Corruption & Bang for one’s Buck

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs 0 Comment

The photo above shows what type of stadium a DA run municipality versus an ANC run municipality could erect at approximately the same cost. On the left is a R13m stadium provided by the Saldanha Municipality whereas on the right is what the ANC run municipality of Enoch Mgijima was able to construct with R15m. At a guess, the ANC stadium actually cost less than a tenth of the R15m and maybe even as low as a hundredth.

  • Do they have no shame?
  • Has anybody been prosecuted?
  • Has any of the money been recovered?
  • Has anybody been dismissed?

Probably NO on all four counts

ANC pushed victimhood again

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 0 Comment

In the 27 years of ANC misrule where they have comprehensively failed to achieve a meaningful improvement to the majority of Black people, the ANC resorts to victimhood and propagates tropes to justify themselves.  The rapid development of vaccines for Covid and its unequal distribution was a ready-made crisis for the ANC to exploit in order to deflect attention from their appalling handling of it.

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USA: One year on from 6 Jan 2021

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 0 Comment

Just over a year ago, Trump, the sentient nartjie, tried to steal the election from Biden, the sentient Zimmer frame.  He extensively pushed out lies and fake news using Twitter and the good old boys from Fox News.  His enablers from Fox, Hannity, Carlson and Ingraham, were only too happy to peddle his lies, boasts and misdirections and even repackage them and weaponise them for him.  Trump is barely articulate and seldom completes a whole sentence.  But Fox had his back – he could rely on them to speak in whole sentences and eloquently propagate his half-baked views.  Twitter, however, did react adversely and eventually banned him for consistently peddling falsehoods on their platform.  Trump then threatened to start his own social media brand which he did twice in 2021, so far without success.  The other things happening in the Trumpiverse were that, apart from holing up at Mar-a-Laager (another tax write off, the resort itself as well as his staying there), it is obvious that he is positioning himself for another run at the presidency.  This was my view of the World According to Trump in January last year.

Todays cartoon: Djokovic deported from Australia

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 1 Comment

Many of the anti-vaxxers, especially the gliteratti and elites, are under the misapprehension that rules do not apply to them. They are especially verbose about their right to refuse to be vaccinated. It is their right to do so, but then they have to pay the penalties for their behaviour such as being refused access to certain venues, modes of transport and even countries. Why should Djokovic be able to flout the rules of any country at will? The Australian government rightly did not ignore the middle finger that this foreigner waved into the Ozzies’ faces and promptly deported him.

The drawing and idea was developed by Blaine McCleland whereas the commentary is by Dean McCleland

Putting the Bezos ‘Space’ Flight into Perspective

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 2 Comments

Any good economic advisor has to make disclaimers about his personal interests so that you can decide whether to trust him.  So, I shall make my personal disclaimer upfront.

Jeff Bezos might be the richest man on Earth, but he looks like a dork.  Personally, I think he is a dork.  If you think that it’s wrong for me to get personal and insulting, I agree that’s it insulting for dorks to be compared to Bezos.  To the dorks of the world, I apologise.

Main picture: Jeff Bozo in guru pose speaking to his devotees from his Madras at Van Horn, TX, before ejaculating on his spiritual journey in his priapic amusement park ride.

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(Judge) Hlophe: Abandon All Hope Ye (White Men) Who Enter Here

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 1 Comment

(Judge) Hlophe should have been dealt with long ago – fired, impeached or whatever they do to hack judges.  His defence for his prior contraventions seems to have been a he said / she said situation or a misinterpretation of what he actually stated.  However, his latest outrage is blatant and not subject to misinterpretation.  Furthermore, it is wilful in that it displays a conscious disregard for facts known by him in order to express a personal opinion and advance a biased racist narrative.  As such, he is not a fit and proper person to be a judge, not only for white people appearing before him, but everyone because he has displayed a creative relationship with facts (evidence) before him.  A Trumpian personality of the first water.

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Gas Should be Integral to Eskom’s 20 Year Plan

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 0 Comment

In a recent blog I queried whether it was wise to award a contract to Karpowership to supply 1220MW of gas turbine power at 3 sites around South Africa.  This objection was based purely on the costs that seemed to have been accepted by Eskom which I believe is overpriced by 50%.  Setting that objection aside, I am fully in favour of a land-based turbine solution.

Main picture: Five of Ankerlig’s 148MW open cycle gas turbines

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Karpowership – Is Eskom Taking us for a Ride Again?

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 0 Comment

Eskom is on the verge of signing a 20-year deal for Karpowership to provide 1220MW of ship-based power for 20 years at 3 locations around South Africa.  The contract does not include the land side costs of connecting to the grid i.e., switchgear, transformers and distribution lines.  It also probably does not include the wharfage costs payable to Portnet.

Main picture: Gas turbine

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The J&J Vaccine is not Necessarily the Solution to SA’s Covid Problem

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 0 Comment

With the gatslag of the announcement that the AstraZeneca vaccine does not work against the SA variant, the health department seems to favour the J&J vaccine since its SA trial leg encountered the SA variant which none of the others did.  However, when you unpack the numbers, it is not hopeful as the effective sample size is exceedingly small.  I posit, with good reason, that the effective sample size on which they base their unimpressive efficacy of 57% is 49!

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