. Bloemfontein DA leader Roy Jankielsohn accuses the party of an "abuse of state resources." ANC spokesman Khoza denies corruption and insists the party is paying the bulk of the centenary costs. But he sees nothing wrong with using state money to preserve the party's history. "The ANC should be treated as part of our collective heritage as a nation," he says.

As the Arab Spring showed, ruling parties that fail to distinguish their interests from those of the nation may also not spot their approaching fall. And the signs of the ANC's decline are there. The party is fragmented. Its support peaked at 69% at elections in 2004 and fell to 61% at local elections in 2011. And in December it lost three previously safe seats in local by-elections. Meanwhile, the DA is growing. Its support rose from 1.7% in a general election in 1996 to 16.7% in 2009, when it also took Western Cape province, and to 23.8% in 2011. Zille says her ambition is to take two more provinces in the next general election in 2014 and the government in 2019. Like any other politician, she wants power. But she insists that removing the ANC is essential if South Africa is to finally enjoy genuine democracy. "Loyalty is a great trait, but if you are to hold political leaders to account, you can't be loyal to a political party," she says.

In a previous life, Zille was an antiapartheid journalist. Her ultimate goal, she says, is to make good on Tutu's vision of a Technicolor nation. But in South Africa's black-and-white present, Zille is only too aware that she has a "melanin deficit." Hence moves by the DA to recruit to its leadership a black-struggle legend of its own: Mamphela Ramphele, a former World Bank managing director and long-standing ANC critic. If the name is unfamiliar, that's because Ramphele never married her partner: Steve Biko.

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